subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Therefore, it must have been published by a credible,
> secondary source. That's our policy.

It is?

However, I'm not sure that alt.usenet.kooks itself is of sufficient
importance for its opinions to have an article in the first place, but
that's a matter for debate elsewhere.

-Matt


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
Erik Moeller wrote

> We need to make clear that a template is a fundamental intrusion into the
> article namespace and, like a policy, needs broad community support before
> being put into active use.

It's an argument.  Another argument is that restricting the creation of
templates is un-wiki as an approach.  It says that excluding some bad ideas
is more important than allowing the inclusion of some good ideas, that don't
have general support in advance of being tried..

> Marking templates as "proposed" is an important step towards clarifying
> the distinction between merely keeping a template and allowing its use.

Again, goes against 'be bold'.  In general it has served WP well to let
things happen, take the consequences, set up procedures, such as template
deletion; and not be too scared about things that are foolish for a while.
For example: a low-use and not very useful template can be removed from
enough pages by anyone who is annoyed enough.  A popular but silly template
presumably needs tweaking to preserve the reason for popularity.

A wiki is in general a system of permissions rather than a system of
restrictions.  This is surely still a major asset to Wikipedia.  New people
constantly arrive, and I suppose find this aspect attractive.

Charles


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>
> But the article, [[Alt.usenet.kooks]], *is* about UseNet, so of course
> it is relevant to use UseNet in that case as a primary source for
> information about itself.  The article simple states the verifiable fact
> that this usegroup has given out "Kook of the Year" awards to several
> people.

And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.

Sarah


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Yes, it was me.  I am the guy who killed Usenet.

You killed Usenet?  You bastard ...

-Morven


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.
> >
> >
> Why not?  We name a lot of people on Wikipedia.  Basically, anyone who
> has achieved any sort of notability, whether good or bad.

Usenet can be used as primary-source material i.e. as a source of
information about itself. But as soon as we name John Smith (real
name) who has been called X in a Usenet post, that counts as using
Usenet as a secondary source. Our policy states that our secondary
sources must be credible, reputable, and in some way authoritative:
see, for example, WP:NOR. It's admittedly hard to define these terms,
but Usenet doesn't count as any of those by any standard, not least
because the posts are largely anonymous. So even if we think that John
Smith really is an X, we can't repeat it in Wikipedia until, for
example, a newspaper repeats the claim. Then we can use it.

Sarah


from_name: Patrick Carroll

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
> > On 5/5/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >> Yes, it was me.  I am the guy who killed Usenet.

I am highly impressed by your accomplishments and wish to employ you
in order to aid further destruction of the Internets.

Thanks,
Bobdoe


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net> wrote:
> If it is not removed I will file a lawsuit for damages and MAKE you remove it.

It has been removed, Edmond.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> No, this isn't using a secondary source.  If we are stating the fact
> "[X] has been named 'Kook of the Year' by the UseNet newsgroup
> alt.usenet.kooks", then we're using alt.usenet.kooks as a primary source
> for the award.  If we were saying "[X] *is* a UseNet kook", then we
> would be using it as a secondary source to back up that fact.  But we
> aren't saying anyone is a kook---merely reporting that someone else has
> said so.  In short, the article is about the group and what they've
> said, using their words as a primary source for what they've said.
>
Right, I agree. But then there's no need to name the award winners. As
soon as you do that, you're reporting that X was said about John
Smith. You're not commenting on the truth of it, but you're repeating
the allegation. Therefore, it must have been published by a credible,
secondary source. That's our policy.

Mark, I've removed the name again. Now that the problem has been
pointed out to us, we're on very sticky ground inserting the material
back into the article.  Perhaps we could discuss this instead either
here or on WP:AN/I? If I'm the only person who thinks it should be
removed, then obviously I'll abide by the majority view, but I'd like
to see what a few others think first.

Sarah


from_name: Josh Gordon

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
Don't British and US law differ in this regard?
--jpgordon

On 5/5/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > >This is perhaps an inappopriate discussion to have in public because a
> > >legal action has been threatened, but in brief, the fact that you
> > >report, but do not endorse, a claim is not a defense in a libel
> > >action. If you spread it, you spread it.
> > >
> > >
> > It actually is a defense, as long as you report who has alleged it, not
> > claim yourself it is true. Newspapers report on libel cases all the
> > time: "X has alleged Y about Z, and Z has sued X for libel in
> > response". The newspaper cannot be sued in that case simply because it
> > said "X has alleged Y about Z"---even if Y is false, the fact that X
> > alleged Y is true.
> >
> Newspapers can claim privilege in certain situations in most
> jurisdictions. You can report that a libel action has been brought,
> for example, so long as there are no publication restrictions. But if
> your source Jane Doe telephones you and says: "John Smith is a
> shoplifter," and you report that, even if your report distances your
> newspaper from the allegation, it's still actionable.
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Tomasz Sienicki

subject: [Foundation-l] Only non-commercial re-use od Wiki content?

body:
 "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
 it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
 disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
 Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
 external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
 under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
 agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).

 My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
 and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
 to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
 misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.

 However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
 circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
 Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?

 Thank you,
 [[m:user:tsca]]


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Make summaries mandatory

body:
On 5/5/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> The more restrictions you put into place, the more you will find people
> reluctant to do something for you. When it is ESSENTIAL that you get
> specific information, you make it mandatory. But if this summary is a
> good idea, it is a much better idea to have compulsory license info with
> digital content. We do not even do that. Pictures without license info
> are deleted and some wonderfull people do a lot of good work to get this
> info. The extended descripton box is a lifesaver, it allows you to add
> these fields during upload time :)

There are already those that blindly revert many changes made by
people they don't know with robot like efficiency.

If we make edit summaries mandatory, we'll just cause newbies to make
something us... and as a result have less ability to discern
experienced edits from new editors.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Heli Retzek

subject: [Wikitech-l] Word 2 Wikipedia Macros

body:
I have created some simple Winword Macro that can convert a win-word file
into wikipedia format.

http://www.homeopathy.at/wiki/index.php/Word2Wiki

Works rather well and serves most of my needs.

Following format-conversions are supportet:

Bold, italic, underline (any combination)
Dotted lists
Numbered lists
Paragraph 2 <br>
Headers
Colored text
Simple tables

Unsupported yet
Font-size
Super/subscript
Background-color
Footnotes
Pictures
Sofisticated Table-formats
?????

liebe Gr?sse
    Heli Retzek

=====================
Dr.med. Helmut B Retzek
Oberbleichfleck 2
A-4840 V?cklabruck / AUT
+43-7672-23700 (priv -11, Fax -12)
http://www.homeopathy.at


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, Josh Gordon <joshua.p.gordon at gmail.com> wrote:
> This fellow is one of the pure ones. A wee bit of research shows he's been
> threatening to sue anyone who suggests he is anything other than brilliant
> for a decade or so.
>
>  If we're going to have an article on alt.usenet.kooks, it makes sense to
> report on what they do...
>
Josh, the problem is that we could use Usenet to ridicule any number
of people simply by creatring an article about a Usenet group, and
then saying we're only reporting what it does.

The problem is not only whether we'd be sued (though that's a
consideration), but also a question of fairness. WP articles should
strive to be well-referenced, balanced, fair, and encyclopedic.
Repeating a claim that a named individual was called a kook by a bunch
of anonymous Usenet posters is none of those things, and if he says
it's hurting his reputation and business, we ought to respect that and
just get rid of it. When it's repeated by the New York Times, we can
stick it back in again.

It starts to look like bullying, whether the kook award was justified or not.

Sarah


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia, Emergence, and The Wisdom of Crowds

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians

> Is that minus bots?
> Mark

No, Wikistats does not know about bots at all (yet).
Someday I will add a filter for registered bots.

Erik Zachte


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Test wiki

references:
<42682239.6000504@pobox.com> <d5cvjk$7in$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d5d0g1$ahi$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
And Brion or Tim are kindly asked to add at least the patch of
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2014 which solves problems
resulting from developers having butchered e-notif since it was entered
into CVS on 18.12.2004.

It also cleans up the Enotif code, so that it is now clearly "hooked"
into RecentChange.php module (and not longer hooked into Article.php).
The 2014 also re-establishes table user_newtalk which allows for
bit-efficient memcaching of the newtalk status (as strongly advised by
Tim last year) without losing the (optional) email-notification for
user-talk-changes.

Tom

Tim Starling schrieb:

>Phil Boswell wrote:
>
>
>>Latest strangeness: everything in my watchlist
>>(http://test.leuksman.com/index.php/Special:Watchlist) is now marked as
>>"New".
>>
>>What **is** going on over there?
>>
>>
>
>Good point, that feature will run this query:
>
>$dbw->update( 'watchlist',
>                array( /* SET */
>                    'wl_notificationtimestamp' => 0
>                ), array( /* WHERE */
>                    'wl_title' => $title->getDBkey(),
>                    'wl_namespace' => $title->getNamespace(),
>                    'wl_user' => $this->getId()
>                ), 'User::clearLastVisited'
>        );
>
>...on every logged in page view. This should be made optional, because
>we'll have to switch it off on Wikipedia for performance. Knowing how
>MySQL locks have a tendency of infecting unrelated indexes, I dare say
>this will be a concurrency nightmare.
>
>-- Tim Starling
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

body:
On 5/5/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> I think that, looking at the previous way that the report was presented, it
> was written in a way that possibly seemed more like the anonymous user was
> calling him a kook than reporting it. Thus, Wikipedia was calling him a
> kook. If it had been written as something along the lines of "Persons that
> the newsgroup have labelled a 'kook' include [name], who was given the title
> of 'Kook of the Millenium'" then there would be no reasonable argument
> against its inclusion.
>
This is perhaps an inappopriate discussion to have in public because a
legal action has been threatened, but in brief, the fact that you
report, but do not endorse, a claim is not a defense in a libel
action. If you spread it, you spread it.

Sarah


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On 5/5/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi Dariusz,
>
> thanks for going out and trying to establish content partnerships. I
> think a license like CC-BY or CC-BY-SA would be fine if the content is
> clearly labeled as such. The problem with CC-BY-NC or similar
> "noncommercial use only" licenses is not necessarily incompatibility,
> but that they don't fit our established definition of free content, i.e.
> far too many uses we want to allow become impossible.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik

Erik,

I'd like to make sure that I understand this clearly, and maybe
someone else will benefit from my asking questions that may seem
redundant...

Isn't it the case that, when someone posts content to Wikipedia, they
are releasing it under GFDL, regardless of any other license they may
also choose to release it under? So, even if the content in question
were clearly labeled as CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or even CC-BY-NC, it is also
released under GFDL. With the exception of putting something into PD
(or some other less restrictive license than GFDL), it just doesn't
matter what other restrictions may be claimed, it is still released
under GFDL. Excepting, of course, content posted without the knowledge
or permission of the copyright holder.

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>
> >This is perhaps an inappopriate discussion to have in public because a
> >legal action has been threatened, but in brief, the fact that you
> >report, but do not endorse, a claim is not a defense in a libel
> >action. If you spread it, you spread it.
> >
> >
> It actually is a defense, as long as you report who has alleged it, not
> claim yourself it is true.  Newspapers report on libel cases all the
> time: "X has alleged Y about Z, and Z has sued X for libel in
> response".  The newspaper cannot be sued in that case simply because it
> said "X has alleged Y about Z"---even if Y is false, the fact that X
> alleged Y is true.
>
Newspapers can claim privilege in certain situations in most
jurisdictions. You can report that a libel action has been brought,
for example, so long as there are no publication restrictions. But if
your source Jane Doe telephones you and says: "John Smith is a
shoplifter," and you report that, even if your report distances your
newspaper from the allegation, it's still actionable.

Sarah


from_name: Angela

body:
>  "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
>  it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
>  disallowing its commercial re-use,"

It might be legally acceptable, but I don't personally feel it is
acceptable from a policy point of view. The aim of Wikimedia is to
create and distribute free content. CC-BY-NC is not a free licence
since it can not be re-used commercially, unlike the rest of the
content in our projects.

If e-Polityka.pl have agreed to relicence their content as PD, then I
see no reason that we would not simply use it as PD content rather
than putting NC restrictions on it.

Angela


from_name: Paris Lovett

subject:
[Foundation-l] Macro for converting word documents to wikipedia
	markup and wysiwyg for wikipedia

body:
I am trying to get non-wiki-savvy authors to contribute to a relatively new
wikibook (Emergency Medicine), and I need a macro which can easily convert
word documents with formatting (Heading1, etc.) into wiki markup. There are
macros out there for other types of wiki markup (I've attached one to this
email - it converts word to modwiki) but not for the kind of wiki markup we
use on wikipedia, wikibooks, etc. Can anyone point out an existing macro, or
can anyone tweak this attached macro?

Oh, also, is there a wysiwyg for wikipedia markup?

Would much appreciate,

Paris Lovett.

P.s. if I'm writing to the wrong place, please let me know where to write
to. Thanks.

----------------------

Sub WordToUseModWiki()

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    ConvertH1
    ConvertH2
    ConvertH3

    ConvertItalic
    ConvertBold
    ConvertUnderline

    ConvertLists

    ConvertCarriageReturns

    ConvertTables

    ' Copy to clipboard
    ActiveDocument.Content.Copy

    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertCarriageReturns()
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.ClearFormatting
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.Execute FindText:="^p", ReplaceWith:="^p^p",
Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH1()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading1)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "= "
                    .InsertAfter " ="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH2()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading2)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "== "
                    .InsertAfter " =="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH3()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading3)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "=== "
                    .InsertAfter " ==="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertBold()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Bold = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Bold = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertItalic()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Italic = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertUnderline()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Underline = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Underline = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertLists()
    Dim para As Paragraph
    For Each para In ActiveDocument.ListParagraphs
        With para.Range
            If .ListFormat.ListType = wdListBullet Then
                .InsertBefore "*"
            Else
                .InsertBefore "#"
            End If

            .ListFormat.RemoveNumbers
        End With
    Next para
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertTables()
    Dim thisTable As Table
    Dim thisRow As Row
    Dim thisCell As Cell
    For Each thisTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
            For Each thisRow In thisTable.Rows
                For Each thisCell In thisRow.Cells
                    thisCell.Range.InsertBefore "||"
                    thisCell.Range.Find.Execute FindText:="^p",
ReplaceWith:=" ", Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
                Next thisCell
                    thisRow.Range.InsertAfter "||"
            Next thisRow
            thisTable.ConvertToText Separator:=" "
    Next thisTable
End Sub
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body:
I am trying to get non-wiki-savvy authors to contribute to a relatively new
wikibook (Emergency Medicine), and I need a macro which can easily convert
word documents with formatting (Heading1, etc.) into wiki markup. There are
macros out there for other types of wiki markup (I've attached one to this
email - it converts word to modwiki) but not for the kind of wiki markup we
use on wikipedia, wikibooks, etc. Can anyone point out an existing macro, or
can anyone tweak this attached macro?

Oh, also, is there a wysiwyg for wikipedia markup?

Would much appreciate,

Paris Lovett.

P.s. if I'm writing to the wrong place, please let me know where to write
to. Thanks.

----------------------

Sub WordToUseModWiki()

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    ConvertH1
    ConvertH2
    ConvertH3

    ConvertItalic
    ConvertBold
    ConvertUnderline

    ConvertLists

    ConvertCarriageReturns

    ConvertTables

    ' Copy to clipboard
    ActiveDocument.Content.Copy

    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertCarriageReturns()
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.ClearFormatting
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.Execute FindText:="^p", ReplaceWith:="^p^p",
Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH1()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading1)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "= "
                    .InsertAfter " ="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH2()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading2)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "== "
                    .InsertAfter " =="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH3()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading3)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "=== "
                    .InsertAfter " ==="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertBold()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Bold = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Bold = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertItalic()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Italic = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertUnderline()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Underline = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Underline = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertLists()
    Dim para As Paragraph
    For Each para In ActiveDocument.ListParagraphs
        With para.Range
            If .ListFormat.ListType = wdListBullet Then
                .InsertBefore "*"
            Else
                .InsertBefore "#"
            End If

            .ListFormat.RemoveNumbers
        End With
    Next para
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertTables()
    Dim thisTable As Table
    Dim thisRow As Row
    Dim thisCell As Cell
    For Each thisTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
            For Each thisRow In thisTable.Rows
                For Each thisCell In thisRow.Cells
                    thisCell.Range.InsertBefore "||"
                    thisCell.Range.Find.Execute FindText:="^p",
ReplaceWith:=" ", Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
                Next thisCell
                    thisRow.Range.InsertAfter "||"
            Next thisRow
            thisTable.ConvertToText Separator:=" "
    Next thisTable
End Sub
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Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20050505/60e6fa6c/attachment-0001.txt


body:
I am trying to get non-wiki-savvy authors to contribute to a relatively new
wikibook (Emergency Medicine), and I need a macro which can easily convert
word documents with formatting (Heading1, etc.) into wiki markup. There are
macros out there for other types of wiki markup (I've attached one to this
email - it converts word to modwiki) but not for the kind of wiki markup we
use on wikipedia, wikibooks, etc. Can anyone point out an existing macro, or
can anyone tweak this attached macro?

Oh, also, is there a wysiwyg for wikipedia markup?

Would much appreciate,

Paris Lovett.

P.s. if I'm writing to the wrong place, please let me know where to write
to. Thanks.

----------------------

Sub WordToUseModWiki()

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    ConvertH1
    ConvertH2
    ConvertH3

    ConvertItalic
    ConvertBold
    ConvertUnderline

    ConvertLists

    ConvertCarriageReturns

    ConvertTables

    ' Copy to clipboard
    ActiveDocument.Content.Copy

    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertCarriageReturns()
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.ClearFormatting
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.Execute FindText:="^p", ReplaceWith:="^p^p",
Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH1()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading1)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "= "
                    .InsertAfter " ="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH2()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading2)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "== "
                    .InsertAfter " =="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH3()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading3)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "=== "
                    .InsertAfter " ==="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertBold()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Bold = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Bold = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertItalic()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Italic = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertUnderline()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Underline = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Underline = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertLists()
    Dim para As Paragraph
    For Each para In ActiveDocument.ListParagraphs
        With para.Range
            If .ListFormat.ListType = wdListBullet Then
                .InsertBefore "*"
            Else
                .InsertBefore "#"
            End If

            .ListFormat.RemoveNumbers
        End With
    Next para
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertTables()
    Dim thisTable As Table
    Dim thisRow As Row
    Dim thisCell As Cell
    For Each thisTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
            For Each thisRow In thisTable.Rows
                For Each thisCell In thisRow.Cells
                    thisCell.Range.InsertBefore "||"
                    thisCell.Range.Find.Execute FindText:="^p",
ReplaceWith:=" ", Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
                Next thisCell
                    thisRow.Range.InsertAfter "||"
            Next thisRow
            thisTable.ConvertToText Separator:=" "
    Next thisTable
End Sub
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URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20050505/60e6fa6c/attachment.txt>


body:
I am trying to get non-wiki-savvy authors to contribute to a relatively new
wikibook (Emergency Medicine), and I need a macro which can easily convert
word documents with formatting (Heading1, etc.) into wiki markup. There are
macros out there for other types of wiki markup (I've attached one to this
email - it converts word to modwiki) but not for the kind of wiki markup we
use on wikipedia, wikibooks, etc. Can anyone point out an existing macro, or
can anyone tweak this attached macro?

Oh, also, is there a wysiwyg for wikipedia markup?

Would much appreciate,

Paris Lovett.

P.s. if I'm writing to the wrong place, please let me know where to write
to. Thanks.

----------------------

Sub WordToUseModWiki()

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    ConvertH1
    ConvertH2
    ConvertH3

    ConvertItalic
    ConvertBold
    ConvertUnderline

    ConvertLists

    ConvertCarriageReturns

    ConvertTables

    ' Copy to clipboard
    ActiveDocument.Content.Copy

    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertCarriageReturns()
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.ClearFormatting
    ActiveDocument.Content.Find.Execute FindText:="^p", ReplaceWith:="^p^p",
Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH1()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading1)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "= "
                    .InsertAfter " ="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH2()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading2)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "== "
                    .InsertAfter " =="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertH3()
    Dim normalStyle As Style
    Set normalStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)

    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading3)
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore "=== "
                    .InsertAfter " ==="
                End If

                .Style = normalStyle
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertBold()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Bold = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Bold = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertItalic()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Italic = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertUnderline()
    ActiveDocument.Select

    With Selection.Find

        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Underline = True
        .Text = ""

        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue

        Do While .Execute
            With Selection
                If InStr(1, .Text, vbCr) Then
                    ' Just process the chunk before any newline characters
                    ' We'll pick-up the rest with the next search
                    .Collapse
                    .MoveEndUntil vbCr
                End If

                ' Don't bother to markup newline characters (prevents a
loop, as well)
                If Not .Text = vbCr Then
                    .InsertBefore ""
                    .InsertAfter ""
                End If

                .Font.Underline = False
            End With
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertLists()
    Dim para As Paragraph
    For Each para In ActiveDocument.ListParagraphs
        With para.Range
            If .ListFormat.ListType = wdListBullet Then
                .InsertBefore "*"
            Else
                .InsertBefore "#"
            End If

            .ListFormat.RemoveNumbers
        End With
    Next para
End Sub

Private Sub ConvertTables()
    Dim thisTable As Table
    Dim thisRow As Row
    Dim thisCell As Cell
    For Each thisTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
            For Each thisRow In thisTable.Rows
                For Each thisCell In thisRow.Cells
                    thisCell.Range.InsertBefore "||"
                    thisCell.Range.Find.Execute FindText:="^p",
ReplaceWith:=" ", Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll, MatchControl:=True
                Next thisCell
                    thisRow.Range.InsertAfter "||"
            Next thisRow
            thisTable.ConvertToText Separator:=" "
    Next thisTable
End Sub
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Name: Word2Wiki.bas.txt
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20050505/60e6fa6c/attachment-0001.txt>


body:
On 5/5/05, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/5/05, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Isn't it the case that, when someone posts content to Wikipedia, they
> > are releasing it under GFDL, regardless of any other license they may
> > also choose to release it under? So, even if the content in question
> > were clearly labeled as CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or even CC-BY-NC, it is also
> > released under GFDL. With the exception of putting something into PD
> > (or some other less restrictive license than GFDL), it just doesn't
> > matter what other restrictions may be claimed, it is still released
> > under GFDL. Excepting, of course, content posted without the knowledge
> > or permission of the copyright holder.
>
> Just don't forget we're discussing Wikinews right now, and that's far
> away from GFDL.
>
Ah, well yes, you're right. On Wikinews (at least en.wikinews) by
posting you are placing the contents into the public domain...again,
regardless of any other restrictions you may claim. Right?

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Make summaries mandatory

body:
On 5/5/05, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, I agree that there's no need to make the poor editor's life harder.
>
> The latest proposal on the VP was to auto-fill the summary box with
> some of the text of the edit... perhaps prefaced by a string that
> makes it clear that it is an auto-summary (so you can still tell it is
> a 'newbie', if that's what no summary told you before).  This simply
> lets more information about the edit drift up to the RC and history
> views.  This conceptual change is about improving the density of
> information provided by those views, not about forcing people to do
> anything.

Or rather than changing summaries, which might actually be metadata
useful for something in the future, we should make the places where we
see lists of changes (history, RC, etc) show some of the change text
itself.


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
to hear them.

Andre Engels

On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
>
>  "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
>  it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
>  disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
>  Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
>  external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
>  under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
>  agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
>
>  My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
>  and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
>  to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
>  misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
>
>  However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
>  circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
>  Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
>
>  Thank you,
>  [[m:user:tsca]]
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Astrological Consulting

body:
Do not mail me again or you will be reported to your ISP. I will be suing you and your so-called "information" crap website and force you to remove your worthless bullshit.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 2:04 PM
To: Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net>,
	"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>,
	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>,
	Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>, slimvirgin at gmail.com
Subject: RE: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

> I demand that my name be removed immediately. This is your
> last chance to explain why you choose to defame my companies.

I see nothing in the article that defames you or your companies. The
fact that some anonymous idiot labelled you a "kook" means nothing. And
it's not an offense for Wikipedia to report that fact.

Note carefully the distinction:

A. Wikipedia is NOT calling you a kook (that would violate our policy,
and I personally won't tolerate that).

B. Wikipedia *MAY* report that those jerks on Usenet have branded you a
kook. (Read the part about Wikipedia NOT endorsing that label.)

I think I've said enough about this.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


body:
You OBVIOUSLY haven't a clue about the law:
Defamation= Injuring someone's character or reputation by making false and malicious statements about him to other people. The law recognizes a difference between defamation and mere criticism of an individual. Criticism deals only with matters that legitimately invite public attention or call for public comment. In contrast, defamation usually involves a person's private life and domestic affairs. Calling a woman a prostitute or a banker an embezzler, or an astrologer or consultant a fraud on a television, radio or usenet public forum are examples of defamation. The term defamation includes both libel and slander.

Black's law dictionary-Defamation="The offense of injuring a person's character, fame or reputation by false and malicious statements."
The "offense" is in the publication of the matter, so you are not "covered" just because you read it somewhere else first. You are safe ONLY if the statement is true. The best advice is to never say anything nasty about anyone.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

-----Original Message-----
From: Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net>
Sent: May 5, 2005 3:56 PM
To: "Poor,Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>,
	"Poor,Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>,
	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>,
	Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>, slimvirgin at gmail.com
Subject: RE: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

Do not mail me again or you will be reported to your ISP. I will be suing you and your so-called "information" crap website and force you to remove your worthless bullshit.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 2:04 PM
To: Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net>,
	"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>,
	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>,
	Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>, slimvirgin at gmail.com
Subject: RE: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

> I demand that my name be removed immediately. This is your
> last chance to explain why you choose to defame my companies.

I see nothing in the article that defames you or your companies. The
fact that some anonymous idiot labelled you a "kook" means nothing. And
it's not an offense for Wikipedia to report that fact.

Note carefully the distinction:

A. Wikipedia is NOT calling you a kook (that would violate our policy,
and I personally won't tolerate that).

B. Wikipedia *MAY* report that those jerks on Usenet have branded you a
kook. (Read the part about Wikipedia NOT endorsing that label.)

I think I've said enough about this.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>On 5/5/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>I think that, looking at the previous way that the report was presented, it
>>was written in a way that possibly seemed more like the anonymous user was
>>calling him a kook than reporting it. Thus, Wikipedia was calling him a
>>kook. If it had been written as something along the lines of "Persons that
>>the newsgroup have labelled a 'kook' include [name], who was given the title
>>of 'Kook of the Millenium'" then there would be no reasonable argument
>>against its inclusion.
>>
>>
>This is perhaps an inappopriate discussion to have in public because a
>legal action has been threatened, but in brief, the fact that you
>report, but do not endorse, a claim is not a defense in a libel
>action. If you spread it, you spread it.
>
Can't be that simple - we report on lots of unproven claims made
by leftist politicos and interest groups against rightists, and
vice versa. Not only that, but we report on accusations made
against the Chinese governments that I'm sure they consider
libellous, and likewise for many other governments around the
world. So by your reasoning, we would have to scrub out quite
a few articles, and the Ann Coulter article would likely wind
up empty. :-)

Stan


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Only non-commercial re-use od Wiki content?

body:
On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:

> I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I
> can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with
> restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If
> someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear
> them.

This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.


body:
On 5/5/05, Paris Lovett <paris at pazzah.com> wrote:
> I am trying to get non-wiki-savvy authors to contribute to a relatively new
> wikibook (Emergency Medicine), and I need a macro which can easily convert
> word documents with formatting (Heading1, etc.) into wiki markup. There are
> macros out there for other types of wiki markup (I've attached one to this
> email - it converts word to modwiki) but not for the kind of wiki markup we
> use on wikipedia, wikibooks, etc. Can anyone point out an existing macro, or
> can anyone tweak this attached macro?
>
> Oh, also, is there a wysiwyg for wikipedia markup?
>
> Would much appreciate,
>
> Paris Lovett.
>

Just earlier today, Heli Retzek <heli.retzek at homeopathy.at> wrote
about such a macro on  Wikitech-l:

>I have created some simple Winword Macro that can convert a win-word file
>into wikipedia format.
>
>http://www.homeopathy.at/wiki/index.php/Word2Wiki
>
>Works rather well and serves most of my needs.
>
>Following format-conversions are supportet:
>
>Bold, italic, underline (any combination)
>Dotted lists
>Numbered lists
>Paragraph 2 <br>
>Headers
>Colored text
>Simple tables
>
>Unsupported yet
>Font-size
>Super/subscript
>Background-color
>Footnotes
>Pictures
>Sofisticated Table-formats
>?????
>

Asking your tyle of question on either Wikitech-l or MediaWiki-l would
likely be more fruitful than asking here.

Good luck with your wikibook!

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


body:
On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
> On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
>
> > I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I
> > can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with
> > restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If
> > someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear
> > them.
>
> This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.

In that case it's a matter of what is stated on the page about
licensing information. If everything is automatically considered PD,
it's not possible; if it does not give licensing information, it is.
Still, as Angela says, if we can get it under PD (or CC-BY, CC-SA,
CC-BY-SA, GNU/FDL, GPL or another license not significantly stricter
than GNU/FDL), there is no reason to restrict it further.

Andre Engels


body:
As things are now, Wikinews says "All content of the Wikinews Beta is
in the public domain", so non-PD material cannot be included.

Andre Engels

On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
> On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
>
> > I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I
> > can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with
> > restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If
> > someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear
> > them.
>
> This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Where to find buildtables.sql

body:
On 05/05/05, Jeremy Dunck <jdunck at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/5/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Try tables.sql. Note also that the schema has changed dramatically from
> > 1.4 to 1.5.
>
> What version is the live wikipedia running?

1.4.4
(according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>On 5/5/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>>This legal talk is entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand ...
>>There is an encyclopedic interest issue at stake. Will relevant
>>
>information be removed from an article because an exposed fraud's ego
>is bruised?
>
>David, regarding the issue of encyclopedic interest: public figures
>are treated very differently by journalists, particularly in the U.S.
>where libel law is quite different when it comes to public figures,
>but also in other countries where there's no distinction in law.
>Public figures are seen to some extent as fair game, whereas the right
>of private individuals to retain their privacy and dignity is
>respected by good journalists, so even if some demonstrably true
>titbit comes their way, they'll hesitate to use it if it would damage
>a private person, provided there's no public-interest issue at stake.
>
I would say anybody who posts to Usenet automatically becomes
a "public figure"; you can hardly spew your thoughts and opinions
into a million computers around the world, then try to claim
"privacy". If you want to be private, start by keeping your
mouth shut, eh?

I had that brought home to me many years ago when one of my
heated arguments on Usenet was brought up in a job interview.
(Fortunately, the interviewer agreed with my points.)

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
On 5/5/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Josh Gordon said:
> > Don't British and US law differ in this regard?
>
> Not much consolation if you're an American sued in a British court for
> something you put on an American website.  Yes, they do have jurisdiction.
>  Yes, litigants have successfully collected.
>
The difficult thing in the UK is that the burden of proof lies with
the defendant i.e. the publisher, who has to show why the material is
not libellous; whereas in the U.S., the burden of proof lies with the
person who brings the case.

Sarah


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Jeremy Dunck wrote:
> OK, one last question.
>
> Is there already a 1.4 to 1.5 db migration script?  Otherwise, I may
> unwittingly become a mediawiki developer.  :)

In updaters.inc, where it's run by the standard updaters
(config/index.php or update.php).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot not logging in on test wiki

body:
When I try to login my bot to the test wiki at
http://test.leuksman.com/, it fails. The bot gets a "400 Bad Request"
answer back. Does anybody have an idea what is the problem?

Andre Engels


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject:
[Juriwiki-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Only non-commercial re-use od
	Wiki content?

body:
>
> If e-Polityka.pl have agreed to relicence their content as PD, then I
> see no reason that we would not simply use it as PD content rather
> than putting NC restrictions on it.
>
>
That would be a very simple solution.


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>I think the point here is that WP policy states that we must used only
>reputable or credible published sources as secondary sources, and
>Usenet doesn't count as that. It can be used as primary-source
>material for information about itself, but it can't be used as a
>secondary source of information about someone else, especially not
>when we're using a person's real name (unlike the case of Sollog).
>
>
But the article, [[Alt.usenet.kooks]], *is* about UseNet, so of course
it is relevant to use UseNet in that case as a primary source for
information about itself.  The article simple states the verifiable fact
that this usegroup has given out "Kook of the Year" awards to several
people.

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] GFDL works inside other published works

body:
>
> My guess is that on the page near the beginning of the book where it
> gives copyright information, it should say "some portions of this book
> are (C) Wikipedia, and are released under the GNU Free Documentation
> licence" or something of the sort.

No, the articles are (c) of their respective authors, released under
the GNU/FDL.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>But the article, [[Alt.usenet.kooks]], *is* about UseNet, so of course
>>it is relevant to use UseNet in that case as a primary source for
>>information about itself.  The article simple states the verifiable fact
>>that this usegroup has given out "Kook of the Year" awards to several
>>people.
>>
>>
>
>And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.
>
>
Why not?  We name a lot of people on Wikipedia.  Basically, anyone who
has achieved any sort of notability, whether good or bad.

-Mark


body:
>
> Will this be possible?  If this was not text, but free software
> released under the GPL, the entire book would be have to be
> released under GPL.  That's the "viral effect" of GPL, as intended
> by its creator Richard Stallman (and hated by Microsoft).  Is
> there no such viral effect at all in GFDL?
>
> Would there be any difference in this respect if Wikipedia had
> used a Creative Commons Share-Alike license instead?
>
> (I'm fully aware that CC didn't exist in 2001, when Wikipedia was
> launched.  I've been following this discussion since then.  I'm
> not yet aware of any case law or court cases where the
> consequences of Wikipedia's GFDL status has been tried.)

Well you can use gpl software with non-gpl software.

In the case of this book, it would be easy to consider it as a
collaborative work where some parts are released under GNU/FDL while
the other parts are released under classical copyright (or any other
licence).


from_name: Seth Ilys

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.

If it's a verifiable fact that's germane to the article and presented
within the NPOV guidelines, why can't we name them?

--
Seth Ilys
   email: seth.ilys at gmail.com
   IM (aol, msn, yahoo): JehanneDaix
   blog: http://somewhereindurham.blogspot.com/


body:
It's true when you look at the whole wikipedia.

But when you look at a given article, then you can talk about emergence
in many cases.

Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr

Le 2 mai 05, ? 14:54, Jimmy Wales a ?crit :

> Alex Krupp wrote:
>> I think all Wikipedians would enjoy the book The Wisdom of Crowds by
>> James Surowiecki. The basic premise is that crowds of relatively
>> ignorant individuals make better decisions than small groups of
>> experts. I'm sure everyone here agrees with this as Wikipedia is run
>> this way
>
> It's probably interesting to note that a central theme when I give
> public talks is precisely that Wikipedia is _not_ run this way, and
> that wikipedia is _not_ an instance of "The Wisdom of Crowds".
>
> That's not to say that there isn't a lot to the notions of how a group
> collaboration can improve on what an individual can do.  My point is
> just that Wikipedia functions a lot more like a traditional
> organization than most people realize -- it's a community of
> thoughtful people who know each other, not a colony of ants.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On Thu, 5 May 2005 slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> On 5/5/05, Josh Gordon <joshua.p.gordon at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This fellow is one of the pure ones. A wee bit of research shows he's been
> > threatening to sue anyone who suggests he is anything other than brilliant
> > for a decade or so.
> >
> >  If we're going to have an article on alt.usenet.kooks, it makes sense to
> > report on what they do...
> >
> Josh, the problem is that we could use Usenet to ridicule any number
> of people simply by creatring an article about a Usenet group, and
> then saying we're only reporting what it does.
>
> The problem is not only whether we'd be sued (though that's a
> consideration), but also a question of fairness. WP articles should
> strive to be well-referenced, balanced, fair, and encyclopedic.
> Repeating a claim that a named individual was called a kook by a bunch
> of anonymous Usenet posters is none of those things, and if he says
> it's hurting his reputation and business, we ought to respect that and
> just get rid of it. When it's repeated by the New York Times, we can
> stick it back in again.
>
> It starts to look like bullying, whether the kook award was justified or not.
>
I'm siding with Sarah on this one. A post to Usenet should NEVER be used
as sole proof for anything.

While there is an awful lot of valuable information on Usenet, far too
often false information is contributed to a Usenet group out of a desire
to defraud, to slander, in humor, or simply out of boredom. As an example,
ISTR a post somewhere stating that I once supported myself selling drugs
while in college -- & no, it's not true, so all requests for illicit
substances will be deleted unread! ;-)

Usenet is often little more than idle gossip traded by computer users
waiting for their programs to compile -- & I challenge anyone to offer a
simple rule to determine which posts are unsuitable for citation, & which
are. (I suspect that any such argument will simply be a reprise of the
recent discussion over which pictures are suitable for children, except
that Wikipedia has no way to turn off Usenet citations.)

Other times, information on Usenet is provided by individuals who are
either anonymous or pseudonymous -- thus making them not only unverifiable,
but irresponsible because they can't easily be held liable to suit by
slander or libel. And until a fairly recent date - 10 or 15 years ago -
Usenet's contents were very ephemeral: material posted on Usenet was
expected to vanish from record in less than 30, 15 or even a few days.
(It's only by accident that Google contains most of its pre-1994 posts,
when the old Deja News started archiving Usenet. Before then, about the
only news groups that were acrchived were in the comp.sources.* hierarchy;
the rest were considered about as interesting as old high school
student newspapers.)

And then there is the problem that citing from Usenet lends itself to
quoting out of context . . .

However, web pages are another problem entirely, & their material is
far more stable, & not subject to the same limitations Usenet is. And
ISTR that there is/was a webpage dedicated to recording the unhappy
recipients of the KOTM award. Does anyone have that URL -- either current
or where to find it on the Wayback Machine?

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>>And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.
>>>
>>>
>>Why not?  We name a lot of people on Wikipedia.  Basically, anyone who
>>has achieved any sort of notability, whether good or bad.
>>
>>
>
>Usenet can be used as primary-source material i.e. as a source of
>information about itself. But as soon as we name John Smith (real
>name) who has been called X in a Usenet post, that counts as using
>Usenet as a secondary source. Our policy states that our secondary
>sources must be credible, reputable, and in some way authoritative:
>see, for example, WP:NOR. It's admittedly hard to define these terms,
>but Usenet doesn't count as any of those by any standard, not least
>because the posts are largely anonymous. So even if we think that John
>Smith really is an X, we can't repeat it in Wikipedia until, for
>example, a newspaper repeats the claim. Then we can use it.
>
>
No, this isn't using a secondary source.  If we are stating the fact
"[X] has been named 'Kook of the Year' by the UseNet newsgroup
alt.usenet.kooks", then we're using alt.usenet.kooks as a primary source
for the award.  If we were saying "[X] *is* a UseNet kook", then we
would be using it as a secondary source to back up that fact.  But we
aren't saying anyone is a kook---merely reporting that someone else has
said so.  In short, the article is about the group and what they've
said, using their words as a primary source for what they've said.

-Mark


body:
> > On 05/05/05, Jeremy Dunck <jdunck at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 5/5/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > > Try tables.sql. Note also that the schema has changed dramatically from
> > > > 1.4 to 1.5.
> > >
> > > What version is the live wikipedia running?
> >
> > 1.4.4
>
> Thanks, and what're the odds that 1.5 will land in production before,
> say, January 2006?

By then, definitely - Brion's usually pushing for a release every
couple of months, though it tends to be more like 3 or 4 months; I
think. Anyway, 1.5 should be "finished" in June; I think.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Tomasz Sienicki

body:
On Thu, 05 May 2005 16:04:31 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:

> as Angela says, if we can get it under PD (or CC-BY, CC-SA, CC-BY-SA,
> GNU/FDL, GPL or another license not significantly stricter than GNU/FDL),
> there is no reason to restrict it further.

No question about it, this case is simple: of course there's no reason
for adopting a non-commercial licence for the content that we can get under PD.

And about some next time, when we can't: it was my understanding that Wikimedia
would not consider non-commercial licences as a rule, not on a case-by-case basis.
I feel Angela's mail has confirmed this.

[[m:user:tsca]]


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

body:
I have edited the article about the "alt.usenet.kooks" newsgroup to
clarify the fact that Wikipedia is not labelling anybody. The label of
"kook" is now attributed to that newsgroup's subscribers.

Particularly galling may have been the article's sympathetic adoption of
the newsgroup's POV. It referred to the label (in positive terms) as an
"award". This has been changed in two places: (1) to the neutral term
"label" and (2) to the negative term "branded".

Moreover, a polite note assures readers that Wikipedia does not endorse
but merely reports - a fact which may be lost to those who are not avid
students of Wikipedia's neutrality policy.

Best wishes to all.

Uncle Ed


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
On 5/5/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> This legal talk is entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand ...
>There is an encyclopedic interest issue at stake. Will relevant
information be removed from an article because an exposed fraud's ego
is bruised?
>
David, regarding the issue of encyclopedic interest: public figures
are treated very differently by journalists, particularly in the U.S.
where libel law is quite different when it comes to public figures,
but also in other countries where there's no distinction in law.
Public figures are seen to some extent as fair game, whereas the right
of private individuals to retain their privacy and dignity is
respected by good journalists, so even if some demonstrably true
titbit comes their way, they'll hesitate to use it if it would damage
a private person, provided there's no public-interest issue at stake.

Wikipedia has become an incredibly powerful medium but we don't have
any kind of an ethical code for cases like this. We have no lawyers,
no heirarchy of editors, no fact-checking procedures: none of the
infrastructure of large, powerful news organizations, and yet we have
arguably as much power as some of them. It's a sobering thought. All
I'm arguing is that we should take that power seriously, and never
abuse it; and if a private person complains that we have, where
there's no public-interest issue involved, we should err on the side
of caution and kindness, because we lose nothing by doing that, but
the person being criticized might lose a lot if we don't (regardless
of the details of this particular case: I'm talking generally).

Sarah


body:
>
> It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any
> Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads.
> Couldn't that be construed
> as a commercial use?

Yes

> Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally
> responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial
> purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a
> position?

Can't they select the content they use ?

>
> All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca
> raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to
> one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more
> restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree
> that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the
> user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?

I am not sure I exactly understand your case, but that would be
dual-licensing. The user would be able to choose the license he prefers
for this content.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com stated for the record:

> On 5/5/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> This is perhaps an inappopriate discussion to have in public because a
> legal action has been threatened, but in brief, the fact that you
> report, but do not endorse, a claim is not a defense in a libel
> action. If you spread it, you spread it.
>
> Sarah

Truth is an absolute defense against charges of libel.  It is true that
the Usenet group alt.usenet.kooks named Wollmann a kook.  I can repeat
that true statement as often as I like, and Wollmann's lawsuits would be
groundless if they weren't merely empty threats.

The Usenet group alt.usenet.kooks named Wollmann a kook.
The Usenet group alt.usenet.kooks named Wollmann a kook.
The Usenet group alt.usenet.kooks named Wollmann a kook.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
  sean at epoptic.com | That alone should encourage the crew.
                   | Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
                   | What I tell you three times is true.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Slate: "Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge,
	nerdy, and imprecise."

body:
> >Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge, nerdy, and
imprecise.
>
>My advice: don't panic.

I think that should be, "Don't panic"

You were being imprecise, and I'm being a huge nerd about it.

eD pooR, a reversE capitalisT (and kook-in-the-making)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>Right, I agree. But then there's no need to name the award winners. As
>soon as you do that, you're reporting that X was said about John
>Smith. You're not commenting on the truth of it, but you're repeating
>the allegation. Therefore, it must have been published by a credible,
>secondary source. That's our policy.
>
>
Where do we have such a policy?  Primary sources are perfectly fine for
verifying allegations made by that source.  For example, if a  U.S.
Congressman were to make a speech in which he alleged something, a
transcript of the speech would be a perfectly acceptable source for
this---we don't have to cite a newspaper report on the speech instead.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

body:
On 5/5/05, Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net> wrote:
> You OBVIOUSLY haven't a clue about the law:

Edmond, it probably isn't helping your situation to write to the list
in a threatening manner, and texbook definitions of defamation don't
begin to describe the complexity of libel law. In your shoes, I would
write a very polite, reasonable letter outlining your case to the
Wikimedia Foundation, asking for their attention. See here for contact
details: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home and
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/About_Wikimedia

Sarah


from_name: Chad Perrin

body:
On Thu, May 05, 2005 at 04:29:07PM +0200, Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
> It's true when you look at the whole wikipedia.
>
> But when you look at a given article, then you can talk about emergence
> in many cases.
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant
> CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
> http://soufron.free.fr
>

That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
interested in details of why you think so.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
On 5/5/05, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> I would say anybody who posts to Usenet automatically becomes
> a "public figure"; you can hardly spew your thoughts and opinions
> into a million computers around the world, then try to claim
> "privacy". If you want to be private, start by keeping your
> mouth shut, eh?
>
It's an interesting point, whether sitting in your own home typing
material onto the Web should in and of itself make you a public
figure. I'm not aware of any relevant case law. Using your real name
would certainly make it harder to argue that you'd intended to retain
your privacy.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>This is perhaps an inappopriate discussion to have in public because a
>legal action has been threatened, but in brief, the fact that you
>report, but do not endorse, a claim is not a defense in a libel
>action. If you spread it, you spread it.
>
>
It actually is a defense, as long as you report who has alleged it, not
claim yourself it is true.  Newspapers report on libel cases all the
time: "X has alleged Y about Z, and Z has sued X for libel in
response".  The newspaper cannot be sued in that case simply because it
said "X has alleged Y about Z"---even if Y is false, the fact that X
alleged Y is true.

-Mark


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

body:
On 5/5/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 05/05/05, Jeremy Dunck <jdunck at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks, and what're the odds that 1.5 will land in production before,
> > say, January 2006?
>
> By then, definitely - Brion's usually pushing for a release every
> couple of months, though it tends to be more like 3 or 4 months; I
> think. Anyway, 1.5 should be "finished" in June; I think.

OK, one last question.

Is there already a 1.4 to 1.5 db migration script?  Otherwise, I may
unwittingly become a mediawiki developer.  :)


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Slate: "Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide:
	huge, nerdy, and imprecise."

body:
42

On 5/5/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>
> > >Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge, nerdy, and
> imprecise.
> >
> >My advice: don't panic.
>
> I think that should be, "Don't panic"
>
> You were being imprecise, and I'm being a huge nerd about it.
>
> eD pooR, a reversE capitalisT (and kook-in-the-making)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The question then becomes, do we want to remove CC-BY or CC-BY-SA
> content posted by others? Given the above, I'd say that it's
> reasonable to label content under CC-BY as such and keep it. As for
> CC-BY-SA, GFDL, etc., the situation is not quite as clear, but for the
> sake of interoperability, I'd be inclined to be in favor of allowing
> such content when labeled. Wikinews stories are relatively independent
> from one another.

This is reasonable, but to be usable it should be restricted to only a
few licenses, and they should be very clearly marked, so it doesn't
become a confusing tangle of licenses for potential reusers.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Astrological Consulting stated for the record:

> Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
> (C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
> Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
> Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
> http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/

Googling
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Edmond+Wollmann+kook&btnG=Google+Search
allows one to wile away as many minutes as one cares to wile.  I had
never heard of this kook before, but I sure have now.

http://www.smbtech.com/ed/ is a trove of interesting information.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Master Pangloss taught the
  sean at epoptic.com | metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Conference report from South Africa

body:
Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [050505 14:26]:

>   So the Indian or Singaporean
> is two degrees of accents away from the German speaking English, while
> the American or Briton is only one degree away.

I remembe going to Glasgow and attempting to buy beer from a Swedish shop
assistant who spoke in a Swedish/Glaswegian accent.

(Mind you, just trying to buy lunch required my American friend to interpret
the waitress's Glaswegian to English for me. Of course, they all understood
Australian, because every single person in Britain is required by law to
watch 'Neighbours'.)

> Although it smacks of a bit of accent imperialism, the most widely
> understood accents are probably some sort of middle-of-the-road American
> accent (i.e. not a strong New York, Southern, or Texas accent), and some
> sort of middle-of-the-road British accent (i.e. not Cockney).  Of
> course, we could always provide multiple readings...

There shouldn't be anything in the way of multiple readings, unless
people's egos get in the way.

- d.


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

body:
Okay, okay, since the admin in question is me, I think I have to take
action and take part in this discussion.

First of all, yes, I'm the one to blame for everything bad what's been
said. But now, let me explain some things.

'My' decision wasn't final. I proposed to e-Polityka.pl, that either
they can license their content under one of the CC licenses, or the
articles we'll use on Wikinews will be licensed on one of the CC
licenses. There was no final decision which license will be used,
though I have to agree, I proposed CC-BY-NC as the first. I didn't
really gave much thought about it, so I should be blamed here, by even
proposing such a license.

Second - personally, I still wanted to talk with the staff of
e-Polityka.pl and persuade them to use some CC license, the less
restrict it would give, the better.

Third, right now, Wikinews is under PD. This complicates things a bit,
like someone else mentioned, but based on my email and the reply I got
at Juriwiki, a simple disclaimer in the news article should be okay to
use a different license.

On 5/5/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wikimedia lawyers? Since when have we had lawyers? Who the hell is this admin?
> Admins do not have any authority to enter into any agreement on behalf of the
> foundation without board approval.

"Wikimedia lawyers" - it was a mental byway (I'm not sure how to
correctly call it). By this I ment Juriwiki, as the purpose of that
list is to answer legal questions regarding Wikimedia projects. The
truth is, I didn't correctly express the commercial way of
e-Polityka.pl in my email, which brought confusion.

Also, you can't really call this an agreement which had to have the
Board's approval. This was "just" the community's decision, which we
first had to discuss. After all, if e-Polityka.pl would license their
text under, for example, CC-BY, there wouldn't be any problem
regarding the license, right? That's why we didn't contact the
Foundation with any questions, I just personally contacted Juriwiki
(first I was strongly oppose the idea of such cooperation).

Finally, to make my point clear. I have not made any official decision
by myself. Yes, I was wrong with even proposing the CC-BY-NC license,
but as you can see, there isn't any decision on our cooperation, and
it's still being discussed -
http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Wsp%C3%B3%C5%82praca_z_innymi_serwisami#e-Polityka.pl.
Though it looks like we've made a decision, I haven't moved the
agreement on the article page, I'm still personally discussing it with
the man who contacted us, and I'm trying to persuade them to license
their content in overall by some non-restrictive CC license. But it's
true - if it wouldn't be for this email, we'd probably have their
content under a none-commercial license.

Once again, I'm sorry for all this misunderstanding, as it happened
mainly because of me. I'll post again later, if we'll have an
agreement on another license with the portal.

--
Best regards,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki


from_name: Alphax

body:
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David Gerard wrote:
> Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [050505 14:26]:
>
>
>>  So the Indian or Singaporean
>>is two degrees of accents away from the German speaking English, while
>>the American or Briton is only one degree away.

cf. [[English_language#Classification_and_related_languages]] for a good
description of this. Here's the first few paragraphs:

> English is the primary language in Australia (Australian English),
> the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Dominica,
> Gibraltar, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica (Jamaican English), New Zealand
> (New Zealand English), Antigua, St. Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis,
> Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the United
> Kingdom (British English) and the United States of America (American
> English).
>
> English is also one of the primary languages of Belize (with
> Spanish), Canada (with French), India (with Hindi and 21 other state
> languages), Ireland (with Irish), Singapore (with Malay, Mandarin,
> Tamil and other Asian languages) and South Africa (along with Zulu,
> Xhosa, Afrikaans, and Northern Sotho).
>
> In Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in
> business activities. It is taught from kindergarten level, and is the
> medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary
> schools and all universities. Substantial number of students acquire
> native-speaker level. It is so widely used and spoken that it is
> inadequate to say it is merely a second or foreign language.

My guess is that people from countries in the first paragraph (EN-N)
could understand each other (EN-N) and English speakers from the other
countries (EN-3); people from the countries in the second paragraph
(EN-3) could understand the "native" speakers (EN-N), and EN-3 speakers.

EN-N and EN-3 speakers could probably understand EN-2 speakers (people
who have learn English as a foreign language) but would need to be
careful to make themselves understandable; EN-2 speakers may have some
difficulty understanding each other.

>
> I remembe going to Glasgow and attempting to buy beer from a Swedish shop
> assistant who spoke in a Swedish/Glaswegian accent.

Regional accents, especially heavy ones, can be difficult even for
native speakers to understand.

>
> (Mind you, just trying to buy lunch required my American friend to interpret
> the waitress's Glaswegian to English for me.

It's well known in the non-American English-speaking world that
American's don't actually speak English, they speak American :)

> Of course, they all understood
> Australian, because every single person in Britain is required by law to
> watch 'Neighbours'.)

I feel sorry for them :p

- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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