body:
I'd love to turn what's currently FundCORE into an interactive portal
for coordinating community relations. It could provide the kind of
services and information for Wikimedians that don't fit well into a
wiki-based system like meta.wikimedia.org.

FundCORE is runs on Drupal, and Drupal has many community-engaging
modules to do things like managing community calendars, Wikimeets, etc.
SpreadFirefox is also Drupal-based.

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I'd like to propose the setup of a central, multilingual portal at
> outreach.wikimedia.org. Similar to efforts like spreadfirefox.com, the
> purpose of this portal would be to allow Wikimedians to come together
> and discuss ways to
> - inform the general public about Wikimedia projects
> - pursue more specific outreach efforts, such as schools, libraries and academia
> - maintain a list of speakers about Wikimedia-related topics
> - address concerns and questions
> - generally think of clever ideas for marketing and promotion.
>
> This portal, like spreadfirefox.com, would emphatically _not_ be aimed
> at the general public, but at Wikimedians eager to help raise
> awareness and spread ideas. We would make a whitelist of actions that
> can be performed without permission (such as offering to visit a
> school or university to talk about Wikipedia), and a process for
> requesting permissions when needed (such as broader use of the logo or
> trademarks).
>
> Requests for permissions would generally go to the ED for now, but
> we'd probably want to delegate this to the Marketing subcommittee if
> we deem it sufficiently functional. The chapters, in the long run,
> could perhaps also give permission for certain uses.
>
> I see a very strong role of the chapters when it comes to coordinating
> speakers for events, and other regional actions. While
> outreach.wikimedia.org would be a public database of such speakers
> where anyone can offer to talk, the chapters would maintain their own
> private database of speakers they trust. The interface for third
> parties to request a speaker would be, first and foremost, with the
> chapters, not with outreach.wikimedia.org.
>
> The advantage of this approach is that we get a large number of
> volunteers, but at the same time each chapter can come up with its own
> strategy to identify trusted individuals. Insofar as private databases
> are maintained for this, sharing code and data across chapters should
> of course be encouraged.
>
> Time for some Q&A:
>
> Q: What's a typical outreach effort exactly?
>
> One of the most important feats we must accomplish is getting
> traditional institutions of education to understand how our projects
> work, and how they can make responsible use of them. Visiting a school
> and giving a workshop about Wikipedia is an example.
>
> Q: Why not just use meta.wikimedia.org?
>
> A: Like we don't just use one wiki for educational content, I don't
> think it makes sense to have only one wiki for Wikimedia-related
> activities and information. Having a dedicated wiki allows us to
> promote this effort independently, to structure it in a more
> user-friendly way, to monitor changes more systematically, and so on.
> It makes it more likely that a dedicated community will arise
> specifically for Wikimedia Outreach.
>
> Q: Won't this just encourage random people to abuse our trademarks and
> do things in Wikimedia's name?
>
> A: Actually, hopefully it will accomplish the opposite: the
> development of a standard framework of pages and policies for people
> to pursue activities that are clearly beneficial to us. Things might
> be a bit chaotic initially, which is why we should make it clear
> (perhaps even in the sitenotice) that everything requires explicit
> permission from the ED for now.
>
> Q: What would be the relation between the marketing committee and this effort?
>
> A: In my view, committees are given explicit organizational authority
> to act with in their given scope. They are the source of "official"
> activities from the Foundation, and as such, they are highly
> restricted in terms of membership. But unless and until an effort is
> official, there is really no need for it to be limited to a committee.
>
> Q: I still don't see why we should open this up to the chaotic wiki
> process -- an organization is not a wiki!
>
> A: There are literally thousands of groups we want to work with in our
> global strategy to spread free knowledge. This cannot be handled by a
> small committee or the staff of a chapter; it needs the support of a
> global community of volunteers. If these volunteers are restrained
> clearly in their actions, and must pursue proper processes of
> authorization for certain projects, then hopefully, the activities
> that result from this will be well coordinated with chapters and the
> Foundation.
>

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thousands of *awful* articles on websites

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>Steve Block wrote:
>
>
>>Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>How do we know reliable sources aren't lying.  Every newspaper and
>>>>source in town reports Colin Montgomerie holed the winning putt in the
>>>>2004 Ryder Cup, but it isn't true, Ian Poulter struck the putt that
>>>>mathematically won the cup.  Monty's story simply made better press.  If
>>>>we do, as you say, withhold judgement on whether a source is correct,
>>>>why do you then say we can't use some sources because they may be lying.
>>>>  Obviously some judgement is at play.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Well, if the source is lying, then by definition it's not reliable. Your
>>>example is an object lesson in how newspapers are intermediate in
>>>reliability; they are usually better than Joe Random's blog, but not as
>>>good as a scholarly monograph that has had multiple layers of review
>>>spread over multiple years.
>>>
>>>
>>No, you haven't as yet stated how we define which source is telling the
>>"truth".  My understanding is that we don't do that.  If we don't do
>>that, it stands to reason we don't determine which source "lies", since
>>doing so indicates we have determined one source is telling the truth.
>>My understanding is that we weigh each source in relation to the topic,
>>and present it in a NPV.  This means we must judge whether the
>>information is relevant, not if it is true.  It is relevant to note that
>>Montgomerie is credited as hitting the winning putt.
>>
>>
>Dangerously close to epistemology, but I'm not afraid. :-) I think we
>work with a fundamental underlying assumption that the facts are
>knowable, even if we don't know them at the moment. Otherwise, if
>somebody finds a hundred blogs stating that the sky is really green
>(perhaps as part of a prank), and runs to WP to add stuff about how the
>color of the sky is in dispute, we wouldn't have any basis for saying
>"dude, it was an April Fool's joke, we're not going add it". We've
>actually had a couple people in the past adding totally fictional
>events, sourced from websites that reported the fictional events as if
>they were real, and they got irate when we deleted their material,
>because they were convinced it was all real - or that was part of their
>prank, or possibly performance art, to this day I can't say for sure. So
>I exaggerated when I said we're just stenographers; we do have to do
>"research", if not "original research".
>
The assumption that the facts are knowable is necessary; without it we
would be paralyzed.  When we say they are known we often give our
statements an absolutism that may not be warranted; we need to accept
that some facts may never be known.  There are degrees of knowability
and balances of probabilities.  The savvy reader needs to be able to
weigh that information himself.

The sky colour argument is not helpful.  It is based on personal
empiricism, and the more abstract process of how we define colours.  In
the context of the philosophy of science definitions are not falsifiable
statements.

In the example about adding fictional events as if they were real we
need to assume good faith, but that gives us more worrisome results than
using Ockham's razor to justify bad faith.  Assuming bad faith makes the
problem a lot simpler than it actually is; it allows us to say we _know_
what happened and to feel smug in that knowledge.  Urban legends are
often based on good faith interpretations of bad faith comments.  The
dangers of falling victim to such illusions and delusions are more
obvious on the internet where the physical act of publishing anything is
inexpensive, and the quantity of such publication is massive.  We should
not be lulled into a sense of false security about everything in print.
"The Da Vinci Code" is a published book.

I regret that we have many editors for whom "original research" is
interpreted as "any research".  Both require hard work, but that
similarity does not make them synonymous.  We have yet to face the full
impact of a race of idiots solely dependent on the internet for all
their information.

>>>Seeing the references to that article, I can see where you're coming
>>>from. I personally would be very reluctant to, for instance, use
>>>rootsweb to source a death date, because not only do we have the problem
>>>of identifying *which* person of a given name is meant, but genealogy
>>>sites include all the standard howlers, like descents traced to Julius
>>>Caesar, which is only plausible if you don't realize how utterly corrupt
>>>the primary sources are for the Dark Ages. The "California Death
>>>Records" link comes up blank, the oldpoetry.com link has a single
>>>unsourced line affecting to be written in the first person, post-mortem
>>>("I lived from 1887-1972.") - kind of spooky actually. So some of your
>>>references illustrate well the reasons to be wary of primary sources.
>>>
>>>
>>No, they reflect your bias regarding those sources.  What you cite as
>>spooky is simply the presentation style of a website.  What you write
>>about the rootsweb site doesn't apply to the California Death Records,
>>which are state records and not genealogical research which links me to
>>Julius Caesar.  The rootsweb link is to show where I accessed the record
>>from, not the source.  The source is the death record itself.  I'm open
>>to hearing someone argue that I haven't used the source properly, but
>>I'm not open to people declaring it is out of order because it was found
>>on the web.
>>
>>
>That's why I said "personally reluctant", not "against policy". After
>thirty years of doing scholarship, I thought I was pretty savvy, but
>even so have been caught out a bunch of times while working on WP. Just
>recently I used a web article that looked good, and it cited four print
>references, but then we got a note from the webmaster of the site that
>he was pulling the article because it was inaccurate, and making claims
>not separated by those references. Ironically, the corresponding de:
>article is sourced from newspapers of the time, so now I'm planning a
>little quality time in the microfilm department of the library to try to
>sort it all out.
>
It's all a matter of how effectively we and the end user can apply
critical judgement.  No matter how hard we try to avoit it we all
sometimes get caught up using sources that later prove to be
unreliable.  No blame should attach to this, and the best we can hope
for is a graceful exit.  Genealogical sites are a hotbed of good-faith
incompetence where some "researchers" are pleased with a big collection
of names.  If someone wants to use Rootsweb as a source that's fine.
One still has to be mindful that there is a difference between a
reference in Rootsweb to the California Death Records and actually
reviewing the relevant record yourself.  Even official records can be
wrong.  When an older person dies the people reporting the death may not
have accurate information about the decedent's origins.  I'm sure that
many birth records include questionable paternity.

I've had occasion to review the efforts of a recognized "professional"
genealogist that got the generations mixed up.  The report had been
prepared to support a claim by an individual to status as a Native
American.  The information was used by a federal museum in Laramie, WY
to misidentify a person in a photograph.

>Despite all our warnings, people do take WP at face value; I found it
>very sobering to see some of my early mistakes propagated onto websites
>all over the net. Maybe I'm the only one bothered by that.
>
This is much deeper than just a Wikipedia problem.  Erroneous reportings
of information can endure for centuries.  When The Borg assimilates a
whole civilization it also assimilates its errors.  Can you personally
afford to be bothered by this?

>>>I bring these up not to try to disparage you, but because to me it's
>>>what is interesting about scholarship and Wikipedia. Which sources of
>>>information are good, which not so good, and why? If they're
>>>inconsistent, which is true, or are they both true if you interpret in a
>>>different way? I imagine that some day, if it hasn't already happened, a
>>>heated talk-page argument over some factual detail will inspire an
>>>expert to do some original research and then publish the findings -
>>>which we can then incorporate into the article originally in dispute.
>>>
>>>
>>I find this somewhat at odds with your thrust up until this point.  It
>>seems to me this debate started when I asserted that web sources have
>>value since the OED uses them.  If it is not your intention to declare
>>web sources as inappropriate, then I fail to see how we have ended up
>>where we are.  And if you didn't intend to disparage me, then I fail to
>>see what your edit history has to do with anything.  I'm quite capable
>>of judging an argument on its merits, thanks, and would hope my argument
>>would be judged similarly too.  Let's not forget, these are only
>>opinions, not facts, and we shouldn't be basing strict rules on
>>subjective opinions.  I'm of the opinion sourcing is a "horses for
>>courses" issue.
>>
>>
>My argument is that web sources *may* have value, but people need to
>keep their hands on their wallets - we have a lot of editors getting
>their pockets picked and they don't even know it. Have you ever looked
>at the fine print in an unabridged OED? It's great stuff - those guys
>know about not only the English language proper, but every other human
>language, and all the historical context too. To them, a web usage is a
>raw data point, just like somebody's diary, or graffiti seen on a subway
>wall. You will never find an OED entry that cites a web page as an
>authority, it will always be in quoted form, as an example of observed
>usage. That is the crucial difference.
>
I'm sure that the OED will find ways of dealing with words which have
joined the vocabulary   I certainly had the impression from chatting
with Erin McKean at Wikimania that she is fully aware of the issues.
Her "More Weird and Wonderful Words" (published by OUP) includes a
"Webliography" as well as a more usual bibliography.  The practice of
adding quotes as evidence did not begin with the OED.  My 1847 Webster
and my 1817 Johnson have them.

I don't think that any strict general rule about either using or not
using web sources would be meaningful.  This will be very disappointing
to those who can't live without clear answers, and who will latch on to
specific answers as a reason for excluding the opposing POV.

Ec


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>Steve Block wrote:
>
>
>>How do we know reliable sources aren't lying.  Every newspaper and
>>source in town reports Colin Montgomerie holed the winning putt in the
>>2004 Ryder Cup, but it isn't true, Ian Poulter struck the putt that
>>mathematically won the cup.  Monty's story simply made better press.  If
>>we do, as you say, withhold judgement on whether a source is correct,
>>why do you then say we can't use some sources because they may be lying.
>>  Obviously some judgement is at play.
>>
>>
>Well, if the source is lying, then by definition it's not reliable. Your
>example is an object lesson in how newspapers are intermediate in
>reliability; they are usually better than Joe Random's blog, but not as
>good as a scholarly monograph that has had multiple layers of review
>spread over multiple years.
>
We have no easy objective way of knowing that a source is lying.  A
newspaper may print a retraction within a few days of the original
article on the subject, but we would be hard-pressed to know if this
happened.  Some newspapers like "National Enquirer" have a reputation
for their unique interpretation of "truth".  An archeologist who
discovers a cache of these lining clay pots generations after the paper
has ceased publication may believe that he has a trove of insights into
the way that people lived in the twentieth century.  As Walter Miller
expressed it, a fallout shelter is a place where fallouts could seek
refuge from the war.  So yes, a lying source is objectively not
reliable, but we don't know if it's lying.

Ec


from_name: Dan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> I hadn't had time to read ANI for the last 3 days, and just went and
> started catching up.
>
> It's not just me; everyone's pissed off and behaving badly right now.
>
> We should put en.wikipedia on a one-week cooldown edit freeze....
>
>
It would be nice if it cooled down here, it's 70 degrees in the middle
of winter.

--
GnuPG key ID is 0x84189146 on subkeys.pgp.net

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from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia jumps _into_ the top 10

body:
I guess I don't understand why Wikipedians would care about this,
apart from preening.

Am I missing something?

Will being in the top ten help us to write a better encyclopedia in
some way that being in the top 100 doesn't?


from_name: Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)

body:
On 1/6/07, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> I guess I don't understand why Wikipedians would care about this,
> apart from preening.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> Will being in the top ten help us to write a better encyclopedia in
> some way that being in the top 100 doesn't?

It suggests that people are *using* the encyclopedia that we are writing.  I
think that is a Good Thing, as well as a remember of the responsibilities we
have.

Newyorkbrad


body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 1/4/07, Robth <robth1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 1/3/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Robth wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Remember, people learn to write Wikipedia by reading
>>>>Wikipedia.  If we're going to relax our content standards
>>>>substantially for one area, people are going to carry the lessons they
>>>>learn from reading that area into the rest of Wikipedia.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Do you have any evidence for that theory?  Those who are interested only
>>>in "serious" subjects are not likely to spend a lot of time with the
>>>flakier subjects in order to learn how to write for Wikipedia.  We also
>>>have Study Groups (aka WikiProjects) which do a pretty good job setting
>>>standards for their area of interest.
>>>
>>>
>>It's a hard theory to provide specific evidence for, seeing as it does
>>involve trying to get inside people's heads, which is all but
>>impossible on the internet.  What I do think we can reasonably state,
>>though, is as follows:
>>
>>1. People learn more about how to write Wikipedia from reading
>>articles than they do from reading style guides.  I know this has been
>>the case with me, and I haven't met anyone with whom it isn't.  We
>>have an ungodly amount of guideline material relating to what articles
>>should look like, and anyone who attempted to read it all before
>>sitting down to begin writing for Wikipedia would get bored and give
>>up before they ever started typing.  Style guidelines are all well and
>>good, but we have to acknowledge that, at the end of the day, the
>>drive-by contributors who account for most of our material are, in the
>>best case scenario, going to write something that looks like other
>>articles they have read on Wikipedia.  The better the average article
>>is, the better the average passer-by contribution is likely to be.
>>Think how great it would be if just 1 out of every 10 college kids who
>>make a drive-by contribution to Wikipedia went and got a book from the
>>library, checked their facts, and cited their sources when they wrote.
>>That isn't impossible, but it would require that our across-the-board
>>quality be high enough that getting the book would seem like the
>>natural way to contribute to Wikipedia.  Quality begets quality.
>>
>>
>I fully agree with above.
>
Sure.  We also know how thoroughly people read software manuals.  We do
have all sorts of articles that are bloody awful, but we have to give
our serious contributors a little credit for recognizing trash.  Each
new contributor will follow his own writing style.  He may look at the
bad articles to understand how wiki markup is used, but that doesn't
mean that he will adopt someone else's writing style.  If he makes
atrocious gaffes in his writing I would hope that someone who notices
this will become a mentor who understandingly encourages him to improve,
rather than criticises him on his stupid style.

>2. You can't quarantine topics from each other.  Now I'm not arguing
>
>
>>that people are going to read poorly sourced webcomic articles and
>>then immediately go write articles on medieval Scandinavian literature
>>sourced from the same blogs.  You refer to people who are "only
>>interested in serious topics", but people do read and write about more
>>than one topic apiece on Wikipedia.  And there is a startling amount
>>of really shitty content about serious academic topics on the web,
>>waiting for people who have learned to look to google for their
>>sources to come snap it up.  I don't use web sources when I'm writing,
>>but every now and then I google the topic I'm working on and am blown
>>away by the sheer quantity of incorrect information there is out
>>there.  If people observe that "Some Internet Guy said it" is accepted
>>as a reasonable source for large portions of our site, they're going
>>to go look and see what Some Internet Guy has to say about medieval
>>Scandinavian literature when they decide to help out Wikipedia by
>>writing an article about this cool book they just heard about.
>>
>>
>This I find hard to believe.
>
Yes, at some point you need to accept that you do not have a monopoly on
good sense.  Sometimes other editors, including newbies, hav a little of
it.  Fixing an article should always remain a preferred option.  Quick
deletions as a solution is a bit like forbidding one's children to go
out because you're afraid they might meet bad people.

>>3. We don't have the manpower to contain the spillover.  This is my
>>problem with the argument that we can allow Some Internet Guy to serve
>>as our source for articles about stuff that only Some Internet Guy
>>cares enough about to write about, but then, through rigourous
>>enforcement of our standards in other topics, ensure that only
>>reliable sources are accepted for most subjects.  Now this might work
>>for subjects like Israel-Palestine, where both the IDF and Hamas have
>>full-time personnel vetting every single edit (or have we not reached
>>that point quite yet?), but it won't work for the vast majority of
>>topics, in which most articles are monitored loosely or not at all,
>>and any edit that isn't vandalism tends to stick.   Remember, source
>>quality and style guidelines are invoked only in those rare cases
>>where two people find themselves working on the same article at the
>>same time; editing in a fairly popular academic subject area, I have
>>seen such simultaneous editing on only two or three occasions (outside
>>of the FA or GA processes) in my year here.  We don't have the
>>resources to maintain the kind of line that seems to be envisioned in
>>many people's comments on this topic.
>>
>>
>I really find the "spillover" argument profoundly unconvincing.
>
Failing to have the resources is not an argument for extreme action.
What happens in trying to bring an article to feature status is only
going to happen in a handful of articles.  One should not expect such
rigour in the vast majority of articles.

Both sides of the Israel/Palestine issue have enough English-speaking
readers to maintain a dynamic tension about the subject.  Nevertheless,
I would suspect that the tone of the articles is very different on HE:WP
or AR:WP.

We all have our own image of what is needed for an ideal article.  For
any article this develops over time, sometimes over a very long time.
An early stage article may be deficient in many respects.  Only
blatantly illegal, offensive or vandalous activities require immediate
attention.  Otherwise, fix what you can or leave deficiency notices and
move on.  Eventually someone who is interested in the subject will do
what needs to be done.

Ec


from_name: Keitei

body:
On Jan 6, 2007, at 15:46, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

> I guess I don't understand why Wikipedians would care about this,
> apart from preening.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> Will being in the top ten help us to write a better encyclopedia in
> some way that being in the top 100 doesn't?

Being popular shows that we're useful to a good number of people,
which indicates that we are doing a good job. Other than that... I
have no idea.
--keitei


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] The present tense

body:
theProject wrote:
>
> I brought this up on the list because I'm thinking something along the lines
> of a template much like {{fact}} or {{cn}}. You know, "blah blah blah blah
> blah [may become outdated]." This would be distinct from [update needed], in
> that this tag would pick on style, while [update needed] just picks on time.

If we must have Yet Another Template(TM), I'd be more inclined to make
it an explicit "[as of when?]".  In the cases where you already know, or
can easily determine, whether the information still is or when it last
was current, it's probably more useful and no more difficult to add the
"as of XXXX" part yourself than to stick a template on it.

--
Ilmari Karonen


list: foundation-l

from_name: Virgil Ierubino

subject: [Foundation-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?

body:
Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?

I understand the imperitive for maximal accessibility, but is it not also
true that, these days, fewer and fewer people are using browsers that can't
handle advanced features? The fact of the matter is that a website's
*usability* is improved by taking advantage of the higher-tech architecture
that modern browsers allow you to use. Can't MediaWiki default to its
current state, but offer a per-user preference to turn on advanced options?

Look at a site like Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com), for example, which
is possibly one of the most beautifully constructed websites I have ever
encountered. It is simple in layout and ridiculously easy to use on account
of very good design, and the use of advanced code generating popups,
immediate editing, etc. Furthermore their code is pristine; I have never
seen an error, even in the advanced features, on any browser.

The kind of MediaWiki advanced features I'm talking about could be something
like instant editing. Think about if you're reading a long section of an
article, and midway down there's a spelling error. There are so many reasons
to not fix it: you'd have to scroll up to click the edit link on that
section, you'd have to wait for it to load, you'd have to find the place
again in the edit box, you'd have to wait for it to load again, and all this
time you won't be able to continue reading your article, and you'll have
lost your place. What if you could just click next to the relevant
paragraph, turning it into an edit box on the same page - no loading - edit
it, save it, and never once have to switch page. Something similar to the
way you can edit posts in vBulletin without having to change pages. I know
for sure that a feature like this would double the speed at which (and the
likelihood of which) articles are improved.

Obviously once you accept the usage of advanced elements like this there's
no stopping how much easier you can make the site, and how user friendly. If
the only grounds to not include this kind of feature are accessibility, just
put each feature on a switch in user preferences.


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletionism

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> I'm not trying to step on the toes of the editors involved in this, but take
> for example the article on Michael Perham who became the youngest sailor to
> cross the Atlantic. That's clearly notable, but the article was deleted
> because it stated "he was believed to become the youngest person to cross
> the Atlantic". Clearly that's crystal-ballery, but a mere Google search
> would've shown he already finished the trip at the time and that there was
> plenty of news articles to use as sources.

While that was certainly a mistake, it (unfortunately) seems quite
understandable to me.  If you've ever done newpages patrol even briefly,
you've probably encountered several kids who are "going to be the
youngest person to" sail across the Atlantic, fly to the Moon, win the
Nobel prize, etc.  As a rule, they're all utterly non-notable.

Yes, Googling does often help catch the few that actually are notable.
It was precisely for that reason that I originally wrote myself a user
script that adds a "Google for this title" link to the toolbox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Scripts/Google_link

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Steve Block wrote:

>Steve Block wrote:
>
>
>>The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 1/4/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>The Cunctator wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I would note that "Game Over" comes from American video game culture
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>It's much older than.  It appeared on pinball machines before video
>>>>games ever existed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Hmmm... you're going to have to edit
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_over then...
>>>
>>>
>>Oh for crying out loud, what on earth does a referee's whistle mean at
>>the end of a footie match if not game over?  Christ, how many PE
>>teachers around the world have called out come on in boys, game over...
>>
>>
>I mean Thackery wrote in Vanity Fayre that "The Game, in her opinion,
>was over".  That's a century before pinball culture.  Did Americans
>invent sex too?
>
There are many examples like the one from Thackery.  "The game was over"
is somewhat different because of the "was".  I looked at Google Books
and kept getting a lot of different situations where a sentence ended
with "game", and the next one began with "Over".  We are looking for its
use as an interjection.  Perhaps in something like this hypothetical
sentence: "As he lay on his deathbed he realized it would soon be game
over."  The problem is not as easy as it seems.

Ec


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:53:30 +0000, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>This seems a waste.  Just because something hasn't been written about
>>by the mainstream press doesn't make it worthless to people reading
>>Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>But it goes to the heart of what distinguishes an encyclopaedia from a
>directory.  Transwiki is always an option, many of us will happily
>undelete history for that purpose.
>
While we can cut and paste a transwikied history to another project,
that doesn't help if access to the diffs no longer works.  It may
satisfy the technical requirements of GFDL, but much information that
might be useful in a new article is lost.

Ec


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>
> I understand the imperitive for maximal accessibility, but is it not also
> true that, these days, fewer and fewer people are using browsers that can't
> handle advanced features? The fact of the matter is that a website's
> *usability* is improved by taking advantage of the higher-tech architecture
> that modern browsers allow you to use. Can't MediaWiki default to its
> current state, but offer a per-user preference to turn on advanced options?
>
> Look at a site like Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com), for example, which
> is possibly one of the most beautifully constructed websites I have ever
> encountered. It is simple in layout and ridiculously easy to use on account
> of very good design, and the use of advanced code generating popups,

we have popups if you install the right extension see
[[Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups]]

> immediate editing, etc.

we've got that.

>Furthermore their code is pristine; I have never
> seen an error, even in the advanced features, on any browser.
>

Throws up errors in Mosaic (yes I know not a fair test). Either you
over generalised or you didn't search very far.

> The kind of MediaWiki advanced features I'm talking about could be something
> like instant editing. Think about if you're reading a long section of an
> article, and midway down there's a spelling error. There are so many reasons
> to not fix it: you'd have to scroll up to click the edit link on that
> section, you'd have to wait for it to load, you'd have to find the place
> again in the edit box, you'd have to wait for it to load again, and all this
> time you won't be able to continue reading your article, and you'll have
> lost your place. What if you could just click next to the relevant
> paragraph, turning it into an edit box on the same page - no loading - edit
> it, save it, and never once have to switch page. Something similar to the
> way you can edit posts in vBulletin without having to change pages. I know
> for sure that a feature like this would double the speed at which (and the
> likelihood of which) articles are improved.
>

When I click on something on wikipedia I generaly don't want to edit it.

> Obviously once you accept the usage of advanced elements like this there's
> no stopping how much easier you can make the site, and how user friendly. If
> the only grounds to not include this kind of feature are accessibility, just
> put each feature on a switch in user preferences.

How about lack of coders and lack of money?

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia jumps _into_ the top 10.

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>Why do people put so much weight on Alexa's rankings? It's based on
>very biased self selecting sample...
>
That's probably right.  Still it's very easy for quick access, and
that's fine for casual information.  If one wants to seriously prove a
point more spophisticated means should probably be used.

A similar question might be why do so many people use Microsoft?  ... or
(shudder) even AOL?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgive and forget

body:
Rob Smith wrote:

>I've discovered that the fruit of Dispute resolution actually
>inhibits editors who once in the process, from building voluntary
>cooperative relationships and collaborative writing with diverse
>perspectives.
>
A full blown arbitration could do that.  Especially if the earlier steps
are bypassed.  Mediation should work to find a common ground for agreement.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgive and forget

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>I try to apply it all the time, but apparently it is a dying kind of
>>dispute resolution.
>>
>>
>It isn't a form of dispute resolution at all. You can't really forgive
>someone until they accept they did something wrong (well, I guess
>technically you can, but it doesn't achieve much), and once they've
>done that, the dispute is already resolved. All "forgive and forget"
>says is "once the dispute is resolved, move on, don't try and punish
>people for their mistakes".
>
Forgiveness does not require any admission of wrong.  If  you insist
that the other person admit wrong you aren't really forgiving, because
you ignore the possibility that you may be the one who is wrong.
Forgiveness does not even require that the dispute be first resolved.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgive and forget

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>What is wrong with 'move on' as a form of dispute resolution? Beats vendetta and vindictiveness any day.
>>
>>
>It's simply resolving the dispute by accepting defeat. In some cases,
>the dispute may be so trivial that it's easier to simply let the other
>person win, but not always.
>
Saying "Move on" can be a convenient tactical strategem for winning an
argument, especially if the article is in your preferred state when you
say it.  Sometimes finding a third path is preferable to putting the
issue into a win/lose paradigm.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki as a Wikimedia project

body:
On 06/01/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> While we run the Subversion repository

You don't, it's on leuksman.com, which is Brion's personal server.
svn.wikimedia.org resolves to leuksman through DNS.

> My view is that we should make this the consistent, official view and
> consistently promote and list MediaWiki as a Wikimedia Foundation
> project wherever other Wikimedia projects are listed. My hope is that,
> in doing so, we will make MediaWiki more prominent and attract more
> volunteers to work on it, just as on other Wikimedia Foundation
> projects. I also believe that this will help in making MediaWiki
> strategy a key part of the Foundation's general project strategy.

Legally, the Foundation has "MediaWiki" as a registered trademark.

> What are other people's thoughts? The only downside I can see is that
> this might be seen as a move to exercise additional control over the
> direction of development. But already, all major code changes to the
> core have to be approved by Brion, who is a Foundation employee. I
> actually think it will be easier to identify our responsibility
> towards outside users if we consider MediaWiki to be a key part of the
> free culture movement that the Wikimedia Foundation must support.

Well, of course it's going to be seen as a "move to exercise
additional control over the direction of development", because it is.
You wouldn't have wanted to consolidate MediaWiki as 100% under the
Wikimedia brand unless you were about to start ordering us to put
things in it.

Personally, I don't care; I'm not on the Foundation's payroll, and I
don't intend to start taking orders from users or Board members over
what I put in the code I voluntarily contribute to an open source
project. The only people I've ever directly deferred to are Brion, who
is our Benevolent Dictator, and Tim, who is an experienced and senior
developer.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgive and forget

body:
Keitei wrote:

>Let's say Person A often says certain sorts of things, which, to
>Person B, sound like personal attacks. Person B is offended and
>infuriated and begins a vendetta against Person A. Person A says, I'm
>sorry you took it that way; I didn't mean it like that. Person B has
>two choices: go around the wiki proclaiming that Person A is uncivil,
>never assumes good faith, and is racist; or forgive, forget, move on.
>
>(This happens a lot.)
>
It does happen a lot.

The problem with this example is in taking the position that B's being
offended implies that A was offending.  A's explanation that offence was
not intended should usually be sufficient.  In the absence of other
history between these two, B, in refusing the explanation and increasing
the stakes, is also becoming the offending as well as the offended party.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgive and forget

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>Mmmm, think that is what apologies are for, though.
>>
>>
>An apology is admitting you were wrong. If one side admits they were
>wrong, then yes, the dispute is resolved.
>
Why does one side have to be wrong?

Ec


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>
> I understand the imperitive for maximal accessibility, but is it not also
> true that, these days, fewer and fewer people are using browsers that can't
> handle advanced features? The fact of the matter is that a website's
> *usability* is improved by taking advantage of the higher-tech architecture
> that modern browsers allow you to use. Can't MediaWiki default to its
> current state, but offer a per-user preference to turn on advanced options?
>

We have several JS/AJAX features, and I have attempted to encourage the
development of more. See

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-August/025991.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-September/026387.html

The answer to your question is that we have far fewer developers (in
full-time equivalent terms) than Facebook, Flickr or any of the other
major AJAX-based sites. We will work towards improved client-side
functionality, but it could take years to reach the level of functionality
you're talking about.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?

body:
On 06/01/07, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> I'm sure this kind of response will spark righteous indignation on the
> part of every developer who has a clue on what's going on underneath
> MediaWiki's hood. Plus, lack of AJAX does not mean "low-tech", which you
> have so insinuated.

Better "low tech" than pumped full of AJAX all over the place. AJAX
that's not been properly integrated, so we lock out blind people or
those who don't have JavaScript because it doesn't degrade gracefully.
AJAX that irritates the user causing them to disable said JavaScript.
AJAX that hasn't been tested for security vulnerabilities. AJAX that's
basically thrown into the software *for the sake of using a buzzword*.

Rob Church


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: Wikimedia Outreach

body:
I'd like to propose the setup of a central, multilingual portal at
outreach.wikimedia.org. Similar to efforts like spreadfirefox.com, the
purpose of this portal would be to allow Wikimedians to come together
and discuss ways to
- inform the general public about Wikimedia projects
- pursue more specific outreach efforts, such as schools, libraries and academia
- maintain a list of speakers about Wikimedia-related topics
- address concerns and questions
- generally think of clever ideas for marketing and promotion.

This portal, like spreadfirefox.com, would emphatically _not_ be aimed
at the general public, but at Wikimedians eager to help raise
awareness and spread ideas. We would make a whitelist of actions that
can be performed without permission (such as offering to visit a
school or university to talk about Wikipedia), and a process for
requesting permissions when needed (such as broader use of the logo or
trademarks).

Requests for permissions would generally go to the ED for now, but
we'd probably want to delegate this to the Marketing subcommittee if
we deem it sufficiently functional. The chapters, in the long run,
could perhaps also give permission for certain uses.

I see a very strong role of the chapters when it comes to coordinating
speakers for events, and other regional actions. While
outreach.wikimedia.org would be a public database of such speakers
where anyone can offer to talk, the chapters would maintain their own
private database of speakers they trust. The interface for third
parties to request a speaker would be, first and foremost, with the
chapters, not with outreach.wikimedia.org.

The advantage of this approach is that we get a large number of
volunteers, but at the same time each chapter can come up with its own
strategy to identify trusted individuals. Insofar as private databases
are maintained for this, sharing code and data across chapters should
of course be encouraged.

Time for some Q&A:

Q: What's a typical outreach effort exactly?

One of the most important feats we must accomplish is getting
traditional institutions of education to understand how our projects
work, and how they can make responsible use of them. Visiting a school
and giving a workshop about Wikipedia is an example.

Q: Why not just use meta.wikimedia.org?

A: Like we don't just use one wiki for educational content, I don't
think it makes sense to have only one wiki for Wikimedia-related
activities and information. Having a dedicated wiki allows us to
promote this effort independently, to structure it in a more
user-friendly way, to monitor changes more systematically, and so on.
It makes it more likely that a dedicated community will arise
specifically for Wikimedia Outreach.

Q: Won't this just encourage random people to abuse our trademarks and
do things in Wikimedia's name?

A: Actually, hopefully it will accomplish the opposite: the
development of a standard framework of pages and policies for people
to pursue activities that are clearly beneficial to us. Things might
be a bit chaotic initially, which is why we should make it clear
(perhaps even in the sitenotice) that everything requires explicit
permission from the ED for now.

Q: What would be the relation between the marketing committee and this effort?

A: In my view, committees are given explicit organizational authority
to act with in their given scope. They are the source of "official"
activities from the Foundation, and as such, they are highly
restricted in terms of membership. But unless and until an effort is
official, there is really no need for it to be limited to a committee.

Q: I still don't see why we should open this up to the chaotic wiki
process -- an organization is not a wiki!

A: There are literally thousands of groups we want to work with in our
global strategy to spread free knowledge. This cannot be handled by a
small committee or the staff of a chapter; it needs the support of a
global community of volunteers. If these volunteers are restrained
clearly in their actions, and must pursue proper processes of
authorization for certain projects, then hopefully, the activities
that result from this will be well coordinated with chapters and the
Foundation.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

body:
On 1/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;)
>
> Well, we're not saying anything about the web, we're saying
> "Internet". In that respect, "multilingual wiki projects" is much more
> tech-centric. But either seems fine with me; if these solutions become
> outdated, we will simply update our mission statement, as we've done
> before. It's the vision statement which should be timeless.

Same argument applies. I don't see how the internet is important to
our mission. It's the best tool for the job today, sure, but it's not
our mission. Sure we can revise it.. but why bother mentioning it. Our
mission is providing effective support for the creation and
propagation of this free content. That we use the Internet is true
today, but it's not at all fundimental ... it simply adds length
without adding clarity.

> > In terms of "free licensing / free availability distinction" we're
> > also failing on that mark with the words "under a free license or in
> > the public domain" because "free license" is used to refer to both
> > Free Content licenses as well as "non-free content licenses which are
> > available for public use at no charge". I suspect the price or ability
> > to alter the license itself is immaterial to our goals ;).
>
> Hair splitting, but we can change it to "free content license".

I assume you are saying that the potential for misunderstanding "free
license" isn't large rather than saying that the distinction between
"licenses which are free" and "Free Content licenses" is
insignificant. If my assumption is wrong, please correct me.. because
if you believe the latter, we have much more to discuss. :)

I don't agree that the potential for misunderstanding "free licenses"
is small. For example, we often see the Creative Commons folks use
"free license" in this sense:

"We provide free licenses that mark creative work with the freedom the
creator wants it to carry, so others can share the work, or remix the
work, or both share and remix the work, as the author chooses."
(http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6106)

The overwhelming majority of CC licenses uses are licenses which do
not meet the free content definition, nor would meet the typical
Wikimedian's definition of a free content license (-NC-NDs, Sampling,
etc).  As such we need to be careful to maintain clear separation
between our efforts to propagate information which is (largely)
unencumbered and the CreativeCommon's mission of making it easier
folks to use copyright to both grant and withhold rights.

I think that using "free content" is an improvement over "free
licenses", but I don't think that it is especially good.  As Tim
Starling likes to point out: Content can't have freedom, people can...
The words "Free Content" are effectively a domain specific jargon, and
I think our mission statement should be free of such jargon. I think
the best way to avoid the jargon is to just say what we mean.

We can offset the additional length by removing the free-beer aspects
of the current draft. I believe the free-beerness of Wikimedia itself
is a natural side effect of our mission of wide propagation but not in
and of itself a fundamental goal.


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement


body:
I'd like to reopen the discussion about whether we officially consider
MediaWiki a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Currently, the
position of the Foundation on this issue appears somewhat ambiguous.
While we run the Subversion repository, the website, the mailing
lists, and pay the two lead developers, MediaWiki is listed, for
example, on:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects

not as a Wikimedia project, but as a "related project." It is also not
part of our usual list of projects. On the other hand, mediawiki.org
carries the "A Wikimedia Project" button.

My view is that we should make this the consistent, official view and
consistently promote and list MediaWiki as a Wikimedia Foundation
project wherever other Wikimedia projects are listed. My hope is that,
in doing so, we will make MediaWiki more prominent and attract more
volunteers to work on it, just as on other Wikimedia Foundation
projects. I also believe that this will help in making MediaWiki
strategy a key part of the Foundation's general project strategy.

What are other people's thoughts? The only downside I can see is that
this might be seen as a move to exercise additional control over the
direction of development. But already, all major code changes to the
core have to be approved by Brion, who is a Foundation employee. I
actually think it will be easier to identify our responsibility
towards outside users if we consider MediaWiki to be a key part of the
free culture movement that the Wikimedia Foundation must support.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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


from_name: Matthew Flaschen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
Can MediaWiki use a - instead of | in the default signature?  The bar
breaks templates (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:mirror)
when people sign inside.

Matthew Flaschen

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body:
On 06/01/07, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> Erm... was that directed at me? (and also, why isn't my reply showing up
> on the newsgroup... hmm...)

No, it was a half-assed response to the OP more than anything else.

Rob Church


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 1/6/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, of course it's going to be seen as a "move to exercise
> additional control over the direction of development", because it is.
> You wouldn't have wanted to consolidate MediaWiki as 100% under the
> Wikimedia brand unless you were about to start ordering us to put
> things in it.

I think that's overly cynical, Rob.


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Auction (Was: alternatives)

body:
Delightful idea!

How about a small pamphlet containing all the existing WikiWorld comics,
plus a couple more exclusive ones, featuring commentary and signed by Greg
Williams?

On 1/6/07, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just another thought that came up with me today:
>
> What about an auction. I dont know whether there is interesting stuff
> enough
> to collect, and I dont expect thousends of dollars out of it, but wouldn't
> it be fun for the community to have something like an auction? People can
> give stuff that could be "cool to have" for the auction, to the
> foundation,
> and the person that bids the highest amount of money, can get the thing.
> For
> instance, I would be thinking of a postcard witht he signatures of all
> boardmembers, a used cigarette of oscar (no, not really, please come up
> with
> something more fun! :P ) or maybe even approach famous people to donate
> something that belongs to them for this cause. The stuff can varie to
> everything, but should be intensively prepared probably.
>
> Would this be fun for the community? Would it be creating some money to
> the
> foundation, would it be worth while? Are there maybe more ideas in this
> trend, that together get a meaningfull amount of money together?
>
> I understand of course it wont be possible anymore for this very
> fundraising, but I think it would be an idea for the next one. I'm not
> sure
> whether the foundation should "lower" itself to this level, or maybe it
> explicitely *should*. Please shoot! :)
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2007/1/6, Peter van Londen <londenp at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Waerth I would appreciate if you could stay with the subject, which is
> > alternative funding of Wikimedia projects by a add-driven fanpedia. The
> > fanpedia was brought up some days ago (and not reoccurring every two
> > weeks).
> > There are definitely more people than you mention; might not be the
> most,
> > as
> > I have written, because most people on nl-wp don't care about how the
> > projects are being funded. I wished that you had commented on the
> subject,
> > in stead of flaming.
> >
> > I would like some comments about the feasibility of doing such a
> project.
> > We
> > give up "add-freeness" for one project so that the other projects can be
> > funded add-free. Is that compatible with the Mission/Vision? Are there
> > other
> > points: like for instance legal liabilities as of the probable nature of
> > the
> > content on a Fanpedia?
> >
> > Robert Scott Horning: I don't know Wikia, so I don't have any idea of a
> > fanpedia under the wings of the Wikimedia Foundation would conflict with
> > Wikia's interests or vice versa. Anyhow by transporting content to Wikia
> > does not help much with funding of the Wikimedia Foundation, if I
> > understand
> > that correctly.
> >
> > SJKlein: any comments why you don't think it is a good idea?
> >
> > A lot of people involved in Wikipedia don't like adds or even sponsoring
> > if
> > a sitenotice mentions the name of logo of the sponsor. We could keep
> > advertising away of the "more-serious" project if we had an add-driven
> > sisterproject. (It doesn't have to be a fanpedia, it can be a different
> > project, but fancruft is popular!). It would be a compromise.
> >
> > Kind regards
> > Londenp
> >
> >
> > 2007/1/6, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net>:
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > >The thing is that a lot of people work on the fancruft, imho
> > > >non-encyclopedian, part of Wikipedia and that is OK. Prison Break is
> > one
> > > of
> > > >the most visited articles on dutch Wikipedia. Most nl-Wikipedians are
> > > uneasy with this kind of articles, which evoluate to a encyclopedia
> > inside
> > > the wikipedia in itself, and would be happy to move them to a
> different
> > > project.
> > > >
> > > Most ?????? That is a very bold statement. I would say a minority.
> > > Currently in the Dutch wikipedia it is only 4 or 5 people who bring
> this
> > > up every 2 weeks or so. Including you. That is definately not most
> > > wikipedians!!!
> > >
> > > Waerth
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: xaosflux

subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

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

Users can set their signatures for pretty much whatever they want
them to be, so a fix would need to encompas any characters parsed.
OTOH, why whould anyone need to be including a signtaure as a
parameter to a template?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0.2

iQA/AwUBRaBCXNRQDZCQNK6YEQIX2ACg6WxsSRt7/A5whmJAySZNbOP32U4AnAwl
tcpY0J7RY45c1U9zUiPNDFPB
=qQTY
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

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

Seems like {{delete|I created this page by mistake}} would suffice
there?
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Clements" <gmane at kennel17.co.uk>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

> "xaosflux" <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:000c01c731f5$002e2080$022aa8c0 at WSXW4200...
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Users can set their signatures for pretty much whatever they want
>> them to be, so a fix would need to encompas any characters parsed.
>> OTOH, why whould anyone need to be including a signtaure as a
>> parameter to a template?
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: PGP 8.0.2
>>
>> iQA/AwUBRaBCXNRQDZCQNK6YEQIX2ACg6WxsSRt7/A5whmJAySZNbOP32U4AnAwl
>> tcpY0J7RY45c1U9zUiPNDFPB
>> =qQTY
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> {{delete|I created this page by mistake --~~~~}}
>
> - Mark Clements (HappyDog)
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but
>people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People
>tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide
>information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
>
Very few ads are clever enough to keep your attention.  Most are
trivial, and repeated too often.  As the TV market becomes more
fragmented, the TV stations are not able to give the advertisers the
reach that they previously expected.  As the public shifts attention
from TV to internet the advertisers aremore keen to get into that
market, but the internet audience is a lot less complacent about
advertising than the TV audience.

To an extent some big ISPs probably viewed the net as an opportunity to
package a service with a product.  There is a whole entertainment
industry that would love to start creating profit points on the
internet, but with a public that wants to upload as much (if not more)
than it downloads the prospects for big profits look bleak unless the
industry can have its way with net neutrality.  One of the things that
we and a few other sites like YouTube and MySpace have addressed is a
desire for the public to participate in the content.  The result is
every bit as good as what the high-priced production companies could
produce, and a lot cheaper.  Those who haven't grasped this should get
ready for the second wave of dot-com failures.

Our Board needs to be fully aware of where the economics of the Web are
going in the next few years.  It would be nice to base our planning on
the real per capita costs of the internet stripped of content production
costs.

>There is a website of a friend.. it has Google ads. When I feel good I
>hit an add knowing that it will benefit my friend. The notion that ads
>create a conflict of interest is an article of faith, it is not based in
>how people perceive things in real life. When you are patch is bald, and
>you want a solution AND you are lazy .. that is when an add helps you to
>get Miracle-Gro. When you are smart you buy it cheaply in bulk at a
>local shop and not over the Internet.
>
I don't know if I or you is misunderstanding something, but the
suggestion that bald people could solve their problem by putting
Miracle-Gro on their scalps is hilarious. :-D

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
On 1/6/07, Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> wrote:
> Can MediaWiki use a - instead of | in the default signature?  The bar
> breaks templates (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:mirror)
> when people sign inside.

Uh, what | in the default signature?  The only one I see is inside a
link, which won't affect the template.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
Mark Clements wrote:
> "xaosflux" <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:000c01c731f5$002e2080$022aa8c0 at WSXW4200...
> Users can set their signatures for pretty much whatever they want
> them to be, so a fix would need to encompas any characters parsed.
> OTOH, why whould anyone need to be including a signtaure as a
> parameter to a template?
>

> {{delete|I created this page by mistake --~~~~}}

Or the template I linked...
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Mirror).  As for "a fix would
need to encompas any characters parsed." I didn't say we should block
all troublesome characters.

However, it seems the default doesn't actually include a "|".  Is this
new?  Why do so many people (including me before) have signatures
containing one?

That said, it would be useful to modify signatures so they didn't use |
(except for links).

Matthew Flaschen

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
On 1/6/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> From an editor's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
> point in whacking a signature in a template. If one wishes to sign a
> tag, then place the tildes after the template call, as normal.
>
> From a developer's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
> point worrying too much about what signatures do and don't work with -
> we aren't under any obligation to support fancy signatures with 30-odd
> lines of HTML, CSS and whatnot.

The question is *default* signatures.  Which is why I'm puzzled.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
Rob Church wrote:
> On 06/01/07, Andrew Garrett <andrew at epstone.net> wrote:
>> ... We're not in the business of providing individual examples and
>> counter-examples. Suffice to say there is no good reason *not* to support
>> signatures in templates - and people do use signatures in templates - so we
>> should support it.
>
>>From an editor's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
> point in whacking a signature in a template. If one wishes to sign a
> tag, then place the tildes after the template call, as normal.

The problem with that is when there are multiple signatures in a
template.  For example, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc#1bx.com

Matthew Flaschen

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
Simetrical wrote:
> Uh, what | in the default signature?  The only one I see is inside a
> link, which won't affect the template.

Yes.  That was my mistake.  It's not the default (at least not
anymore?).  However, it's a common sig people use for whatever reason:

[[User:Me]] | [[User talk:Me|Talk]]

Matthew Flaschen

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
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The only way I can see that this could possibly work today would be
to either create a list of characters that can not be used in
signatures (like |,},etc) <A horribly bad idea IMHO> or ensure that
any templates that are designed to have a signature in them do not
break upon odd characters (again, not likely to happen).  This seems
to be a case of "when I put my signature in side a template it
breaks", so stop doing that or {{sofixit}}.  OP, now that I've said
that, can we get an example of a template that should have signatures
in it that is not working, so we can help use it for testing and see
if there is a fix?  (The {{mirror}} template cited does not appear to
be designed to have a signature in it anywhere).

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Garrett" <andrew at epstone.net>
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Default signature
- --Xaosflux wrote:
> Seems like {{delete|I created this page by mistake}} would suffice
> there?

... We're not in the business of providing individual examples and
counter-examples. Suffice to say there is no good reason *not* to
support
signatures in templates - and people do use signatures in templates -
so we
should support it.

Andrew Garrett
(Werdna)

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

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
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Now that I've sent my last post saying {{mirror}} wasn't a good
example, I see where it's being used.  The problem doesn't seem to be
in using signatures containing pipes in templates, but in tables,
where pipe is a delimiter.

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

> On 06/01/07, Andrew Garrett <andrew at epstone.net> wrote:
>> ... We're not in the business of providing individual examples and
>> counter-examples. Suffice to say there is no good reason *not* to
>> support signatures in templates - and people do use signatures in
>> templates - so we should support it.
>
> From an editor's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
> point in whacking a signature in a template. If one wishes to sign
> a tag, then place the tildes after the template call, as normal.
>
> From a developer's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
> point worrying too much about what signatures do and don't work
> with - we aren't under any obligation to support fancy signatures
> with 30-odd lines of HTML, CSS and whatnot.
>
>
> Rob Church
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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from_name: Arne Klempert

subject: [Foundation-l] Back-up

body:
On 1/6/07, Yorian <webmaster at compumania.nl> wrote:
> Is there an extern computer (or computers) to which all the
> wikimedia data is uploaded, just to be safe? How is this arranged?

For this purpose Wikimedia Deutschland just bought a RAID system with
a capacity of 12 terabytes, which arrived in Amsterdam this week.

Arne


subject: [Foundation-l] Back-up


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
On 1/6/07, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
> The only way I can see that this could possibly work today would be
> to either create a list of characters that can not be used in
> signatures (like |,},etc) <A horribly bad idea IMHO> or ensure that
> any templates that are designed to have a signature in them do not
> break upon odd characters (again, not likely to happen).

Well, the straightforward way to fix it (should we want to) would be
to just substitute sigs after everything else.  Then they wouldn't be
able to break anything.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
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Hash: SHA1

If this did happen, wouldn't they just break the page the next time
it was edited?

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Simetrical" <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

> On 1/6/07, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The only way I can see that this could possibly work today would
>> be to either create a list of characters that can not be used in
>> signatures (like |,},etc) <A horribly bad idea IMHO> or ensure
>> that any templates that are designed to have a signature in them
>> do not break upon odd characters (again, not likely to happen).
>
> Well, the straightforward way to fix it (should we want to) would
> be to just substitute sigs after everything else.  Then they
> wouldn't be able to break anything.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
On 1/6/07, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
> If this did happen, wouldn't they just break the page the next time
> it was edited?

Hmm.  I suppose so.  I guess I was thinking of substing, but yes, it
would make things even more confusing for transclusion.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
On 1/6/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hadn't had time to read ANI for the last 3 days, and just went and
> started catching up.
>
> It's not just me; everyone's pissed off and behaving badly right now.
>
> We should put en.wikipedia on a one-week cooldown edit freeze....
>
>

No that is just normal WP:AN/I.
--
geni


from_name: Kim Bruning

in_reply_to:
<24dce9db0701060830q1306d829l2737670b11fbb4ef@mail.gmail.com>;
	from virgil.ierubino@gmail.com on Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 04:30:47PM
	+0000

body:
On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 04:30:47PM +0000, Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>

{{sofixit}} -- ~~~~

--
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gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
xaosflux wrote:
> Now that I've sent my last post saying {{mirror}} wasn't a good
> example, I see where it's being used.  The problem doesn't seem to be
> in using signatures containing pipes in templates, but in tables,
> where pipe is a delimiter.

Tables also use pipes, but in Mirror the | breaks each parameter too
soon.  The problem is the same no matter how the parameters were
rendered.  See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Superm401/Sandbox/BrokenMirror .

Matthew Flaschen

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body:
On 1/6/07, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> I guess I don't understand why Wikipedians would care about this,
> apart from preening.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> Will being in the top ten help us to write a better encyclopedia in
> some way that being in the top 100 doesn't?
>

W:Hi archive/goverment/charity X we would like to work with you
X:What are you?
W:A website
X:Get lost
W:we are in the top ten on the web
X:hold on a sec

Well that is the theory in any case.
--
geni


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
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Rob Church wrote:
> On 06/01/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> While we run the Subversion repository
>
> You don't, it's on leuksman.com, which is Brion's personal server.
> svn.wikimedia.org resolves to leuksman through DNS.

This is as much just to isolate it as anything else, though. More people
have SSH access for committing (though with a restricted shell), and the
machine automatically runs the updated parser tests, so I'm leery of
putting that in our core cluster.

If a MediaWiki committer (or someone who gets into one of their
computers or SSH keys) abuses that, they can only really use it try to
hack into my blog.

In theory we could isolate some of that better and go ahead and host it
in the main cluster, or move it elsewhere.

>> My view is that we should make this the consistent, official view and
>> consistently promote and list MediaWiki as a Wikimedia Foundation
>> project wherever other Wikimedia projects are listed. My hope is that,
>> in doing so, we will make MediaWiki more prominent and attract more
>> volunteers to work on it, just as on other Wikimedia Foundation
>> projects. I also believe that this will help in making MediaWiki
>> strategy a key part of the Foundation's general project strategy.
>
> Legally, the Foundation has "MediaWiki" as a registered trademark.

There was some controversy over this, primarily in that it was a
surprise to those of us who worked on the software at the time.

The position I took then was that Wikimedia is MediaWiki's number one
_customer_, but not necessarily _owner_.

We never really got around to figuring out a compromise or alternate
ownership of the name that I know of, and now Tim and I are on the
foundation's payroll, so I don't know whether or not we care about
making a distinction like that anymore.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: mingwangx

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007 Team Bulletin, 6 January, 2007

body:
We will translate the information in Tour Page as soon as possible.

Mingwangx

On 1/6/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 1/5/2007 8:25:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> mingwangx at gmail.com writes:
>
> There is  more information of tour at  Tour
> Page<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tour>in Wikimania  2007
> Official Website.
>
>
>
> I want to go to ... I want to go to ... hmmm ... I can't figure out which
> one. Can you let us know when it is translated.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:17:20 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>We should put en.wikipedia on a one-week cooldown edit freeze....

Meh.  WikiDefcon 2, enhanced drama likely.  Normal service will be
resumed when the kids get back to school and we can go back to
deleting their crap.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
On 1/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Meh.  WikiDefcon 2, enhanced drama likely.  Normal service will be
> resumed when the kids get back to school and we can go back to
> deleting their crap.
>

They have gone back to school.

--
geni


from_name: Peter van Londen

subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

body:
Waerth I would appreciate if you could stay with the subject, which is
alternative funding of Wikimedia projects by a add-driven fanpedia. The
fanpedia was brought up some days ago (and not reoccurring every two weeks).
There are definitely more people than you mention; might not be the most, as
I have written, because most people on nl-wp don't care about how the
projects are being funded. I wished that you had commented on the subject,
in stead of flaming.

I would like some comments about the feasibility of doing such a project. We
give up "add-freeness" for one project so that the other projects can be
funded add-free. Is that compatible with the Mission/Vision? Are there other
points: like for instance legal liabilities as of the probable nature of the
content on a Fanpedia?

Robert Scott Horning: I don't know Wikia, so I don't have any idea of a
fanpedia under the wings of the Wikimedia Foundation would conflict with
Wikia's interests or vice versa. Anyhow by transporting content to Wikia
does not help much with funding of the Wikimedia Foundation, if I understand
that correctly.

SJKlein: any comments why you don't think it is a good idea?

A lot of people involved in Wikipedia don't like adds or even sponsoring if
a sitenotice mentions the name of logo of the sponsor. We could keep
advertising away of the "more-serious" project if we had an add-driven
sisterproject. (It doesn't have to be a fanpedia, it can be a different
project, but fancruft is popular!). It would be a compromise.

Kind regards
Londenp

2007/1/6, Walter van Kalken <walter op vankalken.net>:
>
>
> >
> >The thing is that a lot of people work on the fancruft, imho
> >non-encyclopedian, part of Wikipedia and that is OK. Prison Break is one
> of
> >the most visited articles on dutch Wikipedia. Most nl-Wikipedians are
> uneasy with this kind of articles, which evoluate to a encyclopedia inside
> the wikipedia in itself, and would be happy to move them to a different
> project.
> >
> Most ?????? That is a very bold statement. I would say a minority.
> Currently in the Dutch wikipedia it is only 4 or 5 people who bring this
> up every 2 weeks or so. Including you. That is definately not most
> wikipedians!!!
>
> Waerth
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

body:
Waerth I would appreciate if you could stay with the subject, which is
alternative funding of Wikimedia projects by a add-driven fanpedia. The
fanpedia was brought up some days ago (and not reoccurring every two weeks).
There are definitely more people than you mention; might not be the most, as
I have written, because most people on nl-wp don't care about how the
projects are being funded. I wished that you had commented on the subject,
in stead of flaming.

I would like some comments about the feasibility of doing such a project. We
give up "add-freeness" for one project so that the other projects can be
funded add-free. Is that compatible with the Mission/Vision? Are there other
points: like for instance legal liabilities as of the probable nature of the
content on a Fanpedia?

Robert Scott Horning: I don't know Wikia, so I don't have any idea of a
fanpedia under the wings of the Wikimedia Foundation would conflict with
Wikia's interests or vice versa. Anyhow by transporting content to Wikia
does not help much with funding of the Wikimedia Foundation, if I understand
that correctly.

SJKlein: any comments why you don't think it is a good idea?

A lot of people involved in Wikipedia don't like adds or even sponsoring if
a sitenotice mentions the name of logo of the sponsor. We could keep
advertising away of the "more-serious" project if we had an add-driven
sisterproject. (It doesn't have to be a fanpedia, it can be a different
project, but fancruft is popular!). It would be a compromise.

Kind regards
Londenp

2007/1/6, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net>:
>
>
> >
> >The thing is that a lot of people work on the fancruft, imho
> >non-encyclopedian, part of Wikipedia and that is OK. Prison Break is one
> of
> >the most visited articles on dutch Wikipedia. Most nl-Wikipedians are
> uneasy with this kind of articles, which evoluate to a encyclopedia inside
> the wikipedia in itself, and would be happy to move them to a different
> project.
> >
> Most ?????? That is a very bold statement. I would say a minority.
> Currently in the Dutch wikipedia it is only 4 or 5 people who bring this
> up every 2 weeks or so. Including you. That is definately not most
> wikipedians!!!
>
> Waerth
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 22:09:59 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Meh.  WikiDefcon 2, enhanced drama likely.  Normal service will be
>> resumed when the kids get back to school and we can go back to
>> deleting their crap.

>They have gone back to school.

Wednesday (Oxfordshire), Thursday (Berkshire).  Give them time to get
tired of talking about their new games consoles, eh?

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

body:
I think "patch" mentioned to a garden patch.

"Miracle-Gro on head" reminds me of a website I used to go on...

On 1/6/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> >Hoi,
> >I do not know if you observe when people watch watch television, but
> >people go to the toilet when there is an advertisement break. People
> >tape a program and fastforward the ads. The notion that ads provide
> >information is vastly overrated. Advertisements are typically ignored.
> >
> Very few ads are clever enough to keep your attention.  Most are
> trivial, and repeated too often.  As the TV market becomes more
> fragmented, the TV stations are not able to give the advertisers the
> reach that they previously expected.  As the public shifts attention
> from TV to internet the advertisers aremore keen to get into that
> market, but the internet audience is a lot less complacent about
> advertising than the TV audience.
>
> To an extent some big ISPs probably viewed the net as an opportunity to
> package a service with a product.  There is a whole entertainment
> industry that would love to start creating profit points on the
> internet, but with a public that wants to upload as much (if not more)
> than it downloads the prospects for big profits look bleak unless the
> industry can have its way with net neutrality.  One of the things that
> we and a few other sites like YouTube and MySpace have addressed is a
> desire for the public to participate in the content.  The result is
> every bit as good as what the high-priced production companies could
> produce, and a lot cheaper.  Those who haven't grasped this should get
> ready for the second wave of dot-com failures.
>
> Our Board needs to be fully aware of where the economics of the Web are
> going in the next few years.  It would be nice to base our planning on
> the real per capita costs of the internet stripped of content production
> costs.
>
> >There is a website of a friend.. it has Google ads. When I feel good I
> >hit an add knowing that it will benefit my friend. The notion that ads
> >create a conflict of interest is an article of faith, it is not based in
> >how people perceive things in real life. When you are patch is bald, and
> >you want a solution AND you are lazy .. that is when an add helps you to
> >get Miracle-Gro. When you are smart you buy it cheaply in bulk at a
> >local shop and not over the Internet.
> >
> I don't know if I or you is misunderstanding something, but the
> suggestion that bald people could solve their problem by putting
> Miracle-Gro on their scalps is hilarious. :-D
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ephemeral nature of web pages - a silly idea?

body:
James Hare wrote:
>
> Or how about a Library of Congress-esque things for websites, where
> identified websites are selectively archived so they can exist for eternity
> (as opposed to Wayback Machine which seems to work as randomly picking
> pages).

Someone else on this list recently pointed me to www.webcitation.org,
which seems to exist for exactly this purpose.  I've been gradually
going through articles I've edited in the past and submitting any web
pages I've cited for archiving, and I encourage others to do the same.
Their bookmarklet feature is particularly convenient for this.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 1/3/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 02/01/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Problem is their lag time. It takes over 6 months for stuff to appear
> there
> > by which time you are in deep trouble if it wasn't stored to begin with.
> It
> > would be nice if every site that's referenced in Wikipedia is spidered
> > automatically just like every site that's visited by a surfer with an
> Alexa
> > toolbar.
>
> We could, of course, ask them to add "any WP extlink" to their
> spidering routines...
>
> archive.org's six-month delay is intentional, but I suppose it could
> be possible for them to display some form of "we have this site
> archived on X date and just not displayed yet" identifier to the
> date-selection page; this would obviate the "not known" problem whilst
> meaning they don't have to publish it. hmm. If anyone wants to propose
> it to them, free free.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Yes, that's what I thought. Worth asking them. It's a pain to have pages
disappear and lose verifiable content as a result.

Mgm


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

in_reply_to:
<459E3496.1080001@gmail.com>;
	from gerard.meijssen@gmail.com on Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 12:20:54PM
	+0100

body:
On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 12:20:54PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information for
> free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about
> advertisements, sponsorships or whatever. The implication is that first
> and foremost the data is to be provided for FREE, the rest is thereby
> fluff, nice fluff but fluff. It is not what we explicitly do.
> Thanks,
>    Gerard

I don't care about free as in beer, as long as it's free as in speech.

--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
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5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:17:20 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>We should put en.wikipedia on a one-week cooldown edit freeze....

Maybe we should.  The trolls are RfCing as ROUGE ADMIN ABUSE every
single block and deletion they don't like, and they seem to be teaming
up to do it.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

body:
On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 12:21:06AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Hair splitting, but we can change it to "free content license".

"Free/Libre". And Erik, are you anywhere near the offices of the FSFE?
(Free Software Foundation Europe), they might be able to help clarify free
licencing language :-)

--
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subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> I guess I don't understand why Wikipedians would care about this,
> apart from preening.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> Will being in the top ten help us to write a better encyclopedia in
> some way that being in the top 100 doesn't?
>
>
>
More readers => more writers to share the work, better coverage of niche
subjects.

More readers => more influence to get bigger things done.

More readers => more mindshare for the free culture movement => more
similar projects.

-- Neil


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New mailing list address

body:
Hello, Wikipedia-l subscribers.

In case subscribers to this mailing list haven't been informed on
other mailing lists, the email address of all Wikimedia mailing lists
has changed. The new email address for the Wikipedia-l mailing list is
wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org (note that that is a Wikimedia domain,
not Wikipedia, as it was before).

Please update any email filters you might have to reflect this new
email address, and use it for all of your correpsondences to the
mailing list. Emails sent to the old email address will continue to
reach the mailing list for now.

~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list admin


from_name: Mark Clements

subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
"xaosflux" <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:000c01c731f5$002e2080$022aa8c0 at WSXW4200...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Users can set their signatures for pretty much whatever they want
> them to be, so a fix would need to encompas any characters parsed.
> OTOH, why whould anyone need to be including a signtaure as a
> parameter to a template?
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: PGP 8.0.2
>
> iQA/AwUBRaBCXNRQDZCQNK6YEQIX2ACg6WxsSRt7/A5whmJAySZNbOP32U4AnAwl
> tcpY0J7RY45c1U9zUiPNDFPB
> =qQTY
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

{{delete|I created this page by mistake --~~~~}}

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Default signature

body:
On 06/01/07, Andrew Garrett <andrew at epstone.net> wrote:
> ... We're not in the business of providing individual examples and
> counter-examples. Suffice to say there is no good reason *not* to support
> signatures in templates - and people do use signatures in templates - so we
> should support it.

>From an editor's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
point in whacking a signature in a template. If one wishes to sign a
tag, then place the tildes after the template call, as normal.

>From a developer's point of view, I don't see that there's a lot of
point worrying too much about what signatures do and don't work with -
we aren't under any obligation to support fancy signatures with 30-odd
lines of HTML, CSS and whatnot.

Rob Church


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?

body:
Maybe this is what you want?

Wikiwyg brings Wiki WYSIWYG to MediaWiki:
http://www.socialtext.com/node/90

Wikiwygify wikipedia.org:
http://demo.wikiwyg.net/wikiwyg/demo/wikipedia/

--
Hsiang-Tai Chien (H.T.)

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia! http://en.wikipedia.org

My Wikipedia User Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Htchien

My blog - Hsiang-Tai @ Taiwan: http://htchien.blogspot.com

My Flickr Photo Album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/htchien

Think Different, Do Smarter, Work for Joy!!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf
> Of Virgil Ierubino
> Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 12:31 AM
> To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org; wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org;
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>
> I understand the imperitive for maximal accessibility, but is
> it not also true that, these days, fewer and fewer people are
> using browsers that can't handle advanced features? The fact
> of the matter is that a website's
> *usability* is improved by taking advantage of the
> higher-tech architecture that modern browsers allow you to
> use. Can't MediaWiki default to its current state, but offer
> a per-user preference to turn on advanced options?
>
> Look at a site like Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com), for
> example, which is possibly one of the most beautifully
> constructed websites I have ever encountered. It is simple in
> layout and ridiculously easy to use on account of very good
> design, and the use of advanced code generating popups,
> immediate editing, etc. Furthermore their code is pristine; I
> have never seen an error, even in the advanced features, on
> any browser.
>
> The kind of MediaWiki advanced features I'm talking about
> could be something like instant editing. Think about if
> you're reading a long section of an article, and midway down
> there's a spelling error. There are so many reasons to not
> fix it: you'd have to scroll up to click the edit link on
> that section, you'd have to wait for it to load, you'd have
> to find the place again in the edit box, you'd have to wait
> for it to load again, and all this time you won't be able to
> continue reading your article, and you'll have lost your
> place. What if you could just click next to the relevant
> paragraph, turning it into an edit box on the same page - no
> loading - edit it, save it, and never once have to switch
> page. Something similar to the way you can edit posts in
> vBulletin without having to change pages. I know for sure
> that a feature like this would double the speed at which (and
> the likelihood of which) articles are improved.
>
> Obviously once you accept the usage of advanced elements like
> this there's no stopping how much easier you can make the
> site, and how user friendly. If the only grounds to not
> include this kind of feature are accessibility, just put each
> feature on a switch in user preferences.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

___________________________________________________
 ??????? ? ????????????????
 http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising and site notice

body:
On 07/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> Just for a head up (or down)
>
> First, I wanted to announce to all that there will be no more matching
> donors in that fundraiser.
> This is due to a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, the
> reaction of some members in the community.
>
> Second, the fundraiser is not over. It will be over on Wikipedia day.

For the benefit of everyone else, like me, who had to look this up -
January 15, ie a week on Monday.

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