from_name: Nick Boalch

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:
> I'd just like to let you know that I have proposed the structure of a
> Wikipedia Ombudsman, that would deal with any complaints leading from admin
> action and ArbCom cases.

What happens when people complain about the Ombudsman?

I think we should be avoiding bureacracy creep.

Cheers,

N.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia logo policy

body:
On 1/8/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, the idea is to extend the policy to cover all the logos. That
> might not have been done just yet, but there's no reason I know of
> that the same wording wouldn't apply.

Does the Board want projects to engage in some kind of cleanup
operation?  If so, should the images be speedily deleted?  Or should
we wait for another announcement?

--
Sam


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rewrite of Verifiability policy - further comments?

body:
Are there any further comments before the rewrite of the Verifiability policy
  on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp goes live? I don't
  want to rush things, I just want to be clear as to whether there are any
  outstanding points, and if so, what they are. If you do have any constructive
  comments, please place them on
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/temp.

  Jon
  (jguk)

---------------------------------
  Play Santa's Celebrity Xmas Party, an exclusive game from Yahoo!


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
>
>We need to create a clear policy on the creation and shutdown of Wikipedias and apply that
>retroactively to fix this and other similarly horrid mistakes.
>
>-- mav
>
The most horrid mistake would be a merger of wikipedias implement
fromthe top down. If the communities do not want it. Do not force them.
You would only chase away people, or create pedia's that are in a
constant editwar.

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Since I was one of the blocked in the sh project and I am one of the
guys that's "most responsible" for this, I thought that it would be best
to write here.

I agree with Elephantus here and I think that this project represents
nothing but a carbon copy of some articles from three distinct
wikipedias. Pokrajac, one of the admins at SH constantly claims that
Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are same languages, which is completely
insane. The languages have started diverging a long time ago and since
the 1990s, they have become more distant. It is true that the speakers
of those 3 languages are mutually intelligible, but that doesn't mean
that they speak the same language.

Moreover, they speak culturally and liguistically 3 different languages
and it's sometimes hard for me to understand what Bosnians or Croats are
saying just because of the diversity (I'm a Serb, by the way). Also,
these three wikipedias came out of Serbocroatian Wikipedia for a reason.
And they are not going to converge again and merge into SH. It's an
idealistic pro-yugoslavian thought that might work in an alternate
reality, but taking cultural, linguistic and other properties into
consideration, this can never be achieved and striding towards it is
only one step forward, but seven steps back.

Furthermore, as far as I know, there aren't any statistics proving that
a percentage of people claim that Serbocroatian language still exists,
or even less that they use it. If there were some kind of evidence that,
say, 20% of the people that speak sr, hr or bs, still consider
Serbocroatian  as a valid language, then there wouldn't be problems.
But, there is some kind of public awareness - it is my opinion that most
of the people dislike the phrase Serbocroatian and that they would stick
with something less contrived.

Conversely, I'd like to say that the space used for this project (read:
duplication of material that could/should be found elsewhere) is the
space that an African language of millions may use for spreading
cultural beliefs etc.

Overall, I think that keeping this project alive would be a selfish
idea, because only 3 people are willing to really contribute to it (btw,
don't let the recent changes as they are now fool you - they are usually
very slow, but filled with new articles with summaries like /Copied from
Serbian Wikipedia/, /Pasted from Croatian Wikipedia/ et al.)

And now to reply to some earlier posts:
To Daniel Meyer:
As I said on IRC, you're very wrong. I'm sorry to break it to you this
way, but Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian ARE different languages, albeit
mutually intelligible.
And the political conotation is way too big to neglect. People have
chosen to have separate wikipedias: just look at the growth of the three
in comparison to the "united one" (which is basically a fork). The three
didn't come out of the SH for no reason.

I agree with you that an active community means that the project should
be kept. In this case, the community is only relatively active (in this
case, activity = blatant copying and, although not a crime, it is
generally frowned upon). What I'm trying to say is that 3 people with
IMO wrong beliefs are holding this project down and because of that,
they have sympathizers that agree with them, although they don't really
know the problem itself.

To Dejan Cabrilo:
Knock it off with POV. I think it's better to have POV in some articles
(that are properly tagged) and just wait for those articles to meet
better contributors. Rome wasn't built in a day. What I think is wrong
is the lack of policy of Serbocroatian Wikipeda - there is no policy
about the script. You can write in Cyrillics, you can write in Latin
script, and no one really cares, which is IMO inexcusible. Furthermore,
this appearance of 2 scripts in the system messages is just wrong and
useless. Since variants (script conversion) is going to be introduced in
Serbian Wikipedia shortly, Serbocroatian is becoming obsolete.

Thanks for your time.
Filip Maljkovic, bureaucrat from Serbian wikipeda


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
We agree about harmful or threatening talk page content, altho where
do we draw the line? I find communism and satanism threatening
myself...

As per the clueless newbies, we completely disagree. My opinion is
that chasing them off instead of mentoring them damages the project in
a way immeasurably greater than user boxes, no matter how stupid they
are.

Sadly, too many people forget what admins are for. Admins are here to
help users, and maintain the project. We should never think things
like :

"these clueless newbies and their dumb ideas are a real bother to us
admins. Lets delete their user boxes and give them a serious scolding!
Then maybe they'll go away and us admins won't have so much work to
do"

Because that is how you kill a volunteer project. Wikipedia is not a
social club for admins and old hands, its a growing internet phenomena
designed to offer access to the sum total of human knowledge to
everyone. To do that, we need more help, not less.

Sam Spade

On 1/8/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/7/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> [On taking away userboxes to see what happens]
>
> >
> > This is not only completely illogical, it underscores how out of touch
> > admins can get. Intentionally taking away a source of joy from large
> > numbers of users in a bid to see if they'll leave, or if they'll just
> > accept your hegemony over them... thats pretty much the opposite of my
> > recipe for success in a volunteer setting.
> >
>
> Well, you should understand that I'm only talking here about userboxes
> that are potentially harmful to the project.  Boxes that are used to
> attack people or groups (anti-Jewish and anti-Scientologist boxes have
> appeared, and of course anything
>
> There's also a problem where newer users see this as a freedom of
> expression issue and wrongly believe that they have some kind of
> US-constitution style protection over what they say on their user
> pages.
>
> I don't think it's overdramatizing to say that these people are in
> general treating Wikipedia as some kind of hosting or social site.  If
> that is what they're here for, they're not volunteers but freeloaders.
>
> One way to find out is to take away their freebies and see how many
> leave.  Another would be to look at the people who have voted in the
> userbox controversy and see if significant numbers are in fact
> contributing anything to the encyclopedia.  Many of them aren't, but
> we don't have any quantification there.  If dealing with the issues
> arising from userboxes strains our administration, we should let these
> people go.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject: [Wikitech-l] Useless "developers"

body:
Thanks for your comments... but I got the message, besides it wasn't
"childish" in my opinion, it was meant to get a reaction for once,
apparently this is what it takes :(. I took my chill pills, so we'll see
when it all happens :)

Serv

2006/1/8, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
> Servien,
>
> When new Wikipedias have been created in the past, it wasn't because
> we called the developers names or resorted to other such childish
> tactics.
>
> It is because we were patient, treated them with respect, asked kindly
> and in a personal way, and didn't pout if they didn't give us what we
> asked for _right away_.
>
> If I had acted like you are right now in advocating for their
> creation, I'm betting we wouldn't have the Udmurt, Venet, Lombard,
> etc. Wikipedias.
>
> So take my advice and take it down a notch. Take a chill pill. You're
> not going to die if these Wikipedias aren't created immediately. You
> have to be patient. The developers are your friends.
>
> They are on a busy schedule, and remember that it is a volunteer job
> and they aren't paid except by donations (with one exception). The
> developers have to worry about "real" jobs, school, family, and every
> other concern of normal human beings because after all, they _are_
> normal human beings (a developer can correct me if I'm wrong there).
>
> So give them a break. If you do, the Wikipedias will be created
> eventually. If you don't, it will never be created.
>
> Mark
>
> On 08/01/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm sure they are usefull for developing software. But most people
> who've
> > requested a wiki are kind of getting tired of waiting all the time.
> First
> > they have to go through a long boring process which can take up to even
> half
> > a year before they are approved when it's approved they wait about
> another
> > half a year... by that time most people who initially wanted to work on
> the
> > project decided not to anymore.
> >
> > If someone would have told us the whole blikketyblek is frozen, we would
> > have had some kind of understanding. ISO codes aren't enoug: these wikis
> > have been approved this means there have been serious discussions.
> >
> > I really hope a new wiki will be created this year though. (if possible)
> >
> > Serv
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 2006/1/8, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > On 1/7/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > A much better policy needs to be created that takes this into
> account.
> > >
> > > Preferably a much better and *retroactive* policy.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Sam
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS is filling again

body:
Dear wikien,

the Ticket System for email inquiries is again filling with requests.
Before the holiday season, we were able to kill the list of 300 open
tickets down to 30, now it is up again.

This OTRS can be considered an important and exhausting job. A large
share of those emails are related to wikipedia with standard questions
("Security Warning! Anyone can edit the page!), some of them are not
related at all (I would like to buy 30 tons of Steel pipes, I found you
on the internet).

Anyone who is not afraid of inbound email inquiries and who is willing
to spend some time in explaining how things work here is invited to help
out.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR_department#Accounts_on_OTRS

Thanks for your help.

Mathias


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unused userboxes

body:
Hi,
  Not to be dumb, but if people substitute rather than transclude
templates such as userboxes, how do you know whether anyone's using them
or not? They would need unique text that you could search for.

Steve

> Unused userboxes that have been around for a while (i.e. not
> created in the
> immediate past) should definitely be deleted (aside from
> those that fill a
> pattern, such as Babel langauges/levels where no-one speaks
> it yet). Are
> there any arguments for keeping these userboxes?
> Alternatively, I would also
> argue for the deletion of all userboxes only used by one
> person (and the
> userbox has been around for some time): what's the point of having a
> template and category for something only one person is going
> to use? We
> could just tell the person to substitute it on his/her
> userpage instead.


from_name: elephantus

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
>That Serbian, Croation, and Bosnian are separate languages appears to be a politically-convenient
>fiction that wants to enforce differences that don't really exist. That can only tend to enforce
>component-nation-specific POVs and thus violate NPOV (as would having separate Wikipedais for
>Simplified and Traditional Chinese).

The existence of a single Serbo-Croatian language was a
political fiction, enforced and maintained by a communist
dictatorship which imprisoned people for speaking their
mind out loud, fired them from their jobs and made it impossible
for them to get another one, and also kept secret police files on
large parts of the population.

Unsurprisingly, the fiction collapsed together with the
dictatorship. Today this idea is considered outlandish
by almost all speakers of Croatian and Bosnian (and a great majority
of Serbian speakers). That there are still some Serbs who
stick to this fiction is probably due to the fact that their
language (Serbian) had favored status within the Serbo-
Croatian fiction (ie it was almost exclusively used by
the army, diplomacy, federal service etc.).

Thank you,

Elephantus

from the Croatian Wikipedia

--
XXLadsl ponuda do 15.01.2006.- ve?e brzine, iste cijene. Samo kod
IskonInterneta uz XXLadsl surfajte 60 dana neograni?eno za samo 1kunu!


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Did I miss the great Digital Universe debate?

body:
charles matthews wrote:

> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without
> errors or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more
> significant ...

Not just Technicolor, but also 3-D I believe. Basically, it would appear
to mix the ideals of two defunct projects, Nupedia and OneCosmos.net,
with a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on your point of view) dose of
UFOlogy behind it as well.

I'm not sure what there is to debate about the vaporware, though.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Oh, I get it now. Cabrilo doesn't want to contribute to ANY of the 3
languages (oh the glamour of being exclusive), but wants another (4th!)
project for him and 2 of his pals who share the same political view.
That's being selfish to me and this proves that SH is just a political
intersection of the 3 more prominent wikipedias.

elephantus wrote:

>>That Serbian, Croation, and Bosnian are separate languages appears to be a politically-convenient
>>fiction that wants to enforce differences that don't really exist. That can only tend to enforce
>>component-nation-specific POVs and thus violate NPOV (as would having separate Wikipedais for
>>Simplified and Traditional Chinese).
>>
>>
>
>The existence of a single Serbo-Croatian language was a
>political fiction, enforced and maintained by a communist
>dictatorship which imprisoned people for speaking their
>mind out loud, fired them from their jobs and made it impossible
>for them to get another one, and also kept secret police files on
>large parts of the population.
>
>Unsurprisingly, the fiction collapsed together with the
>dictatorship. Today this idea is considered outlandish
>by almost all speakers of Croatian and Bosnian (and a great majority
>of Serbian speakers). That there are still some Serbs who
>stick to this fiction is probably due to the fact that their
>language (Serbian) had favored status within the Serbo-
>Croatian fiction (ie it was almost exclusively used by
>the army, diplomacy, federal service etc.).
>
>Thank you,
>
>Elephantus
>
>from the Croatian Wikipedia
>
>
>
>


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Digital Universe

body:
You don't have to buy any of it.

Fred

On Jan 8, 2006, at 12:48 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Did I miss the great Digital Universe debate?
>>
>> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor
>> without errors
>> or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more
>> significant ...
>>
>
> I'm not sure I've got it all figured out, but... according to
> http://www.digitaluniverse.net/participate/ , "While participation
> in discussion about the Digital Universe is free, we do require
> that you have a registered account with us. You can also download
> the free ManyOne browser..."
>
> The free ManyOne browser, which apparently embodies technology
> needed to participate, is only available for Windows 2000 or
> Windows XP.
>
> While "participation in discussion about the Digital Universe" may
> be "free," according to http://isp.earthportal.net/ it appears that
> getting that "registered account" costs $7.95 a month.
>
> I have no idea what they think they're doing, but I am not impressed.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mohamad Takriti

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia Blocked IP address 82.148.97.67 is for the
	whole counrty!

body:
I am not sure if anyone is taking this seriously, but I am surprised that
one person can easily block a potentially large number of people from
editing Wikipedia, then ignore repeated pleas to unblock!

This process definitely needs to be revised, because keeping users blocked
for weeks is clearly against the concept of wiki's open, contributory model.

Maybe CNET can pickup on this and shed some light on yet another Wikipedia
flaw.

Regards,
Mohamad

On 1/2/06, Mohamad Takriti <takriti at gmail.com> wrote:

> HM,
>
> 1. Mohamad Takriti
> 2. 82.148.97.67
> 3. Qatar Telecom (www.qtel.com.qa)
>
> Takriti
>
>
>
> On 12/28/05, Hall Monitor <monitorhall at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > (Note: This is an automatically generated response.)
> >
> > Thank you for contacting me.  It would be most helpful if you provided
> > me with the following information so that I or someone else may assist
> > you:
> >
> > 1. Your Wikipedia account name
> > 2. Your IP address (the one that is blocked)
> > 3. The name of the institution your IP address belongs to
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> >
> > HM
> >
> > On 12/25/05, Mohamad Takriti <takriti at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > This is my second email to you. I beleive that you blocked the whole
> > country of Qatar by blocking the IP address 82.148.97.67. Please fix
> > this as we cannot now make any edits!
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Mohamad

--
Regards,
Mohamad


from_name: Poe, Marshall

subject: [Foundation-l] Nupedia-l archives

body:
Hi, I wondered if someone might be able to tell me where I could find
the archives of Nupedia-l.  8media.org uses to have them, but is down.

Best,

Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
The Atlantic Monthly
600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-6511
mpoe at theatlantic.com
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Angela
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 7:41 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia logo policy

On 1/8/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does the Board want projects to engage in some kind of cleanup
> operation?  If so, should the images be speedily deleted?  Or should
> we wait for another announcement?

I'd suggest waiting. There's no need to be too hasty to irreversibly
delete images. Let's work out the policy on derivatives first.

Angela
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Nupedia-l archives


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of Power

body:
Mason Patrick E SSgt 28 MUNS/MXWKB wrote:
> User Talrias is abusing his power as an administrator and I would like
> to formally request that he be reprimanded for this and also request
> that my editing privileges be reinstated. Thank you.

This situation has been resolved. :)

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Userbox fads

body:
On 1/8/06, Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is the kind of policy or statement that we need. Anything that wastes
> time and valuable server resources (such as "This user considers himself to
> be an expert player of Bridge") can be canned.

I personally suspect that more time (of those who actually contribute
to the encyclopedia) is being wasted by arguing over these things.
Userboxes such as this are largely pointless, but IMO non-harmful.

I think by and large userboxes are silly, and a self-written
self-description on a user's page is much more interesting and useful,
but I think there is nothing so objectionable about non-factionalizing
userboxes that requires so draconian a policy, or its enforcement.

Substing userboxes is probably a good idea, though, to reduce
potential server load if commonly used userboxes are updated.

-Matt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Caroline Ford wrote:

>But linguistically almost _the_ test of "what is a language" is mutual
>comprehensibility.
>
A helpful tool, perhaps, but hardly the defining test. Consider the
Scandinavian languages.

I would venture that the linguistic relationship between
Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian is somewhat like the relationship between
Danish/Norwegian/Swedish was from the Kalmar Union to the 19th-century
period of romantic nationalism (after accounting for the increased
uniformity promoted in more modern times by the printing press and
universal education). The present differences are partly exaggerated for
political reasons, but the political side of the equation is also likely
to produce increasing distinguishability in a real sense over time. A
single Serbo-Croatian wiki might be the right choice if we thought
language was something frozen in place. If we conclude that languages
continue to evolve, separate wikis might ultimately be more appropriate.
In the interim, while this remains unsettled, I don't think it's
necessarily awful that we're working along both tracks simultaneously.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/4/06, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 4, 2006, at 10:52 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:
> >
> > * they misuse wikipedia's Fair Use guidelines
> > * they enable zealots with similar POVs to find each other
> > * they cause divisiveness
> > * they are an unnecessary burden on the servers
> > * there are Wikipedians who spend more time on Userboxes than on
> > contributing to the rest of Wikipedia
>
>
> You're missing a key one - the userbox project has become a poisonous
> pit that explicitly targets those who do not like userboxes, and it
> is actively fostering a crusade mentality. This is a systemic
> problem, not one of specific boxes. In short, the project itself
> needs to go.

Oh please. I think userboxes are silly but this argument might be even
sillier. A "crusade mentality" cannot survive without an enemy. If
people weren't trying to delete the userboxes then there wouldn't be a
crusade. Using the fact of objection to deletion as a reason for
deletion is ludicrious.

If people are not being civil, we have WP:CIVIL. Userboxes don't make
uncivil comments, users do. And deleting their little boxes without a
good reason isn't going to make that any better.

FF


from_name: Ben Emmel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Userbox fads

body:
On 1/8/06, W. Guy Finley <wgfinley at dynascope.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/8/06 9:02 AM, "wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org"
> <wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org> wrote:
>
> > From: "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 01:14:34 +1030
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads
> >
> > Here's my solution to the userbox problem.
> >
> > Any "userbox" (aka. babel-like template) which does not
> >
> > - Inform the reader about the languages (human) that one can understand
> > and edit in
> >
> > - Inform the reader about the languages (computer) that one is
> > proficient in to some degree and can use those skills constructively
> > towards editing
> >
> > - Inform the reader about what browser/operating system they use so that
> > they can be consulted wrt. technical issues with the wiki
> >
> > - Inform the reader about what musical instruments they play so that
> > Free music can be recorded for articles
> >
> > - Inform the reader about what WikiProjects they are part of so that
> > other editors can consult them about articles related to that
> wikiproject
> >
> > should be deleted. WikiProject Userboxes should ensure that userboxes
> > remain as things which are useful to other editors, in the task of
> > building an encyclopedia. Such silly things as "This user is a dickbrain
> > with no respect for consensus, policy, copyright issues, or the task of
> > writing an encyclopedia" should be deleted, and the user banned for
> > wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.
>
>
> I could live with and support this.
>
> --Guy (User:Wgfinley)

This is the kind of policy or statement that we need. Anything that wastes
time and valuable server resources (such as "This user considers himself to
be an expert player of Bridge") can be canned.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
That's not a solution, that's just a codification of the assertion
that userboxes, aside from everything else on a user page, needs to be
"practical". If you are going to apply these to userboxes, why not
apply them to images in userpages? Why not apply them to all text?

I still haven't seen why recreational userbox use is something so
"special" it needs separate guidelines for it. I agree they are ugly,
and that in some instances people use them to find other like-minded
people to vote on things. However I have yet to see a sound citation
of policy which indicates that either of these are unequivocally
against the rules in all circumstances.

This whole affair looks like a pet peeve which has gotten ridiculously
out of hand, to the detriment of all involved.

FF

On 1/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's my solution to the userbox problem.
>
> Any "userbox" (aka. babel-like template) which does not
>
> - Inform the reader about the languages (human) that one can understand
> and edit in
>
> - Inform the reader about the languages (computer) that one is
> proficient in to some degree and can use those skills constructively
> towards editing
>
> - Inform the reader about what browser/operating system they use so that
> they can be consulted wrt. technical issues with the wiki
>
> - Inform the reader about what musical instruments they play so that
> Free music can be recorded for articles
>
> - Inform the reader about what WikiProjects they are part of so that
> other editors can consult them about articles related to that wikiproject
>
> should be deleted. WikiProject Userboxes should ensure that userboxes
> remain as things which are useful to other editors, in the task of
> building an encyclopedia. Such silly things as "This user is a dickbrain
> with no respect for consensus, policy, copyright issues, or the task of
> writing an encyclopedia" should be deleted, and the user banned for
> wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of Power

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Ryan Delaney wrote:
>
>>Maybe he needs an indef block. Obviously a troll.
>>
>
>
> What! An obvious troll is an admin??? OH NOES!!!!!!!ELEVENTYONE

Well, someone did think I was Marsden recently. Or that Marsden was me.
Uh, that we were the same person. :)

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Why is it that I agree with Sam Spade? Honestly, I still do not see
what all the fuss is about. Let people play with their silly trinkets.
They will tire of them and make new trinkets later. All you do in
heaping so much attention on one particular trinket is guarantee its
prolonged existence.

FF

On 1/6/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Taking away peoples user boxes is pointless and disruptive. Admins who
> think they should defy consensus to delete peoples self labels are out
> of line. I understand that discussing mastrabation is in bad taste. So
> are ALOT of user pages. I have been very disturbed by users whose
> pages tell me they are into Satanism, are a "perverted trannfag", or
> have a giant che image or soviet star. The single most disruptive user
> page I know is this one:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deeceevoice
>
> and it has no user boxes.
>
> If there are real objections, craft real policy to deal w them. Do not
> persecute a popular trend in a disruptive manner. That just reinforces
> rebellion and resentment against haughty admins.
>
> Sam Spade
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Did I miss the great Digital Universe debate?

body:
I think the consensus was, "It'll be humorous and perhaps a little sad
to see how little they end up with after blowing $10 million," or
maybe that was just my opinion on it.

FF

On 1/8/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without errors
> or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more significant ...
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Delirium

body:
charles matthews wrote:

> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without
> errors or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more
> significant ...

Well, it's hard to tell what it'll turn out to be until something starts
happening.

So long as their license is compatible with the GFDL (which if they
bootstrap from Wikipedia it'll have to be), I see no problems with it.
If they produce useful improvements in content quality on some articles
that they get reviewed by experts, we can fold in those changes to
Wikipedia, too.

-Mark


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
Honestly sounds like an attempt to subsume or parallel functions that
already rest with Jimbo Wales.  I also have serious concerns about
adding yet more bureaucratic positions to Wikipedia.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/8/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> We agree about harmful or threatening talk page content, altho where
> do we draw the line? I find communism and satanism threatening
> myself...

It's not the espousal of views that is problematic.  Saying you're a
communist or a satanist on your user page is fine with me (even a
proponent of global warfare in the interests of one's country, there
are plenty of them around).  It's the factionalization, achieved by
the use of cateogories and possibly (though I'm not entirely convinced
on this) through the "whatlinkshere" mechanism, that is the problem in
my view.

> We should never think things
> like :
>
> "these clueless newbies and their dumb ideas are a real bother to us
> admins. Lets delete their user boxes and give them a serious scolding!
> Then maybe they'll go away and us admins won't have so much work to
> do"
>

I can see your concerns, but I'm not really convinced here.  I see it
as possibly quite a large number new people who have no interest in
the project and would probably be happier elsewhere.  While the
evidence here is at present somewhat anecdotal, and we should proceed
with caution, I want to do more investigation on this to see just how
much inclination these new users have shown to get down to working on
the encyclopedia rather than their user pages.


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Digital Universe

body:
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Did I miss the great Digital Universe debate?
>
> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor
> without errors
> or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more
> significant ...

I'm not sure I've got it all figured out, but... according to http://
www.digitaluniverse.net/participate/ , "While participation in
discussion about the Digital Universe is free, we do require that you
have a registered account with us. You can also download the free
ManyOne browser..."

The free ManyOne browser, which apparently embodies technology needed
to participate, is only available for Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

While "participation in discussion about the Digital Universe" may be
"free," according to http://isp.earthportal.net/ it appears that
getting that "registered account" costs $7.95 a month.

I have no idea what they think they're doing, but I am not impressed.


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
"Tony Sidaway" wrote

>Honestly sounds like an attempt to subsume or parallel functions that
already rest with Jimbo Wales.

Well, yes, Jimbo would now have the power to review what the ArbCom does (as
nobody can deny). He is de facto the Ombudsman around the English Wikipedia.
If he wanted to devolve some responsibility to a trusted person, that would
sound OK to me.  It's not as if Jimbo has no further calls on his time, and
can put hours into reviewing diffs without any impact on those other
matters.

 >I also have serious concerns about
adding yet more bureaucratic positions to Wikipedia.

Ah, but your bureaucrat may be my useful and committed person taking some of
the strain of matching WP's ideal and practice.  And vice versa, I suppose.

Charles


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 08/01/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Oh no no no no!  It was in the works for a long time, and I'm very sorry
> the timing made it appear this way.  To my knowledge anyway, no one
> really connected this in any way to any work that you're doing.

I am just a conspiracy theorist at heart :) I'm glad there are
guidelines now on the logo use; someone's put a lot of effort into
them and (in my opinion) they have been sorely needed.

Just one question: what is the position regarding derivatives of the
project logos? Does this policy apply to them too?

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Carbonite

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/8/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why is it that I agree with Sam Spade? Honestly, I still do not see
> what all the fuss is about. Let people play with their silly trinkets.
> They will tire of them and make new trinkets later. All you do in
> heaping so much attention on one particular trinket is guarantee its
> prolonged existence.

Then we should make userboxes nothing more than silly trinkets. They
should be snippets of code that someone adds to their user page and
nothing more. Just a few simple ground rules: No fair use images and
no user categories. I think that the opposition would pretty much
disappear if userboxes truly were nothing more than a box with some
text.

Carbonite


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

body:
Also we need project name policy.

It's easy with "Wikipedia". "Encyclopedia" is an international word in
the vast majority of modern languages, but we have project name in
different alphabet.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Final_logo_variants/Nohat#Version_X

It's quite another matter with WikiSource. Word  "Source" is not easy
to translate. So, example, en Russian, we have "????????" (WikiThek)
that literally means "WikiLibrary". In Hebrew it's "WikiText"
See http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Project_namespaces

--
Alexander Sigachov


from_name: Александр Сигачёв


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Achieving validation on Wikipedia

body:
Tidy Cat wrote:

>Hi.  I've been studying the issue of article  validation on Wikipedia for almost two months now (since before the  Seigenthaler incident), and I've written up an in-depth analysis of it  at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TidyCat/Achieving_validation_on_Wikipedia
>
>  I would appreciate any feedback anyone would be willing to offer me.
>
>  -- TidyCat
>
>
>
>
That seems an admirable summary of the underlying problems and the
various competing proposals to date. Your suggested solution also has
many good points; I'm not sure of its scalability, though; the more
rules and process, the less scalable something is.

Getting the balance right between the extremes of an anarchic
free-for-all and a full Nupedia-style multi-level verification process
is going to be hard, but I think all the recent suggestions from all
sides of the argument have been remarkably useful and constructive.

Can anyone tell me what the status of the article-rating software is,
please?

-- Neil


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I have no doubt that whoever ran those bulk setups didn't read the whole list
>>and wasn't aware that that particular combination of languages was present.
>>Ascribing motives or claiming "a grave violation of NPOV" is simply absurd.
>>
>>
>I don't think anybody here is blaming the developer who created the wikis or allowed them to be
>created. The violation is much more esoteric than that; that we have separate wikis for political
>instead of real linguistic reasons. That, not the act of creating if the developer did not know,
>is the violation.
>
In picking up on your statement I didn't see any blame attached, and no
ascribing of motives was involved.  To me it was nothing more than an
historical observation.  Our current situation is what it is
irrespective of the historical path that got us there.

Ec


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Request for approval for a wiki for standards

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>> I want to add that there is a huge need for open and free (as in
>>> speech as well as beer) standards.  Even modestly priced standards
>>> from groups like ANSI or ISO can cost more than $200 a piece, and
>>> I've seen some fairly general standards documents costing more than
>>> $100,000 each with some incredibly draconian non-disclosure
>>> agreements.  Even supposedly public standards like the National
>>> Electrical Code that governs how buildings are wired with
>>> electricity can cost a couple thousand dollars... and that is a
>>> matter of law that you have to live by.
>>
>>
>> To what extent do these standards have the force of law, particularly
>> in the United States.  When the United States ratifies a treaty it
>> means that it has effectively made that treaty a part of the law of
>> the United States.  Since US laws are excluded from copyright we
>> should be free to include the standards that have been so adopted
>> into Wikisource.
>>
>> Ec
>
> Treaties are one thing, but I'm also talking civil code that is passed
> by legislative bodies, including the U.S. Congress.  The National
> Electrical Code in particular has been adopted almost completely by
> several state legislatures in the USA and all construction that takes
> place in those states, by law, must conform to that standard as a
> result.  What is interesting about this particular set of codes is
> that the body who wrote the standard is still claiming copyright
> status over the text of the code, dispite the fact that they have
> lobbied for and won formal legislative approval for the code by
> governmental bodies. The actual copyright status is unclear at the
> moment and subject to legal wrangling, and is going through the court
> system right now where some people are suing precisely because it is
> felt that actual laws that we live under should be made available in
> the public domain.  Because of the murky legal status at the moment, I
> would recommend that the Wikimedia Foundation and sister projects stay
> away from standards like this at the moment.  Still, I'm giving this
> as an example of a standard that should be free, and had it been
> available in a copyleft license instead of a propritary license by a
> bunch of people trying to make some quick money, the whole legal mess
> could have been avoided.
>
> The justification for charging anything for standards at all usually
> breaks down into the following arguments:
>
> 1) The physical media that the standards are printed on isn't cheap,
> including web servers to host the content.
> 2) Standards development costs money to develop, including dealing
> with staff members who have to help organize and maintain the
> standards documents for long after the development has been completed,
> and organizing conferences that get the standards committee members
> together.
> 3) Some industries want to put a higher bar up for people trying to
> implement the standards, and if you can put up $100,000 for a standard
> document, you are likely to have some serious additional money to get
> a business going that would use the standard.
>
> Of these arguments, I really only support the first one, and that is
> an issue that the Wikimedia Foundation deals with all of the time
> anyway. This proposal is to have the organization of the standards
> take place in virtual space, so there is no need to put up a standing
> committee in 4-star hotels, car rentals, plane tickets, and all of the
> rest of the expenses that happen with trying to get a group of people
> physically brought together.  That by itself will substantially reduce
> the costs of standards development.  If a group still wants to
> physically get together at a place like Wikimania, they can but it
> must be done at their own expense and is independent of the
> development of the standard itself.
>
Hoi,
There was an organisation in the USA that had to do with building
regulations. They claimed copyright to their document including the
document that passed into law. This organisation lost its right to claim
restrictions to the document that became law in a court case. There is
this thing called precedence.

 From you argument, I understand that because something is not to your
liking, we should not be interested. We should not be interested even
thought it is the very people who are asking for this wiki, who are the
ones that are involved into the standards process ?? Yes, there are some
people who think it makes sense to ask for payment to get a copy of a
standards document. There are also some people who take the complete
opposite position. If anything, I would think from your arguments that
you would support the people who are arguing for more open access to
standards.

Why you mention Wikimania is beyond me .. then again thinking of
Wikimania as a conference where standards are set has some appeal :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of Power

body:
jayjg wrote:
>>Well, someone did think I was Marsden recently. Or that Marsden was me.
>>Uh, that we were the same person. :)
>
>
>
> Really?  I didn't see that.
>
> Jay.

That's because you are not privy to every conversation I have. :)

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


from_name: Francis Tyers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Serbian Wikipedia has more then 10.000 normal articles; Croatian has
at least 6.000-8.000 normal articles.

Articles that include the year 2056:

http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/2056

I don't think ''number of articles'' is a reasonable benchmark in this case.

Fran


from_name: Dejan Cabrilo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
> They differ in reading as well as they differ in comprension. Let me
> give you an example: My friend went to Bosnia to see her relatives (she
> goes anually). When she returned from Bosnia, she was overwhelmed by the
> fact that she learned so many new words. Bosnian is constantly being
> under influence of Muslims and there you go. I'm afraid I won't
> understand them should I ever go there. Another example is the fact that
> according to my unofficial survey, most of the people my age (18 or so,
> which is an important age group) and some of the other ages don't
> actually know the names of the months in Croatian.

True that many people don't know Croatian words for months. That's why
in casual conversation, we either use international names or just
number them.

Funny you should say that Bosnian is hard to understand. Few weeks
ago, a Bosnian film "Go West" was shown in Belgrade, and it's producer
Ahmed Imamovi? was a guest on Belgrade radio station B92. Of course,
the film was not subtitled Bosnian->Serbian. They assumed everyone in
Belgrade can understand Bosnian.

Imamovi? is from Sarajevo, he talked about the film, listeners were
calling in and talking to him. There was no trouble in understanding
at all. I listened to all of it, so it was part Bosnian, part Serbian,
and I understood it all.

Also, just this morning, over my tea, I was reading Croatian weekly
Feral Tribune (http://feral.mediaturtle.com/), and among other
articles, which were all writen in Croatian, I read this:
http://feral.mediaturtle.com/look/weekly1/article.tpl?IdLanguage=7&IdPublication=1&NrArticle=12535&NrIssue=1059&NrSection=2
article by Petar Lukovi?, who is writing in Serbian (if I am not
mistaken, he is from Serbia and lives there). I read most of this
edition of Feral Tribune, and I understood both stuff in Croatian, and
stuff written by the Serbian author. If Lukovi? was not writing about
politics in Serbia, I would probably never notice that I am reading
two oh so different languages.

Some time ago, in Serbian daily Danas (www.danas.co.yu), which
unfortunately doesn't keep archives from more than few days, I read an
article from Croatian Novi List (http://www.novilist.hr/), which was
in its original form, so - Croatian. Iirc (they often use Novi List's
articles), this one was regarding arrest of Ante Gotovina.

And just moments ago, I wanted to check the result of basketball game between
Partizan (Serbia) and  Bosna ASA BHT (Bosnia), so I went to
http://goodyear.adriaticbasket.com/. I wanted to get details of the
game, as I am a fan and couldn't watch it, so I went to their
discussion forum topic:
http://forum.adriaticbasket.net/viewtopic.php?t=4794
... where fans of both Bosna and Partizan were commenting the game as
it was progressing - with usual fan teasing (ok, teasing is a weak
word). Nobody called for a dictionary.

Cheers,
Dejan

P.S. Partizan won, if anyone cares.


body:
I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without errors
or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more significant ...

Charles


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Filip Maljkovic wrote:

>> What kind of doublespeak is that? The purpose of language is to
>> confer meaning. If the three
>> dialects are mutually intelligible and we have a means to deal with
>> differences in script, then
>> there is in fact just one language as far as we are concerned. In
>> other words, if articles in one
>> can be copied to the others and only require minor changes in writing
>> (if at all; esp in cases of
>> use of the same script), then there is only one language and thus
>> only a need for one wiki.
>> -- mav
>>
> Are you people crazy or blind? The point is that THESE PEOPLE DON'T
> WANNA HAVE 1 ENCYCLOPEDIA.

If absolutely nobody wanted an sh-Wikipedia we wouldn't be having this
discussion at all.

> The proof is everywhere. E.g. why were SR, HR and BS created? Because
> people wanted to. Why is SH so underdeveloped (and 200, not 2000, is a
> very optimistic number for articles made in the project, not copied
> word by word from elsewhere)?  Because close to no one wants to
> contribute to it. Is there an ISO for SH? No there isn't. And you
> can't really compare English with these languages. There's been a war
> for crying out loud.

Since when does some silly war solve anything?

> People have been through a lot and you can't just neglect the
> political aspect. Has there been any resistance in, say, Australian or
> Canadian communities? I don't think so.

My experience with the Yugoslav diaspora in Canada, many of whom
immigrated before Yugoslavia broke up, is that they still see
Serbo-Croatian as one language.

> Unlike English, these three languages are not that similar and,
> because of the cultural and political reasons (again, you can't
> neglect those, because those are some of the lifes' aspects; after
> all, we aren't robots), one project shared by all three language users
> could never exist. You just cannot force people to merge the knowledge
> after the projects have been successful for a few years on their own.
> You'd definitely get resistance and you'll just disrupt the Balkans
> again. You'd do more damage than good.

Unlike Mav, I do not support an imposed merger of these projects.  It
might be nice if they did, but I don't see anything realistic about that
possibility.

> SH is holding up because less than a handful of people are
> "contributing" to it.

That's an apparent fact.

> The reason why I want this project closed is because it's really
> unnecessary to have a 4th encyclopedia, when 3 are functioning just
> great on their own.

If a project is to cease operation it must be *allowed* to die a natural
death.  As long as people keep insisting that SH be closed there will be
resistance, and that will keep it alive.  Once we are sure that it has
stopped breathing, it will be safe to turn off the life support systems.

> Now all of a sudden, a group of foreign people just want to intervene
> and decide what's best for us, without any information at all. Why is
> that "foreigners" (I am using this word to describe people that don't
> speak SR, BS or HR) only voted for keeping SH whereas most of the
> local people voted for closing?

Sometimes people outside are able to look at such situations in a more
detached way.  "Democracy in America" (written in 1832) was one of the
best analyses of what can go wrong with the American system, but it was
written by a Frenchman.

> *Every problem in the world will get solved the minute someone from
> the outside stops meddling!*

The problem with that is that some of those solutions are not very nice.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
>Moreover, they speak culturally and liguistically 3 different languages
>and it's sometimes hard for me to understand what Bosnians or Croats
>are saying just because of the diversity (I'm a Serb, by the way).

Does this confusion pass over into reading aswell? I have trouble
understanding what some people with thick English accents say,
doesn't mean I can't understand everything that they write.

Perhaps if you are struggling with understanding something written in the
Croatian or Bosnian Wikipedias, you could pass it over to someone else
to translate for you?

Stop clouding the issue.

Fran


from_name: Caroline Ford

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
But linguistically almost _the_ test of "what is a language" is mutual
comprehensibility. If they are mutually comprehensible they you should be
able to understand Bosnians or Croats.

If the communication problems result from shared cultural assumptions (eg
religious, popular culture references) then this no different from speakers
of various varieties of English.

Once you say they are mutually comprehensible you are saying that for
non-social reasons they are the same language.

Caroline/secretlondon

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Filip Maljkovic
Sent: 08 January 2006 11:20
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

The languages have started diverging a long time ago and since the 1990s,
they have become more distant. It is true that the speakers of those 3
languages are mutually intelligible, but that doesn't mean that they speak
the same language.

Moreover, they speak culturally and liguistically 3 different languages and
it's sometimes hard for me to understand what Bosnians or Croats are saying
just because of the diversity (I'm a Serb, by the way).
Thanks for your time.
Filip Maljkovic, bureaucrat from Serbian wikipeda
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.15/223 - Release Date: 06/01/2006


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Dejan Cabrilo wrote:

>>The theory is fine, but unless we can read the language(s) we have no
>>way of knowing whether NPOV is in fact being followed.
>>
>>
>Of course, we could go article for article, but some "interesting"
>stuff that is apparently acceptable on one of those "national"
>Wikipedias is:
>http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/?????_?????????_??_?????? (Gospel of
>Matthew, full edition)
>[[????? ????????? ?? ?????]] (Gospel of Mark, also full edition)
>
>Not that big of a deal, but still, everybody thinks that it's OK to
>post the Holy Bible on Wikipedia.
>
My objection to that would have nothing to do with NPOV but with the
principle that original texts belong in Wikisource.  Still it's up to
each Wikipedia to decide for itself how it wants to handle that.

>This is a proposed policy, which resulted after I labeled a bunch of
>articles as POV:
>http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/??????????:?????_????????
>or, Wikipedia:Points of View
>
>Basically, it's a proposal to allow people to write from certain POVs,
>which would be labeled so. Here are the rules (my translation from
>that page):
>1. At least one editor wants to write about it.
>2. At least five editors support legitimacy of that POV.
>3. At least one of those five is an admin.
>4. At least five articles in user namespace describing that POV.
>5. That the POV does not promote racial, religious or other hate and
>doesn't call for violence. This is solemly a concern of such things as
>fascism or nazism.
>6. That the POV has local (i.e. is connected to Serbia somehow) or
>global importance.
>7. That the POV is described in a proper place on Serbian Wikipedia.
>
>Like I said, this was a proposed policy, from May 2005 (the last time
>I was active on Serbian Wikipedia, it was in part a response to the
>fact that I overnight labeled a bunch of articles as POV, because I
>found them to be essays on Orthodox Christianity, but obviously,
>others realized the POV in supporting this policy). Still, it got 5
>votes for, and 3 against. I think it describes the inherit POV of such
>national projects.
>
Without going into details, it is conceivable as a possible solution for
dealing with NPOV problems.   Although NPOV is a broad policy that
affects all projects, communities will sometimes need to find their own
way of implementing it.

>That policy never made it thru, but for example, if you visit
>[[??????????:?????????]], which is Category:Saints, you will notice in
>almost each and every article among those the following line at the
>bottom:
>"?????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??????? ?? ????????? ??????? ?????? ???????
>???????? ????????????. ?? ?? ??????? ????????? ???????" - meaning "Big
>chunk of this text was taken from Ohrid's Prologue of St. Ruler (not
>sure about translation of his title) Nikolaj Velimirovic. It is not
>affected by copyright."
>
>Now, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaj_Velimirovic was a part of
>Serbian Orthodox Church and writer of big part of its doctrine (or at
>least, what some say should be). So, it's much worse than copying
>stuff from some outdated encyclopedia, it's actually copying stuff
>from the source which is as POV as possible. And that seems acceptable
>on Serbian Wiki. Most of the articles are totally POV, as you can
>imagine coming from a church source.
>
I see that Velimirovic died in the US in 1956, and I assume that the
copyright issue was properly researched.  Again, whole texts are more
properly placed in Wikisource.  If Velimirovic is quoted then those
quotes need proper attribution.  That doesn't stop others from quoting
different authors with an opposite point of view.

>The reason I am writing this is to show that national wikipedias are
>inheritly biased - they can be very good on covering stuff like
>nature, science, etc. but when it comes to more touchy topics, it will
>be hard to get editors from different perspectives.
>
As much as I agree, if no-one accepts the responsibility of adding the
opposing points of view, they won't be there.

>I am pretty much presented with a choice: should I use Serbian,
>Bosnian or Croatian wiki? I am not either a Serb, a Bosnian, or a
>Croat, and I communicate on daily basis with people from Serbia,
>Bosnia and Croatia, using my native language (whatever it is). I work
>together with Serbs, Croats and Bosnians on many en.wikipedia
>articles. And I chose to only edit, when I do edit in non-english
>wikipedias, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. Why would I go for anything
>else? If I am writing about World War 2, I will write a much better
>article if it's together with editors from all of those countries,
>than only one of them.
>
No argument from me there.

Ec


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/8/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> What about "blank cheque" templates where a basic userbox structure is
> provided and users just insert their preferred text/images? I think that
> these might be okay, if subst'ed.

Yep, and just the one {{userbox}} will do.  It can always be
substituted.  No other set of templates is needed, bar the ones Alphax
outlined.  Other categories to go with the boxes are also (obviously)
unneeded.

As stated before (many times) fair use images aren't permissable on userpages.

I doubt the userbox fanatics will allow this sensible compromise to
pass, however.  They're only having fun, after all.  They aren't
damaging the servers, after all.  They aren't being offensive, after
all.  We should all "lighten up", after all.

--
Sam


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/8/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without errors
> or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more significant ...
>
> Charles

What to say. They have $10 million in funding. They would be hard
pushed not to produce something at least slightly worthwhile with
that. The user editing system sounds rather like the one encarta are
useing (indeed the whole project sounds rather simular to encarta). We
shall wait and see.

--
geni


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:

>On 1/8/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>So it appears that there is no valid reason to have separate wikis for each country that
>>was formerly part of Yugoslavia. One Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia will do, IMO.
>>
>>
>Until we would have a good implementation of software, separate
>Wikipedias are needed. Serbo-Croatian is, again, offensive term to 90%
>of inhabitants of Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and
>Croatia.
>
Perhaps patience is required at least until the software is working.  My
impression from the Yugoslave diaspora is that Serbo-Croatian is a
preferred term if it saves them from having to identify themselves with
one or another of the factions.  That or they will use the vague phrase,
"my language".

>>That Serbian, Croation, and Bosnian are separate languages appears to be a
>>politically-convenient fiction that wants to enforce differences that don't really exist. That
>>can only tend to enforce component-nation-specific POVs and thus violate NPOV (as
>>would having separate Wikipedais for Simplified and Traditional Chinese).
>>
>>
>POV is present on English Wikipedia, too. There are no chance to add
>free about USA foreign politics on English Wikipedia. For example,
>there are a number of articles named as "incidents" even US soldiers
>were killing a lot of civilians. Pushing POV is very usual on
>Wikipedia.
>
I'm sure that these problems are constant irritations in every project
with more than one contributor.

Ec


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Userbox fads

body:
On 1/8/06, W. Guy Finley <wgfinley at dynascope.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/8/06 9:02 AM, "wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org"
> <wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org> wrote:
>
> > From: "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 01:14:34 +1030
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads
> >
> > Here's my solution to the userbox problem.
> >
> > Any "userbox" (aka. babel-like template) which does not
> >
> > - Inform the reader about the languages (human) that one can understand
> > and edit in
> >
> > - Inform the reader about the languages (computer) that one is
> > proficient in to some degree and can use those skills constructively
> > towards editing
> >
> > - Inform the reader about what browser/operating system they use so that
> > they can be consulted wrt. technical issues with the wiki
> >
> > - Inform the reader about what musical instruments they play so that
> > Free music can be recorded for articles
> >
> > - Inform the reader about what WikiProjects they are part of so that
> > other editors can consult them about articles related to that
> wikiproject
> >
> > should be deleted. WikiProject Userboxes should ensure that userboxes
> > remain as things which are useful to other editors, in the task of
> > building an encyclopedia. Such silly things as "This user is a dickbrain
> > with no respect for consensus, policy, copyright issues, or the task of
> > writing an encyclopedia" should be deleted, and the user banned for
> > wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.
>
>
> I could live with and support this.
>
> --Guy (User:Wgfinley)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

While I agree mostly with this, I think allowing for no sense of humor in
the boxes at all would be sending the wrong message.

Also, I don't see a category for things such as "This user is an
administrator" or "This user likes to help new users."  Reading your rules
to the letter, things like that which are VERY nice to have so a user knows
what they can and can't ask for help with will be outlawed along with "This
user hates Republicans".

--
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:

>On 1/8/06, Dejan Cabrilo <dcabrilo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Like I said, this was a proposed policy, from May 2005 (the last time
>>I was active on Serbian Wikipedia, it was in part a response to the
>>fact that I overnight labeled a bunch of articles as POV, because I
>>found them to be essays on Orthodox Christianity, but obviously,
>>others realized the POV in supporting this policy). Still, it got 5
>>votes for, and 3 against. I think it describes the inherit POV of such
>>national projects.
>>
>>
>1. You marked articles as POV without any intention to work on them.
>If you do the same on English Wikipedia, POV tag would be removed
>through some time.
>
That would not be very good etiquette on his part.  It seems
inconsistant to want to work on SH and telling people on SR what to do
at the same time.  It seems to be a matter of deciding where he wants to
put his energy.

>>The reason I am writing this is to show that national wikipedias are
>>inheritly biased - they can be very good on covering stuff like
>>nature, science, etc. but when it comes to more touchy topics, it will
>>be hard to get editors from different perspectives.
>>
>>
>And what about Piere de Cuberten's nazism? No one wrote anything about
>that on English Wikipedia.
>
Then it's not surprising that I had not heard about this until now.  I
know that he was associated with the Olympics but have nevers been
interested in knowing anything about him.  There are many topics like that.

Ec


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
On 1/7/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(at)pobox.com> wrote:
> Good. We are working for a UK 2007 bid (based on the 2006 proposal).

Thailand, UK, Poland, anyone else wants to join the party? ;)

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
charles matthews wrote:
> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without
> errors or trolls, or something?

Currently, it is an ISP.

Mathias


from_name: homey2005 at sympatico.ca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is NAMBLA an LGBT organization?

body:
There is a poll on whether or not the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) should be listed in [[Category:LGBT organizations]].

The poll is taking place here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association#Poll


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
On 1/8/06, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/7/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(at)pobox.com> wrote:
> > Good. We are working for a UK 2007 bid (based on the 2006 proposal).
>
> Thailand, UK, Poland, anyone else wants to join the party? ;)

I know for a fact the Italians are working on it in a little corner ;-).

This is going to be...interesting!

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 1/8/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I mean [[Digital Universe]], which will be WP in Technicolor without errors
> or trolls, or something?  I realise userboxes must be more significant ...

I suspect that it is seldom debated for much the same reason that
Nupedia is seldom debated.  There is as yet very little to discuss.  I
wish the project well; it looks as if , in the encyclopedia part,
Larry is trying to draw lessons from both Nupedia and Wikipedia.

Some time ago I contributed briefly to a project call h2g2, which (I
seem to recall) had a similar two-tier editorial process and a
hierarchy of editors.  At the time it was hosted by the BBC.  The
slowness of the bureaucacy led to my drifting off out of boredom,
Meanwhile the success of Wikipedia shows that there is a lot of
mileage in the concept and I hope we'll see many alternatives on the
theme.


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS is filling again

body:
On 1/8/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've got a few tickets in the works, but unfortunately there's a few I just
> can't handle.
> People who think they can appeal about edit wars they're losing and
> complaints about so-called rogue users and admins.
>
> Unfortunately, more and more of the requests that come in ask Jimbo (or
> someone else) to intervene in something. Can't we have a standard message
> referring people to dispute resolution?
>
> Mgm

Sounds like a decent idea. Draft one on Meta with the other templates,
perhaps? (and now we're getting OT for this list...)

-Kat
who has been less active answering these and more busy dealing with
them after they learn about dispute resolution. :-P

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:LucidWaking
"Once you have tasted flight you will always walk with your eyes cast
upward. For there you have been and there you will always be."
- Leonardo da Vinci


body:
On 1/8/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the consensus was, "It'll be humorous and perhaps a little sad
> to see how little they end up with after blowing $10 million," or
> maybe that was just my opinion on it.
>
> FF

oh I don't know. They could currently afford to spend $11.02 per
wikipedia article.

--
geni


from_name: Fl Celloguy

subject: [WikiEN-l] OTRS is filling again

body:
>I've got a few tickets in the works, but unfortunately there's a few I just
>can't handle.
>People who think they can appeal about edit wars they're losing and
>complaints about so-called rogue users and admins.
>
>Unfortunately, more and more of the requests that come in ask Jimbo (or
>someone else) to intervene in something. Can't we have a standard message
>referring people to dispute resolution?
>
>
>Mgm
>
>
>On 1/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Mathias Schindler
> >
> > > Anyone who is not afraid of inbound email inquiries and who
> > > is willing to spend some time in explaining how things work
> > > here is invited to help out.
> > >
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR_department#Accounts_on_OTRS
> > >
> > > Thanks for your help.

You can contact one of the en OTRS admins - mindspillage, elian, jeluf,
notafish or noc at wikimedia.org - to add one of those templates on the side.
(see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/en>) Did quite a bit today
(answered 50+, I think) but help is still appreciated. Thanks!

Flcelloguy
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


from_name: Wikiacc

body:
On 1/8/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> So long as their license is compatible with the GFDL (which if they
> bootstrap from Wikipedia it'll have to be), I see no problems with it.
> If they produce useful improvements in content quality on some articles
> that they get reviewed by experts, we can fold in those changes to
> Wikipedia, too.

I recall hearing they were planning to use a combination of
all-rights-reserved full copyright and an as of yet undetermined
Creative Commons license (probably one incompatible with the GFDL).

--
--~~~~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikiacc


from_name: Quistnix

subject: [Wikitech-l] Useless "developers"

body:
I think Servien is frustrated by the fact that nds.wikipedia is
effectively taken over by German nationalists who have succeeded
in making people write a language spoken in parts of four countries,
using grammatic rules and conventions from only one. the fact that
the majority of the people writing in nds: lives in Germany was
abused to vote to make it a "democratic" decision.

Anton

Servien Ilaino wrote:

> Thanks for your comments... but I got the message, besides it wasn't
> "childish" in my opinion, it was meant to get a reaction for once,
> apparently this is what it takes :(. I took my chill pills, so we'll see
> when it all happens :)
>
> Serv
>
>
> 2006/1/8, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
>>Servien,
>>
>>When new Wikipedias have been created in the past, it wasn't because
>>we called the developers names or resorted to other such childish
>>tactics.
>>
>>It is because we were patient, treated them with respect, asked kindly
>>and in a personal way, and didn't pout if they didn't give us what we
>>asked for _right away_.
>>
>>If I had acted like you are right now in advocating for their
>>creation, I'm betting we wouldn't have the Udmurt, Venet, Lombard,
>>etc. Wikipedias.
>>
>>So take my advice and take it down a notch. Take a chill pill. You're
>>not going to die if these Wikipedias aren't created immediately. You
>>have to be patient. The developers are your friends.
>>
>>They are on a busy schedule, and remember that it is a volunteer job
>>and they aren't paid except by donations (with one exception). The
>>developers have to worry about "real" jobs, school, family, and every
>>other concern of normal human beings because after all, they _are_
>>normal human beings (a developer can correct me if I'm wrong there).
>>
>>So give them a break. If you do, the Wikipedias will be created
>>eventually. If you don't, it will never be created.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>On 08/01/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I'm sure they are usefull for developing software. But most people
>>
>>who've
>>
>>>requested a wiki are kind of getting tired of waiting all the time.
>>
>>First
>>
>>>they have to go through a long boring process which can take up to even
>>
>>half
>>
>>>a year before they are approved when it's approved they wait about
>>
>>another
>>
>>>half a year... by that time most people who initially wanted to work on
>>
>>the
>>
>>>project decided not to anymore.
>>>
>>>If someone would have told us the whole blikketyblek is frozen, we would
>>>have had some kind of understanding. ISO codes aren't enoug: these wikis
>>>have been approved this means there have been serious discussions.
>>>
>>>I really hope a new wiki will be created this year though. (if possible)
>>>
>>>Serv
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>2006/1/8, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>>On 1/7/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>A much better policy needs to be created that takes this into
>>
>>account.
>>
>>>>Preferably a much better and *retroactive* policy.
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Sam
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>>>


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia Blocked IP address 82.148.97.67 is for
	the whole counrty!

body:
On 1/8/06, Mohamad Takriti <takriti at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am not sure if anyone is taking this seriously, but I am surprised that
> one person can easily block a potentially large number of people from
> editing Wikipedia, then ignore repeated pleas to unblock!

Mohamad, I looked for that IP address on the log but can't find it so
I assume someone else has unblocked you. Let me know if that's not the
case.

Sarah


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion request and complaint

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jay Converse
>
> I just went and looked over the article and I do not see any
> flagrant Neutral Point of View violations.  What the article
> does is present controversy regarding the subject of the
> article, and there are links at the bottom, which you keep
> removing, that corroborate and expand on that.

I echo Jay's words. The first thing I noticed was that the article's talk
page was red-linked, meaning it was empty. Usually if there is some
controversy surrounding an article, it is debated on the talk page, allowing
other editors to provide their input and to get a feel for the history of
the debate.

The article itself is doing no more than summarising the sources given as
external links. As we cannot (or rather, should not) conduct Original
Research, all statements in an article should be sourced, and the article as
it stands does that. If you wish to counter what you believe to be
falsehoods, you should find some source and quote that.

However, I should note that NPOV doesn't mean that we find one definitive
and factual version, it means that we provide different viewpoints within
the same article depending on how widely and how validly the differing views
are supported.

Rather than blindly reverting to and fro, open a discussion on the talk page
and try to come to some compromise wording, or failing that, agree on
wording that puts forward both points of view and provides sources to back
them up. It would also be helpful if you avoid making allegations of lies
and dishonesty - so far as I can see, the article accurately reflects what
is stated in the quoted sources.

It might also be wise to seek help from a more experienced editor before
continuing.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
On 1/8/06, Francis Tyers <spectre at ivixor.net> wrote:
> Serbian Wikipedia has more then 10.000 normal articles; Croatian has
> at least 6.000-8.000 normal articles.
>
> Articles that include the year 2056:
>
> http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/2056
>
> I don't think ''number of articles'' is a reasonable benchmark in this case.

Official count is 17.000, not 10.000. As well as I said "normal", not "all".


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
> > > On 12/25/05, Mohamad Takriti <takriti at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > This is my second email to you. I beleive that you blocked the whole
> > > country of Qatar by blocking the IP address 82.148.97.67. Please fix
> > > this as we cannot now make any edits!

The whole country has only one IP address?

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject: [Wikitech-l] Useless "developers"

body:
Inderdaad Quistnix, ik laat me de laatste tijd niet van m'n beste kant zien
maar zal m'n leven (proberen te) beteren (bewerkingsoorlog, ontwikkelaars
uitmaken voor waardeloze lui, maar goed ik heb ik in ieder geval een
reactie, nu weet ik waar ik zo'n beetje aan toe ben.)

Serv

2006/1/8, Quistnix <quistnix at kabelfoon.net>:
>
> I think Servien is frustrated by the fact that nds.wikipedia is
> effectively taken over by German nationalists who have succeeded
> in making people write a language spoken in parts of four countries,
> using grammatic rules and conventions from only one. the fact that
> the majority of the people writing in nds: lives in Germany was
> abused to vote to make it a "democratic" decision.
>
> Anton
>
>
> Servien Ilaino wrote:
>
> > Thanks for your comments... but I got the message, besides it wasn't
> > "childish" in my opinion, it was meant to get a reaction for once,
> > apparently this is what it takes :(. I took my chill pills, so we'll see
> > when it all happens :)
> >
> > Serv
> >
> >
> > 2006/1/8, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> >
> >>Servien,
> >>
> >>When new Wikipedias have been created in the past, it wasn't because
> >>we called the developers names or resorted to other such childish
> >>tactics.
> >>
> >>It is because we were patient, treated them with respect, asked kindly
> >>and in a personal way, and didn't pout if they didn't give us what we
> >>asked for _right away_.
> >>
> >>If I had acted like you are right now in advocating for their
> >>creation, I'm betting we wouldn't have the Udmurt, Venet, Lombard,
> >>etc. Wikipedias.
> >>
> >>So take my advice and take it down a notch. Take a chill pill. You're
> >>not going to die if these Wikipedias aren't created immediately. You
> >>have to be patient. The developers are your friends.
> >>
> >>They are on a busy schedule, and remember that it is a volunteer job
> >>and they aren't paid except by donations (with one exception). The
> >>developers have to worry about "real" jobs, school, family, and every
> >>other concern of normal human beings because after all, they _are_
> >>normal human beings (a developer can correct me if I'm wrong there).
> >>
> >>So give them a break. If you do, the Wikipedias will be created
> >>eventually. If you don't, it will never be created.
> >>
> >>Mark
> >>
> >>On 08/01/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>I'm sure they are usefull for developing software. But most people
> >>
> >>who've
> >>
> >>>requested a wiki are kind of getting tired of waiting all the time.
> >>
> >>First
> >>
> >>>they have to go through a long boring process which can take up to even
> >>
> >>half
> >>
> >>>a year before they are approved when it's approved they wait about
> >>
> >>another
> >>
> >>>half a year... by that time most people who initially wanted to work on
> >>
> >>the
> >>
> >>>project decided not to anymore.
> >>>
> >>>If someone would have told us the whole blikketyblek is frozen, we
> would
> >>>have had some kind of understanding. ISO codes aren't enoug: these
> wikis
> >>>have been approved this means there have been serious discussions.
> >>>
> >>>I really hope a new wiki will be created this year though. (if
> possible)
> >>>
> >>>Serv
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>2006/1/8, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>>>On 1/7/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>A much better policy needs to be created that takes this into
> >>
> >>account.
> >>
> >>>>Preferably a much better and *retroactive* policy.
> >>>>
> >>>>--
> >>>>Sam
> >>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>Wikitech-l mailing list
> >>>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> >>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >>>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/8/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Then we should make userboxes nothing more than silly trinkets. They
> should be snippets of code that someone adds to their user page and
> nothing more. Just a few simple ground rules: No fair use images and
> no user categories. I think that the opposition would pretty much
> disappear if userboxes truly were nothing more than a box with some
> text.

I'd also like compulsory substituting, though I could live without.

--
Sam


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
>What kind of doublespeak is that? The purpose of language is to confer meaning. If the three
>dialects are mutually intelligible and we have a means to deal with differences in script, then
>there is in fact just one language as far as we are concerned. In other words, if articles in one
>can be copied to the others and only require minor changes in writing (if at all; esp in cases of
>use of the same script), then there is only one language and thus only a need for one wiki.
>
>-- mav
>
Are you people crazy or blind? The point is that THESE PEOPLE DON'T
WANNA HAVE 1 ENCYCLOPEDIA. The proof is everywhere. E.g. why were SR, HR
and BS created? Because people wanted to. Why is SH so underdeveloped
(and 200, not 2000, is a very optimistic number for articles made in the
project, not copied word by word from elsewhere)?  Because close to no
one wants to contribute to it. Is there an ISO for SH? No there isn't.
And you can't really compare English with these languages. There's been
a war for crying out loud. People have been through a lot and you can't
just neglect the political aspect. Has there been any resistance in,
say, Australian or Canadian communities? I don't think so. Unlike
English, these three languages are not that similar and, because of the
cultural and political reasons (again, you can't neglect those, because
those are some of the lifes' aspects; after all, we aren't robots), one
project shared by all three language users could never exist. You just
cannot force people to merge the knowledge after the projects have been
successful for a few years on their own. You'd definitely get resistance
and you'll just disrupt the Balkans again. You'd do more damage than good.

>Does this confusion pass over into reading aswell? I have trouble
>understanding what some people with thick English accents say,
>doesn't mean I can't understand everything that they write.
>
>Perhaps if you are struggling with understanding something written in the
>Croatian or Bosnian Wikipedias, you could pass it over to someone else
>to translate for you?
>
>Stop clouding the issue.
>
>Fran
>
They differ in reading as well as they differ in comprension. Let me
give you an example: My friend went to Bosnia to see her relatives (she
goes anually). When she returned from Bosnia, she was overwhelmed by the
fact that she learned so many new words. Bosnian is constantly being
under influence of Muslims and there you go. I'm afraid I won't
understand them should I ever go there. Another example is the fact that
according to my unofficial survey, most of the people my age (18 or so,
which is an important age group) and some of the other ages don't
actually know the names of the months in Croatian. Croatian is
constantly being filled with new words and I applaud that - the language
is evolving. But the fact is - with so many new words, I am not able to
write in Croatian. Also, as an example, I went to HR wikipeda and pasted
an article from SR about my home town. I didn't want to leave it in
Serbian, so I "translated" (quotations are because I didn't do a very
good job at it) it into Croatian and I thought it was pretty good.
SpeedyGonsales approached me and told me it was accellent, but he had to
change things I forgot to change during the translation. After that, I
gained the impression that I wasn't able to write in Croatian. Now,
imagine a Wikipedia where there are considerable language distinctions.
Which norm should I use? If everyone keeps writing the way they feel,
then you'd get a language salad. There would be constant fights because
of the political differences et al. The project would fail miserably. SH
is holding up because less than a handful of people are "contributing"
to it. The reason why I want this project closed is because it's really
unnecessary to have a 4th encyclopedia, when 3 are functioning just
great on their own. Now all of a sudden, a group of foreign people just
want to intervene and decide what's best for us, without any information
at all. Why is that "foreigners" (I am using this word to describe
people that don't speak SR, BS or HR) only voted for keeping SH whereas
most of the local people voted for closing? *Every problem in the world
will get solved the minute someone from the outside stops meddling!*


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
On 1/8/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> So you wouldn't be happy to volunteer for the position and take some of the
> workload off Jimbo?

The main trouble is that Jimbo does have some kind of monarchical
authority, that no appointed ombudsman could have.  Especially as the
community would demand an election.

--
Sam


from_name: Jitse Niesen

subject: [Wikitech-l] mwdumper problems

body:
On 1/8/06, candy <ccanddyy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I tried to import the entire english wikipedia dump(some 15 gigs) in to
> mediawiki1.4.
> The entire process took 2 days and then, it seems nothing happened !
> I got an error like the following in between somewhere.
>
> ERROR 1062 (23000) at line 28: Duplicate entry '1' for key 1
>
> But the import was not aborted. So I let it continue.

I never tried importing the dump in MediaWiki 1.4, but I had the same
problem in 1.5. The solution for me was to empty some tables first. In
1.5, the following does the trick: Run "mysql -u root -p wikidb" and
give the commands "truncate page; truncate revision; truncate text;".
My guess is that in 1.4 you need to do "truncate cur;".

Jitse


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
On 1/8/06, Dejan Cabrilo <dcabrilo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I did do it. And the storm rolled upon me. I was mostly quickly
> reverted, or even rolled back. In fact, if I remember correctly, I was
> the one to introduce POV and copyvio templates, no? Check out my
> contributions on sr.wiki (User:Dcabrilo). When I started doing it, you
> proposed that we allow POV articles to stay on the wiki, with a
> permanent template of: "This article was written from such and such
> POV". I said we should either get rid of them, or rewrite them. You
> said you thought they were just too good of essays to delete, and that
> you talked to Jimbo Wales while he was in Belgrade about that issue.

Between 27th July 2004 and 3rd March 2005 you made 53 edits on Serbian
Wikipedia (including your translation of article about Kosovo and
excluding any conflict).

More then two months after your last edit (13th May 2005) you started
with marking a dozens of articles with POV tag (a lot of them was/are
POV, but some of them wasn't/aren't POV, but your personal opinion)
without any intention to work on them! Also, you came with a lot of
bad faith. And I don't know what kind of feed back you expected?

You are talking now with a bad faith, too and you are misleading
people on the list. The idea of the template "This article was written
from such and such POV" was not to become permanent, but to stay there
until we have someone who can change the article accord to NPOV.
Because, unlike English Wikipedia, we don't have a number of experts
and/or people who are interested in such fields AND our intention was
to mark them with the same icons, but less offensive to prevent
further edit wars. AND it didn't pass because you and Zocky was
against that.

Just a little number of articles which you marked as POV are essays
and they are marked as essays now on Serbian Wikipedia. We will keep
them until we find some other place for them.

> And Serbian Wikipedia has more POV than English one, for sure. For
> example, just until few hours ago, this thing was stuck on the top of
> the Home Page:
>
> (MARRY CHRISTMAS)

You have some exact number of POV pages? Community started with idea
to congratulate all important dates for all confessions which are
related to Serbian cultural area (Christianity and Islam).

> Also, just for example, I noticed that article I labeled as POV (my
> mistake, it was not only POV, it was also a copyvio from
> http://www.svetosavlje.org/biblioteka/Recnik/A.htm), has been locked
> since I put a POV tag on it... May 2004.
> (http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/????_?_???).

As well as people who put it also got permissions to do that.

> So, yes, I did try to work on POV, but you and many others had no
> problems with POV (recognized as such) being included in the name
> space. As long as it had a tag...

No, you didn't try to work on POV, you just marked the articles
without any intention to work on them.

> Only on May 13th did I label about a dozen articles as POV (mostly
> Orthodox Christianity related). [[??????????:??????? ????????????]].
> Many of those were beyond repair (they were simply religious essays).
>
> However, community than agreed that "We are a Serbian Wikipedia, so
> it's only normal to have that kind of bias".

Community agreed that it is normal that we would have more articles
about Orthodox Christianity then about Hinduism now. You are lying
again.

> > Latin alphabet is needed only because of Croats. Bosnians know
> > Cyrillics; if Slovenians know Serbian/Croatian, they know Cyrillics,
> > too. As well as Macedonians use only Cyrillics.
>
> Most Slovenes and Croats are not good with Cyrillic, and not
> comfortable enough with it to make edits. Many Bosnians as well. This
> is especially true for younger people. Most Macedonians, unlike most
> Slovenes, can read and write in both Cyrillic and Latin for that
> matter.

All Bosnians are learning Cyrillic in primary school (unlike Croats).
In general, young Slovenes doesn't know Serbian/Croatian.

But, the fact is that your xenophobia toward Cyrillic alphabet exists,
but I didn't see any xenophobia toward it from editors of Croatian
Wikipedia.


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia Blocked IP address 82.148.97.67 is for
	the	whole counrty!

body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

>>>>On 12/25/05, Mohamad Takriti <takriti at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>This is my second email to you. I beleive that you blocked the whole
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>country of Qatar by blocking the IP address 82.148.97.67. Please fix
>>>>this as we cannot now make any edits!
>>>>
>>>>
>
>The whole country has only one IP address?
>

Well, close to it.  All users of the ISP "Internet Qatar" access the
internet through proxy.qatar.net.qa, which resolves to the IP above.
Internet Qatar is the country's main ISP, so most users will appear to
be coming from that IP address, with the possible exception of some
corporate and .edu.qa locations.

-Mark


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Here's my solution to the userbox problem.
>
>Any "userbox" (aka. babel-like template) which does not
>
>- Inform the reader about the languages (human) that one can understand
>and edit in
>
>- Inform the reader about the languages (computer) that one is
>proficient in to some degree and can use those skills constructively
>towards editing
>
>- Inform the reader about what browser/operating system they use so that
>they can be consulted wrt. technical issues with the wiki
>
>- Inform the reader about what musical instruments they play so that
>Free music can be recorded for articles
>
>- Inform the reader about what WikiProjects they are part of so that
>other editors can consult them about articles related to that wikiproject
>
>should be deleted. WikiProject Userboxes should ensure that userboxes
>remain as things which are useful to other editors, in the task of
>building an encyclopedia. Such silly things as "This user is a dickbrain
>with no respect for consensus, policy, copyright issues, or the task of
>writing an encyclopedia" should be deleted, and the user banned for
>wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
What about "blank cheque" templates where a basic userbox structure is
provided and users just insert their preferred text/images? I think that
these might be okay, if subst'ed.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: userbox : insanity ?

body:
Pedro Sanchez wrote:
>>Yes, I fixed it (and some templates which were using ~~~~) quite a long
>>time ago, by changing the <nowiki>s to character entity references...
>
>
> So how would http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3AAdam1213/autowarn
> be fixed? Is there asny way to achieve ~~~~ on a page without nowiki's
> other than expliting the mediawiki bug?
>

Please, PLEASE acknowledge who you're quoting and in what context. I was
talking about {{tl}} and {{welcome}} which used to include
<nowiki>{{</nowiki> and <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> respectively, and would
break as soon as they were subst:ed.

There is a way to achieve a literal, unsubstituted ~~~~ in a page such
that when substituted in, it will produce signature and timestamp;
however, I urget you to read [[WP:BEANS]]. That's why I'm not going to
elaborate any further, and neither should anyone else.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 556 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060108/19c61721/attachment.pgp