from_name: Troas

body:
Dear all,

Inspired by the article about Wikipedia in Nature, I have recently made some
contributions to Wikipedia in my field of expertise. Based on this
experience with Wikipedia, I would like to suggest a change to the structure
of Wikipedia. I'm not sure whether my suggestion has been discussed
previously. I have scanned e-mails in the list from the last months and
couldn't find anything related, but apologize if I simply reiterate an older
discussion.

Here's my suggestion: Allow multiple entries for one topic.

Why? In my opinion, there is no such thing as THE perfect entry about a
topic or, as a matter of fact, the TRUTH about a topic. So, why adopt one of
the shortcomings of printed encyclopedias? Why not allow users to read
different entries (and opinions!) about one topic?

An important complement of my suggestion is the introduction of a rating
system. How could this work? I would suggest a rating system consisting of
three parts. After reading an article, you can:
1. rate the quality of the entry on a, say, 6-point rating scale
2. rate yourself as an expert, amateur, or layperson in the field the entry
belongs to
3. enter strengths or weaknesses of this entry in a comment textbox (not
obligatory)

When you access an entry, you would then first get a list of existing
entries with their respective ratings ? separately for expert, amateur, and
layperson ratings. Based on these ratings, you then choose the article you
want to read.

Open questions: Is there a danger of too many articles for one topic? Should
there be a limit of parallel articles? If yes, how do you get in new
articles if this limit is reached? (Possible solution: You can write a new
article and "challenge" the worst existing article. If your article gets
higher ratings in the next, say, 4 weeks, your article replaces the older
one.)

Best,
Troas

--
Telefonieren Sie schon oder sparen Sie noch?
NEU: GMX Phone_Flat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/telefonie


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes and fair-use images in userspace

body:
On 1/5/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> jayjg wrote:
> > So, for example, in order to avoid being "heavy handed", one might ask an
> > editor (and fellow administrator) to remove "fair use" images from their
> > page [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33916201],
> > and then when they object to the request on several grounds, including not
> > considering one of the images to be "fair use", say their comments are "so
> > full of lies, misinformation and patent nonsense" that you must assume they
> > are "ignorant, not malicious" [
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33919864],
> > and finally (a whole 39 minutes after your first request) delete them
> > yourself.[
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33920362]
> > Have I got that right?
>
> I removed them, in accordance with our fair use policy, because she was
> clearly not going to remove them. Is two talk page messages not enough
> to establish that the images are not permitted on the user page? How
> many do you propose I leave in future?
>
You twice reversed the indefinite block of a highly abusive troll who
spent a lot of his time on WP attacking me (someone I know emailed
lots of people looking for someone to unblock him, including you, in
my opinion). When I objected to your wheel warring, you made personal
attacks against me on another talk page I was editing, and reverted to
them several times when I tried to remove them. You called my post
about admin concerns "whining"; you called me a liar on your talk
page; you deleted another admin's warning to you about it; you turned
up on my user page deleting two images half an hour after first asking
me about them; and then, apparently astonished that I would dare to
revert you, you reported me on [[WP:AN/I]].  Then you went to WP:Fair
use, and changed the tag from guideline to policy, in order to support
your report; and you're currently bickering with another admin who has
tried to reason with you about it. (As for the images, I've deleted
one, and I'm trying to find out about the second, which used to carry
a free-licence tag, and that would have happened without your
bullying.)

If you think your behavior is appropriate -- an example of the kind of
civility you were earlier advocating -- the situation's even worse
than I thought. What it looks like is that you're continuing where
Marsden left off, and I very much hope it's just that it looks that
way. At least Marsden didn't have admin privileges, though the way
things are going, he's likely got a sockpuppet fighting vandalism as
we speak in preparation for his nomination.

Sarah


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Page age notice hack: comments?

body:
"Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins at gmail.com>
wrote in message news:9f02ca4c0601040951j31645825q at mail.gmail.com...
> On 04/01/06, Phil Boswell
> <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm getting the notice, but no coloured box.
> > Am I doing something wrong?
> CSS problem, perhaps? What browser are you using?

IE6 on WXP-pro (SP2)

I have freshed and re-freshed my cache until it squeaks...not certain what
more I can do :-(
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/5/06, 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 Garion1000
> >
> > On 1/5/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > > . People of the same POV have always found each other on
> > Wikipedia, &
> > > Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool to accomplish this.
> >
> > But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two
> > AFD's. The one for
> > some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq article.
>
> So what are you saying? It should be *hard* for Wikipedians to find others
> with similar interests?

No, but to find others with a simular POV is different. A userbox stating
one person is an expert or has much knowledge on gay rights I don't mind.
(Whether that user is pro or against them).  A userbox stating that person
is against gay rights is different. The same counts for userboxes for "I am
a republican" vs "I am a republican party expert", creationism/evolution vs
...., I hate Bush etc etc.

> The community aspect of Wikipedia is vitally important. In fact it's one
> of
> the marvels of the Internet, to see such a grand project being constructed
> as a co-operative effort. To my mind, anything that increases community
> bonds without detracting from the main objective is something that should
> be
> encouraged.

Maybe it's because I don't see it as creating a community bond but more like
creating POV groups withing the community. At least userboxes make that much
easier. Therein lies the danger. IMO of course.

Garion


from_name: Brian

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
Encourage them to be more productive instead of lambasting
> > them?
>
> With so many of them, the last thing you'd want is for them to become
> more productive, because they're terrible editors. Carbonite is right:
> increasing numbers of people see this as a social club, many of whom
> seem to have difficulty getting along with people, or else enjoy
> causing trouble and drama; and from time to time, just to keep their
> hand in encyclopedia-wise, they'll engage in a quick bit of POV
> pushing, a flurry of reverts, and some name-calling, with a few
> spelling mistakes thrown in for good measure. Otherwise, it's back to
> editing the user page and trying to change policy.
>
> Sarah

Don't worry we have plenty for terrible editors to do. RC patrol for a
start.

--
geni
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

We can't force people to work on the encyclopedia. They're doing what they
want to do...[[GeekGirlSarah]] for example isn't going to be much of an
editor, she's here for the community. I don't think you'd get very far
asking GodOfWar to edit more...there's lot's of examples of newer users that
simply are not here for the purpose of editing. For good or bad...


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/5/06, 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.
>
> -Phil

They haven't targeted me yet.

--
geni


from_name: Ben Yates

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal on userbox
	disagreement)

body:
Sorry, a typo completely destroyed my meaning -- that should have said
"Give people their own page/room/clothing and a way to customize it,
and THEY'LL do so to show their identity, as an end in itself."

To save this from double-posthood, this is a kind of cool development
-- the userspace is coming into its own as a separate construct from
the encyclopedia.  (Whether the foundation can really afford the
server load is another matter; I don't know the details.)

> On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/5/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > You know I suspect that we're making this whole thing unnecessarily
> > > > complicated.  Why don't we just let people keep their userbox
> > > > templates but remove the categories?  I'm pretty sure that doing so
> > > > would make instances of abuse pretty rare.  The boxes themselves
> > > > aren't really much of a problem, they're just a means of
> > > > self-expression.
> > >
> > > I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
> > > nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
> > > someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
> > > edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum.
> >
> >
> > Ah yes, an editor who manages to devote only 6% of his edits to articles,
> > who has apparently never felt the need to make even *one* comment on an
> > article Talk: page, and who has 4 times as many edits to his user page as to
> > the encyclopedia itself.  Well, on the bright side, he appears to have only
> > 26 userboxes on his user page.
> >
> > Um, what are these people doing here again?
> >
> > Jay.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Ben Yates
> Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Puzzlet Chung

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Korean Wikipedia under National Security Law?

body:
I am Puzzlet Chung, one of the administrators in Korean Wikipedia.

User:WonYong (also in en.wp) in Korean Wikipedia claims that Korean
Wikipedia should follow South Korean National Security Law so that the
contents potentially able to threat the nation (i.e. South Korea)
should be censored. He made National Security violation templates, to
tag "anti-State" articles which should be deleted:

http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Security
http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Security2

WonYong insists that it is South Korea that try to conserve Korean
language and protect it from extinction, hence both administration and
contents of Korean Wikipedia should follow South Korean laws, and
Korean language speakers who is not South Korean citizens don't have
anything to do with it. He states that North Korea is not recognized
by South Korea as a nation but a "band of mafias," (the statement of
which is not true, since North Korea is a member of UN, and relation
between two Koreas has changed), and doesn't deserve for Korean
Wikipedia to reflect its POV.

The problem is that some users would agree to his point of view. Out
of two Korean [[names of Korea]], some South Koreans relate "Chos?n"
with North Korea and Communism. They think equal juxtaposition of two
names, (juxtapose the names when they have to, of course), as not
satisfying Natural Point of View as in South Korea, where the majority
of the Korean Wikipedia users live in, and where the server is located
as well. Although "Chos?nmal" is the name of Korean language called
not only by North Koreans, but majority of Chinese Koreans and some
Japanese Koreans, some find "Chos?nmal" aggressive and inappropriate
to use it in some articles.

I am a South Korean citizen myself, but as far as I understand
Wikipedian policy of NPOV, WonYong's activity threats NPOV more than
the "Evil Wikipedia" would threat the existence of South Korea, not
like what he might think, as long as Wikipedia is not a some kind of
Communists' propaganda. But I've started to seriously consider about
moving DB server back to Florida and "foreigning" the site,
contributed by so-called foreigns and South Koreans who's not afraid
of South Korean laws.

Regards,

Puzzlet Chung


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Administrators and dispute resolution

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> I think it does us all a disservice to say that dispute resolution
> isn't part of Wikipedia administration.  It's part of the editing
> skills expected of an editor on Wikipedia.  Skill in resolving
> disputes is unevenly distributed but a good editor is one who can
> handle himself--and other people--well in a dispute, and a bad editor
> is one whose skills of persuasion are inadequate to support his
> actions.  An administrator has to make tough decisions, for which he
> must possess the mental agility to prepare himself, the consequences
> of which will test his resilience and responsiveness daily.
>
> An administrator who can't hack dispute resolution is about as much
> use as a chocolate teapot
>

But at least a chocolate teapot is edible :)

--
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
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from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/5/06, 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 Tony Sidaway
>
> > This is an encyclopedia, not a dating service.
>
> It seems to me that Wikipedia is very good as an encyclopaedia compared with
> everything else on the web, and very poor as a dating service, blog site,
> chess-playing site etc when compared to other sites. Do people really come
> here for these secondary reasons when there are other, better places
> available?
>

One pretty good way to find out would be to take away the user
categories and see how many people leave.  If they mostly stay, we've
gotten rid of things that facilitate the abuse of Wikipedia.  If they
mostly leave, we've unshipped people who were here for the wrong
reasons.  Either way is a win.


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: [HelpDesk-l] Copyright violation]

body:
On 5 Jan 2006, at 05:54, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	[HelpDesk-l] Copyright violation
> Date: 	Wed, 4 Jan 2006 23:43:32 -0500
> From: 	Larry Bruce <ljbruce at comcast.net>
> Reply-To: 	Help desk for questions about Wikimedia projects
> <helpdesk-l at Wikimedia.org>
> To: 	<helpdesk-l at wikimedia.org>
>
>
>
> Comic book image is a violation of copywrite law.  This is not fair
> use
> and this is not in the public domain.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gamaliel
>

hmm, so no complaint about the use of the same image on http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T

Justinc


subject: Imitating articles on user pages (Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad)

body:
Rob wrote:
> I don't know if there is a policy, but I suggest just putting it up for
> deletion. I did the same with a user page/pov article fork recently and it
> was deleted with no dissenting votes.
>

I've seen quite a few complaints on helpdesk-l about user pages which
start out like articles; I've also seen some up for deletion at MD,
especially where duplicates exist.

User pages which exist solely for the purpose of webhosting where an
article would be forbidden (eg. from cranks), and the user has no edits
apart from to that userpage, the page should be deleted and the user
blocked. That's my personal opinion.

--
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
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Worthy admins? (was "The userbox fad")

body:
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though.
> They
> > consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken
> up
> > by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there.
> > Although
> > I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a
> > good
> > bureaucratic system.
>
>
> Two points:
>
> (1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.

I should have seen that one coming. :)

> (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from
> the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main
> point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve
> the
> situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court
> system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible
> drawbacks.

I think lower courts would make it even more like a bureaucracy. Now it's
Arb and perhaps an appeal to Jimbo. WIth a lower court it would be one more
step. Besides the RFC and other dispute procedures.

Not that I have a perfect solution though. :)

Garion

> Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


references:
<43BCB498.9040901@gmail.com>
	<6DEE737F-CFBA-4BE8-9F31-D4D282BC5B06@specialbusservice.com>
	<43BD0AAF.4030809@gmail.com>

body:
On 5 Jan 2006, at 12:01, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> The message is clear: "fair use" images are not acceptable outside of
> the article space, and then only the article(s) which the image
> depicts.
> (A magazine cover with a car on it is only usable in the article about
> the magazine, not the car.)

I know thats our policy; wasnt sure if the copyright holders were quite
so agreeable about it.

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Ben Emmel wrote:
>
>> Why do you not view the religion or viewpoint boxes the same as those
>> with
>> geographical location or language? If I am doing some RC patrol, and
>> notice
>> a questionable edit to a Hindu article, wouldn't a [[Category:Hindu
>> Wikipedians]] be useful? That way, I can search out a user to look
>> into the
>> edit. Same thing goes for an edit to an article on Communism: I don't
>> claim
>> to be an expert on that subject, so shouldn't I be able to search out an
>> editor using [[Category:Communist Wikipedians]]?
>>
> :-D  Interesting choce of example!  Would people be on that list because
> they saw themselves as communist, or because others saw them as
> communist?.  Those two sub-groups are likely to look at the concept of
> communism quite differently.
>

Those who identified themselves as communist would be in
[[Category:Communist Wikipedians]]. Those who others have identified as
communist would be in [[Category:Dirty reds]].

--
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
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from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 1/5/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jtkiefer wrote:
> > Remove the images and put it on your watchlist and also tell the user
> > why they can't have the images up there and if they put them back then
> > lock the user page and/or temporarily block the user for violating
> > copyrights and Wikipedia's guidelines on using fair use images.  Jimbo
> > himself has stated that we now should have zero tolerance for people who
> > knowingly violate copyrights.
> >
> I accidentaly uploaded a bunch of images which I thought were "free" to
> Commons but which turned out to be trademarked logos. I don't know if
> they've been deleted yet. Should I be banned from all Wikimedia
> projects, from Commons, or at the very least desysopped from there?

"Jimbo himself has stated that we now should have zero tolerance for
people who ***knowingly*** violate copyrights."

You're safe. :=)

--
Sam


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Globals and singletons

body:
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about globals and their place in
MediaWiki in the long term. I rewrote globals.txt to reflect the fact that
PHP does not love globals, in fact the need for a declaration to bring
globals into the local scope puts it among the more global-hostile languages.

In many cases, use of globals obscures data flow and makes classes less
flexible, inhibiting reuse. This is patently true in the case of $wgTitle
and $wgArticle, the existence of which encourage lazy programmers to write
code which fails in the common case where more than one of these objects
exist. At present, these two objects are almost exclusively used in the
output phase, so it would make sense to make them members of OutputPage or
Skin instead of globals.

The most extreme anti-global architecture would be one involving application
objects:

$mw = new MediaWiki;
$mw->executeWebRequest();

The application object could theoretically be passed to most class
constructors, providing a form of global context. That, however, would make
writing new classes a bit tedious. In my experience, it turns out to be
easier to make the application object a global, and pull it in wherever it
is needed. This would have advantages when MediaWiki needs to be embedded as
a library, since it keeps the global scope cleaner, but it's not really more
flexible than what we're doing now.

After some thinking, I was forced to admit that there are some cases where
globals make sense, from a data flow perspective. The clearest example is
caching. A cache should have the widest possible scope. If you have two
application objects, you would want them to share the same caches if
possible. Indeed, it's better if different threads, processes and even
servers can share their caches.

There are, however, disadvantages to using global variables for this or any
other similar purpose. The problem is that the use of global variables
inhibit lazy initialisation. The familiar solution is to use an accessor
function, and indeed this approach has already been implemented in several
places in MediaWiki. I would like to make such accessor functions more
pervasive.

There is also the problem that the global namespace is somewhat crowded.
Using a global function for an accessor just moves this problem to somewhere
else. The alternative is to use a static class member as an accessor. This
concept is well known, and where the static object is the only one ever
needed, the object is called a singleton. The PHP 5 manual recommends
calling the accessor function singleton(), and I'll go along with that
despite personally preferring getInstance().

The disadvantage to the singleton pattern is that it requires the class name
to be hard-coded throughout the code base, removing some flexibility. We
could get around that by having base classes construct derived classes, if
you don't mind the dependency implications.

I'm currently working on converting $wgLinkCache to a singleton pattern, and
I also have a few other objects in my sights. But I still don't know exactly
how far we want to go with this. What do we want our long-term architecture
to be?

What should we do with the User class? $wgUser is used very heavily. If not
global, the scope of the object would have to be very wide. There are a few
applications for multiple user objects, but they don't really interfere with
the use of $wgUser elsewhere.

Another tricky case is configuration. There's about 300
configuration-related globals, it might be nice to encapsulate them purely
from a namespace perspective. We already have a SiteConfiguration object,
and on Wikimedia sites, this object has a configuration array which is
extracted into the global namespace. Should we just use it directly instead?
The conversion cost would obviously be high.

There might also be some need for encapsulating configuration from a data
flow perspective. setupGlobals() in dumpHTML.inc could perhaps be made a bit
more elegant.

Should objects such as $wgUser and $wgConf be members of an application
object? Should the application object be global? Some other heavily-used
globals are $wgLang, $wgContLang, $wgOut and $wgParser. What should we do
with them?

We need to be guided by our applications, and choose the simplest
architecture which supports all of them. Are we interested in:

* Embedding? Need to avoid namespace pollution.
* Per-wiki daemons to do background tasks? Need a means for periodically
refreshing configuration and caches.
* A daemon that responds to requests for multiple wikis? Needs multiple
language objects, and a caching system which discriminates between different
wikis.

I'm interested in daemon (or servlet) applications because of the efficiency
implications.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Record? (was: Userboxes and fair-use images in
	userspace)

body:
  Jay,

  In case anyone is interested, I came across this userpage when I looked at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/userbox_templates_concerning_beliefs_and_convictions

...and clicked on *one* of the 186 usernames that are now there voting keep.  To
properly establish whether or not this is a record, I believe we would have to
check all 186.

                   Jkelly

> On 1/4/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >
> >   What to do with this?
> >
> >   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963
> >
> >                  Jkelly
>
>
> By my count I get 87 userboxes.  Could this be a new record?
>
> Jay.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
charles matthews wrote:
> "jayjg" wrote
>
>> I think the problem is
>
> that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not
> familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in
> Wikipedia's goals.
>
> The first point is how older generations always talk, of course.  I.e.
> it is the postulation of a 'generation gap'.
>

I for one am interested in knowing what the community feels are the
different "generations" of Wikipedians, where the cutoffs are and what
defines each group. I should have been a sociologist...

> Second point might be factually true.  How many of us would like to take
> an exam on policy?  Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough
> of the key policy pages?  Why is there no 'Dummies' guide?  (Well, maybe
> there is and I just don't come across it.)  Norms - well, yes, community
> norms are what actually matter.
>

There /is/ a dummies guide - the admins reading list - know the
deletion, protection and blocking policies, how to apply them, when to
apply them, how to talk with other people.

> Not interested in WP's goals.  Possible, though I wonder just how many
> people are interested in my current goals (this week, 1911 EB reference
> wikification and blue-linking, sort out and develop William Blake
> mythology, [[Category:Category theory]]).
>

Between answering email and my talk page, if I can manage to get to my
watchlist I maybe check half of the IP edits or those from users I don't
 know or haven't left an edit summary.

> There is a kind of progression: encourage people to have user accounts
> when they were happy as IPs; user pages too tribal or full of 'This
> Wikipedian drinks coffee' user boxes; RfA votes for people with too high
> a proportion of edits on User Talk pages, or vandal chasing, and not
> enough good name-space edits.
>

I thought that one of the stated roles of admins /was/ to track down
vandals; why else do they have the power to instantly rollback edits
(which should *never* be used for non-vandalism), block users (which
should only be used for vandals and 3RR violations; "annoying users"
should be RFCed to try and get some sense into them, and if that doesn't
work, ArbCom was formed to deal with it) and protect pages (which should
be used for vandalism and 3RR, but *never* when the admin is involved in
a content dispute)?

> We have to live with all of this, by the way.  Admin status is the major
> form of recognition open to everyone that means something (barnstars
> have long been debased currency, Featured Articles I can no longer be
> bothered with, as slanted to certain kinds of writing.)
>

Like any gift, a barnstar is only as valuable as the person who awards it.

> Potential solutions:
>
> - Stop talking about a gap in terms that can only accentuate it

The bomber gap only existed in the minds of those who feared it and
those who gained power from that fear.

> - Do something about a policy guide for non-veterans

We have the welcoming committee and (hopefully) well-thought welcome
messages.

> - New recognition mechanisms, raise the bar for admin creation for
> newcomers, more active research of committed content-oriented RfA
> candidates from those who quietly get on with it.
>

Once upon a time (certainly in late 2004) it was pretty much a
"requirement" for admin candidates to "have" a Featured Article. Then
someone decided that editcountitis was a much better metric, so people
started using that. Then it changed to how many edit summaries you use,
and now it's probably whether you have an ass[1] on your user page. Who
knows what it will be in six months time. Stop the Wiki, I want to get
off...

[1] A donkey in a Democrats userbox, that is. An arse on your userpage
is probably goatse left by some thoughtful vandal.

--
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
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from_name: Carbonite

body:
On 1/5/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>  Jay,
>
>  In case anyone is interested, I came across this userpage when I looked at
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/userbox_templates_concerning_beliefs_and_convictions
>
> ...and clicked on *one* of the 186 usernames that are now there voting keep.  To
> properly establish whether or not this is a record, I believe we would have to
> check all 186.
>
>                   Jkelly
>
> > On 1/4/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > >   What to do with this?
> > >
> > >   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963
> > >
> > >                  Jkelly
> >
> >
> > By my count I get 87 userboxes.  Could this be a new record?

If it was a record, it's broken now, I count 170 (!!) userboxes here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nightstallion/userboxes

As a side note, Nightstallion gets points for making this a subpage
and providing a tally for each category.

Carbonite


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use outside of mainspace

body:
grm_wnr wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wp_ayb.gif
>
> Like Jimbo Wales (even though I guess he didn't put it in his userspace
> personally), David Gerard and Jayjg? The text on Yelyos' page also has
> to go, it's fair use as well. Yes, I'm being a dick here, but I just
> want to demonstrate that this is more fundamental than it seems. If
> we're going to take a radical approach, we give up a lot of the little
> jokes and amenities we're used to. I'm against plastering fair use
> images all over the user namespace via templates, but it's not just a
> problem of "omg all these new editors have no clue about our policies
> and need to be whacked over the head".
>
> grm_wnr
>
> P.S. Please inform me if this is deleted, I'll host it in my personal
> webspace because it's darn funny.
>

Stick it on Uncyclopedia; they are non-commercial only, which makes
their fair use claims much stronger.

--
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
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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>  But so long as
> > they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their
> > constructive
> > efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we make Wikipedia
> > a
> > cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground, the better for
> > all concerned.
> >
> >
> When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
> something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are wasting the time
> and trying the patience of someone who is actually contributing to the goal
> of the project.
>
> Jay.

Not really.  Arguing about policy with longtime editors who actually
know something about policy tends to make for better, more well
thought out, and more clearly documented policies.

If the longtime editors "who actually know something about policy"
don't understand *why* those policies are in place, then maybe they
should learn this, or maybe the policy itself needs to be re-examined.
 If things have been well thought out and documented, then pointing
the newbie to a link which explains it all should take very little
time, and will create a better contributor.

Anthony


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> >  But so long as
> > > they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their
> > > constructive
> > > efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we make
> Wikipedia
> > > a
> > > cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground, the better
> for
> > > all concerned.
> > >
> > >
> > When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
> > something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are wasting the
> time
> > and trying the patience of someone who is actually contributing to the
> goal
> > of the project.
> >
> > Jay.
>
> Not really.  Arguing about policy with longtime editors who actually
> know something about policy tends to make for better, more well
> thought out, and more clearly documented policies.
>
> If the longtime editors "who actually know something about policy"
> don't understand *why* those policies are in place, then maybe they
> should learn this, or maybe the policy itself needs to be re-examined.
> If things have been well thought out and documented, then pointing
> the newbie to a link which explains it all should take very little
> time, and will create a better contributor.
>
> Anthony
>

On the flipside of that, I think that having a new editor come in and join a
discussion with old editors can provide a fresh point of view on a policy.
Eventually people get so used to a policy that they've basically had it
surgically implanted into their minds, and there's not much anyone can do to
change their view on it.  If a brand new user comes in and says "That
policy's stupid!" and provides good reasons for why it is, they can help
influence the policy in a more level-handed direction.  The challenge for
them, admittedly, is getting anyone to listen to them.

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


from_name: Jan

subject:
How to delete History in MediaWiki? [before: Re: [Wikitech-l] may
	I have "deletedhistory" permission only, please?]

body:
Hello!

I hope, its correct, that this mailinglist is for MediaWiki-software-script in
general ...

As I read from James (I think he talks about WikiPEDIA?), he wants to delete
something from history.

I'm administrate three MediaWiki's as Sysop, and found some automated link-spam
in my wiki. How can I delete this from the history?

Regards,
Jan

James Salsman schrieb:
> Do I need to get nominated for just that?
> I am User:Nrcprm2026


references:
<43BCB498.9040901@gmail.com>
	<6DEE737F-CFBA-4BE8-9F31-D4D282BC5B06@specialbusservice.com>
	<43BD0AAF.4030809@gmail.com>
	<27168FC4-1C57-44FB-915C-8A834324AC23@specialbusservice.com>

body:
On 1/5/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:

>
> On 5 Jan 2006, at 12:01, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >
> > The message is clear: "fair use" images are not acceptable outside of
> > the article space, and then only the article(s) which the image
> > depicts.
> > (A magazine cover with a car on it is only usable in the article about
> > the magazine, not the car.)
>
> I know thats our policy; wasnt sure if the copyright holders were quite
> so agreeable about it.
>
> Justinc

Copyright holders are (almost) never agreeble about fair use.

Garion


from_name: Redvers @ the Wikipedia

body:
From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>

> But as we've discovered, lots of people get unduly
> attached to
> images that they can't legitimately use. I've
> applied a very
> light touch on image tagging myself, still get
> carping and reverts.
>
> At some point (soon I hope) we'll get to where all
> fair use image
> descriptions include links to the exact set of
> articles where their
> use is justified, then it will be sufficient to run
> a variant of
> Orphanbot to quietly comment out all other attempts
> to use. Bots
> are relentless and are hard to accuse of bias or
> favoritism, so
> even the intransigent will learn to give up.

I think one of the issues on fair-use images in
userspace is that people haven't thought through the
use of those images. I'm guilty of this myself - I
understand fair-use/copyright etc very well, but it's
easy to not consider it when you're busy creating
something.

Perhaps we can prompt people a little better: the
boilerplates for {{fairuse}} {{albumcover}} etc could
be modified to include the words

"Note: This image must '''NOT''' be used on User
pages, Talk pages or Template pages. If used there, it
''will'' be deleted from the page '''without
notice'''."

This is a helpful reminder to people building a
userbox or a userpage, to people dropping a "thank
you" or a "be less stressed" note on a talk page etc.

It also means that, if such problems happen in future,
people can't say they weren't warned or didn't know or
(my excuse) didn't think about it.

It's a lot better than expecting people to click a
link to a page of legalese or to be familiar with the
discussions we're having here. Especially for new
users, who are most often blamed for misusing images.

:"REDVERS"

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Exclusive Xmas Game, help Santa with his celebrity party - http://santas-christmas-party.yahoo.net/


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They
>>>consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up
>>>by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there.
>>>Although
>>>I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a
>>>good
>>>bureaucratic system.
>>>
>>>
>>Two points:
>>
>>(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.
>>(2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from
>>the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main
>>point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the
>>situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court
>>system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible
>>drawbacks.
>>
>>Ryan
>>
>>
>Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work.  "In a
>court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of
>three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of
>the judges will participate in an en banc hearing."  [[United States
>court of appeals]]
>
>I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.
>
>
En banc hearings are important when the court anticipates that the
decision may set important legal precedents.

An important distinction between lower and appelate courts is that
appeals courts do not normally hear new evidence.  They are primaily
interested in legal interpretation.

Ec


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Userboxes and fair-use images in userspace

body:
"Redvers @ the Wikipedia" <wikiredvers at yahoo.ie> wrote
in message news:20060105131743.68330.qmail at web26414.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
[snip]
> Perhaps we can prompt people a little better: the
> boilerplates for {{fairuse}} {{albumcover}} etc could
> be modified to include the words
> "Note: This image must '''NOT''' be used on User
> pages, Talk pages or Template pages. If used there, it
> ''will'' be deleted from the page '''without
> notice'''."

Indeed, it should be possible for a bot to scan images marked "fair use" or
similar, find usage in forbidden namespaces, and nuke them with extreme
precision: it could even leave a little polite notice on the appropriate
talk-page saying what happened to all the pretty pictures.

I wonder if there's scope for a tweak of Mediawiki's handling of images? You
could mark a given namespace as an "image-type" namespace, in that
references to "articles" in that namespace actually work as images do now.
You could then possible specify that this "transclusion" should only occur
in certain namespaces, and anywhere else you would simply get a link.

Maybe I should stop for lunch...;-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
I think it's inevitable that given the high profile Wikipedia is
increasingly having, more people are getting involved - and a smaller
proportion of them are highly interested in developing an
encyclopedia.  Wikipedia is in one of the "top sites" spots now, like
it or not.

It's interesting to consider that perhaps one of the reasons WHY
Wikipedia has been successful is that it doesn't encourage and
facilitate too much inter-user interaction outside of working on
articles.  It's possibly a good thing that we don't have inter-user
mail, a chat system, or a bulletin board built in to the site.

-Matt


body:
On 1/5/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
> nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
> someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
> edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum.

Welcome to the Eternal September of Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September


body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> Nathan Russell wrote:
>
>>
>> Don't tempt me.
>>
>> Quite a few of the "pinups" around the outside of Trekphiler's
>> userpage are also fair use, as are the Enterprise and DS9 images on
>> the right side.
>>
>> Nathan
>>
> Remove the images and put it on your watchlist and also tell the user
> why they can't have the images up there and if they put them back then
> lock the user page and/or temporarily block the user for violating
> copyrights and Wikipedia's guidelines on using fair use images.  Jimbo
> himself has stated that we now should have zero tolerance for people who
> knowingly violate copyrights.
>

I accidentaly uploaded a bunch of images which I thought were "free" to
Commons but which turned out to be trademarked logos. I don't know if
they've been deleted yet. Should I be banned from all Wikimedia
projects, from Commons, or at the very least desysopped from there?

--
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
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body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> I agree that people with conditions such as Asperger's will tend to
>> gravitate here.  The anonymity can help them to feel that they can
>> contribute on an equal footing with everyone else.  The downside is
>> that in return for being treated like everyone else, they must act
>> like everyone else.   The Wikipedian community cannot make particular
>> allowances for these conditions when to do so would conflict with a
>> person's anonymity.
>
> Our particular allowances for them would be nothing more than more
> civility and more presumption of good faith, same as for everyone
> else. I'm not arguing for anything more than this.
>
>> When otherwise normal little kids use this technique, and it works it
>> becomes a learned strategy that they take into later life.
>
> Do you have a solution?

It's a little late for us to undo bad parenting.  Beyond that we
shouldn't be too quick to give in to obvious whines.  Sometimes when you
put kids to sleep you just have to let them cry themselves to sleep.

> The sentiments there are good but not always practical.  I can get far
> more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed
> analysis of a situation.  That has nothing to do with the validity of
> my assessment.  When it comes to answering messages one needs to be
> selective.  Answering every message can be a physical impossibility.
>
> You raise fair practical points. A pointed one liner is good but if
> people interpret it as rude then it is not good, even if you think
> they are being overly sensitive.

An effective one liner is often instinctive, though some need to be
thought out.  The ones that don't work more often get met with a shrug
rather than an offended feeling.

> Answering every message may be a physical impossibility, but that
> doesn't mean that an attempt shouldn't be made.

There are some messages to which you can add nothing.  At some point
threads just get talked out.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you examined the figures?   This is a massive growth.  Political
> and belief-based userboxes have increased tenfold since the end of
> November.  A database check tells me that of our 3500 or so userboxes,
> 1500 were created in December, and a further 250 have been created in
> the first three days of January alone.

Kelly informs me that a large amount of the apparent growth in
December can be accounted for by cut-and-paste moves of userbox
templates as they were renamed.  Apparently the userbox people were
unaware of the fact that a moved template gets a redirect, thus
preserving the user pages including it.

Maybe things aren't so catastrophic after all.

On the downside, it seems that we do have a number of rather ignorant
editors messing about in template space.


from_name: Richard Seltzer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Want to publish English version of Wikipedia on DVD and
	need help/advice

body:
I publish books (mainly public domain) on CD and DVD. You can see my offerings at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat

I would like to publish a DVD that includes the full text of Wikipedia, peferably as a set of interlinked html pages (easy for a novice to use, and with no need for a database).  The DVD would also include dozens of other reference books.

I understand (thanks to Lars Aronsson) that Directmedia Publishing in Berlin (www.directmedia.de) put the German Wikipedia on DVD (ISBN 3-86640-001-2).  It sells for $10 on
www.amazon.de, and $1 of that goes to the German branch of the Wikimedia Foundation.

I would like to do something similar for the English version. I would sell it for $12 since it includes other works as well and also since I provide free shipping inside the US. I could also contribute $1 for each DVD sold to the Wikimedia Foundation (or whatever branch of that is appropriate). In addition, I would like to update the DVD about once a month.

I downloaded 20051105_pages_articles.xml.bz2 823 Mbytes I uncompressed that file (using ZipZag) to 20051105_pages_artcles.xml 3.5 Gigabytes

But what can I/should I do next?

The xml file is too big to open in my IE browser (and too big for any customer to open either). I was hoping to get a set of inter-linked files (similar to the way downloads of the CIA World Factbook are presented), so anyone could open a home page and navigate to the the rest.

Is there anything I can do (with my Windows PC) to convert the downloadable files to this format? Or could anyone out there in the Wikipedia community help me?

Thanks very much.

Best wishes.

Richard

Richard Seltzer, seltzer at samizdat.com, 617-469-2269, http://www.samizdat.com
A library for the price of a book http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
A summary of our book publishing projects http://www.samizdat.com/orientation.html


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On the downside, it seems that we do have a number of rather ignorant
> editors messing about in template space.

Good. The result is that in time we will have a number of highly
skilled editors doing things in the template namespace.

--
geni


from_name: Rob Church

body:
The best it gets is:

1. Delete the article
2. Go to the undeletion page for said article
3. Uncheck all the revisions which aren't spam
4. Click the Restore button

MediaWiki contains no functionality to permanently delete old
revisions of any article.

Rob Church

On 05/01/06, Jan <2036 at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I hope, its correct, that this mailinglist is for MediaWiki-software-script in
> general ...
>
> As I read from James (I think he talks about WikiPEDIA?), he wants to delete
> something from history.
>
> I'm administrate three MediaWiki's as Sysop, and found some automated link-spam
> in my wiki. How can I delete this from the history?
>
> Regards,
> Jan
>
>
> James Salsman schrieb:
> > Do I need to get nominated for just that?
> > I am User:Nrcprm2026
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> You're very generous with other people's time! We have "contributors"
> with reading-comprehension problems, for whom pointing at a page
> does no good, we have some who are simply not smart enough to be of
> any help, we have some whose social skills are too limited even to
> manage basic spelling fixes without driving everybody else up the
> wall.
>
No one's forcing anyone to do anything.  If you don't feel like
explaining policy to a newbie, you don't have to.  Of course, good
policy should be rather obvious anyway.

> While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior,
> there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our
> interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most
> of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more
> from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills,
> knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going
> to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful.
>
> Stan

You could always turn Wikipedia into an exclusive club that people can
only get into if they can prove themselves worthy.  Along the same
lines, you could eliminate user pages for non-admins altogether.  But
apparently there are a lot of Wikipedians (maybe even most), that
would be opposed to that.  Let them deal with the unhelpful.

Anthony


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>I think it's inevitable that given the high profile Wikipedia is
>increasingly having, more people are getting involved - and a smaller
>proportion of them are highly interested in developing an
>encyclopedia.  Wikipedia is in one of the "top sites" spots now, like
>it or not.
>
We *do* encourage people to create accounts, telling them that it
"takes only a few seconds, and has many benefits". Also, even
read-only people still need the account to be able to set
preferences.

If we really don't want non-editors creating accounts and user
pages, we could start by not soliciting them to do so.

Stan


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway

> When the house is on fire, you don't hold a discussion.

We're talking about userboxes here. These are used by a few editors to
display their pride in their beliefs and other personal aspects. Issues over
images and copyright can be resolved. And so what if like-minded people try
to collectivise their individual powers?

None of this amounts to an abuse of Wikipedia, nor is it "the house burning
down", or "the sky falling down" or anything else. It's just normal human
behaviour. If it makes editors happy, then smile and accept it as part of
building a community.

What I'm concerned about is the attitude that seems to be taken by some in
this discussion is that userbox users are somehow less worthy than other
Wikipedians.

Peter (Skyring)


body:
On 1/5/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Redvers @ the Wikipedia" <wikiredvers at yahoo.ie> wrote
> in message news:20060105131743.68330.qmail at web26414.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
> [snip]
> > Perhaps we can prompt people a little better: the
> > boilerplates for {{fairuse}} {{albumcover}} etc could
> > be modified to include the words
> > "Note: This image must '''NOT''' be used on User
> > pages, Talk pages or Template pages. If used there, it
> > ''will'' be deleted from the page '''without
> > notice'''."
>
> Indeed, it should be possible for a bot to scan images marked "fair use"
> or
> similar, find usage in forbidden namespaces, and nuke them with extreme
> precision: it could even leave a little polite notice on the appropriate
> talk-page saying what happened to all the pretty pictures.
>
> I wonder if there's scope for a tweak of Mediawiki's handling of images?
> You
> could mark a given namespace as an "image-type" namespace, in that
> references to "articles" in that namespace actually work as images do now.
> You could then possible specify that this "transclusion" should only occur
> in certain namespaces, and anywhere else you would simply get a link.
>
> Maybe I should stop for lunch...;-)
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]

I am not a coder or this might have been mentioned before, but isn't it
possible to only allow images from commons on user/talk pages and templates?

Garion


body:
On 1/5/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Fastfission wrote:
>
> >Mainly because a large deal of our feeling confident that our use of
> >unlicensed copyrighted material is "fair" is that it is purportedly for
> >"comment and criticism." This approach seems backed up by a number of
> >informed sources, i.e.
> >http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html#1which
> >lists "Comment and Criticism" and "Parody" as the two primary
> >categories of things which receive legal blessing for "Fair use" claims. I
> >think most people have a pretty poor view of what counts legally as the
> >latter (most seem to think it just means "used in a funny way" which is not
> >at all how the courts interpret "parody"). As for the former, the Stanford
> >page says:
> >
> >"If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work--for instance,
> >writing a book review -- fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of
> >the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism
> >include:
> >
> >   - quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
> >   - summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in
> >   a news report
> >   - copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or
> >   student in a lesson, or
> >   - copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use
> >   in a related court case.
> >
> >The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public benefits from your
> >review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material.
> >Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples
> >of fair use cases in Section C."
> >
> >Now whether we achieve this in the article namespace is of course often
> >under discussion. In the User and Template namespaces media is primarily
> >used for decoration and personalization. This would not seem to fall under
> >the above descriptions even in a very optimistic approach.
> >
> >Unfortunately the Stanford Fair Use case summaries page has almost nothing
> >relating to using images on webpages (only the "thumbnailing" case which is
> >not quite the same thing) so it is hard to know what sort of precedent one
> >would be fallnig back upon in either direction. I know a few cases offhand
> >but I'm not a lawyer and it is hard for me to sort through what is most
> >relevant and what would not be.
> >
> >This is, anyway, my understanding of what the policy is based upon, for
> >better or worse. There is also a crude risk/benefit equation going on here.
> >There is simply no compelling reason to allow unlicensed, copyrighted images
> >in the user namespace, and a number of reasons to be suspicious of it.
> >

I think your last paragraph is the most convincing argument, actually.
 There isn't much of a compelling reason to allow these images, at
least not the ones which don't intend to ever be put into an article.

I don't really buy into the whole "using these images is illegal"
argument, but if removing the images pleases those who are copyright
paranoid and it doesn't hurt anything otherwise, I guess it's the
right thing to do.  It'd be nice if there was an easy way to undelete
images, though.

Anthony


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rewrite of Verifiability policy

body:
Not really a bad idea, but sometimes I come across articles that used to
have sources, but died because SOMEONE closed down the website the sources
came from. If we were to police such a thing, we'd have much more deletions
of stuff that could easily be re-verified.

I think someone should be notified before entire article which used to have
sources end up deleted because of this so they can recheck.

Mgm


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg

> It's not at all hard to be come an admin, and Wikipedia is
> currently creating a new admin a day.  If I wanted to, I
> could create a sockpuppet account, use it for 20 minutes a
> day, and within 6 months have it to admin status.  I already
> know of one banned edtior who was very close to succeeding at
> this (he was caught via other means), and I know of another
> problem editor who is currently preparing a sockpuppet
> (actually his third) for an adminship he will certainly
> receive (unless he is exposed first).

Presumably the thing to do would be to accept the good edits as a bonus and
then expose him or her if an RfA emerged.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 33 cents

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> 900,000 in less than five years... wonderful. Do we have a guess as to
> the relevant article?

Probably [[Battle of Clontibret]], judging by Special:Newpages.

-- Jake Nelson


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I sti;; read Jay's comment as directed to the policy level rather than
> the individual user level.  A good admin should be able to distinguish
> between these levels.

Yes, of course. I am distinguishing between them - but understanding the
reasoning behind why one person is doing it, who is part of a group,
will usually show up reasoning for why the entire group is behaving as
it is.

> I agree that people with conditions such as Asperger's will tend to
> gravitate here.  The anonymity can help them to feel that they can
> contribute on an equal footing with everyone else.  The downside is that
> in return for being treated like everyone else, they must act like
> everyone else.   The Wikipedian community cannot make particular
> allowances for these conditions when to do so would conflict with a
> person's anonymity.

Our particular allowances for them would be nothing more than more
civility and more presumption of good faith, same as for everyone else.
I'm not arguing for anything more than this.

> When otherwise normal little kids use this technique, and it works it
> becomes a learned strategy that they take into later life.

Do you have a solution?

> The sentiments there are good but not always practical.  I can get far
> more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed
> analysis of a situation.  That has nothing to do with the validity of my
> assessment.  When it comes to answering messages one needs to be
> selective.  Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility.

You raise fair practical points. A pointed one liner is good but if
people interpret it as rude then it is not good, even if you think they
are being overly sensitive.

Answering every message may be a physical impossibility, but that
doesn't mean that an attempt shouldn't be made.

Chris


list: foundation-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] For your info

body:
Hoi,
I have a blog http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/ that deals almost
exclusively with the Ultimate Wiktionary project.

Today I was helped to add a "Site Feed" to my blog. This makes it more
convenient to follow my blog.
Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] For your info


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] For your info


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
jayjg wrote:
> While not commenting on the thesis here, I simply note again that the page I
> looked at yesterday had *86* user boxes on it.  Eighty-six.

I'm assuming this is to me. :)

Do you have any solutions? Also, I'd like to have a private chat with
you about it. Do you use IRC? My nick is 'Talrias'.

Chris


from_name: david at election.demon.co.uk

body:
Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> writes:
> On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/5/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
> > > nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
> > > someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
> > > edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum.
> >
> > Welcome to the Eternal September of Wikipedia.
>
> I suspect that, had you tried to remove the categories before this
> entire affair had occurred, you could have done so with little
> objection; and that, once this fades from memory somewhat, you'll be
> able to do so as well.

Would that this could happen tonight. I think these categories are the
worst aspect of the userbox mess; the fact that so many of the kneejerk
userbox defenders can't see what an immense potential they are for
divisiveness, ballot stuffing and organised POV editing is a matter of
no small concern. I appreciate that most of them are created without
any malign intent but it has already happened that these sorts of
things have been used to gather a mob, and indeed there have been
attempts to do that on the userbox issue itself.

I suspect that for the moment a quiet word with the people of
Wikiproject Userboxes may suggest that they do not automatically
include categories with newly created boxes. Then, starting with the
most egregious, systematically remove the inappropriate categories that
have appeared. Finally, a forced subst:ing of the Userboxes that are
there so that the Whatlinkshere does not work.

That would preserve Userboxes, free speech, NPOV, and prevent any
attempts at ballot stuffing. But I bet it doesn't have a chance of
becoming policy.

David Boothroyd (en:User:Dbiv)


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
http://www.wikidating.net

On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Well it shouldn't be so absurdly easy that it fosters campaigning.
> This is an encyclopedia, not a dating service.
>


body:
jayjg wrote:
> So, for example, in order to avoid being "heavy handed", one might ask an
> editor (and fellow administrator) to remove "fair use" images from their
> page [
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33916201],

Yes, I would recommend people do this.

> and then when they object to the request on several grounds, including not
> considering one of the images to be "fair use", say their comments are "so
> full of lies, misinformation and patent nonsense" that you must assume they
> are "ignorant, not malicious" [
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33919864],

Did you read the comment she wrote, and my reply to it, or just the last
two sentences? The section of my message where I discuss the fair use
images is:

"Firstly, I could never have known that about the two images. Regardless
of the nature of their current status, the fact is, they are fair use
images and are not permitted. I quote: "[a]ll other uses, even if legal
under the fair use clauses of copyright law, should be avoided to keep
the use of unfree images to a minimum". I must insist you remove them."

Both images state clearly that the uploader asserts the "... qualif[y]
as fair use under United States copyright law".

> and finally (a whole 39 minutes after your first request) delete them
> yourself.[
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33920362]
> Have I got that right?

I removed them, in accordance with our fair use policy, because she was
clearly not going to remove them. Is two talk page messages not enough
to establish that the images are not permitted on the user page? How
many do you propose I leave in future?

Chris


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Re: Page age notice hack: comments?

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> wrote in
message news:43BD1F00.5080600 at pobox.com...
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> >>> I'm getting the notice, but no coloured box.
> >>> Am I doing something wrong?
> >> CSS problem, perhaps? What browser are you using?
> > IE6 on WXP-pro (SP2)
> > I have freshed and re-freshed my cache until it squeaks...not certain
> > what
> > more I can do :-(
> Seems to be a bug in IE; you can't set a DOM node's class attribute with
> setAttribute(). :P
> Should be working now (clear cache or whatever to make sure the JS
> updates).

Lovely. Now to wait a bit and see how the aging process looks...cheers
again!
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: How to delete History in MediaWiki? [ Thank you!
	(No Txt) ]

body:
Thanks you very much, Rob!
Works great :-)

Regards,
Jan

Rob Church schrieb:
> 1. Delete the article
> 2. Go to the undeletion page for said article
> 3. Uncheck all the revisions which aren't spam
> 4. Click the Restore button
>
> MediaWiki contains no functionality to permanently delete old
> revisions of any article.


body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> I know that bickering on the list is not good, but I can't ignore this
> hypocrisy. Chris Jenkinson (user:Talrias), an admin, who calls for
> civility, has caused me considerable trouble recently (to the point
> where I've had to ask him to leave me alone)

You have asked me to leave you alone, but you have no qualms about then
going around posting messages accusing me of various things when the
conversation is completely unrelated to you? That's hypocrisy.

I don't feel this is the place to highlight the factual inaccuracies in
SlimVirgin's previous email, so I invite people to read my talk page and
the administrator's noticeboard. I stand by my comments, I have made
them with an honest heart and mind and I know that other people will
feel the same.

Chris


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[HelpDesk-l] Copyright violation
Date: 	Wed, 4 Jan 2006 23:43:32 -0500
From: 	Larry Bruce <ljbruce at comcast.net>
Reply-To: 	Help desk for questions about Wikimedia projects
<helpdesk-l at Wikimedia.org>
To: 	<helpdesk-l at wikimedia.org>

Comic book image is a violation of copywrite law.  This is not fair use
and this is not in the public domain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gamaliel

--------- End forwarded message ------------

I'm sure some people will be saying "I told you so" right about now...

--
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
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
> something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are wasting the time
> and trying the patience of someone who is actually contributing to the goal
> of the project.
>
> Jay.

Arguments about fair use are fairly common in pretty much every
context. Most people get it after you explain it a few times (and the
firefox userbox people appear to have given up after comercial use was
mentioned).

--
geni


from_name: Zigger

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes Title.php, 1.251,
	1.252

body:
I guess this means we can have

 +-----+
 | C++ |    ?
 +-----+

:+)
-- Zigger

On 05/01/06, Tim Starling <timstarling at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Update of /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/includes
> In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv16755/includes
>
> Modified Files:
>         Title.php
> Log Message:
> Allow + in titles
>...


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

references:
<dpk9n6$v9f$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ce4d55b80601051548i155e2b7dw2651ca5a5de4958d@mail.gmail.com>
	<dpkc7c$7vl$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
> Which hand is used to masturbate self is of no interest within
> wikipedia activity, except if one is actually masturbating himself
> while writing a message on another user talk page. Is that related to
> Wikipedia ? Is that helping the community ? No. So, it should go away.

This is a great quote! Is there a Wikipedian quote collection that
this could be added to?

(Must make it non-sexist by changing to "himself/herself" tho. :-) )

Stan


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.5.5, 1.4.13 released (SECURITY)

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

MediaWiki 1.5.5 and 1.4.13 are a security and bugfix maintenance releases.

Detection for uploads of Windows Metafile (.wmf) images has been added to help
protect against a client-side vulnerability in unpatched Microsoft Windows
operating systems.

Sites which have enabled uploads and added non-standard file types (such as
.ogg, .doc, or .pdf) should upgrade to this release to ensure that malicious
.wmf files can't be uploaded with a fake extension; such files could put
visitors to the site at risk.

For more details on this, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Metafile_vulnerability

Additionally, a maintenance script removeUnusedAccounts.php has been added in
1.5.5; this replaces an older Perl script which had not been updated for the new
schema in 1.5.

Release notes:
1.5.5: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=383209
1.4.13: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=383208

Download:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.5.5.tar.gz?download
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.4.13.tar.gz?download

MD5 checksums:
4210fe8559e08bb9d1d0e6e34f68cf37  mediawiki-1.5.5.tar.gz
c297ba65d88b380d0cc31366d90cb23b  mediawiki-1.4.13.tar.gz

SHA-1 checksums:
7f4f2f6aedaaf7d1ab2515416ef7e02c8fae61a6 mediawiki-1.5.5.tar.gz
7a604714d595d0ac07f2f5c382254002732fa3b3 mediawiki-1.4.13.tar.gz

Before asking for help, try the FAQ:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list:
(Please subscribe to receive announcements of security updates.)
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

Wiki admin help mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Bug report system:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

Play "stump the developers" live on IRC:
#mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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urdWZTm/KVDQzseRIXAmYTQ=
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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Plus signs now allowed in article titles

body:
Plus signs are now allowed in article titles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > If they only made those 20 edits, then I'd agree, but many
> > > are making 10x that many edits complaining about their toys
> > > being taken away.
> >
> > Again, why not encourage them to be more productive instead of lambasting
> > them?
>
> With so many of them, the last thing you'd want is for them to become
> more productive, because they're terrible editors. Carbonite is right:
> increasing numbers of people see this as a social club, many of whom
> seem to have difficulty getting along with people, or else enjoy
> causing trouble and drama; and from time to time, just to keep their
> hand in encyclopedia-wise, they'll engage in a quick bit of POV
> pushing, a flurry of reverts, and some name-calling, with a few
> spelling mistakes thrown in for good measure. Otherwise, it's back to
> editing the user page and trying to change policy.
>
> Sarah

Don't worry we have plenty for terrible editors to do. RC patrol for a start.

--
geni


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Allow multiple entries for one topic

body:
On 1/5/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
> > This is an excellent idea. Rather than try to cram all points of view
> > into one article, how about loosening up and allowing several  articles
> > with differing points of view or level of detail?
> >
> > This idea has been discussed before, but is worth another look.
> >
>
> Fred, you can keep SPOV on Wikinfo; Wikipedia is and always will be
> NPOV. The "multiple levels of detail" is already covered by subarticles
> (eg. Geography of Australia).

Having multiple articles on one topic from different points of view is
certainly a bad idea, but having multiple articles (if people can
bother to maintain them) need not be. The objective of an article is
to explain a given topic, and a single monolithic explanation might
not suit everybody, for instance if you're familiar with the field
you'd like a more technical explanation and if you aren't something
that eases you into the topic is more appropriate.


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] may I have "deletedhistory" permission only, please?

body:
On 04/01/06, James Salsman <james at readsay.com> wrote:
> I don't want to be an administrator, but I do want to vote on
> a deletion review, or at least know enough to figure out whether or
> not I should abstain.  Would someone please grant me "deletedhistory"
> permission only?  Is that possible?  Do I need to get nominated for
> just that?

Although this is partly a technical question, this isn't really the
best place to ask, because a lot of what you want to know is up to the
community in question. I'm guessing you are referring to the English
Wikipedia (although you haven't actually said so), in which case you
need to ask on wikiEN-l or the Village pump or somewhere *first* -
this list is full of developers, whose role doesn't include passing
judgement on such things.

I believe the software does currently support granting such status,
though I'm not sure who has the technical ability to grant it, but I'm
sure if you ask for (and receive) *permission*, someone will tell you
how to ask for the actual setting to be made.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: jayjg

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal on
	userboxdisagreement)

body:
On 1/5/06, 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 jayjg
>
> > Ah yes, an editor who manages to devote only 6% of his edits
> > to articles, who has apparently never felt the need to make
> > even *one* comment on an article Talk: page, and who has 4
> > times as many edits to his user page as to the encyclopedia
> > itself.  Well, on the bright side, he appears to have only
> > 26 userboxes on his user page.
> >
> > Um, what are these people doing here again?
>
> Being demonised instead of guided, it would seem. If long-established
> editors greet newcomers with hostility, they should hardly be surprised
> when
> this behaviour is taken as the established norm.

They haven't been demonised, nor greeted with hostility; I'm not sure where
you got that from.

Jay.


from_name: John McNeil

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to set window title in Special pages

body:
Howdy,

I am writing Special pages. The example Special page I found, and
consequently my derived Special pages, displays the default page
title at the top of the browser window, e. g. "Mozilla Firefox." The
Special pages that ship with the MediaWiki have meaningful window
titles, e.g. "Long pages - McNeilLab"

What is the proper way to set the Special page window title in
MediaWiki?

For my RTMF, I re-read http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
Writing_a_new_special_page
the source to SpecialPage.php, and tried to chase the mechanism in
OutputPage.php. I'm still clueless.

Thanks,

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, 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 jayjg
>
> > > There are better social clubs available on the net. If
> > socialising is
> > > truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere soon enough.
> >
> > There are no social clubs available on the net with the prestige of
> > Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.
>
> Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that there are 19 more
> attractive ones?

Not really, since the others don't allow people to do this kind of thing.

>  But so long as
> > > they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their
> > > constructive
> > > efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we
> > make Wikipedia
> > > a
> > > cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground,
> > the better for
> > > all concerned.
> > >
> > When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
> > something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are
> > wasting the time
> > and trying the patience of someone who is actually
> > contributing to the goal
> > of the project.
>
> Did you try praising their constructive efforts before demonstrating to
> them
> that the proper role of a longtime editor is to spend time haranguing new
> editors?

I haven't done either, Skyring.  Where are you getting this stuff from?

Maybe that sounds flippant, but ask yourself how these people must view your
> attitude and what sort of example you are setting.

What "attitude"?  And how on earth would they be aware of any of my thoughts
on anything?

Jay.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal
	onuserboxdisagreement)

body:
On 1/5/06, 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 jayjg
> > Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:21
> > To: English Wikipedia
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was:
> > Proposal onuserboxdisagreement)
> >
> > On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > > Being demonised instead of guided, it would seem. If
> > long-established
> > > editors greet newcomers with hostility, they should hardly be
> > > surprised when this behaviour is taken as the established norm.
> >
> >
> > They haven't been demonised, nor greeted with hostility; I'm
> > not sure where you got that from.
>
> Right here, brother. Step back and read your comments with the eyes of
> those
> whom you are dunking in [[vitriol]].

Sigh. They're not here, I'm not interacting with them, and the vitriol seems
to be something you have invented.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes and fair-use images in userspace

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> You twice reversed the indefinite block of a highly abusive troll who
> spent a lot of his time on WP attacking me (someone I know emailed
> lots of people looking for someone to unblock him, including you, in
> my opinion). When I objected to your wheel warring, you made personal

I must insist you retract that allegation. It has no basis in reality
and is nothing more than a disingenuous personal attack. If you have
ANY, and I mean ANY evidence at all, you'll provide it. I am utterly
disgusted by that comment.

> attacks against me on another talk page I was editing, and reverted to
> them several times when I tried to remove them. You called my post

They were not personal attacks, and your editing of my comments was an
inappropriate action for you to take.

> about admin concerns "whining"; you called me a liar on your talk

This is quite a justified word to use. I'll cite some passages from the
email in question:

"Almost every block is at serious risk now of being reversed by an admin
who's never read the blocking policy, has had very little interaction
with the community, and who got elected with under 20 votes"

"leading to yet another unknown and possibly clueless
admin being promoted"

"Combine poor admins with hundreds of users who
are turning Wikipedia into a social club, and you have a giant mess"

Your comments in the previous email seemed to be directed at me, and for
that record, I was elected with 30 support votes, I have been an admin
since July - having made two proposals on adminship reform previously to
it, taking quite a lot of flak in the meantime - I am quite well known,
I read the blocking policy every time I make a block just to ensure I am
acting within policy, I contribute to the article namespace, and I
single-handedly got an article to featured list status only recently.

> page; you deleted another admin's warning to you about it; you turned

I later retracted that phrase and the other person's warning about it,
since it was no longer relevant.

> up on my user page deleting two images half an hour after first asking
> me about them; and then, apparently astonished that I would dare to

I apologised for removing the images; I was probably not the right
person to do so, but I did so only after you had replied saying my
actions were not supported by policy (which they are) and disregarded my
second comment completely).

> revert you, you reported me on [[WP:AN/I]].  Then you went to WP:Fair
> use, and changed the tag from guideline to policy, in order to support
> your report; and you're currently bickering with another admin who has

The ArbCom recently declared that the fair use policy is indeed policy,
and I was surprised to see that there was not a policy tag on it. Kelly
Martin, an arbitrator, later added a policy tag on the appropriate
section I quoted to you requesting you remove them.

> tried to reason with you about it. (As for the images, I've deleted

I'm bickering with no one.

> one, and I'm trying to find out about the second, which used to carry
> a free-licence tag, and that would have happened without your
> bullying.)

I'm glad to see that, but there was no bullying.

> If you think your behavior is appropriate -- an example of the kind of
> civility you were earlier advocating -- the situation's even worse
> than I thought. What it looks like is that you're continuing where
> Marsden left off, and I very much hope it's just that it looks that
> way. At least Marsden didn't have admin privileges, though the way
> things are going, he's likely got a sockpuppet fighting vandalism as
> we speak in preparation for his nomination.

Again, I have no relationship with Marsden, a fact I have repeatedly
told you. I reject any such allegation, and I think you should retract
it unless you have any evidence. Which you don't, because I don't have
any connection with him whatsoever.

Chris


from_name: SCZenz

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
How about {{User allow fairuse}}?  That seems to be against pretty
much everything Wikipedia stands for.  If we have so many users who
think they can *vote* in an unreasonable copyright policy, maybe we
need unilateral admin action after all.

On 1/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have not followed ANY of the discussion on userbox. Have no idea what
> is going on, no idea who supports what, no idea what is going on.
>
> However, I just speedy deleted {{User masturbation-left}}.
>
> It contained this image :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Masturbationsm.jpg
>
> Sorry if that appears like an admin abuse or whatever, but imho, this is
> just ***ridiculous***.
>
>
> ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> It's possibly a good thing that we don't have inter-user
> mail, a chat system, or a bulletin board built in to the site.

We don't? Special:Emailuser, Wikipedia IRC channel, and Village Pump. :]

Maybe not those things 'built in' exactly, but close enough.


from_name: Ilia Alshanetsky

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP 5.1.2RC1 testing

body:
Hello!

You are receiving this email because your project has been select to
take part in a new effort by the PHP QA Team to make sure that your
project still works with PHP versions to-be-released. With this we hope
to make sure that you are either aware of things that might break, or to
make sure we don't introduce any strange regressions. With this effort
we hope to build a better relation between the PHP Team and the major
projects.

If you do not want to receive these heads-up emails, please reply to me
personally and I will remove you from the list; but, we hope that you
want to actively help us making PHP a better and more stable scripting
language.

The second and final RC of 5.1.2 was packaged today and is now available
for download. This has been a purely bug fix RC that addresses a number
of crash bugs and does a bit of further tweaking on the date
functionality. Please test it as much as you can, since pending any
major problems this becomes the final release on January 12th.

The release can be downloaded from here:
http://downloads.php.net/ilia/php-5.1.2RC2.tar.bz2

If you find any issues, please contact the PHP QA team at
"php-qa at lists.php.net".

In case you think that other projects should also receive this kinds of
emails, please let me know privately, and I will add them to the list of
projects to contact.

regards,

Ilia Alshanetsky
5.1 Release Master


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The userbox fad

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 1/5/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior,
>>there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our
>>interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most
>>of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more
>>from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills,
>>knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going
>>to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful.
>>
>>Stan
>>
>>
>You could always turn Wikipedia into an exclusive club that people can
>only get into if they can prove themselves worthy.
>
Hardly what he's suggesting. Filtering out the unhelpful means removing
people from the "club" after they've proven themselves unworthy, not
requiring them to prove worthiness before getting in at all. We already
do the former, but optimizing the filtering process is a bit challenging.

For similar reasons, we constantly struggle with the filtering process
currently known as "Articles for deletion". Since this one deals with
people even more directly, it should not be surprising that a happy
medium is difficult to find.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, 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 jayjg
> > Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:24
> > To: English Wikipedia
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
> >
> > On 1/5/06, 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 jayjg
> > >
> > > > > There are better social clubs available on the net. If
> > > > socialising is
> > > > > truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere
> > soon enough.
> > > >
> > > > There are no social clubs available on the net with the
> > prestige of
> > > > Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.
> > >
> > > Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that
> > there are 19
> > > more attractive ones?
> >
> > Not really, since the others don't allow people to do this
> > kind of thing.
>
> Ah. So you see Wikipedia as a social club. A prestigious social club.

Actually, I've been arguing the exact opposite.  Are you sure you're reading
my e-mails?

Jay.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
If our configuration has a separate group assigned that permission,
then it's assignable by Stewards. As it is, I think it's a permission
assigned to the sysop group.

Rob Church

On 05/01/06, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/01/06, James Salsman <james at readsay.com> wrote:
> > I don't want to be an administrator, but I do want to vote on
> > a deletion review, or at least know enough to figure out whether or
> > not I should abstain.  Would someone please grant me "deletedhistory"
> > permission only?  Is that possible?  Do I need to get nominated for
> > just that?
>
> Although this is partly a technical question, this isn't really the
> best place to ask, because a lot of what you want to know is up to the
> community in question. I'm guessing you are referring to the English
> Wikipedia (although you haven't actually said so), in which case you
> need to ask on wikiEN-l or the Village pump or somewhere *first* -
> this list is full of developers, whose role doesn't include passing
> judgement on such things.
>
> I believe the software does currently support granting such status,
> though I'm not sure who has the technical ability to grant it, but I'm
> sure if you ask for (and receive) *permission*, someone will tell you
> how to ask for the actual setting to be made.
>
> --
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Record? (was: Userboxes and fair-use images in
	userspace)

body:
Pretty much any user listed in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Users_who_support_userboxes has
a fair number . I'm currently explaining fair use policy to some of
them.

--
geni


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

body:
So how do we make things like this go away?  The trouble here is that
a shocking number, maybe an outright majority, of users seem to think
"free speech" on Wikipedia is a higher value than actually writing the
encyclopedia.  I don't think ignoring their views--misguided though
they may be--will improve the encyclopedia, I think it'll make things
worse.

SCZenz

On 1/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> My position in short
>
> We are here to write an encyclopedia. First before all.
>
> Userbox are interesting if they are related to Wikipedia activity and
> growth.
>
> Wikipedians mood IS actually important to the community building and
> interacting.
> Which browsers are used is also an interesting information to know how
> Wikipedia appears to readers, detect bugs...
> Which language the user manage or which project he participates to is
> also interesting for project management and editors daily interactions.
>
> All this is well and good.
>
> Which hand is used to masturbate self is of no interest within wikipedia
> activity, except if one is actually masturbating himself while writing a
> message on another user talk page. Is that related to Wikipedia ? Is
> that helping the community ? No. So, it should go away.
>
> Having a template stating something against our goals, such as {{User
> allow fairuse}} has a name : it is trolling. Trolling has benefits...
> sometimes. But if it disrupts the community too much (and generate
> thousands of mails on a mailing list, huge loss of time), then, it
> should just go away.
>
> ant
>
>
> SCZenz wrote:
> > How about {{User allow fairuse}}?  That seems to be against pretty
> > much everything Wikipedia stands for.  If we have so many users who
> > think they can *vote* in an unreasonable copyright policy, maybe we
> > need unilateral admin action after all.
> >
> > On 1/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>I have not followed ANY of the discussion on userbox. Have no idea what
> >>is going on, no idea who supports what, no idea what is going on.
> >>
> >>However, I just speedy deleted {{User masturbation-left}}.
> >>
> >>It contained this image :
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Masturbationsm.jpg
> >>
> >>Sorry if that appears like an admin abuse or whatever, but imho, this is
> >>just ***ridiculous***.
> >>
> >>
> >>ant
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>WikiEN-l mailing list
> >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>