from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
IANAL, but assuming there is a liability issue.  We
should create a business list or perhaps a "content
re-user" list and leave it unmoderated.  Re-affirm in
the sign-up message for this list that it is an open
discussion list and that official requests should be
sent to Foo at wikimedia or whereever they should go.  I
strongly disagree with the Foundation paying someone
to moderate a public email list.

Birgitte SB

--- "Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
wrote:

> Michael Bimmler wrote:
>
> >On 9/6/06, Jeff V. Merkey
> <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>(...) That sort of thing.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >And why can't this be open to the community as
> well? You know, the
> >wiki principle (at least that's what I thought), is
> "keep everything
> >transparent which does not need to be secret". The
> aims of this list
> >as described by you do not seem to need any special
> privacy/secret
> >status.
> >Michael
> >
> >
> >
> >
> You know, I did not want to address this on this
> list, but it appears I
> will have to in order
> for folks to get it.
>
> Business 101
>
> 1. Businesses have goals with involve creating
> revenue and positive
> growth, in almost all ways identical to
> the communities eventual goals.
> 2. Businesses are protected by laws and have legal
> obligations to their
> customers, partners, the Foundation,
> and other entities and they MUST comply with and
> protect the rights of
> these parties.
> 3. Businesses make decisions based upon goals which
> are designed to
> promote their objectives.
> 4. Wikipedia centric businesses would be expected to
> have goals which
> promote wikipedia content
> in education, business, and attempt to promote the
> spread of Wikipedia's
> pervasive content and create
> opportunties to grow Wikipedia in a positive
> financial growth model to
> create and support new communities
> and expand the power and reach of the existing
> communities.
> 5. The goals of the Community will be expected to be
> at odds with the
> goals of financial growth at times.
> 6. The community is in fact an "entity" of sorts,
> separate and distinct
> from the Foundation, and any
> business ventures which attempt to promote its
> goals.
> 7. Businesses and ventures promoting Wikipedia will
> have a fiduciary
> duty to protect the investments of the
> Foundation and any investors funding such efforts.
> 8. Millions of dollars may in time be invested in
> such endeavors.
> 9. When a faction of the community decides it does
> not like a particular
> business venture or someone involved, and
> resorts to disruptive behavior or other actions to
> derail or interfere
> with the Foundations projects in the real world,
> it's not disruption, it's "tortious inteference" and
> it's actionable
> will expose the foundation and community to problems
> with investors or stakeholders in these efforts. In
> other words, it
> would call into conflict a balancing of the ventures
> fiduciary duty vs. their stated goals in support of
> the community
> iteself. Many ventures would simply back away and
> make
> a decision dealing with the Community is too great a
> business risk and
> simply stop supporting it or fork Wikipedia and try
> to
> steam roller over the Foundation. This is not
> condusive to positive
> growth or the ultimate goal of promoting Wikipedia
> and creating opporunities for explosive growth for
> the foundation.
> 10. Companies do not make agreements with anonymous
> email accounts on
> gmail or accounts on Wikipedia, they make agreements
> with organized entities and identifiable indivduals
> and stake holders.
> 11. A business related list would be a good venue.
> Certainly, the
> community could provide input, but such a list would
> need
> moderation by a representative of the Foundation,
> not a community member
> who has no fiduciary duty or responsiblity
> to the Foundations policies. Community members
> should ABSOLUTELY be
> allowed participation as they are the
> heart and soul of the basic nature of the
> opporutnities. They should not
> be running the list or any other element beyond
> their suggestions and contributions to creating new
> ventures. In other
> words, when a non-employee or person without
> fiduciary
> duty attempts to disrupt or lobby against such an
> effort OUTSIDE of
> FOUNDATION CHANNELs, they are out on a limb
> and expose all the parties to liablity.
>
> Hope that explains it.
>
> All my love,
>
> Jeff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________________________
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list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Can a wikimedia-b list be setup


list: foundation-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 06/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Thoughts?

> I tend to feel that one of the major attractions of wikipedia to
> younger people is that we treat them like everyone else regardless of
> age.

Yes. And that being, e.g., an admin on en:wp only takes similar skills
and cluefulness as being, say, a web forum moderator - there are 15
year olds who are great at the job and 40 year olds you wouldn't let
near it under any circumstances. It's possible to be thoroughly
meritocratic.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


list: wikien-l

from_name: Zeraeph

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonably Blocked for objecting to an abusive editor

body:
I do not care about the block, but I DO care about the damage the abusive
editor will go on to do.

PLEASE somebody watch this situation so that the editor I challenged cannot
do too much damage to Wikipedia.

I have been blocked unfairly for challenging another editor's abusive
behavior.

What is unreasonable about the block is that it was put in place while this
editor publicly flaunted their sock/meatpuppetry vexatiously from several
AOL IPs  and at least two usernames, which was completely ignored.

Please see details on my talk page where links are evident, including links
to the vandalism committed under one username since the block.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Does openness dull the bleeding edge?

body:
On 06/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I think that, quite often, professional physicists have a lower
> > exposure and awareness of the pervasiveness and often quite insane
> > energy levels some of the physics cranks project.

> I dunno I've herd professional physicists complain about clearing
> their inboxes of cranks every day.

Oh hell yeah. Remember that the NOR policy originated because of
physics cranks in particular.

- d.


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] proposed policy - Commons:Trademarks

body:
On 06/09/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's pretty simple: I propose we formalise the policy of not accepting
> trademarks, regardless of their copyright status.
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Trademarks

Sounds plausible on the surface. But.
    * What about spurious trademark claims? Apple has been threatening
everyone who uses the prefix "i-" or the suffix "-pod".
    * Trademark law is far from uniform internationally. Which sets of
trademark laws do we decide to ignore?
    * How many and which countries must it be trademarked in?
    * How do we deal with claimed trademarks that are not registered trademarks?

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edits by project and country of origin

body:
On 06/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> But for zh:I was surprised to see the bulk of contributions coming
> from HK, and so many from NL...

So Wikipedia isn't firewalled from HK, just from mainland China?

I'm not surprised Taiwan's contribution level is comparable.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Semi-solid evidence that process is in fact
	dangerous to Wikipedia

body:
On 06/09/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:

>    The thing that alarmed/amused me the most was "If we stop
> ***adding*** policies  ...." (my stars obviously).  That combined with
> the notion that all policies (and I presume processes) are needed gives
> me much fear for the future.

Process must remain endlessly malleable. Of course, this is a golden
opportunity for people here to play [[Nomic]] rather than to write an
encyclopedia. But then, so is everything. There is no possible set of
rules that can (a) cure cluelessness (b) guard against malice.

- d.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

body:
Birgitte SB wrote:

>IANAL, but assuming there is a liability issue.  We
>should create a business list or perhaps a "content
>re-user" list and leave it unmoderated.  Re-affirm in
>the sign-up message for this list that it is an open
>discussion list and that official requests should be
>sent to Foo at wikimedia or whereever they should go.  I
>strongly disagree with the Foundation paying someone
>to moderate a public email list.
>
>
>Birgitte SB
>
>
>
This is reasonable and would allow the community to have visibility into
business developments and input and
remove all liabilty from postings to the list under the CDA. It has
worked well for Linux Kernel development
to operate this way. Should work here.

Jeff


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Central bibliography

body:
GerardM wrote:

> You deny the argument for Wikicat to need Wikidata. I wonder
> what you base this on. It is given what it aims to do perfectly
> reasonable.

For WiktionaryZ you needed two things: Wikidata and some free
contents to fill it, which you found in the GEMET vocabulary.

For Wikicat, perhaps it could be based on Wikidata or perhaps on
some other technical solution, but it also needs contents, and
this contents needs to be free (as in freedom).  The dump of the
database must be possible to download and reuse for other
purposes.  My point is that we currently don't have that kind of
content.  What's lacking is not so much the technical platform, as
the contents.  The most recent proposal ([[m:Wikicat]]) by Jleybov
is based on lifting catalog records from the Library of Congress
and other major libraries through a Z39.50 interface.  I don't see
any contract with the LoC and other libraries that confirms that
these data can be reused for any purpose, and I don't see any
efforts being made to getting such contracts.  Instead, on the
m:talk:Wikicat page, I see vague ideas about using data that are
available for educational non-profit purposes, and I personally
think that is quite insufficient.  I don't think it is impossible
to solve the licensing issue, but I think it needs to be solved.
Just ignoring the legal issue is not good enough.

Whether Wikidata is ready for deployment or not, this is not
what's stopping Wikicat at this moment.

Could you talk to kb.nl and ask if their entire catalog can be
released into the public domain or under a useful license?  That
would be a move similar to releasing the GEMET vocabulary, and
could provide the starting of Wikicat.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>On 9/6/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Also lets not forget that young people have much
>>longer holidays than most people.  I would think
>>younger people are more likely to be able to attend
>>and event a week before Wikimania.
>>
>>Although I do wonder whether we really want to take on
>>being responsibile for minors.  It would require a lot
>>more effort than just producing Wikimania does.  I
>>think if we can partner with a group that has
>>experience and a good reputation with the "youth camp"
>>issues, then it would be great for us to provide the
>>Wikimedia aspect.  If we are doing this on our own
>>however I think it would be too risky of a
>>proposition.
>>
>>
>I agree, that's why a session before Wikimania with maybe 12-16 folks
>would be an ideal start. If we're talking 50-100, then I agree -
>having to manage that many teenagers under one roof would be daunting.
>We'd need the help of an academic institution that has experience
>running a summer program or something similar.
>
The whole idea is intriguing, but there are major logistical problems.
There is no doubt that we (or the youth themselves) could come up with
an interesting programme.  The small group that Andrew suggests may be
as much as we can hope for in a first global level conference of this
sort in the first year.  After that such conferences could grow, or more
regional events may prove more workable.

The youth who can travel half-way around the world to a conference
without their parents are exceptional.  Such travel is very costly, and
most parents need to be reassured that their children will be perfectly
safe before they give the children permission to travel.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] BC vs BCE era names

body:
ScottL wrote:

>maru dubshinki wrote:
>
>
>>On 9/5/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Guettarda wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates
>>>>NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
>>>>Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the
>>>>NPOV policy asks.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were
>>>originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate
>>>NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep
>>>using months?
>>>
>>>
>>But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically
>>verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant
>>events, such as the changing of the pole star.
>>
>>
>According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war.
>The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
>
We also need to abandon our days of the week.  It is clearly a breach of
NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven
days.

Ec


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cluesticks needed regarding WP:BLP and WP:RS

body:
On 9/6/06, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
>

> > * A man who posted nude pictures of himself on websites whose domains
> > he registered advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay prostitute can
> > not be identified as a prostitute.
> Was this reported in a reliable source (this person being called a
> prostitute?). If not, this is OR.

Yes, by multiple mainstream reliable sources.  And as Bryan pointed
out, he's calling himself a prostitute by posting an ad advertising
his wares.

> > * The Columbia Journalism Review is a reliable source.  A blog run by
> > the Columbia Journalism Review on the website of the Columbia
> > Journalism Review is not.
> Only if the Columbia Journalism Review has editorial control of the
> blog. Otherwise, I would agree that it is not a RS.

Exactly the sort of distinction reasonable editors should be making,
but these people are just invoking RS and saying blog=unreliable
regardless of the source.

> This is ungrounded paranoia. If you think that this new "unit" is a
> threat to WP, join in  and help make it better, as some of us are
> attempting to do.

If you've had prior dealings with some of these editors, you might not
think I was being paranoid.  I'd rather overreact now than have to
deal with a bigger problem down the line.  And one of the reasons I'm
posting here is to get more editors to become active in this matter
now, to help make things better, exactly what you suggest.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia vs. Ebay on Alexa

body:
On 06/09/06, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Let's all remember that we don't need to achieve any particular Alexa
> ranking. It's good to be a popular site, but that's the result of working to
> achieve the mission; it's not the mission itself.

We're too popular for our own good as it is.

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: HeinzJ

subject: [Wikitech-l] Spam: How to delete all users with no edits

body:
Maybe all users would be blown away if the SQL would work ;-)

HeinzJ

Travis Derouin schrieb:
> Do you know if the user_touched has been set to anything other than
> null for these accounts?
>
> Something like
>
> DELETE FROM user, user_rights WHERE ur_user = user_id AND user_id NOT IN
>  (SELECT UNIQUE(rev_user) FROM revision)
>
> Although I'm totally not responsible if this blows away users that
> have registered. :)
>
> Travis
>
>
> On 9/5/06, HeinzJ <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
>> At the moment we have a spam-problem. People or PCs are adding dayly
>> users with no edits. Mostly they look like TheUserViagra with the Email
>> TheUserViagra at someGMX.net
>>
>> I would like to delete all users with no edits before updating to
>> mediawiki 1.71 and adding a CAPTCHA into the add new user dialog.
>>
>> Who have some Ideas?
>>
>> - SQL clauses
>> - ....
>>
>>
>> THX, HeinzJ
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>


body:
On 06/09/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> And if your proposal, with that modification, is accepted, then I
> propose we start a Wikipedia Commons (note the "p") to put images
> which can be freely used in an encyclopedia, even if they can't be
> used on a bottle of dish detergent.

You mean, a service project designed to hold common images used on the
Wikipedias so that they don't have to keep duplicate images on the
projects? That's a great idea, and we should propose it to the
Foundation immediately! I wonder if we need to change anything in the
software to support it.

- d.


from_name: Jim Redmond

subject: [Foundation-l] Better as a workshop (was Re: Wikimedia Youth Camp?)

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>I can't see how you can avoid this kind of event
>becoming either a beginner's guide to Wikimedia (not something anyone
>committed enough to fork out several hundred quid needs) or a mini
>Wikimania.  While an entirely admirable idea -- it's always good to
>reach out to members of the community in new ways -- I can't imagine
>how it could be practically made into a useful and productive event.
>
>
Quit thinking of it as a "camp".  The idea works much better if you
think of it more as a "workshop".

*Make it open to all ages, not just "youth"
*Keep it brief - no more than a couple hours
*Hold it at a public facility, like a library or school
*Cover the absolute fundamentals - basic wikisyntax, core policies,
where to go for further help
*Offer it for free or for a nominal fee
*Have local chapters present it, or recruit a presenter from a local
university, LUG, or free content group

Anything more than this is unnecessary complication, IMHO.

Jim Redmond
[[en:User:Jredmond]]


body:
Pat Gunn wrote:

Hi Pat,

I guess the real question here is defining who "we" is. I see "we" as
the whole of planet earth,
not just the current incarnation of the community. As for point 11, when
people are investing money
to see THEIR goals fulfilled, you kindof have to balance all the
concerns of the various players.
Not an easy task.

Linux Kernel development uses an unmoderated list where some very
powerful players interact
from a business world and the internet community worlds and do so very
well. IBM, Novell,
and folks from this very community (Gregory Maxwell for example) all
interact in this model and
have vritually achieved global dominion of OS development and deployment
by finding a common
ground and balancing these enormous conflux of powers.

It works because the pressure for people to act responsilbly is based on
finanacial and business concerns
and support of the various business entities and their acceptance of
technology proposals.

Jeff

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>You know, I did not want to address this on this list, but it appears I
>>will have to in order
>>for folks to get it.
>>
>>
>
>I believe this is a poor line of reasoning for a bad idea. The
>foundation has certain goals, and these are not always realised
>by the community at large, nor must they all deal with the
>responsibility, fine details, or the work involved in making
>sure the project stays afloat. By and large, the goals of the
>community and those of the foundation coincide though, helped
>by the transparency and (certain amounts of) openness. I am very
>concerned at your implication (in point 9) that nondisruptive
>efforts to suggest that some arrangements are not acceptable to
>the community should be easily overruled by the business interests
>of the foundation. The "Explosive growth" you say should be our
>goal is dangerous in the same way that cancer is -- it can easily
>become a perversion of our hopes and structure in the name of
>size. We must be careful about growth and absolutely
>insistent on as much openness and inclusiveness as possible,
>even when it costs us business opportunities. I am similarly very
>disturbed at your point 11, which suggests that off-list lobbying
>against proposed business ventures is something that we should
>consider verboten or dangerous.
>
>---
>Pat Gunn
>mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
>http://dachte.org
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Andy Rabagliati wrote:

>But you can brutalise English and still be understood, which I gather is
>not the case for Chinese.
>
>
I think this is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy: semi-fluent or even
broken English can be understood because people are used to reading or
hearing it, since it's a common second or third or fourth language.
Compare to, say, modern Greek, where people are astounded to even hear
it language spoken with a foreign accent---generally you either speak it
natively or not at all, so people aren't used to making sense of
semi-fluent speech/writing.

-Mark


from_name: Liz Kim

subject: [Wikitech-l] directly write to database

body:
Hello,
I have over 200 .html files that need to be turned into wiki.
These are all very simple text html files with maybe <b> tags and <p>.. very
simple.
Instead of copying and pasting all these files one by one, is there a way to
access the database to write to it directly?
Is there a way to easily understand the db strucutre?
I am thinking there could be a script that can read the html code and i can
easily parse out what I want to put into teh edit window of wiki..
Thank you, Liz


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/6/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
> CVU?
>

[[Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit]]

--
geni


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Central bibliography

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

> For Wikicat, perhaps it could be based on Wikidata or perhaps on
>
>some other technical solution, but it also needs contents, and
>this contents needs to be free (as in freedom).  The dump of the
>database must be possible to download and reuse for other
>purposes.  My point is that we currently don't have that kind of
>content.  What's lacking is not so much the technical platform, as
>the contents.  The most recent proposal ([[m:Wikicat]]) by Jleybov
>is based on lifting catalog records from the Library of Congress
>and other major libraries through a Z39.50 interface.  I don't see
>any contract with the LoC and other libraries that confirms that
>these data can be reused for any purpose, and I don't see any
>efforts being made to getting such contracts.  Instead, on the
>m:talk:Wikicat page, I see vague ideas about using data that are
>available for educational non-profit purposes, and I personally
>think that is quite insufficient.  I don't think it is impossible
>to solve the licensing issue, but I think it needs to be solved.
>Just ignoring the legal issue is not good enough.
>
I don't see where copyright is an issue with this.  The Library of
Congress is an arm of the United States Congress whose primary purpose
is to serve U. S. legislators.  That would put its work in the public
domain.  Is there any reason to believe otherwise?  Other libraries may
have different views concerning their material, but how much of their
material is not in the LoC catalogue.

Ec


body:
Pat Gunn wrote:

>Given that our community is motivated by ideology (not a bad thing --
>idealism is an underestimated thing in today's world), we need to
>be extra careful to not let our goals fall astray.
>
I share with you my views and observations of the current "We" and where
it should be opened to embrace
a broader view of humanity.

Patt, I've managed people and companies for about 20 years, and have had
upwards of 500+
people reporting directly to me at various stages of my career. There
are three things that
motivate human beings I have always seen true in my 46 years on planet
earth in career and
life advancement.

Knowledge, Power and Money.

In essense, they are all actually the same thing with regard to the end
result. What people truly desire
in life is FREEDOM to pursue their pursuits of pleasure and their
dreams. For many people, money is freedom
because is gives them security. For others, power is freedom because it
gives them the feeling they have control
over their lives and the lives of others. For a very very small minority
of people, knowledge and the pursuit of
enhancing their intellect and skill gives them the greatest freedom of
all - the power to mould their own destiny
and create new avenues of endeavor on the frontiers of human knowledge.
I personally am in the third
group, and have in my life experienced a freedom few people will ever
know because my skill and knowledge I cultivate
above all else, and power, money and freedom have been the reward --
things I never sought for themselves.

In business, anytime I ran across a person who was solely motivated by
power and not money, I fired them
at the first opportunity. I did so because my experience has taught me
that people who are motivated by power
and other intangible ideals are dangerous to organizations and
collective efforts and will always put themselves
and their self-serving desires above the good of the whole. People who
are motivated by money are very
predictable and easy to manage and are solid contributors to any
organizations success. Their patterns
are inherently easy to anticipate and accomodate.

By giving people the chance to express power over others with admin
status, etc. a large majority of the current
community are in this first group and are there for the power and
control aspect over Wikipedia's direction by
either oppressing others or combining into a cohesive front. There are
also a lot of folks who are there solely
for the benefit of knowledge and increasing their skill. Almost none of
the folks in the class motivated my money
are even present or represented. They exist outside of the community.

My observation of the community is that it is comprised of folks
motivated by the pursuit of pure knowledge, and
those motivated by desire for power and to use it as a platform for
various platforms. What I am talking about
is balancing its composition to embrace an element that is currently
absent. An element to concert it into something
that will endure as an institution into the far future.

So when I hear words like "corrupt", "motivated by ideology" all these
things mean "motiviated by power" to me,
and not the collective work of moving an organization into a positive
growth model for long term stability and
financial health. "Show them the door" is exactly what I would do with
any employee I hired who evidenced
power motivated behavior, using your words.

There's room for everyone and none should be discarded, all have value
and Wikipedia says its mission is to reach the
whole world. That means it should embrace the whole world. Including the
missing element in the community at present,
which is a healthy and vibrant business community within it. The power
motivated folks can still be admins in the Community
and other positions of power. The Knowlege pursuers can still edit and
stand with a foot in both worlds. And the Money people
can find new and innovative ways to improve processes and contribute to
avenue which will in fact reach the whole world.

All my love,

Jeff

>I would prefer
>that the foundation bend very little or not at all (absolutely
>no exclusivity arrangements with any business) on these matters.
>If we look to our future audience, we can best serve them by keeping
>the project from being corrupted by the quickest path to growth.
>We don't need to care about anyone else's concerns but the
>foundation and its projects. IMO, if external dealings require
>such secrecy, we should simply show people and companies that
>require such things to the door. I've seen volunteer communities
>destroyed by such things before -- it's an ugly thing.
>
>---
>Pat Gunn
>mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
>http://dachte.org
>If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned
>mostly with trees -- Lao Tze
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 06/09/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> We
>>should create a business list or perhaps a "content
>>re-user" list and leave it unmoderated.  Re-affirm in
>>the sign-up message for this list that it is an open
>>discussion list and that official requests should be
>>sent to Foo at wikimedia or whereever they should go.
>>
>>
>
>
>This is a *great* idea. And even as someone who writes en:wp articles
>and does Foundation stuff and has little interest in running a mirror,
>I'd be very interested to know what people do and want to do with our
>hard work. The idea of open content is "Use our stuff," after all.
>
>So what do we need for this to happen?
>
>

David,

Make the list and I'll move over to it immediately.

Jeff

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


from_name: Kim Bruning

body:
On Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at 12:41:30AM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
> ?$B$X$=$,Cc$r$o$+$9$H$O$3$&$$$&$3$H$r$$$&$N$+$H;W$&;d!#

I'm not sure I can quite interpret that. Nevertheless, I second the remark.

--
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] More about PR firms

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/22/06, Sydney aka FloNight <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
>> I think this type of illegal activity is a real possibility and is another reason that we should ban PR firms from our site.
>
> Just remember that we can't "ban PR firms". Can't be done. Not possible.

Well, no more than we can "ban vandals" and the like.

I think that the vast majority of PR firms are ethical and respect our
advice to interact with the community on the talk pages rather than edit
directly.  And the ones who aren't... well, we will deal with them as
best we can, as we do with other bad-faith editors.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] How not to manage opensource project

body:
Anthere wrote:
> The problem is that whilst "you" and "I" will generally agree on the
> concept, you can not expect that people will read "properly" terms which
> have different meaning and implications depending on languages.

Then I trust that you will help me by explaining my meaning in French,
to French people, since I can speak only English and (barely) German.

--Jimbo


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
Thanks Patt,

I appreciate your views too. Part of our growth and path through life is
learning from each other,
and adapting ourselves to being open to everyone's point of view.
There's room for everyone I feel.

All my love,

Jeff

Pat Gunn wrote:

>Jeff,
>I appreciate your explaining your perspective -- it does
>enlighten us with regards to the framework with which
>you work. I still disagree with it, and feel business
>dealings should be kept on a short leash in as open and
>public a view as possible, but I am more comfortable
>"agreeing to disagree" on this point now. I do believe
>that creation of wikimedia-b as you describe would be
>a bad idea.
>
>Take care. (reentering lurk mode)
>
>---
>Pat Gunn
>mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
>http://dachte.org
>There are few things in life that arn't made better with liberal application of
>mustard, or worse with liberal application of ketchup.
>	-- Pat Gunn
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] It's now official: Britannica is yesterday's news

body:
Google has launched an archive service for news items, integrated into
news.google.com.

The funny thing is that EB content is also included:

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=britannica+encyclopaedia+%7C+encyclopedia&sa=N

We already knew it, Britannica is yesterday's news...

Mathias


body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>I share with you my views and observations of the current "We" and where
>it should be opened to embrace
>a broader view of humanity.
>
>There are three things that
>motivate human beings I have always seen true in my 46 years on planet
>earth in career and life advancement.
>
>Knowledge, Power and Money.
>
>In business, anytime I ran across a person who was solely motivated by
>power and not money, I fired them
>at the first opportunity. I did so because my experience has taught me
>that people who are motivated by power
>and other intangible ideals are dangerous to organizations and
>collective efforts and will always put themselves
>and their self-serving desires above the good of the whole. People who
>are motivated by money are very
>predictable and easy to manage and are solid contributors to any
>organizations success. Their patterns
>are inherently easy to anticipate and accomodate.
>
The people who are motivated by power are especially dangerous to those
who already have the power.

Those motivated by "other intangible ideals" (i.e. ideologues) are not
self-serving.  They see their ideology as being for the good of the
whole, and will readily sacrifice themselves in order to have their
ideology prevail. They make great suicide bombers, but tend not to stay
in that business for very long.

I agree about the money-motivated, but these are not the people that you
can count on for a lot of imagination.  The really bright ones become
MBAs where they can strive for the pinnacle of incompetence.  This
permits them to do an excellent job in the most complex of routine tasks.

>By giving people the chance to express power over others with admin
>status, etc. a large majority of the current
>community are in this first group and are there for the power and
>control aspect over Wikipedia's direction by
>either oppressing others or combining into a cohesive front. There are
>also a lot of folks who are there solely
>for the benefit of knowledge and increasing their skill. Almost none of
>the folks in the class motivated my money
>are even present or represented. They exist outside of the community.
>
The Wikipedia admins who most severly exercise power are little more
than drill sargeants who like everyone to march in step with all arms
swinging in unison to the same height.  They are motivated more by order
than by power.

>My observation of the community is that it is comprised of folks
>motivated by the pursuit of pure knowledge, and
>those motivated by desire for power and to use it as a platform for
>various platforms. What I am talking about
>is balancing its composition to embrace an element that is currently
>absent. An element to concert it into something
>that will endure as an institution into the far future.
>
Those motivated by knowledge or by altruism tend to pursue their goals
without considering how events around them influence their goals.  They
can be frustrated by the power games of the order freaks.  They will
listen to reason, and reconsider their views in the light of new
arguments.  They are most frustrated when opponents refuse to provide
reasonable arguments for their actions.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 06/09/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Although I do wonder whether we really want to take on
> being responsibile for minors.  It would require a lot
> more effort than just producing Wikimania does.  I
> think if we can partner with a group that has
> experience and a good reputation with the "youth camp"
> issues, then it would be great for us to provide the
> Wikimedia aspect.  If we are doing this on our own
> however I think it would be too risky of a
> proposition.

I can just imagine the writeup from Andrew Orlowski! The event doesn't
have to have happened for me to be able to write it ...

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


from_name: Pat Gunn

subject: [Foundation-l]  Can a wikimedia-b list be setup

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>You know, I did not want to address this on this list, but it appears I
>will have to in order
>for folks to get it.

I believe this is a poor line of reasoning for a bad idea. The
foundation has certain goals, and these are not always realised
by the community at large, nor must they all deal with the
responsibility, fine details, or the work involved in making
sure the project stays afloat. By and large, the goals of the
community and those of the foundation coincide though, helped
by the transparency and (certain amounts of) openness. I am very
concerned at your implication (in point 9) that nondisruptive
efforts to suggest that some arrangements are not acceptable to
the community should be easily overruled by the business interests
of the foundation. The "Explosive growth" you say should be our
goal is dangerous in the same way that cancer is -- it can easily
become a perversion of our hopes and structure in the name of
size. We must be careful about growth and absolutely
insistent on as much openness and inclusiveness as possible,
even when it costs us business opportunities. I am similarly very
disturbed at your point 11, which suggests that off-list lobbying
against proposed business ventures is something that we should
consider verboten or dangerous.

---
Pat Gunn
mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
http://dachte.org


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
I am supportive for "tutorial tracks" Andrew mentioned. Not only for
the younger generation, but also for other generations, including aged
(and not familiar with PC and other techy things) etc.

In a practical mention, it would be meaningful to target the youth in
that occasion,  simply because they would be significant parts of our
community, and generally they need to be trained. Some young
Wikipedians (I am now recalling LeonWP on German Wikipedia, Kzhr on
Japanese Wikipedia et al) have showed splendid maturity through their
editorial activities, however it isn't inevitable they are still
developping their skills in all directions. And the much clearer we
can make the target of such event  the more successful and the more
practically managed it would be.

Back to the general topic, I saw once a question about training
occasion on Japanese Wikipedia. A newcomer, supposedly middle-aged or
older and seemed to have some experiences in his or her field, wanted
to know if there was an oppotunity of editing tutorial sessions in
real life. I recommend each language community to consider to hold
such (perhaps local) lecture(s), if possible. It would be a good
oppotunity to consider such tutorials are better to be organized by
generation or not, too.

On 9/6/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course, but we should make sure it's actually something that people would
> > want to be part of before devoting a lot of effort to it. Frankly, I don't
> > think that many kids on Wikipedia would be interested in a course called
> > "Everything you know about Pokemon, and where to put it," and probably even
> > less would be able to get there.
>
> That's why I think as a start, it would be good to run this as a youth
> session for a few days before Wikimania rather than depending a
> dedicated gettogether. Just like Hacking Days is a magnet for technie
> types to join together to learn, there could be a preconference track
> for younger folks who can decide for themselves if it's something
> they're into.
>
> Even if it's simply skills development, done in the context of
> Wikimania, it could get younger folks excited and involved. Some ideas
> might include - working with Wikimedia Commons, using Wikipedia in
> studies, media literacy, workshops on particular tasks. From a public
> relations angle, it's something that can show the Wikipedia community
> giving back to help train younger folks with the skills that have
> become second nature to Wikipedians.
>
> In fact, very few of these things are specific to being "youth" but
> rather providing a nurturing environment to recruit and train a
> younger generation of Wikipedians. (Actually, for Wikimania 2007, this
> might be good thing to do for the conference in general - tutorial
> tracks for folks who would like to learn the nuts and bolts of certain
> tasks.)
>
> Given recent questions about scalability of consensus, the poisonous
> RfA proceedings and trivia creeping into every corner of Wikipedia, we
> should be looking into more ways to keep the community healthy.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 9/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/09/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Although I do wonder whether we really want to take on
> > being responsibile for minors.  It would require a lot
> > more effort than just producing Wikimania does.  I
> > think if we can partner with a group that has
> > experience and a good reputation with the "youth camp"
> > issues, then it would be great for us to provide the
> > Wikimedia aspect.  If we are doing this on our own
> > however I think it would be too risky of a
> > proposition.
>
>
> I can just imagine the writeup from Andrew Orlowski! The event doesn't
> have to have happened for me to be able to write it ...
>
>

Well how about an OAP camp? after a lot of OAPs have IP we would like to have.
--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 06/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Well how about an OAP camp? after a lot of OAPs have IP we would like to have.

> Forgive my ignorance, but OAP?

Old-age pensioner (UK term).

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Central bibliography

body:
Tuesday, September 5, 2006, 6:15:46 AM, you wrote:

LA> Suppose you define a way to identify a pre-defined reference, e.g.
LA> the Wikipedia Standard Reference Numbering (WSRN), you could set
LA> up a server of your own where the reference database is kept and
LA> just link to that from a template.  It would be no different from
LA> Egil Kvaleberg's map link server and the {{coor}} template.

LA>   WSRN = 1   --> "The Wiki Way", ISBN 0-201-71499-X
LA>   WSRN = 2   --> "The Hive", article in "The Atlantic Monthly",
LA>                  http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia
LA>   WSRN = 3   --> ...

LA> and a template {{wsrn|3}} to make a reference.

but, when one would edit the article, they will see just {{wsrn|3}}
and have absolutely no idea about which book is referenced. Especially
in articles with dozens of book references, this would make the
editing much more complicated than it is now with <ref> tags.


body:
jayjg wrote:

>On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>ScottL wrote:
>>
>>
>>>According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war.
>>>The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
>>>
>>>
>>We also need to abandon our days of the week.  It is clearly a breach of
>>NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven
>>days.
>>
>>
>A significant difference being that nobody worships the
>Norse/German/Roman gods these days, nor do people live in cultures
>dominated by worshippers of Norse/German/Roman gods. Another is that
>the names of the days are named after Norse/German/Roman gods, but do
>not assert that they *are* gods. On the other hand, billions still
>worship Jesus and assert he is "our God", as does the designation A.D.
>
The last comment is a non-sequitur.  I would also question the numerical
accuracy of your exagerated billions; the United States population isn't
that high.  The term "a large number" would have sufficed.  Be that as
it may, the fundamental premise that you and many others assert Jesus to
be your God may be true, but that implies nothing about the designation
A.D. or those who use it.

I do not accept Jesus as God, but I still use A.D.  I think that we all
should be free to use whichever form we want, without being constantly
besieged by the forces of political correctness.

Ec


from_name: Jüvä Sullõv

subject: [Wikipedia-l] navigation box of fiu-vro

body:
Hi, navigation box on main page of the fiu-vro wikipedia is translated to V?ro (in system messages) and has been in V?ro all the
time after it. Now it appears in English. Why? Could somebody repair it, please?

fiu-vro user V?rok


body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>I guess the real question here is defining who "we" is. I see "we" as
>the whole of planet earth,
>not just the current incarnation of the community. As for point 11, when
>people are investing money
>to see THEIR goals fulfilled, you kindof have to balance all the
>concerns of the various players.
>Not an easy task.

Given that our community is motivated by ideology (not a bad thing --
idealism is an underestimated thing in today's world), we need to
be extra careful to not let our goals fall astray. I would prefer
that the foundation bend very little or not at all (absolutely
no exclusivity arrangements with any business) on these matters.
If we look to our future audience, we can best serve them by keeping
the project from being corrupted by the quickest path to growth.
We don't need to care about anyone else's concerns but the
foundation and its projects. IMO, if external dealings require
such secrecy, we should simply show people and companies that
require such things to the door. I've seen volunteer communities
destroyed by such things before -- it's an ugly thing.

---
Pat Gunn
mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
http://dachte.org
If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned
mostly with trees -- Lao Tze


from_name: Tim Doyle

subject: [Wikitech-l] directly write to database

body:
I know of two options:

1. (suggested by Brion Vibber) use the ImportDump maintenance program:

php maintenance/importDump.php big-old-file.xml

-or-

for x in *.xml
do
  php maintenance/importDump.php $x
done

2. Use the Pywikipediabot Framework:

a. Install the pywikipediabot and configure it for your site.

b. Manipulate the data for your pages into one large file, preferrably named
dict.txt with {{start}} tags at the top of each page, {{stop}} tags at the
bottom, and the '''pagename''' as the first bolded item on each page
(optionally enclosed in an HTML-style <!-- comment -->

c. Run the login.py script to log in.

d. Run the pagefromfile.py script. This will parse through the dict.txt file
quickly creating each page in the file on your wiki.

This should be a fairly quick process... complete in under an hour or two.
The pagefromfile.py script can occasionally bomb out. If that happens, look
at your wiki recentchanges log, note the last file uploaded, remove the data
in dict.txt from the top of the file to that page, and restart.

Good luck!

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Liz Kim
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 3:19 PM
To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikitech-l] directly write to database

Hello,
I have over 200 .html files that need to be turned into wiki. These are all
very simple text html files with maybe <b> tags and <p>.. very simple.
Instead of copying and pasting all these files one by one, is there a way to
access the database to write to it directly? Is there a way to easily
understand the db strucutre? I am thinking there could be a script that can
read the html code and i can easily parse out what I want to put into teh
edit window of wiki.. Thank you, Liz
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Death Phoenix

body:
On 9/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 06/09/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> > We also need to abandon our days of the week.  It is clearly a breach of
> > NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven
> > days.
>
>
> Not to mention all this use of "he" and "she." We have neutral
> pronouns! Just 'cos they're crap and almost nobody you'd actually want
> to talk to uses them doesn't mean they don't exist!
>

Once upon a time, David was having tea with their wife. They decided that
they wanted to have green tea, but they wanted black tea instead. So they
decided to flip a coin. They got heads, but since they picked tails, David
didn't get what they wanted.


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Rating Articles Extension

references:
<d45df5100608310836s1b2a4293nbf4f0af267f3e8d9@mail.gmail.com>
	<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKMEMDIMAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<d45df5100609050805q325b5986y14565ed2b3f87004@mail.gmail.com>
	<7c2a12e20609051655s35c52d71sac58a05bcd1003e7@mail.gmail.com>

body:
GPL is fine for me, I've updated the code with the GPL license and
made some changes that were suggested.

http://www.wikihow.com/WikiHow:RateArticle-Extension

How do extensions generally deal with images and stylesheets that need
to be available outside the extensions directory, such as in the skins
directory, when users are accessing them through SVN?

Travis

On 9/5/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/5/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
> > I hadn't thought that far ahead! What license are Wikipedia extensions
> > usually released with? GPL?
>
> All MediaWiki extensions have to be GPLd.  Possibly altogether, but
> definitely if you want them on SVN/Wikimedia projects.  AFAIK.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>That said, a warning to the members of the younger generation:
>political correctness is one of the more questionable accomplishments
>of your parents. I started using and running bulletin board systems
>when I was 13 years old and attended and organized many meetings where
>I was the youngest member of the group. I've got my own stories to
>tell about age discrimination, but let's not get bogged down in age
>politics.
>
How far were you allowed to travel for this when you were 13?

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


from_name: Akash Mehta

subject: [WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

body:
Well, I'm sure 1000 sysops dedicated to the task could do it, but we
simply can't afford to dedicate a sysop to a specific task unless we
sign up another 100 to make sure the 1000 don't make any mistakes, and
yet another 100 to cover the gap left by the 100 who were originally
sysops and were promoted to bureaucrat to handle the rights allocation
of 1000 sysops, yet another 100 to refine policy so that less
experienced users can work more efficiently and take care of the work
not done by the 1300 odd who are now dedicated to sysop tasks...

On 9/5/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 9/4/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:24:07 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >Yeah, he said it doesn't seem to be working, and it's not open.  So
> > >when is this policy change going to be reverted?
> >
> > Right after we can sign up another thousand admins to deal with the
> > flood-tide of crap articles that anons create?
> >
> How many more admins do you *really* think it would take.  Certainly
> not 1000.  Surely the 3 or 4 more clicks it takes to create a crap
> article now aren't stopping that many anons.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: jayjg

body:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> ScottL wrote:
>
> >maru dubshinki wrote:
> >
> >
> >>On 9/5/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Guettarda wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates
> >>>>NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
> >>>>Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the
> >>>>NPOV policy asks.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were
> >>>originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate
> >>>NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep
> >>>using months?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically
> >>verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant
> >>events, such as the changing of the pole star.
> >>
> >>
> >According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war.
> >The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
> >
> We also need to abandon our days of the week.  It is clearly a breach of
> NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven
> days.

A significant difference being that nobody worships the
Norse/German/Roman gods these days, nor do people live in cultures
dominated by worshippers of Norse/German/Roman gods. Another is that
the names of the days are named after Norse/German/Roman gods, but do
not assert that they *are* gods. On the other hand, billions still
worship Jesus and assert he is "our God", as does the designation A.D.

Jay.


from_name: Alison Wheeler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On Wed, September 6, 2006 15:23, David Gerard wrote:
> Old-age pensioner (UK term).

Of course, to do such a thing in the UK, whether for under-18s or
over-65s, would require everyone involved to be Criminal Records Bureau
(ie Police) checked ...

I'm wondering whether some 'how to edit / improve your writing /
fact-check and cite' articles could be validly added to one of our other
projects as an on-line course rather than needing people to attend a
single physical location (goo that might be it would be an expense that
the target audience might have the wherewithall to spend)

Alison Wheeler


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 06/09/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering whether some 'how to edit / improve your writing /
> fact-check and cite' articles could be validly added to one of our other
> projects as an on-line course rather than needing people to attend a
> single physical location (goo that might be it would be an expense that
> the target audience might have the wherewithall to spend)

A how-to rather than a guideline or policy page? Could be good. Wikibooks?

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Counterexperiment (was: Anons banned from creating
	articles)

body:
Your idea makes perfect sense, I'm just not sure if turning anon page
creation on to test is a good thing, because it saves them the trouble
of going through the registration process.

On 9/6/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
>
> > Surely the 3 or 4 more clicks it takes to create a crap
> > article now aren't stopping that many anons.
>
> I think this is the right question. If it turns out anon page creation (APC)
> does, in fact, produce a lot more crap, then I would like to propose a
> counterexperiment: just add ONE extra click to the APC process, and see what
> difference it makes.
>
> At the risk of repeating myself, sounding like a broken record, and repeating
> myself, I don't see this is as a two-way choice between APC on or off, since
> account creation is unrestricted anyway. I see this as a matter of how many
> clicks are involved in the APC process, how obvious they are.
>
> Currently, it is: click on red link, click on "log in or create account" (and
> NOT "submit the content", which is a trap), click on "create account", fill in
> the form and press "create account", navigate back to where you were, click on
> red link again, and there's your edit box.
>
> On the other hand, for logged-in users, clicking on a red link goes right to the
> edit box. This was also the case for logged-out users before English Wikipedia
> disabled the feature (and remains the case on other Wikipedias).
>
> Clicking on a blue link, on the other hand, only allows reading the article; to
> edit, the user has to explicitly click on "edit this page".
>
> That is, to get to the edit box for an existing page, a casual reader has to at
> least intend to edit. Not so for a non-existing page, a casual reader could just
> stumble into it (when anon pgae creation was on).
>
> So I wonder what would happen if, after turning anon page creation on for a
> while, we then change it so the red link leads to the no-article page (like
> this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapositive_Enthymemetics_in_Lower_Canada)
>
> If it turns out that having anon page creation on, but with that extra click,
> produces less crap that having anon page creaton on with no extra clicks (by
> whatever metrics), we might then want to think a bit more about how to design
> the editing/creation interface for logged-out users.
>
> Regards,
> Daniel Mehkeri
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
Jeff,
I appreciate your explaining your perspective -- it does
enlighten us with regards to the framework with which
you work. I still disagree with it, and feel business
dealings should be kept on a short leash in as open and
public a view as possible, but I am more comfortable
"agreeing to disagree" on this point now. I do believe
that creation of wikimedia-b as you describe would be
a bad idea.

Take care. (reentering lurk mode)

---
Pat Gunn
mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
http://dachte.org
There are few things in life that arn't made better with liberal application of
mustard, or worse with liberal application of ketchup.
	-- Pat Gunn


body:
When you put it that way, it seems that BCE/CE is the only option. So
how do we implement this, an AWB bot run changing every BC to a BCE?

On 9/5/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied
> > religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of
> > users supported BC, while the other half did not.
>
>
> While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many
> people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the
> half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV.  The problem with accepting
> a POV in dating systems is that we would have to support ALL dating
> systems.  Only supporting BC/AD and BCE/CE is to codify systemic bias.
> However, adding other dating systems isn't easy, because lunar calendars
> (for example) don't match precisely with solar ones.  So if we allowed a
> user to pick a preferences of say, the Islamic calendar or the old Russian
> calendar, many year-only dates would become ambiguous.
>
> However, you have a
> > point, NPOV means BCE.
>
>
> BC means "Before Christ", and that (obviously) refers to Jesus of Nazareth.
> So if you say "before Christ" in reference to him, you are asserting that
> Jesus is the Messiah (Christ is the Greek version of the word).  Similarly,
> if you say "in the Lord's year" and the reference is unequivocally to Jesus,
> then you are asserting that Jesus is Lord (which, in this context, has come
> to mean God)
>
>
> Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the
> > Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the
> > calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be,
> > if he existed when he supposedly did).
>
>
> As above, Christ means Messiah, so you can't separate the two.  On the other
> hand, BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) meet the requirement
> of NPOV by describing the current state of affairs in which the dating
> system is based around the birth of Jesus, without actually asserting that
> he is the Messiah or God.
>
>
> On 9/5/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
> > violates
> > > NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
> > > Messiah/God.  BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what
> > the
> > > NPOV policy asks.
> > >
> > > On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS
> > > > anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change
> > > > regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't
> > > > go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much
> > > > content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing
> > > > list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
> > > >
> > > > On 9/5/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > "whatever it is now, leave it kthx."
> > > > > > that must be the most concise decision ever :)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > I am simplifying greatly ;-)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > - d.
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > 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
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On Wed, September 6, 2006 16:11, Alison Wheeler wrote:
> (goo that might be it would be an expense that
> the target audience might have the wherewithall to spend)

um. what that was meant to say was "as that might be in would be an
expense that the target audience might *not* have the wherewithall to
spend"

/me sorts out fingers ...

Alison


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


body:
On Wed, September 6, 2006 16:07, Platonides wrote:
> If it's PD on the trademark registration country, it should be ok, but
> *who decides the ineligibility?*

The way this thread is starting to read I'm almost wondering if we're
heading towards the conclusion that 'one size will never fit all' as each
country / jurisdiction will operate different restrictions for the same
material and for us to define something as 'commons' usuable worldwide
will be close to impossible.

I hate to suggest it, but are we looking towards some sort of infobox on
each image/media page with a table of country/ies and statuses, leaving it
to the user in each instance to confirm what status applies to their
proposde use?

Alison Wheeler


list: textbook-l

from_name: Piotr "Derbeth" Kubowicz

subject: [Textbook-l] Problem with NPOV

body:
What do you think of http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Christianity/Living_as_a_Christian and http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Imamat_or_Successorship_After_the_Last_Prophet_of_God#Successorship?

I noticed there are more and more users who contribute to books that are made with strongly islamic point of view (we already have some texts about islam: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:Islam), with nicks like "Truebeliever", "Believer" etc. I'm afraid that we might attract some zealots who see us as a good place to develop propaganda. Generally, I think that we should think how we should treat books about religious topics.

--
Piotr 'Derbeth' Kubowicz
Jabber id: derbeth at jabber.wp.pl

Pom?? Wikibooks stworzy? najwi?kszy zbi?r otwartych podr?cznik?w! http://pl.wikibooks.org/

Opera - the fastest browser on Earth! http://www.opera.com/


subject: [Textbook-l] Google Book Search

references:
<op.te46wkj9sqj770@doissetep> <44F74E24.3040305@forget-me.net>
	<44F831EB.8040705@netzero.net> <op.te7ftcjesqj770@doissetep>

body:
Dnia Fri, 01 Sep 2006 16:57:02 +0200, Piotr "Derbeth" Kubowicz napisa?(a):

> Perhaps we should just try and ask Wikimedia Foundation to act as a "publisher" and register in Google Books. It might be possible that
> having ISBN number for each book is not obligatory and there is a way to make Wikibooks texts available in Google Books.

Unfortunately, Google says that all books must have valid ISBN number. I think we have to forget about Google Books for a while.

--
Piotr 'Derbeth' Kubowicz
Jabber id: derbeth at jabber.wp.pl

Pom?? Wikibooks stworzy? najwi?kszy zbi?r otwartych podr?cznik?w! http://pl.wikibooks.org/

Opera - the fastest browser on Earth! http://www.opera.com/


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>I share with you my views and observations of the current "We" and where
>>it should be opened to embrace
>>a broader view of humanity.
>>
>>There are three things that
>>motivate human beings I have always seen true in my 46 years on planet
>>earth in career and life advancement.
>>
>>Knowledge, Power and Money.
>>
>>In business, anytime I ran across a person who was solely motivated by
>>power and not money, I fired them
>>at the first opportunity. I did so because my experience has taught me
>>that people who are motivated by power
>>and other intangible ideals are dangerous to organizations and
>>collective efforts and will always put themselves
>>and their self-serving desires above the good of the whole. People who
>>are motivated by money are very
>>predictable and easy to manage and are solid contributors to any
>>organizations success. Their patterns
>>are inherently easy to anticipate and accomodate.
>>
>>
>>
>The people who are motivated by power are especially dangerous to those
>who already have the power.
>
>Those motivated by "other intangible ideals" (i.e. ideologues) are not
>self-serving.  They see their ideology as being for the good of the
>whole, and will readily sacrifice themselves in order to have their
>ideology prevail. They make great suicide bombers, but tend not to stay
>in that business for very long.
>
>
I put these people in the class of those motivated by the pursuit of
pure knowledge.

>I agree about the money-motivated, but these are not the people that you
>can count on for a lot of imagination.  The really bright ones become
>MBAs where they can strive for the pinnacle of incompetence.  This
>permits them to do an excellent job in the most complex of routine tasks.
>
>
>
>>By giving people the chance to express power over others with admin
>>status, etc. a large majority of the current
>>community are in this first group and are there for the power and
>>control aspect over Wikipedia's direction by
>>either oppressing others or combining into a cohesive front. There are
>>also a lot of folks who are there solely
>>for the benefit of knowledge and increasing their skill. Almost none of
>>the folks in the class motivated my money
>>are even present or represented. They exist outside of the community.
>>
>>
>>
>The Wikipedia admins who most severly exercise power are little more
>than drill sargeants who like everyone to march in step with all arms
>swinging in unison to the same height.  They are motivated more by order
>than by power.
>
>
Also true, but there are those I read about who go on rampages and have
to be desysoped.

>
>
>>My observation of the community is that it is comprised of folks
>>motivated by the pursuit of pure knowledge, and
>>those motivated by desire for power and to use it as a platform for
>>various platforms. What I am talking about
>>is balancing its composition to embrace an element that is currently
>>absent. An element to concert it into something
>>that will endure as an institution into the far future.
>>
>>
>>
>Those motivated by knowledge or by altruism tend to pursue their goals
>without considering how events around them influence their goals.  They
>can be frustrated by the power games of the order freaks.  They will
>listen to reason, and reconsider their views in the light of new
>arguments.  They are most frustrated when opponents refuse to provide
>reasonable arguments for their actions.
>
>
That pretty much sums up my past frustrations when folks don't listen to
reason.

Jeff

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


from_name: Jossi Fresco

subject: [WikiEN-l] How does living bio patrol actually work?

body:
On Sep 6, 2006, at 2:37 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> 1. What is the actual process?
> 2. How are new living bios spotted?
There is a the {{blp}} tag and the {{WPBiography|living=yes}} tag
that is applied to the talk page. These automatically adds them to
[[Category:Biography articles of living people]]

> 3. Who watches edits in them, on what sort of schedule?
>
There is no such process in place. We have an initial proposal at
[[Wikipedia:Libel-Protection_Unit]]

and a noticeboard at
[[Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard]]

> And 4. the big one:
>
> Is there anything that can be done to make the living bio patrolling
> volunteers' work easier and more efficient? What magical software
> features would you like? Is there anything that some as-yet-unwritten
> bot software could do to assist?
>
> I'd love to be able to answer "we have a volunteer patrol who look out
> for any rubbish going in living biographies. We're not perfect but I
> think we do pretty well" and be able to give more detail if they ask
> ;-)

One possibility would be to have a bot developer to write a RC bot
that monitors all articles in the Category:Biography articles of
living people. Similar to the RC bots that we have in place to combat
vandalism.

Patrollers then will have a way to monitor edits made to articles on
BLPs, and catch defaming statements that are un-sourced or poorly
sourced.

-- Jossi


from_name: Jan-Åke Larsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using dvipng in texvc

body:
On a side note, I read in another thread that:

 > The procedure is to file a feature request (bug) at
 > http://bugs.wikimedia.org/, then attach this as a patch.  That
 > provides a centralized place to discuss, note updates, get people to
 > vote for it, etc.

Should perhaps I follow this advice, and watch the created bug instead
of lurking on this list?

/Jan-?ke

--
Linux: The choice of a GNU generation.


from_name: Platonides

body:
I don't like the terms in what it's formulated, as it would fall down much
photos i feel free.
However, i don't think [[Image:Pringles (aka).jpg]] free, and
[[Image:BibelTV-logo.jpg]]
is a {{logo}} for me.

I like the way Anthony tries to go.
Useable under the rules of more than one project is not good for me. e.g:
dewiki & dewikisource?
It'd be the image is free under the terms of X projects (as English
Wikipedia is not usable).
What really matters is probably the scope of the licensing. if an image is
free on EEUU and Europe,
it should be allowed on commons, while not being copyrighted on Brunei is
probably not.

The problem with the {{Logo-Germany}} is that it's a box-for-all, quite
similar to the fair-use.
If it's PD on the trademark registration country, it should be ok, but *who
decides the ineligibility?*
Quite problematic. But i wouldn't go so far as your proposal.


body:
I think what SKL means is that you cannot assert that Mars is the God
of War, or that he/she/it is even a god in the first place. In roman
times it may have been common belief, but it doesn't meant that it is
fact.

On 9/6/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
> > maru dubshinki wrote:
> > > On 9/5/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
> > >> Guettarda wrote:
> > >>> Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates
> > >>> NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
> > >>> Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the
> > >>> NPOV policy asks.
> > >>  If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were
> > >> originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate
> > >> NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep
> > >> using months?
> > >>
> > >> SKL
> > >
> > > But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically
> > > verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant
> > > events, such as the changing of the pole star.
> > >
> > > ~maru
> >
> >    According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war.
> >   The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
> >
> > SKL
>
> Are you asking if it's independently verifiable whether in Roman
> times, Mars was considered the God of War? Certainly it is, pick up
> any book on ancient roman mythology, and there you will find "Mars is
> the God of War" somewhere in it.
>
> This seems obvious. Why did you ask?
>
> --Oskar
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Translation of "A Wikimedia project" and
	"Powered by MediaWiki" images

body:
"Timwi" wrote:
> There is no reason why we couldn't do this. All we need to do is have
> those two images access an actual wiki image, just like the logo in the
> top-left corner is actually [[Image:Wiki.png]] (correct me if I'm
> wrong). Granting access to change those images to sysops only is way
> enough to ensure that any necessary restrictions are met (e.g. the
> MediaWiki one must mention MediaWiki and must not change the MediaWiki
> logo).
>
> Timwi
It'd be changed by the devs, so really no problem. The different
translations should be available at a gallery on mediawiki.org.
Question: should they be loacally uploaded or on commons?


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Translation of "A Wikimedia project" and "Powered
	by MediaWiki" images


subject: [Wikitech-l] Different class for [edit] links to Templates

body: __NOEDITSECTION__ to hide the edit links beside headings ?


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Can a wikimedia-b list be setup

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 06/09/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>That pretty much sums up my past frustrations when folks don't listen to
>>reason.
>>
>>
>
>
>Most annoying thing about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects of any
>sort: you are obliged to work with people you consider blithering
>idiots. It's not optional.
>
>(Hopefully it's good for the soul ;-)
>
>
Amen brother.

:-)

Jeff

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


body:
The captcha functionality is already on code, and enabled on some wikis.
Remember when deleting users, to preserve those with deleted edits or in the
log table (is it possible to have someone there and not in (deleted)
edits?).


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Edits by project and country of origin

body:
I threw together some graphs:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Edits_by_wikipedia_edition_and_country_of_origin/charts

Some of the country codes I'm not sure of, so please fix them if you know them.

To Greg Maxwell,
Would it be possible to get this data for Commons? It would be
immensely interesting and possiby useful, to see if we have obvious
language gaps that need filling amongst our admins.

Also, are the numbers in brackets (eg - enwiki (48.0%)) percentages of
total edits to all Wikimedia projects, all Wikipedias, or all the
Wikipedias listed?

cheers
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Daily-article emails

body:
I really doubt it, as noother appear on http://mail.wikipedia.org/
Could be simple if done automatically, but as it probably needs someone
maintaining it (to avoid mailing stubs, and so on) *everyday* i think it's
difficult its created on more language.


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 9/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/09/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm wondering whether some 'how to edit / improve your writing /
> > fact-check and cite' articles could be validly added to one of our other
> > projects as an on-line course rather than needing people to attend a
> > single physical location (goo that might be it would be an expense that
> > the target audience might have the wherewithall to spend)
>
>
> A how-to rather than a guideline or policy page? Could be good. Wikibooks?

I think we have enough. People generly would rather contibute and
learn from experence rather than read them. Anyway experences suggests
that howto's that people want are "how to upload copyvio images
without getting caught by orphan bot" and "how advertise your
company".

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


from_name: effe iets anders

body:
Hmmm, who are you referring to as "someone of the foundation who
should be moderating the list"? I don't think that someone is
availeble, especially when I see how much work they already have.
Further I find it hard to imagine business-proposals that should be
discussed on some list, but not by the Wikimedia-communities. If the
argument would be "high-traffic" I could follow your redenation,
although I would have still my doubts, but I am afraight I lost you
here totally. You seem to suggest either that you want to discuss
things behind the back of the communities because they would be
disturbing the process, but then I am wondering why it should be on a
emaillist at all, or you seem to suggest that the communities are
anyway incompetent to understand or discuss the proposals, and I find
that very insulting to the people who make up these communities.
Maybe you could clarify which of the two you mean, or which other
meaning you had in mind.

Lodewijk

2006/9/6, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:
> Kim Bruning wrote:
>
> >On Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at 12:41:30AM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
> >
> >
> >>?$B$X$=$,Cc$r$o$+$9$H$O$3$&$$$&$3$H$r$$$&$N$+$H;W$&;d!#
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I'm not sure I can quite interpret that. Nevertheless, I second the remark.
> >
> >
> >
> It's not a topic that requires a vote from the community or even is
> relevant to the
> community. It was a question of creating a segregated list for business
> related postings
> that quite frankly, don't involve the community.
>
> :-)
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 9/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I get asked this by the press a lot. So I thought I'd come here and
> ask how it actually works.
>
> 1. What is the actual process?
> 2. How are new living bios spotted?
> 3. Who watches edits in them, on what sort of schedule?

The usual? People just happen to be watching an article on a
yet-living person? Dunno man.

> And 4. the big one:
>
> Is there anything that can be done to make the living bio patrolling
> volunteers' work easier and more efficient? What magical software
> features would you like? Is there anything that some as-yet-unwritten
> bot software could do to assist?
....

Sort by category. As in, a Recent Changes page where only edits to
articles in Living Persons or subcats there of are shown.

~maru


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 06/09/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Exactly the sort of distinction reasonable editors should be making,
> but these people are just invoking RS and saying blog=unreliable
> regardless of the source.

Then WP:RS needs an enema. Who's been edit-warring it in?

- d.


from_name: HeinzJ

body:
Platonides schrieb:
> The captcha functionality is already on code, and enabled on some wikis.
> Remember when deleting users, to preserve those with deleted edits or in the
> log table (is it possible to have someone there and not in (deleted)
> edits?).

Interesting! I'm just updating to MediaWiki 1.71. I work quite long on
it now. All i could find are the extensions on SVN / mediawiki.org /
wikimedia.org.

Where "already on code" is it ?

THX, Heinz


from_name: Michael Bimmler

references:
<44FD30F5.2050208@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<44FD5557.3010804@gmail.com> <44FD9BA5.5050107@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<35be2a710609050841n62a109f4v14744acbef32cdc8@mail.gmail.com>
	<20060906141710.A32174@bruning.lan>
	<44FEE797.1010806@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<73f3ff1b0609060846n25fff4adme3027201dbd64eaf@mail.gmail.com>
	<44FEEF4D.3050602@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On 9/6/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:

>(...) That sort of thing.
>
And why can't this be open to the community as well? You know, the
wiki principle (at least that's what I thought), is "keep everything
transparent which does not need to be secret". The aims of this list
as described by you do not seem to need any special privacy/secret
status.
Michael
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 9/6/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sort by category. As in, a Recent Changes page where only edits to
> articles in Living Persons or subcats there of are shown.

As you wish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Category%3ALiving_people

....
Which is exactly why living persons is not supposted to have subcats.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Recomended CAPTCHA-Extension  for MediaWiki 1.71

body:
I'm looking for a CAPTCHA-Extension  for MediaWiki 1.71 and found
several hints Extensions etc.

Which Extension would you recomend for MediaWiki 1.71 ?
How is CAPTCHA be done on meta.wikimedia.org (login) ?

THX, HeinzJ


body:
"HeinzJ"wrote:
> Interesting! I'm just updating to MediaWiki 1.71. I work quite long on
> it now. All i could find are the extensions on SVN / mediawiki.org /
> wikimedia.org.
>
> Where "already on code" is it ?
>
> THX, Heinz

It's probably on extensions. But it should be ready-to-install.


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

body:
On 9/6/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> Topics would be handled in a more participatory, workshop style manner
> than typical conference sessions. They could include:
> - How to write really good articles?
> - How to do research in libraries?
> - What is this copyright stuff all about?
> - My POV, your POV, NPOV?
> - Where's Willy? How to find and fight vandals
> - Jimbo's campfire stories
> - Write your own news with Wikinews
> - Celebrity hunt: Wikimedia Commons needs you
> - Everything you know about Pokemon, and where to put it
>
> OK, perhaps I'm not really good at defining the topic scope. But you
> get the idea. ;-)

Yes, I certainly get the idea...

The trouble is that this has the potential to be extremely
patronising.  There are considerable numbers of young Wikipedians
(defined how, exactly?  Under 18?  Under 21?  Under 25?) who have as
good a grasp of the principles of Wikimedia as any adult members, even
if, for various practical reasons, they are unable to play a
significant role in the government of the Foundation as their adult
counterparts.  I can't see how you can avoid this kind of event
becoming either a beginner's guide to Wikimedia (not something anyone
committed enough to fork out several hundred quid needs) or a mini
Wikimania.  While an entirely admirable idea -- it's always good to
reach out to members of the community in new ways -- I can't imagine
how it could be practically made into a useful and productive event.

--
Sam


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?


from_name: Rotem Liss

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

HeinzJ wrote:
> At the moment we have a spam-problem. People or PCs are adding dayly
> users with no edits. Mostly they look like TheUserViagra with the Email
> TheUserViagra at someGMX.net
>
> I would like to delete all users with no edits before updating to
> mediawiki 1.71 and adding a CAPTCHA into the add new user dialog.
>
> Who have some Ideas?
>
> - SQL clauses
> - ....
>
>
> THX, HeinzJ
>

Run the maintenance script maintenance/removeUnusedAccounts.php.

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=cXQs
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from_name: Filip Maljkovic

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> You know, I did not want to address this on this list, but it appears I
> will have to in order
> for folks to get it.
>
> Business 101
> [....]
> Hope that explains it.
That was unnecessary, but OK.

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Michael Bimmler wrote:
>
>> If you have a high-priority and/or important business question, which
>> you want to be answered by nobody but Foundation officials, why don't
>> you just write an email to the Foundation? There is board at wikimedia
>> dot org and bpatrick at wikimedia dot org (Brad Patrick, general
>> counsel & Interim Executive Director WMF) for your convenience.
>>
> I do this all the time with Brad and those emails dont make it to this list.
And you still find that not enough? Contact with the Wikimedia officials
is exactly and exclusively what you need. And if you're mails are so
business-like, then what's the purpose of sending them to foundation-l,
which is open for everyone to state their opinions? I don't think making
a "business" mailing list would be helpful. Sending mails to relevant
people instead is.

Filip


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

HeinzJ wrote:
> I'm looking for a CAPTCHA-Extension  for MediaWiki 1.71 and found
> several hints Extensions etc.
>
> Which Extension would you recomend for MediaWiki 1.71 ?
> How is CAPTCHA be done on meta.wikimedia.org (login) ?
>
> THX, HeinzJ
>

Look at http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ConfirmEdit -
this is the extension used in Wikimedia sites. It works on trunk, and I think it
works on 1.7.1.

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body:
THX Rotem Liss, that was what i where looking for.

heinzJ

Rotem Liss schrieb:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> HeinzJ wrote:
>> At the moment we have a spam-problem. People or PCs are adding dayly
>> users with no edits. Mostly they look like TheUserViagra with the Email
>> TheUserViagra at someGMX.net
>>
>> I would like to delete all users with no edits before updating to
>> mediawiki 1.71 and adding a CAPTCHA into the add new user dialog.
>>
>> Who have some Ideas?
>>
>> - SQL clauses
>> - ....
>>
>>
>> THX, HeinzJ
>>
>
> Run the maintenance script maintenance/removeUnusedAccounts.php.
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mandriva - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFE/vKuqahN/0dU8mcRAsIBAKCaZGcXb96mXok2u4GskoZpfknKjgCdEsX9
> U8mJMXTpWMJR2tWBamIuzZ4=
> =cXQs
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: ScottL

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] BC vs BCE era names

body:
Death Phoenix wrote:
> On 9/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 06/09/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>> We also need to abandon our days of the week.  It is clearly a breach of
>>> NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven
>>> days.
>>
>> Not to mention all this use of "he" and "she." We have neutral
>> pronouns! Just 'cos they're crap and almost nobody you'd actually want
>> to talk to uses them doesn't mean they don't exist!
>>
>
> Once upon a time, David was having tea with their wife. They decided that
> they wanted to have green tea, but they wanted black tea instead. So they
> decided to flip a coin. They got heads, but since they picked tails, David
> didn't get what they wanted.

   You may do better with [[Spivak pronoun]]s or perhaps
[[Gender-neutral pronoun]].

   I can't wait till someone autowikibrowsers this one ;)

SKL


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Central bibliography

body:
Lars Aronsson schrieb:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Lars Aronsson wrote:
>>
>>> When anybody says we "have to" introduce completely new markup or
>>> we "have to" wait for Wikidata to be implemented, then I know it's
>>> just an excuse for doing nothing.
>>>
>>>
>> Based on what ? WiktionaryZ is developing nicely,
>>
>
> Gerard, your promotion of Wikidata is as predictable as a Swiss
> watch.  I admire your optimism.  In this case, however, I was
> talking about the tendency to use its name as an excuse for not
> doing something else.  In the case of Wikicat, I don't think it's
> the Wikidata technology component that is lacking.
>
>
>
Well, so is mine (predictable) ... What about reusability of the data?
Did you consider that bit? Btw. waiting for wikidata is not an excuse
for not working on stuff - you can well do it structured in such a way
that it is then easy to import.

Salutammo, Sabine

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Jossi Fresco

body:
On Sep 6, 2006, at 5:22 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> Of course, the existing bots will also fix vandalism they detect on
> articles about living persons....  but I expect you mean bots that
> specifically target the sort of problems we're expecting to catch with
> living persons patrol.
>
> The real challenge in that is identifying things which are clear
> evidence of vandalism (or at least a good red flag) for the bots to
> look for. An example might be any edit which introduces "is a fag" is
> highly suspect. You don't have to be a coder to create lists of such
> red flags... It would be useful if everyone who sees a lot of
> vandalism would make note of such patterns that we could expect a
> computer to detect and ideally provide diff links.
>
> Once a good list is built they can be converted into [[regular
> expression]]s and tested against historical edits to determine their
> accuracy.   Once we are confident that they are good things to watch
> for, adding them to a bot would take only minutes.

I am asking for something simpler... A "recent changes" page that
only shows articles on Category:Biographies of living people.

That could be an excellent first step and a very easy one for
developers to implement. Once we have that we can ask one of the bot
writers to apply the current regular expressions they have for
fighting vandalism.

After that all we need is eyeballs, 10 to 20 editors & admins that
want to monitor the bot RC.

Then we can tell the world that we have a BLP patrol in place, to
fight abuse in this specific category of articles.

So, David: How do we get the developers to provide us with a recent
changes page, for BLP?

-- Jossi


subject: [Commons-l] proposed policy - Commons:Trademarks

body:
It's pretty simple: I propose we formalise the policy of not accepting
trademarks, regardless of their copyright status.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Trademarks

Comment, discuss, support, oppose, etc, on Talk page.

thanks,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


body:
On 9/6/06, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
[snip]
> One possibility would be to have a bot developer to write a RC bot
> that monitors all articles in the Category:Biography articles of
> living people. Similar to the RC bots that we have in place to combat
> vandalism.
[snip]

Of course, the existing bots will also fix vandalism they detect on
articles about living persons....  but I expect you mean bots that
specifically target the sort of problems we're expecting to catch with
living persons patrol.

The real challenge in that is identifying things which are clear
evidence of vandalism (or at least a good red flag) for the bots to
look for. An example might be any edit which introduces "is a fag" is
highly suspect. You don't have to be a coder to create lists of such
red flags... It would be useful if everyone who sees a lot of
vandalism would make note of such patterns that we could expect a
computer to detect and ideally provide diff links.

Once a good list is built they can be converted into [[regular
expression]]s and tested against historical edits to determine their
accuracy.   Once we are confident that they are good things to watch
for, adding them to a bot would take only minutes.


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 6 Sep 2006 at 9:44, "Oskar Sigvardsson"
<oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:

> but unlike most spears, I'm remarkably un-skinny

Including Britney?

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 06/09/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>That pretty much sums up my past frustrations when folks don't listen to
>>reason.
>>
>>
>Most annoying thing about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects of any
>sort: you are obliged to work with people you consider blithering
>idiots. It's not optional.
>
A common characteristic of blithering idiots is that they try harder ...
to prove it.

Ec


from_name: Kim Bruning

in_reply_to:
<44FEE797.1010806@wolfmountaingroup.com>;
	from jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com on Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at
	09:21:59AM -0600

body:
On Wed, Sep 06, 2006 at 09:21:59AM -0600, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> It's not a topic that requires a vote from the community or even is
> relevant to the
> community. It was a question of creating a segregated list for business
> related postings
> that quite frankly, don't involve the community.

You're a business, it's your money. I'm sure you can
run majordomo (or other mailinglist tools)
on one of your plentiful servers.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
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