from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
Hello,

Verbosity is a prerequisite for my arguments to be understood. Otherwise
these are simply skipped.

If, at a given moment, the Board wishes to reconsider its position on the
Moldovan Wikipedia, please regard the following points:

1. In its current form, mo.wiki is promoting an ideology. There is a slight
difference between "not being of a neutral point of view" and promoting an
ideology.

2. According to the recently adopted Language proposal
policy<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP>- that I suppose can be
applied to existing wikipedias to determine their
"validity" - there are three "essential" requisites that can be verified: a
valid ISO-639 code, language singularity and a viable community and
audience.

The Moldovan Wikipedia fails on all three. The valid ISO code and the code
used for its domain are a coincidence, simply because ISO requires a
separate linguistic entity while the domain doesn't host such content. There
is no uniqueness since it is standard Romanian written in a different
script. There is no viable community and audience.

3. A basic objective of providing high-quality content to writers of the
"Moldovan language" will be hardly achieved, if you expect contributions
written in the Moldovan alphabet to "flow in" (when an un-freeze happens).
The script is mainly a reality of the past, while this objective could be
easier achieved if the two relevant projects were merged.

You may consider some of these arguments as personal POVs. I believe that
these are backed up by different sources that are supposed to be
western-neutral and academic (the links in my messages are not for making it
prettier), while others on logical reasoning.

Regards,
Liviu

On 2/28/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> According to what Erik wrote the other day, the pillars are, at this
> moment, not part of a "must have" doctrine for Wikipedia projects. Given
> that the WMF it self is not on firm grounds, how can you expect that the
> language committee is more firm. Having said that, you will fully
> misunderstand B?rto's position. Your verbiage  is just to cover that you
> do not want to address what is in front of you.
>
> Your whole argument is yet another political inspired tirade why things
> are as you see them. Again, political arguments do not wash.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l
	subscription

body:
On 3/2/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> How the hell did this fruitcake get through moderation?

Perhaps because his "fruitcakery" didn't manifest itself until this thread.


from_name: Slim Virgin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

body:
On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brandt was the victim of a drive by smear aimed at editors who inserted
> properly sourced criticism to Brandt in another article.  I kept silent for
> 1 year, but the situation never resolved itself. It only got worse.
> Numerous innocents now have been caught in the crossfire in this dispute
> between Brandt & Berlet that goes back to 1991.

Nobs, everything you say about this is not only insulting, but
completely factually inaccurate. Here is the article after Brandt and
I had finished working on it, and just before I deleted it because he
said he didn't want it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daniel_Brandt&oldid=25628592
 It's clearly not a "drive-by smear," and if you knew anything about
my editing, you'd know that's an absurd thing to say. And it has
nothing whatsoever to do with Chip Berlet.

What happened then is that Brandt started talking about the deleted
article on blogs, and as a result a blogger turned up and re-created
it. Had Brandt kept quiet, the chances are it would have stayed
deleted.

'Nuff said, hopefully.

Sarah


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Job: Volunteer Coordinator

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 3/2/07, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>
>>But that is a longer term strategy. Right now, I think we should try to make best use of our
>>current location. Thus the need I expressed to sell St Pete's / Tampa's good points and take full
>>advantage of that.
>>
>>
>Yes, you are right.
>
>
>>However, I don't think it would be a good idea, in the long term, to keep the
>>main office there (an office could continue to be there, just not the main one).
>>
>>
>Frankly, although I am not St Pete's best friend (Florida? Come on,
>it's like...HOT!), as long as we find good people there  - and believe
>me, we have -- or good people who are willing to go there --that we
>have too--, I think we should focus on the real things that this
>organisation needs. I seem to recall that the primary purpose of this
>thread was to hire a volunteer coordinator.
>
>Volunteer coordinator, anyone?
>
The concern that becomes apparent from reading this thread is that
living in St. Pete's would very strongly favour having this job go to an
American.  To be sure some of the paying jobs can only be done at the
headquarters, but this is very much an international organization which
should do more to open opportunities for citizens of other nations.  The
nature of this opening suggests that the work could be done anywhere in
the world without the need to move to the United States.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Florence Devouard

body:
Anthony wrote:
> For that matter, it's not even determined if the position is going to
> be full time or part time, and if it is going to require showing up at
> the office or telecommuting.

It is not mentionned because we are open on that.

ant


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jim Hu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Table editing

body:
I've been working on making a set of extensions to make a table
editing helper, which I'm tentatively calling TableEdit.  The help
page for the prototype is at:

http://colimod.org/colipedia/index.php/Special:TableEdit

...with screen captures!

The basic idea is that you can put <newTableEdit/> in your markup,
and an extension will replace it on save with a link to a special
page that can create the table by adding and deleting columns and
rows.  These are stored in an external mysql db with two tables.  One
keeps track of the tables in each page and the other keeps track of
the content of each row.  The row data is just a string of values
delimited by '||' so it can be dropped right into the table markup.
In the prototype, you can put a list of column headings between
<newTableEdit>list</newTableEdit>, or you can specify a location for
a list of column headings in a Template page.

Individual rows can be editable by all or only by the creator and
admins.  This doesn't stop editing in the page itself unless you
combine it with ProtectSection or some other protection mechanism.

What I don't have working yet is:
- Sorting
- Inserting between existing rows and columns
- Parsing the data back out of the wiki text.

and as usual, the code could probably be cleaned up a lot.  I'll try
to post it to mediawiki as experimental this weekend, but I wanted
people to see the doc page.

Jim

p.s. The wiki it's on doesn't allow anonymous registration or
editing, so you won't be able to test drive it in place.
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Nonfictional, factual,
	objective perspectives must apply to both stories and religions

body:
Hoi!

> This needs to be clarified as "Muslims believe that..."
I support this. It should apply to economic theories and political views,
too. Local views should always include a link to the POV producing them, no
matter what they describe.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Rob Smith

references:
<86wt20m9xj.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>
	<52a8cf060703021302l332e5da3v9fa311a6c9f9191f@mail.gmail.com>
	<86fy8nmhnu.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>
	<3034369e0703021549i4226243kddffcf4c9ec35b58@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 3/2/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> A note: Ken Myers is a lawyer who has written about the Communications
> Decency Act and its relationship to Wikipedia, and who delivered a paper
> (and organized a panel) about that topic at last year's Wikimania. He's a
> bright guy with some good ideas. It's unsurprising to me that he's
> interested in controversies surrounding Wikipedia, but it does seem
> completely irrelevant to this discussion.
> -- phoebe
>

Timeline

Wed 21 Feb 2007, 4:10pm Ken Myers registers an account at WR

Thu 22 Feb2007, 12:35pm Ken Myers last posting at WR

Fri 23 Feb 2007, 9:08am Yanksox registers an account at WR

Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:53pm Yanksox deletes Daniel Brandt

Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:56pm Yanksox does a kamikazi dive

Sun 25 Feb 2007, 9:46pm nobs posts summary at Wikien-1

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6799&view=findpost&p=22354


body:
Wrong link above. Sorry.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7020&view=findpost&p=23610


body:
On 3/2/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/03/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Wrong link above. Sorry.
> > http://wikipediareview.com/...
>
>
> All links to wikipediareview.com are wrong links.
>
> I suppose you still have no idea why you were banned except an obvious
> conspiracy against the truth or something.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
Sir, I accepted my responsibility, did not circumvent remedies, and remained
silent for 1 year to *prove my good faith*.  In my silence, this sectarian
dispute only got worse with others dragged into it.  I believe in the
project very much (a view Mr. Brandt does not have) and even tried to
pursuade Brandt to pursue non-litigious means.  I beleive this situation can
be resolved without further embarassment to all parties -- all -- who made
mistakes.  All I've asked for was simple fairness.

Rob Smith
aka Nobs01 & Nobs02


from_name: Barabbas Jiang@Gmail

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia Search on Mobile] Technical Contact
 Window for Nokia Taiwan

body:
Hi all,

I guess, just a guess:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yurik/Query_API

/b6s/

Hsiang-Tai Chien wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On behave of Wikimania organization team seeking for sponsorship, we have got an request from Nokia Taiwan to seek for a technical contact window for Wikipedia Search on Mobile Devices. Is there anyone know whom we could provide to Nokia Taiwan for this request? And what's the opinion on this from the Foundation?
>
> Thanks and best regards,
> --
> Hsiang-Tai Chien (H.T.)


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia Search on Mobile] Technical Contact
	Window for Nokia Taiwan

body:
Thanks, I will let Nokia Taiwan know and let them contact you and Danny.

Regards,
H.T.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carolyn Doran
>
> Hsiang-Tai Chien wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On behave of Wikimania organization team seeking for
> sponsorship, we have got an request from Nokia Taiwan to seek
> for a technical contact window for Wikipedia Search on Mobile
> Devices. Is there anyone know whom we could provide to Nokia
> Taiwan for this request? And what's the opinion on this from
> the Foundation?
> >
> We are working with Nokia Global for their mobile device WAP
> feed. You can have them contact the office and speak to
> myself, Carolyn Doran, or Danny Wool regarding any live feed
> contracts. :)
>
> Carolyn

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


from_name: stvrtg

body:
On 3/2/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

> Because, generally, we don't expect people to lie about their academic
> credientials.  How many editors in that area who would know if he were
> making it up do we even have?  And, again, Essjay was (yes, the word is
> now was) a very trusted member of the community - he kept the charade up
> enough where few, if any, would bother questioning him anyway.  That's a
> problem, and it's disturbing that you don't recognize it.

Why not? And why would you suppose if you for example tried to pass yourself
off as a Th.D that people who actually are wouldn't find certain things odd
about what you say? This entire charge against Essjay falls under the
pseudonym issue,
and of course is entirely ironic that most of the critics happen to be
either disgruntled
(Kelly) or themselves anonymous. The issue is between Essjay and the New
Yorker.
We dont have a personnel screening policy. The onus was on the Pulitzer
prize winning
author to check her sources, not to rely on a third party.

> he lied about having a high degree of education, used that high degree of
> education as
> leverage, and quite possibly lied regarding why he created the
> trumped-up persona as well.  Not that he ever had to trump up his creds
> to achieve the same goal, of course, which is the other problem.

Nor would there be much of a way he could accomplish this if he wrote things
about which he didnt know or understand. I agree that it seems improper to
represent oneself as an expert to gain weight. But theres a paradox here: A
site that owes its existence in part to its anti-credentialist ethos is all
of a sudden to now supposed to conform to a credentialist modality when its
unpaid participants interact with the "national media"? (below). The real
reason people are upset is because noone with credentials could tell, even
in spite of his attaining a position as a "respected authority" on Catholic
subjects. Are our experts on trains supposed to have engineering degrees
now?  Is the credibility of the site somehow diminished due to one editor's
mistake in misrepresenting himself? Nonsense.

Giano wrote on User talk:Essjay:

> "Fortunately though the rules and laws of fraud are very clearly defined.
> Deceiving the national press with false qualification to add weight to one's
> statements has disgraced us all."

No, it hasnt. Please keep things in context. Your usage of words like
"rules" "laws" "national press" and "disgrace" are so out of context as to
be meaningless.

- Stevertigo


from_name: gjzilla at gmail.com

body:
On a more sane note, why are we restricting acess all of a sudden? Or was
this a longstanding policy? I doubt there is a concerted conspiracy :-) ,
but I do smell a rat.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Larry Sanger weighs in on the Essjay incident

body:
On 3/2/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> As in Chinese Democracy, the Guns n. Roses album that has been 15 years in
> the making and still hasn't been released.

You must mean intstead:

! Chinese Democracy ==> [[Chinese Democracy (album)]]
! Chinese Democracy ---> [[Chinese democracy movement]]

-Stevertigo


body:
On 3/2/07, gjzilla at gmail.com <gjzilla at gmail.com> wrote:

> On a more sane note, why are we restricting acess all of a sudden?

Choose one

[  ] Sensitive/private information might be being discussed on this
list such as checkuser results and what have you.

[  ] Because all the rogue admins (tanra) and elitist assholes (tanea)
need a s00p3r s3kr1t list to discuss their plans to suppress wikitruth
(tinwt), block editors they don't like and cover each other's asses.


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/2/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> Several people, including those advocating deletion of
> [[Wikipedia:Community noticeboard/Essjay]], suggest that the right thing
> to do is to start up a RFC or an RFAr. That seems like a good step
> forward to me, or at least the least bad option on the table. I was
> hoping somebody else would do it, but that's not happening either.
>

I think at the present time waiting for a further response from Essjay
 before taking further action is the best option.

--
geni


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Works cited in Wikipedia

body:
On 27/02/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> >What a coincidence - I was just today pondering how it was that many of
> >the books in my librarything collection seem not to be referenced by WP
> >articles, even some of those to which I personally added the reference.
> >Not necessarily vandalism though, one thing we learn quickly from
> >librarything is just how many dozens of ISBNs can be associated with a
> >particular work...
> >
> >An interesting future possibility is to provide a route for article
> >checkers to get in touch with people who actually own the book being
> >referenced.
> >
> I added a couple of books to this site in December 2005 just to get the
> hang of it, but never got back to it.  With others now interested I can
> now take a second look

It's a lovely idea to play with, isn't it? If nothing else it cuts
down on my duplicate-buying...

Ad left on WP:VP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28miscellaneous%29#LibraryThing

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:35:06 -0800, William Pietri
<william at scissor.com> wrote:

>I was hoping that Essjay would return, answer the many questions
>that have arisen, and make this problem go away. That hasn't happened,
>though.

The story only broke yesterday.  Give him a break.

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


body:
On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:08:31 -0500, "Christoper Russel"
<criticize_antijapanese_racism at msn.com> wrote:

>I have to suspect strongly:
>Luna = Prodego = Essjay = "Ryan Jordan" = other many admin's sockpuppet's
>accounts

Hey, don't forget Jimbo Wales - clearly a sockpuppet of someone, Maybe
MONGO.  Or the CIA.

How the hell did this fruitcake get through moderation?

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


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

body:
Keith:

Thanks for the post!  I guess I'll exercise my First Amendment right
defensively.  After recent experiences from Wikipedia, I wonder if  they remember all
their donations, as it seems it's corrupt from the inside too  - rotten
outside as well as in.  It does nothing except show that  encyclopedias I read and
had as a kid still have value, not this new  anti-elitist, "consensus over
credentials" problem with Wikipedia.   However, I don't know if I can or want to
get a job with Britannica :), unlike  some Wikipedia admins and editors.

Vincent Bartning

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


body:
In a message dated 3/1/2007 9:58:20 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
macgyvermagic at gmail.com writes:

Yeah,  sad people have to get bashed.
This has nothing to do with fraud, he didn't  try to get a teaching position
with his "invented persona". Apparently  people think his contributions are
worth less if he's not a professor,  which is utter nonsense.

Mgm

It's not that his contributions are less, it's that he knows less about the
subject than an expert, hence authority.  Granted, if someone points a  loaded
gun at you, it's not authority, but neither is a rape gang or a  riot.  When
is Wikipedia going to read the Riot Act?!?

Vincent Bartning

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


body:
On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> None of this would have happened
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite
>
> if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel Brandt bio had
> been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which preceeded it..

Nyet false persona predates Daniel Brandt article first appearing on wikipedia.

--
geni


from_name: Paul van Erk

subject: [Wikitech-l] BPMN 2 JPG convertor

body:
Hi guys,

I was wondering if there is a BPMN (Business Process Modelling Notation) to
Image convertor. So a user can upload an BPMN file, which is translated to a
thumnail image which can be shown on the page (as can be done with normal
images). I looked on the extension page, but I could find any.

Could someone help me out?

Thanks,

With regards,

Paul van Erk


from_name: Gwern Branwen

body:
"Slim Virgin" <slimvirgin at gmail.com> writes:

> On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> None of this would have happened
>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite>
>> if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel
Brandt bio had
>> been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which
   preceeded it..
>
> Wow, stop right there, Nobs. You're not bringing your SlimVirgin
> Review conspiracy theories onto this list.
>
> There were no "circumstances that led to the creation of the
  Daniel
> Brandt bio" that are relevant to this incident, or of any
  interest. I
> created the stub on Brandt because his name was showing up as a
  red
> link in the article about, as I recall, Chip Berlet. Rather than
> remove the red link, I created a stub so it turned blue. End of
  story.
>
> Sarah

I second this. I've followed this from the beginning, and this
would've happened regardless of Brandt. Would it have made the
front page of Slashdot, would the New Yorker have published a
correction if he had not been involved? I do not know for
sure. But the trust in Essjay was sure to be diminished the moment
he posted his true profile to Wikia.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.9.3 wgLogo renders improperly

body:
"Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
wrote in message news:45E35A7E.7010102 at wolfmountaingroup.com...
> Kasimir Gabert wrote:
>
>>Hello Jeff,
>>
>>The problem lies in your address for the URL.  The address currently is:
>>
>>./skins/common/images/SequoyahStub.jpg
>>
>>and needs to be
>>
>>/skins/common/images/SequoyahStub.jpg
>>
>>This should fix your problem.
>>
>>I hope that this helps,
>>Kasimir
>>
>>
>
> Thanks. I fat fingered that one.
>
> Jeff
>
>>On 2/26/07, Jeff V. Merkey
>><jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Please check and try to create an account on one of the two sites setup
>>>with 1.9.3
>>>
>>>http://chr.wikigadugi.org
>>>http://en.wikigadugi.org
>>>
>>>Even though $wgLogo is setup correctly, the images fail to render on the
>>>default page with no user logged in.  When you switch to a login
>>>panel or some other panel other than main display, the images then show
>>>up properly.   They disappear completely when either logged out
>>>or when sitting on a main page for editing.
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>


body:
On Fri, 2 Mar 2007 17:20:43 -0500, "Ron Ritzman" <ritzman at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> How the hell did this fruitcake get through moderation?
>Perhaps because his "fruitcakery" didn't manifest itself until this thread.

Sorry, the "japanese racism" address is a known troll elsewhere, I
thought this was a place he'd already been placed on mod.

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


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] BPMN 2 JPG convertor

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

Moin,

On Friday 02 March 2007 22:35:52 Jim Wilson wrote:
> According to Wikipedia (emphasis mine)[1]:
>
> "The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standardized
> *graphical notation* for drawing business processes in a workflow. "
>
> Thus it would seem that BPMN is already an image file of some kind.
> Making an image thumbnail should be the same as with any image[2].

Actually, it seems just to be some sort of language to model graphs (with
specific predefined layouts).

You could try to use Graph::Easy for it:

	http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/
	http://bloodgate.com/wiki/Graph

If you need help, dropme an email :)

All the best,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Fri Mar  2 23:51:26 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
 View my photo gallery: http://bloodgate.com/photos
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "We have problems like this all of the time," Kirk said, trying to
 reassure me.  "Sometimes its really hard to get things burning."

  -- http://tinyurl.com/qmg5
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)

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tblhijZJq0dT1PBt1JKy/23I4bsyZiY6Ycx9I3c99PSD/yUTGPA8VEHlOs8rX274
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+22vJARHKUDXFKRulf30LyiPENyFY8B0OmCiwYy19ygBWGFD2Dyatq5ZWlwxIOQZ
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from_name: Rich Holton

body:
Gwern Branwen wrote:
> stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 3/2/07, Jeff Raymond
> <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>>> Because, generally, we don't expect people to lie about their
> academic
>>> credientials.  How many editors in that area who would know if
> he were
>>> making it up do we even have?  And, again, Essjay was (yes, the
> word is
>>> now was) a very trusted member of the community - he kept the
> charade up
>>> enough where few, if any, would bother questioning him anyway.
> That's a
>>> problem, and it's disturbing that you don't recognize it.
>> Why not? And why would you suppose if you for example tried to
> pass yourself
>> off as a Th.D that people who actually are wouldn't find certain
> things odd
>> about what you say? This entire charge against Essjay falls
>   under the
>> pseudonym issue,
>> and of course is entirely ironic that most of the critics happen
>   to be
>> either disgruntled
>> (Kelly) or themselves anonymous. The issue is between Essjay and
> the New
>> Yorker.
>> We dont have a personnel screening policy. The onus was on the
> Pulitzer
>> prize winning
>> author to check her sources, not to rely on a third party.
>> ....
>>
>> - Stevertigo
>
> As one of those "anonymous" users (I certainly hope I cannot be
> counted among the disgruntled), I feel I must protest. I do not
> think the criticism of myself and people like me is "ironic" in
> any way: our very ability to work peaceably and quietly on the
> wiki demonstrates that one does not need to fabricate a false
> life, ostensibly in order to defend oneself against trolls and
> assorted ne'er-do-wells. Our existence militates against the very
> suggestion of a false dichotomy (between either risking your
> personal life by revealing everything truthful, or simply making
> stuff up which sounds plausible) - there is at least a third
> option: to say nothing. Americans might be familiar with the idea
> of a 'Fifth amendment'; I would like to say that on a wiki, about
> your private life you *do* have the right to remain silent.
>

Right. And this makes us even more suspicious when we find out that
someone has been providing false information about their own biography.
The reason given--that it was to throw potential trouble-makers off
track--just doesn't seem convincing.

When it comes to anyone's contributions to articles, the content is the
determining factor. But when it comes to interactions on talk pages,
assuming positions of power and trust, and representing Wikipedia to
others, credentials *do* make a difference. One can argue whether they
*should*, but the reality is that they *do*, for a great many people.

Now, I have to reason to be "disgruntled" with EssJay...I don't recall
having any significant interaction with EssJay. I have chosen to reveal
some details of my bio on my user page, but I certainly don't expect
that everyone will. It is precisely because I have no such expectation
that I am likely to assume good faith on the part of those who do chose
to put personal information on their user page.

Come to think of it, isn't the principle of "Assume Good Faith" really
at the core of this whole issue?

-Rich Holton
(user:Rholton)


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-03

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20118).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 493 of 511 tests (96.48%)... 18 tests failed!


body:
"Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com> writes:

> On 3/2/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> A note: Ken Myers is a lawyer who has written about the
Communications
>> Decency Act and its relationship to Wikipedia, and who
delivered a paper
>> (and organized a panel) about that topic at last year's
Wikimania.  He's a
>> bright guy with some good ideas. It's unsurprising to me that
   he's
>> interested in controversies surrounding Wikipedia, but it does
   seem
>> completely irrelevant to this discussion.
>> -- phoebe
>>
>
> Timeline
>
> Wed 21 Feb 2007, 4:10pm Ken Myers registers an account at WR
>
> Thu 22 Feb2007, 12:35pm Ken Myers last posting at WR
>
> Fri 23 Feb 2007, 9:08am Yanksox registers an account at WR
>
> Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:53pm Yanksox deletes Daniel Brandt
>
> Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:56pm Yanksox does a kamikazi dive
>
> Sun 25 Feb 2007, 9:46pm nobs posts summary at Wikien-1
>
>
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6799&view=findpost&p=22354

Rob, again, could you be a little more explicit about what sort of
causation you see in this correlation? Yes, it is kind of odd that
a lawyer specializing (or more modestly, has an interest in),
would register on a message board widely known to be very critical
of Wikipedia, involved with exactly the sort of subject material
that raises issue that lawyer examines, and occasionally
frequented by Wikipedia insiders just a day or 2 before a
Wikipedia insider registers and is apparently influenced by what
he reads to commit a quite controversial series of admin actions
related to a cause celebre on that message board - but _post hoc
ergo propter hoc_, as the logicians say.  Are you suggesting
Yanksox is Ken Myers, Ken Myers contacted Yanksox and convinced
him to do it, the other way around, or what? And then you include
mention nobs...

I'm just not following you here.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


in_reply_to:
<7c402e010703021919g48ae603dt4dbecd06adaff50c@mail.gmail.com>
	(stvrtg@gmail.com's message of "Fri, 2 Mar 2007 19:19:15 -0800")

body:
stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> writes:

> On 3/2/07, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>> Because, generally, we don't expect people to lie about their
academic
>> credientials.  How many editors in that area who would know if
he were
>> making it up do we even have?  And, again, Essjay was (yes, the
word is
>> now was) a very trusted member of the community - he kept the
charade up
>> enough where few, if any, would bother questioning him anyway.
That's a
>> problem, and it's disturbing that you don't recognize it.
>
> Why not? And why would you suppose if you for example tried to
pass yourself
> off as a Th.D that people who actually are wouldn't find certain
things odd
> about what you say? This entire charge against Essjay falls
  under the
> pseudonym issue,
> and of course is entirely ironic that most of the critics happen
  to be
> either disgruntled
> (Kelly) or themselves anonymous. The issue is between Essjay and
the New
> Yorker.
> We dont have a personnel screening policy. The onus was on the
Pulitzer
> prize winning
> author to check her sources, not to rely on a third party.
>....
>
> - Stevertigo

As one of those "anonymous" users (I certainly hope I cannot be
counted among the disgruntled), I feel I must protest. I do not
think the criticism of myself and people like me is "ironic" in
any way: our very ability to work peaceably and quietly on the
wiki demonstrates that one does not need to fabricate a false
life, ostensibly in order to defend oneself against trolls and
assorted ne'er-do-wells. Our existence militates against the very
suggestion of a false dichotomy (between either risking your
personal life by revealing everything truthful, or simply making
stuff up which sounds plausible) - there is at least a third
option: to say nothing. Americans might be familiar with the idea
of a 'Fifth amendment'; I would like to say that on a wiki, about
your private life you *do* have the right to remain silent.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 03/03/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wrong link above. Sorry.
> http://wikipediareview.com/...

All links to wikipediareview.com are wrong links.

I suppose you still have no idea why you were banned except an obvious
conspiracy against the truth or something.

- d.


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 12:14:50 +0530, Jimmy Wales
> <jwales at wikia.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I have just posted this on my talk page:
>
> baying mob that swept round Wikipedia looking for a place
>
> rest?  Sound and fury, signifying nothing.  As a
> community we really
> are not terribly good at sitting and thinking, are we?

So you're saying the community is just a bunch of
stupiders?  You mean that Nature's article that showed
Wikipedia is actually more accurate as a "baying mob" than
as an oligarchy is just terribly ungoodly thinking?

"I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust
within the community." - Jimmy Wales, not the "baying mob"
that was requesting Essjay be burned at the stake after
being stalked then interrogated at Guantanamo, for which
JzG has all sorts of reputable and reliable citations.
After all JzG is an admin who can be trusted and wouldn't
be out baying unverifiable stupidities like the community.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com


body:
On 3/2/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As one of those "anonymous" users (I certainly hope I cannot be
> counted among the disgruntled), I feel I must protest. I do not
> think the criticism of myself and people like me is "ironic" in
> any way: our very ability to work peaceably and quietly on the
> wiki demonstrates that one does not need to fabricate a false
> life, ostensibly in order to defend oneself against trolls and
> assorted ne'er-do-wells. Our existence militates against the very
> suggestion of a false dichotomy (between either risking your
> personal life by revealing everything truthful, or simply making
> stuff up which sounds plausible) - there is at least a third
> option: to say nothing. Americans might be familiar with the idea
> of a 'Fifth amendment'; I would like to say that on a wiki, about
> your private life you *do* have the right to remain silent.

I think most people agree that what Essjay did was a mistake.
But I dislike people who find it easy to dismiss someone's years of
good work on the basis of a mistake, and moreso if that dismissal
rests on some inflated concept about what that mistake was or means.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Katie (Keitei)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Presentation to readers

body:
On 2/28/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/26/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > And then the mass of other stuff - {{npov}}, {{unverified}},
> > {{notability}}, etc could all move to the talk page.
>
> This addresses a certain pet peeve of mine. I'm reading an article,
> the link to the talk page is blue so I go there to see what's being
> said about the article and the only thing there is a project template.
> This would become a bigger problem if talk pages become peppered with
> a metric assload of "plumbing" templates.
>
> I know this is probably not possible with the current software but it
> would be nice to have a separate link color for talk pages without
> user comments. That way the link to a talk page would only be blue if
> there is actual "talk" there.

Or perhaps another "namespace" for tags, which manifests as another
tab to list WikiProjects the article is associated with, the current
assessment status, etc of the article. I suppose it could be termed
the metadata for the article, and it has nothing to do with discussing
the article, and is only put in the Talk: namespace to keep it off the
article. I think it's come time to stop with the workarounds and begin
the innovating.
And I know you await my patch, but it's not forthcoming. Maybe
somebody else will do it. :]

--
niht-hr?fn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keitei


from_name: Robert Horning

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> The concern that becomes apparent from reading this thread is that
> living in St. Pete's would very strongly favour having this job go to an
> American.  To be sure some of the paying jobs can only be done at the
> headquarters, but this is very much an international organization which
> should do more to open opportunities for citizens of other nations.  The
> nature of this opening suggests that the work could be done anywhere in
> the world without the need to move to the United States.
>
> Ec
>

I think that any specific location anywhere in the world is going to
favor one nationality over another.  Even Brussels is going to be very
Euro-centric, and I could go on and on about other major cities
throughout the world.  This is not really a very legitimate reply.

I will say in defense of Florida (although Miami would be a bit better
in this regard), this is America's gateway to the Caribbean Islands,
and home to a very diverse  number of  ethnic groups that I would
challenge you to find anywhere in the world outside of perhaps NYC or
San Francisco.

To me, this is a very anti-American attitude that is strongly suggesting
that perhaps the WMF needs to re-incorporate somewhere in the EU.  If
somebody from say South Africa were to work with somebody from Japan on
a daily and face to face basis, where would you suggest that they find
as a common location to meet, work, and live?

I will also defend keeping the WMF in America at least so far as I think
you would have a very hard time trying to find a place that is more
politically stable or has similar economic stability and 1st world
infrastructure necessary to carry out the mission of the WMF.  The last
realistic attempted military invasion to the heartland of America took
place in 1812.  Can you say that about any other country in the world
except perhaps Switzerland?  Even that could be argued in light of WWII,
but I won't belabor that point.  In addition, the WMF is already in
America, and much of the legal underpinnings and relationships are based
upon American law.

I guess I just don't see the point to all of this anyway or why this
thread has brought out the attitudes that this has.  We are a very
diverse group of people all working together, where I, as an American
living in rural America in the heart of the Rocky Mountains have nearly
daily conversations with people from Poland, the UK, and South Africa on
collaborative writing projects.  Often I don't even know the nationality
of the people that I am working with, or even what continent of the
world they are really at when I am having these discussions.  I fail to
see why this particular position as a Volunteer Coordinator would have
to be any different in this regard.

-- Robert Horning


from_name: Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> Do you think that the presence of a baying mob materially affected the
> outcome?  I don't.
>
> Guy (JzG)
>
I do, although I'd compare this to a large peaceful protest rather than
to a violent riot that your "baying mob" characterization makes this out
to be. Oh, I love how semantics can so easily twist a situation... Those
who were incivil throughout this were wrong, but the rest were more than
entitled to voicing their opinions and probably had some effect on the
change in Jimbo's position and/or, perhaps, Essjay's imminent
resignations. The large number of established users denouncing Essjay's
actions (as evidenced through the RfC and other media) certainly had to
mean something.

-- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
On 3/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Anyone notice a difference in tone between Jimmy's statement and the
> baying mob that swept round Wikipedia looking for a place to set up
> shop?
>
Yes, I think his recent statement was about right on.  Not too harsh,
but still recognizing of the fact that a serious breach of trust took
place.  World order has once again been restored for those of us who,
like Larry Sanger, were shocked not by the incident, but by the
apparent ho-hum reaction to it by Jimmy Wales.

I hope Sanger will post a public response to this, as he was quick to
post a public reaction to Jimmy's original statement.

Anthony


subject: [Wikitech-l] BPMN 2 JPG convertor

body:
Guys,

I will try the Graph to make the image. Thanks for your help. I appreciate
it!

With regards,

Paul

"Tels" <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote in
message news:200703022352.16764 at bloodgate.com...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Moin,
>
> On Friday 02 March 2007 22:35:52 Jim Wilson wrote:
>> According to Wikipedia (emphasis mine)[1]:
>>
>> "The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standardized
>> *graphical notation* for drawing business processes in a workflow. "
>>
>> Thus it would seem that BPMN is already an image file of some kind.
>> Making an image thumbnail should be the same as with any image[2].
>
> Actually, it seems just to be some sort of language to model graphs (with
> specific predefined layouts).
>
> You could try to use Graph::Easy for it:
>
> http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/
> http://bloodgate.com/wiki/Graph
>
> If you need help, dropme an email :)
>
> All the best,
>
> Tels
>
>
> - --
> Signed on Fri Mar  2 23:51:26 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
> View my photo gallery: http://bloodgate.com/photos
> PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
>
> "We have problems like this all of the time," Kirk said, trying to
> reassure me.  "Sometimes its really hard to get things burning."
>
>  -- http://tinyurl.com/qmg5
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iQEVAwUBRei4sHcLPEOTuEwVAQK7egf/RtPsVQHgy870gmmCJF5Tg7zRRoQZEM6V
> 4zf0t/nixdPtobIjUTwzZH72onrI2m/NKbBTrySFYZLX4BFKnnHc/p775uM85sLp
> tblhijZJq0dT1PBt1JKy/23I4bsyZiY6Ycx9I3c99PSD/yUTGPA8VEHlOs8rX274
> zeI2hfuv4D4/EWy2kyUy+bSt1qqVO4j/BsLQJEOh4XLZTiQh5klcvrK5XbrMdmCb
> +22vJARHKUDXFKRulf30LyiPENyFY8B0OmCiwYy19ygBWGFD2Dyatq5ZWlwxIOQZ
> yYdtBlHB2xz0HR8HIUKm9AfQ/rIcQCcsGHEPkx0SIrIru60VehE/eQ==
> =DUFe
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 12:14:50 +0530, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
wrote:

>I have just posted this on my talk page:

--8<-------

Anyone notice a difference in tone between Jimmy's statement and the
baying mob that swept round Wikipedia looking for a place to set up
shop?

Problem solved, well before the deadline (there is no deadline).  The
rest?  Sound and fury, signifying nothing.  As a community we really
are not terribly good at sitting and thinking, are we?

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


from_name: Aude

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
It will be easier for Jimbo to wade through comments and diffs provided by
the community, if it's all together on one page rather than spread out first
on Jimbo's talk page, then Essjay's talk page, then more discussion here on
the mailing list, on the community noticeboard, and while I haven't been on
IRC, surely discussion going on there too.  Sure there were some incivil
comments, but for the most part the comments were very civil and thoughtful
from regular Wikipedians.

The comments also present the community's opinion on the situation to the
news media and larger public.  Take this piece in the Chronicle for Higher
Education:  http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1909  They point
out that not all Wikipedians agree with Jimbo's statement to the New
Yorker.  Standing by silently and saying nothing, in my opinion, says "I
approve of Jimbo's statement" and is an unacceptable choice.  It's necessary
for community members to speak up in this situation.

I think it led to a swifter response from Jimbo (the best he could do, given
he's in India) which is important to mitigate the situation.

Regards.

On 3/3/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/3/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I was unaware Essjay used fake credentials in content disputes, but
> seeing
> > as that appears to be confirmed now, I think a resignation is in order.
> > Still, I don't think the community noticeboard vote and incivil comments
> > were not the way to go about this. I would've waited for a decree from
> > Jimbo, and now we have one.
>
> If it wasn't for the CN noticeboard stuff it is doubtful the relivant
> difs would have come to light.
>
> --
> geni
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Aude


from_name: Guettarda

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a democarcy

body:
On 3/3/07, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/3/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/28/07, Sage Ross <sage.ross at yale.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > One of the central conclusions is "edits beget edits", though this is
> > > in terms of correlation, not causation.  But assuming causation, how
> > > many edits does an edit beget?  That is, as a function of total edits,
> > > time since creation, and number of new edits in a recent time slice,
> > > how many extra edits are edits are expected in the next time slice and
> > > beyond?  If I make 50 edits in one day to a 1000-edit article of age
> > > 50 weeks, how many extra edits will others contribute the next day,
> > > and how many extra over the next year?
> >
> >
> > There is also no real way to know whether those edits are "valuable"
> edits.
> > One would hope that bad edits beget better edits, and that vandalism
> begets
> > correction!
>
> That's the important question from the responsible editor's
> perspective, though: to what degree do good edits beget more good
> edits?  Anecdote and personal experience suggest "some", but it could
> be tested in a very rough way by taking (a large number of) paired
> articles of about equal standing and working on one but not the other.

More anecdotes backed up by gut feelings...

I think the "edits beget edits" experience is real.  Of course, there's
vandalism and reversion, and the fact that some articles attract a lot of
vandalism for a little while, or a lot of vandalism episodically (I'm not
talking about [[George W. Bush]] here).  But then there are those articles
that sit on your watchlist - things you came across, maybe made a few
changes, and then watchlisted, meaning to come back later.  If other people
are like me in this regard (and looking at public "to do lists", I'm
guessing they are), Wikipedia is full of low quality articles you meant to
get back to once you had the time to look up that one reference...and never
did.  Or articles that desperately needed work, but you didn't have the time
or didn't feel like dealing with it at the time.

Once someone starts working on one of these "dormant" articles, you come
over and have a look.  That's especially true if they make several edits.
And you start to chime in - adding a reference, fixing a typo, correcting a
fact.  And this might attract another editor.  Sometimes it's a bad edit, or
vandalism that attracts you.  Sometimes it's a biased insertion.  More often
that not, it's a one-off thing that's soon forgotten (or, worse yet, added
to a "to do" list).  But sometimes it attracts a swarm of editors.

I'd agree with the assertion that "edits beget edits", but (I think)
primarily on articles that have already been edited by several people.
Activity that only shows up on "Recent Changes" doesn't work the same way -
the people watching that are looking for vandalism.  So my hypothesis is
that non-vandalism edits beget other edit on pages that have been edited by
at least a few (5, to pick an arbitrary number) established editors.

Ian


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Sat, 3 Mar 2007, stvrtg wrote:
> I think most people agree that what Essjay did was a mistake.

That's like saying that most people agree that a hurricane is a breeze.

> But I dislike people who find it easy to dismiss someone's years of
> good work on the basis of a mistake, and moreso if that dismissal
> rests on some inflated concept about what that mistake was or means.

Think of it as a years-long mistake.  Or think of it as a continually-
occurring series of mistakes that happened for those years, not just a
single mistake.

And a "mistake" is generally something done inadvertently.  Calling this a
"mistake" tends to absolve him of blame.


subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
On 3/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Problem solved, well before the deadline (there is no deadline).  The
> rest?  Sound and fury, signifying nothing.  As a community we really
> are not terribly good at sitting and thinking, are we?
>
No, we're not, as evidenced by this very thread.  At least, not if you
measure the aggregate level of noise.  That's kind of inevitable
though, unless someone comes up with an internet equivalent to "active
noise reduction".  Is there an English language equivalent of
antinoise?

I feel like I'm being kind of hypocritical though, going on about not going on.

Anthony


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 2/28/07, Sage Ross <sage.ross at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> One of the central conclusions is "edits beget edits", though this is
> in terms of correlation, not causation.  But assuming causation, how
> many edits does an edit beget?  That is, as a function of total edits,
> time since creation, and number of new edits in a recent time slice,
> how many extra edits are edits are expected in the next time slice and
> beyond?  If I make 50 edits in one day to a 1000-edit article of age
> 50 weeks, how many extra edits will others contribute the next day,
> and how many extra over the next year?

There is also no real way to know whether those edits are "valuable" edits.
One would hope that bad edits beget better edits, and that vandalism begets
correction!

I must say that my primary objection here is the use of the term "democracy"
as if it were unproblematic -- everybody has a different idea of what
"democracy" means and stands for, and I'm not sure it is at all the right
term to describe the functioning of Wikipedia (however rosy it sounds). If
Wikipedia is a democracy then the term democracy has taken on a new and
bizarre meaning. My wild guess is that the people who gave it that
designation have not spent much time contemplating political theory, or even
understanding the dynamics of complex organizations. My anecdotal experience
would lead me to think that different areas of Wikipedia -- editing
high-visibility articles, editing low-visibility articles, arbitrating
article content disputes, arbitrating user disputes, article or image
reviews, etc. -- function in totally different ways, and since many of these
functions are *not* regulated by any strict set of guidelines I would not be
surprised to find all sorts of slightly different ad hoc dynamics involved
in each realm which become somewhat self-reinforcing in respects to the type
of people who frequent each (I would be interested to know if there is much
overlap between people who edit heavily, people who write new articles
heavily, people who help out at the reference desk, and people who vote for
article deletion). But anyway I haven't juggled any data so I admit to just
playing the armchair methodologist.

FF


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Intervening in an edit war

body:
I have been asked to look at a page where there has been an edit war for
half a year as an 'impartial outsider'. Does anyone have experience with
doing that? I have not started yet, but I fear that the outcome will be one
of the following three:

* I consider myself too little known about the subject to say anything
useful
* I agree with one of the parties, and get shit on by the other parties
* I agree with neither party, and get shit on by both.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Any File

subject: [Wikitech-l] BPMN 2 JPG convertor

body:
Tels wrote:

> On Friday 02 March 2007 22:35:52 Jim Wilson wrote:
> > "The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standardized
> > *graphical notation* for drawing business processes in a workflow. "

I am not definitively an expert on this field, so take my opinion for
just an opinion. Moreover I have found difficult to understand what it
is written in the Wikipedia article. For instance after saying what
was quote above (from hence one can conclude that it is a workflow),
it is stated that "it is not a data flow"

> >
> > Thus it would seem that BPMN is already an image file of some kind.

Following the external links on the article, I arrived to some pages
that let me think that BPMN only give the semantic, but not the
graphic format, and for the graphic format you should better refer to

BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services)
and web page
http://content.europe.visual-paradigm.com/media/documents/bpva10BPMNSpec/html/057.htm
told you to refer to
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpel/

I have just give a quick gaze to that and I think that it define an
XML format for the content/image.

So if you have a file in that format the problem is to find an handler
for that, in the same way you need an handler to handle SVG file.
Onother way would be to find a way to convert into SVG format (which
sounds to be a better choice than JPG for such type of image). (or if
you want a bitmapped format and not a vector format,  PNG format
should be better than JPG, anyway)

> You could try to use Graph::Easy for it:
>         http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/
>         http://bloodgate.com/wiki/Graph

If what I have understood is correct, BPMN has more items than a
flowchart. And the differences means not only more semantic
declarations, but also more graphics item types. So I wonder if Graph
has already all this graphics types required for that format. Even if,
you would have to convert from the BPMN or BPEL4WS to Graph format to
have it to work for such a format.

But, before trying to get a way to do the thing technically, it should
be clear what you are looking for. Have you already a file in that
format (in the same way if you had an image in svg or jpg format, in a
separate file) and you want a way to have it displayed (as an image
and as a thumbnail) or do you want a way to insert the code in the
wiki page, to generate an image (in a way similar, for example, to the
Graph extension or the EasyTimeline one)?

All the best
 AnyFile


from_name: Sage Ross

body:
On 3/3/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/07, Sage Ross <sage.ross at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> > One of the central conclusions is "edits beget edits", though this is
> > in terms of correlation, not causation.  But assuming causation, how
> > many edits does an edit beget?  That is, as a function of total edits,
> > time since creation, and number of new edits in a recent time slice,
> > how many extra edits are edits are expected in the next time slice and
> > beyond?  If I make 50 edits in one day to a 1000-edit article of age
> > 50 weeks, how many extra edits will others contribute the next day,
> > and how many extra over the next year?
>
>
> There is also no real way to know whether those edits are "valuable" edits.
> One would hope that bad edits beget better edits, and that vandalism begets
> correction!

That's the important question from the responsible editor's
perspective, though: to what degree do good edits beget more good
edits?  Anecdote and personal experience suggest "some", but it could
be tested in a very rough way by taking (a large number of) paired
articles of about equal standing and working on one but not the other.

> I must say that my primary objection here is the use of the term "democracy"
> as if it were unproblematic -- everybody has a different idea of what
> "democracy" means and stands for, and I'm not sure it is at all the right
> term to describe the functioning of Wikipedia (however rosy it sounds). If
> Wikipedia is a democracy then the term democracy has taken on a new and
> bizarre meaning. My wild guess is that the people who gave it that
> designation have not spent much time contemplating political theory, or even
> understanding the dynamics of complex organizations. My anecdotal experience
> would lead me to think that different areas of Wikipedia -- editing
> high-visibility articles, editing low-visibility articles, arbitrating
> article content disputes, arbitrating user disputes, article or image
> reviews, etc. -- function in totally different ways, and since many of these
> functions are *not* regulated by any strict set of guidelines I would not be
> surprised to find all sorts of slightly different ad hoc dynamics involved
> in each realm which become somewhat self-reinforcing in respects to the type
> of people who frequent each (I would be interested to know if there is much
> overlap between people who edit heavily, people who write new articles
> heavily, people who help out at the reference desk, and people who vote for
> article deletion). But anyway I haven't juggled any data so I admit to just
> playing the armchair methodologist.

Yeah, the newspaper headline version of the results is hardly worth
taking seriously.  But the numerical results behind that are
interesting nonetheless, especially as a complement to Aaron Swartz's
"Who Writes Wikipedia" from several months ago.  I just wish they
would have presented the data in terms that are meaningful for
individual articles without crunching the numbers.

-Sage


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 02:55:39 -0800 (PST), Cheney Shill
<halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:

>So you're saying the community is just a bunch of
>stupiders?  You mean that Nature's article that showed
>Wikipedia is actually more accurate as a "baying mob" than
>as an oligarchy is just terribly ungoodly thinking?

Actually most of the community did the smart thing and completely
ignored this teapot tempest, but the reaction was in the main
hysterical and, yes, stupid.

Do you think that the presence of a baying mob materially affected the
outcome?  I don't.

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


list: commons-l

from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006

body:
Dear Wikimedians,

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition is now
over, and the winner has been selected. Thank you for voting.
Of the 662 Wikimedians who voted, 83 selected 'Aurora Borealis' [1]
as the 'Wikimedia Commons Picture of 2006'.

Second was 'Sans Domicile Fixe' [2] with 78 votes and joint third were
'Blue Jay' [3] and 'Hoverflies mating in midair' [4] with 70 votes
each.  We congratulate the authors of these pictures for their
exceptional quality. The full results are available on [5]

Some user comments:
* ''Fantastic! Love the earth.''
* ''Crazy. Wish I could vote for them all.''
* ''If I had to pic one thing I'd like to see, I'd go with that. Stunning.''

We are also proud to announce the release of an archive of all the
2006 Wikimedia Commons Featured Pictures. You can find more
information on [6].

Thank you all for voting,
The Commons Community

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg
[2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:P7032101_small2.jpg
[3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Cyanocitta-cristata-004.jpg
[4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hoverflies_mating_midair.jpg
[5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006
[6] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive


subject: [Foundation-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Pilotguy wrote:

>And what about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robbie31? Essjay claimed he
>was gay and he was "in a long-term relationship with his partner, Robbie..."
>How are we to know if this guy is for real too? His few contributions don't
>add up.
>
What difference does it make?

Ec


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] BPMN 2 JPG convertor

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

Moin,

On Saturday 03 March 2007 10:08:25 Any File wrote:
> Tels wrote:
> > On Friday 02 March 2007 22:35:52 Jim Wilson wrote:
> > > "The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standardized
> > > *graphical notation* for drawing business processes in a workflow. "
>
> I am not definitively an expert on this field, so take my opinion for
> just an opinion. Moreover I have found difficult to understand what it
> is written in the Wikipedia article. For instance after saying what
> was quote above (from hence one can conclude that it is a workflow),
> it is stated that "it is not a data flow"

I also had troubles understanding the wiki page - but I thought I was just
overly tired :)

> > > Thus it would seem that BPMN is already an image file of some kind.
>
> Following the external links on the article, I arrived to some pages
> that let me think that BPMN only give the semantic, but not the
> graphic format, and for the graphic format you should better refer to
>
> BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services)
> and web page
> http://content.europe.visual-paradigm.com/media/documents/bpva10BPMNSpec/
>html/057.htm told you to refer to
> http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpel/
>
> I have just give a quick gaze to that and I think that it define an
> XML format for the content/image.
>
> So if you have a file in that format the problem is to find an handler
> for that, in the same way you need an handler to handle SVG file.
> Onother way would be to find a way to convert into SVG format (which
> sounds to be a better choice than JPG for such type of image). (or if
> you want a bitmapped format and not a vector format,  PNG format
> should be better than JPG, anyway)

If thre is a predefined program for converting the XML to PNG/SVG, then this
could be quickly turned into a Mediawiki extension.

> > You could try to use Graph::Easy for it:
> >         http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/
> >         http://bloodgate.com/wiki/Graph
>
> If what I have understood is correct, BPMN has more items than a
> flowchart. And the differences means not only more semantic
> declarations, but also more graphics item types. So I wonder if Graph
> has already all this graphics types required for that format. Even if,
> you would have to convert from the BPMN or BPEL4WS to Graph format to
> have it to work for such a format.

Graph::Easy doesn't have any specific "items" or "grafics" per say, instead
if just has generic types like nodes, edges (connections) and groups.

(I am not entirely sure if every item in such a BPMN chart can be expressed
in terms of Graph::Easy, but if there is one that can't I would like to
hear about it so I can add it :)

If you want to build such a "flow chart" with it (or Graphviz, for that
matter), you need to define the types for yourself, then use them.

If you do this manually, this can quickly become quite a lot of work,
especially since Graph::Easy has not yet a way to include a file (f.i. with
common definitions like in HTML+CSS where you can re-use the CSS by putting
it into a different file).

This means you would need to repeat all the definitions on top of each
graph.

I do think it would make much more sense to build a converter that takes
directly the XML (or whatever it is) BPMN input and outputs it as
Graph::Easy, from there you can easily convert it (automatically) as SVG,
or PNG (via graphviz).

> But, before trying to get a way to do the thing technically, it should
> be clear what you are looking for.

:)

> All the best
>  AnyFile

Are you related to AnyKey? (SCNR :)

All the best,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sat Mar  3 11:29:24 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Get one of my photo posters: http://bloodgate.com/posters
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 Mediawiki graph-extension: http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/
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body:
stvrtg wrote:

>On 3/2/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>
>>he lied about having a high degree of education, used that high degree of
>>education as
>>leverage, and quite possibly lied regarding why he created the
>>trumped-up persona as well.  Not that he ever had to trump up his creds
>>to achieve the same goal, of course, which is the other problem.
>>
>>
>Nor would there be much of a way he could accomplish this if he wrote things
>about which he didnt know or understand. I agree that it seems improper to
>represent oneself as an expert to gain weight. But theres a paradox here: A
>site that owes its existence in part to its anti-credentialist ethos is all
>of a sudden to now supposed to conform to a credentialist modality when its
>unpaid participants interact with the "national media"? (below). The real
>reason people are upset is because noone with credentials could tell, even
>in spite of his attaining a position as a "respected authority" on Catholic
>subjects. Are our experts on trains supposed to have engineering degrees
>now?  Is the credibility of the site somehow diminished due to one editor's
>mistake in misrepresenting himself? Nonsense.
>
I very strongly agree with stvrtg.  This has been an incredible exercise
in making a mountain out of a molehill.  We have verifiability standards
for article pages.  We do not have them for user pages, and it does not
strike me as irregular that a fictitious persona would have a fictitious
biography.  That is perfectly consistent with a view that what matters
is the content, and not the qualifications of the person who put up the
contents.  If I see that someone who has contributed lists himself as a
PhD I can say to myself, "That's nice," but I should not use that as an
excuse to turn my brain off.  What makes a claim here that an edit is
made by a PhD any more credible than a claim by a highschool student
using Wikipedia as a reference.  We are not immune from such amateurish
fallacies.

Did EssJay lever his stated credentials into a position of authority?  I
don't know.  Unless there is clear evidence that Wikipedians were
massively influenced by such claims as a basis for supporting  his
promotions those arguing that point now are only doing so with the
benefit of hindsight.  Now that we see "the truth" there is a massive
rush to look for scapegoats for our own stupidity in taking such a claim
seriously.  We need a Lord of the Flies to whom we can pay homage.
Brilliant minds often forget how close to the surface lies the descent
to barbarism.

Should EssJay have revealed the truth about himself?  Perhaps.  But
when?  And how should that transition be made?  I hardly see the need to
retroactively correct all the inaccuracies of the last two years.  I see
the real biography on Wikia as a good faith attempt to begin setting the
record straight.  It should be viewed in that way, and not as an excuse
for digging up every bit of dirt on EssJay for the last two years.

Instead of making a mountain out of a molehill when such issues come up
we really need a mechanism to get over it.

Ec


body:
Rob Smith wrote:

>After my Appeal was rejected and my ban extended, I sought out Mr. Brandt at
>WR and begin telling what I knew.  All Brandt knew was he woke one morning
>and had been slandered.  I laid out the events prior to the creation of his
>wiki bio in a portal at WR.  A contextural narrative is reproduced here
>
>http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/02/navigating-flame-wars-of-daniel-brandt.html#narrative
>
>Then I baited Mr. Ken Myers, author of *Wikimmunity,* into WR with a little
>piece of comedy he referenced in his first posting there.  Brandt & Myers
>had a few exchanges, Myers spent several hours reviewing posting on that
>forum; by 1pm UTC the Brandt bio was deleted.
>
And you're proud of that behaviour?

Ec


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a ...

body:
My two cents:

Actually, Plato thought democracy was a step below oligarchy in _The
Republic_, one step above anarchy.  Remember, his good friend Socrates, the  main
character in the book, was killed by a true democracy.  He argues, as  does
Madison in the _Federalist Papers_, that pure democracy has very  serious flaws.
It should be "devolved" to democracy, though democracy also  provides freedom
and has its place, and we should remember Plato's republic  also had
"philosopher kings."

Vincent Bartning
User: John Wallace Rich

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
I have just posted this on my talk page:

I have blanked my entire talk page to make sure this statement gets
adequate attention.  Hopefully someone more clueful than me :-) can
archive things properly.

I have been for several days in a remote part of India with little or no
Internet access.  I only learned this morning that EssJay used his false
credentials in content disputes.  I understood this to be primarily the
matter of a pseudonymous identity (something very mild and completely
understandable given the personal dangers possible on the Internet) and
not a matter of violation of people's trust.  I want to make it
perfectly clear that my past support of EssJay in this matter was fully
based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going on.  Even now, I
have not been able to check diffs, etc.

I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the
community.  In terms of the full parameters of what happens next, I
advise (as usual) that we take a calm, loving, and reasonable approach.
  From the moment this whole thing became known, EssJay has been
contrite and apologetic.  People who characterize him as being "proud"
of it or "bragging" are badly mistaken.

On a personal level, EssJay has apologized to me, and I have accepted
his apology on a personal level, and I think this is the right thing to
do.  If anyone else feels that they need or want a personal apology,
please ask him for it.  And if you find it to be sincere, then I hope
you will accept it too, but each person must make their own judgments.
Despite my personal forgiveness, I hope that he will accept my
resignation request, because forgiveness or not, these positions are not
appropriate for him now.

I still have limited net access... for a couple of hours here I will be
online, and then I am offline until I am in Japan tomorrow morning.  I
beleive I will have a fast and stable Internet connection at that time,
and I will deal with this further at that time.

Wikipedia is built on (among other things) twin pillars of trust and
tolerance.  The integrity of the project depends on the core community
being passionate about quality and integrity, so that we can trust each
other.  The harmony of our work depends on human understanding and
forgiveness of errors.

--~~~~


from_name: Rob Smith

references:
<86wt20m9xj.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>
	<52a8cf060703021302l332e5da3v9fa311a6c9f9191f@mail.gmail.com>
	<86fy8nmhnu.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>
	<3034369e0703021549i4226243kddffcf4c9ec35b58@mail.gmail.com>
	<52a8cf060703021722l2ab98277qbf596b552c07ac9f@mail.gmail.com>
	<867itynai7.fsf@elan.rh.rit.edu>

body:
From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 2, 2007 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

"Slim Virgin" < slimvirgin at gmail.com> writes:

> On 3/2/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> None of this would have happened
>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Essjay#Outside_finding_of_fact_by_User:Hipocrite
>
>> if the circumstances that led to the creation of the Daniel
Brandt bio had
>> been dealt with fairly in both Arbitration cases which
  preceeded it..
>
> >
> I
> created the stub on Brandt because his name was showing up as a
red
> link in the article about, as I recall, Chip Berlet. Rather than
> remove the red link, I created a stub so it turned blue. End of
story.
>
> Sarah

 this
would've happened regardless of Brandt. Would it have made the
front page of Slashdot, would the New Yorker have published a
correction if he had not been involved? I do not know for
sure.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.

( A ) Brandt started the ball rolling for *TNY* to fix its error.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=2778&view=findpost&p=21049

and the cases of Kathryn Wolfe or Katefan0 are well known.

On 3/2/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On 3/2/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> A note: Ken Myers is a lawyer who has written about the
> Communications
> >> Decency Act and its relationship to Wikipedia, and who
> delivered a paper
> >> (and organized a panel) about that topic at last year's
> Wikimania.  He's a
> >> bright guy with some good ideas. It's unsurprising to me that
>   he's
> >> interested in controversies surrounding Wikipedia, but it does
>   seem
> >> completely irrelevant to this discussion.
> >> -- phoebe
> >>
> >
> > Timeline
> >
> > Wed 21 Feb 2007, 4:10pm Ken Myers registers an account at WR
> >
> > Thu 22 Feb2007, 12:35pm Ken Myers last posting at WR
> >
> > Fri 23 Feb 2007, 9:08am Yanksox registers an account at WR
> >
> > Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:53pm Yanksox deletes Daniel Brandt
> >
> > Fri 23 Feb 2007, 12:56pm Yanksox does a kamikazi dive
> >
> > Sun 25 Feb 2007, 9:46pm nobs posts summary at Wikien-1
> >
> >
>
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6799&view=findpost&p=22354
>
> Rob, again, could you be a little more explicit about what sort of
> causation you see in this correlation? Yes, it is kind of odd that
> a lawyer specializing (or more modestly, has an interest in),
> would register on a message board widely known to be very critical
> of Wikipedia, involved with exactly the sort of subject material
> that raises issue that lawyer examines, and occasionally
> frequented by Wikipedia insiders just a day or 2 before a
> Wikipedia insider registers and is apparently influenced by what
> he reads to commit a quite controversial series of admin actions
> related to a cause celebre on that message board - but _post hoc
> ergo propter hoc_, as the logicians say.  Are you suggesting
> Yanksox is Ken Myers, Ken Myers contacted Yanksox and convinced
> him to do it, the other way around, or what? And then you include
> mention nobs...
>
> I'm just not following you here.
>
> --
> Gwern
> Inquiring minds want to know.

After my Appeal was rejected and my ban extended, I sought out Mr. Brandt at
WR and begin telling what I knew.  All Brandt knew was he woke one morning
and had been slandered.  I laid out the events prior to the creation of his
wiki bio in a portal at WR.  A contextural narrative is reproduced here

http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/02/navigating-flame-wars-of-daniel-brandt.html#narrative

Then I baited Mr. Ken Myers, author of *Wikimmunity,* into WR with a little
piece of comedy he referenced in his first posting there.  Brandt & Myers
had a few exchanges, Myers spent several hours reviewing posting on that
forum; by 1pm UTC the Brandt bio was deleted.

Rob Smith
aka User:Nobs01 & User:Nobs02


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> Do you think that the presence of a baying mob materially
> affected the outcome?  I don't.

Who did the research then?  Where did Jimmy learn that
Essjay was using his "credentials" to influence content
decisions instead of just as a pseudonym?  From the JzG
Admin Research Foundation?

So the "mob" can understand, here's an answer:  yes, just
as it affects everything else in Wikipedia.  Given that
Jimmy was unable to go through all Essjay's edits, the key
fact for Jimmy, learning that Essjay had combined his
authority and false expertise claims to affect content
decisions, seems to be the result of the mob and certain
smarter elements in it, like geni, highlighting diff
citations over long winded talk-page excuses or unsourced
diatribes on mobs.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

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from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 3/2/07, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
> The savings in travel expenses combined with increasing the opportunities to establish strategic
> relationships (and funding opportunities) should more than offset the increased cost in rent and
> in cost in living increases for staff. Those costs can and should be mitigated for by avoiding
> actually having the office in a world city, but just outside it.

The difference in expected payscale for a single employee between St.
Pete and the DC area will pay for something between 50-100 roundtrip
flights between Tampa and DC, depending on the exact scheduling. The
flight takes only two hours, and the Tampa airports as well as all
three of the DC area airports are easy to deal with.

The difference in expected pay for someone in the bay area would be
much greater, yet the bay area lacks much of the governmental and
non-profit base that DC has.

We also already have a board member who lives in the DC area.

I think this thread is sort of silly.

As far as attractive places to live go, St. Petersburg Florida is
pretty good. As far as connectivity to other organizations go, we're
better off with single good representatives near important cities. We
need to keep in mind that no location is close to everything.


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!

body:
Barcex wrote:

>Ray,
>
>You will think that this is a joke, but it is real.
>
I fail to see the purpose of that comment.

>Last year, during the
>the time at eswiki we were discussing the "only free material policy" the
>small pro-fair-use group (mostly composed of unaware newbies and well-known
>trolls) claimed that eswiki wikimedians "were losing their dignity" with
>this policy because enwiki wikimedians were able to upload fair use and they
>did not. Yes, sounds crazy, but it happened!  :)
>
>In my previous e-mail I just wanted to note that at eswiki we have always
>had users asking why enwiki allows fair use and eswiki don't, even before
>closing uploads. While here most of us clearly see the advantages of being
>"totally free", people that is not in the free-culture movement and compares
>enwiki and eswiki tends to believe that it is a disadvantage.
>
First of all I believe in the maximum autonomy for each project.  This
means that I believe, to a large extent, that each project is free to
allow fair-use material or not, and is free to allow local uploads or
not.  If I believe the the eswiki policy is wrong I will feel free to
say it and why, but I will not attempt to change it because I am not
accepting the responsibilities of participating there.  Had I been a
troll I would not have lasted as long as I have, and no-one will
reasonably argue that I am a newbie.  I find that there is a place for
fair-use material, but I readily admit that a lot of material that is
claimed as fair use is not fair use at all.  That makes some of these
claimants a bigger problem for fair use than those who oppose it.  There
are extreme views on both sides.  What happens on one wiki should not
depend on what happens on another, and I would reject the argument that
fair-use policy on enwiki should shape policy on eswiki, and
vice-versa.  It seems that those who would frame the issue in terms of
"losing dignity" are being a little too dramatic.

I view being free in terms of outputs.  Thus it does not matter if the
input is free as long as the output has a reasonable chance of being
made free.  The fair-use arguments that I read are often deficient.
Some claims of fair use would be better replaced by depending on other
features of the law that would arrive at the same result, such as
whether the original work being copied was copyrightable in the first
place.  I believe in fair use, but it must be fair use.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] a new free image!


from_name: Jossi Fresco

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

references:
<45E91962.8000304@wikia.com>
	<0ggiu2dr3qqm6qq762vbj3i0b4hpuum7mi@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90703030607h6d22b725h66deb9e2c8615494@mail.gmail.com>
	<dk4ju21kird64ivse8g4c7v8g09mbpdrau@4ax.com>

body:
On Mar 3, 2007, at 7:22 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>
> Yes, exactly that.  Sorrow, but recognition that there is an issue of
> trust.  It did not need to be rammed home with a brick.

True leadership in difficult moments are measured by statements like
the one made by Jimbo. Clear, forceful enough, but with an attitude
and tone that demonstrate kindness and understanding of human nature.
Well done.

-- Jossi


body:
On Mar 1, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Pilotguy wrote:

> This is very disappointing. Consider all the high-level positions that
> Essjay holds, now including ArbCom, and with that in mind, look at
> this
> situation. It is harder now to trust someone who has done something
> like
> this. How are we supposed to know that he says who he is now?

The choice is yours, Pilotguy. My choice is to chose trust, rather
than distrust, regardless of this very sad incident.

-- Jossi


body:
On Mar 1, 2007, at 3:46 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:

> I can see more than a little embarassment for the New Yorker here too.
> Retired professors tend to have left a long trail behind them - I
> talked
> casually with one the other day, took just ten minutes with Google to
> reconstruct his professional career given only last name and a mention
> of a couple of his research interests. I wonder how NYer managed
> not to
> take any interest in independently looking up any of Essjay's
> background.

Where is editorial control and fact checking when you need it?
Incredible...

-- Jossi


body:
Keith Old wrote:

>Folks,
>
>Larry Sanger has weighed in on this on the Citizendium blog.
>
>http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/01/wikipedia-firmly-supports-your-right-to-identity-fraud/
>
>Now, this is pathetic, and yet
>more evidence of the broad moral decline of Western civilization and all
>that is holy, but in itself is no big deal.
>
 I can see the feathers stand out on his chest. :-)

What are we to believe about the role of theology in Western
civilization? ;-)

Ec


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/2/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> There is much more where that came from. Sanger probably sees it as a fillip
> for Citizendium which was starting to look like the encyclopedia equivalent
> of *Chinese Democracy.*
>
> *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Democracy*

I'm confused. Did you mean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_democracy_movement

Or...what did you mean exactly?

Steve


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
On 3/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Anyone notice a difference in tone between Jimmy's statement and the
> baying mob that swept round Wikipedia looking for a place to set up
> shop?
>

Jimbo can get things done through shear authority. The general
wikipediam on the gorund cannot

> Problem solved, well before the deadline (there is no deadline).  The
> rest?  Sound and fury, signifying nothing.  As a community we really
> are not terribly good at sitting and thinking, are we?

Given that people were prepared to sit and dig through 10's of Ks of
edits I would beg to differ.

--
geni


from_name: Keith Old

body:
On 3/3/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There is much more where that came from. Sanger probably sees it as a
> fillip
> > for Citizendium which was starting to look like the encyclopedia
> equivalent
> > of *Chinese Democracy.*
> >
> > *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Democracy*
>
> I'm confused. Did you mean:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_democracy_movement
>
> Or...what did you mean exactly?
>
> Steve

As in Chinese Democracy, the Guns n. Roses album that has been 15 years in
the making and still hasn't been released.

Regards

Keith Old

_______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 3/3/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Rob Smith wrote:
>
> >After my Appeal was rejected and my ban extended, I sought out Mr. Brandt
> at
> >WR and begin telling what I knew.  All Brandt knew was he woke one
> morning
> >and had been slandered.  I laid out the events prior to the creation of
> his
> >wiki bio in a portal at WR.  A contextural narrative is reproduced here
> >
> >
> http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/02/navigating-flame-wars-of-daniel-brandt.html#narrative
> >
> >Then I baited Mr. Ken Myers, author of *Wikimmunity,* into WR with a
> little
> >piece of comedy he referenced in his first posting there.  Brandt & Myers
> >had a few exchanges, Myers spent several hours reviewing posting on that
> >forum; by 1pm UTC the Brandt bio was deleted.
> >
> And you're proud of that behaviour?
>
> Ec

While not sharing Mr. Brandt's worldviews, or his desire to seek legal
action and identify Admins he feels have persecuted him, I felt much relief
in explaining to Brandt why he had been targeted with an invidious smear.
Brandt was an innocent victim, and this is evidenced by Will Beback (aka
Willmcw) and SlimVirgin's comments at the current AfD after *ArbCom voted to
Accept a case against them*

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=21733464#User:Willmcw_and_User:SlimVirgin


from_name: Christopher G. Parham

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
>
> I don't meant to characterise all concerned as a mob, by the way -
> several people while taking some part in the process did their level
> best to make it less hostile, and I salute them.  Nor does that mean
> the concerns expressed are not valid.
>
> Guy (JzG)
>
Unfortunately I'm not sure that individuals attempting to make it less
hostile can possibly have much effect. No matter how reasonable and
careful everyone is being with their statements, the scale from Essjay's
perspective must be daunting.

"Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly
would still have been a mob."

--Chris


subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 12:21:46 -0800 (PST), Cheney Shill
> <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> Do you think that the presence of a baying mob
> materially
> >> affected the outcome?  I don't.
>
> >Who did the research then?  Where did Jimmy learn that
> >Essjay was using his "credentials" to influence content
> >decisions instead of just as a pseudonym?  From the JzG
> >Admin Research Foundation?
>
> You are assuming that only a baying mob would do such
> research.

No, I'm asking who did the research that you claim was done
outside the "baying mob" (aka, the community).

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

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from_name: William Pietri

body:
Hi, Ray. I enjoy your posts, so it pains me to disagree with you, but I
can't avoid it here. Sorry for the length of this, but I couldn't find a
way to do it and still be as clear as I wanted.

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> stvrtg wrote:
>
>> [...] Is the credibility of the site somehow diminished due to
>> one editor's mistake in misrepresenting himself? Nonsense.
>>
>>
> I very strongly agree with stvrtg.  This has been an incredible exercise
> in making a mountain out of a molehill.  We have verifiability standards
> for article pages.  We do not have them for user pages, and it does not
> strike me as irregular that a fictitious persona would have a fictitious
> biography.  [...]
>
> [...] Now that we see "the truth" there is a massive
> rush to look for scapegoats for our own stupidity in taking such a claim
> seriously.  We need a Lord of the Flies to whom we can pay homage.
> Brilliant minds often forget how close to the surface lies the descent
> to barbarism.
>
> Should EssJay have revealed the truth about himself?  Perhaps.  But
> when?  And how should that transition be made?  I hardly see the need to
> retroactively correct all the inaccuracies of the last two years.  I see
> the real biography on Wikia as a good faith attempt to begin setting the
> record straight.  It should be viewed in that way, and not as an excuse
> for digging up every bit of dirt on EssJay for the last two years.
>
> Instead of making a mountain out of a molehill when such issues come up
> we really need a mechanism to get over it.
>

I would like to feel that way, but I can't. Looking at the root of this
deception, among his very first edits on Wikipedia he falsely claimed
credentials in an effort to win a content dispute. A dispute about
which, it turns out, he was wrong. Even so, had it ended there, I think
this would be more anthill than molehill.

Unfortunately, he continued, both expanding the deception and using it
in other on-WP discussions. Even there, I think we get somewhere above
the molehill size, but only modestly. Again, had he stopped here, I'd be
in the so-what camp. For me, though, it's the next three issues that
make it a pretty big deal.

First, he contacted real-world professors, representing himself as a
fellow professor and Wikipedia administrator, to advocate for Wikipedia.
He specifically suggests they look at his claimed credentials to bolster
his standing. Committing fraud (by which I mean misrepresentation for
gain) while citing his administrative position is to me a big violation
of the trust that adminship represents.

Second, he appears to have actively deceived a top reporter and a fact
checker in an on-the-record interview as a leading member of Wikipedia.
(I'm basing that on this bit: "He often takes his laptop to class, so
that he can be available to Wikipedians while giving a quiz [...]" The
reporter could have made that up and tricked the fact-checker, but I'm
going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.) This has caused
actual harm to Wikipedia's reputation. [1] As well, you can bet that any
journalist who has done a Wikipedia story quoting an anonymous user
broke out in a cold sweat when they read about this. Any future articles
about Wikipedia will surely be much more skeptical of anything said by
an anonymous admin, making it harder for people who are using anonymity
legitimately to serve as sources.

Third, he tried to cover this up through further deception. From Jimbo's
statements, it's clear that Essjay was not frank with him. Essjay was
certainly not frank with others in his explanations of this, at least
the ones on Wikipedia that I've read. This caused further harm to
Wikipedia externally and internally. As the Washington mantra goes,
"It's not the crime, it's the cover-up."

Now personally, I feel terrible for Essjay in this. I can only dimly
imagine the awfulness of having such big portions of one's personal and
professional lives come crashing down like this. Especially when it's
all due to a stupid mistake that snowballed out of control. I wish him
only the best in recovering from this. I look forward to him having a
successful RfA in a few months and resuming his position as, by every
account, a whirlwind of positive contribution.

I also don't think this is anywhere mountain-sized. This will pass, and
I expect it will be much less of landmark than, say, the whole
Seigenthaler thing was. As you point out, articles were generally not
harmed in the making of this, and there have been no credible claims of
abused powers. And certainly, some portion of the people talking about
this are failing to stay cool, creating unnecessary froth.

But to my mind, it's no molehill either. The community placed a lot of
trust in Essjay. Very regrettably, he betrayed part of that trust, and
betrayals always hurt. Making the both project and Jimbo look bad in
public [2] is no small thing to me. More objectively, Jimbo asking
somebody to resign as an administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, and
member of ArbCom is a sign that this is not a molehill.

William

P.S. Maybe part of the difference in reactions here is that I look at a
lot of the comments and I tend to automatically discount the very
emotional ones? Doing that and trying to pull some consensus position
out of the RFC gives me some comfort, as I feel like it's not far from
what Jimbo decided to do.

[1] If you're not sure about this, see the commentary in reaction to
this. For example, from the Chronicle of Higher Education: "But the
incident is clearly damaging to Wikipedia's credibility -- especially
with professors who will now note that one of the site's most visible
academics has turned out to be a fraud."

[2] For example, this quote from Stephen Dubner, co-author of
Freakonomics: "This is hardly a felony, but it does make you wonder
about what else happens at Wikipedia that Jimmy Wales doesn?t have a
problem with."

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
On 3/3/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was unaware Essjay used fake credentials in content disputes, but seeing
> as that appears to be confirmed now, I think a resignation is in order.
> Still, I don't think the community noticeboard vote and incivil comments
> were not the way to go about this. I would've waited for a decree from
> Jimbo, and now we have one.

If it wasn't for the CN noticeboard stuff it is doubtful the relivant
difs would have come to light.

--
geni