subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/19/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> You'll see no love of Bush from me, but your complaint is factually
> inaccurate: Bush won the popular vote in the second election and even
> had more then 50% of the votes.
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_2004#Election_results]
>
> Even in the case of the first election, to me it seems a bit foolish
> to complain about the electoral system when the popular vote was well
> within the margin of error of the voting system overall.  ... and can
> you really look at a results by state map
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_2000#Results]
> and say that it is entirely unfair that Gore did not win?
>
> It's simply not a black and white issue... and it's not fair to fault
> an election process because it didn't go the way you prefer.
>
> In the future it would make sense not to disrupt discussion about
> Wikimedia operations with offtopic politically loaded interjections.

I don't want to take this on this list, because of its off-topic
nature (and was stupid to get caught up in the moment and post it in
the first place); I'll reply to you in private later. =)

Anyways, my point was that indirect elections _might_ turn out to have
inaccurate results (though that is a rather rare situation), and that
it would be especially hard to arrange this on Wikimedia projects.

--
Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
Skype - jon.harald.soby


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jon Harald Søby


list: wikien-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted on
	Wikipedia?

body:
On 19/09/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> This discussion started with a
> mention of laws about taking pictures of various Royal properties, which
> is an extra-copyright restriction.  You seem to favor us honoring those
> sorts of restrictions as well.  But there are *quite* a lot of those, if
> we want to get into expansive conformance.  In some countries, it's
> illegal to publish material that impugns the honor of a president, king,
> revered religious figure, or some other such thing.  Should we ignore
> these laws?  If so, how do we distinguish between the ones we follow
> (apparently UK ones) and the ones we don't?

<rant - sorry, this isn't particularly directed at you, it's been
simmering for a while>

The issue is that a British author entered into a contract made
legally under British law to do something in Britain. This is by no
means a bizzare or inhuman contract - "I will let you into private
property, and let you take photographs, on the condition you don't use
them commercially". Art galleries everywhere do much the same thing;
it's nothing to do with copyright or draconian privacy laws, it's just
a matter of a contract between an individual and an organisation.

So regardless of any legal situation in the US, it is a breach of
contract *on the part of the author* to release those images for
commercial use, even if he does it outside the UK. US copyright law
doesn't come into it, US freedom of speech doesn't come into it,
because it isn't about either - it's about the fact that the author
has made a contract which is legally binding and *he personally* would
be breaking it if he released the work under a free license.

Wikimedia is fine - we're not a party to the contract, and it's an
open question as to what on earth the other party can do to us if the
photographer decides to break his contract. But we should never be
pretending we can get people out of their local legal constraints,
unrelated to copyright, just because publishing in Florida gives us
funky copyright possibilities.

It's fair to say "we publish in Florida and aren't bound by German
laws on reproducing swastikas", because that's a German law binding on
German publications. It's (usually) fair to say "we publish in Florida
and aren't bound by overseas copyrights on PD-US work", because we're
looking at a US law binding on US publications. It's not fair to say
that publishing in Florida means editors can escape any restrictions
they have fairly entered into or had placed on them, especially when
those have nothing to do with copyright, because we're looking at
local laws binding *on our editors*.

Even if the end result is an encyclopedia that breaks no laws in
Florida, we should not be expecting or encouraging our editors to
break their own laws to get there.

</rant>

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia a News Portal (among other things)?

body:
On 9/19/06, Peter Jacobi <peter_jacobi at gmx.net> wrote:
> [[September 2006 Thailand coup attempt]]
>
> Sorry to ask the obvious rhetorical questions here:
> * Wasn't WikiNews designed to be for news?

Partly but it was also meant to allow for a degree of original research.

> * Why is [[Wikipedia:Recentism]] only an essay?
> * Is at a good idea to write an encyclopedia article based a news tickers and CNN?

It would be more trouble than it was worth to stop people from doing so.
--
geni


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 9/19/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Suppose I am doing a Ph.D.
> study, and want to become a expert in a field. What is nicer than to
> work with some experts in that field to create good quality articles. To
> many people seem under the impression that Citizendium is written solely
> by experts, my impression is that the bulk of the work is still done by
> many authors together, with a major difference that only a 'finalised'
> version is approved and visible for the larger public. Just imagine that
> a group of people works together adding a new page that do not have to
> fight with POV-pushers of fringe or bullshit ideas (expert guidance) and
> vandals (not approved, no reward for vandalism), while at the same time
> can benefit from the expertise of those same experts to get towards a
> much better article as those experts do know the literature much better,
>   know which [[WP:V]] [[WP:RS]] to use (no blanket criteria needed
> anymore). Furthermore, an added incentive would be that quality
> contributors are being recognized by those experts, which results in
> better working relationships, but also more praise and feedback....

This is precisely the way I have seen things work well over 99% of the
time on wikipedia. If on a given article it does not, I give it my
honest best effort if I think conciliation has a reasonable shot, but
if not, move on to another part of the pedia, where people are quietly
and collegially working, just in the manner as you describe above; bar
the fact that on wikipedia the *natural* deference to people who know
what they talk about, has not become a deference to *graven emblems*.
(Although,  I will admit the hierarchicism fetishizers are always at
the gate.)

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

Candidate for Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in the
September 2006 elections.


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
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Phil Sandifer wrote:

> That's the part where you got it wrong. In reality, deleting NPOV,
> verifiable content on notable subjects because its creator didn't
> touch third base is destructive to Wikipedia, and anyone involved in
> it should be arbcommed. And if I'm ever made directly aware of it,
> they will be arbcommed.

Don't hold ArbCom as a threat over the heads of other editors; it
doesn't work and it's not a good tactic.

And as for NPOV articles ... if someone is being paid to write articles
on these businesses, it isn't going to be NPOV, but it's going to be POV
in a way that you could only establish it as such if you were intimately
familiar with the subject matter, or were prepared to do lots of
research.  That's why we have the general prohibition against publicity
articles; they tend not to be NPOV, and even when they do appear to be,
they likely aren't.

For instance, I could write one hell of a POV article about hypernovae
that would totally discount one of the two major theories in the field
as to how they occur, and yet simply by reading the article you would
never know it, and it would only be after doing some in-depth study on
the subject that you would realize that what I wrote was utterly not NPOV.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~
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from_name: Peter Jacobi

body:
[[September 2006 Thailand coup attempt]]

Sorry to ask the obvious rhetorical questions here:
* Wasn't WikiNews designed to be for news?
* Why is [[Wikipedia:Recentism]] only an essay?
* Is at a good idea to write an encyclopedia article based a news tickers and CNN?

Regards,
[[User:Pjacobi]]

--
NEU: GMX DSL Sofort-Start-Set - blitzschnell ins Internet!
Echte DSL-Flatrate ab 0,- Euro* http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject: [Wikipedia-l]Methods of electing an arbitration committée

body:
Hi Wikipedians,

habj schrieb am 19.09.2006 17:09:
> What are the experiences from French, German etc elections to their
> arbitration committees?

This is an easy answer for German speaking Wikipedia:
We don't have an elected arbcom.

Bye, Tim.

--
http://wikipedistik.de


body:
"Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It's been this way for a while
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

Yep, but this was before "forking" WikiNews or at the very
beginning of that project. Shouldn't we draw a line now and
leave the news to WikiNews, only remerging into Wikipedia once
importance is clearer and deeper analysis is available from
secondardy sources?

[[User:Pjacobi]]

--
NEU: GMX DSL Sofort-Start-Set - blitzschnell ins Internet!
Echte DSL-Flatrate ab 0,- Euro* http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On Sep 19, 2006, at 7:40 PM, Ben McIlwain wrote:

>
> Don't hold ArbCom as a threat over the heads of other editors; it
> doesn't work and it's not a good tactic.
>

Don't threaten to remove valid content. It's an even worse tactic.

> And as for NPOV articles ... if someone is being paid to write
> articles
> on these businesses, it isn't going to be NPOV, but it's going to
> be POV
> in a way that you could only establish it as such if you were
> intimately
> familiar with the subject matter, or were prepared to do lots of
> research.  That's why we have the general prohibition against
> publicity
> articles; they tend not to be NPOV, and even when they do appear to
> be,
> they likely aren't.
>

Actually, all we have is a vague admonition against autobiography.
It's "considered proper." Nothing else. Consider the [[Cyrus
Farivar]] case - the article was started by him. But he's a notable
figure, and we kept it. Likewise, if the company is notable, and
nobody can find anything wrong with the article, we assume good faith
and keep it.

> For instance, I could write one hell of a POV article about hypernovae
> that would totally discount one of the two major theories in the field
> as to how they occur, and yet simply by reading the article you would
> never know it, and it would only be after doing some in-depth study on
> the subject that you would realize that what I wrote was utterly
> not NPOV.

You're right! We should make sure that people who know anything about
physics topics aren't allowed to, because they'll probably just
advance their own pet theories.

-Phil


from_name: David Alexander Russell

body:
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Peter Jacobi wrote:
> "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's been this way for a while
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
>
> Yep, but this was before "forking" WikiNews or at the very
> beginning of that project. Shouldn't we draw a line now and
> leave the news to WikiNews, only remerging into Wikipedia once
> importance is clearer and deeper analysis is available from
> secondardy sources?
>
> [[User:Pjacobi]]
>
>

Just because something happened recently doesn't mean it should be
included in Wikipedia. Granted, Wikipedia will generally have less
information on a current event than Wikinews (given WP's greater
emphasis on verifiability) but that doesn't mean that no article is
better than a short article. Besides which, these sorts of articles are
generally plastered with WN links to provide the more up-to-date, less
verifiable information.

Cynical
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body:
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David Alexander Russell wrote:
>
> Just because something happened recently doesn't mean it should be
> included in Wikipedia.
>
> Cynical

I actually meant to say that just because something happened recently
doesn't mean it _shouldn't_ be included in Wikipedia. Damn typos.
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from_name: gwern branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> gwern branwen wrote:
......
> > 'Soundness' can be read as 'static', and the value of staticness can
> > be overrated. Cyclopaedia is static, yet not useful.
>
> Well, that is your interpretation of sound, not mine. Sound content is
> dynamic. If I want static content, I go for a paper encyclopaedia. And
> dynamic high quality content on Wikipedia deteriorates all the time
> unless experts babysit the complex articles. Nice dynamic, sure......

I agree with you that the *prose* in our best articles tends to
deteriorate over time - that's been proven time and again here on this
list with regard to FAs, anyway - but I don't think the basic
information does: I've watched about 2000 articles for the best part
of 3 years now, and the articles which have deteriorated generally
should never have been there in the first place.

> >> 3. Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
> >> to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert
> >> the newest version, of basically fall behind.
> >
> > If anything, the flow would be the other way. By definition, Sanger's
> > various projects must  expect to draw upon a smaller stock of possible
> > editors. Without even considering first mover, network, or
> > winner-take-all effects, we should expect Citizenpedia to be borrowing
> > content from Wikipedia, not the other way around.
>
> Initially, yes. But that will change as soon as there is a sound
> community of editors at Citizendium. The pool of editors might be
> smaller, but the vandal fighting also, which results in a lesser need
> for editors to babysit the many articles. It probably will also contain
> less pseudo-notable stuff, like all pokemon characters and such for
> which Wikipedia is and will remain a perfect place. And by the sound of
> colleagues around me, they might be way more willing to help out with
> less open-to-all-editing initiatives.

I think you're overestimating how much of a brake vandalism is.
Semiprotection, more admins, the vandalism bots have all greatly
reduced the time I need to spend reverting stuff on my watchlist. It's
purely anecdotal, but in my experience vandalism has remained constant
or gone down even as there are ever more articles and Wikipedians. (Am
I alone in thinking this? Has anyone else gotten this impression?)

> Besides that, the contributors have more time to spend on actual content
> due to less vandal fighting. Finally, at current, the stream of
> information is from Britannica to Wikipedia, not the other way round.

What sort of argument is that? Of course it is one way, that's part
and parcel of Wikipedia being open and EB being closed; not to mention
they wouldn't be caught dead borrowing anything from us because of
their pride.

> Kim

--Gwern


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

body:
habj wrote:
> Has anyone defined what it means to "come from en:"? Does it mean "to only
> speak one language"?
>
> /habj

Very good point.

Ant


body:
On 19/09/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> In the World Cup example, at least, Commons seems to have decided that
> it's not our job to enforce them---it's between FIFA and the
> photographer whether the pictures were taken in violation of a contract,
> and not really our job to pry into the matter, even if we suspect they
> were probably not taken with permission.

Yeah. But there's a difference between "we're not going to ask" and
"we're going to actively promote that you can do this quasi-legally",
and we often seem to be slipping towards the latter, by assuming
copyright is the only relevant factor.

> I'm not sure that's a position we *must* take, but it does seem to be
> the one we're currently taking.  There are problems with the opposite
> position, too, that would at least require us to come up with something
> more complex/nuanced.  For example, we'd probably want to reserve the
> right to publish pictures taken illegally in complex political
> situations---if somebody snapped a newsworthy photograph during a coup,
> for example, which the government later declared illegal, we would
> probably not want to take it down for that reason (or at least I
> wouldn't want us to have such a policy).

We've quite the collection of illegally-produced material - most of
the illustrations of revolutionary propaganda, for a start...

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


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No derivatives (was: Would you like one of your
	videos posted on Wikipedia?)

body:
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> > You didn't comment on my other examples. :)
>
> Same answer, no? Sorry, I'm still not seeing the "downstream" argument.

My other examples were about our use on english Wikipedia. I even
mentioned how often we crop images.

>The
> "cropping for fair use" is not needed because we wouldn't have to rely on fair use.

Cropping is not permitted by CC-By-ND.
A desire to avoid cropping is actually the #1 reason why people have
told me that they want their work -ND.

> > See [[WP:FUC]].
>
> I had seen FUC, and that was why I brought up fair use. I figured, if we allow
> that stuff under these conditions, then surely a free license like CC-BY-ND
> wouldn't be horrible, even if it is more restrictive than CC-BY-SA. CC-BY-NC-SA
> is out, but I figured that was for downstream reasons.

Hm. Did you actually read the preface or did you just skim the conditions?

If it's not clear to you why we would permit some images as fair use
but not allow -ND then it needs some further clarifying.

> > we do not want to make the impression that we are
> > using the work under CC-BY-ND, that we approve of the license, or that
> > we would encourage anyone to release content under it.
>
> Well, this is a bit of a surprise. So, it's not just a legal issue for us and
> our downstream users.

Of course it is not a legal issue. No image that we can legally put on
our website would be a 'legal issue'.

It's a two fold pratical matter:

1) Our day-to-day activity sometimes requires making derrived works.
2) -ND content is not Free Content, and building a Encyclopedia from
Free content is the fundimental goal of the project.

> > I'll fix that so it doesn't create any impression of being a complete list.
> >
>
> Well, if it is a fairly common case, then maybe it actually needs explaning and
> justifying, like for NC. I'd like to say it's not an obvious point at all, but
> maybe this is only because I like to think of myself as not being dense.
>
> Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no point
> adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case. If not, is there a pointer to
> discussion somewhere?

You are the first person to point out that it isn't obvious that we
don't accept ND.

There has, in the past, been a person or two who has asked for us to
allow ND content... Usually a photographer who considers his pride in
his baby and his distrust for the world over the goals of our
projects.  Such discussions have never lasted long.

The reason that non-commercial (and usually 'with permission') are
stated clearly is because we used to allow them, more because of a
failure to consider the results than any real consious decision.  ...
It later became clear to us that our tolerance of these compromised
grants was materially discouraging the introduction of free works so
there was a campaign to remove them.


from_name: Gregory Kohs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys") wrote:

And as for NPOV articles ... if someone is being paid to write articles
on these businesses, it isn't going to be NPOV, but it's going to be POV
in a way that you could only establish it as such if you were intimately
familiar with the subject matter, or were prepared to do lots of
research.  That's why we have the general prohibition against publicity
articles; they tend not to be NPOV, and even when they do appear to be,
they likely aren't.

Ben, I just got off the phone with a potential client.  They have this
awesome promotional idea that is going to BLOW AWAY all of their previous
marketing efforts, including their 2004 Super Bowl ad campaign.  This is the
campaign to end all publicity campaigns.  It's no wonder nobody's ever
thought of it before, because it is pure genius.  Here's their plan...

They're going to have MyWikiBiz cook up this amazingly scripted article in
Wikipedia.  Every word is going to be spelled correctly, and all the Wiki
syntax is going to be ship-shape.  It's going to include some incredible
information that is sure to mesmerize consumers across the face of the
Earth.  We're talking stuff like IDENTIFYING THE CEO of the company, and
maybe even LISTING THE CHAIRMAN's name.  Not only that, but MyWikiBiz will
cite the YEAR THE COMPANY WAS FOUNDED.  Wait, there's more -- the types of
products that the company sells will be LISTED FOR ALL TO SEE, with internal
Wikipedia links to those classes of products.  Still with me?  Just as
buyers are falling out of their seats to scramble to this company's
headquarters to try to execute a leveraged buyout, we will dumbfound them
all, by LISTING THE COMPANY'S STOCK TICKER SYMBOL.  Oh. My. God.  There will
be a bull market frenzy that will put the dot-com bubble to shame, all
thanks to Wikipedia.

Try not to break down in a fit of consumer ECSTASY, when I reveal the coup
de grace...  That's right, we'll finish it all off with an EXTERNAL LINK to
the company's HOMEPAGE.

Somebody shut us down, before we can carry out this master plan of
marketing.

And somebody speedy delete the article on Coca-Cola, too.  There's a line in
there about "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" as being "widely
considered one of the best advertising campaigns in history" -- with no
reference cited.

  -- Gregory Kohs

--
Gregory Kohs

Office: 484.840.4369
Home: 610.696.1644
Cell: 302.463.1354


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] ...In Pop Culture

body:
There was some debate here earlier about the desirability of the "In
Pop Culture" subsections that inhabit a wide variety of Wikipedia
articles, with all their fancruftiness.  I just recently happened to
notice that there's such a section... in the article on [[Britney
Spears]]!  Now, just what aspect of Ms. Spears (other than whatever
minuscule amount of "private life" she may have) that *isn't* related
to pop culture?  That section title seems as redundant as "AOL For
Dummies".

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
Hey Greg,

> Or another database engine which supports an index type which is an
> inverted index with fast intersections.

MyISAM? \o/

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sanger's first post to Citizendium-l

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 18/09/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> (I think the intent and basic mechanisms of the GFDL are great. I
>> think the implementation is poor. I suspect that anything which
>> implemented the GFDL as poorly as Wikipedia does would not hold up
>> strongly in court.)
>
>
> In particular, the GFDL for images is pretty much a pretend
> free-content licence and not effectively one at all. "Yes, you can
> freely reuse our images in print if you print the entire text of the
> licence next to it." Uh, yeah.
>

Here's a great cartoon explaining this, and why you should dual-license
images:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BD-propagande_colour_en.jpg

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
"Ligulem" wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur looks fine for me.
>
> The error report smacks like the new template limits for me
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_limits)
>
> IIRC, if a limit is hit, the name of the template is displayed and not
> transcluded any more.
>
> But [[Fur]] and its templates are far away from any such limit. The html
> of [[Fur]] contains:
>
> <!--
> Pre-expand include size: 2772 bytes
> Post-expand include size: 717 bytes
> Template argument size: 142 bytes
> Maximum: 2048000 bytes
> -->
>
> --Ligulem

It was the first thing i checked when i saw Fur with the templates linked.
There were no limit warnings.


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos
	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:56, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
>
>> On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you
>>> have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial
>>> use without permission.
>>>
>>> Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property
>>> without consent, which is often refused or charged
>>> for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
>>>
>>> Here's a link for more info:
>>> http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/
>>> uk_photographers_rights_guide
>>>
>>>
>> OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter
>> copyright
>> laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern
>> skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are
>> automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not
>> know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old
>> paintings.
>>
> I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has
> done an
> excellent job of mireading and distorting the material.  The
> question of
> old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go
> into that.
>
> The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar
> Square have nothing to do with copyright.  In the case of British Rail
> the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without
> permission.  This alone does not make the pictures that you take while
> there illegal.
>
> For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of
> restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes.  It
> does not restrict amateur or personal photography.  Overtly commercial
> photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs
> that are
> subsequently used for commercial purposes.  The restriction applies to
> the activity, not to the product.

Students on a summer job at my company did ask
for permission to film on British Rail property, and
this request was refused. I think if the people involved
filmed there "for personal use" and then the content
was used commercially, this would be highly dubious.

Is your interpretation that photographs can be used
commercially as long as that was not the intention
when they were made? I did consider that interpretation,
but it seems odd as intention is hard to prove. If you are
right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
This seems sufficiently odd to find the actual regulations,
rather than the summary in the pamphlet, the link to which
I included to allow people to form their own view.


from_name: Kim van der Linde

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
gwern branwen wrote:
> I agree with you that the *prose* in our best articles tends to
> deteriorate over time but I don't think the basic
> information does

Well, maybe, but based on my own experiences, content is also
deteriorating, and I have several cases in which I am pretty sure that
if I had left Wikipedia and not corrected it , it would have been still
wrong. Actually, I tried it out with three errors, after waiting a
month, I gave up and corrected it.

Kim

--
http://www.kimvdlinde.com


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted
	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:52, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:

> Hi Stephen,
>
> On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> ...
>> external linking
>> of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
>> couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
>
> Why is it being phased out?

The idea is that content should be included within Wikipedia.
Apart from anything else, CD ROMs of WIkipedia would then
be self-contained, but also content could not be altered or
withdrawn by third parties.


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>> Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
>>> from en: to become a steward these days?
>
>> Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?
>
>
> This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
> someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
> else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
> Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
> two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
> and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
> found the message in question as easily as I just did.
>
>

... but someone else would have asked. Please don't blame Anthere for
not remembering some email she may or may not have had time to read;
she's a very busy person.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>> Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
>>> from en: to become a steward these days?
>
>> Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?
>
>
> This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
> someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
> else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
> Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
> two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
> and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
> found the message in question as easily as I just did.
>
>

... but someone else would have asked. Please don't blame Anthere for
not remembering some email she may or may not have had time to read;
she's a very busy person.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>> Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
>>> from en: to become a steward these days?
>
>> Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?
>
>
> This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
> someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
> else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
> Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
> two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
> and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
> found the message in question as easily as I just did.
>
>

... but someone else would have asked. Please don't blame Anthere for
not remembering some email she may or may not have had time to read;
she's a very busy person.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>> Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
>>> from en: to become a steward these days?
>
>> Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?
>
>
> This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
> someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
> else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
> Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
> two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
> and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
> found the message in question as easily as I just did.
>
>

... but someone else would have asked. Please don't blame Anthere for
not remembering some email she may or may not have had time to read;
she's a very busy person.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

> On 9/19/06, Jon Harald S?by <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Anyways, my point was that indirect elections _might_ turn out to have
>> inaccurate results (though that is a rather rare situation), and that
>> it would be especially hard to arrange this on Wikimedia projects.
>
> Indirect election of officials in voluntary organizations with large,
> geographically diverse membership is common and may actually be the
> norm.  Comparisons with election of geopolitical leaders ("involuntary
> organizations") are simply inapposite; there are so many functional
> differences between electing a head of government and electing the
> officers of a voluntary organization.
>
> Rejecting the idea simply because it superficially resembles the
> American college of electors (which, by the way, is a very strange
> form of indirect election) is, frankly, silly.  Rejecting it because
> it seems too difficult to implement today is shortsighted.
>
> Let's also not forget that direct democracy elected Hitler, and yet we
> still use it as well.

I'm not sure how "direct" a concept of democracy you have in mind, but
Hitler was *appointed* Chancellor. After Hindenburg's death, he declared
himself F?hrer. Thereafter, he rushed through a vote to ratify this
action, but if that's democracy, so was Saddam Hussein's last election.
If you mean that he personally was democratically elected, I don't see
it. If you simply mean that he became politically powerful enough to
turn a parliamentary republic into a totalitarian state, that too is a
cautionary tale, but this is an odd way of expressing that.

I don't think an argument about different electoral formats is getting
at the right issue, anyway. The concern about elections in a Wikimedia
context is primarily an extension of the difficulty that the right to
vote in our elections corresponds only rather inexactly to anything that
could constitute citizenship. It might be possible to address that with
a membership model, but as I've pointed out before, membership has its
own problems.

--Michael Snow


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Creation Of Wikimedia Batch Accounts and
	AthenticationFor External Links

body:
"Steve" wrote:
> 2) I have a wiki and in this wiki some of the pages can be viewed without
> login
> in and the rest you need to be logged in. Now say that I want to have a
> link
> from my other website into my wiki's password protected section. Is there
> a way
> that I could authenticate myself  without  using the wiki's login
> page, -say
> maybe pass the credentials in the header? Any other suggestions?
>
> Steve

If they are being available from outside, you should de-protect it. You can
always
keep secret the url to that un-protected page.
There're ways you could chwck it, like using auth in url or checking the
referer, but
they're all vulnerable, so you should decide: make it secret or not.
Alternatively, you
could make the other website secret too and sharing the credentials.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

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

Gregory Kohs wrote:
> With some trepidation, I notify the WikiEN-l list about this blog post.  I
> do so in the interest of some interesting Wikipedia analysis, and fair play
> (feel free to rip me a new one in the blog's Comments section).  Here is the
> blog post:
>
> http://mywikibiz-com.blogspot.com/2006/09/gaping-void-in-wikipedia.html
>
> Kindly,
>
>     Gregory Kohs

'Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Promotional articles about
yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles created as
part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in
accordance with our deletion policies. For more information, see
Wikipedia:Spam.'

In other words, your company's business model is inherently flawed,
because any articles written as part of a promotional campaign (which is
what your company does) will be immediately deleted.

Cynical
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On 9/19/06, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> With some trepidation, I notify the WikiEN-l list about this blog post.  I
> do so in the interest of some interesting Wikipedia analysis, and fair play
> (feel free to rip me a new one in the blog's Comments section).

In terms of holes it isn't to bad. There are entire cities we don't include yet.

--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Elephants and giraffes (was: [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]]
 are destroying Wikipedia)

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Not just any people. We need reliable sources. Biologists, zoologists, etc.
> Not some random people who were told to swamp us with nonsense.
>
> Mgm

Exactly - although the contributions of ordinary users are just as
valued as those of experts, in terms of the actual facts we are
interested in accuracy rather than popularity. That's what WP:V, WP:RS
and (to a lesser extent) WP:NOR are for.

Cynical
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from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day UnforgettableID,

> On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple
>>as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content
>>I have shot is only available for non-commercial use
>>because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be
>>released under a free licence so cannot be included
>>in Wikipedia.
>
> Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted?
> You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any
> American law which back up your claim.

American law can go to Hell.

> Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread
> regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them
> recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be
> trademarked.

It's not a matter of copyright or trademark law[0].  If I wanted to
restrict the things you could do with photographs you take of the
interior of my house, I wouldn't claim copyright.  Oh, no!  I would
simply make it a condition of entry to my house that, if you wish to
enter and take photographs, you do not use the photographs in a
commercial manner or release it under a licence that permits others to
do so.

If you took a photograph of my bedroom (planning to reveal the dead sexy
secrets within), and released it under the GFDL, I couldn't claim
copyright on my rose-petal-strewn bed[1] ... but I could say you
breached our contract.

[0] Rumour has it, in France, it's no longer possible to claim copyright
     over a photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night?

[1] Or, as I like to call it, "the groove-maker".

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are destroying Wikipedia

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote
>
>
>>Claims about whether Wikipedia is reliable or unreliable are most often
>>speculative.
>>
>>
>Wikipedia is unreliable. You can't settle a bet with Wikipedia. If you actually needed to buy Britannica in the past, you still do. The wriggle-room between 'unreliable' and 'useless' turns out to be so large we have shoehorned a multimillion-article reference site in there.
>
So then, what is the most reliable way of measuring reliability?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Blocking issue

body:
G'day Akash,

> Hi Chris,
>>From time to time, IPs are blocked for serious vandalism, and
> depending on the severity this can be for long periods of time.
> However, dynamic IP addresses are constantly reassigned, and as a
> result blocks can be misdirected.
>
> If you visit your talk page
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:82.37.50.138), click the
> 'Edit' link at the top and add {{unblock}} followed by a brief
> explanation of the situation, one of our admins will unblock you.

This is not the solution.  As you can see from his contribs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/82.37.50.138

And his block log:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:82.37.50.138

The problems encountered by Mr Andrews are, ISTM, the result of a
range-block.  Clearing it up will be much easier if we know who the
original blocking admin is.

By-the-bye, is it now SOP to throw up the "{{unblock}}" solution
whenever someone experiences problems accessing Wikipedia's edit
facility?  If so, would it be overly cynical of me to publicly wonder
how long it will be before people --- not necessarily Akash, of course
--- begin saying things like, "I'm sorry, you can't be unblocked because
you don't have that template there"?

--
Mark Gallagher, not regretting resigning his adminship one bit.  Well,
maybe a little.


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

>I'm not sure how "direct" a concept of democracy you have in mind, but
>Hitler was *appointed* Chancellor. After Hindenburg's death, he declared
>himself F?hrer. Thereafter, he rushed through a vote to ratify this
>action, but if that's democracy, so was Saddam Hussein's last election.
>If you mean that he personally was democratically elected, I don't see
>it. If you simply mean that he became politically powerful enough to
>turn a parliamentary republic into a totalitarian state, that too is a
>cautionary tale, but this is an odd way of expressing that.
>
>I don't think an argument about different electoral formats is getting
>at the right issue, anyway. The concern about elections in a Wikimedia
>context is primarily an extension of the difficulty that the right to
>vote in our elections corresponds only rather inexactly to anything that
>could constitute citizenship. It might be possible to address that with
>a membership model, but as I've pointed out before, membership has its
>own problems.
>
>--Michael Snow
>
>
Your comparison is accurate and to the point - with one exception.
There are no
individual rights of any kind in the Wikipedia "Society".  You can be
banned (digitally killed)
by any "mob" currently in power.  There are no guarantees of individual
rights, bill of rights,
or any other instrument to guarantee equality and rights for any member
of this community
to protect their fundamental rights to exist.

It's not even close to democracy, as I said before, it's more like a
Roman Senatorial Forum with a primitive
form of democratic representation, along with an "Emperor" and it
exhibits all the same
views towards individual rights as the Roman Empire -- it you tread on
the wrong toes, you
are summarily crucified (digitally).   Wikipedia is the closest to an
actual "society" that exists
on the internet, but it has a long way to go to claim the honorable
label of "democracy".  Like
all evolving civilizations and societies, it seems to need to repeat the
long march through history
to evolve to that point -- if it ever gets there.

So much for political discourse...

:-)

Jeff


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Elephants and giraffes (was: [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]]
	are destroying Wikipedia)

body:
Not just any people. We need reliable sources. Biologists, zoologists, etc.
Not some random people who were told to swamp us with nonsense.

Mgm

On 9/19/06, [[User:Unforgettableid]] <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Which, when you're invested in NPOV, is truth, since our goal, at
> > least on subjects where there's dispute, is not to say "It's an
> > elephant" but rather "This is what seven people say about it."
> >
> But there are more than seven people who say elephants are three times
> as tall as a giraffe thanks to [[Stephen Colbert]]'s TV show. :-(
>
> Though they say any publicity is good publicity...
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-09-20

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


body:
G'day geni,

> On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted?
>>You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any
>>American law which back up your claim.
>
> If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item
> outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.

But if you're in the USA, as we see again and again, you can blithely
pretend that the US's POV is all that matters and shamelessly flaunt
your ignorance of the rest of the world.

Honestly, a UK person talking about UK law receives a response of "you
failed to cite US law there".  Promise me the OP[0] is currently in a
state in which it's inadvisable to operate heavy machinery; he can
almost be excused, then.

[0] Offending Poster

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your
	videos	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>> G'day geni,
>>
>>
>>> On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted?
>>>> You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any
>>>> American law which back up your claim.
>>>>
>>> If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item
>>> outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.
>>>
>> But if you're in the USA, as we see again and again, you can blithely
>> pretend that the US's POV is all that matters and shamelessly flaunt
>> your ignorance of the rest of the world.
>>
>
> But this is precisely the goal---Wikipedia is sunk if it must use the
> *intersection* of all copyright laws in the world, under which nearly
> nothing is permissible to distribute.  Instead, it's carefully set up so
> that all the core servers and legal mechanism are in the United States,
> so we can use only one set of copyright laws.
>

If you claim that on Commons, you'll be laughed off the project.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Stephen Streater wrote:

>On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:56, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you
>>>>have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial
>>>>use without permission.
>>>>
>>>>Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property
>>>>without consent, which is often refused or charged
>>>>for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
>>>>
>>>>Here's a link for more info:
>>>>http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/
>>>>uk_photographers_rights_guide
>>>>
>>>>
>>>OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright
>>>laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern
>>>skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are
>>>automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not
>>>know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old
>>>paintings.
>>>
>>>
>>I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has
>>done an
>>excellent job of mireading and distorting the material.  The
>>question of
>>old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go
>>into that.
>>
>>The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar
>>Square have nothing to do with copyright.  In the case of British Rail
>>the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without
>>permission.  This alone does not make the pictures that you take while
>>there illegal.
>>
>>For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of
>>restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes.  It
>>does not restrict amateur or personal photography.  Overtly commercial
>>photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs
>>that are
>>subsequently used for commercial purposes.  The restriction applies to
>>the activity, not to the product.
>>
>>
>Students on a summer job at my company did ask
>for permission to film on British Rail property, and
>this request was refused. I think if the people involved
>filmed there "for personal use" and then the content
>was used commercially, this would be highly dubious.
>
There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the
property and filming.  If the real issue was whether you could enter the
property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film would be
moot.

>Is your interpretation that photographs can be used
>commercially as long as that was not the intention
>when they were made?
>
Exactly.

>I did consider that interpretation,
>but it seems odd as intention is hard to prove.
>
Intention is indeed hard to prove, but the burden of proof is on the
person making the accusation.  Possible ways for them to prove that
would be to prove that you are in some kind of photography business in
which you normally sell that kind of photo.  Technically they could
probably convict you if you were a wedding photographer who was
fulfilling a contract to take pictures of the newlyweds in the Royal Park.

> If you are
>right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
>
Yes.   It's not a copyright issue.  Filming and uploading are two
different acts.  Whenever a statute proclaims an act to be somehow
worthy of punishment it needs to be read perfectly literally sometimes
even when the logical consequences of such a reading  are ridiculous.
One should never impute to parliament anything more than what is
actually said.

>This seems sufficiently odd to find the actual regulations,
>rather than the summary in the pamphlet, the link to which
>I included to allow people to form their own view.
>
Actual statutes are preferable, but can be difficult to read.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] test

body:
Anthere wrote:

>sorry, bouncing test
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
I got it Anthere. It worked.

:-)

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] test


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 9/20/06, Peter Jacobi <peter_jacobi at gmx.net> wrote:
> [[September 2006 Thailand coup attempt]]
>
> Sorry to ask the obvious rhetorical questions here:
> * Wasn't WikiNews designed to be for news?
> * Why is [[Wikipedia:Recentism]] only an essay?
> * Is at a good idea to write an encyclopedia article based a news tickers and CNN?

It's been this way for a while

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Christoph Seydl

subject: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution? Question for Jimbo!

body:
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Avete!

Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial
>> healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that
>> is acceptable this fact is ignored.
>>
> The death rate everywhere is neither more nor less than 100%. :-)

That depends on how you define death rate. If it's about death per
treatment, 100% is quite a lot. In this case, I would suggest a
reference to solve this imperfect assertion. ;-)

>> Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that
>> not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way
>> of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
>>
> Not really.  It presents alternative points of view.  It recognizes what
> is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve
> the article.  Insisting that the original writer has erred is not
> constructive.

There are different ideological beliefs in Wikipedia. We have
inclusionists, delusionists, exclusionists, eventualists,
immediatists,... Hence, constructive criticism is often hard without any
general guideline. There are good reasons for eventualism, but also for
immediatism. Such discussions are usually time-consuming and the
arguments are always the same.

Valete! Chris
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body:
On 9/20/06, Peter Jacobi <peter_jacobi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > It's been this way for a while
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
>
> Yep, but this was before "forking" WikiNews or at the very
> beginning of that project. Shouldn't we draw a line now and
> leave the news to WikiNews, only remerging into Wikipedia once
> importance is clearer and deeper analysis is available from
> secondardy sources?

Wikinews was never considered a fork. It's a different beast altogether:
- Original reporting vs. WP:NOR
- Deadline oriented vs. no deadline in Wikipedia
- Snapshot of situation vs. constantly evolving story

There's no reason at all why one should eliminate the other.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: oscar

body:
On 9/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

I do not
> support Oscar at this point in time; even though he is a very pleasant
> and experienced person, I think his skills are primarily in the area
> of diplomacy and negotiation,

well erik, you are of course entitled to your own personal opinions, also
about me. yet since you now started venting these to a whole lot of others,
please permit me to react to your what i feel to be a rather incomplete
depiction of me.
in fact, i fear you are obviously mixing up primary with secondary skills
here, so i would just like to correct the order ;-)

generally the principal skills of any professional artist are primarily:
creative originality, as well as with the will and ability to make things
real and happening.
don't forget that despite my years of professional working experience as a
manager, i am first of all a professional composer: a free creative person.

oscar


body:
On 9/20/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 9/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I do not
> > support Oscar at this point in time; even though he is a very pleasant
> > and experienced person, I think his skills are primarily in the area
> > of diplomacy and negotiation,
>
>
> well erik, you are of course entitled to your own personal opinions, also
> about me. yet since you now started venting these to a whole lot of others,
> please permit me to react to your what i feel to be a rather incomplete
> depiction of me.
> in fact, i fear you are obviously mixing up primary with secondary skills
> here, so i would just like to correct the order ;-)
>
> generally the principal skills of any professional artist are primarily:
> creative originality, as well as with the will and ability to make things
> real and happening.
> don't forget that despite my years of professional working experience as a
> manager, i am first of all a professional composer: a free creative person.
>
> oscar
>
> ah, i forgot:

and as such, i have no possible personal conflict of interest whatsoever
with wikimedia, just a violent love and dedication for its mission and
principles.

oscar


from_name: Delirium

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote
>
>> Claims about whether Wikipedia is reliable or unreliable are most often
>> speculative.
>>
>
> Wikipedia is unreliable. You can't settle a bet with Wikipedia. If you actually needed to buy Britannica in the past, you still do. The wriggle-room between 'unreliable' and 'useless' turns out to be so large we have shoehorned a multimillion-article reference site in there.
>

Indeed, the wiggle room is so large that nearly all published material
fits in it!  Britannica not least---you've certainly never been able to
cite "Britannica said it" as reliable evidence if you're writing
something like an academic paper, and yet it manages to have proven
quite useful over a long period of time.

-Mark


from_name: Daniel Arnold

body:
Am Montag, 18. September 2006 20:39 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
> There are many people who have been disgusted by the
> policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is
> not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that
> something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of
> itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.

Well, as I have said it:
> > Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something
> > wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody.

This includes that you are a bit patient with a newbie and go into detail what
you think a proper source could be because he probably has not a real clue
what a proper source could be like. But general patience does not mean that
you need to be overly patient and wait for enternity for validation of
information.

> Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that
> not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way
> of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..

Ray Saintonge did define it nice:
"Not really.  It presents alternative points of view.  It recognizes what
is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve
the article.  Insisting that the original writer has erred is not
constructive."

So I don't see how constructive criticism can introduce more POV.

> When you think that things are self evident, think again.. The only
> point you may have is that there are loads of crackpots posting their
> ideas. The overwhelming mass of them is why you come up with these
> rationalisations.. They help you sometimes, but they are as likely to
> prove you wrong.

True I love rationalisation but I don't mean dumb rationalisation blindly
ignoring everything else. Rationalisation does not mean applying a robot like
style. Rationalisation of certain things will also give you a lot of time and
creativity back you can use for for example for helping newbies making good
edits.

Cheers, Arnomane


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] ...In Pop Culture

body:
Actually, that is an In Pop Culture that I don't mind. If you want to
write about what impact a subject of an article on pop culture (which
is arguably what the Britney section is about), that's fine to me.

These are the kinds of pop culture triva entries I loathe with every
fiber of my being:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Crane&diff=prev&oldid=58250267
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Crane&diff=58948998&oldid=58250267

You see these kinds of things on so many articles, this was almost a
mild one in comparison to some others since it only had two entries. I
don't want to speak for anyone else, but I believe that those sort of
things what was most annoying to people. The Britney one I personally
have no problem with.

--Oskar

On 9/20/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> There was some debate here earlier about the desirability of the "In
> Pop Culture" subsections that inhabit a wide variety of Wikipedia
> articles, with all their fancruftiness.  I just recently happened to
> notice that there's such a section... in the article on [[Britney
> Spears]]!  Now, just what aspect of Ms. Spears (other than whatever
> minuscule amount of "private life" she may have) that *isn't* related
> to pop culture?  That section title seems as redundant as "AOL For
> Dummies".
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: herostratus at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protecting children's privacy

body:
Not necessarily wanting to start a whole thread, but just a heads-up for those interested:

There's a policy proposal to restrict the personal information that Wikipedia editors 12 and may reveal.
Aside from other reasons, I guess this is designed to bring Wikipedia into something resembling compliance
with the the spirit of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) . It seems reasonably popular, but
there are some editors dead-set against it, so I don't guess consensus is likely to be achieved, but anyway,
it's an interesting issue.

Anyway, the page is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protecting_children%27s_privacy

A succinct digest of the arguments is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Protecting_children%27s_privacy#Where_we_stand_II:_arguments


from_name: James Hare

references:
<mailman.3705.1158712846.15440.foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
	<4510D46C.7050607@earthlink.net>
	<4510D7F4.5000509@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
"So much for political discourse..."

And sticking to not violating Godwin's Law, Mr. Snow! Congratulations!

On 9/20/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
> >I'm not sure how "direct" a concept of democracy you have in mind, but
> >Hitler was *appointed* Chancellor. After Hindenburg's death, he declared
> >himself F?hrer. Thereafter, he rushed through a vote to ratify this
> >action, but if that's democracy, so was Saddam Hussein's last election.
> >If you mean that he personally was democratically elected, I don't see
> >it. If you simply mean that he became politically powerful enough to
> >turn a parliamentary republic into a totalitarian state, that too is a
> >cautionary tale, but this is an odd way of expressing that.
> >
> >I don't think an argument about different electoral formats is getting
> >at the right issue, anyway. The concern about elections in a Wikimedia
> >context is primarily an extension of the difficulty that the right to
> >vote in our elections corresponds only rather inexactly to anything that
> >could constitute citizenship. It might be possible to address that with
> >a membership model, but as I've pointed out before, membership has its
> >own problems.
> >
> >--Michael Snow
> >
> >
> Your comparison is accurate and to the point - with one exception.
> There are no
> individual rights of any kind in the Wikipedia "Society".  You can be
> banned (digitally killed)
> by any "mob" currently in power.  There are no guarantees of individual
> rights, bill of rights,
> or any other instrument to guarantee equality and rights for any member
> of this community
> to protect their fundamental rights to exist.
>
> It's not even close to democracy, as I said before, it's more like a
> Roman Senatorial Forum with a primitive
> form of democratic representation, along with an "Emperor" and it
> exhibits all the same
> views towards individual rights as the Roman Empire -- it you tread on
> the wrong toes, you
> are summarily crucified (digitally).   Wikipedia is the closest to an
> actual "society" that exists
> on the internet, but it has a long way to go to claim the honorable
> label of "democracy".  Like
> all evolving civilizations and societies, it seems to need to repeat the
> long march through history
> to evolve to that point -- if it ever gets there.
>
> So much for political discourse...
>
> :-)
>
> Jeff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 01:18, Phil Sandifer wrote:

>> And as for NPOV articles ... if someone is being paid to write
>> articles
>> on these businesses, it isn't going to be NPOV, but it's going to
>> be POV
>> in a way that you could only establish it as such if you were
>> intimately
>> familiar with the subject matter, or were prepared to do lots of
>> research.  That's why we have the general prohibition against
>> publicity
>> articles; they tend not to be NPOV, and even when they do appear to
>> be,
>> they likely aren't.
>>
>
> Actually, all we have is a vague admonition against autobiography.
> It's "considered proper." Nothing else. Consider the [[Cyrus
> Farivar]] case - the article was started by him. But he's a notable
> figure, and we kept it. Likewise, if the company is notable, and
> nobody can find anything wrong with the article, we assume good faith
> and keep it.

The important point is that enough people are
editing an article to keep it neutral. If the only
editor is a PR company, then there is no independent
scrutiny.

I think products are easier to keep on track than
companies, because more people use a product
outside a company and can then independently edit.


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/17/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > I completely disagree with this; I would much, much rather know *more*
> about
> > the people I'm voting for, rather than less
> [snip]
>
> So are you honestly saying that you'd spend 14 hours reading candidate
> statements?
>
> If thats true I suspect that you would be alone.

Sorry, are we talking about the same projects? 'Cause I'm talking about the
projects where people spend days (years) arguing about process and whether
Pokemon is notable (among other time-consuming activities). I suspect that
there will certainly be people in this environment who will happily spend 14
hours reading candidate statements; I for one would welcome the opportunity
to do so. What other people choose to read or not read is irrelevant to my
own decision-making processes.

As for translation, which is of course very important, I think the best
solution is probably more or less what's been done for this election -- make
sure that every candidate provides a short statement of approximately equal
length; make sure that this statement is assiduously translated into as many
languages as possible; but then allow (and encourage) candidates to post as
much additional material as they wish, in whatever language(s) they are
comfortable in, with no guarantee it will get translated. The fact that some
candidates will have more materials than others is no more unfair than the
fact that some candidates are more voluble on the mailing lists, or that
some have global rights and are thus perhaps better known across projects
than those who don't, or that some candidates come from en: and have thus
perhaps interacted with more potential voters, etc. etc.

-- phoebe


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] GFDL conflicting with transfer of content?

body:
In Wikipedia we have sometimes the transfer of content among
different projects Wikipedia <--> Wikisource, Wikipedia <-->
Wikinews, Wikipedia <--> Wiktionary for example.

I don't know very well the status of all wikipedia but I am
following my personal experience.

But this usage is in in conflict with GFDL?

I could read here http://en.wikisource.
org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License some points which are not
respected like:

1.Preserve the section Entitled "History"....
2.Preserve the network location...

and so on.

IMHO it's possible to transfer but the original version must remain
in its original place (in this case it's a simple copy) or the
transfer is possible respecting some rules for example the transfer
of all history, of list of all author and maybe with agreement of
them.

If an article is transfered without taking care of all point listed
in the GFDL could an author request the reintegration of the article
in the original place? IMHO it is in its own rights!

Also the transfer of an article from a project in another is not
valid if the original place has got a place card who redirect at new
place where there is a modified version (adding also the lost of
history due to the transfer)!

What is your suggestion?

I ask because in a Wikipedia some people vote for transfer of some
articles which are accepted by the community in a previous call for
cancellation. In other words the article which are not cancelled
after some days are proposed for transfer.

Ilario


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia a News Portal (among other things)?

body:
On 9/20/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Peter Jacobi wrote:
> > "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> It's been this way for a while
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
> >
> > Yep, but this was before "forking" WikiNews or at the very
> > beginning of that project. Shouldn't we draw a line now and
> > leave the news to WikiNews, only remerging into Wikipedia once
> > importance is clearer and deeper analysis is available from
> > secondardy sources?
> >
> > [[User:Pjacobi]]
> >
> >
>
> Just because something happened recently doesn't mean it *shouldn't* be
> included in Wikipedia. Granted, Wikipedia will generally have less
> information on a current event than Wikinews (given WP's greater
> emphasis on verifiability) but that doesn't mean that no article is
> better than a short article.

Typically a Wikipedia article has much *more* information than a
Wikinews article, since the editing "workforce" on Wikipedia is
larger, and there is no "deadline" in Wikipedia and is constantly
morphing. Verifiability doesn't mean the WP article will be shorter
either. If you provide an external link to a new source, then - boom,
it's verified. And it can be included in the article.

> Besides which, these sorts of articles are
> generally plastered with WN links to provide the more up-to-date, less
> verifiable information.

Yes, there will be often be a WN article linked to from the relevant
WP article. But the WP article will also have tons of links to
external news sources, which are tough for Wikinews to keep up with.

FYI, German Wikipedia is more in line with the idea that "not every
news event deserves an article." They are much more selective and are
not shy in telling you so. :)

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change of namespace: who to contact?

body:
On 9/19/06, Ragib Hasan <ragibhasan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/19/06, habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:

> The recommended way, as I understand it, is to first have a discussion on
> > your wiki to reach a decision and then file a request to have the
> namespace
> > renamed at Mediazilla
> > http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
> > You can also join one of the IRC-channels with tech folks in it and ask
> to
> > have it done, but you should be able to show a concensus on your wiki
> first.
> >
> > /habj
>
> This part is a bit interesting, we do have consensus, but how would
> someone not able to understand another language or to see Indic fonts
> be able to understand the consensus page?

simply add an english translation of the vital passage(s) to the same page.
when this happens to me as a steward, i usually ask people to translate and
the passage i need to understand into english at that very page, so it
becomes a bilingual passage. this always works well :-)

oscar


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>Start with a cage containing five apes.
>
>In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before
>long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the
>banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with
>cold water.
>
>After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result, all
>the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several
>more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs,
>the other apes all try to prevent it.
>
>Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace
>it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the
>stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another
>attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he
>will be assaulted.
>
...

>After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes that
>were sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape
>ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
>
>Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's
>always been around here.
>
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an
allegory?  I'm sure that we have more than our share of experimenters
willing to throw cold wateron our apes. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
geni wrote:

>On 9/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 20/09/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Start with a cage containing five apes.
>>>
>>>
>>Is there a canonical version or source of this story? It so so so
>>needs to go in [[User:David Gerard/Process essay]]. (Which I should
>>pick a name for and move to Wikipedia: space some time soonish ish.)
>>
>>
>No really because at wikipedia we have this tendacy to write things
>down so it is posible to find out why policy exists.
>
One of the most effective ways of hiding things is in plain view.  Stage
magicians do this very well.  The more people are creating policy, the
greater the chance that they will do so unnoticed.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] test

body: sorry, bouncing test


subject: [Foundation-l] test

body: sorry, bouncing test


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of
	your	videos	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Stephen Streater wrote:
>
>> On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:56, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>> [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you
>>>>> have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial
>>>>> use without permission.
>>>>>
>>>>> Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property
>>>>> without consent, which is often refused or charged
>>>>> for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's a link for more info:
>>>>> http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/
>>>>> uk_photographers_rights_guide
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter
>>>> copyright
>>>> laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern
>>>> skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are
>>>> automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do
>>>> not
>>>> know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old
>>>> paintings.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has
>>> done an
>>> excellent job of mireading and distorting the material.  The
>>> question of
>>> old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go
>>> into that.
>>>
>>> The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar
>>> Square have nothing to do with copyright.  In the case of British
>>> Rail
>>> the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without
>>> permission.  This alone does not make the pictures that you take
>>> while
>>> there illegal.
>>>
>>> For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of
>>> restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes.  It
>>> does not restrict amateur or personal photography.  Overtly
>>> commercial
>>> photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs
>>> that are
>>> subsequently used for commercial purposes.  The restriction
>>> applies to
>>> the activity, not to the product.
>>>
>>>
>> Students on a summer job at my company did ask
>> for permission to film on British Rail property, and
>> this request was refused. I think if the people involved
>> filmed there "for personal use" and then the content
>> was used commercially, this would be highly dubious.
>>
> There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the
> property and filming.  If the real issue was whether you could
> enter the
> property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film
> would be
> moot.

Anyone can enter the property every time they go
by train. The issue was whether they could take any
video and publish it - this request was denied.

>> If you are
>> right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
>>
> Yes.   It's not a copyright issue.  Filming and uploading are two
> different acts.  Whenever a statute proclaims an act to be somehow
> worthy of punishment it needs to be read perfectly literally sometimes
> even when the logical consequences of such a reading  are ridiculous.
> One should never impute to parliament anything more than what is
> actually said.

It looks like a loophole to me, but maybe it is
a deliberate one. Perhaps it is the disruption
of a professional shoot they are trying to avoid,
rather than use of the footage itself.


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted on
	Wikipedia?

body:
On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:52, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
> > On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:

> >> external linking
> >> of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
> >> couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.

> > Why is it being phased out?

> The idea is that content should be included within Wikipedia.
> Apart from anything else, CD ROMs of WIkipedia would then
> be self-contained, but also content could not be altered or
> withdrawn by third parties.

First I've heard of it. You mean, in the 'external links' section?
That's ridiculous. Where can I find this?

[cc: wikipedia-l]

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos
	posted on Wikipedia?


body:
On 20/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> > There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the
> > property and filming.  If the real issue was whether you could
> > enter the
> > property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film
> > would be
> > moot.

> Anyone can enter the property every time they go
> by train. The issue was whether they could take any
> video and publish it - this request was denied.

So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train?
They can sue and be damned, then.

- d.


from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No derivatives (was: Would you like one of your
	videos posted on Wikipedia?)

body:
> It is not a free license in any respect. It is really just a notice
> which says, "feel free to print out some more copies of these and
> distribute them if you want without charge." That's not within the
> definition of free content at all ? it's the wrong type of "free."
>

If you are referring to the difference between "freedom" and "no charge", yes, I
do in fact understand this. In French we even use two different words. But, it
seems to me that on the French wikipedia the assumption is not made that "free"
(as in freedom) will mean what you seem to think it means (and I'm not sure what
that is, but it obviously excludes CC-BY-ND). In fact even the "free" in "free
encyclopedia" is elaborated. More to the point, the rejection of ND (and NC)
media couldn't be more clearly spelt out there. Not to suggest we must be as
restrictive on English WP as we are on French WP, of course.

Regards,
Daniel


body:
> > Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no
> > point adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case.
[...]
> You are the first person to point out that it isn't obvious that we
> don't accept ND.
>
> There has, in the past, been a person or two who has asked for us to
> allow ND content
[...]

I see. Well, good enough. I feel a bit silly. My apologies.

Best Regards,
Daniel


from_name: David Alexander Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

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

Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> Umm... see how your quote from policy says "may" be deleted, and then
> the paragraph where you try to drive a contributor off jumps up to
> "will be immediately deleted?"
>
> That's the part where you got it wrong. In reality, deleting NPOV,
> verifiable content on notable subjects because its creator didn't
> touch third base is destructive to Wikipedia, and anyone involved in
> it should be arbcommed. And if I'm ever made directly aware of it,
> they will be arbcommed.
>
> -Phil

Clearly my suggestion was not to delete NPOV, verifiable content but to
delete content that is written as part of a promotional campaign. It was
merely an assumption (based on previous examples) that an article being
written by someone in the employ of the subject is unlikely to be NPOV.

Cynical
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 20/09/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:

> Start with a cage containing five apes.

Is there a canonical version or source of this story? It so so so
needs to go in [[User:David Gerard/Process essay]]. (Which I should
pick a name for and move to Wikipedia: space some time soonish ish.)

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted
	on	Wikipedia?

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

Akash Mehta wrote:
>>
>> So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train?
>> They can sue and be damned, then.
>>
>>
>> - d.

This is about the law of trespass - someone asked British Rail if they
could enter their property for the purposes of filming, and were denied.
Permission to enter the property for the purposes of catching a train is
entirely separate.

The solution is that taking a picture of private property from a public
place is perfectly legal, so there's nothing to stop someone (for
example) taking a picture of the outside of a train station or (as is
the case with many stations near where I live) taking a picture of the
platform from a nearby bridge over the railway line. In other words,
just because we can't film on British Rail property doesn't mean
Wikipedia can't have photos or video footage of stations or trains.

Cynical
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body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:12, David Gerard wrote:

> On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>> On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:52, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
>>> On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>>> external linking
>>>> of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
>>>> couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
>
>>> Why is it being phased out?
>
>> The idea is that content should be included within Wikipedia.
>> Apart from anything else, CD ROMs of WIkipedia would then
>> be self-contained, but also content could not be altered or
>> withdrawn by third parties.
>
>
> First I've heard of it. You mean, in the 'external links' section?
> That's ridiculous. Where can I find this?

Have a look at my RfA. It's full of other stuff too,
but once you take out the usual RfA storms,
this was one of the points people tended to
agree on. Also look at the Gmaxwell talk page.
There are several discussions there as he has
removed external media links from several
articles, and given explanations when asked.

In fact, Gregory Maxwell is probably the best
person to explain this, and he is on the list.


body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:13, David Gerard wrote:

> On 20/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>> On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>> There are two aspects to your request from British Rail -
>>> entering the
>>> property and filming.  If the real issue was whether you could
>>> enter the
>>> property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film
>>> would be
>>> moot.
>
>> Anyone can enter the property every time they go
>> by train. The issue was whether they could take any
>> video and publish it - this request was denied.
>
>
> So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train?
> They can sue and be damned, then.

It's a big issue for TV programmes, who don't
want to be sued. Having said that, the 7/7
mobile footage in the tunnel, which reputedly
went for ?80,000, did not have prior consent.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos
	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:33, David Alexander Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Akash Mehta wrote:
>>>
>>> So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a
>>> train?
>>> They can sue and be damned, then.
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>
> This is about the law of trespass - someone asked British Rail if they
> could enter their property for the purposes of filming, and were
> denied.
> Permission to enter the property for the purposes of catching a
> train is
> entirely separate.
>
> The solution is that taking a picture of private property from a
> public
> place is perfectly legal, so there's nothing to stop someone (for
> example) taking a picture of the outside of a train station or (as is
> the case with many stations near where I live) taking a picture of the
> platform from a nearby bridge over the railway line. In other words,
> just because we can't film on British Rail property doesn't mean
> Wikipedia can't have photos or video footage of stations or trains.

And I have done just that in one of the videos I have
uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.


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

Stephen Streater wrote:
>
> It's a big issue for TV programmes, who don't
> want to be sued. Having said that, the 7/7
> mobile footage in the tunnel, which reputedly
> went for ?80,000, did not have prior consent.

That's because it was on the London Underground, which isn't British
Rail property. As far as I'm aware this problem only applies to British
Rail.

Cynical
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body:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:45, David Alexander Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Stephen Streater wrote:
>>
>> It's a big issue for TV programmes, who don't
>> want to be sued. Having said that, the 7/7
>> mobile footage in the tunnel, which reputedly
>> went for ?80,000, did not have prior consent.
>
> That's because it was on the London Underground, which isn't British
> Rail property. As far as I'm aware this problem only applies to
> British
> Rail.

Good point. Unfortunately, my local underground station
(Wimbledon) is also a British Rail station.


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

Stephen Streater wrote:
> Good point. Unfortunately, my local underground station
> (Wimbledon) is also a British Rail station.

Hmm. We seem to have a free-licenced pic of it anyway.
Image:Wimbledon_station_03.jpg . I don't know if they are more bothered
about filming [video] than they are about still photography.

Cynical
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/20/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/09/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> > Start with a cage containing five apes.
>
>
> Is there a canonical version or source of this story? It so so so
> needs to go in [[User:David Gerard/Process essay]]. (Which I should
> pick a name for and move to Wikipedia: space some time soonish ish.)
>
>
> - d.

No really because at wikipedia we have this tendacy to write things
down so it is posible to find out why policy exists.

--
geni


from_name: Kim Bruning

subject:
[Foundation-l] meta pages about Foundation structure (in a
	sense)...

body:
On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 08:04:02PM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
> If we really would like to involve the community, not regarding
> languages, into Foundation activities, may it make a sense for us not
> to have multilingual website as the official one, but also
> multilingual descriptions aiming to the internal information on meta
> in most cases, for example, each committee's description?

:-) Sounds good. I might be doing some things to make wiki-translation
easier in the near future too btw.

Gerard Meijssen and Sabine Cretella want me to do some work on OmegaT so
that it can interface directly with mediawiki. *WANT*. I need to make
time somehow...

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

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


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiAppliance Company Stuff

body:
We sold most of Solera to Canopy and I will be focused on this company
heavily still, but we are now putting enhanced focus on
the WikiAppliance company and Native Programs for translations and this
will free me up to be more heavily focused on
the opportunity with Wikipedia long term.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_4365356

http://www.canopy.com/press/20060920_solera_networks.php

Jeff


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Last two days of the election

body:
Since tommorow the voting ends, I wanted to remind everyone to cast
your vote, if you still haven't done so. I hope we'll be able to
announce the final results next week.

--
Regards,
Dariusz Siedlecki


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
On 9/20/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> > <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> > >Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an
> > >allegory?
> >
> > No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
>
>
> Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements of the
> stories generally represent something else in real life. The question was if
> the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators" were
> intended instead of apes.
>
> Carl
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

The story goes back to at least mid-March 1998 - the earliest
reference I can find in Google Groups is:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/8683e153416e9f8a?dmode=source

That message says "forwarded by my girlfriend" and has no attribution,
so it may be difficult to identify the source.  But it's over 8 years
old.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com