subject: [WikiEN-l] request to Jimbo for out-of-process deletion of image

body:
I think this is similar to what happens sometimes at pedophilia-related
articles.  For the most part, we as Wikipedians are drawn to edit articles
in which we have a personal interest or stake.  Naturally, then, those who
disagree with age of consent laws will be drawn to articles such as
[[NAMBLA]].  Not only do most other Wikipedians not feel drawn there, they
in fact would rather purposefully avoid them because they make them feel
icky.  (I can certainly attest to that personally.)  But in that manner, I
have found that sometimes the "consensus" on these types of articles gets
skewed.  And this makes issues raised on the talk page very difficult to
resolve.

k

On 4/5/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Steve, and I want to make super clear that I think people can in
> good faith have quite varied opinions on different matters.
>
> What I wanted to point out is that we need to be especially vigilent
> when we have an area where we know there are POV pushers and trolls who
> are active.  As Erik pointed out, in a lot of cases like this, a tiny
> turnout at IfD will mean that community consensus is not well reflected,
> because the POV pushers will show up in force to override the small
> number of good editors who come by.
>
> Imagine this case:
> 100 good editors, 80 voting delete, 20 voting in good faith to keep
> 4 pov pushers
> 4 trolls
>
> End result: 80 - 28, consensus to delete
>
> versus
>
> 10 good editors, 8 voting delete, 2 voting in good faith to keep
> 4 pov pushers
> 4 trolls
>
> End result: 8 - 10, no conclusion, image kept
>
>
>
>
>
> Steve Block wrote:
> > Steve Bennett wrote:
> >> On 4/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >>> I think the best way to understand 'what justification' is to
> understand
> >>> a certain sort of POV pushing... one of the goals of pedophiles is to
> >>> make the case that such materials are perfectly normal and healthy and
> >>> should be viewed as being completely routine.  One way to achieve that
> >>> goal is to be sure that such materials are published widely.
> >> Hi Jimbo,
> >>   A couple of people have taken exception to your references to
> >> paedophiles in this debate, and I'd like to join them. Is there any
> >> evidence that actual paedophiles were arguing for the inclusion of
> >> that image? Or is it just, as you acknowledge, anti-censorship people
> >> getting caught up in the argument and crossing the bounds of good
> >> taste?
> >>
> >> Conflating anti-censorship, anti-prude, anti-common sense, or simply
> >> trollish people with paedophiles is unfair at best, and inflammatory
> >> and offensive at worst, isn't it?
> >
> > Look, I for one initially argued keep at IFD, and I don't feel insulted
> > so much as embarrassed that I allowed myself to be blind-sided in such a
> > way, and I think Jimbo's spot on in what he says, and I'm a bit
> > disturbed that a lot of people who weren't involved in this are knocking
> > Jimbo on this point, superficially on my behalf.  I don't want people to
> > knock Jimbo on my behalf, I think Sam made the right call, so did Jimbo
> > and I think anyone who can't see that is either as blind sided as I was
> > or just looking for another big stick to hit Jimbo with.
> >
> > I'd like to apologise once again for getting the wrong end of the stick
> > on this issue, and I would like to see people extend the good faith that
> > everyone involved has extended me by not calling me a complete plonker,
> > which would be well deserved, and extend that good faith to Jimbo, who
> > has already qualified his statement once.  Jimbo's thrust, as I read it,
> > was that we shouldn't allow the gaming of the system by those who wish
> > to promote pedophilia, and that those of us for whom censorship and fair
> > use is a hot button topic should be aware that we can be manipulated,
> > and remember the goal is building an encyclopedia, not fighting
> > censorship or justifying the inclusion of any particular image.
> >
> > People who's hot button is mistrusting authority should also remember
> > the goal is building an encyclopedia, not fighting censorship or
> > justifying the inclusion of any particular image.
> >
> >
> > I'm sorry if people feel my words are too strong, but there it is.  I
> > was made to look a fool, and no-one likes that.  But I'm not too proud
> > to admit it and I don't see why I should be walking away scott free when
> > Jimbo is getting a hard time.
> >
> > Now, can I take this hair shirt off, it damn well itches.
> >
> > Steve Block
> >
> > Steve Block
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Adult and Illegal content on Wikimedia projects

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>
>>I started a thread on the Staff Lounge at Wikibooks over what to do with
>>content that openly advocates breaking laws.  The goal I had was to help
>>come up with some wording that we could add to existing policies that
>>would prohibit this sort of content from being added to Wikibooks.
>>
>>
>
>Can you give a link?
>
>First of all, Wikibooks is for *textbooks*, broadly construed, not for
>any sort of nonsense people might think would be a cool nonfiction book.
>
>Second of all, Wikibooks is bound by the non-negotiable NPOV policy,
>which means that it should not be advocating breaking the law (nor
>advocating obeying the law, nor advocating anything at all really).
>
>
Some links to discussion pages talking about this topic include:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks%3AStaff_lounge#Policy_about_books_dealing_with_illegal_activity
(the current discussion)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_talk:Policy/Vote/Archive_1#A_directly_enumerated_WikiBooks_policy
(older discussion that covers many of these topics)

The problem with invoking NPOV as ground for deletion of a whole
Wikibook is that it has been strongly discouraged by many of the
contributors to Wikibooks in the past.  They percieve that most NPOV
issues can be resolved by merely editing the content to fix it up so
that it doesn't have a point of view.  The other issue is that even
trying to decide if something violates NPOV standards is very subjective
and prone to abuse by administrators who claim that any percieved point
of view that is different from their own is grounds for removing the
content.  When I tried to add a statement in the NPOV warning template
that content violating this policy might result in its deletion if it
isn't cleaned up, I was pounded on by many editors and told under no
certain terms that the wording was unacceptable and that it should never
be grounds for deletion by itself.  I gave up on that point and have
moved on.

>>Where Wikibooks is having some real problems is with things like the
>>Manual of Crime, How to Rape, AIM Password Cracking, or a currently
>>contentious book on the use of illegal drugs called Drugs: Fact and
>>Fiction.
>>
>>
>
>The first 3 should be deleted on sight as blatant trolling and the
>contributor warned and then banned if they keep it up.
>
>The third one should be carefully policed for POV, and should ALSO be
>rewritten and probably retitled to be a *textbook*.
>
>
I guess I've deleted so much stuff from Wikibooks lately that I'm
getting very gunshy about trying to remove anything else, for fear that
I'm going to get desysoped because I've steped on too many of the wrong
toes.  Over the past month, the number of "good" modules listed on the
statistics page for en.wikibooks has gone down by about 500 modules,
with the total number of pages dropping by close to 2000 pages or more.
 All of this in spite of continued activity and a growing community,
with new pages being created all of the time.  The deletion log should
show it all over how much activity has been done by administrators on
Wikibooks, and it hasn't been just one admin.  These are just the easy
cases where there are clear policies in place and cruft that has been
left on Wikibooks for sometimes as much as the last three years with no
previous attempt to remove it.  The last vestigages of the multi-lingual
wikipedia textbook project (http://textbooks.wikipedia.org/) have
finally been removed just this past month, as an example.

If I can't find a clear policy to remove the content, I either throw it
up for a VfD or ignore it and move on to the next module for review,
even if I think it might be questionable.  As you mention below, if
something has been transwikied from Wikipedia I'm even more reluctant to
delete the content, if for nothing else than I'll get a bunch of
complaints about its removal after a nasty CSD discussion on Wikipedia.
 It does get some crackpots to come to Wikibooks, and I've tried to warn
admins on Wikipedia to first check if the content belongs on Wikibooks
before they do a transwiki.

>>My question to the Wikimedia community at large is to see how you have
>>dealt with content of this nature, or if this is something that is
>>restricted mainly to Wikibooks?
>>
>>
>
>One problem is that the wikibooks community is small and is often
>overwhelmed by the larger Wikipedia community telling people to get
>their nonsense off wikipedia, and sending them to Wikibooks.  :)
>
>
>
--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: David Alexander Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] en: CD! Well, sort of

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

2011 articles? On CD ROM? The numbers of PCs with a CD-ROM drive but
without an internet connection is probably not very high. Now if this
was a _printed_ copy then it would be more useful to developing
countries. The motives behind this are commendable, but I don't see it
working in practice.

Cynical

David Gerard wrote:
> http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/
>
> 2011 articles, hand-picked and cleaned up. Only 1,000,000 to go ;-)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Footers (WAS: Re:  Deleting the Lolicon picture)

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

Yes (incidentally I'm using Thunderbird with Enigmail too) but my point
was that if the mailing list _server_ stripped out the footers _after_
the user had signed the message, if the footers were included in the
signed part of the message (most packages, Enigmail included afaik, sign
the entire message by default including any quoted part of replies) then
the signature would return an error by checked by the user at the other end

Cynical

Ben McIlwain wrote:
> David Alexander Russell wrote:
>>> Because any modification of the message post-sending would royally screw
>>> any digital signing of the message (which me, Alphax, and a couple of
>>> other people use on this list) which relies on a hash computed at the
>>> time of sending by the user's encryption program
>
> For what it's worth my mail client (Thunderbird with the EnigMail
> plugin) figures it out just fine.  It highlights the part of the message
> that has been signed.  On this list, that doesn't include the footer.
>
> --
> Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
>
> ~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] en: CD! Well, sort of

body:
In message <fbad4e140604051242m20ef8474g5be729d8eeedc42 at mail.gmail.com>,
David Gerard <dgerard-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/
>
>2011 articles, hand-picked and cleaned up. Only 1,000,000 to go ;-)
>
>
>- d.

Err, I've just taken a look at their article on [[Europe]]. I'm rather
perturbed to discover that Satanism is apparently a significant religion
in Norway...

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-04-06

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!

Passed 298 of 301 tests (99%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] en: CD! Well, sort of

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

'These articles have been hand-picked from Wikipedia, tidied up (by
deletion only, _not alteration_)' [emphasis added]

Your example shows what a bad idea that was

Arwel Parry wrote:
> In message <fbad4e140604051242m20ef8474g5be729d8eeedc42 at mail.gmail.com>,
> David Gerard <dgerard-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>> http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/
>>
>> 2011 articles, hand-picked and cleaned up. Only 1,000,000 to go ;-)
>>
>>
>> - d.
>
> Err, I've just taken a look at their article on [[Europe]]. I'm rather
> perturbed to discover that Satanism is apparently a significant religion
> in Norway...
>

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from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] en: CD! Well, sort of

body:
On 4/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> So, [[Paramaribo]] made their "Places" list, but [[Paris]] didn't.
> Hmm, [[Oakland Cemetery]] did too. All in all, a rather strange
> collection of information. Seems also that many places are actually in
> the "general knowledge" section, including, god bless it, [[Mount
> Osmond, South Australia]].

Yeah, their choice of articles is rather strange in spots,
particularly given that this is intended for "children between the
ages of about 8-15".  How did the Wars of Castro get in there?

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Mathematical expressions and conditional
 constructs, now implemented

body:
On Thu, 6 Apr 2006 02:14:30 +0200
 "Erik Moeller" <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/6/06, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:
>
> As for the syntax, might it make sense to use a double colon instead
> of a single colon, e.g. {{if:: <condition> | <then text> | <else text>
> }}? I'm not a big fan of the semantic overload we have with single
> colon prefixes.
>
> Erik

I assume that "|" would create a lot of problems because it is restricting the
use of "if" in tables and templates and lots of follow up requests would arive.

"includeonly" / "noinclude" allow inclusion of whatever wikicode. This would
not be the case with "|" as "delimitor".

reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image deletion

body:
David Alexander Russell wrote:
>
> How about an obligation on *any* admin who speedies *any* image to first
> of all save that image on their hard drive, and store a local copy of it
> for at least a week/two weeks in case the speedy deletion turns out to
> have been incorrect?

Sounds reasonable, provided that the image 1) is more that a day old and
2) is not a verbatim copy of an image available online on a site that is
clearly not a Wikipedia mirror.  (Those two exceptions may be called the
RC patrol exception and the "you know where to find it" exception.)

In fact, that's pretty much what I've been doing myself, not only for
images I've personally deleted but also for images I've tagged for
eventual deletion.

Of course, a comprehensive archive would make this less important.  In
fact, we can probably make another exception for images tagged by
OrphanBot, since apparently the bot already archives them.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: SJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] en: CD! Well, sort of

body:
> 4/5/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> 2011 articles? On CD ROM? The numbers of PCs with a CD-ROM drive but
> without an internet connection is probably not very high. Now if this
> was a _printed_ copy then it would be more useful to developing
> countries. The motives behind this are commendable, but I don't see it
> working in practice.

This project seems quite useful to me. If you're trying to get a class
of 50 students to browse materials at the same time, you may often
find computer centers that have a few dozen computers but a flaky
internet connection that can't really serve more than a handful of
them at once; and without much of a 'net filter, meaning that it's
hard to keep students on-task (why read an encyclopedia when you can
play your favorite free online game when the teacher isn't watching?).

Moreover, I like this small footprint; it makes it hard to get lost.
Every link you follow is to another of these 2000 articles; you can
find your way around the collected texts, and back to something
familiar, without trouble.  Wikipedia Proper makes it very hard to say
"I'd like to spend the afternoon browsing general geopolitics; please
hide all other links".

I would love to see a dozen projects like this, each with a different
focus... and we might benefit by encouraging these projects to improve
the articles they select by editing and fact-checking, not only by
[non-]inclusion.

--SJ

> David Gerard wrote:
> > http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/
> >
> > 2011 articles, hand-picked and cleaned up. Only 1,000,000 to go ;-)
> >
> >
> > - d.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> =ZkCs
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] en: CD! Well, sort of

body:
So, [[Paramaribo]] made their "Places" list, but [[Paris]] didn't.
Hmm, [[Oakland Cemetery]] did too. All in all, a rather strange
collection of information. Seems also that many places are actually in
the "general knowledge" section, including, god bless it, [[Mount
Osmond, South Australia]].

I don't immediately see the list of authors for each article?

But goodness I'm in a negative mood aren't I...

Steve

On 4/5/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/
>
> 2011 articles, hand-picked and cleaned up. Only 1,000,000 to go ;-)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Image deletion (was: External links to image boards
	with images of a child engaged in sexually explicit acts.)

body:
On 4/5/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >
> > With images, though, there has grown this bizarre culture that we must
> > not delete anything until we have a consensus to do so.  This is partly
> > because images can't be easily restored, and there is some legitimacy to
> > that as a factor in how we do things, but I think it has gotten much
> > worse.  Wildly inappropriate images which do not even have a majority
> > support for keeping are kept in articles in a way that similarly
> > inappropriate text would be shot on sight.
>
> I think this is in fact a (if not the) major cause of this controversy.
>   I'm not at all surprised that many users are very nervous about image
> deletion: we still remember when CSD I4 was added in September and as a
> consequence people had to go to Answers.com and other mirrors to look
> for copies of hastily deleted images.  I don't know if any free images
> were actually permanently lost because of that, but it wouldn't surprise
> me at all either.

If I read Jimbo correctly, he's just saying that while the debate is
happening, the image should not be linked to from any articles. Not
necessarily that the image should be "permanently" deleted. I'm basing
this on "...are kept in articles..."

Steve


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Mathematical expressions and conditional constructs,
	now implemented

body:
In response to a campaign by users of the English Wikipedia to harrass developers by introducing
increasingly ugly and inefficient meta-templates to popular pages, I've caved in and written a few
reasonably efficient parser functions. There are two conditional functions and a mathematical
expression function. The expression function should support uses such as time and date deltas, as
well as floating point applications such as unit conversion. The conditional functions should
replace most uses of {{qif}}, and improve the efficiency of similar templates.

Documentation is at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions

I would like to hear comments about the syntax, before we put them live. Syntax is guided by
consistency with existing functions such as {{localurl:}}, but if it looks too unwieldy then we can
probably change it.

Don't blame me. I've always been against turning wikitext into a programming language. I'm just
weaker than the other developers. How can I stand by and watch this sort of thing be inflicted on
our articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ed_Poor/subtract&action=edit

I had a choice between going on a deletion rampage or answering the persistent calls on the wiki for
this kind of thing to be implemented.

Templates, that's where it all went wrong. Or custom messages, as we called them back then. If only
I understood what a Pandora's box I was opening when I implemented {{MSG:}}.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-September/018536.html

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Philip Welch wrote:

>On Apr 5, 2006, at 10:42 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>>>I wasn't aware that Americans were unique in thinking pedophiles
>>>>were
>>>>morally comparable to communists, although to be perfectly fair,
>>>>pedophiles have never committed acts of genocide.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Well, capitalists have as well, and I'm betting money on some
>>>paedophiles being capitalists    /*duck*
>>>
>>>
>>Why should you have to duck when someone else has made such an
>>extraordinarily stupid straw man statement.
>>
>>
>Not to belabor this meta-debate, but it's a simple matter of
>historical fact that communists have committed large-scale mass
>murder. Tacit implications that communism is "okay" is as offensive
>to many people as implying that fascism is "okay". Since neither
>question is of direct relevance here, let's just agree, for the sake
>of avoiding conflict, not to say nice things about controversial
>political ideologies.
>
But I was not the one to introduce communism into the discussion with an
offensive comment.  Now, in a pretence of innocence, you admonish those
who would say "nice" things about controversial political ideologies,
but do not apply the same standards to those who wouild say offensive
thingsa about the same ideologies. Then you want to drop the issue when
you feel that you are ahead in the damage.  The historical fact that
some communists have committed large-scale mass murder does not justify
your innuendo that all supporters of a communistic economy have done so.

To whatever extent I feel that communism may be "okay" I can express
myself directly; I don't need to rely on tacit offensive implications.
I know that this site abounds with anti-communist ideologues, and I can
keep busy enough in unrelated areas without needing to actively promote
ideologies.  Be that as it may, I won't be bullied, and I feel quite
justified in rising to the occasion when someone trolls the list with an
ignorant comment.

Ec


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Mathematical expressions and conditional
	constructs, now implemented

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Don't blame me. I've always been against turning wikitext into a programming language. I'm just
> weaker than the other developers. How can I stand by and watch this sort of thing be inflicted on
> our articles:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ed_Poor/subtract&action=edit

Oh my god! Is there no common sense in the English Wikipedia? Don't you
have no community procedures to stop people from doing this?

I must admit that I am guilty of introducing the if-template into the
German Wikipedia. There are some useful applications but the number of
complex applications that don't improve the quality of Wikipedia content
nor the the readability (and writability!) of Wikimarkup a tiny bit is
growing. At least you can (more or less) catch the weed with
Special:Whatlinkshere. In most cases someone just translates a
cool-looking template from the English Wikipedia and you have to remove
it afterwards. I don't complain about this "pollution" but *please*
don't encourage people to create complex templates. I know they do it
with good intent but that does not make it better. If there is a
feature, solutions will be created for problems we actually don't have.

My comments/wishes if you activate ParserFunctions:

* Make it usable in the template namespace only

* Give a way to get a list of templates using ParserFunctions so you can
tidy up brain-dead-templates

* Only activate the if-construct. You can use it for optional parameters
in templates. This is the only useful application that I can think of.
We don't have calculating Templates in German Wikipedia and we don't
need it. Of course you /could/ find an application but It does not
balance out the growth in complexity.

* pray that your local wiki community will establish rules where to use
templates and where not to use them. Quick suggestion:

"Templates should be easy to understand and easy to use. They should
make creation of qualitative content easier. If you use a template just
to get a smart design or a amazing logic then something is wrong. Not
everything possible makes sense. If you cannot describe the purpose and
usage of your template in three sentences then something ist wrong. In
doubt just don't create the template. Wikipedia is not a playground for
template-designers."

Greetings,
Jakob


from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Mathematical expressions and
 conditional	constructs, now implemented

body:
Locke Cole wrote:
> On 4/5/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 4/6/06, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:
>>
>>> * Make it usable in the template namespace only
>>>
>> I think that could be a reasonable restriction. Template code already
>> tends to be messy, and these new functions might actually make it
>> cleaner in a few cases. But I'd rather not see calculation functions
>> and such used in the article namespace.
>>
>
> This would be a bad idea, specifically, because it wouldn't allow
> people to make tests in their userspace sandbox(es). Better to allow
> it to be used anywhere, and let individual projects develop policies
> to limit or restrict it's use.
>
> -L
>
Okay then: support its use in template, MediaWiki and user namespaces:
just not in any other namespaces. Problem solved.

It _has_ to be a programmatic restriction, or people will inevitably
ignore it, and present a fait accompli through usage.

-- Neil


body:
Rotem Liss wrote:
> A replacement for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Switch would be
> great.

There's a number of uses of {{switch}} that I'd rather not encourage. For example, implementing a
mini-database of different texts within a single template:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Lorem_Ipsum&action=edit

This would be much better handled by splitting it into 5 different templates, from a server resource
viewpoint. This is true regardless of the implementation of switch. Another example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Mod_24&action=edit

This can thankfully be replaced by a mathematical expression, which is many, many times faster than
any conceivable switch implementation. Generally speaking, {{switch}} is often used to implement
functions which can now be better dealt with by writing PHP extensions. I didn't just introduce 3
new functions, I also introduced an extension mechanism allowing people to write more.

This one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Db-meta&action=edit

could be replaced with something involving {{expr:{{NAMESPACEINDEX}}%2}} if someone just created the
variable {{NAMESPACEINDEX}}.

Same with this, more or less
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:TALKSPACE&action=edit

I'm willing to hear a case for the use of switch, but I'm not convinced of its utility based what
I've seen.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 4/6/06, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:

> * Make it usable in the template namespace only

I think that could be a reasonable restriction. Template code already
tends to be messy, and these new functions might actually make it
cleaner in a few cases. But I'd rather not see calculation functions
and such used in the article namespace.

As for the syntax, might it make sense to use a double colon instead
of a single colon, e.g. {{if:: <condition> | <then text> | <else text>
}}? I'm not a big fan of the semantic overload we have with single
colon prefixes.

Erik


from_name: Sarojini Naidu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Jimbo wrote:
> Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the fact that
> we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
> involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
> herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions
> of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people may of
> course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to censor.

And one clever way to censor is to raise the 'pedophile troll' red herring
in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions of
editorial judgement.

Sarojini Naidu


references:
<e10mie$buv$1@sea.gmane.org> <4433E1DC.4080907@rotemliss.com>
	<web-151787993@heimsnet.is>

body:
Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:27:24 +0300
>  Rotem Liss <mail at rotemliss.com> wrote:
>
>>A replacement for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Switch would be
>>great.
>>
>
>
> *strong* support

What would you use it for?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Phil Boswell

references:
<e10mie$buv$1@sea.gmane.org> <4433E1DC.4080907@rotemliss.com>
	<e10pls$olh$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
>
> Rotem Liss wrote:
>> A replacement for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Switch would be
>> great.
> There's a number of uses of {{switch}} that I'd rather not encourage.
> [snip]

> Same with this, more or less
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:TALKSPACE&action=edit
>
> I'm willing to hear a case for the use of switch, but I'm not convinced of
> its utility based what
> I've seen.
>

I created {{TALKSPACE}} and its counterpart {{ARTICLESPACE}} after
requesting the equivalent variables several times on this list.

I would be more than happy to see them replaced with the equivalent
variables now that they seem to have proven their utility.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Mathematical-expressions-and-conditional-constructs%2C-now-implemented-t1400150.html#a3782426
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers forum at Nabble.com.


body:
Erik Moeller-3 wrote:
>
> On 4/6/06, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:
>> * Make it usable in the template namespace only
> I think that could be a reasonable restriction. Template code already
> tends to be messy, and these new functions might actually make it
> cleaner in a few cases. But I'd rather not see calculation functions
> and such used in the article namespace.
>
Is this actually workable? If a template is transcluded into an mainspace
article, is the function not then being used in the main namespace?

> As for the syntax, might it make sense to use a double colon instead
> of a single colon, e.g. {{if:: <condition> | <then text> | <else text>
> }}? I'm not a big fan of the semantic overload we have with single
> colon prefixes.
>

I suggested at some point using {{#if:?}} which AFAICT conflicts with
nothing.

What I don't know yet is whether it is a simple matter to tell the parser to
allow that, or very complicated...

I have added this suggestion to Tim's vote.

HTH HAND
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Mathematical-expressions-and-conditional-constructs%2C-now-implemented-t1400150.html#a3782830
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Molu Bosu Palit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for unblocking

body:
Dear Sir/Madam,

  I, Loom91 (59.93.194.7), was recently blocked by sysop Commander Jean for disruption. I believe that this is a mistake and appeal to have this block lifted. I've already requested Commander Kean by email to reconsider the block.

  I was banned for supposedly spamming user talk pages. What really happened was that a poll on the proposed policy Wikipedia:Censorship is ongoing and I wanted to inform potentially interested users abut this, so I posted a short and polite message on their talk page requesting them to review the policy and make their opinions known (I did not ask them to vote for any particular side, and votes in response to these messages were divided). I sent these messages both to those likely to vote Support and those likely to vote Oppose. I do not believe such messages constitute spamming or disruption.

  Some of the receivers thanked me for letting them know about the poll and voiced their opinions. Disruption is defined in Blocking policy as disrupting the normal workings of Wikipedia, but by involving more wikipedians in the discussion I facilitated better working of Wikipedia. As shown in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SPAM#Internal_spamming, this sort of communication is not considered to be inherently bad, let alone worthy of blocking.

  In the light of these circumstances, I ask sysops to investigate the matter and unblock me if they feel as I do that the block was unwarranted and a mistake on the part of Commander Kean. Thank you very much.

  Loom91

---------------------------------
Blab-away for as little as 1?/min. Make  PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is en: too large?

body:
David Gerard-2 wrote:
>
> http://www.uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:ThatsNoMoonThatsWikipedia.jpg
>
> We also need to help get this outfit properly decorated:
> http://www.uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:ThatsNoMoonThatsWikipedia.jpg
>
Is that second link supposed to be the same as the first, or has something
slipped?

(dear ghu, don't let it be DG's outfit :-)

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Is-en%3A-too-large--t1401290.html#a3784308
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Tom Harrison

subject: [WikiEN-l] Page hit counts

body:
Are any statistics available on what pages people are reading, and how
often a given page is accessed?
Tom Harrison


subject: [WikiEN-l] LS Studio and pro-pedophilia pov

body:
Sydney Poore wrote:
>
> LS Studio is an article with content introduced by editors with a pro
> pedophiles pov. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS_Studio
>
[[LS Studio]] is an article about a porn studio which was closed down. It
appears to be well-referenced, and only the most obtuse POV-pusher would
manage to convince themselves after reading all the comments attached to
those references that the cited stories might be about some other incident.

> I'm trying to gather consensus to delete LS Studio. There is no
> verifiable reliable sources for the content of the article.
>
You're forum-shopping and POV-pushing. Please stop it. WP:NOT censored. Just
because something is horrid does not mean we should not have an article
about it.

Indeed our core mission is to educate and elucidate. This can hardly be
accomplished by ninny-hammered burying of the truth on the tenuous grounds
of "Yeeuuch".

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
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Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Gavin Chait wrote:

>I think you will continue to have a problem with contentious content if the
>only means of controlling it is the NPOV.  Encouragement to genocide can be
>presented very dispassionately.
>
>It may be against the spirit of Wikimedia but the only way to control this
>is to have some declared rules about where you stand.  Perhaps you should
>consider the idea of a general constitution or bill of rights.  An
>instruction book on "How to launch a hostile leveraged buyout" could be
>offensive to people with ambivalent attitudes to capitalism.  An instruction
>book on "How to send anthrax by mail" will offend others.  Clearly, though,
>if you wish to be entirely neutral you have to host all this information.
>As soon as you start to judge and select what content is allowed and what
>isn't, you are choosing sides.
>
>If you choose sides, make it quite clear where the line is and don't let
>anyone cross.
>
>And you have to decide.
>
>
>
>--
>Gavin Chait
>
>
I was trying to point out that even putting a disclaimer at the top of a
page suggesting that "the activity is illegal and it is only a
description of the activity for academic research" is not sufficient for
content like this to remain on a Wikimedia project.

And to point out the two examples you gave, "How to launch a hostile
leveraged buyout", while perhaps distasteful to some individuals would
not necessarily have to explain how to avoid getting caught by security
regulators, although suggesting that certain kinds of activity while
performing a leveraged buyout might be considered illegal and you should
avoid doing that might be reasonable to include in a book like this.

On the other hand, I don't know any legal means to send Anthrax by mail
or by any common courrier system except for pure reserach by clinical
laboratories.  A discussion on how to manufacture anthrax by extracting
a new strain of it from dirt in your backyard is a discussion that I
would personally not like to see on a Wikimedia project.  Or at least it
should be restricted in some way.  This isn't really about having a
neutral point of view, because all you are doing is describing how the
process works, and it is not an advocacy about what to do the Anthrax
once you have a couple of plastic milk jugs full of the biological agent
in concentrated form.

We simply can't have content that has to go through the Jimbo test every
time something questionable comes up.  This is where Jimbo looks at it
and says it shouldn't be there, so it fails the Jimbo test.  He is a
nice guy and all, but Jimbo doesn't have the time to review everything
like this, nor am I expecting him to do it either.

And as I pointed out on the Staff Lounge, a book about teaching high
school physics or an organic chemistry textbook is really what Wikibook
is primarily about.  If you havn't been to Wikibooks for some time, come
in and take a look at what is being done.  Some incredible content is
being developed, and books about controvercial topics really are just
the fringe of Wikibooks as well.  The huge worry here is if having books
like "How Anthrax is made" might detract from more serious textbook
efforts and drive potential contributors away.  Of if we are trying to
get the Wikijunior Solar System book put into an elementary school, they
will reject it because of the fact that Wikibooks also permits these
fringe books as well.

As an administrator with the ability to delete this content, I feel
compelled to not just follow my gut instinct on removing this content
but to also get a concensus from the community before it is removed.
 And the community concensus is to keep the content, or at least there
is no huge cry to remove it and often some very vocal contributors who
insist that the content should remain.  So I go away and leave the
content alone even if perhaps it doesn't feel right to keep it.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Sydney Poore

subject: [WikiEN-l] Image deletion

body:
Sounds good to me.  :-)

Sydney aka FloNight

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/5/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>
>> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>
>>> With images, though, there has grown this bizarre culture that we must
>>> not delete anything until we have a consensus to do so.  This is partly
>>> because images can't be easily restored, and there is some legitimacy to
>>> that as a factor in how we do things, but I think it has gotten much
>>> worse.  Wildly inappropriate images which do not even have a majority
>>> support for keeping are kept in articles in a way that similarly
>>> inappropriate text would be shot on sight.


from_name: Birgitte Arco

body:
--- Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>
wrote:

> Gavin Chait wrote:
>
> >I think you will continue to have a problem with
> contentious content if the
> >only means of controlling it is the NPOV.
> Encouragement to genocide can be
> >presented very dispassionately.
> >
> >It may be against the spirit of Wikimedia but the
> only way to control this
> >is to have some declared rules about where you
> stand.  Perhaps you should
> >consider the idea of a general constitution or bill
> of rights.  An
> >instruction book on "How to launch a hostile
> leveraged buyout" could be
> >offensive to people with ambivalent attitudes to
> capitalism.  An instruction
> >book on "How to send anthrax by mail" will offend
> others.  Clearly, though,
> >if you wish to be entirely neutral you have to host
> all this information.
> >As soon as you start to judge and select what
> content is allowed and what
> >isn't, you are choosing sides.
> >
> >If you choose sides, make it quite clear where the
> line is and don't let
> >anyone cross.
> >
> >And you have to decide.
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Gavin Chait
> >
> >
> I was trying to point out that even putting a
> disclaimer at the top of a
> page suggesting that "the activity is illegal and it
> is only a
> description of the activity for academic research"
> is not sufficient for
> content like this to remain on a Wikimedia project.
>
> And to point out the two examples you gave, "How to
> launch a hostile
> leveraged buyout", while perhaps distasteful to some
> individuals would
> not necessarily have to explain how to avoid getting
> caught by security
> regulators, although suggesting that certain kinds
> of activity while
> performing a leveraged buyout might be considered
> illegal and you should
> avoid doing that might be reasonable to include in a
> book like this.
>
> On the other hand, I don't know any legal means to
> send Anthrax by mail
> or by any common courrier system except for pure
> reserach by clinical
> laboratories.  A discussion on how to manufacture
> anthrax by extracting
> a new strain of it from dirt in your backyard is a
> discussion that I
> would personally not like to see on a Wikimedia
> project.  Or at least it
> should be restricted in some way.  This isn't really
> about having a
> neutral point of view, because all you are doing is
> describing how the
> process works, and it is not an advocacy about what
> to do the Anthrax
> once you have a couple of plastic milk jugs full of
> the biological agent
> in concentrated form.
>
> We simply can't have content that has to go through
> the Jimbo test every
> time something questionable comes up.  This is where
> Jimbo looks at it
> and says it shouldn't be there, so it fails the
> Jimbo test.  He is a
> nice guy and all, but Jimbo doesn't have the time to
> review everything
> like this, nor am I expecting him to do it either.
>
> And as I pointed out on the Staff Lounge, a book
> about teaching high
> school physics or an organic chemistry textbook is
> really what Wikibook
> is primarily about.  If you havn't been to Wikibooks
> for some time, come
> in and take a look at what is being done.  Some
> incredible content is
> being developed, and books about controvercial
> topics really are just
> the fringe of Wikibooks as well.  The huge worry
> here is if having books
> like "How Anthrax is made" might detract from more
> serious textbook
> efforts and drive potential contributors away.  Of
> if we are trying to
> get the Wikijunior Solar System book put into an
> elementary school, they
> will reject it because of the fact that Wikibooks
> also permits these
> fringe books as well.
>
> As an administrator with the ability to delete this
> content, I feel
> compelled to not just follow my gut instinct on
> removing this content
> but to also get a concensus from the community
> before it is removed.
>  And the community concensus is to keep the content,
> or at least there
> is no huge cry to remove it and often some very
> vocal contributors who
> insist that the content should remain.  So I go away
> and leave the
> content alone even if perhaps it doesn't feel right
> to keep it.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

The way I see it Wikibooks has formed a community
consensus about the format of the content (i.e.
Wikibooks presents information in a instructional
format).  However I do not think the community has has
ever decided on the type of content itself.  Right now
the content can be described as an indiscriminate
collection of information (within the aforementioned
format).  My suggestion would be to try and come to a
consensus about the inclusion guidelines.  It seems to
me, that Wikibooks has many exclusion guidelines on
content and only inclusion guidelines on format.  If
the community could reach consensus on the content to
include, then you could require each module to have
some sort of "mission statement" (i.e. Cookbook
provides instruction on the preparation of food for
human consumption).  Then you can weed out the mission
statements that fall outside the scope of the agreed
upon inclution guidelines, and enforce that the
material adhere to the mission statements that are
acceptable.

I realize this is much easier said then done.  The
English Wikisource is currently working through some
of the same issues with what we want to include, and
it is diffuclt to codify these things.  However I
think most people in the community will agree they do
not want Wikibooks to be an indiscriminate collection
of information.  If they do want to be that, tell them
Wikisource has some source code we will be sending
their way ;)

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Stephen Forrest

body:
On 4/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > Don't blame me. I've always been against turning wikitext into a programming language.
>
> Why?

Aside from the issue of simplicity which has already been mentioned,
there's the issue that as the language gets bigger, user-contributed
bugs become more numerous and subtle.

Steve


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 4/6/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a kind of weird verifiability case. We don't say "God exists" in
> Wikipedia because such a statement couldn't be verified. But the
> statements in [[LS Studio]] could be verified if someone got
> their hands on an FBI report on the organization or somesuch. Since
> no one has yet, nothing in the article is verifiable... so do we delete it?

If after a good while, nobody has come back with references, we
probably should.

If the information has not been published anywhere, it's investigative
journalism, not encyclopedia article material.

If an FBI report exists but is unpublished / unavailable, that is
equivalent to it not existing right now.

-Matt


from_name: Gavin Chait

body:
I think you will continue to have a problem with contentious content if the
only means of controlling it is the NPOV.  Encouragement to genocide can be
presented very dispassionately.

A book documenting how to build a nuclear bomb is a textbook.  A book on how
to build a nuclear bomb and then place it on a commuter train is an
instruction book on terrorism.

It may be against the spirit of Wikimedia but the only way to control this
is to have some declared rules about where you stand.  Perhaps you should
consider the idea of a general constitution or bill of rights.  An
instruction book on "How to launch a hostile leveraged buyout" could be
offensive to people with ambivalent attitudes to capitalism.  An instruction
book on "How to send anthrax by mail" will offend others.  Clearly, though,
if you wish to be entirely neutral you have to host all this information.
As soon as you start to judge and select what content is allowed and what
isn't, you are choosing sides.

If you choose sides, make it quite clear where the line is and don't let
anyone cross.

And you have to decide.

Where do analysis of Sun Tzu's "Art of War", or Klauswitz "On War", find
itself within the current imbroglio?  Both books give a penetrating and
illustrative guide to waging war.

--
Gavin Chait


body:
I'm not sure that I would support anything that sounds as binding as an
"article arbitration committee," but I have for a long time felt that it
would be wise to establish a cadre of admins that form an "NPOV brigade" who
could be called upon to look at and weigh in on content disputes as a means
of breaking a stalemate.  It's definitely a need on Wikipedia that isn't
being filled, as is evidenced by the amount of content RFArs getting filed
lately.  RFC rarely works, but only because it doesn't generate enough
interest, IMO.

k

On 4/6/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
> Katefan0 wrote:
> > I think this is similar to what happens sometimes at pedophilia-related
> > articles.  For the most part, we as Wikipedians are drawn to edit
> articles
> > in which we have a personal interest or stake.  Naturally, then, those
> who
> > disagree with age of consent laws will be drawn to articles such as
> > [[NAMBLA]].  Not only do most other Wikipedians not feel drawn there,
> they
> > in fact would rather purposefully avoid them because they make them feel
> > icky.  (I can certainly attest to that personally.)  But in that manner,
> I
> > have found that sometimes the "consensus" on these types of articles
> gets
> > skewed.  And this makes issues raised on the talk page very difficult to
> > resolve.
>
> I noted a while back at the pump that the article branch of requests for
> comment wasn't serving it's purpose anymore, and that it should get
> moved to the pump as [[Village pump (article)]].  Sadly, and a little
> ironically, I got no discussion at the pump, and I'm starting to wonder
> if the community is so big it is beginning to fracture.  There needs to
> be a high profile way of grabbing editor attention and getting a
> reflective consensus on issues.  I'm starting to agree with the idea of
> a parliament or maybe an article arbitration commitee.  Any thoughts?
>
> Steve block
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Steve Block

body:
Katefan0 wrote:
> I think this is similar to what happens sometimes at pedophilia-related
> articles.  For the most part, we as Wikipedians are drawn to edit articles
> in which we have a personal interest or stake.  Naturally, then, those who
> disagree with age of consent laws will be drawn to articles such as
> [[NAMBLA]].  Not only do most other Wikipedians not feel drawn there, they
> in fact would rather purposefully avoid them because they make them feel
> icky.  (I can certainly attest to that personally.)  But in that manner, I
> have found that sometimes the "consensus" on these types of articles gets
> skewed.  And this makes issues raised on the talk page very difficult to
> resolve.

I noted a while back at the pump that the article branch of requests for
comment wasn't serving it's purpose anymore, and that it should get
moved to the pump as [[Village pump (article)]].  Sadly, and a little
ironically, I got no discussion at the pump, and I'm starting to wonder
if the community is so big it is beginning to fracture.  There needs to
be a high profile way of grabbing editor attention and getting a
reflective consensus on issues.  I'm starting to agree with the idea of
a parliament or maybe an article arbitration commitee.  Any thoughts?

Steve block

--
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Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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from_name: Michelle Kinney

body:
David Alexander Russell wrote:

><snip>RFC generates plenty of interest, the problem is that it has no 'teeth'
>- - there is nothing to stop the party who 'loses' an RFC from ignoring
>its conclusions.
>
>Cynical
>
>
I'd have to disagree - an article I placed on RfC twice, both times in
two places and a spot on current surveys never received a single comment
from any of those posts.  And they were up for months.

RfC would have more teeth if more good editors commented on a regular
basis.  As it is, its hit and miss.

Jareth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jareth)


from_name: Omegatron

subject: [Wikitech-l] emphasis vs italics, strong vs bold

body:
> >> No, on purpose. That was like a year and a half ago, I think.
> >
> > ...because?
>
> To stop abusing semantic markup (such abuse renders the semantics meaningless).

Well, maybe you can point me to a previous discussion so we don't have
to have the same discussion again, but I think it would be superior to
use semantic markup.  I'm sure everyone's aware of this already, but
using visual formatting tags to represent emphasis is discouraged:

"The proper HTML elements should be used to mark up emphasis: EM and
STRONG. The B and I elements should not be used; they are used to
create a visual presentation effect. The EM and STRONG elements were
designed to indicate structural emphasis that may be rendered in a
variety of ways (font style changes, speech inflection changes, etc.)"


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 4/6/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> To stop abusing semantic markup (such abuse renders the semantics meaningless).

Agreed, it doesn't make much sense to "emphasise" the name of an album
or a foreign word, for example.

Steve


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
On 4/6/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [[LS Studio]] is an article about a porn studio which was closed down. It
> appears to be well-referenced, and only the most obtuse POV-pusher would
> manage to convince themselves after reading all the comments attached to
> those references that the cited stories might be about some other
> incident.
>

After looking at this article, I had no problem with the way it is written.
But as some editors are
rather persuasively arguing on the talk page, just about nothing in the
article is verified or even
verifiable -- for example, much of the article discussion on the content of
the child porn produced
would require a reader to obtain child pornography to verify. There are no
third-party references in
the article so whoever wrote that stuff into it could have been making it
all up and there is no way
for us to know.

This is a kind of weird verifiability case. We don't say "God exists" in
Wikipedia because such a
statement couldn't be verified. But the statements in [[LS Studio]] could be
verified if someone got
their hands on an FBI report on the organization or somesuch. Since no one
has yet, nothing in
the article is verifiable... so do we delete it?

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] A question about Wikipedia method

body:
Hi,

  I have this question about Wikipedia method. If I see cntent that I know for CERTAIN to be true, but the content does not cite a verifiable source and I also know of none, then should I keep the content or should I remove it? Thank you.

  Molu

---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

references:
<e10mie$buv$1@sea.gmane.org> <4433E1DC.4080907@rotemliss.com>
	<e10pls$olh$1@sea.gmane.org> <3782426.post@talk.nabble.com>

body:
On Thu, Apr 06, 2006 at 04:28:09AM -0700, Phil Boswell wrote:
> I created {{TALKSPACE}} and its counterpart {{ARTICLESPACE}} after
> requesting the equivalent variables several times on this list.
>
> I would be more than happy to see them replaced with the equivalent
> variables now that they seem to have proven their utility.

I had gathered, Phil, that those were being avoided because they were
going to conflict with a planned extension and generalization of
namespaces that would make Talk less special -- if I correctly
understood what I read.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] A design for a debate tool

body:
Hoi,
This message is late in the already long line of messages on this
subject. I do not know if Robert looked at LiquidThreads.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LiquidThreads It may seem like an old
article, it is around since 2004, but the likelihood of it being
developed is better than 90% at this time. If you are looking for a tool
for more structured debate, have a look and if you have questions of
remarks please let them be known.

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
Birgitte Arco wrote:

>
>The way I see it Wikibooks has formed a community
>consensus about the format of the content (i.e.
>Wikibooks presents information in a instructional
>format).  However I do not think the community has has
>ever decided on the type of content itself.  Right now
>the content can be described as an indiscriminate
>collection of information (within the aforementioned
>format).  My suggestion would be to try and come to a
>consensus about the inclusion guidelines.  It seems to
>me, that Wikibooks has many exclusion guidelines on
>content and only inclusion guidelines on format.  If
>the community could reach consensus on the content to
>include, then you could require each module to have
>some sort of "mission statement" (i.e. Cookbook
>provides instruction on the preparation of food for
>human consumption).  Then you can weed out the mission
>statements that fall outside the scope of the agreed
>upon inclution guidelines, and enforce that the
>material adhere to the mission statements that are
>acceptable.
>
>I realize this is much easier said then done.  The
>English Wikisource is currently working through some
>of the same issues with what we want to include, and
>it is diffuclt to codify these things.  However I
>think most people in the community will agree they do
>not want Wikibooks to be an indiscriminate collection
>of information.  If they do want to be that, tell them
>Wikisource has some source code we will be sending
>their way ;)
>
>
>Birgitte SB
>
>
>
To put it into a nutshell, I was advocating that Wikibooks should be for
book-length non-fiction content that doesn't

A) duplicate efforts on other Wikimedia projects.  i.e. don't start up a
new fork of Wiktionary or Wikipedia in English on Wikibooks.
B) maintains standards common to other Wikimedia projects including NPOV
and original research exclusion policies

This is pretty straight forward and understandable.  It even makes
sense, and most of the "What is Wikibooks" page goes into this in fine
detail where apparently some individuals over the past few years havn't
understood this principle and need it explained in further detail.
 There is no reason to have original source texts on Wikibooks if it is
already being dealt with on Wikisource, for example.

Wikibooks is about books, and for the most part it fills that mission
fairly well.  The issue here is that books can go into details about
doing things like building bombs and nuclear reactors just as easily as
it can go into details about gardening or a physics demonstration
experiment.  And the "textbooks only" clause is interpreted very loosly
to the point it really is just about books alone, with only a general
project goal to help develop actual textbooks that can be used in real
classrooms eventually.

When a book is interpreted as being more than simply something that you
would find on a library bookshelf, you get into things like scholarly
research journals, errata databases, internet services directories,
phone books, language resource directories, a blog user forum, a
language translation service, and a philosophical debating forum.  All
of these have been on Wikibooks recently, with strong protest by the
users who added this content to keep it on Wikibooks when efforts
occured to remove this material.  I havn't touched the phone books, but
there are a couple.

It doesn't help when you have users on other Wikimedia projects openly
proclaiming that Wikibooks is the place to try these kind of
experiments.  I tried to stem the tidal wave of projects coming from
Meta where it was common practice to tell people to start new
experimental Wikimedia projects on Wikibooks first.  It still happens,
but to a much smaller degree than what happened before.  Apparently
Wikipedia is the current source of some of these users, and perhaps I
need to get more involved in the forums on Wikipedia to help teach
Wikipedians about Wikibooks' policies.  I find it very painful to tell a
very eager contributor who has tried very hard and put in sometimes as
much as several hundred hours worth of work on dozens of pages that the
content is going to be deleted.  And that has happened as well.

As far as inclusion guidelines are concerned, Wikibooks is about
textbooks.  If it is a textbook, it is welcome.  If it is not, you are
on shaky ground, and the less like a textbook it is, the more likly it
will be deleted.

The problem I brought up, however, with the original thread is that you
have content which is written like a textbook, using standard features
for "books" in terms of format, but the content is objectional because
of the content.  Where do you draw the line here and say that some kinds
of content simply should not be here nor on any other Wikimedia project?
 The Manual of Crime was a perfect example, because it was a full
multi-chapter book, and some effort did go into trying to rework the
content to a NPOV standard.

Here is one very well written comment that supported deletion of this
book:  " I don't know if anyone supporting this 'manual' has considered
this, but the very fact that something is called a 'manual of crime'
precludes the work's authenticity. I mean, really, are there any /actual
mobsters/ writing into the 'Racketeering' section? Sensible burglars,
robbers, and other criminals don't waste time writing about ways and
means. Essentially, there is little to suggest that most of this
"manual" isn't just a formatted sounding board, not for actual
criminals, but voyeuristic /crime enthusiasts./"

Most of the rest of the deletion votes were because it was illegal
activity that was being promoted through the publication of the book,
even though none of the pages explicitly advocated committing any
crimes.  All I'm trying to do is codify this attitude and try to make
sure that there is a formal policy in place to see that books of this
nature don't get put back on Wikibooks, and there is a rationale behind
the policy rather than simply because an admin doesn't like the content
and wants to censor it.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
> In the same way that using semantic tags when all you want is
> formatting is equally discouraged. Ideally (perhaps) there would be
> ways of indicating both semantics, and pure formatting.

You can still use bold and italic tags if that's all you
mean, though I think that is rare.

> If there
> isn't, then either solution is really equally bad.

True.

> I would say that
> ''italics'' are very rarely used for emphasis in our articles, and
> much more commonly for simple formatting - names of albums,
> symphonies, quotations etc. I could be wrong there.

Ah.  It seems to me that emphasis is used more often than simple
formatting, and I was changing ''quote marks'' to italic tags
in the few cases where it's appropriate, based on the way I learned
when I first started editing.  Then I was looking through the source
code one day, and realized they were both being rendered as italics,
so I was confused.

So, if I understand correctly, a bunch of people were misusing
emphasis tags to mean italics, so someone changed the emphasis tags to
mean italics, and now people are misusing italics tags to mean
emphasis?  :-)

: Are we going to change the dictionary definition colon markup to
render as CSS  indentation now, since many people use it for
indentation?

> What's the specific problem that  tags are causing?

None at all from a practical standpoint.  Just curious.


body:
I'm not sure how you feel it's well-referenced; I searched the entirety of
the Nexis database for anything regarding LS Studio for as long as Nexis has
been indexing print publications and came up empty.

k

On 4/6/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Sydney Poore wrote:
> >
> > LS Studio is an article with content introduced by editors with a pro
> > pedophiles pov. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS_Studio
> >
> [[LS Studio]] is an article about a porn studio which was closed down. It
> appears to be well-referenced, and only the most obtuse POV-pusher would
> manage to convince themselves after reading all the comments attached to
> those references that the cited stories might be about some other
> incident.
>
>
> > I'm trying to gather consensus to delete LS Studio. There is no
> > verifiable reliable sources for the content of the article.
> >
> You're forum-shopping and POV-pushing. Please stop it. WP:NOT censored.
> Just
> because something is horrid does not mean we should not have an article
> about it.
>
> Indeed our core mission is to educate and elucidate. This can hardly be
> accomplished by ninny-hammered burying of the truth on the tenuous grounds
> of "Yeeuuch".
>
> HTH HAND
> --
> Phil
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/LS-Studio-and-pro-pedophilia-pov-t1401250.html#a3785085
> Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
On Apr 6, 2006, at 1:27 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

>> Not to belabor this meta-debate, but it's a simple matter of
>> historical fact that communists have committed large-scale mass
>> murder. Tacit implications that communism is "okay" is as offensive
>> to many people as implying that fascism is "okay". Since neither
>> question is of direct relevance here, let's just agree, for the sake
>> of avoiding conflict, not to say nice things about controversial
>> political ideologies.
>>
> But I was not the one to introduce communism into the discussion
> with an
> offensive comment.

Nor was I.

> Now, in a pretence of innocence, you admonish those
> who would say "nice" things about controversial political ideologies,
> but do not apply the same standards to those who wouild say offensive
> thingsa about the same ideologies.

Ideally we should drop the subject entirely.

> Then you want to drop the issue when
> you feel that you are ahead in the damage.  The historical fact that
> some communists have committed large-scale mass murder does not
> justify
> your innuendo that all supporters of a communistic economy have
> done so.

We could say the same thing about fascism, but you don't find anyone
playing apologist for *that* ideology.

> To whatever extent I feel that communism may be "okay" I can express
> myself directly; I don't need to rely on tacit offensive implications.
> I know that this site abounds with anti-communist ideologues, and I
> can
> keep busy enough in unrelated areas without needing to actively
> promote
> ideologies.  Be that as it may, I won't be bullied, and I feel quite
> justified in rising to the occasion when someone trolls the list
> with an
> ignorant comment.

As do I.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
The main reason I posted to the list was to give an example of an
article influenced by self identified pedophiles. Jimbo's comment on the
talk page of the article mirrors his comment about trolling during the
image deletion discussion.

The talk page of the article is leaning toward delete based on the fact
the name of studio is not mentioned in any of the news articles.This
seems like a valid reason to delete. Isn't the standard for inclusion in
Wikipedia verifiable reliable sources not the truth? Forums and blogs
are not generally considered a reliable source.

You bet I'm forum shopping-if that's what you want to call it. The child
pornography, child abuse, pedophilia articles need the eyes of
experienced editors like those that subscribe to this list. This need is
being pointed out by Kate and others in a different thread. Feel free to
give your opinion on talk one way or the other.  (I see that you have.)
Vote delete in the Afd if that is your opinion.

Phil, would you do me a favor and knock off the accusations of pov
pushing. Let's assume good faith on both our parts and move on.

Sydney aka FloNight

Phil Boswell wrote:
> Sydney Poore wrote:
>
>> LS Studio is an article with content introduced by editors with a pro
>> pedophiles pov. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LS_Studio
>>
>>
> [[LS Studio]] is an article about a porn studio which was closed down. It
> appears to be well-referenced, and only the most obtuse POV-pusher would
> manage to convince themselves after reading all the comments attached to
> those references that the cited stories might be about some other incident.
>
>
>
>> I'm trying to gather consensus to delete LS Studio. There is no
>> verifiable reliable sources for the content of the article.
>>
>>
> You're forum-shopping and POV-pushing. Please stop it. WP:NOT censored. Just
> because something is horrid does not mean we should not have an article
> about it.
>
> Indeed our core mission is to educate and elucidate. This can hardly be
> accomplished by ninny-hammered burying of the truth on the tenuous grounds
> of "Yeeuuch".
>
> HTH HAND
>

--
Sydney Poore

Go Bengals!


body:
On Apr 6, 2006, at 8:43 AM, Matt Brown wrote:

> If an FBI report exists but is unpublished / unavailable, that is
> equivalent to it not existing right now.

Can't we use the Freedom of Information Act?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deleting the Lolicon picture

body:
Philip Welch wrote:
>> I support the removal
>> of the image in question, but I recognise that at least some of
>> those who argued
>> for it to be it kept did so out of good faith and a desire to
>> create the best encyclopedia
>> possible. I don't think they were trolling or motivated by a desire
>> to supply pedophiles
>> with child porn.
>
> I agree with Matt. This is not a profitable direction for discussion.

Absolutely, but it is VERY important to pay attention to the fact that
we are often trolled in this way, and that there are POV pushers
involved.  One clever way to troll is to raise the 'censorship' red
herring in a way that makes it difficult to talk about serious questions
of editorial judgment, questions about which reasonable people may of
course differ without feeling that the other side is trying to censor.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> I started a thread on the Staff Lounge at Wikibooks over what to do with
> content that openly advocates breaking laws.  The goal I had was to help
> come up with some wording that we could add to existing policies that
> would prohibit this sort of content from being added to Wikibooks.

Can you give a link?

First of all, Wikibooks is for *textbooks*, broadly construed, not for
any sort of nonsense people might think would be a cool nonfiction book.

Second of all, Wikibooks is bound by the non-negotiable NPOV policy,
which means that it should not be advocating breaking the law (nor
advocating obeying the law, nor advocating anything at all really).

> Where Wikibooks is having some real problems is with things like the
> Manual of Crime, How to Rape, AIM Password Cracking, or a currently
> contentious book on the use of illegal drugs called Drugs: Fact and
> Fiction.

The first 3 should be deleted on sight as blatant trolling and the
contributor warned and then banned if they keep it up.

The third one should be carefully policed for POV, and should ALSO be
rewritten and probably retitled to be a *textbook*.

> My question to the Wikimedia community at large is to see how you have
> dealt with content of this nature, or if this is something that is
> restricted mainly to Wikibooks?

One problem is that the wikibooks community is small and is often
overwhelmed by the larger Wikipedia community telling people to get
their nonsense off wikipedia, and sending them to Wikibooks.  :)


body:
Thanks Steve, and I want to make super clear that I think people can in
good faith have quite varied opinions on different matters.

What I wanted to point out is that we need to be especially vigilent
when we have an area where we know there are POV pushers and trolls who
are active.  As Erik pointed out, in a lot of cases like this, a tiny
turnout at IfD will mean that community consensus is not well reflected,
because the POV pushers will show up in force to override the small
number of good editors who come by.

Imagine this case:
100 good editors, 80 voting delete, 20 voting in good faith to keep
4 pov pushers
4 trolls

End result: 80 - 28, consensus to delete

versus

10 good editors, 8 voting delete, 2 voting in good faith to keep
4 pov pushers
4 trolls

End result: 8 - 10, no conclusion, image kept

Steve Block wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>> On 4/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>> I think the best way to understand 'what justification' is to understand
>>> a certain sort of POV pushing... one of the goals of pedophiles is to
>>> make the case that such materials are perfectly normal and healthy and
>>> should be viewed as being completely routine.  One way to achieve that
>>> goal is to be sure that such materials are published widely.
>> Hi Jimbo,
>>   A couple of people have taken exception to your references to
>> paedophiles in this debate, and I'd like to join them. Is there any
>> evidence that actual paedophiles were arguing for the inclusion of
>> that image? Or is it just, as you acknowledge, anti-censorship people
>> getting caught up in the argument and crossing the bounds of good
>> taste?
>>
>> Conflating anti-censorship, anti-prude, anti-common sense, or simply
>> trollish people with paedophiles is unfair at best, and inflammatory
>> and offensive at worst, isn't it?
>
> Look, I for one initially argued keep at IFD, and I don't feel insulted
> so much as embarrassed that I allowed myself to be blind-sided in such a
> way, and I think Jimbo's spot on in what he says, and I'm a bit
> disturbed that a lot of people who weren't involved in this are knocking
> Jimbo on this point, superficially on my behalf.  I don't want people to
> knock Jimbo on my behalf, I think Sam made the right call, so did Jimbo
> and I think anyone who can't see that is either as blind sided as I was
> or just looking for another big stick to hit Jimbo with.
>
> I'd like to apologise once again for getting the wrong end of the stick
> on this issue, and I would like to see people extend the good faith that
> everyone involved has extended me by not calling me a complete plonker,
> which would be well deserved, and extend that good faith to Jimbo, who
> has already qualified his statement once.  Jimbo's thrust, as I read it,
> was that we shouldn't allow the gaming of the system by those who wish
> to promote pedophilia, and that those of us for whom censorship and fair
> use is a hot button topic should be aware that we can be manipulated,
> and remember the goal is building an encyclopedia, not fighting
> censorship or justifying the inclusion of any particular image.
>
> People who's hot button is mistrusting authority should also remember
> the goal is building an encyclopedia, not fighting censorship or
> justifying the inclusion of any particular image.
>
>
> I'm sorry if people feel my words are too strong, but there it is.  I
> was made to look a fool, and no-one likes that.  But I'm not too proud
> to admit it and I don't see why I should be walking away scott free when
> Jimbo is getting a hard time.
>
> Now, can I take this hair shirt off, it damn well itches.
>
> Steve Block
>
> Steve Block
>
>

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


body:
On 4/6/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Apr 6, 2006, at 8:43 AM, Matt Brown wrote:
>
> > If an FBI report exists but is unpublished / unavailable, that is
> > equivalent to it not existing right now.
>
> Can't we use the Freedom of Information Act?

If it actually exists and is not related to ongoing investigations,
I'd imagine we could, but this still gets a little too close to
original research / investigative journalism for me.

-Matt


body:
Kate and Steve,

IMO, editor behavior or a poor understanding of policy/guidelines is the
underlying problem in most *intense content disputes*. Editors want to
put the TRUTH in articles instead of encyclopedic, verifiable,
information from reliable sources. Having experienced editors step in
and bring the discussion back to following policy/guidelines works the
majority of the time. Minor differences of opinion can be solved by
third opinions, etc.

In both cases, the main problem is how to get more editors to look at
disputed articles. Most editors don't find their way to Rfc on a regular
basis, but I don't think that means that they don't care or want to get
involved. Could Signpost be used to list new Rfc? Or a separate
publication that is delivered to subscribers on a weekly basis? Maybe
involvement in Rfc or informally mediating editing disputes could be
introduced as one evaluating criteria for promotion to administrator. As
an experiment I might start mentioning it on RFAs.

Sydney aka FloNight

Katefan0 wrote:
> I'm not sure that I would support anything that sounds as binding as an
> "article arbitration committee," but I have for a long time felt that it
> would be wise to establish a cadre of admins that form an "NPOV brigade" who
> could be called upon to look at and weigh in on content disputes as a means
> of breaking a stalemate.  It's definitely a need on Wikipedia that isn't
> being filled, as is evidenced by the amount of content RFArs getting filed
> lately.  RFC rarely works, but only because it doesn't generate enough
> interest, IMO.
> k
>
> On 4/6/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>> ...a while back at the pump that the article branch of requests for
>> comment wasn't serving it's purpose anymore, and that it should get
>> moved to the pump as [[Village pump (article)]].  Sadly, and a little
>> ironically, I got no discussion at the pump, and I'm starting to wonder
>> if the community is so big it is beginning to fracture.  There needs to
>> be a high profile way of grabbing editor attention and getting a
>> reflective consensus on issues.  I'm starting to agree with the idea of
>> a parliament or maybe an article arbitration commitee.  Any thoughts?
>>
>> Steve block


body:
On Apr 6, 2006, at 11:28 AM, Matt Brown wrote:

>>> If an FBI report exists but is unpublished / unavailable, that is
>>> equivalent to it not existing right now.
>>
>> Can't we use the Freedom of Information Act?
>
> If it actually exists and is not related to ongoing investigations,
> I'd imagine we could, but this still gets a little too close to
> original research / investigative journalism for me.

So we have WikiNews use the FOIA to get the report and then cite
WikiNews :)

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
>> There are two conditional functions and a mathematical expression function.
>>
>
> Cool! Dibs on [[:en:Template:Factorial]] :
> ------------------------
> {{if: {{{1}}}=1 | 1 | {{expr: {{{1}}} * {{{{PAGENAME}} | {{expr:
> {{{1}}} - 1}} }} }} }}
> ------------------------
> ... or something like that.
>
> But why stop there? There are probably many mathematical constructs
> that can be implemented now (think how many functions there are in
> Excel or OpenOffice's Calc just waiting to be implemented) ... A whole
> world of recursive mathematical functions awaits! :-)
>
> Then the message we leave for bored schoolkids (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Test ) can be updated to include
> this: "Did you know you can do some of your maths homework using the
> Wikipedia? Click to find out how".
>
> But why stop there? Coupled with a big enough library of mathematical
> constructs, you can stop thinking of MediaWiki as being primarily
> about collaborative text editing, and start to think of it also as a
> remote sandboxed interpreter / code-executor. You could potentially,
> for example, write a client that does protein-folding calculations or
> crunches SETI data using the Wikipedia as the CPU. Of course, it'd be
> wildly impractical (massively slow, prone to failure due to network
> problems or site outages, etc), but it might hold a certain "just to
> see if it can be done" type of attraction.
>
>
>> The supported operators (roughly in order of precedence) are:
>>
>
> In all seriousness, if you're going to have "=", you might as well
> have the "<" and ">" and "<=" and ">=" operators too (someone is bound
> to ask for them).
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
>
>
Only half in jest, why not go the whole hog and embed full support for a
suitable language, such as...

<scheme>(date-to-string (+ 1 (string-to-date (get-wiki-variable
"DATE"))))</scheme>

(with a suitably limited environment, and other sandboxing precautions,
of course).

-- Neil


body:
Birgitte Arco wrote:

>The way I see it Wikibooks has formed a community
>consensus about the format of the content (i.e.
>Wikibooks presents information in a instructional
>format).  However I do not think the community has has
>ever decided on the type of content itself.  Right now
>the content can be described as an indiscriminate
>collection of information (within the aforementioned
>format).  My suggestion would be to try and come to a
>consensus about the inclusion guidelines.  It seems to
>me, that Wikibooks has many exclusion guidelines on
>content and only inclusion guidelines on format.  If
>the community could reach consensus on the content to
>include, then you could require each module to have
>some sort of "mission statement" (i.e. Cookbook
>provides instruction on the preparation of food for
>human consumption).  Then you can weed out the mission
>statements that fall outside the scope of the agreed
>upon inclution guidelines, and enforce that the
>material adhere to the mission statements that are
>acceptable.
>
>I realize this is much easier said then done.  The
>English Wikisource is currently working through some
>of the same issues with what we want to include, and
>it is diffuclt to codify these things.  However I
>think most people in the community will agree they do
>not want Wikibooks to be an indiscriminate collection
>of information.  If they do want to be that, tell them
>Wikisource has some source code we will be sending
>their way ;)
>
>
>Birgitte SB
>
>
>
To put it into a nutshell, I was advocating that Wikibooks should be for
book-length non-fiction content that doesn't

A) duplicate efforts on other Wikimedia projects.  i.e. don't start up a
new fork of Wiktionary or Wikipedia in English on Wikibooks.
B) maintains standards common to other Wikimedia projects including NPOV
and original research exclusion policies

This is pretty straight forward and understandable.  It even makes
sense, and most of the "What is Wikibooks" page goes into this in fine
detail where apparently some individuals over the past few years havn't
understood this principle and need it explained in further detail.
 There is no reason to have original source texts on Wikibooks if it is
already being dealt with on Wikisource, for example.

Wikibooks is about books, and for the most part it fills that mission
fairly well.  The issue here is that books can go into details about
doing things like building bombs and nuclear reactors just as easily as
it can go into details about gardening or a physics demonstration
experiment.  And the "textbooks only" clause is interpreted very loosly
to the point it really is just about books alone, with only a general
project goal to help develop actual textbooks that can be used in real
classrooms eventually.

When a book is interpreted as being more than simply something that you
would find on a library bookshelf, you get into things like scholarly
research journals, errata databases, internet services directories,
phone books, language resource directories, a blog user forum, a
language translation service, and a philosophical debating forum.  All
of these have been on Wikibooks recently, with strong protest by the
users who added this content to keep it on Wikibooks when efforts
occured to remove this material.  I havn't touched the phone books, but
there are a couple.

It doesn't help when you have users on other Wikimedia projects openly
proclaiming that Wikibooks is the place to try these kind of
experiments.  I tried to stem the tidal wave of projects coming from
Meta where it was common practice to tell people to start new
experimental Wikimedia projects on Wikibooks first.  It still happens,
but to a much smaller degree than what happened before.  Apparently
Wikipedia is the current source of some of these users, and perhaps I
need to get more involved in the forums on Wikipedia to help teach
Wikipedians about Wikibooks' policies.  I find it very painful to tell a
very eager contributor who has tried very hard and put in sometimes as
much as several hundred hours worth of work on dozens of pages that the
content is going to be deleted.  And that has happened as well.

As far as inclusion guidelines are concerned, Wikibooks is about
textbooks.  If it is a textbook, it is welcome.  If it is not, you are
on shaky ground, and the less like a textbook it is, the more likly it
will be deleted.

The problem I brought up, however, with the original thread is that you
have content which is written like a textbook, using standard features
for "books" in terms of format, but the content is objectional because
of the content.  Where do you draw the line here and say that some kinds
of content simply should not be here nor on any other Wikimedia project?
 The Manual of Crime was a perfect example, because it was a full
multi-chapter book, and some effort did go into trying to rework the
content to a NPOV standard.

Here is one very well written comment that supported deletion of this
book:  " I don't know if anyone supporting this 'manual' has considered
this, but the very fact that something is called a 'manual of crime'
precludes the work's authenticity. I mean, really, are there any /actual
mobsters/ writing into the 'Racketeering' section? Sensible burglars,
robbers, and other criminals don't waste time writing about ways and
means. Essentially, there is little to suggest that most of this
"manual" isn't just a formatted sounding board, not for actual
criminals, but voyeuristic /crime enthusiasts./"

Most of the rest of the deletion votes were because it was illegal
activity that was being promoted through the publication of the book,
even though none of the pages explicitly advocated committing any
crimes.  All I'm trying to do is codify this attitude and try to make
sure that there is a formal policy in place to see that books of this
nature don't get put back on Wikibooks, and there is a rationale behind
the policy rather than simply because an admin doesn't like the content
and wants to censor it.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Robth

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Application of the {{pd-art}} tag

body:
I didn't have any luck getting an answer to this on the wiki, so I'll
try asking here.  I've been using the {{pd-art}} tag for Greek vase
paintings I've uploaded, but before I really go hog wild and start
uploading these on a large scale I'd like to be sure that this would be
a good idea. So, two questions:

1. Are we relatively sure that the Bridgeman Art Library vs. Corel Corp.
  case applies to two dimensional art on a non-flat surface?  I've seen
other users use this tag for that purpose, but I don't know that any of
them were any more informed about this than me.

and

2. Since that case was a strictly US case, are there likely to be issues
with downstream usability of these images outside of the US?

Thanks,
Robth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)


from_name: Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is

body:
On Thu, 6 Apr 2006 04:28:09 -0700 (PDT)
 Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>

> I created {{TALKSPACE}} and its counterpart {{ARTICLESPACE}} after
> requesting the equivalent variables several times on this list.
>
> I would be more than happy to see them replaced with the equivalent
> variables now that they seem to have proven their utility.
>
> HTH HAND
> --
> Phil

This (additional magic variables) is another story. If you start thinking how
wiki knowledge propagates trough language communities how the distance between
large and startup communities gets greather and greather you may ask yourself
if this (core MediaWiki) is discrimantory or not. As a result functionality /
infrastructure is unavailable at the majority of the projects. What I never
understand is that oposition comes (mainly) from persons belonging to
communities having the most benefit because "workarounds" are (already)
available there, because they do not face particular problems (related to
characters, fonts, scripts etc.).

The patterns about aproaching this is the same here:
- "Is it good for me?" counts more then "Is it good for all?"
- "If I do not need this why others should need / have it?".

reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> There are two conditional functions and a mathematical expression function.

Cool! Dibs on [[:en:Template:Factorial]] :
------------------------
{{if: {{{1}}}=1 | 1 | {{expr: {{{1}}} * {{{{PAGENAME}} | {{expr:
{{{1}}} - 1}} }} }} }}
------------------------
... or something like that.

But why stop there? There are probably many mathematical constructs
that can be implemented now (think how many functions there are in
Excel or OpenOffice's Calc just waiting to be implemented) ... A whole
world of recursive mathematical functions awaits! :-)

Then the message we leave for bored schoolkids (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Test ) can be updated to include
this: "Did you know you can do some of your maths homework using the
Wikipedia? Click to find out how".

But why stop there? Coupled with a big enough library of mathematical
constructs, you can stop thinking of MediaWiki as being primarily
about collaborative text editing, and start to think of it also as a
remote sandboxed interpreter / code-executor. You could potentially,
for example, write a client that does protein-folding calculations or
crunches SETI data using the Wikipedia as the CPU. Of course, it'd be
wildly impractical (massively slow, prone to failure due to network
problems or site outages, etc), but it might hold a certain "just to
see if it can be done" type of attraction.

> The supported operators (roughly in order of precedence) are:

In all seriousness, if you're going to have "=", you might as well
have the "<" and ">" and "<=" and ">=" operators too (someone is bound
to ask for them).

All the best,
Nick.


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Language versions' popularity vs.
 number	of	articles (vs. number of speakers)

body:
Hoi,
Obviously yes. Nice that you like my "flowery language" :)
GerardM

Berto wrote:
> Hi!
>
>
>> What we can do as a Wikimedia Foundation is limited. We cannot bring a
>> computer to every house of this world but we can make our software ready
>> for the moment when the people from these houses find their way to a
>> computer.
>>
>
> A perfect phrase to describe what wikimedia is doing. May we quote it the
> pms
> edition? We are getting a page ready, to explain to the people what's this
> all about.
>
> Consider it a request for you to declare your phrase a PD statement :))
>
> B?rto


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Don't blame me. I've always been against turning wikitext into a
> programming language.

Perhaps the advanced functions should only be available in
template pages, and not in ordinary articles?  This would make it
one programming language for semi-developers (writers of
templates) and another non-programming language for articles.

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


body:
> And using semantic markup in a wrong way is even worse. There is no way
> to distinguish semantic and visual markup use of ''...''

When I started here, they were distinguished by putting semantic
emphasis in ''double quotes'' and visual italics in italic
tags.

> Someone would probably change them to ''' or '' respectively, assuming
> ignorance on the part of the original editor. Hell, I would :)

Sure, but lots of people misuse other markup, too.  We fix their
markup instead of changing the functionality of the software to cater
to them.

> I'm glad you did, otherwise you and I could have been caught in an
> infinite loop :)

:-)  Well, before the change in rendering, your changes would have
been bad and mine good.  Now they're the other way around.

> I don't know about "misuse". We have a strong need for italics, and ''
> is a very convenient way of getting them.

Yeah.

> :Indentation like this? Sure, that's what the colon in Wiki markup is
> designed for, as far as I know. I don't think there's even a better
> way of doing that?

Nope.  That's the markup for a dictionary definition:

; Word : definition
; Word 2 : definition 2
; Word 3 : long definition 3
: more of the long definition
: even more
; Word 4
: definition 4

It is commonly used for indentation, and has a similar visual effect,
but indentation would actually be something like this:

Normal paragraph

Indented paragraph

Normal paragraph


subject: [WikiEN-l] Page hit counts

body:
No.

Steve

On 4/6/06, Tom Harrison <tfharrison at gmail.com> wrote:
> Are any statistics available on what pages people are reading, and how
> often a given page is accessed?