from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Vandalism and small wikis

body:
Hi,

Darko Bulatovic a ?crit :
>
> Ray,
>
> Thank you for showing you interest in this, Yan just showed to me( and
> some of others) that they don't have a clue what they talk about. And

I know very well what I am talking about.
Stop talking about others when you don't know them.
And please stop NOW your political motivated propaganda.

> Regards,
> Darko Bulatovic

Yann


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikien-l

from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Introducing a new mailing list

body:
On 12/4/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/4/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's a shame. We could use a bit of female input in a predominantly
> male
> > wiki.
>
> Having a separate list is not preventing women having input into
> Wikipedia. It's about getting input from those who otherwise wouldn't
> participate.
>
> > Get over the uncomfortable feeling and speak your mind. I want to hear
> those
> > female thoughts on the mailing list.
>
> It's this sort of "get over it" attitude that dissuades people from
> wanting to join this discussion. The sexism, discrimination, and bias
> present in the Wikipedia community isn't something to "get over".
>
> Angela

I wasn't even aware such bias existed apart from the occasional help or
refdesk request addressed as "Dear Sirs". Can you give any examples of
sexism or bias on WP or the mailing list?

Mgm


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
Wikipedia has a problem

Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.

Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.

(Can't contact the database server: All servers busy)

----
Haven't seen this one before - doesn't have any link to fundraising or
anything either.

Steve


list: foundation-l

from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Introducing a new mailing list

body:
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/4/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> > Honestly the
> > way a woman can contribute in places like this by
> > overlooking all the subtle sexism.  By ignoring it
> and
> > pretending it is not about her.
> [snip]
>
> If, at some point in the future, we were all able to
> sit by and fail
> to notice a sexist comment flow by our screens
> because it is so
> foreign to us that it lacks all meaning.. then I
> think this would be a
> grand day indeed because it would signify the true
> death to sexism.
>
> Bigotry doesn't die when we simply avoid using bad
> words or statements
> because we know they are unacceptable, it dies when
> those bad words
> fail to make the slightest sense to us.
>

I don't think this is about what anyone would
recognize as bigotry.  It is about the fact the women
are not finding a way to participate here in
significant numbers.  Does that fact that there is not
overt bigotry involved make this an acceptable
situation?

> [snip]
> > If anyone who attended the Board Q & A at
> Wikimania and can still think it is not a serious
> > problem after witnessing the entire room laugh at
> dismissive comment which nearly brought > me to my
> feet in outrage
> [snip]
>
> It has been some months, and in that time I have
> forgotten many
> important things. So please do not consider my lack
> of memory of this
> comment as evidence of my opinion on the importance
> of the comment.  I
> simply do not remember what you are talking about,
> could you please
> refresh my memory and aid all who were not there?
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

>From the transcript although listening for it on the
audio recording would be more useful.

<anthere> may I ask a question to the room?
usually I travle, and b/c they support it.. I have 3
kids and have to take care of them, so it's not
considerd to be an expense
I just want to point out tha tI exaclty nyubmered the
cost for me to come here and have my child taken care
offor 3 days
I think it's the sam efor you : $285 for the 3 days,
my ost of my particpiation
tis is the sam e each time I travle. this isn't
conisdered a cost; that's all.
<alih> actually if you look on the blog, danny was
taking care of your baby, so the wmf is paying fo
ryour baby sitting
<laughter>

BirgitteSB

____________________________________________________________________________________
Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com.  Try it now.


subject: [WikiEN-l] the WP:USURP policy needs comments

body:
A much simpler solution would have been this:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6614

I'm not really sure why it was rejected. There doesn't seem to me to
be a lot of value in keeping "unused" accounts, and it shouldn't be
too hard to come up with a workable, implementable definition of
"unused" that everyone is happy with.

Steve

On 12/4/06, gwern branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> At the suggestion of Essjay, I'm trying to publicize the
> [[Wikipedia:Usurpation]]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Usurpation> proposed policy;
> it's a useful extension to the current user renaming system which
> would  allow beaucrats to rename active users in good standing to
> already existing but totally unused (no edits or actions of any sort)
> accounts.
>
> There are probably hundreds of thousands of usernames which have never
> been used in the slightest, and a lot of good short names have been
> locked up because we don't allow them to be deleted or renamed to
> something else (thus freeing up the original name). Quite a few users
> have specifically asked for this despite the dim prospects; something
> like 30 by now, I think.
>
> Anyway, the proposals has gotten a fair bit of support, but it doesn't
> seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats
> I've talked to, like Essjay, aren't willing to simply declare it
> policy or guideline because they are worried the community doesn't
> really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it
> and comment; it's rather unfortunate when good, consensus approved
> proposals stagnate and die just because they don't reach whatever
> magical number people are waiting for.
>
> --Gwern
> I've posted a version of this message to some other places to try to
> drum up some interest or discussion. My apologies if you see this
> multiple times.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On 12/4/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> AFAIK, it means exactly what it says.  I've been seeing it more
> and more lately, particularly at around 15:00 UTC weekdays, and
> for some reason a whole lot tonight.  It may be some strange
> database problem, or it may just be evergrowing load outstripping
> server capacity again..

I blame [[List of big-bust models and performers]]. Apparently our
most popular list.

Steve


from_name: Matt R

body:
Angela,

Any idea to make Wikipedia a more comfortable place for people to get involved
is a worthy one, and I support a forum for editors to discuss issues of gender
bias in wikis, to promote wikis to potential female editors, and for general
discussion of wikis in a female-friendly environment.

However, I have to confess to being unhappy with the existence of an
officially-endorsed *females-only* mailing list and wiki. Discussion isn't
enabled by segregating the people who should be talking to each other about a
problem, and I do not think Wikipedia should be in the business of excluding
people from discussions because of their gender. WikiChix can still be made a
female-friendly forum by use of moderation.

Ubuntu Women say, "Ubuntu-Women is not about segregation of women, rather its
goal is to integrate women as equals within the mainstream development going on
in the Ubuntu world. Remember, membership is open to all and not based on
gender alone. If you want to increase diversity and encourage women in Linux
please don't hesitate to speak to us."

I urge you to follow their example, but otherwise keep up the good work,

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
"Thomas Dalton" wrote

> I don't think there's any need to quote the passages we're using, just
> cite the paper in the usual way. There are plenty of academic
> Wikipedians that can verify the source.

That wasn't my point. I'm rather more obsessed with the practical issue of building the encyclopedia than with the theoretical one of verifiability in principle. Relevant quotes add to articles; obviously not just for the sake of it.

Charles

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from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] server architecture questions

body:
 Hi,

We're evaluating our server configuration and considering making some
changes and I was wondering if anyone had any input.

Right now we're running on 4 servers, (mostly 32 bit Xeon processors): 1 for
Squid, 2 for Apache and 1 for MySQL. We have 4GB of RAM for each server, and
run memcached on one of the Apache servers, and run eaccelerator on both
Apache servers. We're starting to see some symptoms of less reliable service
from Apache/PHP similar to what we were experiencing before we added our 2nd
Apache server - occasional high loads on the servers that are solved by
restarting Apache. Given our traffic has increased by 50% since then, we're
thinking of adding some more hardware. We're running Squid 2.6 (no epoll
-yet), Apache 2.2, PHP 5.1.2 and Redhat ES 4 as well.

We are thinking of moving to all 64 bit servers and adding a 3rd Apache
server. For the Apache/PHP environment, is the performance of the 64 bit
processor substantially better than the 32-bit? Would we get much more
performance by adding a 2nd 64-bit processor, or would we encounter other
system bottlenecks with PHP before we would experience the benefits of the
2nd CPU? I assume mostly for Apache/PHP that this setup is mostly processor
bound, right?

Is there any calculation that we can do to measure how many Apache servers
we should have based on traffic? Squid is only serving on average just less
than 100 requests per second, but sometimes goes over 150. Traffic is
relatively variable from day to day, and can vary as much as 50% between
consecutive days. Squid is effective in shielding traffic from the Apache
servers - but they still occasionally get a very slow and the load on the
servers can get quite high.

Also, is there a rule of thumb for how many Apache servers each Squid can
handle before moving to multiple Squids?

As for RAM - any recommendations? It doesn't seem like we're using a lot of
the 4GB on any of our servers - so I don't think we need more than 4GB. Are
there techniques we can be using to use RAM more efficiently in addition to
using memcached?

Thanks!


body:
"Thomas Dalton"

> I don't like this idea at all. It's the first case of sexism I've seen
> on Wikipedia. Discriminating against men is not a solution to
> discrimination against women (which as far as I can tell, doesn't
> exist anyway).

The odd things are that the chuntering on this list about 'no obvious sexism' has not only been just about self-refuting, but has has the unintended consequence of the setting up of said list. Now to see whether its continuation will drive women onto the new list ...

Charles (a male person)

-----------------------------------------
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from_name: Ivan Krstić

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> You may wish to consider ordering more powerful platforms. I run 6
> instances of the entire Wikipedia on a single Solera Appliance.
> These servers have throughput of 875 megabyte per second

I run a Wikipedia instance on the 366MHz OLPC XO-1
(http://dev.laptop.org/~krstic/xo); it works because I'm the only user.
Neither storage nor disk throughput help when your problem is sheer
load, and you're computationally-bound.

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On 12/4/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Ivan Krsti? wrote:
>
> >Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >>You may wish to consider ordering more powerful platforms. I run 6
> >>instances of the entire Wikipedia on a single Solera Appliance.
> >>These servers have throughput of 875 megabyte per second
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I run a Wikipedia instance on the 366MHz OLPC XO-1
> >(http://dev.laptop.org/~krstic/xo); it works because I'm the only user.
> >Neither storage nor disk throughput help when your problem is sheer
> >load, and you're computationally-bound.
> >
> >
> >
> I also have proxy servers setup and I get about 2000 visitors a day and
> over 300,000 hits per day.
>

Are there links for the capacity planning and performance testing that's
been done so far on production servers?

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


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 12/4/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > I'd like to invite all my friends in Wikimedia to both decline
> > membership in clubs build around overt gender discrimination
> > and to reject their biases by refusing to give voice to their
> > members in our overall community.
>
> Wow.  You're either with us or against us.  Shun the unbelievers.
> Way to be inclusive there, Greg.

I reserve the right to shun anyone who would unite under a banner of
bigotry and I hope you will take some time to consider it and do the
same.

I didn't make my decision on short notice, so I don't expect you to either.

It is, in my view, no different to create a woman-only list to discuss
solutions to gender biases within our projects than it would be to
create a men-only list to discuss solutions to irrationality within
our projects. In both cases a prejudiced determination is made about a
persons ability to productively discuss a subject based on an
unreasonable application of gender stereotypes.

Unlike affirmative action which can at least be argued to be a
mechanism to reduce bigotry by encouraging collaboration, I see no
fair justification for this act of segregation.

If the opportunity had existed, I would have implored the board to
refuse to allow the foundation's resources to be used for this sexist
mailing list but I was not given such an opportunity.  I do, however,
still have the ability to call on the rest of our community to reject
it as thoroughly as possible.

The examples of overt sexism that I've seen posed by people have been
examples of mostly-outsider k00ks like Mr. AM. But here today we see
what appears to be an offical, if only tacit, endorsement of sexism
against men. The great irony is that now that we have within our
community a concrete, intentional, and overt act of sexism to discuss
... our only list for discussing sexism is closed to the victims.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Wikiyouth

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com>
Date: Dec 4, 2006 1:18 PM
Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiyouth
To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org

In the spirit of announcing a mailing list for women, I would like to
announce a wiki and message board for the youth (20 and under) of wiki
communities. Below is our announcement letter / about page, since I feel it
bests describe the mission and I'll be darned if I make a redundant message.

Are you an advocate of youth rights on the Internet?

Have you ever used or edited a wiki, such as the world-famous Wikipedia?

Then we want you to join the Wiki Youth Movement.

http://www.wikiyouth.org/

Wikis like Wikipedia allow young people everywhere to share knowledge, ideas
and experiences. But wherever young people use the Internet, they are faced
with reactionary and condescending views. Fearful adults try to regulate the
content they can see and the communities they can contribute to. The Wiki
Youth Association seeks to give young readers, users and editors a voice.

Beyond demanding equal treatment as wiki contributors, our goal is to build
a shared understanding of wiki ethics. Vandalism and immature behavior are
condemned on most wikis, and sensible learning approaches for new wiki users
are encouraged. We want to have fun, but not at the expense of others. We
want to help you to understand the maze of wiki-rules, so that you too can
have fun.

We would also like to give intelligent young people a shared social space
where they can talk about their experiences in not only wiki communities,
but also their daily lives. eventually, we hope that we can develop the WYA
into a true social movement which organizes events and campaigns. But our
initial goals are modest: we only want to become the single largest
world-wide community of young wiki users.

The WYA is not a formal organization. There is no membership other than
registration for our wiki and forums.

Join today!
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 12/4/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/4/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Get over the uncomfortable feeling and speak your mind. I want to hear those
> > female thoughts on the mailing list.
>
> It's this sort of "get over it" attitude that dissuades people from
> wanting to join this discussion. The sexism, discrimination, and bias
> present in the Wikipedia community isn't something to "get over".
>

Yes, not something to "get over", but hopefully to "profoundly
challenge". I think it's probably fair to say that this reflects Mgm's
wishes - but how we facilitate and realise those wishes is equally as
important.

Cormac


from_name: Mak

body:
I would like to add my voice to those calling for the new list to be open to
all genders. Not only does restricting the list to "female" contributors
open up a whole can of worms as to what a "female" is, it also excludes
contributors who may add another perspective. I think having a list which is
limited to those who wish to join and which is firmly moderated will
ameliorate any difficulties with having "men" be on the list.

Makemi,
Female bodied
Gender less obvious

On 12/4/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> --- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Unlike affirmative action which can at least be argued to be a
> > mechanism to reduce bigotry by encouraging collaboration, I see no
> > fair justification for this act of segregation.
> >
> > If the opportunity had existed, I would have implored the board to
> > refuse to allow the foundation's resources to be used for this sexist
> > mailing list but I was not given such an opportunity.  I do, however,
> > still have the ability to call on the rest of our community to reject
> > it as thoroughly as possible.
>
> I'm not overjoyed by the "females-only" thing either, so how about we call
> on
> the WikiChix to open up their fora to both genders? I feel it's a little
> premature to start lobbying for them to be hurled from the Foundation's
> hosting. Wikipedia stands to benefit from initiatives that make it more
> female-friendly.
>
> -- Matt
>
> Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
> Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
>
> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.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
>


body:
On 12/4/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I'm not overjoyed by the "females-only" thing either, so how about we call on
> the WikiChix to open up their fora to both genders? I feel it's a little
> premature to start lobbying for them to be hurled from the Foundation's
> hosting. Wikipedia stands to benefit from initiatives that make it more
> female-friendly.

My derision only lasts only as far as my opposition.  So I think that
such a solution would bring a reasonable resolution. :)

However, I've heard that neither you nor I were the first to oppose
the discriminatory nature of the list so I didn't think simply
repeating that request would serve any purpose.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Caricatures ,
	fair use photographs and illustratice comics

body:
There's definitely a clear difference between an HTML page with img tags and
a jpeg cartoon.

On 12/3/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 12/1/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Then both licenses should apply. But this is pretty clearly a
> derivative,
> > not aggregate work.
> >
> Aggregate works under the GFDL almost always are derivative works.
>
> In this case yes, it's clearly a derivative, but it's not clear
> whether or not it's an aggregate (per the definition under the GFDL).
> There really are no precedents as to what an aggregate is under the
> GFDL.  If mixing images and text into an integrated work is not
> considered an aggregate under the GFDL, then the majority of
> Wikipedia's articles which contain images are in violation of the
> GFDL.
>
> This is not really a can of worms worth opening.
>
> Anthony
>
> > On 12/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 12/1/06, the wub <thewub.wiki at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > > Much as I hate meaningless fuss over copyright, aren't these comics
> > > > incorrectly licensed? The text is directly taken from Wikipedia
> articles
> > > -
> > > > presumably under the GFDL. But the images are licensed as CC-BY-SA,
> with
> > > no
> > > > reference to either the GFDL or fair use.
> > > >
> > > > That aside, they are quite brilliant.
> > > >
> > > > the wub
> > >
> > > Presumably text and images under different licenses can be combined to
> > > form an aggregate work.  Wikipedia articles do this all the time.
> > >
> > > Anthony
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] tiff files?

body:
Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> On 12/2/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>
> > For example, the image http://runeberg.org/img/nfad/0670.4.png is
> > 240 kbytes in 150 dpi 16-level grayscale PNG but only 200 kbytes
> > in 600 dpi bitonal TIFF G4.  The difference between 150 dpi
> > grayscale and 600 dpi bitonal becomes very clear when you try to
> > print the page on a 600 or 1200 dpi laser printer.
>
> Well, you should compare apples to apples. The image you specified
> becames only 58 kbytes wen saved as 1-bit (bitonal) PNG. And bitmapped
> formats like PNG and TIFF have no concept of "dpi"- that's an external
> manipulation made by the printing program. You need to compare images
> with the same pixel sizes.

Sorry for the confusion.  Allow me to clarify this.

Were you able to read the text from that 58 kbyte image?

This page was original scanned in 600 dpi bitonal and saved as
TIFF G4, a format supported by most scanner software.  The image
is 3616x5550 pixels and the resulting file is 196 kbyte.  You can
get it here:

  http://runeberg.org/img/nfad-0670.tif

Since most web browsers don't support TIFF, and since 600 dpi is
nowhere near the resolution of most computer screens, the web
presentation uses a downscaled (by a scale factor 1:4) grayscale
image instead. The conversion process is roughly:

  tifftopnm | pngscale .25 | ppmquant 16 | pnmtopng

In the resulting image, now 200 kbytes, every 150 pixels
correspond to one inch of the printed page, from which it was
originally scanned.  Thus, I'm using the shorthand terminology
that this is now a 150 dpi image.  Since most computer screens
have a resolution in the rage 100-120 dpi, this means the image is
displayed a little "larger than life".

Scanning at 600 dpi is something of a standard for printed text.
Many scanned books can then be displayed on screen in 120 dpi
(downscale 1:5), but this book (an encyclopedia) has small print
which is more readable in 150 dpi.

You suggest the original TIFF image could be saved as a 1-bit PNG
instead, and this is true.  The conversion process is:

  tifftopnm | pnmtopng

The resulting image 404 kbytes or twice as large as the TIFF G4
image.  You can get this at http://runeberg.org/img/nfad-0670.png

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


body:
On 12/4/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Since Anthere approved the list being hosted
> by Wikimedia, I thought that would be the best place for it for now.

If it's going to stay there, please put a disclaimer like "The
WikiChix mailing list and wiki are not officially endorsed or operated
by the Wikimedia Foundation" in the list description.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
> That wasn't my point. I'm rather more obsessed with the practical issue of building the encyclopedia than with the theoretical one of verifiability in principle. Relevant quotes add to articles; obviously not just for the sake of it.

Quotes in the article where appropriate are fine - I thought you meant
in the footnotes (you mentioned "more verbatim footnotes".

If you're writing an article on a mathematical theorem, for example,
quoting from the paper that first discussed it (ie. the main primary
source) would probably add to the article. I'm not sure quoting
secondary sources would be useful very often, though.


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
On 12/4/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Dec 2006, Justin Cormack wrote:
> > No, it has been accepted but not enforced. It has always been agreed
> > that
> > we dont accept fair use images when we can have free ones.
>
> But "can have" is, I think, being interpreted in a way which is far from
> universally accepted.  Was it really intended all along that we "can have"
> a free image when all that that means is that someone, somewhere, could
> track down a person and take a photograph under a free license, regardless
> of how hard the person is to track down or how much stalking one would have
> to do to get the photograph?

That's not what's being enforced here.  If someone is a noted recluse
and the only available picture is a fair-use one, then the image
passes FUC #1.  On the other hand, if someone makes weekly appearances
in front of tens of thousands of people, there's no reason to use a
non-free image of him.

It's much like the "reasonable person" standard in law: is it possible
that a [[reasonable person]] can make or find a free-license picture
of this?  If yes, then any non-free image of it fails FUC #1.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 12/4/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Ivan Krsti? wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>You may wish to consider ordering more powerful platforms. I run 6
>>>>instances of the entire Wikipedia on a single Solera Appliance.
>>>>These servers have throughput of 875 megabyte per second
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I run a Wikipedia instance on the 366MHz OLPC XO-1
>>>(http://dev.laptop.org/~krstic/xo); it works because I'm the only user.
>>>Neither storage nor disk throughput help when your problem is sheer
>>>load, and you're computationally-bound.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I also have proxy servers setup and I get about 2000 visitors a day and
>>over 300,000 hits per day.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Are there links for the capacity planning and performance testing that's
>been done so far on production servers?
>
>

I have no links.  Most of my hits are from Google, Inktomi, Answers.com,
and other search engines.  The server
is under constant pummeling from these robots.    Users only account for
about 23% of my daily hits.

Jeff

>
>
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>George Herbert wrote:
>
>
>
>>On 12/4/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Ivan Krsti? wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>You may wish to consider ordering more powerful platforms. I run 6
>>>>>instances of the entire Wikipedia on a single Solera Appliance.
>>>>>These servers have throughput of 875 megabyte per second
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>I run a Wikipedia instance on the 366MHz OLPC XO-1
>>>>(http://dev.laptop.org/~krstic/xo); it works because I'm the only user.
>>>>Neither storage nor disk throughput help when your problem is sheer
>>>>load, and you're computationally-bound.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I also have proxy servers setup and I get about 2000 visitors a day and
>>>over 300,000 hits per day.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Are there links for the capacity planning and performance testing that's
>>been done so far on production servers?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>I have no links.  Most of my hits are from Google, Inktomi, Answers.com,
>and other search engines.  The server
>is under constant pummeling from these robots.    Users only account for
>about 23% of my daily hits.
>
>Jeff
>
>

These numbers do not take into account the constant DOS attacks and
hacker attempts I get from mainland China.  I have the servers setup
on dynamic IP ranges which switch between several IP subnets every other
week to allow folksin China to get access.  Most of the traffic,
unfortunately, are attacks designed to kill my servers from China.  They
have been having a hard time of late since I setup the SSH ports to
jump around between ranges other than port 22 after 3 or more failed
attempts to login via SSH.

Jeff

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
Rob Church wrote:

>On 04/12/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Yes, Ivan; that's why Jeff suggested provisioning more powerful
>>platforms.  :-)  That he mentioned throughput is really a red-herring
>>here...
>>
>>
>
>Let's filch a couple supercomputers.
>
>

:-)

Jeff

>
>Rob Church
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


body:
I don't deny that there's a problem but this is not the right way to deal
with it. Closed advocacy groups should not be officially recognized by or
use Wikimedia resources.

On 12/4/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > Angela a ?crit :
> > > Following recent discussions on wikien-l where a
> > number of women said
> > > they were not comfortable contributing to the
> > discussion, a new
> > > mailing list has been created for female wiki
> > editors to discuss
> > > issues of gender bias in wikis and ways to
> > encourage more female
> > > editors, and just as a place that females can feel
> > more comfortable
> > > posting to.
> > >
> > > It's called WikiChix - named after LinuxChix, the
> > women-oriented
> > > community for Linux users.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxChix
> > >
> > > If you are female and interested in wikis, I would
> > like to encourage
> > > to join the mailing list at
> > >
> >
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikichix-l
> > >
> > > There's also a wiki at http://wikichix.org/ - let
> > me know your
> > > username if you'd like an account there. Some of
> > the pages are openly
> > > editable, so even if you're not female, you are
> > welcome to post your
> > > comments at http://wikichix.org/wiki/Comments
> > >
> > > The FAQs for the related communities at
> > >
> >
> http://wikichix.org/wiki/WikiChix#Related_communities
> > answer a lot of
> > > questions about why this was created, so please
> > read those for more
> > > information until we have our own FAQ.
> >
> > They are always been a gender bias in Wikipedia,
> > first by the simple
> > fact that there are much less women editors than
> > men. This is
> > particularly obvious on the French Wikipedia from
> > the start, so it is
> > not specific to one language. I think the numbers of
> > women editors has
> > increased lately, but women are still far from being
> > about the same
> > number as men.
> >
> > Until recently, I thought that the problem would
> > solve itself over time,
> > when Wikipedia becoming more mainstream. I read the
> > thread on wikien-l
> > and I think that the problem is more serious than I
> > thought. The first
> > problem is when people (men only ?) do not see that
> > the problem exists.
> > It remembers me of the tale of the fish and water.
> > When asked its
> > opinion about water, the fish said: "Please show me
> > some water. I don't
> > see any water."
> >
> > It is sad that women feel the need for a separate
> > list, but denying them
> > this tool will not help solve the problem. So I hope
> > that the list will
> > serve its purpose and helps women feel more
> > confident on Wikimedia projects.
> >
> > > Angela
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Yann
> >
>
> I am completely shocked after reading the archive at
> Wikien-l .  My first thought on this list was that it
> should be open.  I still would prefer it to be open,
> but it will never exist if comments like those that
> are showing up on Wikien-l arre to be how it is
> started.  There is such a lack of belief that the
> problem exists or that it is serious which is shocking
> to me.  If anyone who attended the Board Q & A at
> Wikimania and can still think it is not a serious
> problem after witnessing the entire room laugh at
> dismissive comment which nearly brought me to my feet
> in outrage; I do not know what to say to them.  And I
> do not think the participation of such people who must
> have these problems proved to them  will help the
> situation.
>
> I have to force myself to write this after closing the
> "Compose" window a dozen times.  But I feel it is
> important to be honest about this here.  Honestly the
> way a woman can contribute in places like this by
> overlooking all the subtle sexism.  By ignoring it and
> pretending it is not about her.  By not responding to
> these threads and not drawing attention to the fact
> that she is not a man.  By not writing email like this
> one.  I do not know how to participate in a discusion
> about this subtle sort of dismissive sexism with the
> people who dismiss it. Not if I want to turn around
> and work with them on-wiki.  I hope this new list can
> be something that is open for anyone to join.  I hope
> the men who would join would take the opportunity to
> listen in to such a discussion rather than shape it.
> But after reading the wikien-l archive I really am
> worried many could not stop themselves from arguing
> the point.  I don't know the answer.  I do know that I
> will *not* discuss this topic with a number of the
> people commenting at wikien-l, because they don't get
> it.
>
> If anyone thinks I don't get.  Maybe you are right.
> Maybe this is just all in my head and it was
> irrational of me to react so strongly to the comment
> at Wikimania.  Maybe there are legions of women
> secretly contributing to the wiki's right now, I mean
> who really know which gender someone is.  Maybe there
> isn't a problem at all.
>
> BirgitteSB
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
> http://new.mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: florencedevouard

subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Florida (29-30th of november)

body:
Dear community,

The board of Wikimedia Foundation had a meeting last week in St
Petersburg, Florida, in WMF office.

This report is to give you information
* on the agenda of the 2 days board meeting
* provide partial or complete information on the outcome of each item on
the agenda
* inform you of what is planned next
* give you a more personnal view on my few days in St Petersburg

The big items (not necessarily in that order) on the agenda were
* board expansion
* advisory board
* bylaws
* audit
* budget
* executive director search
* projects
* legal update
* reorganisation (committees...)
To which I will add fundraising, as it was discussed quite a lot as well

---------

Board expansion
We had to 1) replace Tim Shell, 2) plan next elections, 3) make
decisions over how to expand the board
It was a set of issues I expected would be problematic, but we actually
rather easily and quickly settled down on an agreement.
A very detailed resolution will make that plain official, but the basic
ideas are these ones:

We will work toward a progressive expansion of board, up to a number of
probably 11, to be expected in july 2008.
2 new members will be added (by appointment) before the end of the year
on the board, until next elections in july 2007.
Tim Shell will be replaced before the end of the year, by appointement,
for a term of one year.
All appointements will be for one year from now on, which means Jimbo
and Michael Davis terms will expire in a year. Appointements may be
renewable.
Elections will take place every year for 3 positions (3 positions in
july 2007, 3 positions in july 2008). Elected seats is for 2 years term
and may be renewed. Elections will stay direct elections, but procedures
and rules (such as requirements for candidacy or voting system) may
evolve. The board is apparently opened to the concept of appointing in
the future, a member which would be warmly recommanded by chapters.
Last, the board pledged the majority of the board would be from the
community (through appointements or elections)

To be very specific
The board was also concerned by the risk of instability at next
elections, due to the important influx of new members (possibly very
knowledgable about the Foundation, or possibly not) and important
departure of current members (Erik, the two new temp members and
myself). The board consequently suggested that I, be appointed to the
board from july 07 till june 08, which I accepted (OMG).
The board came up with names for the three newly appointed members, but
we first need to check whether they agree :-) You'll be informed once
agreement is given. Stay tuned !

---------
Bylaws
It is my *immense* privilege to announce that ALL board members agreed
on new bylaws.
Working on bylaws is a tedious job, and a really serious job when one
considers the impact it may have on the Foundation for the years to
come. I wished changes in the bylaws before I ever thought of being on
the board... It only took 2 years and a half to secure board members in
a room together and get that done ! An amazing achievement.

What is next ?
There is a legal requirement, for a delay between modifications and
formal approval. We will all take the time to read the new bylaws again
quickly, before putting our "stamp of approval". Note as well that we
temporarily agreed on a default mission statement. The work and poll on
meta in the vision/mission statement is still ongoing, and the outcome
will be updated in the bylaws later on.
The lead in the bylaws topic will be Erik, who also volunteered to
explain some of the finer choices we made in the new bylaws. He will
give more feedback soon on this very list. Follow the flag.

---------

Audit
Next big achievement, an invisible but major effort from Michael Davis
(our treasurer), Brad Patrick (our exec dir), Jimbo, Danny, and of
course the auditors.
The audit of the first three years of existence of the Foundation is
over. Consider thanking these people.

Why is that important ?
Because the board as the duty to ensure the law is respected. Because
the board has the duty to ensure the activities of the Foundation follow
the mission stated in the bylaws. Because we need to be transparent
toward community and toward donors about what we are doing with the
revenue. Because with an audit and with good results (which we do have),
we will have the opportunity to go and seek grants and sponsorships,
with facts rather than expectations of "good faith" from donators.
We do the right thing with the money and an independant party is our
garantee of this.

I'll add the auditors gave us much input and recommandations, suitable
for our rapidly growing organisation. They recommanded rules and
procedures to create to ensure we keep on track.
What is next ?
A report is being prepared, with the audited financial statements. Due
soon (as in *very* soon). Follow Brad on this.

---------

Budget
Well, slightly less successful here. The item was left at the end of the
meeting, which was best since the two days decisions could (and did)
created new revenues and new expenses suggestions.
We however sort of run out of time (and of energy), so I can not say we
have a full budget. We do not.
However, the major areas (hardware etc...) are analysed. We also
considered a budget was easier to agree with, online, than, say, bylaws
revisions.

---------

Advisory board
Several months ago, the board agreed to create an advisory board, but it
had yet to be populated and members engaged.
This item on the agenda is also a satisfactory outcome. We came up with
a list of about 20 people, who need to be contacted (and to agree). We
also came up with ideas to engage them. Some are actually informally
helping on various matters already.
What's next ?
We first need to contact them all.

---------

ED Search
ED stands for Executive Director. I'll be quick on this one. We
currently have an interim director, we are seeking for a more permanent
one;  We are currently working on the job description and exploring the
option of using a search firm. We met one in Florida.

---------

Legal stuff
Three differents issues were discussed.

Jimbo had some information to provide on the gfdl licence and where it
was going. It is yet too early to have a good announcement about this,
but I just wished to let you know this is ongoing and Jimbo is taking
care of that.

We approved a default agreement between chapters and Foundation,
regarding non commercial uses of brands by chapters. This agreement was
crafted in the past weeks in particular by Delphine (our chapter
coordinator), Alison (UK chapter chair), and Brad (legal counsel). This
agreement is to be used as template for future individual agreements
between Foundation and all chapters, to be done in the next weeks. A
resolution on this issue will be published on the foundation in the next
few days. The current agreement does not include agreement for
commercial  uses (chapters still need to contact Foundation for this for
now)

Last, we had a thorough review of our trademarks and took decisions over
those. You should not expect information about that now, as any
publishing of information may be detrimental to our strategy.

---------

Projects
Several points, very specific with some projects or some languages, were
discussed during the meeting. I'll update each person or group of
persons who have made requests, in the next few days.
The tech summit already suggested during the board retreat was further
discussed, though nothing formal has been decided.

---------

Reorganisation
Last, we had a fruitful discussion over the reorganisation, in
particular of the committees. We'll deepen this discussion in the coming
weeks. Board members more involved in this discussion are Erik, Tim and
myself.

---------

Fundraising
Last, the Foundation is preparing the next fundraising, which is planned
to start on friday (though we may have a few days delay possibly).
Preparing the fundraising is currently using a lot of our time, so
please bear with us with the publishing of all feedback on things
mentionned above. More to come on fundraising topic very soon.

---------

Generally, I was very happy with that week in Florida. Though pretty
tiring, it was incredibly fruitful. So much fruitful than irc
discussions, or even phone discussions, that we'll plan more face to
face meetings in the future. Since three board members are likely to
join us very soon, we'll try to organise the next face to face board
meeting in january or february.

Regarding the outcomes of the board retreat in Frankfurt last october,
we are pretty much in track. The only issue on which we are "late" is
the tech summit, but we need to organise that carefully. Haste would do
us no good.

It was also the first time all board members were visiting the office,
and I'd say it was extremely positive to do so.
I met with Barbara and Carolyn. Barbara is a black woman of maybe 25-30.
Until now, she was only introduced to me as "the one answering the
phone". She does much more than that, dealing a lot with documents,
acting in tandem with Danny, fixing coffee and generally spreading
happiness all around. Carolyn is a woman in her 40ies, very smily and
quiet. She is our bookkeeper, and I hope she stays with us for a long time.

My first sight of the office was an open door with a big (Wikipedia)
poster on it. All other offices in that building have closed doors.
After one walks past the poster, one gets in a corridor with the signed
Wikimania banner. And it is open...
Who else than us could have office doors open this way ?

I hope you have found this report useful. More details (resolutions,
charters, agreements etc...) will be posted on Foundation wiki shortly.
Please ask questions as needed.

Florence Devouard
Chair of Wikimedia Foundation


body:
On 12/4/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Honestly the
> way a woman can contribute in places like this by
> overlooking all the subtle sexism.  By ignoring it and
> pretending it is not about her.
[snip]

If, at some point in the future, we were all able to sit by and fail
to notice a sexist comment flow by our screens because it is so
foreign to us that it lacks all meaning.. then I think this would be a
grand day indeed because it would signify the true death to sexism.

Bigotry doesn't die when we simply avoid using bad words or statements
because we know they are unacceptable, it dies when those bad words
fail to make the slightest sense to us.

[snip]
> If anyone who attended the Board Q & A at Wikimania and can still think it is not a serious
> problem after witnessing the entire room laugh at dismissive comment which nearly brought > me to my feet in outrage
[snip]

It has been some months, and in that time I have forgotten many
important things. So please do not consider my lack of memory of this
comment as evidence of my opinion on the importance of the comment.  I
simply do not remember what you are talking about, could you please
refresh my memory and aid all who were not there?


from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

body:
Gregory Maxwell says:
> The great irony is that now that we have within our
> community a concrete, intentional, and overt act of sexism to discuss
> ... our only list for discussing sexism is closed to the victims.

The second irony is that there is no list accessible to you for discussing
sexism, and yet I can still hear you discuss it. Loud and clear. From three
lists over. Let's tone it down then, shall we?

Allow me, if you will, to quote something from a week or so ago on the Other
Sexism Thread, written by yourself:

> In any case, the attacking tone this thread has taken.. especially by
> those who are claiming to be attacked is especially troublesome.   I
> was and am honestly afraid to post my thoughts as a result of it.   I
> think you should take a step back and think about that before
> replying.

Regards,
Dan Mehkeri


from_name: Ilario Valdelli

body:
I don't understand the problem...

If female editors has problems to participate in discussion I think
that this is a general problem which sould be solved in another way.

I could agree with you if female editors are slower than male
contributors to write and they need a dedicated list for this reason!

Ilario

On 12/4/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Following recent discussions on wikien-l where a number of women said
> they were not comfortable contributing to the discussion, a new
> mailing list has been created for female wiki editors to discuss


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Introducing a new mailing list


from_name: Darko Bulatovic

body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Darko Bulatovic a ?crit :
>
>> Ray,
>>
>> Thank you for showing you interest in this, Yan just showed to me( and
>> some of others) that they don't have a clue what they talk about. And
>>
>
> I know very well what I am talking about.
> *Stop talking about others when you don't know them.*
>
You are one that do that Yann. I don't have reason to doubt that you
know what you are talking about and why.
> And please stop NOW your political motivated propaganda.
>
What you are saying is childish. It is interesting that you don't find
any respect to prove your claims to this community. I am calling you
hole this time in this thread to just do that, but you go on same road
of false accusations and assumptions. And you find this OK?

Yann, I don't think that this is level of discussion on which I wish to
participate.

Regards,
Darko Bulatovic


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

body:
On 12/4/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> --- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Unlike affirmative action which can at least be argued to be a
> > mechanism to reduce bigotry by encouraging collaboration, I see no
> > fair justification for this act of segregation.
> >
> > If the opportunity had existed, I would have implored the board to
> > refuse to allow the foundation's resources to be used for this sexist
> > mailing list but I was not given such an opportunity.  I do, however,
> > still have the ability to call on the rest of our community to reject
> > it as thoroughly as possible.
>
> I'm not overjoyed by the "females-only" thing either, so how about we call on
> the WikiChix to open up their fora to both genders? I feel it's a little
> premature to start lobbying for them to be hurled from the Foundation's
> hosting. Wikipedia stands to benefit from initiatives that make it more
> female-friendly.
>
> -- Matt
>
> Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
> Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
>
> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.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
>

What would the reactions be if a "men only, not women allowed" list
had been created.

Women's list: GOOD
Women's list no males allowed: BAD


list: commons-l

from_name: Bence Damokos

subject: [Commons-l] New tool - User dupes

body:
Great tool!
Is there a way to make it cross wiki, so to find commons duplicates on a
local wiki, that are not under the same name, and not from the same user?

Bence

On 12/3/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Fulfilling a request, I added "User dupes" to my set of toys. For a
> user and a wiki (wikipedia or commons), it can find uploaded files
> identical in size (pixels and bytes) but different names.
>
> Magnus
>
>
> [1] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/userdupes.php
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] New tool - User dupes

body:
On 12/4/06, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Great tool!

Thanks!

> Is there a way to make it cross wiki, so to find commons duplicates on a
> local wiki, that are not under the same name, and not from the same user?

Well, cross-checking one million commons images against a few hundred
thousand on one of the larger wikipedias might kill the toolserver
quite efficiently ;-)

Or did you mean, given a wikipedia and a user, find duplicates on the
local wiki and commons alike? That would be possible.

Magnus


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Europe down

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

There appear to be some major problems upstream from our European
proxies in Amsterdam; about 15 minutes downtime there so far. Mark's
switching DNS for Europe to the Florida servers in case the problem
continues.

Note that our Bugzilla installation is also hosted on the European
servers, so it'll remain offline as well until Amsterdam's back up.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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=6a3g
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Europe down

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

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Note that our Bugzilla installation is also hosted on the European
> servers, so it'll remain offline as well until Amsterdam's back up.

The toolserver, also.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
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CcxbHFEGwxZkOol7H0tFSBk=
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-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
"Thomas Dalton" wrote
> Quotes in the article where appropriate are fine - I thought you meant
> in the footnotes (you mentioned "more verbatim footnotes".
>
> If you're writing an article on a mathematical theorem, for example,
> quoting from the paper that first discussed it (ie. the main primary
> source) would probably add to the article. I'm not sure quoting
> secondary sources would be useful very often, though.

I'm not thinking about mathematics here. I am thinking about giving verbatim quotes in footnotes: I thnk this can  be clarifying, and can add to the article. I wouldn't suggest any extended quoting that doesn't clearly add value.

Charles

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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
On 12/4/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This makes me very nervous, as I envision people challenging all sorts
> of what are now unchallenged, acceptable sources because they can't be
> bothered to go to the library and check out a widely available book.

We already have the situation where some sources (ie, web sites) are
obviously much more verifiable than others (books). Why would
converting some of the latter into the former suddenly make the whole
system implode?

> No way am I going to start scanning things in.  This sort of thing
> should only be reserved for unavailable sources in controversial
> articles (things that probably shouldn't be used in controversial
> articles anyway, but that's another issue) and if we set up a system
> for it, it will encourage people to use and demand this sort of
> verification. AGF and a library card should suffice.

I wasn't actually suggesting forcing or even encouraging people to
scan stuff in. But for people who already *have* it, or *want* to,
there is actually no way to do this.

The situation that crops up more often for me is taking photos of
information plaques at tourist sites - I use the information on them
later on to write the article, and would like to make the image
available for someone who wants to verify what I've done, or possibly
to expand on it. I don't think copyright is an issue. Nor is anyone
going to travel hundreds or thousands of kilometres to do it, for what
is a pretty trivial article.

Now, I *have* the image. Where do I put it?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
On 12/4/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> One could just as easily wonder if wikipedia.org might one day dissapear.

Wikipedia at least has the advantage that it's actively mirrored in
several places, probably has hundreds of other copies floating around,
and explicitly encourages further replication.

> A friend of mine works for the Internet Archive.  They believe they're
> stable and mostly technically/talent limited on growth.

Yeah, I don't think it's really likely to disappear soon, but it would
be nice not to have to rely on third party organisations with which we
have no affiliation. And as I said, it's only a partial solution
anyway - that only works for websites, and ones that were archived at
the right time, at that.

> If there's significant concern on these points, then the Wikimedia
> Foundation could form an exchange agreement with the IA, trading
> copies of the respective databases, for redundancy.

Hmm, you're suggesting taking a copy of a database consisting of
several terabytes of data is preferable to copying a few webpages?
Think of all that hardware...

> Or send some of the $1 billion everyone keeps talking about thataway ;-)

$0.1 billion, but anyway...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
On 12/4/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's always been accepted in the most part, yes.  However, the
> meaning of 'can have free ones' has changed.  Previously, it required
> more than a theoretical possibility of a free alternative.

These days, political activism is definitely getting in the way of the
concrete goal of producing an encyclopaedia.

Steve


body:
On 12/4/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> You need to register an account if you want to set your preferences -
> Wikipedia has more readers than writers, there are probably a number of
> people who are familiar enough with the site to know this, but have no
> interest in editing.

Do we have any numbers? Can we count the number of people in each of
these categories:

1) Never logged in
2) Logged in but never changed anything
3) Set preferences, but never edited
4) Edited, but not in main articlespace
5) Made at least one edit in main article space

To my mind, those in categories 1-3 should not be hogging valuable
user names if those in 5 want them. Exceptions of course for people
protecting established user names from other wikipedias, but they can
edit their own user page to solve that...

> The other issue is one of authorship.  We can't re-use an account that has
> made any edits, so what's the benefit in deleting accounts which haven't
> been used in a while?

Reattributing edits is primarily a technical problem.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
> I'm not thinking about mathematics here. I am thinking about giving verbatim quotes in footnotes: I thnk this can  be clarifying, and can add to the article. I wouldn't suggest any extended quoting that doesn't clearly add value.

I don't think verbatim quotes in footnotes would add any value. If
people want to read the source for themselves, they can do so.

Standard academic conventions are to cite the source and simply give
enough detail for someone to be able to find it for themselves, not to
quote the source (unless you are actually discussing the source, in
which case the quote goes in the main text). I don't see why quotes
would add to Wikipedia when they are clearly not considered to add to
academic papers and books.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Reliable sources" guideline being treated as
	absolute policy

references:
<f30e42de0611280509o645a2a1g5a554e4a388b922e@mail.gmail.com>
	<fbad4e140611280541r30db09bck6b5562fffd6f3ee@mail.gmail.com>
	<f30e42de0611280549p781614d3hc43c2ae8ca2a10d5@mail.gmail.com>
	<2244.63.151.8.141.1164722527.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<bscpm2p0i11u0gga2qec13uc237tbun3u7@4ax.com>
	<456D30F0.7060800@shaw.ca>
	<7qqrm29onedcsgrlgbfboe05ab8uucsr73@4ax.com>
	<456E3C2B.4030104@shaw.ca>
	<1d0um2hro7ma93oum14sturmvat8ankm24@4ax.com>
	<a1be7e0e0611301455y2e789648laa36bcc7c0eb2b01@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 12/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course we now get so far into wiki-lawyering that we have to
> explicitly say that things are "popular" enough to get into the
> "popularity" based wikipedia.

A cameo appearance on the Simpsons is possibly notable. A cameo
appearance on a low-budget short-lived TV show that aired three times
on a local TV show in Kazakstan is not. The popularity of the show is
fundamental to the notability you gain from having appeared on it.
Wikilawyering or not.

Steve


references:
<f30e42de0611280509o645a2a1g5a554e4a388b922e@mail.gmail.com>
	<f30e42de0611280549p781614d3hc43c2ae8ca2a10d5@mail.gmail.com>
	<2244.63.151.8.141.1164722527.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<bscpm2p0i11u0gga2qec13uc237tbun3u7@4ax.com>
	<456D30F0.7060800@shaw.ca>
	<7qqrm29onedcsgrlgbfboe05ab8uucsr73@4ax.com>
	<456E3C2B.4030104@shaw.ca>
	<1d0um2hro7ma93oum14sturmvat8ankm24@4ax.com>
	<a1be7e0e0611301455y2e789648laa36bcc7c0eb2b01@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70612032115h3f3e40c1k59a85d1dbb29893f@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 12/4/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> A cameo appearance on the Simpsons is possibly notable. A cameo
> appearance on a low-budget short-lived TV show that aired three times
> on a local TV show in Kazakstan is not. The popularity of the show is

...local TV station rather.

Steve


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On 12/4/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Rob Church wrote:
>
> >On 04/12/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Yes, Ivan; that's why Jeff suggested provisioning more powerful
> >>platforms.  :-)  That he mentioned throughput is really a red-herring
> >>here...
> >
> >Let's filch a couple supercomputers.
>
> :-)
>
> Jeff
>

Why filch?  Call up and order...

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Angela schreef:
> Following recent discussions on wikien-l where a number of women said
> they were not comfortable contributing to the discussion, a new
> mailing list has been created for female wiki editors to discuss
> issues of gender bias in wikis and ways to encourage more female
> editors, and just as a place that females can feel more comfortable
> posting to.
>
> It's called WikiChix - named after LinuxChix, the women-oriented
> community for Linux users. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxChix
>
> If you are female and interested in wikis, I would like to encourage
> to join the mailing list at
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikichix-l
>
> There's also a wiki at http://wikichix.org/ - let me know your
> username if you'd like an account there. Some of the pages are openly
> editable, so even if you're not female, you are welcome to post your
> comments at http://wikichix.org/wiki/Comments
>
> The FAQs for the related communities at
> http://wikichix.org/wiki/WikiChix#Related_communities answer a lot of
> questions about why this was created, so please read those for more
> information until we have our own FAQ.
>
> Angela
Hoi,
I have read the threat, and though the motivation saddens me as it shows
that this need is felt, I can only welcome it when more women find their
way to be part of our community. My experience has been that women
typically provide sorely needed level headedness.

One sad thing to remember is, that all things of relevance to women are
only some out of many that would benefit from more attention. For
instance all subject where "enemies" are seen, need more attention. When
it is shown that they are as human as you and I, it will be hard to
continue this hatred because you would not want to hate me nor I want to
hate you ..

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Attack blogs in WP:LIVING articles

body:
Yesterday I blocked Fys for edit warring and serial reversion in
respect of text sourced from an attack blog in the article on Anne
Milton, a British Conservative MP.  We know from other evidence that
Fys is an active member of the Labour party; this may or may not be
considered relevant.

The content was actually jointly sourced to the attack blog and to an
article in the press.  Another editor has modified the content to be
sourced solely from the press article.

Fys is now agitating for the blog itself to be linked.  I don't think
it's appropriate.  It is probably acceptable in the article on its
author, Tim Ireland, but I don't see how it comes under any of the
acceptable reasons for linking to a blog, especially in a WP:LIVING
article.

Fys being Fys, this is not going to go away until he gets his way or
some escalation takes place.  I'd like to know whether it's worth the
effort - in other words, is it OK to link an attack blog if it is
mentioned elsewhere, albeit as a bit of local colour in the election
coverage?  I note that the blog is not linked from the Times article
from which the text is sourced.

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


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 12/4/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> The second irony is that there is no list accessible to you for discussing
> sexism, and yet I can still hear you discuss it. Loud and clear. From three
> lists over. Let's tone it down then, shall we?

It's not my problem if you can't tell a complaint from an attack.

I've criticised no person here, only an action. I've provided what I
hope to be a clear argument about why I think the action is
intolerable, and with Matt's help, I provided input on how to resolve
the matter. What else would you like from me?

As I stated before, It was already 'suggested' that a closed list
would be inapproiate. The suggestion was not followed. Obviously the
next step is condemnation of the act.

>> In any case, the attacking tone this thread has taken.. especially by
>> those who are claiming to be attacked is especially troublesome.   I
>> was and am honestly afraid to post my thoughts as a result of it.   I
>> think you should take a step back and think about that before
>> replying.

The difference here is by explicilty refusing access to a wikimedia
list  to people on the basis of their gender creates an act of
prejudicial discrimination. No sane member of our community could deny
this obvious fact.

In the prior thread from which you quote me out of context, people
were being attacked and called sexist *merely* because they disagreed.
The exchange I commented on did not contain overt and indisputable
sexism.

It would be appropriate for you to throw my words at me if I were
attacking and calling someone a sexist when there was no clear
evidence of sexism on their part beyond disagreeing with me since that
is what I was lamenting in the prior thread.

It is not appropriate for you to recall those words when I am
complaining about a patently sexist act without regard for who
committed it or if they agree with me.


from_name: Alexandre NOUVEL

subject: [Commons-l] New tool - User dupes

body:
Hi all,

---Selon Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com>:
> Well, cross-checking one million commons images against a few hundred
> thousand on one of the larger wikipedias might kill the toolserver
> quite efficiently ;-)

Well, I agree that image processing is a very CPU-consuming task, and
cross-checking adds to the difficulty.

However, I think that it may be possible to build a kind of hash
signature for each file and sort them to find duplicates. The process
itself of hashing would require some time but may be splitted amongst
some servers. The resulting hash lists may then be sorted, so that
matching signatures would lead to further checking of their initial
images.

One drawback for this solution is to maintain a huge index of all the
signatures (each one associated with the image name and the originating
wiki).

Or perhaps I'm just writing bullshit :)

Best regards from France,
--
Alexandre.NOUVEL at alnoprods.net
|-> http://www.alnoprods.net
|-> La copie priv?e et l'auto-diffusion menac?es : http://eucd.info
\ I hate spam. I kill spammers. Non mais.


body:
On 12/4/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> What would the reactions be if a "men only, not women allowed" list
> had been created.
>
> Women's list: GOOD
> Women's list no males allowed: BAD

I'd still complain just as loudly either way.. but the fact that the
woman-only list was created implies that not everyone shares my
perspective.

I wouldn't be shocked to see someone propose that the problem of the
sexist womans list could be solved by the creation of a sexist mens
list. After all, "separate but equal" in one guise or another is a
reoccurring ugliness in human civilization.


from_name: Angela

body:
Following recent discussions on wikien-l where a number of women said
they were not comfortable contributing to the discussion, a new
mailing list has been created for female wiki editors to discuss
issues of gender bias in wikis and ways to encourage more female
editors, and just as a place that females can feel more comfortable
posting to.

It's called WikiChix - named after LinuxChix, the women-oriented
community for Linux users. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxChix

If you are female and interested in wikis, I would like to encourage
to join the mailing list at
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikichix-l

There's also a wiki at http://wikichix.org/ - let me know your
username if you'd like an account there. Some of the pages are openly
editable, so even if you're not female, you are welcome to post your
comments at http://wikichix.org/wiki/Comments

The FAQs for the related communities at
http://wikichix.org/wiki/WikiChix#Related_communities answer a lot of
questions about why this was created, so please read those for more
information until we have our own FAQ.

Angela

--
Angela Beesley
wikiangela.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Europe down

body:
On 12/4/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Note that our Bugzilla installation is also hosted on the European
> > servers, so it'll remain offline as well until Amsterdam's back up.
>
> The toolserver, also.
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>

No BGP multihoming there?

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


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 01:35:12PM -0500, Ivan Krsti?? wrote:
> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> > You may wish to consider ordering more powerful platforms. I run 6
> > instances of the entire Wikipedia on a single Solera Appliance.
> > These servers have throughput of 875 megabyte per second
>
> I run a Wikipedia instance on the 366MHz OLPC XO-1
> (http://dev.laptop.org/~krstic/xo); it works because I'm the only user.
> Neither storage nor disk throughput help when your problem is sheer
> load, and you're computationally-bound.

Yes, Ivan; that's why Jeff suggested provisioning more powerful
platforms.  :-)  That he mentioned throughput is really a red-herring
here...

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

	(I've been informed that the 'divorce' quote makes me look
	misogynistic, even though Jennifer Crusie is (pretty obviously)
	a female romance novelist.  So I've removed it. :-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia has a problem

body:
On 12/4/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 05/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why filch?  Call up and order...
>
> I'd like my money tree dispatched via airmail, please.
>

I would expect that a little effort would result in Wikipedia finagleing
something like the educational institutiton discounts out of most vendors.
Do you have any idea how deep those discounts typically are?

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


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Phrase, fable, popular culture

body:
On 04/12/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I was promoting the idea of Wikifable, a place where myths could be written in narrative mode. As indeed a place to transwiki such material: so that we have a range of places. Superman on WP should be analytical and sourced, on Wikifable could give the outline of the Superman comix/TV/film stories.

WikiFable sounds a little narrow in scope. I'm not sure what approach
a larger project would take: creative writing in general?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] SOS -- Save Our Sources

body:
"Thomas Dalton" wrote

> > I'm not thinking about mathematics here. I am thinking about giving verbatim quotes in footnotes: I thnk this can  be clarifying, and can add to the article. I wouldn't suggest any extended quoting that doesn't clearly add value.
>
> I don't think verbatim quotes in footnotes would add any value. If
> people want to read the source for themselves, they can do so.

Well, no. This thread is about disappearing sources, no? Having verbatim what is being referred to could help:

(a) in replacing a source by a close equivalent;
(b) in localising exactly what point is being made, so that further sources can be added;
(c) in not needing to go to a library that was available;
(d) for the billions who don't have a handy academic library, not leaving them out in the cold with a mere reference.

> Standard academic conventions are to cite the source and simply give
> enough detail for someone to be able to find it for themselves, not to
> quote the source (unless you are actually discussing the source, in
> which case the quote goes in the main text).

Wikipedia's readers are not only academics, and we do not aim at academics. We aim at a treatment superior to almost all journalism, but we do not assume the reader has the academic resources available.

>I don't see why quotes
> would add to Wikipedia when they are clearly not considered to add to
> academic papers and books.

Because our articles are not academic papers.

Charles

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body:
Guy Chapman wrote

>  I'd like to know whether it's worth the
> effort - in other words, is it OK to link an attack blog if it is
> mentioned elsewhere, albeit as a bit of local colour in the election
> coverage?  I note that the blog is not linked from the Times article
> from which the text is sourced.

The defaults are that blogs are not reliable sources, and that we do not link to attack sites. You need to justify your characterisation of the blog as 'attack site'. The other party needs to justify this site as a reliable source. It is conceivable that both of you have adequate warrant for these claims.

Selectively linking to partisan sources is possible under policy, but naturally a 'shield' of NPOV must be present in the article.

Charles

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body:
"Oldak Quill" wrote

> WikiFable sounds a little narrow in scope. I'm not sure what approach
> a larger project would take: creative writing in general?

Traditional dictionaries 'of phrase and fable' contain, as well as mythology, proverbs, folkways, odd expressions. Random page opening: a page with 'enfant terrible', 'England's Darling' (turns out to be Hereward the Wake), 'Queen's English', 'Englishman's home is his castle', inter alia. (And 'inter alia' is between 'IQ' and 'intercalary'.) The cover alludes to 'myth, folklore, legend and literature'.

I'm not suggesting anything quite so diffuse, but there is this genre of dictionary, and we already have the wiki dictionary, and quotation dictionary, in place.

Charles

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body:
On 04/12/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> This view, and several others like it, are discussed in depth in the
> FLOSSPOLS gender report:
>
> http://flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.pdf
>
> On page 20:
>
> "Some people - both men and women - interpret the mere mention of gender as
> somehow 'reiterating' the 'artificial' differences between the sexes [...] "
>
> "However, our study also found that the attitude of some of the male F/LOSS
> participants towards women creates an atmosphere which can be described at
> least as not women-friendly.
> "Whereas most hackers see themselves as neither sexist nor hostile towards
> women there is a clear distinction on how women and men perceive and
> experience interaction within the F/LOSS community."
>
> They present survey results showing that women perceive a bias in open
> source communities whereas men do not. They go on to discuss why this is.
> Most of their findings are framed in a way specific to open source software,
> but they could easily be extended to this forum. The primary issue of
> relevance to mailing lists and communication is flaming. Men are much more
> tolerant of it than women. Says Susan Herring in "Gender and Power in Online
> Communication":
>
> http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/archive/CSI/WP/WP01-05B.html
>
> "Politeness is one common means through which gender is cued in asynchronous
> CMC. Women are more likely to thank, appreciate and apologize, and to be
> upset by violations of politeness: they more often challenge offenders who
> violate online rules of conduct (Smith et al., 1997), and predominantly
> female groups may have more, and more strictly enforced, posting rules
> designed to ensure the maintenance of a civil environment (Hall, 1996;
> Herring, 1996a). In contrast, men generally appear to be less concerned with
> politeness; they issue bald face-threatening acts such as unmitigated
> criticisms and insults, violate online rules of conduct, tolerate or even
> enjoy 'flaming', and tend to be more concerned about threats to freedom of
> expression than with attending to others' social "face" (Herring, 1994,
> 1996a, 1999)."
>
> CMC is computer-mediated communication, "asynchronous" CMC refers to
> newsgroups, mailing lists, etc. as opposed to instant messaging.
>
> Knowing all this, an optimistic man may try to change everyone's mind on the
> importance of good behaviour and civility, and to create a forum where both
> men and women can participate comfortably. Wikipedia itself was started with
> such ideals in mind (e.g. "WikiLove"). But my experience has led me to be
> more jaded.
>
> I support Wikichix, in the hopes that it may become a platform for women to
> discuss the implicit bias against them in male-dominated wikis, in a forum
> where they won't be subjected to instant incredulity and attack, as they
> have been in this thread. I hope that they will be able to formulate and
> promote guidelines for non-discrimination, for application at mixed wikis
> such as Wikipedia. In the meantime, while they're waiting for these
> guidelines to be accepted by the community at large, Wikichix may be able to
> expound the problem and discuss coping strategies, so that they can more
> confidently participate in the present-day wiki culture.
>

I'm just curious as to why we're making a seperate list based on
gender on an essentially genderless medium. The quote states that
women are averagely "more likely to thank, appreciate and apologize,
and to be upset by violations of politeness", could one not say the
same about certain nations, cultures and ages? Should we therefore
also create new groups based upon national and cultural identities?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Puppy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> This should not be one the Wikmedia servers. Just start a googlegroup.
>
>
Why not?


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
Mark Wagner wrote:

> That's not what's being enforced here.  If someone is a noted recluse
> and the only available picture is a fair-use one, then the image
> passes FUC #1.

I've ran into people who read FUC #1 in a way that would mean deleting
an image of J D Salinger.  They don'tt hink someone like him would pass
FUC #1.

FUC #1 is a dismal failure.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 12/5/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's not what's being enforced here.  If someone is a noted recluse
>> and the only available picture is a fair-use one, then the image
>> passes FUC #1.  On the other hand, if someone makes weekly appearances
>> in front of tens of thousands of people, there's no reason to use a
>> non-free image of him.
>>
>
> If we don't *have* a free image of someone, why should we not use a
> non-free image? This is the bit I don't get. Yes, by all means,
> someone should go out and photograph Mr John C Popular Esquire. But
> until they've done that, why deprive ourselves of the fair use image?
>
>
Because collecting other people's images and inserting them into WP is
just as much a violation of their rights as it would be to insert the
entire texts of their books and articles? We can hardly expect anybody
else to respect WP's licenses if we don't respect theirs.  Fair use is
supposed to be a way out of unavoidable binds, not a justification for
extreme laziness.

Stan


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 04/12/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm just curious as to why we're making a seperate list based on
> gender on an essentially genderless medium. The quote states that
> women are averagely "more likely to thank, appreciate and apologize,
> and to be upset by violations of politeness", could one not say the
> same about certain nations, cultures and ages? Should we therefore
> also create new groups based upon national and cultural identities?

wikimediauk-l

- d.


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 12/4/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/12/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm just curious as to why we're making a seperate list based on
> > gender on an essentially genderless medium. The quote states that
> > women are averagely "more likely to thank, appreciate and apologize,
> > and to be upset by violations of politeness", could one not say the
> > same about certain nations, cultures and ages? Should we therefore
> > also create new groups based upon national and cultural identities?
>
> wikimediauk-l

Without commenting on Oldak Quill's point, that list is for the
organisation of a chapter, not for discussing non-local issues from a
particular viewpoint.  And it isn't limited to UK residents.

--
Sam


subject: [Commons-l] Image ID. Looking for community input.

body:
Someone came to me with an image they believed they obtained from
commons but where unsure of exactly where they found it...

I was eventually able to locate the image, but it took a lot of work.

Had the image been deleted for copyright problems it would have been
nearly impossible but it is in exactly that sort of situation which we
may need the ability to find the image the most.

I have locally a database of image fingerprints (quantized color
histograms) which could be used to locate images... it didn't work for
this case because the image was newer than our last image backup
(which was last year). It might be useful but it's not a complete
solution.

I wanted to get input from the community on a couple of actions we
might like to take to improve the situation in the future:

# On upload we could attach the URL the image was uploaded as to the
image in an EXIF tag.  There are a great many EXIF tags defined and
I'm sure we could find a fitting one. This would only work for .JPG
but it would be easy to implement.  As a separate topic, we should
consider adding license data to our exif tags (I do it for my images,
but we should perhaps do it more generally.   This would be fairly
easy to do and I don't think this would be controversial, although
there would be some complexity with respect to image moves once we
gain that ability in the future.   Does anyone object to this?

# We could also add the same in the PNG comments... although such use
of png comments is non-standard .. I don't think it would break
anything. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

# We could add some RDF tags to SVGs for the same purpose, although I
think the PNG rasterizations of SVGs would be more important.

# Finally, something that might be somewhat controversial:   I think
it would be a good idea to add some text to the (raster) thumbnail
image on the image page. My idea is that we would add an extra white
area below the image large enough to contain a line of text which
mentions where the image came from. This would have a two fold
benefit: 1) it would encourage people to use the full resolution image
for reuse, 2) it would cause automated scraping processes which hit
our image pages to preserve human readable tracking information.
Unlike a classic watermark this addition could be removed via
cropping.  Technically this would require just a few more arguments to
imagemagik during thumbnailing, but we'd have to make a few other
changes to handle smaller images and to treat the image page thumb
differently from other same-sized thumbs.

In general I think we need to think about how to push our metadata
into the image files themselves. Only if the metadata is embedded in
the images will downstream users have a hope of keeping track of the
images. If the rest of the world did this our lives would be much
easier, so let us do on to other as we would have others do onto us.


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Introducing a new mailing list

body:
Hello.

On 12/4/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Angela,
>
> Any idea to make Wikipedia a more comfortable place for people to get
> involved
> is a worthy one, and I support a forum for editors to discuss issues of
> gender
> bias in wikis, to promote wikis to potential female editors, and for
> general
> discussion of wikis in a female-friendly environment.
>
> However, I have to confess to being unhappy with the existence of an
> officially-endorsed *females-only* mailing list and wiki. Discussion isn't
> enabled by segregating the people who should be talking to each other
> about a
> problem, and I do not think Wikipedia should be in the business of
> excluding
> people from discussions because of their gender. WikiChix can still be
> made a
> female-friendly forum by use of moderation.
>
> Ubuntu Women say, "Ubuntu-Women is not about segregation of women, rather
> its
> goal is to integrate women as equals within the mainstream development
> going on
> in the Ubuntu world. Remember, membership is open to all and not based on
> gender alone. If you want to increase diversity and encourage women in
> Linux
> please don't hesitate to speak to us."
>
> I urge you to follow their example, but otherwise keep up the good work,
>
> -- Matt
>

I fully support this opinion. Although this have surely been done in good
faith, I refuse to consider segregation as a good solution to a problem.

--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
I think somebody has previously said that that's because it wouldn't
be compatible for use outside of Wikipedia, and we do have a lot of
forks and mirrors.  We don't regulate that, so we would need to get
the copyright holder to completely give up rights to the image for
safety.  And that's not always fun for everybody.  The contradiction
is peculiar and unfortunate, but makes some sense.

--Ryan

On 12/4/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/5/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Certainly the most obvious case would be one in which the hollywood
> > star did not own the copyright to the photo.
>
> We're talking about publicity shots aren't we? As in, photos that are
> provided to the media so they can write puff pieces about
> them...presumably the publicist owns the copyright, and presumably it
> is legal for the media to use them this way. So presumably also legal
> for Wikipedia to use them as the lead image for relevant articles. But
> possibly not legal for downstream Wikipedia content reusers...
>
> The interesting issue though is that we probably have permission to
> use these types of images without resorting to "fair use", but we
> actually prohibit ourselves from using that kind of image: we accept
> free images, we accept fair use...but not "permission granted for
> Wikipedia". It's a strange one.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Commons-l] Blind move

body:
On 12/4/06, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think threatening to delete all uploads is not a good option. I
> don't think you are actually  even allowed to delete _all_ of
> somebody's contributions based on the fact that the majority of them
> is a copyvio.

Sure we are, if we as a community choose to do so. It's our ball, we
make the rules.

> I think talking is the best option. If he doesnt react
> or continues, a short ban might be on the right place in my opinion,
> so that we have the time to clean up the mess.

I agree that talking is the best option. Ideally we should get him to
clean it up himself.  If he will not, then we must weigh the options.

If his images are too suspect it may be best to delete them all, or
perhaps it will not be. That is for the community to decide.  After
some more thought and investigation I might support such a decision
myself.

After seeing images such as
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Joydivision_setembro1978.jpg,
and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gameboycolor.gif I must
admit that I'm not to inclined to trust anything coming in via that
path.

There are also a *lot* of images which are web-thumbnail resolution
with strange borders or bevels which look suspect.... and no shortage
of logos http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Foobar.png
incorrectly labled as GFDL... and .. and .. and..


body:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 17:26:13 +0000, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>The defaults are that blogs are not reliable sources, and that we do not link to attack sites. You need to justify your characterisation of the blog as 'attack site'. The other party needs to justify this site as a reliable source. It is conceivable that both of you have adequate warrant for these claims.

Sounds reasonable.  The blog header is "Anne Milton - Guildford MP
(and Dipstick)", which seems to me to be quite a long way from studied
neutrality :-)  Since the entire thing doesn't really elevate itself
above the level of schoolyard name-calling I don't see that it has
much relevance at all, but Fys seems to want it in there.

http://www.bloggerheads.com/anne_milton/

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


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 12/4/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > This should not be one the Wikmedia servers. Just start a googlegroup.
> >
> >
> Why not?

Because:
* The list is restricted based on the discriminatory preference of gender
* A goal of the list is to provide an outside forum for advocating change in
Wikimedia/Wikipedia
* Having Wikimedia resources be used to support the list implies endorsement
of its standards and goals
* Having Wikimedia resources be used to support the list means that
Wikimedia can apply pressure on/control over the users of the list

Or, in more classical Cunctator language, it's a bad idea. So do it on your
own dime.