subject:
[Textbook-l] Problem with NPOV,
	and the textbook definition question

body:
SBJohnny wrote:
>Actually, 2 of our philosophy books are rather
>missionary too, one mostly advocating for a "Universal
>Religion". I don't think there's any baby in that
>bathwater...

That book already had been up for VfD this year (i dont remember precisely
when), but the general consensus was to keep it because it didnt violate
NPOV, and didn't explicitly violate Original Reseach. That book is what I
would call a "grey area", and without a specific "textbook" definition, most
people were reluctant to delete it because it wasn't a cut-and-dry case.

>I think keeping the textbook definition fairly vague
>is better than pigeon-holing it. Aside from texts that
>might be used for graduate school through
>kindergarden, there is other materials that might be
>used for emergency preparedness and response,
>scouting, etc.

Precisely! The word "textbook" can be so vast if we want it to be. Consider
youth groups, or senior-citizen groups. Consider excercise classes at the
gym, or home-improvement courses at home depot. There is alot of material
that can be learned outside the walls of a school or university. A
definition for "textbook" would need to account for all of this, without
allowing all the blatant nonsense. This contradiction is, i think, the
reason why we haven't produced a satisfactory definition for the word yet.

>I do understand the dislike for video game guides... I
>don't think I'd want to see a book on "how to use a
>beer bong" for similar reasons. Some video games are
>(I'm told) educational, and I think having something
>about them might be ok. Shoot-em-up games (etc.) might
>be good for hand-eye coordination, but having a book
>about the game isn't necessarily going to enhance
>this.

Again, a grey area that we can't really decide on one way or another until
we define "textbook". Unfortunately, the decision might be made for us,
because it seems like the videogame guides that we have left are migrating
out of their own accord.

--Andrew Whitworth


list: textbook-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Textbook-l] Problem with NPOV

body:
Andrew Whitworth wrote:
> I'm not saying that I want Jimbo to mandate a definition to us, but I also
> don't want him making generalized statements of what "does and does not
> belong" on wikibooks if there is no formal policy to back such statements
> up. If he wants the world to know that material on wikibooks must follow
> such and such criteria, then that criteria should be laid out unambiguously
> in policy. There currently is no policy, ergo we cannot be expected to know
> unambiguously what does and does not belong on our project. We do need to
> "pick through" such matters, and the outcome might not always be what Jimbo
> or the foundation wants.

Well, I think the policy is pretty clear, and yes, as the community
applies the policy in practice, I don't always agree with the outcome,
nor do I expect to always agree with the outcome.

I am not sure why you are saying there is currently no policy.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] virus on mainpage

body:
That'll be something nasty on your system, I strongly suspect! I've
forwarded your message to the website admins, though, just in case
anyone has reported something similar.

- d.

> Don't know if it was for real, but it triggered several times when giong on
> wiki but not when staying on the google homepage. Norton flagged up the
> viruses and I concluded that they came in as a temporary file from your
> website
>
> Seems to have gon away so
>
> As I run from my wifes acount I cant check the log of norton to see if it
> left any tracks there
>
> Sorry if I caused any panic but I had checked for some time and the problem
> seemed consistent.

> old message
>
>
> could you please check
>
> When logging on your website http://en.wikipedia.org/ you fetch a virus
> payload including trojan.dropper and generic dialler
> Explorer does not disconnect any more when shut down as background task is
> running


from_name: Andrew Whitworth

subject: [Textbook-l] Problem with NPOV

body:
Jimbo Wrote:
>Well, I think the policy is pretty clear, and yes, as the community
>applies the policy in practice, I don't always agree with the outcome,
>nor do I expect to always agree with the outcome.
>
>I am not sure why you are saying there is currently no policy.

because to the best of my knowledge there currently is no specific policy
that says specifically what a "textbook" is.

This policy is currently "proposed", but is a long way away from being
enforced:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Textbooks

This policy is a broad cover-all, but again never states specifcally what a
"textbook" is, nor how to distinguish between "instructional resources" that
do belong here, and "instructional resources" that don't belong here ([[How
To Build A Pykrete Bong]] was instructional, and NPOV, but we deleted it
anyway as mostly a matter of conscience):

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW

Fact is that the wikibooks policy cannon is very incomplete.

--Andrew Whitworth


list: wikien-l

from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Can anything be done about Deletion Review?

body:
On 9/11/06, Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd agree. I don't know what the solution is, but there has to be something
> better than have a small group of people discuss/vote (the latter despite
> the use of newspeak) on deleting articles, when those who are involved on
> AFD are either an uninvolved and usually ignorant (of the subject) group, or
> an involved but biased group brought there by message-spamming/vote-rigging.
> In fact, having the latter group represented as fully as possible is
> entirely reasonable.
>
> However, it's laughable to suggest that AFD reflects the consensus of
> Wikipedia editors, and further than that, that would not even be sensible
> either. It is not sustainable to suggest the majority would be correct.
> Finally, having such random groups of editors discuss/vote makes little
> reference to what readers would like.

Well, yes.  AFD and its ilk are designed precisely to maximize the
ability of the "uninvolved" to !vote on as many nominations as
possible, as efficiently as possible.  (Hence the emergence of
WikiVoter, or whatever they're calling it this week.)  This is not a
function of the particular details of the process, incidentally, but
rather the fact that a rigidly centralized process like the current
AFD necessarily encourages people to participate on topics of which
they are mostly ignorant (and about which they couldn't care less,
usually -- except for the fact that they happened to come up in that
day's deletion listings).

(The obvious consequence of this is that we can expect any fundamental
change to AFD will be rigidly resisted by those whose heavy
participation in the deletion process might be curtailed by such a
change.)

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Nineteen "never heard of it, delete" followed by one "Keep, I'm an
> expert and I've added full references confirming its verifiability and
> notability" is supposed to result in a keep, 'cos it's not a vote.

Careful there, d -- an out-of-hand, heretical assertion like that
is liable to make some people's heads explode.  Do you want that
on your conscience?


from_name: arvid at fargonauten.de

subject: [Wikitech-l] Q: import of images/thumb generation (v. 1.5.8)

body:
Dear wikitech-l readers,

I'm seeking for advice on a problem I'm facing migrating the content of one Mediawiki installation to another fresh one. To make it short:
the thumbs are not displayed in-text, but instead the images themselves are.
The data was exported with dumbBackup as xml from a 1.5.7 Mediawiki and imported with mwdumper -sql:1.5 to a MW  v.1.5.8 (same with 1.7.1). The images folder was copied, chmoded and rebuildImages --missing was run, refreshLinks was run as well. (mysql is 4.0.24-10sarge2 on the source and 4.1 [ubuntu dapper] on the target machine).
I posted on mwusers.com but did not receive any comment on this issue yet. It must be fairly trivial I guess, since wikipedia will probably migrate things a lot, but I couldn't find any sign of discomfort about this strange behaviour on the lists.

Thanks for any hint,
 Arvid


from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

body:
> Oh, and thanks to people claiming the "DRV doesn't have a snowball's
> chance in hell of being deleted" (despite the fact that several people
> were strongly in favour)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Deletion_review&diff=74910190&oldid=74909559

Damnit.

There ought to be a way to review inappropriate MfD closures like this.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Andrew Lih

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
	Is there inspectors to investigate admins?

body:
On 9/10/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For comparison, on en:wp -
> >
> > On en:wp, there was a perception for a long time that admins were
> > impossible to remove even if they were widely thought to have gone off
> > the rails. Then in early 2006 a bunch of admins got de-adminned by the
> > Arbitration Committee after Jimbo asked the AC to look into the matter
> > in question:
> >
> >  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war
> >
>
> There were previous simular cases.
>
> Day to day admins are regulated by other admins. I don't think en has
> a sysop-mailinglist.

Not only is there not an en:wp admin mailing list, the lack of one
speaks directly to what role admins play in en:wp. I believe both
Dutch and German have mailing lists for sysops, where admins
deliberate on decisions. At least in the case of de: the weight of all
admins is behind the action of anything endorsed by consensus on that
mailing list. This is quite a bit different than the "janitor" role
that en:wp tries to keep admins to. (But even in en: it's certainly
grown to be more than a janitor's role.)

I think it would be great to document community "norms" for each of
the 10-15 largest Wikipedias just to get a feel for what best
practices are out there.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Death Phoenix

body:
On 9/11/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Oh, and thanks to people claiming the "DRV doesn't have a snowball's
> > chance in hell of being deleted" (despite the fact that several people
> > were strongly in favour)
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Deletion_review&diff=74910190&oldid=74909559
>
> Damnit.
>
> There ought to be a way to review inappropriate MfD closures like this.
>

Apart from DRV, right? The problem from what I see based on this discussion
is not with the fact that the DRV page actually exists, but how it's being
used. Ironically enough, the DRV page is supposed to be the place to discuss
inappropriate closures. The problem with DRV isn't that it exists, but
perhaps it is how it's being used and maybe (according to some) how it's
named. I sure hope it's not how it's named, because that would once again
smack of political correctness (it's already been renamed from VFU). IMHO,
it's not the name that's the main problem but how it's being used.


subject: [Foundation-l] Observer story on China and Wikipedia

body:
FYI - silly headline for a self-serving (for The Observer) article.

Yes, Wikipedia is defying Chinese censors by... er... well... doing
nothing and being itself.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

----

Wikipedia defies China's censors

David Smith and Jo Revill
Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1869006,00.html


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 11/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not only is there not an en:wp admin mailing list, the lack of one
> speaks directly to what role admins play in en:wp. I believe both
> Dutch and German have mailing lists for sysops, where admins
> deliberate on decisions. At least in the case of de: the weight of all
> admins is behind the action of anything endorsed by consensus on that
> mailing list. This is quite a bit different than the "janitor" role
> that en:wp tries to keep admins to. (But even in en: it's certainly
> grown to be more than a janitor's role.)

As an idle footnote, I ran some numbers last night - en.wp has about
twice as many admins per article as the average among its peers
(average is 2500-3000 articles/admin, lowest in peer group is ~2000,
en.wp was something like 1300)

The reason this statistic is somewhat surprising is that when you
graph admin numbers against other factors (number of active users,
number of edits, etc)... then the admin-to-article ratio on en.wp is
the one that stays roughly constant, and you'd have expected it to be
comparable elsewhere. Interesting.

> I think it would be great to document community "norms" for each of
> the 10-15 largest Wikipedias just to get a feel for what best
> practices are out there.

There's a brief set of articles on en.wp about the largest individual
wikis... perhaps using these, and their other-language counterparts,
as the nucleus for something on meta would work?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Grandmother copyrighted anonymous works

body:
>
> On 9/11/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > And then there's the related case of photographs taken "under
> > direction" (my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button).
> > This has a sort of "work for non-hire" feel to it, and I'm sure
> > it's been discussed at length, too.
>
> I don't think it has been discussed, and such images have been deleted
> in the past - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Minneapolis_meetup_2005.jpg
>
> I guess such images are fair use if you never asked the person using
> your camera to license the image.
>

Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to
take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.

With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.

Without comment.

The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No?
Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?

Dan


body:
> > Damnit.
> >
> > There ought to be a way to review inappropriate MfD closures like this.
>
> Apart from DRV, right?

No, DRV was what I had in mind. I suppose I could have added a smiley, but
smileys make [[Kibo]] cry, you see. Like so:

;-(


from_name: Noah Spurrier

subject:
[Wikitech-l] importDump.php error,
	WikiRevision given a null title in import.

body:
I am able to import over 700 articles using importDump.php, but
part way through the process I get get an exception complaining that
a Wiki Revision was given a null title. Any tips on how to resolve this?
I'm using MediaWiki 1.7.1 with a wiki dump downloaded current
from August 17th.

Do I need to provide more information?

# bunzip2 -dc /root/enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2 | /var/www/PHP
maintenance/importDump.php
100 (257.70138911503 pages/sec 257.70138911503 revs/sec)
200 (215.85242404671 pages/sec 215.85242404671 revs/sec)
300 (194.56211852307 pages/sec 194.56211852307 revs/sec)
400 (188.27240827463 pages/sec 188.27240827463 revs/sec)
500 (189.25815368724 pages/sec 189.25815368724 revs/sec)
600 (177.78198503318 pages/sec 177.78198503318 revs/sec)
700 (177.9798646001 pages/sec 177.9798646001 revs/sec)
WikiRevision given a null title in import.
Backtrace:
#0
/var/www/usr/local/apache2/vhosts/10.3.0.13/wiki/includes/SpecialImport.php(620):
WikiRevision->setTitle(NULL)
#1 [internal function]: WikiImporter->in_page(Resource id #51, 'revision',
Array)
#2
/var/www/usr/local/apache2/vhosts/10.3.0.13/wiki/includes/SpecialImport.php(418):
xml_parse(Resource id #51, 'idsummer Night'...', 0)
#3
/var/www/usr/local/apache2/vhosts/10.3.0.13/wiki/maintenance/importDump.php(110):
WikiImporter->doImport()
#4
/var/www/usr/local/apache2/vhosts/10.3.0.13/wiki/maintenance/importDump.php(97):
BackupReader->importFromHandle(Resource id #50)
#5
/var/www/usr/local/apache2/vhosts/10.3.0.13/wiki/maintenance/importDump.php(132):
BackupReader->importFromStdin()
#6 {main}


from_name: Carl Peterson

body:
On 9/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/09/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Oh, and thanks to people claiming the "DRV doesn't have a snowball's
> > chance in hell of being deleted" (despite the fact that several people
> > were strongly in favour), I've now created the proposed policy of
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_Undeletion for your
> > perusal.
>
>
> Well, it arguably didn't, regrettable as that is.
>
> Possible workable split: DRV for strict process review; AFU for merit
> undeletion.
>
> Perhaps keep DRV as a general over-arching policy and add "Process Review
of Deletion" (or something similar) for process appeals and Articles for
Undeletion for content appeals. Basically, disambiguate the usage and
intent.

Carl


from_name: Zoney

body:
On 09/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/9/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_September_7#Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion.2FEsoteric_programming_languages
>
> Stop screwing up deletions in the first place?
> --
> geni
>
>
I'd agree. I don't know what the solution is, but there has to be something
better than have a small group of people discuss/vote (the latter despite
the use of newspeak) on deleting articles, when those who are involved on
AFD are either an uninvolved and usually ignorant (of the subject) group, or
an involved but biased group brought there by message-spamming/vote-rigging.
In fact, having the latter group represented as fully as possible is
entirely reasonable.

However, it's laughable to suggest that AFD reflects the consensus of
Wikipedia editors, and further than that, that would not even be sensible
either. It is not sustainable to suggest the majority would be correct.
Finally, having such random groups of editors discuss/vote makes little
reference to what readers would like.

I'm aware that my discussion gives little credit to those who participate in
AFD, and do carefully look at the background in various subjects, who do
consider what the encyclopaedia should include for readers, and are suitably
unbiased to give a proper opinion.

However, there is no mechanism to rely more on opinions of worth than
worthless opinions. This problem of course applies to Wikipedia across the
board.

Zoney out.

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/11/06, Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> What if you ask someone to take a photo of you at a tourist
> attraction?

You are in a legal grey area.

>We have to account for things like that. You can't say,
> "Can you please take a photo of me and my wife? Here's my camera. Oh,
> and while your're at it, could you release all rights to that?"
>

Why not?

--
geni


from_name: Tomasz Ganicz

body:
2006/9/11, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com>:
> On 9/11/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I think it would be great to document community "norms" for each of
> > > the 10-15 largest Wikipedias just to get a feel for what best
> > > practices are out there.
> >
> > There's a brief set of articles on en.wp about the largest individual
> > wikis... perhaps using these, and their other-language counterparts,
> > as the nucleus for something on meta would work?
>
> On Japanese Wikiquote, there is an admin norm document. Once some
> Wikipedians including Tomos and me discussed to have an equivalent on
> Japanese Wikipedias too, but this attempt seems to be on a deadlock.
> Lacking such document though, I observe the spirit of once drafted
> document is shared by most active Japanese sysops both on all
> projects, including Wikipedia, of course.
>
> I think proposals in this thread are thoughtful and helpful, including
> * Create "good customs on my Wikipedia" page
> * Page(s) of comparison of core value documents
>

On Polish Wikipedia there is a page collecting all rules, which admins
should follow:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sprawy_administracyjne

I think that forcing new customs or rules which comes from the "top"
might create a natural opposision. I think the best place to put such
a general "good customs" translations would be rather meta. Then it
might be a good starting point how to slowly apply it to the all
projects after duscussion within project's communities which should
individally decide how to "customize" them to the nature and current
rules of their projects.

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.poli.toya.net.pl
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> seeking comments and criticisms from the wiki community.

Q: What's this supposed to do?
=============
---- test
=============
A1: "

test
".
A2: Treat it as a 4-deep unordered list element.

>From the "Internal and External Links" section
( http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Creole0.1#section-Creole0.1-InternalAndExternalLinks ), you have both internal and external links
using double square brackets, e.g.:

=============
[[MyBigPage|Go to my page]]
[[http://www.wikicreole.org/]]
[[http://www.wikicreole.org/ | Visit the WikiCreole website]]
=============

Doesn't that implicitly assume that articles don't start with "http://" ? And is the "http://" matching case-sensitive or not?

Certainly on the English Wikipedia, we have article names that look like URLs. E.g. these are all valid wiki articles or redirects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/http://www.google.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/http://www.ebay.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/http://amazon.com
And there's also these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ftp://
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mailto:

How is the user to create a internal link to these pages? Currently "[[Http://www.google.com/]]" will give an internal link,
although "[[http://www.google.com/]]" will not; hence the case-sensitivity question.

> We plan to release a final spec on **Monday**, so
> last day to comment on Creole 0.1 is this Sunday.

Sorry, but I was away on leave last week, and so I didn't get around to reading this until today.

> > > Creole is attempting to
> > > provide a small set of standardized markup that wiki engines can support
> > > in addition to their native markup; eight wiki engines, including
> > > MediaWiki, have committed to providing Creole support.
> >
> > We're committed? I must have missed that bulletin.
>
> I said I'd try a test implementation. Haven't had time to work on it yet.

Danger, Will Robinson! Syntax conflicts ahead.

Q: If "**" means start & stop bolding in Creole, and the creole spec says "Bold and italics should be able to cross lines", and
we're wanting to support both native + Creole, then what's this going to render as?
==========
** test1
** test2
==========
A1: Two list elements as per current.
A2: "test1test2".

Q: If "{{" is used for image insertion in creole, what's this going to render as?
==========
{{cleanup}}
==========
A1: The cleanup template.
A2:

Q: If "{{{" is used for preformatted text, what's a template that does this going to render as?
==========
{{{1}}}
==========
A1: Show the first passed param.
A2: Show "
1
"

All the best,
Nick.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Chuck Smith
> Sent: Thursday, 7 September 2006 7:30 PM
> To: wiki-research at wikisym.org; wiki-standards at wikisym.org; Wikimedia
> developers
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] draft of WikiCreole 0.1 available for comment
>
>
> I posted a draft of WikiCreole 0.1
> <http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Creole0.1> to wikicreole.org and we
> believe all the rough edges have been smoothed out, but are still
> seeking comments and criticisms from the wiki community.
>
> Please either reply on <http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Talk.Creole0.1>
> or just email me.  We plan to release a final spec on **Monday**, so
> last day to comment on Creole 0.1 is this Sunday.
>
> Chuck
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

body:
IMHO we have a lot of helps, guidelines and so on... it is a good
initiative but we should reduce them looking to integrate as soon as
possible.

The community should have a small number and clair rules.

No rules is anarchy, more rules is burocracy... the risk is to have
rules which try to solve the same problem but with contradictory
solution.

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: dgerard at gmail.com
Data: 11.09.06 16.23
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,	Is there inspectors to
investigate admins?

On 11/09/06, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that forcing new customs or rules which comes from the
"top"
> might create a natural opposision. I think the best place to put
such
> a general "good customs" translations would be rather meta. Then
it
> might be a good starting point how to slowly apply it to the all
> projects after duscussion within project's communities which
should
> individally decide how to "customize" them to the nature and
current
> rules of their projects.

I'm working on an essay about process in my en: userspace:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:
David_Gerard/Process_is_Dangerous

Process is there to help write an encyclopedia. Beyond that, it
must
stay completely malleable. Important considerations are NPOV,
verifiability and no original research. For community maintenance,
assume good faith and no personal attacks; and don't bite the
newbies,
since they seem to write most of the actual content, on en: at
least.

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
 Is there inspectors to investigate admin


body:
On 11/09/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > Well, yeah. Closest I've come to this is e.g. uploading an image by
> > [[:en:User:Arkady Rose]] (my girlfriend) to Commons because she can't
> > be bothered creating Yet Another Login. I uploaded it myself and said

> The key here is: we trust you to have done the right thing.
> We can do that with people we know and trust.
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_5934.JPG
> is an image I uploaded for someone else.

Yeah. Regular editors, we should be taking their word for it.

I suppose the problem is if a reuser gets strife in a case where it
turns out the author didn't give said permission, or doesn't think
they did, and they've used it in print so that the obvious remedy of
just taking it down isn't possible and there may be actual damages
payable. To what extent do we need to ensure against this? Perhaps an
added note on the reusers' FAQ as to the importance of checking for
oneself.

- d.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiSym 2006 - short report

body:
Catching up on email.
Thank you Jakob, very interesting.

Delphine

On 9/8/06, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Two weeks ago I attended WikiSym 2006, the Second Symposium on Wikis, in
> Odense, Denmark. Finally here is a short report on what was relevant to
> me and maybe relevant for Wikimedia, Wikimedians, and Wikipedia research
> (that's the reason for crossposting).
>
> With me there were some (but little) Wikimedians, so Sj and
> Brion Vibber. Participants (around 70) were scientist and community
> leaders or very active community members from different wikis, for
> instance Sunir (Meatball), Evan (Wikitravel), and Angela (Wikia).
> Compared to Wikimania WikiSym is both more academic and more broad in
> terms of wiki communities, while Wikimania is very centered to Wikipedia
> (and other Wikimedia communities) and free content. To my impression
> many people forget about the rich world of wikis beside Wikipedia or
> even think Wiki=Wikipedia. Some argued at WikiSym that Wikipedia may
> kill other Wikis because of that - there is no other Wiki of its size
> anymore.
>
> Anyway - there is a large overlap between Wikimedia world and Wiki world
> in general. Sj and me agreed upon that the place for academic,
> peer-reviewed Wikipedia research is better WikiSym and not Wikimania, so
> both should collaborate, for instance asking academic Wikimedia
> submission to better submit at WikiSym instead.
>
> Max V?lkel has also written a short report about WikiSym at the swikg
> mailing list[1] for the Semantic Wiki community - he compared WikiSym
> and and the first workshop on Semantic Wikis at the European Semantic
> Web Conference - the latter is even more academic to his impression. But
> WikiSym was a real place where science and practise meet.
>
> There were a lot of "open space sessions" with many discussions, for
> instance about the future of wikis in general, and interoperability
> between wikis. Have a look at the proceedings at
>
> http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/proceedings
>
> Some more reports are at
>
> http://ws2006.wikisym.org/space/Symposium+Reports
>
> in the symposium wiki[2] - many particpants took notes there to document
> the sessions (yes, it's a wiki although it does not look like MediaWiki ;-)
>
> The workshop on Wikipedia Research was very fruitful and I only got
> positive feedback. If your interested in Wikipedia research you should
> definitely have a look at the slides:
>
> http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00007102/
>
> I'm looking forward to WikiSym 2007 which will probably be in Montreal
> (as far as I remember, no guarantee)!
>
> Greetings,
> Jakob
>
> [1] http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/mailman/listinfo/swikig
> [2] http://ws2006.wikisym.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
~notafish


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 11/09/06, Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm aware that my discussion gives little credit to those who participate in
> AFD, and do carefully look at the background in various subjects, who do
> consider what the encyclopaedia should include for readers, and are suitably
> unbiased to give a proper opinion.

PROD takes a bit of the load off AFD, though I don't know numbers.
(Anyone?) And undeleting after a PROD is a matter of asking an admin
for the undelete (and then fixing whatever got it PRODded in the first
place, or it may end up on AFD proper). So AFD can consider the
contentious stuff in a bit more depth.

> However, there is no mechanism to rely more on opinions of worth than
> worthless opinions. This problem of course applies to Wikipedia across the
> board.

Sure there is - the closing admin is supposed to apply sense. Nineteen
"* never heard of it, delete" followed by one "Keep, I'm an expert and
I've added full references confirming its verifiability and
notability" is supposed to result in a keep, 'cos it's not a vote. The
admins are relatively sensible most of the time I've looked of late.

- d.


body:
On 11/09/06, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that forcing new customs or rules which comes from the "top"
> might create a natural opposision. I think the best place to put such
> a general "good customs" translations would be rather meta. Then it
> might be a good starting point how to slowly apply it to the all
> projects after duscussion within project's communities which should
> individally decide how to "customize" them to the nature and current
> rules of their projects.

I'm working on an essay about process in my en: userspace:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_is_Dangerous

Process is there to help write an encyclopedia. Beyond that, it must
stay completely malleable. Important considerations are NPOV,
verifiability and no original research. For community maintenance,
assume good faith and no personal attacks; and don't bite the newbies,
since they seem to write most of the actual content, on en: at least.

- d.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Textbook-l] Problem with NPOV

body:
On 11/09/06, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Jimbo: If you want us to use a specific defintion of "textbook" and
> "accredited institution", then you are going to have to mandate such
> definitions to us. At the moment we are picking our way through such
> matters, with varying degrees of success.

It is my observation that TPTB is very reluctant to offer such
definitions or mandates, even when requested. "Picking our way through
such matters with varying degrees of success" -- it seems to be the
wiki way. Try just making your own definitions (as a project), and I
guess you'll find out if you've been too WP:BOLD if you notice some
personal interventions after that. :)

It doesn't seem ideal, but I guess I can understand why they're
reluctant to define such things. Then the criticism of such things
also falls to them. The people who are actually running the project
should take control of its direction at some stage... although
mandates would make life so easy.

cheers
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Joe Anderson

subject: [WikiEN-l] WTF Have I Missed?

body:
UK Magazine [[Computeractive]] have also reported this, though
apparently Wikipedia
told Computeractive...

On 8/30/06, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 30/08/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Think for a moment, a vandal puts up an image of a penis... it says up
> > for 5 minutes.. then it is removed. Then we sit around, and in 5
> > minutes a penis is displayed on an article and we are powerless to
> > stop it.
>
> Oh that; yes that would be very stupid indeed.
>
> No.
>
> > Gee.. that would help a lot.
>
> Try implementing this as a server filter:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Timed_article_change_stabilisation_mechanism
>
> Which doesn't behave like that.
>
> --
> -Ian Woollard
>
> "Victory can be perceived but not created."
> For your own security, the Department of Homeland Security is watching
> you.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


from_name: Akash Mehta

body:
On 9/11/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've now created the proposed policy of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_Undeletion for your
> perusal.

I'm working on that policy to beef it up a little, it seems the best way. If
we could get a group of people familiar with mediation, deletion policy and
general [[WP:BITE]] to review articles that have been deleted, including a
couple of sysops, then we could set up a decent, effective system for
undeletions (and, in the process, tweak AfD/prod/speedy so that deletions
aren't screwed up in the first place).

I think its also good if we mention something like this in the speedy
notices, and have sysops tell newbies creating non-notable articles about
this process.

It really aces the whole deletion review system. Can we speedy DRV after
this is accepted? :D


subject: [WikiEN-l] WTF Have I Missed?

body:
On 11/09/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:

> UK Magazine [[Computeractive]] have also reported this, though
> apparently Wikipedia
> told Computeractive...

I got a call from Computeractive about this after the Bill Thompson
piece on bbc.co.uk - which he wrote as a speculative editorial piece
about what *might* happen, but people took it as revelatory
investigative reporting on what *would* happen. Which of course it
wasn't. So I told the fellow about it in detail, and recommended he
check the slashdot.org story for the word on it from Jimbo, which it
appears he did.

- d.


body:
On 11/09/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_is_Dangerous
> > Process is there to help write an encyclopedia. Beyond that, it must
> > stay completely malleable. Important considerations are NPOV,
> > verifiability and no original research. For community maintenance,
> > assume good faith and no personal attacks; and don't bite the newbies,
> > since they seem to write most of the actual content, on en: at least.

> Given that this is Foundation, no original research should be less of a
> criteria. It is very much what you want in an encyclopaedia, but for
> other projects it is not necessarily that great.

Oh, definitely - it talks mostly about the en:wp experience and
certainly isn't about all Wikimedia wikis. Though the ad-hoc nature of
most process is important to keep in mind for everywhere, I think ;-)

- d.


from_name: Rob

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

body:
On 9/11/06, Jason Potkanski <electrawn at electrawn.com> wrote:

> I am not sure you are following me correctly. LGBT sources and other
> narrow audience sources should be used quite sparingly and are not a
> reliable source for MOST articles. An LGBT papers Field Of View is on
> LGBT people and LGBT issues. This makes it great and reliable for LGBT
> biographies and LGBT pages. Articles on say...a CNN journalist push
> use of such a source, in my opinion, towards unreliable. Overreliance
> on these as primary sources may make articles have a POV.

This is even sillier, I think.  LGBT publications can only be used for
articles regarding LGBT issues and personalities?  If they are so
hysterically partisan and unreliable as you claim, why should they not
be excluded from all articles?  And if Kyra Phillips experimented with
lesbianism in college, then we could use those publications as sources
in her article?  No one is advocating "overreliance" on publications
such as the Southern Voice, but you would exclude it even as a source
regarding LGBT criticism of Phillips.  And you haven't addressed the
question of why we should treat LGBT publications differently than the
publications of other racial/ethnic/whatever groups.  You say you have
worked as a journalist, but would mainstream journalistic thought
really exclude LGBT publications on the basis you suggest?  I wonder
what the respected Poynter Institute would say on the matter.  Given
that someone from the Poynter Institute is quoted in the Southern
Voice article, I suspect their answer would be "no".

> Justice is(er, should be) blind. Treat editors with blindness (and
> good faith and civility) until malice.

AGF should not be a substitute for good judgment, nor should it allow
us to be blind to the faults and agendas of those users who have a
clear track record.

> Underneath, mostly, I am quite moderate. I am frequently stepping into
> zealot shoes and taking devils advocate positions to bring up
> defamation issues that need to be addressed NOW. Not only do BLP
> articles requires immediatism, the wikipedia policies behind it
> require immediatism too. The run a red flag up the highest flagpole
> and aim those hollywood spotlights at it kind of immediatism. Its a
> ticking bomb.

We can address a problem immediately without this kind of rhetoric or
slogan chanting.  It is important to address the problem, but it is
equally important that we not create new ones in our haste to solve
this one.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
	Is there inspectors to investigate admin

body:
On 11/09/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:

> > IMHO we have a lot of helps, guidelines and so on... it is a good
> > initiative but we should reduce them looking to integrate as soon as
> > possible.
> > The community should have a small number and clair rules.
> > No rules is anarchy, more rules is burocracy... the risk is to have
> > rules which try to solve the same problem but with contradictory
> > solution.

Yes, yes and yes.

> Rules are not necessarily that great. It is much more important to have
> clear guidelines. With rules people weasel there way around the words,
> twist their meaning because as a rule a rule has to be non ambiguous.
> With guidelines or principles this is not possible because their value
> is not in their explicit phrasing but in what they implicitly try to say.

Yep.

> A rule is telling others what they have to do. A guideline or a
> principle is there to tell what we are doing.

I've observed on en: some editors who think it's better to state
guidelines as hard policy. I don't think this works at all, but it's
an observed tendency some have.

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
 Is there inspectors to investigate admins?

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 11/09/06, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I think that forcing new customs or rules which comes from the "top"
>> might create a natural opposision. I think the best place to put such
>> a general "good customs" translations would be rather meta. Then it
>> might be a good starting point how to slowly apply it to the all
>> projects after duscussion within project's communities which should
>> individally decide how to "customize" them to the nature and current
>> rules of their projects.
>>
>
>
> I'm working on an essay about process in my en: userspace:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_is_Dangerous
>
> Process is there to help write an encyclopedia. Beyond that, it must
> stay completely malleable. Important considerations are NPOV,
> verifiability and no original research. For community maintenance,
> assume good faith and no personal attacks; and don't bite the newbies,
> since they seem to write most of the actual content, on en: at least.
>
>
> - d.
Hoi,
Given that this is Foundation, no original research should be less of a
criteria. It is very much what you want in an encyclopaedia, but for
other projects it is not necessarily that great.
Thanks,
     GerardM


body:
On 11/09/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:

> Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to
> take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
> With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
> Without comment.
> The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No?
> Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?

Yes. This is an example of wikilawyers on crack.

- d.


body:
Hoi,
Rules are not necessarily that great. It is much more important to have
clear guidelines. With rules people weasel there way around the words,
twist their meaning because as a rule a rule has to be non ambiguous.
With guidelines or principles this is not possible because their value
is not in their explicit phrasing but in what they implicitly try to say.

A rule is telling others what they have to do. A guideline or a
principle is there to tell what we are doing.

Thanks,
    GerardM

valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:
> IMHO we have a lot of helps, guidelines and so on... it is a good
> initiative but we should reduce them looking to integrate as soon as
> possible.
>
> The community should have a small number and clair rules.
>
> No rules is anarchy, more rules is burocracy... the risk is to have
> rules which try to solve the same problem but with contradictory
> solution.
>
> Ilario
>
> ----Messaggio originale----
> Da: dgerard at gmail.com
> Data: 11.09.06 16.23
> A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,	Is there inspectors to
> investigate admins?
>
> On 11/09/06, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I think that forcing new customs or rules which comes from the
>>
> "top"
>
>> might create a natural opposision. I think the best place to put
>>
> such
>
>> a general "good customs" translations would be rather meta. Then
>>
> it
>
>> might be a good starting point how to slowly apply it to the all
>> projects after duscussion within project's communities which
>>
> should
>
>> individally decide how to "customize" them to the nature and
>>
> current
>
>> rules of their projects.
>>
>
>
> I'm working on an essay about process in my en: userspace:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:
> David_Gerard/Process_is_Dangerous
>
> Process is there to help write an encyclopedia. Beyond that, it
> must
> stay completely malleable. Important considerations are NPOV,
> verifiability and no original research. For community maintenance,
> assume good faith and no personal attacks; and don't bite the
> newbies,
> since they seem to write most of the actual content, on en: at
> least.
>
>
> - d.


from_name: HeinzJ

subject: [Wikitech-l] alter db to  utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;.

body:
Hello

i need a script for updating a mediawiki database and tables to utf8 /
COLLATE utf8_general_ci.

Can anybody give me a hint or help ?

THX HeinzJ


subject: [WikiEN-l] Name pages and disambiguation

body:
I don't think its appropriate to rewrite policy to suit your intentions. It
defeats the purpose of having a policy in the first place. I respect the
user as an editor, but I totally disagree with the changes simply because
they aren't approved on policy - being on MoS without any prior community
approval isn't policy.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
> Frederic Bayer wrote:
> > Dear Nick! Thank you for the Web-Adress, very useful. But how can we
> > install the Suggest to the Wikipedia, and if we will, why not also
> > install it to other sister Projects.
>
> Since the list threads are rather long, please summarize and put details on a
> request at bugzilla.wikimedia.org. :)
>
> I'm taking a few days off, but will be back to set things like this up next week
> (unless you can get Tim et al to do it faster).
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I finally got around to logging a request for this - it's at: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7288

Includes a summary description of what's being requested, some potential screenshots to illustrate, info about and link to Julien
Lemoine's site and source code, and my "devil's advocate" list of things that ideally would behave differently so as to help
integration with MediaWiki.

Comments and technical feedback welcome.

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Rating Articles Extension

body:
> Another option is to use a formula similar to IMDB's, which I assume
> has been arrived at due to some amount of research.

IMDB only count registered active users towards their "Top 250" search (which would be the equivalent of ignoring votes from anons).
Maybe a good idea for things that you think people are likely to try and cheat on.

> > > How do extensions generally deal with images and stylesheets that need
> > > to be available outside the extensions directory, such as in the skins
> > > directory, when users are accessing them through SVN?
> >
> > Hooks, surely?  The skins must have hooks in lots of convenient
> > places.  What do you mean, available outside the extensions directory?
> >  You're only running code inside the extensions directory.
>
> The extension uses images for buttons for rating the pages, and these
> buttons have to reside in a directory that is accessible through the
> browser, /extensions is not. So, in this case, do extensions generally
> just provide a tarball and have the user untar the images into the
> skins directory?

Maybe have a look at the wikihiero extension ( http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/wikihiero/ )

For example if I type "<hiero>Y5</hiero>" into a Wikipedia sandbox, then the resulting image path is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/extensions/wikihiero/img/hiero_Y5.png  (i.e. proof-by-existence that it is possible to store the
extension's images in the extensions directory).

All the best,
Nick.


body:
On 9/11/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to
> take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
>
> With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
>
> Without comment.
>
> The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No?
> Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
>
> Dan

probably but copyright law wasn't really desighned to handle
situations like that.

--
geni


from_name: listspam at cretin.net

subject: [Textbook-l] Problem with NPOV

body:
> Well, I think the policy is pretty clear, and yes, as the community
> applies the policy in practice, I don't always agree with the outcome,
> nor do I expect to always agree with the outcome.

The "textbook from an accredited institution" is better than what we had
before, but still leads to tons of pointless and repetitive discussion
about (a) what qualifies as a textbook and (b) what is a valid accredited
institution. Every time there is an edge case book, this has to be
discussed and rediscussed.

These are things that you could clear up, or have the wikimedia board
clear up.

Kellen


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
geni wrote:

>On 9/11/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to
>>take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
>>
>>With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
>>
>>Without comment.
>>
>>The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No?
>>Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
>>
>>
>probably but copyright law wasn't really desighned to handle
>situations like that.
>
I agree that copyright law wasn't designed to handle things like that,
but that's probably because it was hard for them to imagine that there
would ever be such an idiotic situation as an incidental tourist
acquaintance claiming copyright on a picture that he neither knew nor
could ever prove that he took.

When it comes to being a bit overboard we like to do it with a big
splash.  Serendipidously I to-day read an interesting coment in Peter
Suber's introduction to "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers".  [Lon
Fuller's] greatnes lies in his lifelong proof that rigorous legal
thought does not exclude creativity, does not require jargon, and does
not make morality an independent variable or an afterthought."

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Weird block message

body:
> The message was: You are now logged in
> as !bzt. That was strange, and I just thought, "probably a bug, let's go
> to the main page. I was suddenly logged in as Elian, and I had all
> rights which elian had. I logged out immediately

If it happens to you or anyone else again, please do not log out.

Save a backup copy of the cookie file/details, jump onto IRC and do a /join #wikimedia-tech , and tell them that you're logged in as
someone else when you shouldn't be.

I'm honestly not sure what'll happen then, but as far as I'm aware we have yet to capture this whilst it's happening (rather than
after-the-fact).

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Readable and easy to remember passwords

body:
On 9/2/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Really it shouldn't be generating passwords ever. :)
>
> In the cases where it does generate a password, this should be changed to a
> temporary code that lets you get in just far enough to set your own password.
>
> Among other things, this would ensure that people don't have all their account
> passwords sitting in their e-mail archives for any opportunist to type
> "password" into their Gmail search...

If you ever do get convinced to generate easier passwords..  Please
look at the S/KEY password system. Each phrase encodes 64bits.. which
is far better than any passwords that humans are going to generate
(killing gerardm's argument).

The problem with any such system is that the password is only easy for
people who speak the right language..

What do the folks at the RTL middle eastern languages think of our captchas btw?


from_name: Sean Black

body:
On 9/10/06, A <jokestress at gmail.com> wrote:
> About a week ago, [[User:JHunterJ]] revised [[Wikipedia:Manual of
> Style (disambiguation pages)]] and then began making sitewide changes
> to articles on human names based on his revisions:
>
> "People who happen to have the same given name should not be listed on
> a disambiguation page for that name unless they happen to be very
> frequently referred to simply by the given name (e.g., Beyonc?,
> Regis). If the name is uncommon enough for such a list to be
> maintainable (and if it would otherwise meet the WP:LIST guidelines),
> consider creating the page [[List of people named Title]] instead."

This is really just a part of the continued onslaught against useful
dab pages in the name of adherence to the manual of style... the
stricter we make these pages, the more likely we are to be encouraging
the blind elimination of good content.

See here for prime examples of this idiocy in action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AFD&action=history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Disambiguation_pages_in_need_of_cleanup

~~Sean


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Weird block message

body:
On 9/11/06, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Save a backup copy of the cookie file/details, jump onto IRC and do a /join

Can you explain what you mean by "cookie file/details"?

Steve


from_name: Angela

body:
On 9/11/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> And then there's the related case of photographs taken "under
> direction" (my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button).
> This has a sort of "work for non-hire" feel to it, and I'm sure
> it's been discussed at length, too.

I don't think it has been discussed, and such images have been deleted
in the past - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Minneapolis_meetup_2005.jpg

I guess such images are fair use if you never asked the person using
your camera to license the image.

Angela.


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
Jon Harald S?by wrote:

>On 9/11/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>It's their country, it's communist, and there are not guaranteed rights
>>for those people.
>>
>>
>
>But they obviously missed the fact that Wikipedia Is Communism(TM).
>
>
It's democratic actually (a primitive form of democracy) with a little
right wing thrown in for good measure.  Community concesus and all.

Jeff


from_name: ikiroid

body:
Gahhh...DRV is so frusterating because the same people show up to comment
almost every time. It gives the topic even less of a balanced decision than
a screwed up AfD.


from_name: Aphaia

body:
On 9/11/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/09/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I think it would be great to document community "norms" for each of
> > the 10-15 largest Wikipedias just to get a feel for what best
> > practices are out there.
>
> There's a brief set of articles on en.wp about the largest individual
> wikis... perhaps using these, and their other-language counterparts,
> as the nucleus for something on meta would work?

On Japanese Wikiquote, there is an admin norm document. Once some
Wikipedians including Tomos and me discussed to have an equivalent on
Japanese Wikipedias too, but this attempt seems to be on a deadlock.
Lacking such document though, I observe the spirit of once drafted
document is shared by most active Japanese sysops both on all
projects, including Wikipedia, of course.

I think proposals in this thread are thoughtful and helpful, including
* Create "good customs on my Wikipedia" page
* Page(s) of comparison of core value documents

Probably it will be a good candidate of "collaboration of this week"?
Cheers,
--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
On 9/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm guessing very high usage.  A category such as "American people" is
> > fairly worthless by itself, after all.
>
> As a "category" by *itself*, yes. As a tag, combined with other
> attributes for searching, it's very valuable.

Yes . . . but combining it with other attributes for searching means
category intersection, or some analogue.  Which is why there would be
high usage.


from_name: Daniel Bregman

subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests

body:
Following the Incubator logo debacle, I thought it pertinent to make sure
that the new logo contests are given the best possible chance of being
noticed. Hence this notice that there are currently three (3) logo
competitions open to voting at Meta.

These are for Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiversity. If you are an admin
there, please put up a sitenotice. If you are not, try to inform people in
those communities. If you are a member of the Foundation, please watch the
voting to make sure that inappropriate logos are not chosen.

Thank you!

-Dbmag9


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests


body:
On 9/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> We should probably bear in mind we're talking about wikis here, not
> bank accounts or anything especailly confidential.

Sysops can add arbitrary JavaScript to the page.  There are over a
thousand on enwiki alone.

On 9/11/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> If anything suggesting that "easy to remember passwords" are
> a good thing is something I do not share with you.

"Easy to remember" is different from "easy to guess", although of
course the intersection of the two is large.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] importDump.php error,
 WikiRevision given a null title in import.

body:
Noah Spurrier wrote:
> I am able to import over 700 articles using importDump.php, but
> part way through the process I get get an exception complaining that
> a Wiki Revision was given a null title. Any tips on how to resolve this?
> I'm using MediaWiki 1.7.1 with a wiki dump downloaded current
> from August 17th.


from_name: Jason Potkanski

body:
On 9/11/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/11/06, Jason Potkanski <electrawn at electrawn.com> wrote:
>
> > I am not sure you are following me correctly. LGBT sources and other
> > narrow audience sources should be used quite sparingly and are not a
> > reliable source for MOST articles. An LGBT papers Field Of View is on
> > LGBT people and LGBT issues. This makes it great and reliable for LGBT
> > biographies and LGBT pages. Articles on say...a CNN journalist push
> > use of such a source, in my opinion, towards unreliable. Overreliance
> > on these as primary sources may make articles have a POV.
>
> This is even sillier, I think.  LGBT publications can only be used for
> articles regarding LGBT issues and personalities?  If they are so
> hysterically partisan and unreliable as you claim, why should they not
> be excluded from all articles?  And if Kyra Phillips experimented with
> lesbianism in college, then we could use those publications as sources
> in her article?  No one is advocating "overreliance" on publications
> such as the Southern Voice, but you would exclude it even as a source
> regarding LGBT criticism of Phillips.  And you haven't addressed the
> question of why we should treat LGBT publications differently than the
> publications of other racial/ethnic/whatever groups.  You say you have
> worked as a journalist, but would mainstream journalistic thought
> really exclude LGBT publications on the basis you suggest?  I wonder
> what the respected Poynter Institute would say on the matter.  Given
> that someone from the Poynter Institute is quoted in the Southern
> Voice article, I suspect their answer would be "no".

Once the statement was changed to reflect a direct quote from a critic
at the Poynter institute, the context and source reliability matched.
I tried to find a column/article at the Poynter Institute itself, no
dice. No other press carried that quote. So in absence of a better
source, SoVo is adequate. The use of the quote still has issues, but
the statement/source/context problem is resolved.

Basic journalism is about finding good sources and excluding potential
bad ones. There is no set way to determine right or wrong, only by
example. For examples on bad sources, lets get outlandish...

*Would [[Ebony magazine]] be a good source for [[Theory of relativity]]?
*Would [[Seventeen magazine]] be a good source for [[China]]?
*Would [[Dog Fancy]] be a good source for [[Linux]]?

It is this kind of reasoning that makes me look at [[Southern Voice]]
and wonder if it is a good source for [[Kyra Phillips]]. Same thing
for Financial Times.

I think this discussion calls for improvements to WP:RS to better
explain good sourcing.

For fun, some authoritative ones that look innocent but fall apart
under scrunity...
*Use of NNDB, by a company "Soylent communications" aka rotten.com on
[[Ann Coulter]]...er, any wikipedia article.
*Use of Media Matters, a 501(3)c "dedicated to comprehensively
monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in
the U.S. media."

While researching outlandish sourcing...why does [[Barbra Streisand]]
mention nothing on politics (one sentence about clinton), [[Al
Franken]] relatively free of criticism...yet [[Ann Coulter]] and [[Pat
Buchanan]] are loaded with it, even with POV forks? [[Al Gore]] seems
cleanish too, but he has a POV fork as well. [[Howard Dean]]. [[Al
Sharpton]], [[Jesse Jackson]] criticism sections are small. It is hard
finding a liberal polemic figure on wikipedia with the same amount of
criticisms as [[Ann Coulter]], [[Pat Buchanan]], [[Tom Delay]]. I am
amazed at the left/right off balance!

Interesting read:
http://insidehighered.com/views/2005/11/17/mclemee

-jtp Electrawn


subject:
[Wikitech-l] How to import languageXX.php-files into db /
	Spezial:Allmessages

body:
I would like to import languageXX.php files into the mediawiki-database
(Spezial:Allmessages). Allready existing messages shall be overide.

Do there exist solutions ?

THX, HeinzJ


from_name: Jimmy Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l]How to import languageXX.php-files into db / Spezial:Allmessages

body:
Hi Heinz,

run from shell:
php maintainance/rebuildMessages.php --rebuild

Cheers, Jimmy

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Gesendet: 11.09.06 22:00:16
> An: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> Betreff: [Wikitech-l] How to import languageXX.php-files into db / Spezial:Allmessages

> I would like to import languageXX.php files into the mediawiki-database
> (Spezial:Allmessages). Allready existing messages shall be overide.
>
> Do there exist solutions ?
>
> THX, HeinzJ
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
On 9/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
> >On 9/11/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to
> >>take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
> >>
> >>With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
> >>
> >>Without comment.
> >>
> >>The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No?
> >>Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
> >>
> >>
> >probably but copyright law wasn't really desighned to handle
> >situations like that.
> >
> I agree that copyright law wasn't designed to handle things like that,
> but that's probably because it was hard for them to imagine that there
> would ever be such an idiotic situation as an incidental tourist
> acquaintance claiming copyright on a picture that he neither knew nor
> could ever prove that he took.
>
> When it comes to being a bit overboard we like to do it with a big
> splash.  Serendipidously I to-day read an interesting coment in Peter
> Suber's introduction to "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers".  [Lon
> Fuller's] greatnes lies in his lifelong proof that rigorous legal
> thought does not exclude creativity, does not require jargon, and does
> not make morality an independent variable or an afterthought."
>
> Ec

Disclaimer: IANAL

Copyright in the US seems rather clear. Copyright is designed to
protect ideas and to a limited extent the expression of those ideas.
Follow the money. Who is the creator, who is the producer? The person
owning the camera had the creative idea and the funds (by owning the
camera and developing the film) to take the picture at that location.
The random tourist just plays the role of the photographer, but has no
claim to copyright.

"my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button." Your
idea, you own it.

-jtp Electrawn


body:
Jason Potkanski wrote:

>Copyright in the US seems rather clear. Copyright is designed to
>protect ideas and to a limited extent the expression of those ideas.
>
That's not correct.  It protects the expression but not the ideas at
all.  (In some cases the idea may be protected by patents.)  When the
information becomes so intertwined with the expression that the two
cannot be separated it can render the expression uncopyrightable.  This
is the merger principle. It was the basis for Lexmark's court loss to
Static Control Corp., when it claimed that copying a handshake program
was a copyvio.

Ec


from_name: Akash Mehta

body:
What if you ask someone to take a photo of you at a tourist
attraction? We have to account for things like that. You can't say,
"Can you please take a photo of me and my wife? Here's my camera. Oh,
and while your're at it, could you release all rights to that?"

On 9/11/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/11/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > And then there's the related case of photographs taken "under
> > direction" (my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button).
> > This has a sort of "work for non-hire" feel to it, and I'm sure
> > it's been discussed at length, too.
>
> I don't think it has been discussed, and such images have been deleted
> in the past - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Minneapolis_meetup_2005.jpg
>
> I guess such images are fair use if you never asked the person using
> your camera to license the image.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests

body:
On 9/11/06, Daniel Bregman <dbmag9 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Following the Incubator logo debacle, I thought it pertinent to make sure
> that the new logo contests are given the best possible chance of being
> noticed. Hence this notice that there are currently three (3) logo
> competitions open to voting at Meta.
>
> These are for Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiversity. If you are an admin
> there, please put up a sitenotice. If you are not, try to inform people in
> those communities. If you are a member of the Foundation, please watch the
> voting to make sure that inappropriate logos are not chosen.

Links?

Thanx,

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests

body:
Good evening,

On 9/11/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/11/06, Daniel Bregman <dbmag9 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Following the Incubator logo debacle, I thought it pertinent to make
> sure
> > that the new logo contests are given the best possible chance of being
> > noticed. Hence this notice that there are currently three (3) logo
> > competitions open to voting at Meta.
> >
> > These are for Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiversity. If you are an admin
> > there, please put up a sitenotice. If you are not, try to inform people
> in
> > those communities. If you are a member of the Foundation, please watch
> the
> > voting to make sure that inappropriate logos are not chosen.
>
> Links?
>

Wikibooks: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/logo
Wiktionary: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo
Wikiversity: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/logo

g.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests

body:
On 9/11/06, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wikibooks: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/logo
> Wiktionary: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo
> Wikiversity: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/logo

Guillaume, the king of links.

Merci :-)

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests


from_name: Peter Rocky7

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
	please estabish the board of inspectors to investigate admins.

body:
I only suggest that Each Wikipedia, first of all, English Wikipedia needs to
have the administration of justice, this is, the board of inspectors to
investigate whether the behaviors of admins are appropriate or not.

This organization, of course, must be independent from all admins.

In mature democrratic countries, as you know, the prosecutors and the judges
are independent from each other.
In Wikipedias, however, all admins have been doing the role of prosecutors
and the role of the judges and the role of general editors at the same time.
I think, this system cannot help making almost admins unreliable dictators
and increasing various vandalisms including the admin's vandalism.

So I think each Wikipedia, especially English Wikipedia, needs the board of
Inspectors independent from all admins as soon as possible
and the board of inspectors should remove inappropriate admins as soon as
possible.
This is the best way because it is the most possible and the most reasonable
method.
I think true Wikipedians are expected to make Wikipedias evolve to
respective Wikipedias.

Clearly English Wikipedia are holding terribly selfish admins because some
of them rejected this suggestion to be released, read, and talked on the
mailing list <WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org>.

Please don't be afraid if you are a good admin. In order to defend good
admins, there should be another court composed of the independent agents.
This court would be like "the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution".

Respect, and you are ordinarily respected among the mature democratic
people.
This principle, however, cannot be used to Chinese, Koreans, Russians, etc.
If you respect them, they get arrogant forever as if they are the absolute
authorities.

Even on English Wikipedia, the most important official policy
[[Wikipedia:NPOV]] is often ignored by the admins themselves
when the article is treating the problems that the admins want a victory on
their own belief.

The articles involving territorial problems, political problems, hystorical
problems, gender problems, etc. are quite dangerous for good admins and
neutral superior editors
because bad admins have been waiting to revert the articles and block their
"enemies" permanently.

Bad admins are supposed to become admins in order to get a virtual victory
on their belief in Wikipedia.

In other words we can know very easily whether a admin is a good admin or
not in such cases.

Even in the articles of English Wikipedia, if they are having international
territorial problems,
the invasive side wins and the invaded side loses
as if English Wikipedia recommends all the human beings(nations) to invade
other country
and make the regions under their administration.
See [[Kuril Islands dispute]], [[Dokdo]], etc. It's internationally unfair
and quite dangerous and terribly against the international peace and other
spirits of UN.

I have thought, "The admins of English Wikipedia hope WW3 and become the
enemy of the world?"

Such a bias by the admins and other editors put the peaceful Wikipedians who
respect [[Wikipedia:NPOV]] in an embarrassing position and make some of them
"enemies".

Since 1945 what merit is there to please the invasive peoples of invasive
nations like Russians, Koreans, Chinese, etc?

Clearly American, British, Australian,,,,, and Japanese Wikipedians have
only demerits
if they(we) are on invasive side
because their(our) mature democratic countries have already denied getting a
new territory by invasive selfish war.

I think there is few persons in the world who have thought Americans are
going to take Iraq as a new territory of US.
US, UK, Americans, British, and English(the language) are so respected in
the world!
If not, all nations in the world already attacked US, UK and Israel
completely.

English Wikipedia has the same problems.
The foresight of Jimmy Wales, the history of Wikipedia and English(language)
are so much respected, but how about admins of English Wikipedia?
They are respected?
The system and its policies they made are deemed reasonable and comfortable?

For example, the official policy of three times revert seems to be a wicked
trap made by the admins.
Admins can revert, revert, revert, revert, revert,..., permanently, but a
Wikipedian who is not a admin is blocked for a long time just because he
imitates the admins' behaviors only three times.

Why the admins of English Wikipedia are imitating the worst part of Bush's
America?

I think everyone including German admins knows that
English Wikipedia should show and prevail the comfortable and reasonable
model of Wikipedia
to other language's Wikipedians. But not yet. No sign.

Probably the admins of German Wikipedia could not wait the evolution of
English Wikipedia
and take the worst method that insists :
"We are (I am?) the God! We need not and cannot respect any editors any more
except ourselves.
We (can) know exactly all things in the world, so, we can release all the
articles correctly."

Probably they have been getting more and more contempt because of their
fascism and ignorance.

I have already seen this again and again in Japanese Wikipedia.

In Japanese Wikipedia almost real Japanese editors have given up
to make the administration of Japanese Wikipedia reasonable and comfortable
because the admins, including their sockpuppets, are terribly crazy
Korean(or Chinese) fascists
who are not able to use Japanese correctly and exactly and rejecting all
meaningful conversations
just because such meaningful conversations are disadvantage for them. They
call those meaningful conversations "personal attacks".

Please make a clear definition of "personal attack", or abandon the policy
of prohibiting "personal attack" because fascism admins and the admins who
are similar to fascists cannot understand the meaning of "personal attack"
and abuse "personal attack" in order to defend the selfish admins themselves
and block innocent Wikipedians.

So there is no "community", no "consensus", and no meaningful
"conversations" in Japanese Wikipedia including its mailing list,
though admins insist as if there are.
It is very clear that the admins always reject meaningful conversations
anywhere including the mailing list.

The admins of English Wikipedia have the same tendency.

The admins themselves make it impossible to occur real "conversation", real
"community" and real "consensus".
This is already famous truth in Japan, so,  even Jimmy Wales .

I have to ask :
Who left the first important adminship of Japanese Wikipedia to
[[:ja:User:Suisui]](=[[:ja:User:KMT]], etc.),
[[:ja:User:Tietew]](=[[:ja:User:Aphaia]], [[:ja:User:????????]], etc.), and
so on?

Please remove all of them from Japanese Wikipedia
and leave "the first important adminship of Japanese Wikipedia" to
responsible pure Japanese
who are born and have been living in Japan from his/her ancestors, whose
ancestors are not Koreans or Chinese.

And/Or, I hope English Wikipedia show the better model of Wikipedia as soon
as possible.
It's the easiest because it is obvious that English Wikipedia has good
admins and good Wikipedians more than any other Wikipedias.

So, I think :
First of all, English Wikipedia needs the board of inspectors to investigate
and remove inappropriate admins and right the wrong made by admins.
Second, English Wikipedia make the system where the inspector(judge) cannot
be the admin(prosecutor) forever and the admin cannot be the inspector
forever.
Third, let other Wikipedias imitate English Wikipedia.

The composition of "admins vs ordinary Wikipedians" is not good.
The composition of "ordinary Wikipedians vs admins vs inspectors" is much
better.

The admins investigate all the editors and all the articles and administrate
Wikipedia.
The  inspectors investigate the behaviors of admins and receive all kind of
criticisms of the admins even if those criticism are called "personal
attack" by the admins themselves.
It is very clear that blocking made by a admin(admins) is the heaviest
"personal attack"
and reverting made by a admin(admins) is the second heaviest "personal
attack".
To insist "Those admins are wrong because xxxxxx" or "He is inappropriate
for adminship because xxxxx" is never "personal attack", just judgement or
criticism.
Therefore admins have no rights to accuse anyone by the term "personal
attack".

I hope wise Wikipedians create the independent organization to judge admins
in English Wikipedia.
That is needed by ordinary Wikipedians of other language's because they
can't or wouldn't become a admin.
Please show the American's and/or British superior humanity and excellent
wisdom.
It is because many articles of English Wikipedia, including Wikipedia's
policies, have been translated into other languages' .

Thank you. Thank you for my broken English.

Rocky7

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list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Hi, Jimmy Wales,
	please estabish the board of inspectors to investigate admins.


from_name: James Hare

body:
The English Wikipedia, the one you seem to think needs it the most, already
has something like that: the Arbitration Committee. If people feel an admin
is acting bad, they'll try dispute resolution to try to improve them. If it
doesn't improve, then they get to be taken to the Arbitration Committee.
Many administrators have lost their admin status through this.

So what you've proposed for the English Wikipedia is somewhat in effect.
Although, a system like this could also be on the other, smaller Wikipedias.

On 9/11/06, Peter Rocky7 <freudianjungianp at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I only suggest that Each Wikipedia, first of all, English Wikipedia needs
> to
> have the administration of justice, this is, the board of inspectors to
> investigate whether the behaviors of admins are appropriate or not.
>
> This organization, of course, must be independent from all admins.
>
> In mature democrratic countries, as you know, the prosecutors and the
> judges
> are independent from each other.
> In Wikipedias, however, all admins have been doing the role of prosecutors
> and the role of the judges and the role of general editors at the same
> time.
> I think, this system cannot help making almost admins unreliable dictators
> and increasing various vandalisms including the admin's vandalism.
>
> So I think each Wikipedia, especially English Wikipedia, needs the board
> of
> Inspectors independent from all admins as soon as possible
> and the board of inspectors should remove inappropriate admins as soon as
> possible.
> This is the best way because it is the most possible and the most
> reasonable
> method.
> I think true Wikipedians are expected to make Wikipedias evolve to
> respective Wikipedias.
>
> Clearly English Wikipedia are holding terribly selfish admins because some
> of them rejected this suggestion to be released, read, and talked on the
> mailing list <WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org>.
>
> Please don't be afraid if you are a good admin. In order to defend good
> admins, there should be another court composed of the independent agents.
> This court would be like "the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution".
>
> Respect, and you are ordinarily respected among the mature democratic
> people.
> This principle, however, cannot be used to Chinese, Koreans, Russians,
> etc.
> If you respect them, they get arrogant forever as if they are the absolute
> authorities.
>
>
> Even on English Wikipedia, the most important official policy
> [[Wikipedia:NPOV]] is often ignored by the admins themselves
> when the article is treating the problems that the admins want a victory
> on
> their own belief.
>
> The articles involving territorial problems, political problems,
> hystorical
> problems, gender problems, etc. are quite dangerous for good admins and
> neutral superior editors
> because bad admins have been waiting to revert the articles and block
> their
> "enemies" permanently.
>
> Bad admins are supposed to become admins in order to get a virtual victory
> on their belief in Wikipedia.
>
> In other words we can know very easily whether a admin is a good admin or
> not in such cases.
>
> Even in the articles of English Wikipedia, if they are having
> international
> territorial problems,
> the invasive side wins and the invaded side loses
> as if English Wikipedia recommends all the human beings(nations) to invade
> other country
> and make the regions under their administration.
> See [[Kuril Islands dispute]], [[Dokdo]], etc. It's internationally unfair
> and quite dangerous and terribly against the international peace and other
> spirits of UN.
>
> I have thought, "The admins of English Wikipedia hope WW3 and become the
> enemy of the world?"
>
> Such a bias by the admins and other editors put the peaceful Wikipedians
> who
> respect [[Wikipedia:NPOV]] in an embarrassing position and make some of
> them
> "enemies".
>
> Since 1945 what merit is there to please the invasive peoples of invasive
> nations like Russians, Koreans, Chinese, etc?
>
> Clearly American, British, Australian,,,,, and Japanese Wikipedians have
> only demerits
> if they(we) are on invasive side
> because their(our) mature democratic countries have already denied getting
> a
> new territory by invasive selfish war.
>
> I think there is few persons in the world who have thought Americans are
> going to take Iraq as a new territory of US.
> US, UK, Americans, British, and English(the language) are so respected in
> the world!
> If not, all nations in the world already attacked US, UK and Israel
> completely.
>
> English Wikipedia has the same problems.
> The foresight of Jimmy Wales, the history of Wikipedia and
> English(language)
> are so much respected, but how about admins of English Wikipedia?
> They are respected?
> The system and its policies they made are deemed reasonable and
> comfortable?
>
> For example, the official policy of three times revert seems to be a
> wicked
> trap made by the admins.
> Admins can revert, revert, revert, revert, revert,..., permanently, but a
> Wikipedian who is not a admin is blocked for a long time just because he
> imitates the admins' behaviors only three times.
>
> Why the admins of English Wikipedia are imitating the worst part of Bush's
> America?
>
> I think everyone including German admins knows that
> English Wikipedia should show and prevail the comfortable and reasonable
> model of Wikipedia
> to other language's Wikipedians. But not yet. No sign.
>
> Probably the admins of German Wikipedia could not wait the evolution of
> English Wikipedia
> and take the worst method that insists :
> "We are (I am?) the God! We need not and cannot respect any editors any
> more
> except ourselves.
> We (can) know exactly all things in the world, so, we can release all the
> articles correctly."
>
> Probably they have been getting more and more contempt because of their
> fascism and ignorance.
>
> I have already seen this again and again in Japanese Wikipedia.
>
> In Japanese Wikipedia almost real Japanese editors have given up
> to make the administration of Japanese Wikipedia reasonable and
> comfortable
> because the admins, including their sockpuppets, are terribly crazy
> Korean(or Chinese) fascists
> who are not able to use Japanese correctly and exactly and rejecting all
> meaningful conversations
> just because such meaningful conversations are disadvantage for them. They
> call those meaningful conversations "personal attacks".
>
> Please make a clear definition of "personal attack", or abandon the policy
> of prohibiting "personal attack" because fascism admins and the admins who
> are similar to fascists cannot understand the meaning of "personal attack"
> and abuse "personal attack" in order to defend the selfish admins
> themselves
> and block innocent Wikipedians.
>
> So there is no "community", no "consensus", and no meaningful
> "conversations" in Japanese Wikipedia including its mailing list,
> though admins insist as if there are.
> It is very clear that the admins always reject meaningful conversations
> anywhere including the mailing list.
>
> The admins of English Wikipedia have the same tendency.
>
> The admins themselves make it impossible to occur real "conversation",
> real
> "community" and real "consensus".
> This is already famous truth in Japan, so,  even Jimmy Wales .
>
> I have to ask :
> Who left the first important adminship of Japanese Wikipedia to
> [[:ja:User:Suisui]](=[[:ja:User:KMT]], etc.),
> [[:ja:User:Tietew]](=[[:ja:User:Aphaia]], [[:ja:User:????]], etc.), and
> so on?
>
> Please remove all of them from Japanese Wikipedia
> and leave "the first important adminship of Japanese Wikipedia" to
> responsible pure Japanese
> who are born and have been living in Japan from his/her ancestors, whose
> ancestors are not Koreans or Chinese.
>
> And/Or, I hope English Wikipedia show the better model of Wikipedia as
> soon
> as possible.
> It's the easiest because it is obvious that English Wikipedia has good
> admins and good Wikipedians more than any other Wikipedias.
>
> So, I think :
> First of all, English Wikipedia needs the board of inspectors to
> investigate
> and remove inappropriate admins and right the wrong made by admins.
> Second, English Wikipedia make the system where the inspector(judge)
> cannot
> be the admin(prosecutor) forever and the admin cannot be the inspector
> forever.
> Third, let other Wikipedias imitate English Wikipedia.
>
> The composition of "admins vs ordinary Wikipedians" is not good.
> The composition of "ordinary Wikipedians vs admins vs inspectors" is much
> better.
>
> The admins investigate all the editors and all the articles and
> administrate
> Wikipedia.
> The  inspectors investigate the behaviors of admins and receive all kind
> of
> criticisms of the admins even if those criticism are called "personal
> attack" by the admins themselves.
> It is very clear that blocking made by a admin(admins) is the heaviest
> "personal attack"
> and reverting made by a admin(admins) is the second heaviest "personal
> attack".
> To insist "Those admins are wrong because xxxxxx" or "He is inappropriate
> for adminship because xxxxx" is never "personal attack", just judgement or
> criticism.
> Therefore admins have no rights to accuse anyone by the term "personal
> attack".
>
>
> I hope wise Wikipedians create the independent organization to judge
> admins
> in English Wikipedia.
> That is needed by ordinary Wikipedians of other language's because they
> can't or wouldn't become a admin.
> Please show the American's and/or British superior humanity and excellent
> wisdom.
> It is because many articles of English Wikipedia, including Wikipedia's
> policies, have been translated into other languages' .
>
> Thank you. Thank you for my broken English.
>
> Rocky7
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
>
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> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
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>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests

body:
On 9/11/06, Daniel Bregman <dbmag9 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Following the Incubator logo debacle, I thought it pertinent to make sure
> that the new logo contests are given the best possible chance of being
> noticed. Hence this notice that there are currently three (3) logo
> competitions open to voting at Meta.
>
> These are for Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiversity. If you are an admin
> there, please put up a sitenotice. If you are not, try to inform people in
> those communities. If you are a member of the Foundation, please watch the
> voting to make sure that inappropriate logos are not chosen.

Thank you for the warning. I'll just say again what I've said a
thousand times. What is it about the Wikimedia logo that is so grand
that people seem to be stuck with it and its colors?

Did imagination stop with the puzzleball? Are all those other projects
not great enough that they deserve their very own identity?

Mind you, there are a few very good logos out there. To keep on the
safe side, I would by definition scratch anything that's remotely
round, green, blue and red, or any of those two in the same logo.

Delphine
definitely puzzled.

--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Logo Contests


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

body:
On 9/11/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:

> It's their country, it's communist, and there are not guaranteed rights
> for those people.

But they obviously missed the fact that Wikipedia Is Communism(TM).

Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

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