from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
On Feb 16, 2005, at 7:20 PM, Andre Engels wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:59:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry
> <stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
>
> I don't see how your proposals are going to help. In some cases, yes,
> a new person can shed a new light on the matter and find a compromise.
> But in cases where there is, as you write, a "cabal" "owning" the
> page, getting more people in will only make the discussion being
> fought louder, not the solution being brought nearer. There is
> currently no way to decide what shape a page should have if there is
> no consensus. As long as we do not have that, bringing in more people
> will only cause the same arguments to be made over and over again.
>
> Andre Engels
> ____________________

More people not tied to the original dispute does two things. First, it
takes personality conflicts off the table, which are a regrettable part
of most edit wars. Second, it reduces the ability of groups to harden
into place by getting closer to a statistical sampling of opinion. 2
people self selected to edit an article probably have views which are
unusual, that's why they chose to edit the article. Ten or more is much
more likely to reflect the broad range. Importantly, this would help to
reduce the incentive for each side to bring in friends and continue the
revert war.

If a larger group of wikipedians can't come to a consensus, then it
clearly is time for a more formal RFC to be written. But again, the
more people not party to the original dispute, the more likely that RFC
is to focus on the actual issues.

As it is both the process of escalating an edit conflict, and the rules
of editing conflicts, do not promote good resolution without a good
deal of "drama processing". It is this drama processing that causes a
disproportionate share of "wikistress", and creates a disincentive for
knowledgeable people to contribute.

I can easily see other proposals designed to meet the same problems,
but I do feel this issue needs to be addressed and current procedures
refined in light of the experience so far.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top posting

body:
<dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:

>Is it better to leave your computer on 24/7 or shut it down when you won't be using it for a while?
>
>
Don't use computers at all, you might catch a virus.

>Does the Spirit proceed from the Father or from the Father _and_ the Son?
>
>
Neither. The Spirit is a separate personage from the other two.

>Is it acceptible to split an infinitive?
>
>
By its nature, infinity is impossible to split.

>Did Neil Armstrong say "That's one small step for man" or "That's one small step for _a_ man?"
>
>
Since the moon's gravity is much weaker than Earth's, his steps there
weren't particularly small.

>Do you see a greater portion of your face in the mirror on a compact when you hold it further a way from you?
>
>
It depends whether you're looking on the driver's side or the
passenger's side, which is slightly convex and therefore carries the
familiar warning "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear". (If
you're not American and don't understand what I'm going on about, see
[[compact]].)

>Should toilet paper be installed so the loose end hangs toward you or away from you?
>
>
Use a bidet instead.

>Will a tray of ice cubes freeze faster if you fill it with cold water or hot water?
>
>
Neither. It won't freeze at all until you put it in the freezer.

>There, _that_ should clog up this list for a day or so.
>
>
I'm afraid not, but it was more entertaining than the other discussions
going on.

--Michael Snow


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
Article ownership Re: avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l]
	public service ads in Wikipedia?)

body:
On Feb 16, 2005, at 7:46 PM, Rich Holton wrote:

>
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> How about a "Special:Active Pages" that would list the top 'n' most
> active pages -- where active would be defined as number of edits over a
> period of time, where adjacent edits by the same user are treated as
> one edit.
>
> Would this help in the sort of situation you're referring to? Or is
> edit activity not a good measure?
>
> -Rich Holton
> (en.wikipedia:User:Rholton)
>

I don't have a large enough sample size, but my experience - which is
anecdotal - doesn't seem to confirm this. Very often "active" editing
pages are ones that are going very well - because contributors are
working with each others edits. Since the person reverting knows both
what they are reverting and why, it seems reasonable to ask them to
spend a few seconds to put in something like [[Category:Revert
Test/Graphitti]] or [[Category:Revert Content Conflict]] as part of
doing the reversion, particularly one for [[Category:3RR Limit
Reached]]. We already have categories for NPOV disputes and so on, so
all this proposal amounts to is:

1. Tightening the number of reverts to reversion by content, not by
user/article-day, to three in each direction.
2. Creating categories for reversion.
3. Mandating their use.
4. Publicizing them so that editors interested in helping an article
reach consensus and avoid an edit war have a place to look.

This removes the incentive to mobocracy, makes the notification system
simpler, and halts revert wars in their tracks relatively quickly. Its
intent is to reduce the amount of sturm and drang associated with such
conflicts.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

body:
Bill Konrad said:
>
>
> Do I deny the assertion that ALL editors would have to bowlderize ALL
> their  edits?

Nitpicking.


from_name: Arkady Rose

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pre-emptive humiliation (aka "You're full of,	@$%^@%")

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>I just had to de-lurk to talk about this:
>
>Some user named His Own Rectum (probably a neo-Nazi) pops up and starts
>editing. Then an admin comes along, notes that the user is full of @#%
>and that the username breaks a taboo so he ...
>
>
>
>Wait for it....
>
>
>
>...blocks His Own Rectum.
>
>
>ROTFLMAO with tears in my eyes!
>
>Uncle Ed
>
>P.S. This really happened, check the logs:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
>
>
18:03, 16 Feb 2005, Ed Poor <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ed_Poor>
blocked Their bowels <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Their%20bowels>
(expires indefinite) (contribs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Their%20bowels>)
/({{UsernameBlock}})
/17:57, 16 Feb 2005, Ed Poor <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ed_Poor>
blocked His Own Rectum
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:His%20Own%20Rectum> (expires 17:57,
13 Dec 2005) (contribs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=His%20Own%20Rectum>)
/(username)

/
- Might I recommend more bran in your diet? ;-)

-a

--
Imagination is just intelligence having fun.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 14/02/2005


list: foundation-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania Call for Papers and Programme planning

body:
A meeting to discuss the programme for Wikimania, Wikimedia's
conference in August, will take place on at 20:00 (UTC) Friday 18
February in #wikimania on IRC.

Anyone interested in discussing the programme, and especially working
on the call for papers, is encouraged to come to the meeting.

Please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Call_for_papers
and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Programme for details.

Angela.


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
geni said:
>> If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
>> missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
>> encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.
>
> What information is lost if we don't include the image?

About 32 kilobytes of very graphic illustration.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Delirium said:
> geni wrote:
>
>>>If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
>>>missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
>>>encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>What information is lost if we don't include the image?
>>
>>
> Well, the information the image provides would be lost, I suppose.
> However, generally people aren't suggesting we don't include the images
>  at all, but merely include them as links, so it would seem to be
> impossible for any information to be lost---exactly the same
> information  will be present, just navigable in a different manner.
> Sort of like how  old-style books that had figure plates instead of
> inline figures (due to  the printing methods used) did not have less
> information, merely
> information in a different order.
>
I don't have a problem with this, as I've said, it's just that modern
browsers provide much more elegant solutions.  We should encourage our
users to use these freely available tools to enhance their entire web
experience.  A Wikipedia endorsement of some of the better-designed open
source tools would probably do wonders for the takeup of those tools and
make our users' browsing experience (of the entire web) much more
enjoyable and perhaps even more secure.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: FxParlant

subject: [Wikitech-l] parse wikitext in an extension

body:
Hi,

I have a fragment of wikitext in an extension, and I'm desperately
trying to get it parsed.

My extension works perfectly, what I just don't know is :
__how to convert my wikitext to html__ ??

Can someone tell me how to do that. It must be the simplest thing but I
can't find the correct class and the correct method.

EXAMPLE:
*****************

$mytext= "=== MyTitle ===";
$mytext .= "some more text, with [[links]]";

$output = turn_That_To_Html($mytext); // <-- HERE IS MY PROBLEM
return output;
*****************

Thanks for any hint,

Fran?ois


from_name: Jochen Magnus

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Update of download.wikimedia.org/archives/de/

body:
Brion,

>> When will be a database update for the german wikipedia be available?
>
> Since last week. Did you check the list archives before asking your
> question?

the german dump is from Feb 3. Our mirror robot (and me to) checks the
download page daily for updates and this 13 day old file is our last
update source.

The reason I asked is because in the past the dumps changed approx.
weekly. At present they get updated every three weeks or so. I don't
worry about this, except now (a little bit), when de.wikipedia exceeeds
the 200'000 limit.

jo


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Christopher Mahan said:
>
> Should the Jack Daniels logo be linked then, seeing
> as it might be quite offensive to a billion muslims?

Yes, the questions for NPOV of adopting an "offensive images" policy,
while not insoluble, are not trivial.  If we censor images, why not words
that are offensive?  Maybe we're not going to be available to a billion
Chinese people (the fastest growing web population in the world, I
believe) because some of  the things we say offend quite a lot of them,
particularly the ones who decide whether a cybercafe gets shut down.  What
do we do, cave in?


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
> About 32 kilobytes of very graphic illustration.

The same could be said If a randon 32K bitmap was put into the article.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Jim Trodel said:
> I don't see how technical reasons should drive the decision then if the
> proposed compromise is reasonable - why not just let it stand that way
> until the finer controls become available.

I use the finer controls every day.  They're freely available and very
easy to use.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to that image

body:
Christopher Mahan said:
>
> Stomping you foot may work in a bar with cute guys. Most of use are
> neither cute or in a bar.

I believe that list etiquette requires that we at least try to impersonate
cute guys. I would like to politely say to Christopher that I think
personalizing stuff like that goes too far.  Ambi has her say and I
respect her view and I hope we all take heed.  We'd lose a great
contributor if she left.


body:
Skyring said:
>
> Wikipedia with gratuitous images aimed at shock or titillation isn't an
> encyclopaedia - it's something else.

Absolutely.

>
> To my mind, [[Clitoris]], [[Penis]] and so on are valid cases for a
> photograph of the bits in question on an educational basis. Any more
> than one (or perhaps two for [[Penis]]) is just making a meal of it.

Rather a nice meal, though.

> [[Goatse]] doesn't need an article on its own, but perhaps belongs in
> an article about some aspect of the Web, presumably with a link.
> [[Autofellatio]] should be one line and no image in the
> [[Masturbation]] article. If there is such a thing.

It's worth a bit more than a line, in my opinion, not only because it is
an extremely rare and difficult form of masturbation, but because you
don't get that many men fantasizing about being able to masturbate, but
autofellatio is more fascinating.  As I remarked in the part of the
article that I wrote, Brian Aldiss has his narrator witness an
autofellation.  The passage is rather electric and (unusually for Aldiss,
who isn't noted for his sensitive handling of sex scenes) very erotic.  It
ends with the narrator fellating his friend.  The narrator has already
made it clear that although there is a longstanding culture of
after-lights-out mutual masturbation, fellatio is normally regarded as
beyond the pale.


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Writing about sexual topics responsibly is not
	censorship

body:
sannse wrote:
>
>
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
>> sannse wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Chad Perrin wrote:
>>>
>>>> Allow me to present an edited version, prepared for the purpose of
>>>> supporting the opposing view:
>>>>
>>>> "How do you decide you _don't want_ to see the image before knowing
>>>> what the image is about? Someone going to [[Autofellatio]] may have
>>>> no idea what it's about, but once they know, may be quite sure they
>>>> _do_ want to see a photograph of it. If the image is removed from
>>>> the page, you've removed that choice from them."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What a beautifully written argument for linking the image rather than
>>> showing it inline.  I agree with you completely.
>>
>>
>>
>> Intentionally misinterpreting my point is hardly a valid argument.
>
>
> It is when your point makes mine so well - this way we allow people to
> make an informed choice, rather than forcing the image on them.  Your
> rephrasing makes that point just as well as the original version
>

You don't seem to get what I was driving at:  the argument runs BOTH WAYS.

--
Chad


subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to
	that image)

body:
geni said:
>> Just how far do we take open source and liberty? Are we going to have
>> [[Child Pornography]] complete with pictures and links, just because
>> someone thinks we should?
>
> Can't have pictures since that goes against the law in the state of
> florida.

Someone informed me that the law of Florida doesn't allow us to get rid of
the bit of child porn at [[Lolicon]].  Perhaps we should get a second
opinion from the Foundation's lawyers.  I would be happy to see that trash
off the website; at least the autofellatio guy is a grown-up doing it for
fun.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
JAY JG said:
>
>
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>Are forks such a bad idea?
>
> Yes, forks are a bad idea, because the text in the forked articles
> inevitably diverges.  You would end up with different articles on the
> same  subject contradicting each other.

Is this necessarily a problem?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
geni said:
>> To some people, such "gutter" is everyday life. They too have a need
>> for  an informative and complete encyclopedia.
>>
>> Why do you think so many 19 year old american soldiers coming back
>> from iraq are fubared in the head? Because they went from lily-white
>> to scaping the bottom of the human barrel in 2 weeks.
>
> Can you provide evidence for this claim?

Could we stay on topic?


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] An encyclopedia without a miniskirt?

body:
> From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
> Fred Bauder said:
>
>> It is clear to me that some of what we do does violate American
>> mores. It is
>> the young who consult encyclopedia and if what we do must be shielded
>> from children then we are failing.
>
> The above seems to be a recipe for a rather glum document.  No
> miniskirts,
> no bikinis, no women's bare faces, no uncovered female hair.

An encyclopedia _without a miniskirt?_

An encyclopedia without a miniskirt would be like a symphony without a
banjo.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
> Could we stay on topic?

Depends will people start using arguments with few holes in them.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Christopher Mahan said:
>
>  Besides, like jimbo
> said, it's most likely copyvio.
>
I wrote to the webmaster of a site that Cantus claimed was the copyright
holder of the picture.  No reply yet.  Our user specifically licensed this
one under GFDL and said he produced it; I see no reason to doubt that he
is the photographer or the copyright holder. Do you?


body:
> Someone informed me that the law of Florida doesn't allow us to get rid of
> the bit of child porn at [[Lolicon]].  Perhaps we should get a second
> opinion from the Foundation's lawyers.  I would be happy to see that trash
> off the website; at least the autofellatio guy is a grown-up doing it for
> fun.

US law allows simulated child porn at present (ie drawings, cgi, young
looking models etc).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
JAY JG said:
>
>
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>
>>Zoney said:
>> >
>> > re: Vandalism. Yes that's not our fault.
>>
>>Yes it is.  We let *anybody* edit our site and we make no effort to
>>defer edits until they have been checked for suitability.  The result
>>is our responsibility.
>
> That's an odd argument.

Not at all.  We deliberately give absolute editorial control over the
contents of practically every one of the pages on our website.  We do not
take reasonable precautions to prevent inappropriate material appearing on
our servers.  If someone goes to look up Jesus Christ and gets a Linda
Lovelace picture instead, we will be held to blame.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
> I wrote to the webmaster of a site that Cantus claimed was the copyright
> holder of the picture.  No reply yet.  Our user specifically licensed this
> one under GFDL and said he produced it; I see no reason to doubt that he
> is the photographer or the copyright holder. Do you?

The lack of edits by the uploader and thier uploading of a second
questionable image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Zak_spears_current.jpg

(yes I'm terminaly suspicious of everything)

--
geni


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Proposal for the application for a grant that has to
 be applied for before the 20th

body:
Hoi,
I have posted http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IFAP it is an outline for a
proposal for a $45.000,- grant. We need to apply before the 20th of this
month. Please, do understand that if we apply for this grant, we have to
spend money the way we describe. It does not help if you think we should
not spend the money. We either do or we do not apply and, that way we do
not benefit and neither do the people who benefit most who are
incidentally not the people who get paid.

This proposal aims to achieve three things:
* cooperation with the Open Office org by creating a dictionary
integrated into wiktionary for languages they work on. This is a win win
situation
*a dictionary and translations dictionary that helps translators and
students of languages; wiktionary is a many to many dictionary
*better functionality for wiktionary that will prevent a lot of double
work and removes the need for running bots to share our work.

I hope we agree that this is a feasible project and that we can move
forward with this proposal.

Thanks.
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Puddl Duk said:
>
>
> Wikipedia image policy 'suggests' discussing
> objectionable images before adding. This wasn't done
> for the autofellatio image.

The situation has changed since then; there really has been no successful
move to get rid of that picture to date, to my surprise.  It seems to me
that unless Jimbo ups and deletes it (and you won't see any complaints
from me if he does), the picture will be there in one form or another for
a while.  One solution to this might be that Jimbo himself lists it for
deletion, because this might shift the stalement that has occurred on IfD
each time it has been listed before.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Skyring said:
>
> And guess what? If you look at what the general public regards as good
> encyclopaedias in this day and age, you'll see no Autofellatio, no
> Goatse, no terrorist beheadings. I suggest that the people who think
> that such material belongs in a good encyclopaedia are a tiny
> minority.

Evidently not, else they would be so massively outnumbered on Wikipedia
that such articles would be a cinch for VfD.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 19, Issue 87

body:
Karl A. Krueger said:
>
> Note, for instance, that Jimbo did not defend his unlinking of the
> image on the basis of its offending people, and specifically disclaimed
> that motive:  see [[Talk:Autofellatio#Raul's convo]].

I seem to recall that he cited esthetic reasons.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
JAY JG said:
>
> Are you proposing an article listing the specific lunch details of
> 50,000,000 individuals?

I'm pretty sure that an article about the specific lunch details of a mere
5,000 individuals would be considered encyclopedic.  It is one of the
events recorded in all four gospels, I believe.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pre-emptive humiliation (aka 'You're full of @$%^@%')

body:
Poor, Edmund W said:
>
>
> Wait for it....
>
Uncle Ed, you naughty troll!


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Advertisement on mainpage

body:
Hi, I have a question to put forth.

I do not wish to have a disagreement with the members of a just
recently active Wikipedia for fear of scaring them away, so it's
better to discuss it here.

Recently, I removed the spam/advertisement-ish text from the mainpage
of the Wolof Wikipedia.

It was reverted, twice, by the currently active Wolof-speaking user,
Yannick Duchesne.

I feel however that it violates policy.

A rough translation: ?ANAFA (National Association for Literacy and
Adult Education), an organisation in Dakar, Senegal is now working on
the translation of open-source software like SPIP
(http://www.spip.net) (a speedy Internet publisher to manage
magazine-sites).

Cooperating with the Canadian organization "Alternatives
(http://www.alternatives.ca)", we plan very soon to edit the Wolof
(http://wo.wikipedia.com), Pulaar (http://ff.wikipedia.com) and
Mandinke  Wikipedias and work with every NGO in Africa to promote
African languages on the net.

This is within the category of a rebellion against linguistic
discrimination and inequality (particularly bad online) and for the
equality, solidarity, and diversity of cultures.

ANAFA and Alternatives ask academians - especially Africans - to
upload here their original copyleft documentation in Wolof and any
other African language.

More equality and freedom will come from it!?

I have emphasised that the mainpage is supposed to be an introduction
to Wikipedia. I even tried removing the POV parts and moving it to a
separate article at [[ANAFA]], but apparently this was not enough.

I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, or what is appropriate - is
it OK to have such text on the mainpage at all?

Also, Yannick claims to have read Wikipedia documentation extensively
and so there is supposedly no issue with his understanding of NPOV.

Mark


from_name: Anthere

body:
given the number of comments to this sentence Chris, I frankly regret
not to understand what you meant :-)
Could you enlight me offline ?

Ant

Karl A. Krueger a ?crit:
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 09:58:33AM -0800, Christopher Mahan wrote:
>
>>Stomping you foot may work in a bar with cute guys. Most of use are
>>neither cute or in a bar.
>
>
> Snide, sexist comments may work in a bar with incompetent guys.
>
> Most of us are neither incompetent, nor in a bar.
>


body:
geni said:
>> Agreed.
>
>
> Which is why it is od that no one has anaged to give a direct answer to
> my question about what information the picture adds to the article. --

I believe you got an answer from me.  And David Gerard's was I think very
direct: it demonstrates that it's possible.
But illustrations aren't required to be absolutely necessary to appear in
an article. I have blind friends who seem to manage very well without
sight, so I'm confident that I don't need to use my eyes.  But I'm glad
I've got them and one of the reasons is that I can look at pictures.


from_name: Ralf.Bodamer at t-systems.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Configuring wikipedia Error

body:
Hi,

if i set up the wiki i receive the following error. Can one tell me how to
solve the Problem?

MediaWiki 1.3.10 installation
Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation problems.

Checking environment...
PHP 4.3.10: ok
PHP server API is apache2handler; ok, using pretty URLs (index.php/Page_Title)
Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.
PHP is configured with no memory_limit.
No zlib support.
Couldn't find GD library or ImageMagick; image thumbnailing disabled.
Installation directory: /wwwapp/wiki/wiki
Script URI path: /wiki
Notice: Constant NS_MEDIA already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 8

Notice: Constant NS_SPECIAL already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 9

Notice: Constant NS_MAIN already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 12

Notice: Constant NS_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 13

Notice: Constant NS_USER already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 14

Notice: Constant NS_USER_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 15

Notice: Constant NS_WP already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 16

Notice: Constant NS_WIKIPEDIA already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 17

Notice: Constant NS_WP_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 18

Notice: Constant NS_WIKIPEDIA_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 19

Notice: Constant NS_IMAGE already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 20

Notice: Constant NS_IMAGE_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 21

Notice: Constant NS_MEDIAWIKI already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 22

Notice: Constant NS_MEDIAWIKI_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 23

Notice: Constant NS_TEMPLATE already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 24

Notice: Constant NS_TEMPLATE_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 25

Notice: Constant NS_HELP already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 26

Notice: Constant NS_HELP_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 27

Notice: Constant NS_CATEGORY already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 28

Notice: Constant NS_CATEGORY_TALK already defined in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 29

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class namespace in /wwwapp/wiki/wiki/includes/Namespace.php on line 57

Thanks,
Best Regards
Ralf Bodamer


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:22:51 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Skyring said:
> >
> > And guess what? If you look at what the general public regards as good
> > encyclopaedias in this day and age, you'll see no Autofellatio, no
> > Goatse, no terrorist beheadings. I suggest that the people who think
> > that such material belongs in a good encyclopaedia are a tiny
> > minority.
>
> Evidently not, else they would be so massively outnumbered on Wikipedia
> that such articles would be a cinch for VfD.
>

That is quite an assumption. Perhaps some of us would prefer to forget
about Wikipedia's seedy underbelly, have nothing to do with such
articles (much less VfD them), avoid controversy and raising vocal
objectors.

*   For a start, it's only a minority who get involved in VfD in the
first place.

*   Secondly, it's only a minority who are the most "hard hitting" Wikipedians.

*   Third, it's only a minority who are the most active Wikipedians.

*   Fourth, editors are a minority on Wikipedia, and don't necessarily
reflect the general public anyway (they reflect that section with
Internet access, some free time (quite a lot for very active editors,
or else less time spent doing other things), some decent level of
education (certainly for many active editors))

I really think far too many people here are not in touch with reality,
and ignoring the fact that their views (standing up for the freedom to
have such images) are probably not shared by the majority of people -
and furthermore, many (probably the majority of) people would be
seriously put off Wikipedia by such images.

In all fairness, it is likely that in the world as a whole, the
majority leans towards conservatism. Western liberalism/pro-anarchism
is probably most definitely in the minority.

Who are we putting together an encyclopaedia for? Us or them? Are we
just adding content to Wikipedia for our own gratification, and as
such we wish content to be written as we desire it to be? But by and
large people adhere to policy/guidelines (e.g. NPOV). That is why I
would like to see some self-regulation on this issue. I do not think
Wikipedians can be left to their own devices (as I've pointed out, we
aren't left to our own devices. There are policies and guidelines for
a reason. Without them, Wikipedia would be anarchy)

Zoney

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top posting

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Does the Spirit proceed from the Father or from the Father _and_ the
>> Son?
>
> Neither. The Spirit is a separate personage from the other two.

There is an exception when the Spirit comes from a bottle.

Ec


subject:
avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service ads in
	Wikipedia?)

body:
Sj said:
> It would be wonderful and appropriate to list contributors at the
> bottom of each page.

Might be better if this was a "Special:".  Unless I see Marvin Minsky's
name in the list of contributors to an article to AI, or whatever, the
names of the contributors aren't going to help a lot, and I really can't
see fripperies like that persuading tenured professors, published authors
and so on, who aren't already interested in the concept, to contribute
their bits.
Having said that, the reason I got interested in Wikipedia was that I was
looking up the firearms researcher John Lott.  As it happened, a person on
an IP number that corresponded to the institute that employs John Lott
started to vandalize the John Lott article. An editor subsequently
reported on [[WP:ViP]] that the person identified himself as John Lott.
Now that was quite a fascinating introduction to the immediacy of
Wikipedia and to the organic, self-repairing nature of the system.
I was hooked.

It was also nice to see that one or two people I knew from Usenet had
found their way here.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
Cool Hand Luke said:
>
> Duplicated efforts, divergent versions, and a fewer eyeballs: forks are
> an exceptionally bad idea.

Yes, the "fewer eyeballs" thing worries me a little.  This need not be the
case, however.  We just need more intelligent software.>
> If it's terribly important to have whole articles without requiring
> users to click to separated images, I suggest template-driven
> transclusion as used on [[Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse]].

Yuk!  Editing is broken, templates are broken.  No, we would be better off
putting the effort into educating our users in the use of a web browser.
Particularly on a site like Wikipedia, we will never be able to guarantee
that the user won't hit a page containing something he doesn't like.  Men
fellating themselves are absolutely not the most objectionable images on
Wikipedia, though for some reason that image is the one causing about as
much fuss as Abu Ghraib and clitoris (sorry about the wording, but you
know what I mean).


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Middle Way, was Re: naughty pictures

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> There is a middle ground that satisfies the great majority of the
>> Earth's
>> population. An extreme "left" position that insists on videos of
>> intercourse
>
> I'm rather extreme left-wing with all that entails relative to the
> vast majority of the Earth's and Wikipedia's population, and you
> certainly don't see me insisting on any such thing.
>
> I'll defend its right to exist with my life if absolutely neccessary,
> but I'm certainly not going to insist that it either exist or be
> placed on Wikipedia.

Some people will go overboard by allocating everything along a
left-right spectrum.  This puts Fred in the uncharacteristic position of
suggesting that the extreme left supports extreme freedom.

I would suggest that if either Hitler or Stalin were the one deciding
about the status of the autofellation picture on Wikipedia, he would
have insisted that it is immoral and not tolerated it at all.

Ec


from_name: Bill Konrad

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Bill Konrad said:
>> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>> Bill Konrad said:
>>>> Do I deny the assertion that ALL editors would have to bowlderize ALL
>>>> their  edits?
>>>
>>> Nitpicking.
>>
>> Well, you were making a huge generalization, when in fact there is
>> probably  less than a small fraction of 1% of the articles in Wikipedia
>> that might  require some sort of special treatment. That seems a rather
>> large nit.
>
> Absolutely not.  *All* articles and *all* edits and *all* editors would
> have to check their edits to make sure they conformed to whatever K12
> standards we decided to adopt.  There would be absolutely no exceptions.

Nonsense. For more than 99% of the articles there would be absolutely no
question regarding whether or not the content is suitable.

Bkonrad


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
Stirling Newberry is a nice guy (was Article ownership Re:
	avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service ads in
	Wikipedia?))

body:
--- wiki pedista <wikipedista at yahoo.com> wrote:
> NSK said:
> > Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at
> Wikipedia?
> > it's  because I know that nobody will know that an
> article or paragraph
> > was written  by me.

er, NSK != Stirling Newberry

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
geni said:
>> About 32 kilobytes of very graphic illustration.
>
> The same could be said If a randon 32K bitmap was put into the article.
>
No, it wouldn't illustrate anything.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] It was NSK (was :Re: Stirling Newberry)

body:
--- wiki pedista <wikipedista at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Just made an ass of myself, worse that NSK ever had.
> My apologies to Stirling Newberry.
> I'll shut up for at least a year.

If I had to shut up that long each time I made an ass of myself, then you would
never hear from me again.

We all make mistakes - we are all human. :)

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

body:
Bill Konrad said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>> Bill Konrad said:
>>>
>>>
>>> Do I deny the assertion that ALL editors would have to bowlderize ALL
>>> their  edits?
>>
>> Nitpicking.
>
> Well, you were making a huge generalization, when in fact there is
> probably  less than a small fraction of 1% of the articles in Wikipedia
> that might  require some sort of special treatment. That seems a rather
> large nit.

Absolutely not.  *All* articles and *all* edits and *all* editors would
have to check their edits to make sure they conformed to whatever K12
standards we decided to adopt.  There would be absolutely no exceptions.


from_name: Anders Wegge Jakobsen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Naughty/violent pictures

body:
"geni" == geni  <geniice at gmail.com> writes:

>> To some people, such "gutter" is everyday life. They too have a need
>> for  an informative and complete encyclopedia.
>>
>> Why do you think so many 19 year old american soldiers coming back
>> from iraq are fubared in the head? Because they went from lily-white
>> to scaping the bottom of the human barrel in 2 weeks.

> Can you provide evidence for this claim?

[[Paul Hardcastle]] and [[posttraumatic stress disorder]] may
suffice.

>> If all wikipedia ever does is help war survivors cope, that will be
>> reason enough to have built it.

> Can you provide evidence that this is posible?

 Is it possible to reduce the number of young girls beeing (unwanted)
pregnant by telling tham about the mechanics of pregnancy?

--
/Wegge <http://wiki.wegge.dk/>
<http://wiki.wegge.dk/Folk_jeg_ignorerer_p%C3%A5_usenet>
mailto:awegge at gmail.com - Invitationer p? FCFS basis


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Jim Trodel said:
> I know but they are user based controls not Server based and most
> users have no clue how to do any of the things required: 1) Find them,
> 2) Install them, 3) Launch them, 4) Edit the initial settings, or 5)
> Modify the settings later. And teaching them would be quite time
> consuming.

This is true. It can be remedied, and once the users have been taught they
can use their skills *all over the web*, not just on Wikipedia.  If we do
server side controls we'll still have to teach people how to use those.
There are lots of external people who would be only too willing (as a form
of evangelism) to show people how to use a browser controls to block
images and enable them to be shown on a mouseclick.


from_name: Pedro Medeiros

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: xml wiki representation

references:
<cuq5bq$5ps$1@sea.gmane.org>	<cuvv0r$r95$1@sea.gmane.org>	<42139357.8080305@pobox.com>	<cv0a3t$4v3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4213AEB9.1050307@pobox.com>

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
 >
> Pedro Medeiros wrote:
>> A proof-of-concept implementation might be a good thing to have around.
>> But if I may, I can't see how, for instance, a simple flex/bison parser
>> could adequately parse a set of varying extension languages, like the
>> one used in <math> tags, into valid XML (In this case, MathML, I guess).
>
> It wouldn't be expected to; that would be passed off to the extension in
> a subsequent stage. (Have you checked the mailing list archives for past
> discussion on this topic?)

Not thorough, but I got most of the idea. But I won't be using php (and
mediawiki extensions) to work on the XML file produced by
flexbisonparse. I intend to transform the XML file into Docbook/XML (and
from there to anything else). Docbook/XML supports math formulae
natively, so I guess I won't be needing libgd-generated PNG images of
them, right?

Cheers,
Pedro.


body:
geni said:
>> Someone informed me that the law of Florida doesn't allow us to get
>> rid of the bit of child porn at [[Lolicon]].  Perhaps we should get a
>> second opinion from the Foundation's lawyers.  I would be happy to see
>> that trash off the website; at least the autofellatio guy is a
>> grown-up doing it for fun.
>
> US law allows simulated child porn at present (ie drawings, cgi, young
> looking models etc).
>
Well I won't make a big deal of it, but I do think it's absolutely vile.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
Christopher Mahan said:
>
> --- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
>> >
>> I wrote to the webmaster of a site that Cantus claimed was the
>> copyright
>> holder of the picture.  No reply yet.  Our user specifically
>> licensed this
>> one under GFDL and said he produced it; I see no reason to doubt that
>> he
>> is the photographer or the copyright holder. Do you?
>
> Yes, and you too, that's why you're checking.

No.  I'm doing due diligence because the person who claims that it's a
copyvio didn't seem to be willing to take on that task for himself.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie

body:
geni said:
>> I wrote to the webmaster of a site that Cantus claimed was the
>> copyright holder of the picture.  No reply yet.  Our user specifically
>> licensed this one under GFDL and said he produced it; I see no reason
>> to doubt that he is the photographer or the copyright holder. Do you?
>
>
> The lack of edits by the uploader and thier uploading of a second
> questionable image
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Zak_spears_current.jpg

Someone removed the fair use tag and replaced it with a possibly unfree
tag.  Fair enough, but that doesn't make it questionable.  It's very
clearly a publicity shot.


body:
>     http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019703.html
>
> "That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a substitute."
>

But failed to say why a line drawing is not a subsitute (argument by
assertion logical fallacy in other words).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
> No, it wouldn't illustrate anything.

Good so we argree that simply because it is an image it does not add
information.

So what information would be lost if it was removed?

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Puddl Duk said:
>
> --- Tony 'the [[Energizer Bunny]]' Sidaway
> <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>
>> The situation has changed since then; there really
>> has been no successful
>> move to get rid of that picture to date, to my
>> surprise.
>
> I guess I would intemperate this differently; there
> has been no successful move to _keep_ the image.

It has survived two attempts to delete it, so it follows that there have
been two very successful attempts to keep it.
>
> And I think the poll is flawed, the link option
> retains the image at wikipedia.  This is wrong.

The image is still on Wikipedia so it makes sense to link to it there.


from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Stirling Newberry

body:
I know this is an open list, but the least one could ask is that if you
are going to make attacks, you bother to make sure you are shooting at
the right person.

On Feb 16, 2005, at 10:26 PM, wiki pedista wrote:

> NSK said:
>> Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at
> Wikipedia?
>> it's  because I know that nobody will know that an
> article or paragraph
>> was written  by me.
>
> That explains a lot. This person that continuously
> makes
> outrageous proposals, or just tries to plug his
> marginal
> project, isn't even a collaborator of Wikipedia.I know
> this is an open list, but this lack of
> self restrain is almost spam. I'm sure many of the
> subscribers to the list are getting at least a bit
> annoyed with him, but are too polite to say it.
>
> Well, I am not polite enough. Stirling, if you don't
> like our project and policies, please feel free not
> to adopt them in yours, but leave us alone, and
> stop making noise on the list.
>
> Sorry to the rest of the list by this completely
> unproductive message.
>
> AstroNomer
>


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Poll Extension

body:
Giovanni:

some time ago in 2004, there were some work by Tim Starling (for Board
Vote of Wikimedia Foundation).  The files have been archived by Brion
Vibber here
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phase3/extensions/BoardVote/

Unfortunately, I have no further information, than the one, that _no_
further development has been done; the modules are for older mediawiki
versions; and I am not an expert for this.

I hope, that this tiny piece of information could help you a little bit
- I am also interested in having such a vote (or poll) function.
Tom

Giovanni schrieb:

>Hi,
>I would like to know if there is some extension to insert in my installation a poll.
>Thanks,
>
>Giovanni putignano
>
>SCAI - Tradizioni del Sud
>http://stores.ebay.it/tradizionidelsud
>http://www.tradizionidelsud.com
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Puddl Duk said:
>
> --- Tony 'the [[Energizer Bunny]]' Sidaway
> <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>
>> The situation has changed since then; there really
>> has been no successful
>> move to get rid of that picture to date, to my
>> surprise.
>
> I guess I would intemperate this differently; there
> has been no successful move to _keep_ the image.

It has survived two attempts to delete it, so it follows that there have
been two very successful attempts to keep it.
>
> And I think the poll is flawed, the link option
> retains the image at wikipedia.  This is wrong.

The image is still on Wikipedia so it makes sense to link to it there.
The poll was formulated after the results of the first VfD made it plain
that there was at that time no consensus to delete.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Skyring said:
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:22:51 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> Skyring said:
>> >
>> > And guess what? If you look at what the general public regards as
>> > good encyclopaedias in this day and age, you'll see no Autofellatio,
>> > no Goatse, no terrorist beheadings. I suggest that the people who
>> > think that such material belongs in a good encyclopaedia are a tiny
>> > minority.
>>
>> Evidently not, else they would be so massively outnumbered on
>> Wikipedia that such articles would be a cinch for VfD.
>
> Hmmm. Wikipedia as the real world. Even in microcosm it doesn't come
> close to being a true reflection. Most people in RL don't spend their
> days fooling around writing an encyclopaedia.

If those who want the beheadings and whatnot were a tiny minority that
happened to be predisposed to gravitate to Wikipedia, then it would follow
that Wikipedia would have more of this stuff than the rest of the
internet.  As far as I'm aware this is not the case.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Zoney said:
>
> Who are we putting together an encyclopaedia for? Us or them?

Us, if we're honest; I'm not about to start editing the articles on
fishing or football.  We don't seem to be doing too bad a job of making
the thing useful for others, though.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conforming to the Chinese Line, was The Censorship Lie

body:
Fred Bauder said:
> This is particularly touchy situation as we need to address the
> attitudes of the Chinese population as a whole, not those of the tiny
> minority which rules the country.
>
Sure, but if you don't satisfy the rulers you may not get through to the
people.  Same old quandary. Obviously Wikipedia provides an excellent
model for a solution--someone with the approval of the Chinese government
just takes selected Wikipedia content and filters it.


body:
geni said:
>>     http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/019703.html
>>
>> "That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a
>> substitute."
>>
>
> But failed to say why a line drawing is not a subsitute (argument by
> assertion logical fallacy in other words).

A line drawing cannot show that it's possible.  It shouldn't be necessary
to spell this out.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
geni said:
>> No, it wouldn't illustrate anything.
>
> Good so we argree that simply because it is an image it does not add
> information.
>
> So what information would be lost if it was removed?

A picture of a man fellating himself.


subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO
	tothat image)

body:
--- Jack Lutz <jack-lutz at comcast.net> wrote:
> >One point though: Florida is not the world so I'm nt sure why its laws are
> getting so much attention here....
>
> Wikimedia is located in Florida.

The image in question is a cartoon of a little girl with her bare bottom
exposed. That's all, just her bare bottom. I don't know about Florida, but
commercials for baby products in California *very* often show the bare bottoms
of very young children (real ones, not cartoons).

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


body:
Fred Bauder said:
> We are not in a position to stop government filtering, but we should
> nevertheless not violate mores held by the vast majority of the Chinese
> people. I can't say what those are, but we need to pay attention. It is
> clear to me that some of what we do does violate American mores. It is
> the young who consult encyclopedia and if what we do must be shielded
> from children then we are failing.

You're very kind, but I'm not that young any more. :)

The above seems to be a recipe for a rather glum document.  No miniskirts,
no bikinis, no women's bare faces, no uncovered female hair.  And that's
just Islam and Judaism.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
> A picture of a man fellating himself.

And what information do we gain from that?

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
Puddl Duk said:
>
[...]
>
> 'Very successful'??? I thought the majority vote was
> to delete. And the consensus should be whether to
> keep, not whether to delete.  It makes a difference.

Of course it makes a difference.  With a strong minority, the picture
easily survived VfD.  It was very successful indeed.  Surprisingly so, I
thought.


body:
Fred Bauder said:
> People from Saudi Arabia (or Brooklyn) come here and see all those
> things already, but even in Manhattan don't see anyone sucking their
> own cock (unless they go very far out of their way). There is a
> reasonable middle ground. A deliberate choice to not occupy that middle
> ground is to fail in our primary mission.

I agree completely.  Meet Mr Browser.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
geni said:
>> A picture of a man fellating himself.
>
> And what information do we gain from that?

That ''is'' the information.


from_name: Jack Lutz

body:
>One point though: Florida is not the world so I'm nt sure why its laws are
getting so much attention here....

Wikimedia is located in Florida.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request, and Chinese Wikipedia
	again

body:
Alex Y. Kwan wrote:

> My primary school teacher tried to give me "Sandra" as a nickname. Argh.
> I actually like the "Lexa" that my friend came up with, except I don't
> want to be linked with Lex Luthor, however much I like him in "Smallville".

Lex Luthor did not, in any way, begin to occur to me when I read "Lexa".
 I doubt I'm alone in that.

--
Chad


from_name: NSK

subject: [WikiEN-l] new user

body:
On Wednesday 16 February 2005 18:29, Karl A. Krueger wrote:
> It's a sign of recognition to other neo-Nazis.
> For other numerical examples, compare 420, 93, 42, 23, or 17.

I suggest that all users using neo-Nazi numbers be monitored by the sysops,
and in case we find they are inserting Nazi POV, or displaying Nazi symbols,
or generally promoting Nazism in Wikipedia, then they should be banned
forever (and notify authorities etc if possible).

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


body:
I strongly agree.

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org/canada-flag

On Wednesday 16 February 2005 23:40, Mark Williamson wrote:
> I strongly disagree.
>
> Mark
>
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:44:26 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It would be wonderful and appropriate to list contributors at the
> > bottom of each page.  Wikitravel seems to have a nice patch for this,
> > which also lists the latest contributor; I wonder if it would be easy
> > to backport to the trunk of mediawiki.  (wondering also if Evan is
> > reading this :)
> >
> > +sj+
> >
> > On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:29:26 +0100, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com>
wrote:
> > > On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:26:55 +1100, David Gerard
> > >
> > > <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > > > I use my full name (rather than a net handle) on Wikipedia because it
> > > > seems more proper, and also the credit clearly then goes to ME ME ME
> > > > ME ME. Have they seen the history pages? It's usually clear which two
> > > > or three editors are primarily responsible for an article text.
> > >
> > > Less clear than it might be. On a minor page you have to check about
> > > 10 edits to see that there are 1 or 2 people who wrote almost
> > > everything. On pages with much traffic it's more like checking 50 to
> > > find 5 of them.
> > >
> > > Andre Engels
> >
> > --
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


list: wiktionary-l

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fwd: [Foundation-l] Import
	question

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> This might be raised in [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour]], but I suspect
>> that it would not receive a warm reception.  While the words which
>> are not yet in Wiktionary might be welcomed there would remain the
>> question of how do you propose to reconcile your contributions with
>> the words that we already have.  To the extent that any upload may be
>> possible it should also be done at a rate that is slow enough to
>> allow others to ask questions about each of your contributions.
>> Perhaps by first entering a small sample of your files you could
>> develop the confidence of the Wiktionary community that your
>> contributions are acceptable.
>>
>> Ec (en:Wiktionary sysop)
>
> Hoi,
> This is a great example where the en:wiktionary assumes that is only
> has been adressed when dictionary terms are mentioned. It also assumes
> that its practices are the same on all wiktionaries. It is only one
> wiktionary and they are not.

What a liar!!!

> There are several wiktionaries that welcome quality content and load
> them in bulk with a bot onto their pages. We even apply for temporary
> bot status so that it can be uploaded with a personalised bot (good
> for the GFDL requirements). This is a great way of beefing up the
> content of a project. Certainly when as often happens, the content is
> either specialised or with translations to a specific language it can
> be an extremely worthwhile addition to the wiktionary.

If some other language Wiktionary is more interested in quantity than
quality, or wants to use a bot just to beef up its article numbers the
members there are welcome to come to such a community decision.

> The argument that the upload should be slow enough for the community
> to ask questions is based on what, fear ?? There is already plenty of
> content on en: that is questionable like words spelled wrong, this is
> spelled out, but hey, it is a dictionary and content SHOULD be
> correct. So when you argue let us know what the content is about, I
> could agree. When you say do it slowly as we want to look into every
> addition, I would say that this is not feasible using a bot.

If you believe that there are words spelled wrong on the en:wiktionary
then fix them, rather than whining here that they should be correct.  In
the first place the members of a community need to know what a bot will
do so that they can decide on whether it is acting appropriately.
Suddenly adding 20,000 entries without any opportunity to adapt them to
current formatting practices is just adding 20,000 tasks for other
people to fix.  I am not prepared to arrogate to myself the authority to
decide such a thing, nor can I accept that such a thing will be decided
on a mailing list to which only a fraction of the active community
subscribes.  The proposal needs to be put to a broader community of the
en:Wiktionary before it can be implemented there.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: >>: Re: [Foundation-l] And blocked again

body:
Rich Holton (rich_holton at yahoo.com) [050216 13:27]:

> Also, don't we allow signed-in users access even from a banned IP?
> Couldn't something like this be implemented?

MediaWiki bug 550. It appears to be a generally supported idea, so probably
the best move now is for someone to write the code!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures

body:
Christopher Mahan (chris_mahan at yahoo.com) [050216 14:27]:
> --- Arno M <redgum46 at lycos.com> wrote:

> > It is not an encycopedia's task to do PR for terrorists,
> > especially
> > ones who are as ruthless as these.

> Then Auschwitz pics are out of the question, right?

I don't know if anyone's working on code for the inline vs link user
option, but it would probably beat the fork that appears to be coming on
the issue.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] New Users on New Wikipedia?

body:
Arno M wrote:

>"Look what the cat dug up:  [[User:NSM88]]"
>
>For someone who was only in Wikipedia for about 2.5 hours ,NSM88 has
>certainly created a lot of fuss here.
>
>(see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=NSM88)
>
>What if two of them had come by....
>
>Incidentally, if this guy did blow in from the Stormfront, then there seems to have
>been a change of mind over there. Here's a St Valentines Day note that appeared there:
>
>"The only solution is to setup our own wikipedia, which is called a fork and to set it up with the idea of promoting neutrality, balance and a wide range of point of views. Not to mention keeping a very close eye on Jewish topics and people suspected of being jew biased."
>
They are even allowed to use the Wikimedia software!  Of course they
would not be allowed to use the name, but I assume they have their own
colorful ideas for a name.  Some people with technical knowledge may
even be inclined to help insure that they stay successfully forked.
This is obviously an area where our policy to discourage forks could be
waived. :-)

Ec


body:
Nicholas Knight said:
>
> Tell you what. Go get 75% of the internet population to use your
> extraordinarily non-fine-grained mechanism 100% of the time, and I'll
> drop my objection to inlining the image. Agreed?

I don't want you to drop your objection.  I'm more interested in whether
solutions exist than whether people are prepared to accept that they exist
and can be used.


from_name: Hannes Delago

subject: [Wikitech-l] what happened to en db download?

body:
>> Well yes, but refreshlinks.php takes a LONG time to run and tends to bomb out eventually on my installation... <<

>> Just to be sure: be advised that 1.4beta5 fixed some bugs (memory leaks, take a look at
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101) with those refresh scripts. If you are experiencing problems, this might be the
cause. <<

Thanks Petr... I was using 1.4beta5 already. The error msg is

###
Fatal error: Call to a member function getUrl() on a non-object in E:\Info\Wiki\
xampp\htdocs\wiki-en\includes\Image.php on line 349
###

Will see if I can add some trace output to the script - but, even if refreshlinks would run to completion eventually, its extremely
long runtime seems prohibitive, so, again - sorry for being a PITA - I think it would be a really nice move if imagelinks could be
added to the dump script some time (it's a quite small table, and since links, categorylinks, brokenlinks etc. are getting dumped
already, imagelinks is the only one still missing from a complete dump set).

Regards
  Hannes.


subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO
	to	that image)

body:
Nicholas Knight said:
>
> And why is your evaluation of the image at Lolicon as "trash" and
> "vile"  any more valid than my evaluation of the Autofellatio image as
> "crap"?

It probably isn't.  I think it's just a matter of taste.


subject:
[Wiktionary-l] The Japanese Wiktionary have been locked
	temporarily

body:
eG wrote:

>Dear Wiktionary community,
>
>The Japanese Wiktionary have been locked until we'd establish the basic
>policies. In brief, the matter was lack of motivated and dedicated
>contributors there. That's shame but true. Here I report the reason and
>background in detail.
>
>This project has 2,000 articles and seems to be not so inactive.
>However, many of members think the current state is terrible. Many of
>articles have been edited by sock-puppets and vandal(s) who seems to be
>banned from Wikipedia. Most of basic policies remain untouched. We had
>tried to do something several times, those were failed. One of major
>reasons of the failure was copyright issues under Japanese law, I
>suppose. There are three admins but now they are inactive and two of
>them have expressed their will to resign, moreover, no one requested for
>adminship. Thus, the Wiktionary became bleak. It also might threaten
>novel contributors.
>
>I'm afraid vandals and non-cooperative people waste the project if we
>would leave actual status. There are less motivated people than
>non-preferables. So I proposed the temporal closure on the Village pump.
>The suggestion and discussion were absolutely open. I announced it
>clearly on the Main page and head of Recentchanges. All of visited
>people must be noticed. After a week, as you know, the result was 8
>supports and 1 objection. Now the oppose seems to accept this suggestion
>because s/he did not express opposing argument when I ascertained the
>request and s/he seems to be cooperative to solve the issues. After the
>counting, we got 4 new supports, including 1 sysop. Most of us think we
>have to have such policies before editing and stop to edit now. To
>establish those policies would be an effortful work and take long time.
>
>This is the reason and background.
>
>I hope my next post would be a report of re-open of the Japanese Wiktionary.
>
>
This is a regretable situation. Still I find it hard to believe that a
project with only 2,000 articles would have such a problem with vandalism.

Effective policies are built up while people edit, and will often change
over time. New people will want to have an opportunity to participate in
the development of policies. Setting policies before people can edit may
just make things more difficult.

I don't know what special problems you have with Japanese copyright law,
but my experience has been that wiktionaries would have fewer problems
with copyrights than wikipedias.

Ec


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] New Users on New Wikipedia?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> They are even allowed to use the Wikimedia software!  Of course they
> would not be allowed to use the name, but I assume they have their own
> colorful ideas for a name.  Some people with technical knowledge may
> even be inclined to help insure that they stay successfully forked.
> This is obviously an area where our policy to discourage forks could be
> waived. :-)

Could prove useful for us as a source for information on the lunatics,
too. Not that I'm wild about them having another mechanism for spreading
their lunacy, but in this world, I'll take what I can get.


body:
Nicholas Knight said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>> Absolutely not.  *All* articles and *all* edits and *all* editors
>> would have to check their edits to make sure they conformed to
>> whatever K12 standards we decided to adopt.  There would be absolutely
>> no exceptions.
>
> I find your lack of faith in our editors' common sense
> disturbing.

I think you're reaching there. I have every faith in our editors' ability
to meet any requirements placed on them.  They are not required to write
for K12 at present, however.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
Article ownership Re: avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l]
	public service ads in Wikipedia?)

body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:59:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:

> There are many pages which are "owned" now by small cabals of editors,
> because they can revert away anyone who disagrees with them. In the
> spirit of "no formalized page ownership" this should be addressed. My
> proposal is tighten the revert rule to be content based, that is three
> reverts of particular content in a day is the limit, in each direction,
> and that after that people making further reverts are blocked.  Then
> create categories for RFC and reverting, requiring that someone
> reverting an article place the article in one of the categories based
> on the reason for the revert. This isn't that much more work, and will
> automatically create a tracking system which is better than searching
> edit summaries and better than relying on RFC. The RFC process as is
> would remain in place as a way of giving a more detailed explanation of
> the source of the dispute. I feel the more "automatic" we make the
> process of "raising a red flag" on an article, the more it will be done
> rather than edit warring it out.
>
> Commitment to an open process of consensus means, I think, that we
> examine where that process is not yet acceptable to people who are
> able, energetic and knowledgeable, and who we want as contributors.

I don't see how your proposals are going to help. In some cases, yes,
a new person can shed a new light on the matter and find a compromise.
But in cases where there is, as you write, a "cabal" "owning" the
page, getting more people in will only make the discussion being
fought louder, not the solution being brought nearer. There is
currently no way to decide what shape a page should have if there is
no consensus. As long as we do not have that, bringing in more people
will only cause the same arguments to be made over and over again.

Andre Engels


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject:
Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to
	that image)

body:
> >> Someone informed me that the law of Florida doesn't allow us to get
> >> rid of the bit of child porn at [[Lolicon]].

Legally speaking, I think this is not said as precisely as it should
be said.  The law of Florida *does* allow us to get rid of this
picture or any other.  We are not required to publish anything we
don't want to publish, period.

What Florida does not do is *require* us to get rid of this.

--Jimbo


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] embedding flash movies

body:
Stan Wiechers wrote:
> I'm looking for suggestions and best practices on how to embed flash
> movies into the mediawiki.

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

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Chad Perrin wrote:
> I've been deleting large sections of this series of threads without
> reading them, because I've had to do some actual work and would never
> get caught up if I read them all.  Has there been any significant
> progress on the idea of developing code that will create an
> opt-in/opt-out solution to the problem of inlining controversial images?

AFAICT, the consensus is that it's an acceptable compromise. Design is
reasonably simple, The Cunctator noted the category system can be
exploited to take care of the actual tagging mechanism. The rest is just
a filter. When the system goes to load an image it checks the image's
categories against the user's preferences, if it's "allowed", it loads
as normal, if not, it's replaced with one of two mechanisms (should let
the user choose a preferred mechanism in their preferences; may be
neccessary if the user allows some Javascript operations but not others).

1) If the user has Javascript enabled, a Javascript mechanism is used;
this would allow the decision to be fast and entirely client-side. If
the user clicks the link/button, the browser will load the image
straight up without having to reload the entire page.

2) If the user doesn't have Javascript enabled, a link is provided that
leads back to the current page with a URL parameter (something like
'allowimg=$imgid') that the filter picks up.

Just need someone to write the code (well, two someones, a PHP coder
isn't neccessarily going to know Javascript).


subject: [WikiEN-l] proxy blocked

body:
Jake Waskett (jake at waskett.org) [050217 02:40]:

> The IP 62.252.192.12 is a transparent proxy server, owned by the UK cable
> company NTL.
> It is presently blocked by Jayjg: Autoblocked because you share an IP address
> with "JonGwynne". Reason "violation of 3RR".
> Could someone unblock this IP please?

Unblocked. Here's to someone coding bug 550 ...

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] NSM88, deletion of user page image, personal attacks

body:
Hello,
I understand user NSM88 had at one time an image of himself dressed in some kind of Nazi or neo-Nazi uniform displayed on his user page, and that it was deleted. Two issues stemming from that: deletion justification, and personal attacks by admins.

The deletion log reads:

     12:06, 15 Feb 2005 Theresa knott deleted Image:Walternsm.jpg (This image will upset a number of users and lead to disruption rather than cooperation)

This bothers me. That it will "lead to disruption" is, I think, a strained justification for removing an image of someone used on their own personal page which, so far as I know contained nothing more 'graphic' than a 'Nazi uniform'.

If the justification for deleting an image is that it bore a Nazi emblem, then at least one administrator is deleting images which offend their own or other contributors' personal or political beliefs. How can that stand? If I should upload an image of myself wearing a Democratic or Republican pin, for example, would that be "disruptive"? There is no evidence that he did not act in good faith.

Looking at it further, I see personal motives for banning and personal attacks against him by an administrator.

    I've blocked you for being a hateful individual. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)  [User talk:NSM88]

    Feel free to visit nsm888 on some OTHER website. Removing advertising for an offensive organisation.) [User:NSM88 edit summary,  11:23, 15 Feb 2005 Ta bu shi da yu]

    Liberation from what? Liberation from having a brain? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:25, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User:NSM88 hist]

    You are now only blocked for 48 hours. Don't thank me though. If I had my way, none of you people would be posting on here. But I'll be watching you. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88]

    Sure he has. His political views are extremely hateful. He openly proclaimed that he was a white supremecist (though under the guise of "White liberation"). If you don't like what I did, tough. I've been open about what I've done, but I don't expect you to understand. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:19, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88]

Please, someone tell me this isn't acceptable behavior from administrators.

[[en:User:119]]


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Proposal for the application for a grant that has to
 be applied for before the 20th]

body:
Hoi,

I have posted http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IFAP it is an outline for a
proposal for a $45.000,- grant. We need to apply before the 20th of this
month. Please, do understand that if we apply for this grant, we have to
spend money the way we describe. It does not help if you think we should
not spend the money. We either do or we do not apply and, that way we do
not benefit and neither do the people who benefit most who are
incidentally not the people who get paid.

This proposal aims to achieve three things:
* cooperation with the Open Office org by creating a dictionary
integrated into wiktionary for languages they work on. This is a win win
situation
*a dictionary and translations dictionary that helps translators and
students of languages; wiktionary is a many to many dictionary
*better functionality for wiktionary that will prevent a lot of double
work and removes the need for running bots to share our work.

I hope we agree that this is a feasible project and that we can move
forward with this proposal.

Thanks.
   GerardM


subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Proposal for the application for a grant that has to
 be applied for before the 20th]


from_name: Rich Holton

body:
--- NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:

> On Thursday 17 February 2005 11:06, Jack Lutz wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I understand user NSM88 had at one time an image of himself dressed
> in some
> > kind of Nazi or neo-Nazi uniform displayed on his user page, and
> that it
> > was deleted. Two issues stemming from that: deletion justification,
> and
> > personal attacks by admins.
>
> The administrators were right to delete it. Neo-Nazis will not be
> tolerated in
> Wikipedia.
>

Please note that, with rare exceptions, each contributor to this list
is speaking for themselves, and not officially for Wikipedia or
Wikimedia. This applies equally to NSK's comments above, and to my
comments.

I take extreme exception to the statement that "Neo-Nazis will not be
tolerated in Wikipedia." In my opinion that statement is in direct
contradiction to the concept of NPOV.

_Everyone_ is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia unless and until they
demonstrate that they will not participate in good faith, according to
the established practices and policies of the community. There are
established mechanisms for determining when someone is not
participating in good faith, and for restricting their participation as
a result.

"Everyone" includes Neo-Nazis, no matter how much we may abhor their
beliefs.

I do not think that the photo should have been removed based solely on
the presence of Nazi symbols, especially since it was on the user's
page.

However, many people in the US (like me) have a different attitude
about Nazi symbols that do many people in Europe. The United States did
not so directly suffer from Hitler and the Nazi's as Europe did. I
think it's almost impossible for someone like me to fully appreciate
their views.

Let me make this plain: I hate Neo-Nazi beliefs. However, I urge that
we Wikipedians treat Neo-Nazi's no differently than we treat other
contributors whose beliefs differ from our own. Certainly remove POV
from articles. Certainly hold them accountable to properly documented
facts. Make sure that they are participating in good faith. But unless
and until they prove themselves unable to participate in good faith, we
should not take any action against them.

-Rich Holton
en.Wikipedia:User:Rholton

__________________________________
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Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fwd: [Foundation-l] Import question

body:
Hoi,
There is a bot that will try to import the data into wiktionary. It is
part of the pywikipedia bot.Under optimal conditions it works fine, if
you run a Window variety, it must be Windows XP as this has the best
handling of "funny" characters. The bot tries to cater for UTF-8 but it
does not work perfectly. Andre Engels, the writer of the bot cannot find
where the current problems are so we are rather desperate for a fix :(.

To get it to work, your file must contain a start and stop string for
each article. The data will be imported as is into wiktionary. The bot
will only import if there is nothing there, so it must be completely
new. To be "nice" to the other users, it is best to run this with a
profile with bot status. :)

I am happy to produce a file that is ready for upload for you from what
you have. The uploading of the file I would also do when the bot worked
100%. I do upload with different users in order to state from where the
content originated (and comply with the GFDL in the process).

Thanks,
    GerardM

jellings wrote:

> To clarify on my original post:
>
> I have a text file of dictionary terms - word, definition plus another
> file of word, synonyms - since I already have it in this format it
> would be a lot easier to import it.
>
> I CAN reformat the file, but to enter it manually would take too long
> (there are over 20,000 entries in the dictionary file alone, more in
> the synonyms).
>
> I do not have a complete understanding of the database schema so the
> answer may be obvious to others; any insight would be helpful.
>
>
> Rich Holton wrote:
>
>> Forwarded from Foundation-l:
>>
>>
>> --- jellings <jellings at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:02:24 -0500
>>> From: jellings <jellings at gmail.com>
>>> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>> Subject: [Foundation-l] Import question
>>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> Sorry in advance if this is the wrong list to post this to.
>>>
>>> I would like to know about importing csv files into an existing wiki.
>>>
>>> I have tried to find the documentation for doing so but have not had
>>> much luck.
>>>
>>> If anyone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate
>>> it.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> --
>>> john
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail
>> you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Middle Way, was Re: naughty pictures

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Nicholas Knight wrote:
>
>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>> There is a middle ground that satisfies the great majority of the
>>> Earth's
>>> population. An extreme "left" position that insists on videos of
>>> intercourse
>>
>>
>> I'm rather extreme left-wing with all that entails relative to the
>> vast majority of the Earth's and Wikipedia's population, and you
>> certainly don't see me insisting on any such thing.
>>
>> I'll defend its right to exist with my life if absolutely neccessary,
>> but I'm certainly not going to insist that it either exist or be
>> placed on Wikipedia.
>
>
> Some people will go overboard by allocating everything along a
> left-right spectrum.  This puts Fred in the uncharacteristic position of
> suggesting that the extreme left supports extreme freedom.
> I would suggest that if either Hitler or Stalin were the one deciding
> about the status of the autofellation picture on Wikipedia, he would
> have insisted that it is immoral and not tolerated it at all.
>

That's not a "left" thing, anyway.  With all the leftists running around
calling libertarians "right wing extremists", it should be fairly
obvious that supporting the right to distribute pictures of
autofellation isn't left-wing since that's pretty well libertarian
canonical opinion.  That aside, though . . .

I've been deleting large sections of this series of threads without
reading them, because I've had to do some actual work and would never
get caught up if I read them all.  Has there been any significant
progress on the idea of developing code that will create an
opt-in/opt-out solution to the problem of inlining controversial images?

--
Chad


body:
--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> Jimbo said:
> >
> > What Florida does not do is *require* us to get rid of this.
> >
> Yes, I suppose that's what I meant.  So, to the question: is an
> eroticized
> drawing of a child abuse victim suitable for Wikipedia?
>

Aside from an article on "eroticized drawings of child abuse victims",
I can't imagine any place such a drawing would be relevant. And I'm not
sure that the topic would deserve an article of its own.

-Rich Holton
en.Wikipedia:User:Rholton

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from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to that image

body:
> I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to read about a sexual or
> otherwise explicit subject without seeing explicit images of it.  I am
> quite interested to know what exactly autofellatio is, if it really is
> possible and what proportion of the population are able - but I'm really
> not interested in seeing an image of it.  And if I am, I'll turn of
> safe-search on google and search for images there.
>
> The argument that I can turn off images on my browser seems a bad one to
> me - for a start, many people don't know how to do this (never
> underestimate the non-techyness of the general user).  It's also
> inconvenient to have to switch images on and off for different pages
> (especially as I use tabs).  And for the general reader, why would they
> /expect/ to have to turn images off when reading a general encyclopaedia?
>
> --sannse

Thank you, sannse.

Really, I think we could do with some intervention from Jimbo on this
issue.  I'm a rabid leftie, and one reason I chose to study law was
because I detest censorship. Yet, at the same time, I utterly refuse
to have to put vile censorship software on my own computer to avoid
seeing inline what shouldn't be there in the first place. I could
really care less about some of the more minor ones, such as
[[Clitoris]], but I'm on record as saying that the day [[Goatse]] and
similar articles receive according pictures is the day that I leave
Wikipedia and demand that every trace of my involvement on this site
be removed. I love this site, but I would no longer want to be
personally associated with such a place.

-- ambi


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Apology to David Gerard and explanation

body:
For now I want to apologize to David Gerard. I am under a lot of stress.
And since I felt that I had given the reason for me not to contact my
provider nor to change it. Plus external reasons nothing to do with
wikipedia I just blew up. I had no right to address him with the words I
did. I am sorry for making an ass out of myself.

I still stay with the words that in Thailand thinks work totally
different from the west (I would say most of this part of Asia).
Basicaly if you life over here and want to survive like I am doing
forget about everything you learned in the west and start over. There is
no such thing as consumerrights here and this really is the best deal. I
pay 1.350 baht a month for a 2.5 mbps/256 kbps unlimited connection. A
friend of mine pays 2.099 baht for a 256/128 kbps 100 hrs a month
connection. I also get a 20% duscount on both my mobile and
housephonebills as they are the same company, Thailands second biggest
phone company (formerly Telecom Asia now True). The only bad thing about
the deal is I cannot break contract in the first 2 years (and they do
not rise the price)  because then I have to pay 6000 baht. For
comparison 6.000 baht is almost what I spend in a month on food. For me
that is a lot of money, as I am earning Thai wages, not Western
expatriate wages.

With kind regards,

Walter van Kalken


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> jellings wrote:
>
>> To clarify on my original post:
>>
>> I have a text file of dictionary terms - word, definition plus another
>> file of word, synonyms - since I already have it in this format it
>> would be a lot easier to import it.
>>
>> I CAN reformat the file, but to enter it manually would take too long
>> (there are over 20,000 entries in the dictionary file alone, more in
>> the synonyms).
>>
>> I do not have a complete understanding of the database schema so the
>> answer may be obvious to others; any insight would be helpful.
>
>
> Now that you have clarified your intention it is evident that this is
> a Wiktionary matter.
>
> This might be raised in [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour]], but I suspect
> that it would not receive a warm reception.  While the words which are
> not yet in Wiktionary might be welcomed there would remain the
> question of how do you propose to reconcile your contributions with
> the words that we already have.  To the extent that any upload may be
> possible it should also be done at a rate that is slow enough to allow
> others to ask questions about each of your contributions.  Perhaps by
> first entering a small sample of your files you could develop the
> confidence of the Wiktionary community that your contributions are
> acceptable.
>
> Ec (en:Wiktionary sysop)

Hoi,
This is a great example where the en:wiktionary assumes that is only has
been adressed when dictionary terms are mentioned. It also assumes that
its practices are the same on all wiktionaries. It is only one
wiktionary and they are not.

There are several wiktionaries that welcome quality content and load
them in bulk with a bot onto their pages. We even apply for temporary
bot status so that it can be uploaded with a personalised bot (good for
the GFDL requirements). This is a great way of beefing up the content of
a project. Certainly when as often happens, the content is either
specialised or with translations to a specific language it can be an
extremely worthwhile addition to the wiktionary.

The argument that the upload should be slow enough for the community to
ask questions is based on what, fear ?? There is already plenty of
content on en: that is questionable like words spelled wrong, this is
spelled out, but hey, it is a dictionary and content SHOULD be correct.
So when you argue let us know what the content is about, I could agree.
When you say do it slowly as we want to look into every addition, I
would say that this is not feasible using a bot.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
geni (geniice at gmail.com) [050217 04:37]:

> > If some information is missing, then people will wonder what else is
> > missing. And that will lead to mistrust. And to be a mistrusted
> > encyclopedia is worse than reformatting the hard drives.

> What information is lost if we don't include the image?

That it's actually possible. A line drawing really is not a substitute.

- d.


body:
--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> Rich Holton said:
> >
> > --- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >
> >>So, to the question: is an eroticized drawing of a child abuse
> victim
> >>suitable for Wikipedia?
> >
> > Aside from an article on "eroticized drawings of child abuse
> victims",
> > I can't imagine any place such a drawing would be relevant. And I'm
> not
> > sure that the topic would deserve an article of its own.
>
> Well that's apparently what Lolicon is about--child porn manga and
> anime.
>
Tony,

I plead half-awakeness as my excuse for not seeing your point.

-Rich Holton

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


from_name: Skyring

body:
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:45:23 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:

> Really, I think we could do with some intervention from Jimbo on this
> issue.  I'm a rabid leftie, and one reason I chose to study law was
> because I detest censorship. Yet, at the same time, I utterly refuse
> to have to put vile censorship software on my own computer to avoid
> seeing inline what shouldn't be there in the first place. I could
> really care less about some of the more minor ones, such as
> [[Clitoris]], but I'm on record as saying that the day [[Goatse]] and
> similar articles receive according pictures is the day that I leave
> Wikipedia and demand that every trace of my involvement on this site
> be removed. I love this site, but I would no longer want to be
> personally associated with such a place.

Hear, hear!

Wikipedia with gratuitous images aimed at shock or titillation isn't
an encyclopaedia - it's something else.

To my mind, [[Clitoris]], [[Penis]] and so on are valid cases for a
photograph of the bits in question on an educational basis. Any more
than one (or perhaps two for [[Penis]]) is just making a meal of it.
[[Goatse]] doesn't need an article on its own, but perhaps belongs in
an article about some aspect of the Web, presumably with a link.
[[Autofellatio]] should be one line and no image in the
[[Masturbation]] article. If there is such a thing.

Just how far do we take open source and liberty? Are we going to have
[[Child Pornography]] complete with pictures and links, just because
someone thinks we should?
--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
> The image in question is a cartoon of a little girl with her bare bottom
> exposed. That's all, just her bare bottom. I don't know about Florida, but
> commercials for baby products in California *very* often show the bare bottoms
> of very young children (real ones, not cartoons).
>
> -- mav

I wonder what these overly-sensitive people would have done a few
decades ago when one could see the classic Coppertone ad on a
billboard, right out in public and all.

For those whose childhood didn't include this iconic image: Coppertone
was a sunscreen product, the advertisements for which showed a drawing
of a very young (under 10 years old) girl whose swimsuit bottom (as I
recall, she wore nothing on top) was being pulled down by a cocker
spaniel to reveal the contrast between her well-tanned back and very
pale bottom.

--
 Sean Barrett     | It's a very sobering feeling to be up in
 sean at epoptic.com | space and realise that one's safety factor
                  | was determined by the lowest bidder on
                  | a government contract. --Alan Shepherd


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
As our policy is currently written, running off neo-nazis or Stalinist (or
Trotskyist or Maoist) revolutionaries is not permitted. Nor is exclusion of
open advocates of Islamic (or Zionist) terrorism. In my opinion we should
change that policy and permit exclusion of open advocates of totalitarian
ideologies and terrorism.

The actions you describe are not acceptable behavior from Wikipedia
administrators.

Fred

> From: "Jack Lutz" <jack-lutz at comcast.net>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:06:06 -0600
> To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] NSM88, deletion of user page image, personal attacks
>
> Hello,
> I understand user NSM88 had at one time an image of himself dressed in some
> kind of Nazi or neo-Nazi uniform displayed on his user page, and that it was
> deleted. Two issues stemming from that: deletion justification, and personal
> attacks by admins.
>
> The deletion log reads:
>
> 12:06, 15 Feb 2005 Theresa knott deleted Image:Walternsm.jpg (This image will
> upset a number of users and lead to disruption rather than cooperation)
>
> This bothers me. That it will "lead to disruption" is, I think, a strained
> justification for removing an image of someone used on their own personal page
> which, so far as I know contained nothing more 'graphic' than a 'Nazi
> uniform'.
>
> If the justification for deleting an image is that it bore a Nazi emblem, then
> at least one administrator is deleting images which offend their own or other
> contributors' personal or political beliefs. How can that stand? If I should
> upload an image of myself wearing a Democratic or Republican pin, for example,
> would that be "disruptive"? There is no evidence that he did not act in good
> faith.
>
> Looking at it further, I see personal motives for banning and personal attacks
> against him by an administrator.
>
> I've blocked you for being a hateful individual. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:21, 15
> Feb 2005 (UTC)  [User talk:NSM88]
>
> Feel free to visit nsm888 on some OTHER website. Removing advertising for an
> offensive organisation.) [User:NSM88 edit summary,  11:23, 15 Feb 2005 Ta bu
> shi da yu]
>
> Liberation from what? Liberation from having a brain? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:25,
> 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User:NSM88 hist]
>
> You are now only blocked for 48 hours. Don't thank me though. If I had my way,
> none of you people would be posting on here. But I'll be watching you. - Ta bu
> shi da yu 12:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88]
>
> Sure he has. His political views are extremely hateful. He openly proclaimed
> that he was a white supremecist (though under the guise of "White
> liberation"). If you don't like what I did, tough. I've been open about what
> I've done, but I don't expect you to understand. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:19, 17
> Feb 2005 (UTC) [User talk:NSM88]
>
> Please, someone tell me this isn't acceptable behavior from administrators.
>
> [[en:User:119]]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] New Users on New Wikipedia?

in_reply_to:
<42145CDA.1080703@telus.net> (message from Ray Saintonge on Thu,
	17 Feb 2005 00:59:06 -0800)

body:
> Some people with technical knowledge may
> even be inclined to help insure that they stay successfully forked.
> This is obviously an area where our policy to discourage forks could be
> waived. :-)

Fork 'em very much.


body:
> Was the spaniel equipped with a large dildo?

No, I must confess that I missed that detail in my cursory glance at
the [[Lolicon]] image.

--
 Sean Barrett     | It's a very sobering feeling to be up in
 sean at epoptic.com | space and realise that one's safety factor
                  | was determined by the lowest bidder on
                  | a government contract. --Alan Shepherd


from_name: YELYOSHI at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 19, Issue 52

body: This is yelyoshi at aol.com  Ples do not send any noe emails


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: lolicon picture

body:
> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
>
> The image in question is a cartoon of a little girl with her bare
> bottom
> exposed. That's all, just her bare bottom. I don't know about Florida,
> but
> commercials for baby products in California *very* often show the bare
> bottoms
> of very young children (real ones, not cartoons).

That's exactly what I thought, too, and I went into a long rant in a
discussion saying it was no different from the Coppertone girl and what
was the big deal.

Than I got an email from someone pointing that I was wrong. There was a
detail in the picture that I had not noticed, even though it is fairly
obvious. It's blue.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Polite Thoughtful Neo-Nazis, was NSM88,
	deletion of user page image, personal attacks

body:
The Arbcom cannot exclude an advocate of totalitarianism or terrorism under
our current policies, indeed, we cannot even accept a case on that basis
alone. The user must go beyond advocacy and violate NPOV, make personal
attacks, delete encyclopedic material, attempt to dominate a block of
articles with aggressive POV editing, etc. before we can accept a case or
even issue a mild rebuke. A polite thoughtful neo-nazi is welcome to edit
under our current policies.

The Arbcom has a few critics who think we do otherwise, but while there is
prejudice against these folks once they fall into our clutches we do more or
less follow expressed Wikipedia policy.

Fred

> From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:37:50 -0000 (GMT)
> To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] NSM88, deletion of user page image, personal
> attacks
>
> Fred Bauder said:
>> In my
>> opinion we should change that policy and permit exclusion of open
>> advocates of totalitarian ideologies and terrorism.
>
> Why?  ArbCom can already exclude anybody who misbehaves.  The policy as
> you're described it is also subject to interpretation.  The words
> "totalitarian" and "terrorism" are both very slippery.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 09:10:12 -0800 (PST), Christopher Mahan
<chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> An encyclopedia is an exposition, a knowledge book, of mankind's
> experience on this planet. All subjects are by definition required.
> Leaving some out for a purpose means we will have failed at making a
> good encyclopedia.

When I was younger, my idea of a good encyclopaedia was Britannica or
World Book. I'd go to World Book to look something up, get distracted
by an article on the way and the next time I re-entered the real world
several pleasant hours had passed.

But if World Book had had Wikipedia's [[Autofellatio]] article, my
mother would have picked up the whole set and burnt it in the back
yard. Thirty years later I'm a parent, and I know that my teenage kids
and I would be more likely to laugh at such an image than anything
else, but I still think such material has no place in a good
encyclopaedia.

And guess what? If you look at what the general public regards as good
encyclopaedias in this day and age, you'll see no Autofellatio, no
Goatse, no terrorist beheadings. I suggest that the people who think
that such material belongs in a good encyclopaedia are a tiny
minority.

For my part, I think this sort of stuff devalues Wikipedia.
--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:25:57 -0800 (PST), Christopher Mahan
<chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Again, Ambi, I apologize for the bar reference.

Geez, can we stop talking about THAT picture?

--
Pete


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Censorship Lie

body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:42:31 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com>
>
> >An encyclopedia is an exposition, a knowledge book, of mankind's
> >experience on this planet. All subjects are by definition required.
>
> All *encyclopedic* subjects.  What I ate for lunch is also part of mankind's
> experience on this planet, but it should not be recorded in Wikipedia.

Perhaps it should be a sub-section. Maybe with a pie chart. Colour plates.

Please, no bar graphs.

--
Peter in Canberra