body:
NSK --

1. You've just written a 694 word-strong reply. You have not however
answered the question whether you edit the Wikipedia and whether or not
you have an account. You wrote:
>> I don't really have enough time to edit much on Wikipedia.
Ok, so DO you or DON'T you edit? DO you or DON'T you have an account?

2. Now correct me if I'm wrong:
You're not actually contributing to the Wikipedia.
You've not submitted any code towards MediaWiki development.
You have however downloaded the MediaWiki software which was developed
"in this corner of cyberspace" (and you're permitted to do that).
You've then set up your own website(s) with MediaWiki which you've
talked about, like, A LOT in your posts to our Wikimedia-related lists
here.
You have BIG PLANS for your website(s) but as of now little has
materialized. There don't appear to be much other contributors to your
wikis yet, besides yourself, yet you're kinda seeing your efforts as
somehow fully equivalent to what has happened "in our corner".
Finally, you've ventured to advise us on what we really are and ought
to be (and you've persisted even when people made it very clear that
they perceived your advice as running counter to the very principles
our projects are founded upon).

3. You suspect that people dislike you and that they do so because they
somehow don't want you to have your own wikis.
Lemme put it like this:
Imagine some person travelled to the U.S. Now imagine that it turns out
that that person didn't actually come as an immigrant, and didn't come
to settle in and become a citizen of the country but rather proceeded
to lecture the citizens of the U.S. that the Declaration of
Independence and all these old handwritten papers were fundamentally
unimportant because all men are not created equal and actually, certain
people are per se inferior and not to be trusted and it is ok to rape
and murder them and plunder their houses, whereas others are really not
to be blamed of anything of any consequence, whatever happens and,
err... actually...
Ahem.
Forget what I said. This last point I cede to you.

Thanks and regards,
Jens Ropers

There are two types of IT techs: The ones who watch soap operas and the
ones who watch progress bars.
http://www.ropersonline.com/elmo/#108681741955837683

On 27 Oct 2004, at 02:14, NSK wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 October 2004 22:26, David Gerard wrote:
>> what was your Wikipedia username again?
>
> The reason I have not answered that question is because it was first
> asked by
> a person who offended me ("as faulty as your logic", 23 October 2004).
> Although I have ignored his e-mail address, thanks to your webarchive
> it came
> to my attention that he repeats his attacks:
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-October/031751.html
>
> Please note that I am a bit touchy and any kind of personal attack is
> not
> compatible with my culture and my education. I have no problem with
> people
> who disagree with me, but I have zero tolerance for things who engage
> in
> personal attacks.
>
> That said, I also don't understand why I need to answer this question.
> Is it
> some kind of policy in Wikipedia to say your user names in emails? I
> notice
> many people post without mentioning their usernames and I wonder why
> you
> picked me specifically.
>
>> Do you in fact edit on Wikipedia at all?
>
> Does it matter? I cannot understand why you ask this question. Are your
> mailing lists restricted only to your members? I don't think so,
> because it
> was very easy for me to register (if that's not the intended
> behaviour, you
> need to configure your Mailman installation).
>
> You can find me in many mailing lists or fora, including
> FSF-GNU/GNOME/CC/AMD,
> and I am lurking on many other mailing lists and communities, while I
> have
> also joined projects such as Drupal.org and OpenFormats.org and very
> soon I
> will join KDE. Slashdot has published stories written by me (KDE/FSF's
> WIWO...) and my karma there is Good. My university dissertation is on
> wikis.
> I notice some people refer to me as "he/she" and I wonder whether they
> have
> noticed who am I.
>
> I was lurking here for some time before I decided to start posting, so
> I had
> accumulated many possible suggestions and ideas about Wikipedia. Since
> I
> decided to start posting, I started remembering whatever I had thought
> about
> all that time, so perhaps some people disliked me because of the
> initial
> quantity of my postings. Although I have already asked whether anybody
> wants
> me to stop posting, nobody said something like that, so I understand
> that I
> should be welcome here - but I still notice that some participants
> seem to
> dislike me and I cannot understand why.
>
> I don't really have enough time to edit much on Wikipedia. I have my
> own
> projects and soon/hopefully will have my own nonprofit organisation.
> So,
> although my community website now is still very new (just opened this
> August,
> but already serving more than 65 thousand hits per month), it will
> certainly
> become very known and important in the near future. My interests in the
> Wikipedia community are mostly establishing public relations, helping
> each
> other to improve our community policies and sharing software
> development tips
> and practices. I mostly want communication with Wikipedia decision
> makers,
> the Board and the development team, so that we can find ways to
> cooperate as
> independent separate projects. So, I think it should be obvious that I
> participate in your mailing lists as a representative of a friendly
> website
> which seeks to have relations, cooperation and knowledge sharing with
> Wikimedia. But if WMF does not wish to cooperate or thinks I am a
> "competitor", then you can just say so and I will leave.
>
> I suspect that some people may dislike me because I have my own wikis.
> Please
> try to understand that I am not a "competitor" of Wikipedia. I have
> written
> interesting articles under the GFDL that you can copy if you like (by
> providing proper attribution under all the terms of GFDL - please
> include the
> authors' names in the article). See for example this article of
> NerdyPC.org,
> my knowledge base wiki on computer hardware and the Information
> Technology
> industry: http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/AMD_Opteron - note
> the most
> recent version under development is at
> http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Test:AMD_Opteron
>
> Finally, I would like to know how we can implement interwiki links to
> each
> other and whether WMF is interested in this kind of linking.
>
> --
> NSK
> Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
> Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
> Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [Foundation-l] Interwiki Cooperation; NSK


list: foundation-l

body:
s/much other contributors/many other contributors/

On 27 Oct 2004, at 03:26, Jens Ropers wrote:

> much other contributors


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Enrico Weigelt

subject: [Wikitech-l] Shared source

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

Hi,

> How can I migrate to a shared source MW1.3.7 installation?
>
> I noticed WP runs this way but I am not sure how to implement it.

I'm maintaining my own branch of mediawiki, which is explicitly
designed for such installations. It also fixes some hostname-/
servername-bugs which prevented access behind a proxy or firewall.

cu
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt    ==   metux IT service

  phone:     +49 36207 519931         www:       http://www.metux.de/
  fax:       +49 36207 519932         email:     contact at metux.de
  cellphone: +49 174 7066481
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---------------------------------------------------------------------


list: wikien-l

from_name: NSK

subject: [WikiEN-l] NSK

body:
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 03:24, Delirium wrote:
> it's natural that your ideas
> will be treated more skeptically than those of someone who is
> demostrably familiar with the community

Hi,

I think it would be a good idea if people could examine ideas and decide on
their usefulness without considering who proposed these ideas.

Consider for example that it is possible that a well-known community member
may say something wrong and a newcomer can say something useful.

So, although some people may be somewhat sceptical seeing a non-familiar name
in their To: headers, they should examine the ideas and not the poster; or at
least this is my opinion.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
John Lee wrote:

> But apparently the rest of Wikipedia doesn't mind these American geeks
> deleting them. And if you're going to claim that the rest of Wikipedia
> are made up of American geeks, I must disagree. Do geeks make up a
> substantial amount in our community? Yes. However, the ratio of geeks
> to non-geeks has been going down in the past few years.
>
> While it's based mostly on opinion, I think most people would agree
> that our goal of building an encyclopedia is not drastically hurt by
> the deletion of school articles. Hopefully, eventually we will be able
> to have more school articles, but Wikipedia exists to serve our
> audience, which does not appear to mind the lack of school articles
> much, if at all. Currently, few people are really worried about school
> articles. That may change in the future, but until it does, we must
> work with the community, even if you think it's an unreasonable one.

I have no objective data about our proportion of "American geeks", and I
would say that your asserion that the rest of Wikipedia doesn't mind
being deleted by them is not evidence based.

While there is some element of truth to the belief that "an"
encyclopedia is not "drastically" hurt by deleting school articles.  The
conclusions that you extrapolate from that are little more than
sophistry.  Yes, eventually we should have more school articels, but
meanwhile they need to be subjugated to a deletionist gauntlet which
then turn around and says that the paucity of such articles justifies
the deletion of additional ones.  This may be hypocrisy as well as
sophistry.  You have purported to reflect the community, but have you
tested your hypothesis, or are you just engaging in pseudoscience?  And
to close by saying, "WE must work with the community, even if YOU think
it's an unreasonable one."  Is this rhetorical flourish or what?  It's a
clever change from first to second person in the sentence.  Where do you
get the idea that the rest of us consider the community unreasonable?
We may consider you unreasonable, but you are not the community.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

> Mark Richards wrote:
>
>> You're right, the majority of users find obscure maths
>> and computing subjects more interesting than real places.
>
> I *would* like to emphasize the point Mark is making here, and add to
> it: Finding solid, *accurate* information online about technical
> subjects is *incredibly* easy in comparison to finding information
> about real places that aren't ultra-famous and other non-technical
> subjects.
>
> If I'm looking for information on a technical subject, I head to
> google, and only look to Wikipedia if it turns out to be hard to find
> (at which point Wikipedia doesn't usually have any useful information
> on it, but sometimes I get lucky).
>
> If I'm looking for information on a country or a person, I go straight
> to Wikipedia. It usually has enough to get me started, at least. If it
> had information on every local school in the world, it'd be even more
> useful.

A fascinating perspective.  The "Guinness Book of World Records" is one
of the most popular books ever, and yet it's full of nothing but
trivia.  "Ripley's Believe It or Not" was in the same league, and, in
the 19th century, "Haydn's Dictionary of Dates".  That should tell us
something.  At one time some people wanted to delete the multitude of
lists found on Wikipedia, but these have enormously attractive powers.

There is more to an encyclopedia then stuffy narratives.  If we're lucky
it may even have the information we're looking for.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] is this a bug?

body:
On Tuesday 26 October 2004 08:21, NSK wrote:
> for the links, I need to have [http://target.tld LINK].

I discovered that works only on the template itself and not when this template
is used.

What do I need to do in order to have links there?

Thanks

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikijunior - Wikispecies, Mk 2?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Just a thought... I think setting up an approval voting limit at simple
>>majority to conclude a project is supported does not strike me as being
>>  a consensual decision.
>>
>>I think we still need to think better how to start/decide new projects.
>>
>>
>Yes, simple majority is *not* an acceptable level of support. We work by
>consensus here and thus must develop proposals that a supermajority of people
>support. If only a simple majority supports something, then we must go back to
>the people who voted against the issue and ask what else needs to be done to
>change their minds.
>
>
A simple majority often gives us a majority of the simple.

A bare simple majority can be a symptom of a divided community.  I don't
know if going back to "change their minds" is the right approach.  That
as often results in people digging in their heels.  Even "supermajority"
drags in the language of a system based on divisiveness.  The minority
needs to be brought into the decision, and made to feel that they are a
part of it irrespective of their earlier position.  It often means that
the majority opinion still needs to be modified.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikibrowser

body:
On Oct 27, 2004, at 4:37 AM, Kai Kumpf wrote:
> all it takes for the current version of tgwikibrowser is a plaintext
> list of immediate links from one page (or all the pages in sorted
> order). this is accomplished by most wiki implementations by giving
> the url http://wikiurl/mainpage?action=links&mimetype=text/plain or
> something similar.
> to start with, mediawiki doesn't seem to know such a feature. why??

This would be large and fairly slow to produce on a wiki with hundreds
of thousands of pages and several million links.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] wikibrowser

body:
On Oct 27, 2004, at 4:43 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:
> This would be large and fairly slow to produce on a wiki with hundreds
> of thousands of pages and several million links.

I should also point out that this can be generated offline from a
database dump. The server with the downloads is offline for maintenance
at the moment but normally resides at http://download.wikimedia.org.

I believe the dumps include a copy of the links and brokenlinks tables
(if there's not a direct link, they can be pulled out of the
subdirectories easily enough). From these you can get a complete list
of all links within the wiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikijunior - Wikispecies, Mk 2?

body:
Jens Ropers (ropers at ropersonline.com) [041026 18:54]:

> I've got this hunch that a (hypothetical) Wiki-kid-pedia would be of
> remarkably high philosophical and scientific quality, whereas a
> Teeniepedia would largely consist of "J45ON WINSCOTTLE ISA WANKARRR!!",
> "I LuV mArY JaNe." and "BENNIE {heart} SIMONE!!!"
> Maybe we should bar participation from anyone between ages 10 and 20?

Only if they haven't achieved at least sysop/admin status on another
wikipedia?

(I'm amazed at the number of high quality contributors on en: who are under
16.)

> (I'm joking.)

Oh, I don't know ;-)

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Interwiki Cooperation

body:
NSK (nsk2 at wikinerds.org) [041027 05:17]:
> On Tuesday 26 October 2004 15:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> > This is starting to look a little like spam.

> So, public relations and cooperation among communities is spam?
> Do you want me to stop posting on your mailing lists?

Ah, you are reading and answering the list. Excellent! Now, what was your
Wikipedia username again? I note you didn't answer this simple question
previously. Do you in fact edit on Wikipedia at all?

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Interwiki Cooperation


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: More anti-US bias in Current Events

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:

> * Finally, it is rather bizarre to give this thread a title of "More
> anti-US bias." Even if Ed were right instead of wrong about this story
> all being cooked up by Democrats and their liberal media lackeys,
> there's still no evidence of "anti-US bias." Ed seems to have
> forgotten that the U.S. Democratic party is based in the United States
> and that its members are U.S. citizens. Even if this story were driven
> by anti-BUSH bias, that's not the same thing as bias against the
> UNITED STATES.

Speaking from outside the US, it's easy to see how the country becomes
identified with its current president, and George W. Bush has left an
impression on citizens of other countries that quickly becomes an
impression of the United States.  He has given the world a magnifying
glass with which to look at the United States' faults.  In the course of
a Canadian Broadcating Corporation program on the US election it
reported on a survey of whom Canadians would vote for if they could.
80% favored Kerry.  That's an astounding ratio, but I suspect that a
similar result would be found in many countries.  The damage that Bush
has done to the reputation of the United States may take at least a
generation to repair.  No US president has been so widely reviled around
the world as the current one.  The opportunities which the 9/11 tragedy
afforded him to improve international co-operation he has turned into a
disastrous legacy of bitterness, hatred and resentment.  The platitude
about keeping America strong does not win friends anywhere, because at
anywhere law applies equally to the ultra powerful.

To keep my observations on domestic policies short, the US has not seen
a comparable government since Harding.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] NSK

body:
Anthony DiPierro (anthonydipierro at hotmail.com) [041027 05:57]:

> > Ah, you are reading and answering the list. Excellent! Now, what was your
> > Wikipedia username again? I note you didn't answer this simple question
> > previously. Do you in fact edit on Wikipedia at all?

> I think I figured it out, but I see no reason why someone can't post to this
> mailing list without giving his Wikipedia username.

No indeed; I agree with you. However, the interesting phenomenon is not
what it is, but the radical suggestions for the project combined with the
notable reluctance to give it. That's more telling than the actual
username.

- d.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Apology for "anti-US" remark

body:
Sorry, Jeff, I wrote hastily. I should have said "Anti-US Military" bias
or "Anti-Bush Administration bias". I apologize for my offensive
wording.

Ed Poor


from_name: Anthere

body:
Daniel Mayer a ?crit:
> --- Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>..... We have the one highly
>>successful project, and a second one coming along nicely in
>>Wikisource. It's still got a long way to go, but it doesn't have the
>>problems with disuse that Wiktionary and Wikibooks have. I do think we
>>should concentrate on improving the ones we have, but some of these
>>projects, such as Wikinews, are likely to be considerably easier to
>>contribute to (as is the case with WP and WS), which would make them a
>>more viable solution than some of our current projects.
>
>
> I very much agree with the above.
>
> </aol>
>
> A big reason I think that Wikibooks and and Wiktionary have not taken off is
> due to a lack of very important software features;
>
> 1) the ability to search within and easily create new pages for individual
> books for Wikibooks
> 3) database support and cross-wiki templates for Wiktionary.
>
> -- mav

Nod, plus interproject links.

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
Jens Ropers a ?crit:
> NSK --
>
> 1. You've just written a 694 word-strong reply. You have not however
> answered the question whether you edit the Wikipedia and whether or not
> you have an account. You wrote:
>
>>> I don't really have enough time to edit much on Wikipedia.
>>
> Ok, so DO you or DON'T you edit? DO you or DON'T you have an account?
>
> 2. Now correct me if I'm wrong:
> You're not actually contributing to the Wikipedia.
> You've not submitted any code towards MediaWiki development.
> You have however downloaded the MediaWiki software which was developed
> "in this corner of cyberspace" (and you're permitted to do that).
> You've then set up your own website(s) with MediaWiki which you've
> talked about, like, A LOT in your posts to our Wikimedia-related lists here.
> You have BIG PLANS for your website(s) but as of now little has
> materialized. There don't appear to be much other contributors to your
> wikis yet, besides yourself, yet you're kinda seeing your efforts as
> somehow fully equivalent to what has happened "in our corner".
> Finally, you've ventured to advise us on what we really are and ought to
> be (and you've persisted even when people made it very clear that they
> perceived your advice as running counter to the very principles our
> projects are founded upon).
>
> 3. You suspect that people dislike you and that they do so because they
> somehow don't want you to have your own wikis.
> Lemme put it like this:
> Imagine some person travelled to the U.S. Now imagine that it turns out
> that that person didn't actually come as an immigrant, and didn't come
> to settle in and become a citizen of the country but rather proceeded to
> lecture the citizens of the U.S. that the Declaration of Independence
> and all these old handwritten papers were fundamentally unimportant
> because all men are not created equal and actually, certain people are
> per se inferior and not to be trusted and it is ok to rape and murder
> them and plunder their houses, whereas others are really not to be
> blamed of anything of any consequence, whatever happens and, err...
> actually...
> Ahem.
> Forget what I said. This last point I cede to you.
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Jens Ropers

:-)))))


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] gil Gibertese

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:20:26 +0200, Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>> As I have added a new language to the list, I do like to notify you
>>>
>>> Another user started adding languages so I now have Gibertese as well,
>>
>> Shouldn't that be Gilbertese?
>>
> gil is Gibertese or Kiribati or Ikiribati. So I do not understand the
> question?

Not "Gibertese", "Gilbertese" with an L.  (The same L as is in the code "gil", which became the "r" in "Kiribati".)

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] gil Gibertese

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> As I have added a new language to the list, I do like to notify you
>>
>> Another user started adding languages so I now have Gibertese as well,
>
>
> Shouldn't that be Gilbertese?
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>
>
gil is Gibertese or Kiribati or Ikiribati. So I do not understand the
question?

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Rebecca

body:
Response to Danny -

> Our grant process, which is still in its infancy, should respond to that. Our purpose is not to bolster some virtual playground, where people can play around with their favorite topics.
> Of course, this is totally in character with what funders are looking for. No one wants to give money so that some random group of people can get together on the Internet. They want to see bang for their buck (pardon the Americanism). They want to see that their money is invested wisely in creating something. Any grant we receive will want to see some outcome. They have a right to demand a product that is created as a result of their funding. If not, they will not give funding.
>

Of course, grants are a great thing, but should we not be sure, before
accepting the grant, that this is a project we wish to proceed with?
Perhaps we need to have some agreed-upon outcomes, as far as applying
for grants go.

> At this point, perhaps I should clarify regarding a misconception in an earlier post. The NEH grant was not dropped because people opposed it. We simply weren't ready for it this time around. I hope that next time we will be.
>

No, you're right. It was dropped because people thought we weren't
ready for it. There was no reason to outright oppose that one. Same
difference.

> We are now in the process of requesting substantial grant moneys. It is no exaggeration to say that the sums are of the six and seven digit kind. That kind of money will empower us to do quite a lot. However, it also commits us to doing what we promise.
>

Which is why we should be all the more sure that we're the community
agrees to moving in this direction.

> I myself am opposed to open discussion of this process. While this may sound un-wikilike, it is obvious to me that the discussion leading up to grant proposals will be done in a casual, informal style. Things may be said that we do not want the potential grant-givers to hear. If it is open to the kind of public debate that is typical of Wikipedia, we are seriously endangering our chances of receiving those grants.
>

I can understand the rationale behind this. Mav poses some good
solutions below, which would help things. However, if entirely new
projects are going to be started with no prior discussion, because
there was no consultation, don't be surprised when people like me
bitch about it.

> I also believe that grants should be coordinated. Grants involve making promises (that we can stick to). The grant process is not panhandling. Uncoordinated grant applications could mean that six or seven people approach a certain group (let's say UNESCO), asking for different things and making different promises. It certainly impinges on our credibility, especially when some of those same groups may well be coming to us at the same time (and yes, we have been approached by some major charitable organizations). At the same time, we do not want to be seen as being in a position of turning down grants and perhaps burning bridges with organizations in whose good graces we will want to be, if only at a later date.
>

Not disputing this one - of course we need this.

> Back to Wikijunior. An organization approached us. It is a relationship we would like to foster. The objectives of their request clearly meet our own goal of creating and disseminating knowledge. In fact, it is a wikibook (or series of wikibooks) for a younger audience. I don't know when that idea was ever rejected, and the fact is that people have shown quite a bit of enthusiasm for the idea. Obviously, it needs some working out still. It is not a fork, just as Wiktionary or Anglo-Saxon are not forks. It will be the same people working on the same material. I also believe that it will benefit our other projects as well, both in terms of information offered and dissemination. If anything, I would hope that people welcome the idea of developing educational materials for younger children, whether they plan to work on them or not.
>

A WikiReader is not a fork, just as the Cryptology WikiReader is not a
fork. However, that (appears to be) not all that is being proposed. A
kiddipedia, in the same wiki editable form as Wikipedia, is most
definitely a fork. And that's why I have some problem with waking up
one morning and finding a message on goings-on "hey guys, we've
decided to start a new project which, up until now, had either not
been discussed or had been roundly voted down". This will be our third
English language encyclopedia, after en and simple. While I'm not
*necessarily* opposed, I'd still question if we really need this.

-- ambi


body:
> I'm sure others disagree, but IMO it would be better if there were not a
> particularly easy way to start new projects.  We so far have exactly one
> highly successful project, from what I can tell---Wikipedia.  Wiktionary
> has been languishing for years now in relative disuse (and in my brief
> attempts to use it to look up words, doesn't have enough words in it to
> be useful as a dictionary, driving me back to reference.com), Wikisource
> is still getting off the ground and is fairly disorganized, and
> Wikibooks has only in the last 6 months seen any books that are remotely
> close to being reasonable books (and even the ones labeled with 4 blocks
> as "complete" are still *far* short of book length and detail... we have
> nothing on Wikibooks that can compete with a commercial textbook).

I partly agree with this, and partly not. We have the one highly
successful project, and a second one coming along nicely in
Wikisource. It's still got a long way to go, but it doesn't have the
problems with disuse that Wiktionary and Wikibooks have. I do think we
should concentrate on improving the ones we have, but some of these
projects, such as Wikinews, are likely to be considerably easier to
contribute to (as is the case with WP and WS), which would make them a
more viable solution than some of our current projects.

> instead of spawning off still more projects, lest we become a
> clearinghouse of ideas that were started but never really carried through.

Still, this is something we really need to watch out for.

-- ambi


body:
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 05:51, Tim Starling wrote:
> let me spell out a couple of things

Thanks. I appreciate your time and your effort.

> Don't tell them they are wrong

I never intented to say that; if I did, it was accidental.

> you are just one person.

All great things were created by single persons. Never underestimate the power
and the will of one person.

> and thinks he knows everything.

I haven't earned my B.Sc./M.Sc./Ph.D.'s yet and I do not know everything.

> If you just asked if you could add an interwiki link from Wikipedia to your
site

Well, let me ask it again in the right way:

Dear Sir, would you be able to add interwiki links from Wikipedia to
nerdypc.wikinerds.org, jnana.wikinerds.org and adapedia.wikinerds.org ? Thank
you very much.

> without offerring anything in return

Hey, I want to be able to offer something in return for any good thing I
receive.

> link exchange

I see. Okay... forget the "link exchange".

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] How much does Wikimedia cost a day?

body:
user_Jamesday wrote:

>Total to handle being around the 200th most visited English language site according to Alexa is over US$436 per day or US$0.30 per minute. About 21 requests per cent including capital costs but that's misleading long term because eventually we will stop needing to buy so much hardware.
>
>
What's the life expectancy on the hardware?  None of it lasts forever. :-)

When you take capital costs as expenses it never gives an accurate
picture of current finances.  Significant hardware purchases need to be
considered as assets which are expensed as depreciation over say 3 or 5
years.  By then equipment will wear out and need to be replaced.  On a
more positive side the new equipment which replaces the 5-year-old
equipment should have enough additional capacity to absorb part of the
new growth.

What have been the trends in growth.  The month over month ratio of
changes in the number of requests may be useful in projecting future
needs.  When the additional capacity afforded by replacement equipment
matches the rate of growth we will have reached some sort of economic
equikibrium.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>You're never going to be able to correct for
>stupidity. We don't delete all the other 'London'
>articles just because we don't want someone to be
>confused when they type in 'London' and get somewhere
>in Canada.
>
It's consistent with Canadian humour to love it when that happens. :-)

More generally people in a less famous place like Hollywood, FL love it
when they are mistaken for their celebrated namesake.

Ec


body:
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 04:26, Jens Ropers wrote:
> DO you or DON'T you edit?

Define edit.

> DO you or DON'T you have an account?

Define account.

> You're not actually contributing to the Wikipedia.

Define contributing.

> You've not submitted any code towards MediaWiki development.

No, I haven't. I would be willing to do that, though.

> You have however downloaded the MediaWiki software

Yes. Thank you for making available this software.

> You've then set up your own website(s) with MediaWiki

Yes. They are NerdyPC.org (Information Technology), Adapedia.org (Computer
Science), Jnana.Wikinerds.org (a playground), MaatWorks.Wikinerds.org
(software engineering). In the future I will set up wikis on Science Fiction,
Biology, Law, OpenSource et cetera.

I have paid money for all that. I can use 80GB of monthly traffic (to be
upgraded today).

> talked about, like, A LOT in your posts to our Wikimedia-related lists

If you like you can ask me to not talk about my wikis here.

Wikipedia is the largest wiki and I think its mailing lists are useful for
general discussion and not only just WP.

You could open a discussion at wikipedia.org mailing list for general wiki
discussion.

> You have BIG PLANS for your website(s)

Yes.

> but as of now little has materialized.

The Wikinerds.org endeavour was started this August. I think I am building it
pretty fast!

> There don't appear to be much other contributors

There are some people who are interested and some people have user accounts in
the Wikinerds Portal (drupal), Jnana and NerdyPC.

Not counting myself:

3 users in portal.wikinerds.org
1 user in nerdypc.org
1 user in jnana.wikinerds.org (plus 1 anon)
1 user in forum.wikinerds.org
0 users in adapedia.org
0 users in maatworks.wikinerds.org
0 users in collab.wikinerds.org
0 ftp users (which means no userpages)
0 email users (we can give free POP emails @wikinerds.org)

Well, as I said, Wikinerds started in August! It's a new site.

> besides yourself

I am currently the only person who contributes content to the Wikinerds
Community.

> yet you're kinda seeing your efforts as
> somehow fully equivalent to what has happened "in our corner".

Well, perhaps I need some more sleep (sometimes I don't have sleep for >24h).
I checked some of my previous posts and I think I was a bit wrong in some
occasions. Perhaps it would be a good idea to develop an e-mail protocol with
a "CANCEL MSG" command.

Certainly, Wikinerds is not as successful as Wikipedia, yet, although it will
soon be very successful.

> Finally, you've ventured to advise us on what we really are and ought
> to be

Just sharing ideas. You are free to send me your ideas about my projects, too.
I will read them all and reply. I love sharing ideas, even if I disagree with
some of them!

> (and you've persisted even when people made it very clear that
> they perceived your advice as running counter to the very principles
> our projects are founded upon).

I am sorry; my mistake.

> Imagine some person travelled to the U.S.

Isn't it more beautiful to write US ? I mean, is the point really necessary?

> to settle in and become a citizen of the country but rather proceeded
> to lecture the citizens of the U.S. that the Declaration of
> Independence and all these old handwritten papers were fundamentally

Is Wikipedia a big Imperium?

> to be blamed of anything of any consequence, whatever happens and,
> err... actually...
> Ahem.
> Forget what I said. This last point I cede to you.

[CENSORED]. I cannot answer to that, sorry!

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


body:
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 09:13, Tim Starling wrote:
> Close enough. Just edit the page on meta and the interwiki table will be

Thank you very much.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


body:
On 27 Oct 2004, at 09:05, NSK wrote:

> On Wednesday 27 October 2004 04:26, Jens Ropers wrote:
>> DO you or DON'T you edit?
>
> Define edit.
>
>> DO you or DON'T you have an account?
>
> Define account.
>
>> You're not actually contributing to the Wikipedia.
>
> Define contributing.

Oh come on.
I don't have time* for this.

(* patience, actually)

>
>> You've not submitted any code towards MediaWiki development.
>
> No, I haven't. I would be willing to do that, though.
>
>> You have however downloaded the MediaWiki software
>
> Yes. Thank you for making available this software.
>
>> You've then set up your own website(s) with MediaWiki
>
> Yes. They are NerdyPC.org (Information Technology), Adapedia.org
> (Computer
> Science), Jnana.Wikinerds.org (a playground), MaatWorks.Wikinerds.org
> (software engineering). In the future I will set up wikis on Science
> Fiction,
> Biology, Law, OpenSource et cetera.
>
> I have paid money for all that. I can use 80GB of monthly traffic (to
> be
> upgraded today).
>
>> talked about, like, A LOT in your posts to our Wikimedia-related lists
>
> If you like you can ask me to not talk about my wikis here.
>
> Wikipedia is the largest wiki and I think its mailing lists are useful
> for
> general discussion and not only just WP.
>
> You could open a discussion at wikipedia.org mailing list for general wiki
> discussion.
>
>> You have BIG PLANS for your website(s)
>
> Yes.
>
>> but as of now little has materialized.
>
> The Wikinerds.org endeavour was started this August. I think I am
> building it
> pretty fast!
>
>> There don't appear to be much other contributors
>
> There are some people who are interested and some people have user
> accounts in
> the Wikinerds Portal (drupal), Jnana and NerdyPC.
>
> Not counting myself:
>
> 3 users in portal.wikinerds.org
> 1 user in nerdypc.org
> 1 user in jnana.wikinerds.org (plus 1 anon)
> 1 user in forum.wikinerds.org
> 0 users in adapedia.org
> 0 users in maatworks.wikinerds.org
> 0 users in collab.wikinerds.org
> 0 ftp users (which means no userpages)
> 0 email users (we can give free POP emails @wikinerds.org)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/PlotsPngWikipediansContributors.htm

>
> Well, as I said, Wikinerds started in August! It's a new site.

Hm. Lemme think... In Wikipedia's first three months it had gotten 37
contributors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediansContributors.htm

>
>> besides yourself
>
> I am currently the only person who contributes content to the Wikinerds
> Community.
>
>> yet you're kinda seeing your efforts as
>> somehow fully equivalent to what has happened "in our corner".
>
> Well, perhaps I need some more sleep (sometimes I don't have sleep for
> >24h).
> I checked some of my previous posts and I think I was a bit wrong in
> some
> occasions. Perhaps it would be a good idea to develop an e-mail
> protocol with
> a "CANCEL MSG" command.
>
> Certainly, Wikinerds is not as successful as Wikipedia, yet, although
> it will
> soon be very successful.
>
>> Finally, you've ventured to advise us on what we really are and ought
>> to be
>
> Just sharing ideas. You are free to send me your ideas about my
> projects, too.
> I will read them all and reply. I love sharing ideas, even if I
> disagree with
> some of them!
>
>> (and you've persisted even when people made it very clear that
>> they perceived your advice as running counter to the very principles
>> our projects are founded upon).
>
> I am sorry; my mistake.

Apology accepted.
It takes guts to apologize, so that IS respectable.
I rest my case.

>
>> Imagine some person travelled to the U.S.
>
> Isn't it more beautiful to write US ? I mean, is the point really
> necessary?

These and other related issues have been, and probably are being
discussed ad nauseam in the perpetual British/International English vs.
American English face-off. I'm not getting into it here.
<flamebait><troll>I mean. We all know the British way is much
better. The language is called "English" after all.</troll></flamebait>

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] More anti-US bias in Current Events

body:
Geoff Burling wrote

> For many of us --including me -- this coming U.S. election has set our
> tempers on edge.

Ed Poor has a point about the explosives story.  One of the newspapers I
read splashed it on the front page, the other had a much smaller piece tying
it to the Kerry campaign.

This does seem to be a testing time for Wikipedians who have a stake in the
US Presidential election.  Time for some self-denying behaviour?

Ed's edits are egregiously pro-Bush (no change there); I spent the same five
minutes googling the Ed Prescott (recent Nobel) 'Bush's tax cuts if anything
too small' story that Ed added recently (with only an external link to a
clearly partisan web page); Prescott signed an open letter for the Bush
campaign released on Monday, along with 100s of other economists, and is an
expert on productivity rather than tax.  Apparently the Kerry campaign has
ten economics Nobels as signatures to their letter.  I wonder what any of
this proves.

I learn little enough from this.  I wish we had more (any?) Americans able
to explain US politics on the site, getting away from the partisan side.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] NSK

body:
I'm sorry to have to say this  ;-)  but I agree with John.

Communities resent it when outsiders tell them what to do unless they
have specifically asked for that outsider's opinion.  Communities build
upon more than mere logic, but also on trust and familiarity; it's what
"paying one's dues" is all about.  I may vehemently disagree with
certain of John's positions, but I have a sense of knowing what to
expect.  The bare right to do something is just a tool; it's an entry
point into the community.  Your suggestions may be perfectly correct,
and indeed some of the observations may carry with them a clarity
unencumbered by the community's prejudices, but that's not enough  to
ensure that the community adopts your ideas.

When an outsider becomes insistent on promoting his views his
credibility and that of his views are diminished.  He has no stake in
the outcome, and can safely watch the results from outside, and in the
event that the attempt to adopt those ideas fails he can retreat into
the very safe excuse that "they misinterpreted my ideas."

Your idea to create better co-operation among various wikis is
commendable, but your means of promotion is not designed to draw
supporters.
Ec

John Lee wrote:

> How are you hurt if you don't come out and admit you don't edit
> Wikipedia much, if at all? We won't hurt you. We're just curious. We
> aren't judging your proposals based on who they're coming from, but if
> they sound ridiculous, then the way we look at them does depend on who
> you are. If it was, say, any known active Wikipedian, then we'd know
> for sure that something has to be corrected. But musings from someone
> who is not active on Wikipedia are likely to be way off.
>
> From your postings, I think we've already established you aren't an
> active editor - that's okay with me. But you should know that trying
> to cover this up will only hurt your reputation instead of enhancing it.
>
> NSK wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday 27 October 2004 03:24, Delirium wrote:
>>
>>> it's natural that your ideas
>>> will be treated more skeptically than those of someone who is
>>> demostrably familiar with the community
>>
>> I think it would be a good idea if people could examine ideas and
>> decide on their usefulness without considering who proposed these ideas.
>>
>> Consider for example that it is possible that a well-known community
>> member may say something wrong and a newcomer can say something useful.
>>
>> So, although some people may be somewhat sceptical seeing a
>> non-familiar name in their To: headers, they should examine the ideas
>> and not the poster; or at least this is my opinion.
>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> In the course of a Canadian Broadcating Corporation program on the US
> election it reported on a survey of whom Canadians would vote for if
> they could.  80% favored Kerry.  That's an astounding ratio, but I
> suspect that a similar result would be found in many countries.  The
> damage that Bush has done to the reputation of the United States may
> take at least a generation to repair.  No US president has been so
> widely reviled around the world as the current one.

Well, if you were to take a survey of what US citizens thought about
other countries' elections, I would suspect you'd find similar ratios
against many of Europe's current ruling governments (how many US
citizens do you think would vote for a party named any of "Socialist
Party", "Labour Party", or "Democratic Socialists"?).  But as far as
international support of the US goes, I think you're forgetting the
Vietnam War.  Lyndon Johnson was widely reviled both inside and outside
the US, as the popular chant "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill
today?" captures.  And in that war, the US didn't even have the few
allies it has in this war---Canada even went so far as to offer asylum
to US citizens avoiding the Vietnam draft, on the basis that it was an
illegal war.

-Mark


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
No, it really isn't. Although most of the time
deletionists get to them before they manage to get
beyond being 'sub-stubs', they've made it quite clear
that an article on a school that they are not
interested in would still be deleted if it were large
and factual, simply because they don't think it is
'notable'.
Mark

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >So you don't see how we'd lose from deleting 90% of
> the articles we have?
> >
> I don't think anyone is arguing that we should
> delete 90% of the
> articles we have.  The articles in question are
> maybe 1-2%, and
> certainly no more than 10%.
>
> Much of the argument, and what prompted this, isn't
> even about strictly
> whether we should have certain articles, but whether
> we should delete
> particular poor instantiations of articles
> (substubs).  It's basically
> an argument over whether a substub is better or
> worse than a red link,
> which I'm decidedly neutral on (both are bad, and
> instead of wasting
> time arguing over it, people on both sides ought to
> spend the time
> writing good articles in their place).
>
> But I doubt you'll find even the most ardent
> deletionist who wants to
> delete any significant fraction of current articles,
> so I'm not sure who
> you're arguing against.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
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body:
Jens Ropers wrote:

> 3. You suspect that people dislike you and that they do so because
> they somehow don't want you to have your own wikis.
> Lemme put it like this:
> Imagine some person travelled to the U.S. Now imagine that it turns
> out that that person didn't actually come as an immigrant, and didn't
> come to settle in and become a citizen of the country but rather
> proceeded to lecture the citizens of the U.S. that the Declaration of
> Independence and all these old handwritten papers were fundamentally
> unimportant because all men are not created equal and actually,
> certain people are per se inferior and not to be trusted and it is ok
> to rape and murder them and plunder their houses, whereas others are
> really not to be blamed of anything of any consequence, whatever
> happens and, err... actually...

To put this more starkly:  Imagine visiting a country that has a known
reputation for human rights violation.  You meet with a small group of
people and the conversation turns to the human rights situation where
you have tremendous ideas about what THEY can do to improve things.
Some of the group show a great deal of enthusiasm about your proposals.
After the conversation ends you go to the airport and home.  You later
receive a message that one of the people in the group was an incognito
agent for the government who subsequently arranged for the arrest and
re-education of some of the group.  What responsibility would you accept
for that situation?

Ec


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Apology for "anti-US" remark

body:
On 10/27/04 9:32 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:

> Sorry, Jeff, I wrote hastily. I should have said "Anti-US Military" bias
> or "Anti-Bush Administration bias". I apologize for my offensive
> wording.
>
You keep on digging the hole deeper. How was it "anti-US military" bias?

This is a case of being "reality-based" bias.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html

White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful
explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while
Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did
not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the
day after Baghdad fell.

But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had
not searched the site and had merely stopped there overnight.

The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's
101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the
site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors
had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they
had tagged during a decade of monitoring.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Apology for "anti-US" remark

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 10/27/04 9:32 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Sorry, Jeff, I wrote hastily. I should have said "Anti-US Military" bias
>>or "Anti-Bush Administration bias". I apologize for my offensive
>>wording.
>>
>>
>>
>You keep on digging the hole deeper. How was it "anti-US military" bias?
>
>
I find this issue of semantics is kind of annoying, because although I'm
a strong Bush opponent, I tend to agree with Ed's phrasing.  It is not
*in principle* "anti-US" or "anti-US-military" bias, but I'd argue that
*in practice* many people do have an anti-US bias that leads them to
look for and promote stories that make the US look bad.  This has
nothing to do with anti-Bush bias---it was the same people doing the
same thing when Clinton was president and bombing Kosovo.

-Mark


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology.  Not every
> new thing is a "fork".

Wikijunior will not be a fork if it is developed on Wikibooks. It will just be
a set of booklets aimed toward kids. A static version of milestone snapshots
could be hosted in a place that would be deemed "safe" for kids. WikiReaders
would also be created.

None of that would be a fork. Setting up a separate wiki to develop Wikijunior
*would*.

-- Daniel

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
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body:
Delirium wrote:

> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
>> I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology.  Not every
>> new thing is a "fork".
>
> Well, insofar as it's a fork of the community's development effort---a
> diversion of work that would otherwise go into one of the other
> projects---it could be considered such.  Whether that's the case is
> arguable, of course.

It seems that four letter words beginning with "f" and ending with "k"
have managed to pick up subjective baggage in their travels.  Yes, we
need to be more careful with terminology, but it seems that the word in
question has lost its power, and a "f***" is no longer as evil as it
once was.

Ec


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
> Yes, there are people who mind, but the average user won't notice the
> deletion of articles on a Hong Kong handbag company or a school. They
> will notice if you delete an article on, say, Gucci, or Eton, because
> those are indisputably encyclopedic.

The average user, who doesn't follow VFD and/or the Deletion Log, would not
notice if an article on Gucci or Eton was deleted.  At some point maybe
they'd come across a blank page, and then they'd likely just start up a new
stub.

And these articles *aren't* indiputably encyclopedic.  Britannica doesn't
have an article on Gucci (assuming you mean the company).  I think the word
you're looking for is "famous", not encyclopedic.  That's what distinguishes
Gucci and Hong Kong Handbag Company.  One is more famous than the other.
And there is a long list of people who don't feel that lack of fame should
be a reason for deletion.

> Although I sound like a deletionist, in reality, like Dpbsmith, I am a
> strong neutral on much of this - I don't see how Wikipedia gains or
> loses from the creation or deletion of any of these articles, unless
> indisputably encyclopedic.

So you don't see how we'd lose from deleting 90% of the articles we have?  I
guess we'd still be better than the other freely distributed online
encyclopedias; we'd be free as in freedom and have more in depth coverage,
but I seriously doubt we'd be able to crush them out of existence within 5
years.

Traditional encyclopedias don't cover less famous topics because they can't.
And I'm not just talking about paper, but not being on paper is part of it.
But the real difference is that we have far more contributors than
Britannica has.  As a result, we not only *can* be more inclusive, but we
pretty much *have to be*.  Sure, our contributors are unpaid and many of
them unskilled, but this is why we insist on everything in Wikipedia being
Verifiable (not original research) and NPOV.  You don't have to be very
skilled to check a fact.  There's no need to hire experts when the only
conclusions you allow are those which are indisputable.

If you want to call yourself a neutral, then you might as well call me a
neutral too.  I don't think we should waste our time deciding what is
"notable" and what isn't.  I don't think we should bother drawing a line
between "famous" and "not famous".  This is part of the reason I've said
time and again that I won't even bother participating on VFD any more if I
can just get access to view deleted articles.  I don't care all that much
about whether or not most articles are deleted from Wikipedia or kept there.
But I take issue with that information just being tossed away, so that what
4 or 5 people say should not be kept in Wikipedia today means that no
Wikimedia project can ever use the information for anything without
reinventing it.  Sure, the deletion isn't permanent, but that's only true
until the database crashes, and that's something that has already happened
more than once.

Like you, I want to stop the incessant arguing on VFD.  But the only way to
do that is to reach a compromise.  That doesn't mean we keep X and delete Y.
It means we consider the point of view of all parties.  Deletionists don't
want random page filled with non-famous things.  Inclusionists don't want
useful information destroyed.  Surely there are solutions which can give
both sides what they want.

> And though there is no hard evidence, I think
> it's suggestive how there are never any complaints about the deletion or
> creation of these articles except from the article's author(s) and the
> hardline inclusionists/deletionists.

No more suggestive than it is that the only people arguing about the loss of
the world's forests are hardline tree-huggers/corporate lackeys.  Just
because most people don't know about a problem doesn't mean it isn't there.

Anthony


body:
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 11:17, Jens Ropers wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/PlotsPngWikipediansContributors.htm

All I can say is that you *really* have *many* contributors.

> Hm. Lemme think... In Wikipedia's first three months it had gotten 37
> contributors:

Where did you find them and how (where) you announced your site?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> NSK wrote:
>
>> My university dissertation is on wikis.
>
> Please publish it online.

Wikisource has agreed to accept dissertations, but for the protection of
the GFDL we do ask that those people identify themselves.

Ec


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
NSK wrote:

>Slashdot has published stories written by me (KDE/FSF's
>WIWO...) and my karma there is Good.
>
And I'm a Level 3 Wizard in Knights of Kulthor, bow before my holy name.

>My university dissertation is on wikis.
>
>
Please publish it online.

>I notice some people refer to me as "he/she" and I wonder whether they have
>noticed who am I.
>
>
>
It doesn't matter who you are, you have a responsibility not to annoy
everyone regardless of your position.

>I was lurking here for some time before I decided to start posting, so I had
>accumulated many possible suggestions and ideas about Wikipedia. Since I
>decided to start posting, I started remembering whatever I had thought about
>all that time, so perhaps some people disliked me because of the initial
>quantity of my postings. Although I have already asked whether anybody wants
>me to stop posting, nobody said something like that, so I understand that I
>should be welcome here - but I still notice that some participants seem to
>dislike me and I cannot understand why.
>
>
>
That's understandable. You're not picking up the hints people are giving
you, so when you get attacked for ignoring them it seems as if the
attack comes from nowhere. People don't like to spell out social rules,
they're learned in other ways. But unfortunately some people are
incapable of learning them in other ways, so let me spell out a couple
of things

1. Post less
2. Earn respect, don't expect your reputation to carry over from other
communities
3. Be tactful when offerring suggestions. Have respect for the other
people on the list who have spent a great deal of time thinking about
the same issues. Don't tell them they are wrong, ask if they think your
idea is better. Ask in a way that suggests you expect them to say no.
4. Before you post, search for similar suggestions made by other people
in the past, and read the replies.

>I don't really have enough time to edit much on Wikipedia. I have my own
>projects and soon/hopefully will have my own nonprofit organisation. So,
>although my community website now is still very new (just opened this August,
>but already serving more than 65 thousand hits per month), it will certainly
>become very known and important in the near future. My interests in the
>Wikipedia community are mostly establishing public relations, helping each
>other to improve our community policies and sharing software development tips
>and practices. I mostly want communication with Wikipedia decision makers,
>the Board and the development team, so that we can find ways to cooperate as
>independent separate projects. So, I think it should be obvious that I
>participate in your mailing lists as a representative of a friendly website
>which seeks to have relations, cooperation and knowledge sharing with
>Wikimedia. But if WMF does not wish to cooperate or thinks I am a
>"competitor", then you can just say so and I will leave.
>
>
>
Wikimedia has thousands of users, you are just one person. You're not
representing anyone. You have nothing special to offer. Wikimedia needs
help from Yahoo, Google and BBC, not some guy who wants to start his own
wiki and thinks he knows everything. If you just asked if you could add
an interwiki link from Wikipedia to your site without offerring anything
in return, you would have received a rapid response in the affirmative.
But by calling it cooperation or link exchange, you appear conceited,
which puts people off.

>I suspect that some people may dislike me because I have my own wikis. Please
>try to understand that I am not a "competitor" of Wikipedia.
>

Many contributors to this list have their own wikis, and they're not
disliked. For example, Fred Bauder founded a fork of Wikipedia called
Wikinfo, which aims to be a direct competitor, and he's highly
respected. The real problem is simply the tone of your posts, see above.

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: phase3/maintenance/archives
	patch-userlevels-defaultgroups.sql, 1.2, 1.3

body:
On Oct 27, 2004, at 9:32 AM, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> This is more like a bug in editpage. User with "protect" right should
> be able to edit a protected page.
> The whole idea of the new user level rights system is to assign to
> groups some actions that can be made, naming an action "sysop" is not
> really intended :o)
>
> I will try to fix it later, I am ill today ;(

The theory of the cur_rights field is that users with the permission
*listed in the cur_rights field* can edit the page. Thus pages may, in
theory, have different levels of protection.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
What happens in practice during arbitration on the English Wikipedia is that
disputes over content are handled by treating those who insist on putting a
certain point of view across as violating [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is
not]], the section on propaganda and advocacy. As POV warriors often engage
in frantic reverting and personal attacks, policies which address those
problems are also often involved.

NPOV policy theoretically permits both sides of a controversy to be included
in an article, disputes over content are usually encountered in situations
where a POV warrior insists on both his side being included and the other
viewpoint excluded.

There is the viewpoint perhaps best represented by Larry Sanger, but by a
few others that views on a subject currently held by academic professionals
trumps other viewpoints. We have never resolved that issue.

Fred, Arbitration Committee

> From: "Jean-Christophe Chazalette" <jean-christophe.chazalette at laposte.net>
> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:44:02 +0200
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Arbitration committe and content
>
> French Wikipedia has chosen to set up an arbitration committee by a vast
> majority of 85,24 % (pros 52 people, cons 9 people) during a poll that took
> place from sept.19 to oct. 24. There is now a second and last poll about the
> arbitration rules.
>
> Point 10 of the current poll offers people to vote for one of the following
> : "The arbitration does not relate on the relevance or the validity of the
> articles but only to individual behaviors (10.A)" or "the arbitration can
> relate with all the conflicts without distinction and can relate directly to
> the relevance or the validity of the articles (10.B)."
>
> There were in the past some serious edit wars about various topics or
> articles, often related to religion or eco-sciences.
>
> The current poll is expected  to last until nov. 7 and could lead to
> enforceable rules if at least 20 have voted.
>
> Now, I am told that the alternative 10.B is completely out of the line
> regarding wiki philosophy. An arbitration committee could never settled a
> dispute in giving a mandatory point of view regarding an article. That makes
> sense to me. But yet, 6 people voted in favor of 10.B.
>
> Anthere seems to see a very serious risk of "fork" here. Even if I support
> her point of view I'm wondering if it's not a big fuss out of a small thing.
> So in the same time I'm trying to make things clear on the French Village
> pump, I'd  like to have some feedback from everybody in the foundation,
> especially from the wiki veterans, not to mention Jimbo himself of course.
>
> Thanks.
>
> villy
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Arbitration committe and content


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Kai Kumpf

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikibrowser

body:
hi everybody
has anyone of you heard of or played around with touchgraphs wikibrowser
(http://www.touchgraph.com/TGWB_101_SS.html)? this is a great step
forward to intuitive wiki navigation!
i really wonder why this hasn't come up onto the agenda long ago. all it
takes for the current version of tgwikibrowser is a plaintext list of
immediate links from one page (or all the pages in sorted order). this
is accomplished by most wiki implementations by giving the url
http://wikiurl/mainpage?action=links&mimetype=text/plain or something
similar.
to start with, mediawiki doesn't seem to know such a feature. why?? if
we had that kind of "specialpage" and if we could adapt tgwikibrowser so
that it could only read out all the links for one page at a time and
retrieve the links of clicked pages on demand, this would produce no
more load than simple navigation through the textual interface.
what's more, one could even think of a semantic navigation, employing
the categories as "big bubbles" in the wikilink graph and their
corresponding articles as "small bubbles" - effectively giving the user
a kind of is-a ontology navigation tool with categories acting as
classes and articles as a kind of class instance similar to visulization
solutions in common ontology editors like protege. think of a wikipedia
that you can navigate in the same way as offered by such beautiful tools
like http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ etc.
anyone in favor of such a development? i could definitely contribute
some concrete ideas...
best
kai, better know as
user:kku


subject: [Wikitech-l] wikibrowser


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
John Lee wrote:

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>> <snip>
>> Rambot articles are of disputable encyclopedicness.
>>
> Places are certainly encyclopedic.

Schools are places.

<snip>
> creation of an enyclopedia. Schools are relevant only to the population
> of a certain area. Obscure mathematical or scientific concepts, or an
<snip>

Believe me when I tell you that [[Dixie, Washington]], situated maybe
twelve miles from where I sit at this very moment, is relevant only to
the population of a certain area.


from_name: byron gamildien

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 03:19:05 -0700
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> It bothers me too, profoundly.  The need that some people
> have to delete what they deem "unencyclopedic" is
> characteristically obsessive, even after allowing for the
> behaviour to be in good faith.  When a stub whose
> contents are trivial generates controversy that is
> completely out of proportion with its size it suggests to
> me that maybe it would have been better left alone.
>
> John seems to ignore the fact that the term, "I don't
> care," is itself ambiguous.  "I don't care about the
> topic," does not mean, "I don't care if it's deleted."
>  If I say that I don't care about John's [[Allerton High
> School]] it reflects that I probably never heard of it,
> or that further information about it would have no effect
> whatsoever on my life.  But I at least presume that it's
> probably real, and that being real it must have had some
> number of students over the years to whom it would have
> more significance.
>
> In another current thread the question is posed about
> what to present about Wikipedia to a conference of
> teachers.  One of the suggestions was to have a live
> link, and let conference participants write something.  A
> teacher could then bring that experience to a classroom,
> and generate a classroom exercise, a hands on teaching
> moment.  We end up with the Dartmouth (College not High
> School) experience where the students were treated with
> incredible rudeness just because they did not meet
> someone's inflated Point of View about what is
> encyclopedic.
>
> People write best about what they know best.  One's high
> school is an excellent starting place for a beginner, as
> would be other things in one's own community.  A
> classroom activity could include having everyone in the
> class write something, and then a week or so later having
> others in the class review and edit that article for
> inaccuracies without knowing which classmate was the
> original author.  They could even report how  strangers
> had changed the article.  If all that that second wave of
> students can report is that the article was deleted it
> will certainly discourage further "useful" activity.
>
> Do we want new people?
> Ec
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >The problem boils down to one of POV. No, I don't care
> >about a school in west nowhere, and I don't care about
> >a foreign handbag company. I care about Pokemon
> >characters, I don't care about Indian villages.
> >Slashdot jokes are in, high schools are out. Obscure
> >varients of Linux are in, obscure Hong Kong companies
> >are out.
> >
> >The question is not 'are people within their "rights"'
> >to delete things that don't interest them, but does it
> >serve the creation of a neutral and wide scope
> >encyclopedia. We are removing content simply because
> >(mostly) American techies think it is unimportant.
> >
> >That's what really bothers me.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>I believe in one of my more recent mails, I quoted
> >>[[What Wikipedia is not]] stating that it is not an
> exhaustive list by
> >>any means.
> >>
> >>In any case, Mark, while there is no consensus to
> >>delete schools, there is none to keep them either.
> Thus, I'd say those who
> >>are listing them are acting within their rights,
> because schools
> >>aren't covered by any policy; thus we decide them on a
> case-by-case basis.
> >>Democracy is always unfair to someone, but if there was
> a real
> >>miscarriage of justice, how come much of the community
> doesn't care we're
> >>deleting oh so important articles on Hong Kong handbag
> companies or high
> >>schools? (Of course, there's the issue of whether there
> was true
> >>consensus; in quite a few, there hasn't been any.)
> >>
> >>It so happens that most people on VFD are
> >>deletionists. Inclusionists argue this is unfair as
> important articles are
> >>unfairly deleted. However, this calls to mind a recent
> post to this
> >>list by, if I'm not mistaken, Dpbsmith: Most people ARE
> a "strong
> >>neutral" on these; they don't care whether these
> articles stay or go. I am
> >>of the same opinion. If they really felt the system is
> unfair, they'd
> >>either pack up and leave (those who have done this are
> so few, I doubt
> >>their existence) or complain. So far the only people
> complaining are
> >>those from the extreme inclusionist camp. Therefore,
> much of the community
> >>couldn't care less about the fate of school articles.
> Delete all
> >>articles with the word "green"? If they found out,
> they'd almost certainly
> >>be livid. Delete all school articles? Lots probably
> would care (I mean,
> >>would you delete an article on [[Eton]] or one of those
> posh prep
> >>schools?). Delete an article on, say, [[Allerton High
> School]]? Most
> >>wouldn't and don't care.
> >>
> >>The community is fine with the current practice,
> >>whether it's in line with policy or not. Remember,
> policy and VFD exist
> >>to serve the community. They are the means to an end.
> Not an end
> >>in themselves.
> >>
> >>i must say personally i must agree with ray.they had no
rihght to do that.teachers input i deem as very important.i
feel they do not get enough of a podium to talk freely
about any issues because of parents,principals,other
teachers,ect.the one place where they can freely do this is
on this site.so why delete their input?>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

______________________________________________________________
Herbalife Independent Distributor http://www.healthiest.co.za


subject: [WikiEN-l] Viewing deleted pages (Kate's script)

body:
More to the point, it's only a board decree if it's passed as a resolution
at a board meeting (or maybe an "Action by Unanimous Written Consent" but
now we're really getting into details).

Anthony

> there is a big difference between:
>
> <angela> THIS IS A BOARD DECREE - THOU SHALT NOT DO THIS
>
> and:
>
> <angela> probably not
>
>
> --sannse


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>So you don't see how we'd lose from deleting 90% of the articles we have?
>
I don't think anyone is arguing that we should delete 90% of the
articles we have.  The articles in question are maybe 1-2%, and
certainly no more than 10%.

Much of the argument, and what prompted this, isn't even about strictly
whether we should have certain articles, but whether we should delete
particular poor instantiations of articles (substubs).  It's basically
an argument over whether a substub is better or worse than a red link,
which I'm decidedly neutral on (both are bad, and instead of wasting
time arguing over it, people on both sides ought to spend the time
writing good articles in their place).

But I doubt you'll find even the most ardent deletionist who wants to
delete any significant fraction of current articles, so I'm not sure who
you're arguing against.

-Mark


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] wikibrowser

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Kai Kumpf wrote:

>hi everybody
>has anyone of you heard of or played around with touchgraphs wikibrowser
>(http://www.touchgraph.com/TGWB_101_SS.html)? this is a great step
>forward to intuitive wiki navigation!
>i really wonder why this hasn't come up onto the agenda long ago. all it
>takes for the current version of tgwikibrowser is a plaintext list of
>immediate links from one page (or all the pages in sorted order). this
>is accomplished by most wiki implementations by giving the url
>http://wikiurl/mainpage?action=links&mimetype=text/plain or something
>similar.
>to start with, mediawiki doesn't seem to know such a feature. why?? if

That would be 380,000 http requests to generate the English navigation
tree, and more than a million for a complet set. I think it would be
easier to parse a database dump (download.wikimedia.org) and feed the data
to touchgraphs in some way.

Does touchgraphs scale to 100,000s of pages? Maybe selecting some subset
would be better (say, a major category and all the articles in that
category and subcategories).

Alfio


subject: [Wikitech-l] wikibrowser


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Apology for "anti-US" remark

body:
Jens Ropers wrote:

> On 27 Oct 2004, at 17:53, Delirium wrote:
>
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/27/04 9:32 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Sorry, Jeff, I wrote hastily. I should have said "Anti-US Military"
>>>> bias
>>>> or "Anti-Bush Administration bias". I apologize for my offensive
>>>> wording.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> You keep on digging the hole deeper. How was it "anti-US military"
>>> bias?
>>>
>> I find this issue of semantics is kind of annoying, because although
>> I'm a strong Bush opponent, I tend to agree with Ed's phrasing.  It
>> is not *in principle* "anti-US" or "anti-US-military" bias, but I'd
>> argue that *in practice* many people do have an anti-US bias that
>> leads them to look for and promote stories that make the US look
>> bad.  This has nothing to do with anti-Bush bias---it was the same
>> people doing the same thing when Clinton was president and bombing
>> Kosovo.
>>
>> -Mark
>
>
> With the possible difference being that a complaint that others are
> biased against you just sounds so much more convincing if you're not
> engaged in an illegal war at the same time.

Careful on the nationalism thing - every nation has much to
criticize. Germans especially should not be lecturing anybody
about "illegal wars"...

I hate Bush as much as anybody, but if Europeans and USians
are not in agreement, it's as much a failure of the Europeans
to sell their ideas in Iowa as it is of the US to sell its ideas
in Belgium. Bush would get even more votes if the average US
voter got a look at how much anti-US sneering by Europeans is
found on WP talk pages. Not setting much of an example for
international cooperation!

Stan


from_name: Anthere

body:
NSK a ?crit:

> Wikipedia is the largest wiki and I think its mailing lists are useful for
> general discussion and not only just WP.

Apology to interfere here. But no.
This mailing list is meant to discuss Wikimedia Foundation issues.

If you wish to discuss using mediawiki for your site, head to
wikitech-l at wikimedia.org

If you wish to discuss links with wikipedia, please discuss on
wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org

If you wish to discuss your wiki projects only, please create your own
mailing lists.

We wish that lists are used according to what they are meant for.

Thanks for this.

Anthere


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
NSK wrote:

>On Wednesday 27 October 2004 05:51, Tim Starling wrote:
>
>
>>and thinks he knows everything.
>>
>>
>I haven't earned my B.Sc./M.Sc./Ph.D.'s yet and I do not know everything.
>
>
Neither do Ph.D.'s.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>> Depends on the subject. Most of them are encyclopedic, though (I
>> don't really understand why we need lists now when we have
>> categories, though).
>
>
>
> Lists can be annotated. Also, lists can be sorted other than in
> alphabetical
> order (all that categories allow).

Also list entries can be piped, for readability. But yeah, an
un-annotated alphabetical list that is completely filled in has
little reason to continue to exist.

Stan


subject: [Wiktionary-l] gil Gibertese

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>> As I have added a new language to the list, I do like to notify you
>>>
>>> Another user started adding languages so I now have Gibertese as well,
>>
>> Shouldn't that be Gilbertese?
>>
> gil is Gibertese or Kiribati or Ikiribati. So I do not understand the
> question?

See http://www.ethnologue.com/show_iso639.asp?code=gil . There is
clearly an "l" in the name, as there is in the code.
Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Also list entries can be piped, for readability. But yeah, an
> un-annotated alphabetical list that is completely filled in has
> little reason to continue to exist.

An easy way to insert links to category pages in the normal flow of text
would be nice. Sometimes it's desirable to have these lists linked to
directly in the prose, and deleting them in favour of categories will
cause some annoyances if we can't simply replace the links.


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting

body:
Angela reminded me today we had agreed on an open board meeting early
november.

So... Here it is.

You are warmly welcome in #wikimedia for a tea-party (or a brunch, or an
after-dinner liquor, just pick up depending on your time-zone).

Date : Saturday the 6th of november
Hour : 20 UTC
Place : irc.freenode.net#wikimedia
Who : everyone interested in wikimedia projects future (trolls not
welcome though)
Why : brainstorming session on the future
Topic : see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda
Outcome : Great hopefully.

Log will be published on Meta.


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Angela reminded me today we had agreed on an open board meeting early
> november.
>
> So... Here it is.
>
> You are warmly welcome in #wikimedia for a tea-party (or a brunch, or
> an after-dinner liquor, just pick up depending on your time-zone).
>
> Date : Saturday the 6th of november
> Hour : 20 UTC
> Place : irc.freenode.net#wikimedia
> Who : everyone interested in wikimedia projects future (trolls not
> welcome though)
> Why : brainstorming session on the future
> Topic : see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda

Hmmm! Just when I'm in my car driving to the Seattle regional meeting. :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting


subject: Categories and lists (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV)

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

> Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>> Also list entries can be piped, for readability. But yeah, an
>> un-annotated alphabetical list that is completely filled in has
>> little reason to continue to exist.
>
>
> An easy way to insert links to category pages in the normal flow of
> text would be nice. Sometimes it's desirable to have these lists
> linked to directly in the prose, and deleting them in favour of
> categories will cause some annoyances if we can't simply replace the
> links.

You mean like [[:Category:Foobars]] ? Articles have been starting
to do just that. Categories can also be interwikied, makes for easy
way to compare coverage of, say, French painters in the different
languages.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
> I don't think anyone is arguing that we should delete 90% of the
> articles we have.  The articles in question are maybe 1-2%, and
> certainly no more than 10%.

Well, you said you "don't see how Wikipedia gains or loses from the creation
or deletion of any of these articles, unless indisputably encyclopedic."
Not all articles which are disputably encyclopedic are listed on VFD.
Rambot articles are of disputable encyclopedicness.  Pokemon articles are of
disputable encyclopedicness.  Articles on years and numbers, and lists are
of disputable encyclopedicness.  But none of these are listed on VFD.
Perhaps 90% was a slight overestimate, but I don't think there are many
articles which are "indisputably encyclopedic".   But let's look at some
real numbers.  Britannica has 120,000 articles.  We have 380,000.  So right
there our idea of encyclopedic is 3 times as broad as Britannica (68% of our
articles aren't encyclopedic by the Britannica standard) and we don't even
cover all of the articles Britannica has, so this number is an
underestimate.  In the period from October 22-26 inclusive (UTC), 200
articles were listed on VFD, and 4300 were created.  So by ignoring VFD
we're cutting out 5% of our encyclopedia.  Considering that these articles
are probably those on which the world has the least free information, this
is a significant loss in my opinion.  And that doesn't even factor in the
question of what the deletionists would come up with to start cutting out if
they had no one opposing them.  Until a compromise is reached, this can't
just be ignored.

Anthony


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> You mean like [[:Category:Foobars]] ? Articles have been starting
> to do just that. Categories can also be interwikied, makes for easy
> way to compare coverage of, say, French painters in the different
> languages.

Oops! Missed that, and it's on both [[Wikipedia:Categorization]] and
[[WP:HEP]] (though the former is a little messy).

So yeah, forget I said anything. :)


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
Gee.  Somebody who never posts on Wikipedia (as I suspected) making demands that Wikipedia policy be changed.  And does anybody wonder why I think he's probably a troll?

RickK

NSK <nsk2 at wikinerds.org> wrote:
I don't really have enough time to edit much on Wikipedia. I have my own
projects and soon/hopefully will have my own nonprofit organisation. So,
although my community website now is still very new (just opened this August,
but already serving more than 65 thousand hits per month), it will certainly
become very known and important in the near future. My interests in the
Wikipedia community are mostly establishing public relations, helping each
other to improve our community policies and sharing software development tips
and practices. I mostly want communication with Wikipedia decision makers,
the Board and the development team, so that we can find ways to cooperate as
independent separate projects. So, I think it should be obvious that I
participate in your mailing lists as a representative of a friendly website
which seeks to have relations, cooperation and knowledge sharing with
Wikimedia. But if WMF does not wish to cooperate or thinks I am a
"competitor", then you can just say so and I will leave.

NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
Rick wrote:

 > Gee.  Somebody who never posts on Wikipedia (as I suspected) making

I got the impression he does edit some.

 > demands that Wikipedia policy be changed.  And does anybody wonder why

I saw no demands or anything remotely resembling a demand, only suggestions.

 > I think he's probably a troll?

Your apparent definition of "troll" is completely at odds with any I am
familiar with. NSK has merely tried to be helpful, and has been entirely
cordial.

You are being incredibly hostile for no discernable reason other than
you happen to disagree with some of the things NSK has said. Others have
also disagreed with some of the things NSK has said (I disagree with
some of them myself), but none have been rude or hostile except for you,
and there is no reason to be rude or hostile.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Are you really trying to claim that there is some cabal out there plotting to delete 90% of the content of Wikipedia?  If not, what ARE you trying to say?

RickK

Anthony DiPierro <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com> wrote:
So you don't see how we'd lose from deleting 90% of the articles we have? I
guess we'd still be better than the other freely distributed online
encyclopedias; we'd be free as in freedom and have more in depth coverage,
but I seriously doubt we'd be able to crush them out of existence within 5
years.

Anthony

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Preliminary Deletion

body:
Has there been a vote?

RickK

John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
Sannse suggested to me on IRC that we conduct a trial run of this policy
before a permanent implementation. Do you guys agree? And if yes, how
long would you suggest it should be?

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

John Lee wrote:

> This proposed policy ([[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion]]) isn't
> probably very well named, but it seems to have been well accepted,
> although I am perturbed by the lack of discussion on the talk page
> despite being advertised on the pump, community portal and RFC.
> Anyway, in case anyone here hasn't read the proposal yet, please do.
>
> I've drafted the proposed questions and answers for the poll already.
> Can someone more experienced in these matters please double-check them
> for compliance with the guidelines?
>
> Also, comments/brickbats on the proposal would be very welcome,
> especially from the inclusionist side (although you may be pleased to
> hear RickK is of the opinion that this proposal won't change anything).

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
What odd comments coming from someone who wants to keep everything.

How can articles about cities and towns possibly be considered nonencyclopedic?

RickK

Anthony DiPierro <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com> wrote:
Rambot articles are of disputable encyclopedicness. Pokemon articles are of
disputable encyclopedicness. Articles on years and numbers, and lists are
of disputable encyclopedicness. But none of these are listed on VFD.

Anthony
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
'Encyclopedic' is a matter of opinion.
A school is verifiable, GBs socks are not, so schools
should stay, the socks should go.
Mark

--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:

> Actually, when voting for an article, I take as many
> circumstances as
> possible into account. A school is borderline
> encyclopedic; George
> Bush's socks obviously aren't (at the very least,
> they don't deserve a
> separate article). A substub school article just
> makes the case for
> deletion sealed for me. If the article's
> well-written, though, I'm
> strongly tempted to keep the article.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >No, it really isn't. Although most of the time
> >deletionists get to them before they manage to get
> >beyond being 'sub-stubs', they've made it quite
> clear
> >that an article on a school that they are not
> >interested in would still be deleted if it were
> large
> >and factual, simply because they don't think it is
> >'notable'.
> >Mark
> >
> >--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>So you don't see how we'd lose from deleting 90%
> of
> >>>
> >>>
> >>the articles we have?
> >>
> >>
> >>I don't think anyone is arguing that we should
> >>delete 90% of the
> >>articles we have.  The articles in question are
> >>maybe 1-2%, and
> >>certainly no more than 10%.
> >>
> >>Much of the argument, and what prompted this,
> isn't
> >>even about strictly
> >>whether we should have certain articles, but
> whether
> >>we should delete
> >>particular poor instantiations of articles
> >>(substubs).  It's basically
> >>an argument over whether a substub is better or
> >>worse than a red link,
> >>which I'm decidedly neutral on (both are bad, and
> >>instead of wasting
> >>time arguing over it, people on both sides ought
> to
> >>spend the time
> >>writing good articles in their place).
> >>
> >>But I doubt you'll find even the most ardent
> >>deletionist who wants to
> >>delete any significant fraction of current
> articles,
> >>so I'm not sure who
> >>you're arguing against.
> >>
> >>-Mark
> >>
> >>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
So is every building in the world, every park in the world, every street in the world, every tree in the world.  Should we have articles on every one of those things?

RickK

Nicholas Knight <nknight at runawaynet.com> wrote:
John Lee wrote:

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>>
>> Rambot articles are of disputable encyclopedicness.
>>
> Places are certainly encyclopedic.

Schools are places.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
Just an observation, I have never seen Rick in
anything but 'attack dog' mode, and, in the last
couple of weeks alone I think I have seen him accuse
nearly everyone he disagrees with of being 'trolls'
(which is, of course, the only real definition of the
word).

Probably best to not feed him.

Mark

--- Nicholas Knight <nknight at runawaynet.com> wrote:

> Rick wrote:
>
>  > Gee.  Somebody who never posts on Wikipedia (as I
> suspected) making
>
> I got the impression he does edit some.
>
>  > demands that Wikipedia policy be changed.  And
> does anybody wonder why
>
> I saw no demands or anything remotely resembling a
> demand, only suggestions.
>
>  > I think he's probably a troll?
>
> Your apparent definition of "troll" is completely at
> odds with any I am
> familiar with. NSK has merely tried to be helpful,
> and has been entirely
> cordial.
>
> You are being incredibly hostile for no discernable
> reason other than
> you happen to disagree with some of the things NSK
> has said. Others have
> also disagreed with some of the things NSK has said
> (I disagree with
> some of them myself), but none have been rude or
> hostile except for you,
> and there is no reason to be rude or hostile.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
That there is a small group of people who are intent
on deleting certain classes of factual, verifiable
articles.

What Anthony seems to be saying, in response to your
comment that no one cares about the schools articles,
is that hardly anyone cares about most of the
articles. Outside of a core of articles that many
people read, there are many that few people read.

The fact that they are of interest to a few, rather
than many, is not reason to delete them.

Mark

--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Are you really trying to claim that there is some
> cabal out there plotting to delete 90% of the
> content of Wikipedia?  If not, what ARE you trying
> to say?
>
> RickK
>
> Anthony DiPierro <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> So you don't see how we'd lose from deleting 90% of
> the articles we have? I
> guess we'd still be better than the other freely
> distributed online
> encyclopedias; we'd be free as in freedom and have
> more in depth coverage,
> but I seriously doubt we'd be able to crush them out
> of existence within 5
> years.
>
> Anthony
>
>
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> phone.
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>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Rambot articles are certainly controversial, as are
schools. There are schools that you have deleted that
are attended by more people than live in some of the
Rambot towns that have been kept.

He is pointing out how stupid and inconsistant your
ideas of 'notablity' and 'encyclopedic' are.

Mark

--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> What odd comments coming from someone who wants to
> keep everything.
>
> How can articles about cities and towns possibly be
> considered nonencyclopedic?
>
> RickK
>
> Anthony DiPierro <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> Rambot articles are of disputable encyclopedicness.
> Pokemon articles are of
> disputable encyclopedicness. Articles on years and
> numbers, and lists are
> of disputable encyclopedicness. But none of these
> are listed on VFD.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
Rick wrote:

 > So is every building in the world, every park in the world, every
 > street in the world, every tree in the world.  Should we have articles
 > on every one of those things?

That's the point. John was saying that articles about places inherently
belong in Wikipedia because they're about places. My pointing out that
schools are places was aimed at getting him (and hopefully others) to
stop and think about what he was saying and arguing for/against. Either
something more than "because it's a place" is neccessary, or a lot more
articles than he seems to think belong in Wikipedia.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] gil Gibertese

references:
<417E4F6A.5050105@myrealbox.com>
	<417EDEA8.5030201@telus.net>	<417F3E2A.7040207@myrealbox.com>
	<opsgi6a1y52okkek@arcadia.attbi.com>

body:
Muke Tever wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:20:26 +0200, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>> As I have added a new language to the list, I do like to notify you
>>>>
>>>> Another user started adding languages so I now have Gibertese as well,
>>>
>>>
>>> Shouldn't that be Gilbertese?
>>>
>> gil is Gibertese or Kiribati or Ikiribati. So I do not understand the
>> question?
>
>
> Not "Gibertese", "Gilbertese" with an L.  (The same L as is in the
> code "gil", which became the "r" in "Kiribati".)
>
>
>     *Muke!

You are correct.
:) GerardM