from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Jan Kulveit wrote:
> In long term perspective we'll achieve the same ammount of harder
> to spot vandalism. Effort required from vandals will increase e.g.
> twice, from one click to two clicks.

If it would cost a dollar to create an account, at least the
foundation would get rich from this.

> Look from
> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity
> viewpoint.

Do they provide a proven solution for wikis with a million
articles?

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


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Anons cannot create pages on english wikipedia?


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Arbeo M

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why MO.wikipedia. - Moldovan,
	are written in cyrillic ?

body:
Thanks for your reply, V. Ivanov!

> You probably don't know the history of the language well.

That's right. I didn't mean to cause any other impression. Neither did
I want to question the existance of content in Cyrillic in general. I only
wanted to point out that the discontentment with the current way Wikipedia
handles this issue ought to be taken seriously.

> You probably don't know the history of the language well. In fact both
> Romanian and Moldovans has been Orthodox Christians and used Cyrillic
> script for several ages.

I knew that the Cyrillic script had been used in Moldova before the Soviet
era. I must admit that the fact that it has been used in Romania as well is
completely new to me.

> By the way, do you know much about the unfree days? They were not totally that "unfree".
> :) Be more neutral. ;)

Of course I don't know so much about them for I grew up in Western Europe.
What I do know is the way officials (not the people in general, of course!)
treated us and other tourists during a visit in the Eastern Bloc (I could tell
some appalling things but they don't belong here). I also remember how
every how each and every letter we sent to friends at other side of the
"Iron Curtain" (or that they sent to us) was opened and read by people
for whom it was not intended. Or how there was a third person in every phone call.
Or how the secret service stole Christmas or birthday gifts we sent to our friends.

But maybe I should have been a little more careful with my wording nevertheless,
like your reaction shows.

Cheers,

Arbeo

---------------------------------
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list: wikien-l

from_name: John Lee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] for anonymous
	creation of articles

body:
Gerrit Holl wrote:

>Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>
>>>Um, in what way is this easier than, well, creating an account?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>It's not, but there are a remarkable number of longtime good editors
>>who apparently do not want to create accounts (I've come to recognize
>>some familiar IPs). Part of the experiment is to see what anons decide
>>to do when a restriction is applied - for instance, if we get a surge
>>in throwaway logins and no benefit in content quality, that might
>>suggest the problem is with pseudonymy rather than anonymity.
>>
>>
>
>Can't we change the rule "anon's can't create pages" to "anons with
>editcount<x timespan <y" can't create pages?
>
>Gerrit.
>
>
>
Not as simple as you may think. Often IPs are dynamic and/or shared with
others. Some people on them are vandals and others are valuable
contributors.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
Sam Spade wrote:
> On 12/6/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>Sam Spade wrote:

>>>Thank you for clarifying my thesis:
>>>That those who describe others as "troublemakers" (esp. persons such
>>>as myself without any serious charges against them, past or present)
>>>are incapable of judging them neutrally. You have already made up your
>>>mind, evidence be damned. You solidify the bigotry by comparing me to
>>>those you have censured before. This Ivory Tower injustice cannot long
>>>last. Your prejudices and flippant generalisations underscore your
>>>inability to fairly judge better than any argument I could make.

>>Your post is long on ranting and notably short on evidence.
>>Please provide diffs illustrating your claim of conflict of interest.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Workshop#Sam_Spade_closing_statement

The entire text at the above is:

  Sam Spade closing statement

  I'll quote a friend and fellow AMA advocate: "When blindness is so
  strong, there's nothing more to do."

  Sam Spade 21:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

You've sent a pile of messages here throwing mud and attempting to
blacken Jayjg's character, and when called on it you can produce
nothing. Well done.

- d.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > It seems to me that these comments are far more libellous than what
> > was in the article.  At least the article stated that the charges were
> > found to be in error.  Do you have any proof at all for your statement
> > that "he's a litigous asshole looking for revenge."  A truly litigious
> > person would have fun with that comment, and the fact that it was made
> > on the mailing list would be no excuse.
>
> How about this statement, then:
>
> "Based on the available evidence, particularly his tone and comments in
> public discussions, Mr. Seigenthaler appears to be a litigious asshole
> looking for revenge.  In particular, his singleminded focus on the
> inability of Wikipedia to provide him with a name he can sue suggests
> that he is more interested in lawsuits and revenge than in constructive
> criticism or improving anything."
>
> (There is, of course, nothing libelous about expressing an opinion.)
>
> -Mark

You do relise that it would to our advantage if he was "litigious
asshole looking for revenge". Two reasons in fact:

1. He would be hastleing the ISP rather than commenting on us
2. The idea that putting false info on wikipedia can get you sued is
one I would not object to being spread.

--
geni


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability, formatted. last kick-off posting.

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> It might be a start, but it still leaves us with unreviewed crap by default.
>
> unreviewed≠crap
>
> Please, don't buy into what the Wikipedia naysayers spew. We have lots and lots of good content
> that is constantly improving;

Sure, lots of it. We also have crap, lots of it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

body:
On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's much easier to take away openness than it is to restore it.
>
> I dare Jimbo to reverse his decision.

Since Jimbo said it was an experiment, "reversing" this condition
should not be so daring.

"Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for
anonymous users in the English Wikipedia."

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Xed Mac

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Importing Wikipedia articles into Mediawiki running on
	OS X

body:
Hi

I'd like some help importing Wikipedia articles into a
Mediawiki installation running on OS X. I tried to use
importDump.php, but couldn't even get it to run. After
trying mwdumper.jar (which *appeared* to do
"something"), there are still no articles in my WIki.
Any help appreciated. Bear in mind I am a
simple-minded OS X user. My previous efforts are
detailed below.

Thanks
Xed

> These are the steps I took:
>
>
/usr/local/mysql-standard-5.0.16-osx10.4-powerpc/bin/mysql
> -u root -p wikidb
>
> SOURCE
> /Users/xed/Sites/mediawiki/maintenance/tables.sql
>
> ....which got:
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.17 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.04 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.03 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.06 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.03 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.02 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
>
> Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
>
> Then I did:
>
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Commands/java
> -jar -Xmx512m -Xms256m
> /Users/xed/Desktop/mwdumper.jar
> --format=sql:1.5
> /Users/xed/Desktop/20051127_pages_articles.xml.bz2 |
>
/usr/local/mysql-standard-5.0.16-osx10.4-powerpc/bin/mysql
> -u wikiuser -p wikidb
>
> ...and it stepped thru (without errors) from:
> 1,000 pages (91.033/sec), 1,000 revs (91.033/sec)
>
> ...to..
>
> 2,136,559 pages (189.635/sec), 2,136,559 revs
> (189.635/sec)
>
> After this, I rebooted and checked my Wiki. The
articles where nowhere to be found. Obviously it did
something, but I don't know what.

___________________________________________________________
WIN ONE OF THREE YAHOO! VESPAS - Enter now! - http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/features/competitions/vespa.html


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dumps - ja and ko

body:
Filzstift wrote:
> At dumps.wikimedia.org the last dump of the Japanese and Korean
> Wikipedia was made on 2005-10-29. Why there are no more recent dumps
> and could someone fix ist?

They're on a separate server cluster, which means they don't always happen at
the same time as the others.

Between other things I'm updating the dump-building scripts, and should have a
new set out on both clusters in a few days.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
 Ronline wrote:

> I'll give you a hypothetical case. In Switzerland,
> Italian is an official language.
> Now let's say that until 1990, Swiss Italian was written
> in a different alphabet.
> After 1990, there was a significant movement to revert
> back to the Latin alphabet,
> and nowadays everyone uses Latin alphabet in Switzerland
> when writing Italian, except for a few
> who still prefer the old alphabet. Would it.wiki accept
> this new alphabet as part of a biscriptal Wikipedia?
> Considering that, say, out of a total of 70 million
> Italian speakers, only about 200,000 people still write
> in this strange alphabet,and of those, 180,000 can write
> well in the Latin alphabet? The case is similar to what
> the Moldovan-Cyrillic case is today.

As a total outsider who has never been to Moldova, one more aspect has
come to my mind while reading the above lines:

Does the fact that a small minority of people might prefer to use
the Cyrillic script for private purposes justify the enormous
effort of building an entire encyclopedia for them - while they
know the Latin script?

My point is: if a society generelly uses one script (which seems
to be so according to everything I have heard from our fellow
Wikipedians who know the country as well as the language) it doesn't
really matter if an individual likes another script better. They will
have to adapt to the common standard if they want to read the paper,
a current book, the phone book, the signs in public places, labels
on products etc., make they annual tax declaration, do business, get
a job, ride a train ... So are any severe reasons for Wikipedia to make
an exception here?

Having said that, there is still one open question: the issue of
Transnistria which does not make things easier and may not be forgotten,
of course.

But luckily, there are quite a number of Wikipedians here who know
much, much more about the whole situation than I do - and they all
seem determined to bring about an intelligent solution. So I am convinced
the issue will be settled for good pretty soon.

Arbeo

---------------------------------
Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB kostenlosem Speicher


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Workshop#Sam_Spade_closing_statement

Sam Spade

On 12/6/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam Spade wrote:
>
> >Thank you for clarifying my thesis:
> >That those who describe others as "troublemakers" (esp. persons such
> >as myself without any serious charges against them, past or present)
> >are incapable of judging them neutrally. You have already made up your
> >mind, evidence be damned. You solidify the bigotry by comparing me to
> >those you have censured before. This Ivory Tower injustice cannot long
> >last. Your prejudices and flippant generalisations underscore your
> >inability to fairly judge better than any argument I could make.
>
>
> Your post is long on ranting and notably short on evidence.
>
> Please provide diffs illustrating your claim of conflict of interest.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: mysekurity

body:
It's good because of damage control. It's not like he's doing this to spite
*us*, in fact, it's the exact opposite; he's helping our community not look
like fools. After something big and stupid like this happens, he has to make
some kind of gesture, at least, even if it is completely wrong, and doesn't
really do anything, just until the heat is off. We got caught with our pants
down, and Jimbo is doing us all a favor by not looking like fools. Why not
realize that this isn't about the real issue, and is more about the PR?


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] About our disclaimer and what I wish...

body:
Why stop at news outlets?

http://www.fbi.gov/privacy.htm
http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page139.html
Oh and I guess Bush is off the hook...
http://www.cia.gov/cia/notices.html#liability

;-)

FF

On 12/6/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> > "Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
> > Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
> > none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
> > Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
> > any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
> > on CNN
> >
> > I wish my response could have been:
> >
> > "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> > NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> > AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> > INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> > WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> > INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> > INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
> >
> > But I didn't have that handy.
>
> Then make sure you do for all the other news outlets you will be talking with from the time being.
> :)
>
> -- mav
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________
> Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
> Just $16.99/mo. or less.
> dsl.yahoo.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Actually it is worse that they are no more accurate than we are.

Our errors can be fixed in moments. Theirs exist in perpetuity. If
someone had written this information about Seigenthaler on a geocities
page it would have taken him a week to get removed and he'd still have
no real idea who wrote it. They wouldn't even give up the IP address
without a court order (as they shouldn't).

(And while we are on the topic of mainstream media errors, in an
article from last Thursday, December 1, in the feature article on the
front page of the New York Times Business section, it said, and I
quote, "The Samotlor oil field in Russia has a distinct shape and is
easily discernable on a satellite image. It can be located quickly by
searching the web or using a mapping program. Regardless, the *Soviet
Union* continues to produce and distribute maps that obscure the
locaitons of landmarks." My emphasis added. Just in case you get
interviewed by the NYT, Jimbo.)

FF

On 12/6/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > "Now, you do have a general disclaimer on the site, it says that
> > Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here,
> > none of the authors, contributors, or anyone else connected with
> > Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of
> > any inaccurate or libellous information." - Kyra Phillips, talking to me
> > on CNN
> >
> > I wish my response could have been:
> >
> > "Yes, Kyra, and let me read you the disclaimer from _your_ website:
> > NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES,
> > AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN
> > INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY
> > WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN
> > INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY
> > INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE."
> >
> > But I didn't have that handy.
>
> Well, it's pretty obvious from the interview that she was out to get
> you.  CNN's coverage evinces clear bias.  We do need to work on your
> preinterview briefings, though....
>
> It's been interesting to note the errors, minor and major, in the news
> coverage of this incident.  One radio report in Chicagoland reported
> that Seigenthaler was a former Senator.  At least one blog report
> demanded absolute accuracy -- while misspelling Seigenthaler's name
> consistently throughout.  Almost all the print and electronic media
> articles I've seen misreport Wikipedia's URL as www.wikipedia.com
> (instead of .org).  The conclusion I've reached is that the media is
> no more accurate than we are.  I think it would be a really good idea
> to take the media coverage of this incident and identify all the
> errors in their coverage -- some of which reaches the level of libel
> itself (such as the one that says that Jimbo ignored Seigenthaler's
> entreaties for four months before bothering to act).  Their house is
> no cleaner than ours.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I certainly would!  To be more specific, his call for us to make it
> easier to trace Wikipedia contributors, and therefore to enable people
> to sue them, is *directly* contrary to a lot of our goals.  If we make
> it so that nobody can be anonymous enough to avoid U.S. libel lawsuits,
> it also means nobody is anonymous enough to avoid getting hauled before
> courts authoritarian countries who might want to trace who wrote an
> article they disapprove of.
>
> -Mark

If you post something libilus under US law (which is the only law that
matters) and the person finds it fast enough they can get a court
order and get the relivant server logs from wikipedia. If you don't
log in then I'm afaraid we can't protect you from being stupid. You
can't expect the foundation not to respect a US court order. As a
result the fact is that under certian conditions posting something
false on wikipedia could get you into legal trouble. It is important
people understand this.

The reference to authoritarian countries is a red herring. Assumeing
you avoid local monitoring it is only US law you have to worry about
because only US law affects the foundation.

--
geni


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you post something libilus under US law (which is the only law that
> matters) and the person finds it fast enough they can get a court
> order and get the relivant server logs from wikipedia. If you don't
> log in then I'm afaraid we can't protect you from being stupid. You
> can't expect the foundation not to respect a US court order. As a
> result the fact is that under certian conditions posting something
> false on wikipedia could get you into legal trouble. It is important
> people understand this.
>
> The reference to authoritarian countries is a red herring. Assumeing
> you avoid local monitoring it is only US law you have to worry about
> because only US law affects the foundation.

Presumably the servers in Paris, Amsterdam and Korea would pose a
problem here...

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you post something libilus under US law (which is the only law that
> > matters) and the person finds it fast enough they can get a court
> > order and get the relivant server logs from wikipedia. If you don't
> > log in then I'm afaraid we can't protect you from being stupid. You
> > can't expect the foundation not to respect a US court order. As a
> > result the fact is that under certian conditions posting something
> > false on wikipedia could get you into legal trouble. It is important
> > people understand this.
> >
> > The reference to authoritarian countries is a red herring. Assumeing
> > you avoid local monitoring it is only US law you have to worry about
> > because only US law affects the foundation.
>
> Presumably the servers in Paris, Amsterdam and Korea would pose a
> problem here...
>
> --
> Sam

They are not database servers only squids so we are probably safe. We
could also drop them if it became a problem.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Those servers constitute a "legal presence" in those jurisdictions.
> The WMF's investment in those servers is at risk in the event of an
> unfavorable legal finding in one of those jurisdictions or in any
> jurisdiction from which one of those jurisdictions will grant
> execution of an adverse judgment.  I don't know enough about EU law
> and the enforceability of foreign judgments within the EU to know
> whether a UK judgment could be enforced in France in such a situation.

The only possible parallel I have is that summons can be served
anywhere in the European Union (except, I think, Denmark, though I
can't remember why) and have effect.  This might extend to the
execution of a verdict, though it might well not.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > They are not database servers only squids so we are probably safe. We
> > could also drop them if it became a problem.
>
> Those servers constitute a "legal presence" in those jurisdictions.
> The WMF's investment in those servers is at risk in the event of an
> unfavorable legal finding in one of those jurisdictions or in any
> jurisdiction from which one of those jurisdictions will grant
> execution of an adverse judgment.  I don't know enough about EU law
> and the enforceability of foreign judgments within the EU to know
> whether a UK judgment could be enforced in France in such a situation.
>
> Kelly

doubtful. Legal systems in europe tend to be fairly seperate (just to
confuse thing further there are two diffent legal systems in the UK,
Scotish and everyone else). The European arrrest warrent is criminal
cases only and even then doesn't cover everything. After that you are
looking at extradition treaties and things get really complex.
--
geni


from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

body:
On 12/6/05, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So, if Moldovan is nothing else than Rumanian, and it happens that some
> people write it in Cyrillic alphabet, you don't do one wikipedia only
> that can be written in both alphabets (I guess that's the way zh.wiki or
> sh.wiki work). Maybe I'm missing out something or I'm being too naive,
> and I beg my pardon for it, but this seems quite an easy and obvious
> solution to me.
>
> Cruccone

Marco, your logic works very well only if we look at this in a linguistic
vacuum
without looking at politics or history. Linguistically, yes, Moldovan is the
same
as Romanian, and ro.wiki should be biscriptal.
However, Romanian is never written in Cyrillic! If you go to Romania, you
will
never ever see Cyrillic script being used (just like in Italy you'd never
see this).
In Moldova, the majority of those who write in Cyrillic, which is a fairly
small number
anyway, refer to it as "Moldovan".

Putting Cyrillic content on ro.wiki would be quite
strange because so few people use it when you combine Moldova and Romania
together. Romanians would feel disillusioned in a way - it's not like
Serbian or
Chinese, where two scripts co-exist in general usage and both are
significant.

I'll give you a hypothetical case. In Switzerland, Italian is an official
language.
Now let's say that until 1990, Swiss Italian was written in a different
alphabet.
After 1990, there was a significant movement to revert back to the Latin
alphabet,
and nowadays everyone uses Latin alphabet in Switzerland when writing
Italian, except for a few
who still prefer the old alphabet. Would it.wiki accept this new alphabet as
part
of a biscriptal Wikipedia? Considering that, say, out of a total of 70
million
Italian speakers, only about 200,000 people still write in this strange
alphabet,
and of those, 180,000 can write well in the Latin alphabet? The case is
similar to what the Moldovan-Cyrillic case is today.

Thanks,

Ronline


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact that almost all, not just
>>>most, new pages created by anons on the English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>That is simply incorrect.  I do (or did, until this policy change)
>>new-pages patrol on a regular basis, and I'd estimate no more than ~30%
>>of new pages created by anons are "complete crap".  Certainly no more
>>than 10-20% ever warranted speedy deletion.
>>
>>
>
>Your crap tolerance must be higher than mine. :) You also misquoted me; I included a range
>modifier.
>
>
Well on the Dutch wikipedia the crap range for anon new pages is way
over 50% so I guess on the english wiki you guys are really lucky ;)

Waerth/Walter


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
Please, don't bother w the false indignation. You have given me no
reason to believe you would be swayed by any evidence, no matter how
clear. I had begun to waste my time looking into the long history of
conflict between Jayjg and I.

After an hour or two of time I should have spent writing my final, I
had a few links. Given a few hours more, I would have enough evidence
for an impartial jury. Fortunately I got a helpful piece of advice
from a fellow members advocate, and I did the right thing, the smart
thing. I gave up. Fighting w ''this'' arbcom is merely a tarbaby. No
good can come of it.

I'll fight for elections, I'll fight against appointees w no mandate,
but I won't continue trying to force you to see the light. Its simply
a waste of my valuable time and energy.

Sam Spade

On 12/6/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Sam Spade wrote:
> > On 12/6/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>Sam Spade wrote:
>
> >>>Thank you for clarifying my thesis:
> >>>That those who describe others as "troublemakers" (esp. persons such
> >>>as myself without any serious charges against them, past or present)
> >>>are incapable of judging them neutrally. You have already made up your
> >>>mind, evidence be damned. You solidify the bigotry by comparing me to
> >>>those you have censured before. This Ivory Tower injustice cannot long
> >>>last. Your prejudices and flippant generalisations underscore your
> >>>inability to fairly judge better than any argument I could make.
>
> >>Your post is long on ranting and notably short on evidence.
> >>Please provide diffs illustrating your claim of conflict of interest.
>
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Workshop#Sam_Spade_closing_statement
>
>
> The entire text at the above is:
>
>   Sam Spade closing statement
>
>   I'll quote a friend and fellow AMA advocate: "When blindness is so
>   strong, there's nothing more to do."
>
>   Sam Spade 21:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
>
> You've sent a pile of messages here throwing mud and attempting to
> blacken Jayjg's character, and when called on it you can produce
> nothing. Well done.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Adrenalin

body:
Let's admit what Moldavian people from Transnistria use the cyrillic
script, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria#2004_census

Transnistrian 2004 census:
    * Total population (including Tighina): 555.500
    * Moldovans: 31.9%

That's 177.204 Moldovans ppl, what are forced to use the Cyrillic
alphabet. (forced? see here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria#Political_status). But i'm
still not sure what they all write in Cyrillic.

Now let's see how many Moldovans use the latin script.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova#Ethnic_composition)
According to the 2004 census Moldovans: 76.1% from 3,388,071 ppl.
That's 2,578,322 of Moldovans what use latin script in write. And
since Moldovian language are the only official language in Moldova,
the other 23,9% also must know to speak and write the official
language using official script.

So we see:
In Transnistria, people what are forced to write the Moldovian
language in Cyrillic: 177.204
In Moldova, people what write his language in latin: 2,578,322 (or even more).

So why must 2,578,322 of ppl to see his language in cyrillic on
Wikipedia just because of the Transnistrian 177.204 Moldovans what are
forced by a internationally unrecognised state maintained by Russian
forces(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria) to use cyrillic ?


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
And I'll take another look at the evidence he has put up. I have not
really gone through all of it.

Fred

On Dec 6, 2005, at 6:58 PM, Chip Berlet wrote:

> Hi,
>
> If Sam Spade needs time to take his finals, I have no problem
> suspending
> the arbitration process for a week in order to give him time to gather
> any more evidence he thinks would be pursuasive. I am currently
> taking a
> break from editing pending the arbitration outcome, but I suspect Wiki
> will not collapse without my input. I can also take a break from
> discussion pages and replying to the arbitration pages.  I have
> recently
> been converted to the eventualist camp. My keyboard thanks you.  :-)
>
> Chip "incompetent abrasive commie stooge" Berlet
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Spade
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 8:50 PM
>> To: English Wikipedia
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck
>>
>>
>> I "threw" evidence regarding Cberlet, what did that result in?
>>
>> Sam Spade
>>
>> On 12/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>>
>>> Sam Spade wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Please, don't bother w the false indignation. You have
>>>>
>> given me no
>>
>>>> reason to believe you would be swayed by any evidence, no
>>>>
>> matter how
>>
>>>> clear. I had begun to waste my time looking into the long
>>>>
>> history of
>>
>>>> conflict between Jayjg and I.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Rather than, say, presenting no evidence because you have
>>>
>> no evidence
>>
>>> that wouldn't be laughed out of the room? So far you've
>>>
>> thrown mud and
>>
>>> presented nothing to back it up.
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
Sam Spade wrote:

> Please, don't bother w the false indignation. You have given me no
> reason to believe you would be swayed by any evidence, no matter how
> clear. I had begun to waste my time looking into the long history of
> conflict between Jayjg and I.

Rather than, say, presenting no evidence because you have no evidence
that wouldn't be laughed out of the room? So far you've thrown mud and
presented nothing to back it up.

- d.


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 12/6/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
> > What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
> >
> >It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
> >
> >
> My guess is that it's an experiment that will turn into a permanent
> policy change if it turns out to be useful.
>
> >Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?
> >
> >
> About this being not an experiment, or about it being permanent?
>
> It will stay if it turns out to be a Good Thing (tm). As most people
> expect it to be good, most peolpe will expect it to stay.
>
> So, you're likely wrong about the "experiment" part, but probably not
> about the "permanent"part :-)

Actually, I'd argue the opposite if I were to be didactic, because
nothing is *truly* permanent. Though maybe Wikipedia will be the seed
of a Teilhardian noosphere that will expand throughout the universe
until its heat death.

Jimbo claiming it's an experiment does not make it an experiment.
Laying out metrics for success and failure would draw closer.

The problems caused by increasing restrictions and decreasing openness
are almost always very hard to see; it's very difficult to quantify
lost opportunities. Especially if there isn't an effort made
beforehand to define a proper metric, which is extraordinarily
difficult for something like Wikipedia.

If Jimbo were honest about it being an experiment, I'd recommend that
he do something like have the anon article creation ability be turned
on and off for semi-random, unannounced periods of time and see what
happens as a consequence.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
> > > it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.
> >
> > Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
> > there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
> > methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
> > change and move on.
> >
> > Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
> > start collecting good data on the effects of the change.
> >
> > I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
> > interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>
> I think these comments are way over the top.  Jimmy *is* interested in
> actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.  You may not agree
> with the methods, but to call into question his motives is
> inappropriate.

I think if you ask Jimbo, he'll say it's perfectly appropriate for me
to question his motives.

In fact, a clear sign of a dysfunctional society is one in which
questioning authority is considered inappropriate.


from_name: Sherool

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category of
	images

body:
How exactly should these images be treated? I'm talking about the image
tag <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikipedia-screenshot>
and it's category
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Screenshots_of_Wikipedia>. The
template only says that Wikipedia text is licensed under GFDL and that
Wikipedia is copyright of Wikimedia, but it doesn't rely address the issue
of the copyright status for the image itself.

According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags>
it's a "fair use" tag (that's where it's listed anyway), but we are not
currently treating it as such. Gmaxwell's bot originally tagged these
images as "far use orphans" if they where not used in articles, but after
a storm of protests (well 3-4 anyway, I raised some questions myself back
then) he (reluctantly) excluded them from his bot. Problem is you can't
rely argue that they are free images, as many of them include either
copyrighted GUI elements from the users browser and OS, and a lot of
others include copyrighted "fair use" images from articles.

The way I see it we have 3 choices.

1) Keep using it as a semi-free "special" case, maybe we can argue that
the screenshot as a whole give enough context to declare the inclusion of
copyrighted images to be within fair use or some such (IANAL).

2) Make it a GFDL tag, and run an extensive cleanup project to crop, blur
or otherwise remove all copyrighted elements from the screenshots (and
clean out other mis-tagged junk).

3) Confirm that it's a fair use tag, and delete all the images that have
not been used in any articles for at least 7 days (in other words most, if
not all of them).

Any thoughts? Whatever status they should have needs to be made more clear
IMHO.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
I "threw" evidence regarding Cberlet, what did that result in?

Sam Spade

On 12/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Sam Spade wrote:
>
> > Please, don't bother w the false indignation. You have given me no
> > reason to believe you would be swayed by any evidence, no matter how
> > clear. I had begun to waste my time looking into the long history of
> > conflict between Jayjg and I.
>
>
> Rather than, say, presenting no evidence because you have no evidence
> that wouldn't be laughed out of the room? So far you've thrown mud and
> presented nothing to back it up.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
>
>IMHO the opposite needs to be true; reviewed, stable versions need to be right
>on top, as what the public sees by default.
>
>Sure, there'll be a big fat message showing that 78573 more edits have been made
>to [[George W. Bush]] since this reviewed version, with a handy link to go right
>to it and see the changes, but they're gonna see the stable copy first.
>
>We've spent so much time hyping Wikipedia that it's become quite popular at its
>present location; a separate or hidden click-through stable set will basically
>never be seen and can't reasonably answer the (totally valid) criticisms that a
>reference site needs to be a little bit conservative on its public face.
>
>By all means, we should let the vandalism and the JOSH IS GAY and the GWB penis
>pictures and the occasional bit of alleged libel -- and the genuine building up
>and back-and-forth of new material development -- happen one level removed from
>the millions-of-hits-per-day.
>
>Most of those visitors *aren't* participating editors, and on a relatively
>mature site like en.wikipedia we need to recognize this and act accordingly to
>meet their requirements as well as those of visitors who start participating.
>Will it be a speed bump? Yes, it will. But with an industrial firehose-sized
>stream of visitors, a speed bump is NOT A BAD THING.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
I agree on this. And hope it will get done.

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > --- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> >> It might be a start, but it still leaves us with unreviewed crap by default.
> >
> > unreviewed≠crap
> >
> > Please, don't buy into what the Wikipedia naysayers spew. We have lots and lots of good
 > > content that is constantly improving;
>
> Sure, lots of it. We also have crap, lots of it.

Then we need to work on identifying what article versions are good enough to be called stable,
clearly label everything else as development, and tag appropriately within the development
versions (NPOV dispute, clean-up, factual accuracy dispute, etc). We can use delayed-editing to
slow down edits to some articles, protection where needed, and even some more clamping down on
anons and newbies in ways that would reduce the load on the people cleaning up after them w/o
harming recruitment of good editors too much. But we still have lots and lots of work to do even
on the articles we already have, so we should not downplay development by hiding development
versions.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> To give maximum choice, I have just written a new MediaWiki extension
> which allows for *one* revision of an article to be declared "stable".

Yay! You rock! :)

> A select group of users can declare an article version as "stable". In
> the default setup, the "select group" is everyone, but that would have
> to be tightly restricted in an live setup. For this purpose, I propose
> the creation of a new user group, like buerocrats and sysops, called
> "prozacs" - after all, they are supposed to stabelize the wiki ;-)
>
.
>
> There is a problem with templates; even a stable version will use new
> templates. I do not have a neat soultion for that, except generally
> limiting write access to templates. However, misinformation through a
> template will be hard to achieve anyway, compared to directly editing
> article; also, template changes will be noticed rather quickly.

Why not just copy the source HTML of a reference stable revision at the time of marking and serve
that? That way whatever was in the template at the time of the snapshot will be displayed as the
stable HTML copy.

> This complements the validation feature and the external "import-wiki".
> Now all the community has to do is chose. Simple, eh? ;-)

Yep. The article validation feature could eventually be used to automatically feed a list of top
reviewed article versions. Those with the ability to mark revisions as stable would use that list
to select stable versions. Policies on each wiki would dictate the standards that the
stable-making "prozacs" would need to follow.

Did I mention yet, that YOU ROCK! :)

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > > But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
> > > > it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.
> > >
> > > Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
> > > there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
> > > methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
> > > change and move on.
> > >
> > > Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
> > > start collecting good data on the effects of the change.
> > >
> > > I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
> > > interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
> >
> > I think these comments are way over the top.  Jimmy *is* interested in
> > actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.  You may not agree
> > with the methods, but to call into question his motives is
> > inappropriate.
>
> I think if you ask Jimbo, he'll say it's perfectly appropriate for me
> to question his motives.
>
> In fact, a clear sign of a dysfunctional society is one in which
> questioning authority is considered inappropriate.

Your comment at the end wasn't even just questioning, it was accusing.
 But anyway, I'm not sure I agree with you that a functional society
must constantly question the motives of everyone voluntarily given any
power.  I'd even question just how much "authority" Jimmy does have.
He has authority over how to spend the money donated to the foundation
(so long as he does so for charitable purposes), and not a whole lot
more.

I don't think society can function without some basic level of trust.
To question whether or not Jimmy Wales is "actually trying things to
make Wikipedia better" seems to me to be way over the top.  Anyway,
since you're the one who suggested it, maybe you can tell us just what
you think Jimmy *is* trying to do.

Anthony


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dumps - ja and ko

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> They're on a separate server cluster, which means they don't always happen at
> the same time as the others.
>
> Between other things I'm updating the dump-building scripts, and should have a
> new set out on both clusters in a few days.

When you do, please also make sure they are copied to the main server
cluster so that Erik Zachte's stats can pick them up on the next run.
Right now Japanese and Korean stats end a couple months earlier than
everyone else's.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>
> >>If we diagnose what went wrong in the Seigenthaler case, this seems like
> >>a very opportune place to try a small change of policy.
> >>
> >>1. First, the Seigenthaler article was created by an anon.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >What does that have to do with anything? Please assume good faith. The
> >person who wrote the text might have gotten Seigenthaler mixed up with
> >another person who might actually have been suspected of being a
> >Soviet spy etc. A registered user could aswell have made the same
> >mistake. I certainly had no idea who this Seigenthaler dude was and
> >wouldn't have been able to spot the errors in the article. Now I know
> >- he's a litigous asshole looking for revenge. What was written about
> >him on Wikipedia is peanuts compared to how the printed press
> >regularily treats famous persons. He should consider himself lucky if
> >involvement in the Kennedy assassination is the worst be has been
> >accused for.
> >
> It seems to me that these comments are far more libellous than what was
> in the article.  At least the article stated that the charges were found
> to be in error.  Do you have any proof at all for your statement that
> "he's a litigous asshole looking for revenge."  A truly litigious person
> would have fun with that comment, and the fact that it was made on the
> mailing list would be no excuse.
>
> Ec

>From what I can gather, neither the article nor these comments were
libellous (but the fact that I don't have a copy of the article limits
my ability to speak with regard to it).  Since you think these
comments are "more libellous" than what was in the article, maybe
Siegenthaler should write another article blasting Wikipedia and
whinging about how he isn't able to sue BJ?rn or anyone else (he leave
out the paragraph on anonymity this time).  And then Jimbo can go on
CNN and say that he is wiping, this post and all the others that
contain the allegedly libellous statement, from the archive website.

I suppose you could say Siegenthaler isn't litigious, because he
hasn't sued anyone, at least not yet (there's still time and he's left
it open whether or not he's going to).  But frankly that seems to be
more because he is smart (and hired smart lawyers to consult with him)
than that he doesn't want to sue anyone.  The last paragraph of his
rant in USA Today (and part of the middle one) is about how he has
"little legal recourse".  His lawyers already told him he can't sue
Wikipedia, he can't sue the ISP, and though he hasn't admitted it they
probably told him he can't successfully sue John Doe either (not that
it matters, as John Doe likely doesn't have the kind of deep pockets
that could pay for just Siegenthaler's lawyers anyway).  As
Siegenthaler said, "Congress effectively has barred defamation in
cyberspace."  Now why complain about that if you're not interested in
suing someone?

Frankly, I really don't get it.  Siegenthaler is supposedly a defender
of free speech rights.  Doesn't he realize that making ISPs liable for
content spoken by others would stifle free speech?  Doesn't he agree
that the ability to speak anonymously is absolutely critical to free
speech?

"Major communications Internet companies are bound by federal privacy
laws that protect the identity of their customers, even those who
defame online. Only if a lawsuit resulted in a court subpoena would
BellSouth give up the name."  Is Siegenthaler really so dense to have
unintentionally left out the word "allegedly" before "defame online".
Federal privacy laws *don't* protect the identity of those who defame
online.  But you've got to convince a judge that the person *actually
defamed online* before she's going to allow you to force the ISP to
name names.  Unless you happen to be George W. Bush, a mere allegation
of something isn't enough to violate privacy rights, you have to
actually convince a judge that your allegation is correct.

What does Siegenthaler want?  Does he want Wikipedia to stop allowing
volunteer contributors?  Does he want Congress to remove the
protections given to ISPs for merely carrying content produced by
others?  Does he want to take away the ability of Internet speakers to
be anonymous?  Does he want to start licensing or bonding people who
produce content to distribute over the Internet?

Maybe he just wants Wikipedia to get it right 100% of the time.  Or
maybe he just wants Wikipedia to stop calling itself an encyclopedia
(because it's really just a common carrier - an ISP).  I could
actually see his point there, though I'm not sure if I agree and it's
almost definitely not going to happen anyway.  Either way, if his only
beef is with Wikipedia then why include the other two paragraphs about
anonymity and lack of legal recourse.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/6/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
> >If you post something libilus under US law (which is the only law that
> >matters) and the person finds it fast enough they can get a court
> >order and get the relivant server logs from wikipedia. If you don't
> >log in then I'm afaraid we can't protect you from being stupid. You
> >can't expect the foundation not to respect a US court order. As a
> >result the fact is that under certian conditions posting something
> >false on wikipedia could get you into legal trouble. It is important
> >people understand this.
> >
> >
> >The reference to authoritarian countries is a red herring. Assumeing
> >you avoid local monitoring it is only US law you have to worry about
> >because only US law affects the foundation.
> >
> >
> It isn't a red herring, because I'm not talking about the possibility
> that a court order could be made for our current logs.  I'm talking
> specifically about Mr. Seigenthaler's calls for us to add additional
> logging facility specifically for the purpose of making it easier to
> trace anonymous contributors, which would be a very bad idea.  We can't
> guarantee people's anonymity, but we shouldn't---contrary to his
> suggestion---go out of our way to make contributors more easily
> traceable back to their real identities.
>
> -Mark

Exactly.  As Seigenthaler has already alluded to in his rant in USA
Today, he already has the ability to file a John Doe lawsuit and, if
his lawyers can convince the judge that there is sufficient evidence
of wrongdoing, get a subpoena to force BellSouth to give the identity
of the ADSL customer.  For whatever reason, he's chosen not to do that
but instead to publically complain about the system.

As I said in my other post, though, I can't figure out what it is that
he's actually suggesting be done.  I find it hard to believe that he's
lived such a long life and just figured out that allowing free speech
is sometimes going to lead to gossip.

Anthony


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion debate on the Icelandic & English Wikipedia

body:
On 12/6/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There's currently overwhelming support to keep the article on the
> > English Wikipedia but not on the Icelandic Wikipedia.
> That's odd to say the least. What reasons are those Icelanders using
> to delete it?
> My Icelandic is seriously rusty, so I can't really read the debate there.

There's now information on that on the English AFD page


from_name: Filzstift

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dumps - ja and ko

body:
At dumps.wikimedia.org the last dump of the Japanese and Korean
Wikipedia was made on 2005-10-29. Why there are no more recent dumps
and could someone fix ist?
Thank you!

--
www.wikisign.org - SQL-Abfragen durchf?hren


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
> >>suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
> >>remove it completely from the edit history?
> >
> >
> > I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
> >
>
> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
> Look at it this way:
>
Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
legal presense in the UK).

Anthony


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Four years ago, Jimbo wrote "Wikipedia should remain permanently open
> to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate contribution." [1]
>
> I guess by "permanently" he meant "for a few more years" and by "open"
> he meant "restricted".

That's rather a bit over the top, isn't it?  Wikipedia is still
completely open to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate
contribution.

--Jimbo


body:
Martin Osterman wrote:
> Now, I don't profess to know why we were the last to find out... that could
> be for any number of reasons.  However, I think that this experiment is
> going to yield interesting results, and for that reason I endorse it.  (Not
> as if anything needs my endorsing since I'm just one editor among hundreds)

Let me put it this way: the news report which "announced" the change
would happen on Monday appeared on the web before I even knew that the
change would be possible on Monday.

Reporters were asking me how the site works, leading to discussions of
various small tweaks that might help make new pages patrolling easier,
and I was asked when we might see some changes.  I said something like
"probably by Monday".  The reporter took this to mean that this
_particular_ change would be implemented on _Monday_, and ran it as an
announcement.

It turned out, in a completely unrelated sequence of events, I had asked
how hard such a change would be to implement technically and he reported
back to me on Monday morning that it was ready.

I think we will be making a lot more changes, doing a lot more
experiments, and that we should do them on an experimental basis (try
it, see what happens, go back if it doesn't work, etc.) rather than try
to guess everything from an "a priori" basis.

--Jimbo


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
> It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
>
> Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?

I bet it is a permanent policy change because (a) it seems to be working
quite well and (b) it is consistent with our commitment to remain open.

--Jimbo


body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> Look, you say that it can't be seen as an experiment because there
> arn't any start and end dates, and so forth, but does not mean it
> isn't an experience. You are right, it very well MAY be a permanent
> policy change if it works out fine... if it doesn't (many people
> complain, it doesn't really reduce bad entries, wikipedia growth is
> severely stuntet, etc) we will just change it back. We could sit
> around and discuss if this is a good idea forever, but the only way we
> will ever know for sure is to actually try it out.

Exactly.  Far too often we have endless a priori debates about certain
things, debates which lead nowhere because we have no evidence.  A
better approach is to be flexible and try things and see what happens,
and proceed thoughtfully based on lessons learned.

--Jimbo


subject:
[Foundation-l] Jihad in Defense of Objectivity (Was: Enforcing
	WP:CITE)

body:
On 12/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >Maybe complicated isn't what I'm looking for.  But consider the
> >following and whether or not you'd enjoy editing it by hand:
> >
> >'''Roy [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 7|"Roy Orbison's middle name is
> >Kelton"|"Kelton"]] Orbison''' ([[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.9|"He was born
> >in Foo, Bar on April 23 of 1936"|"[[April 23]], [[1936]]"]] –
> >[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.11|"He died that same year, on the 6th of
> >December"|"[[December 6]], [[1988]]"]]),
> >[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.13|"They called him "The Big O""|"nicknamed
> >"The Big O""]], was ...
> >
> Interesting example!  Correct bibliography should not override reality
> checks.  Saying that someone born in 1936 died in "that same year",
> which also happens to be 1988 leads me to the conclusion that
> 1936=1988.  :-)   This may not have been Anthony's intention, but if
> what we are trying to say becomes so obscured by citations this is an
> omen of our future problems.
>
Well, yeah, that was intentional.  As I was performing the exercise I
thought about how not all references are going to be as neat and clean
as containing the exact statement in the original.  What if the
reference has a big long paragraph starting with "In 1988, Orbison
began [blah blah whatever]" and ending with "He died that same year".
Do you quote the whole paragraph, do you use ellipsis (in hindsight I
guess that would be the best solution), do you just add [1988] after
"that same year" (in which case why bother with the exact quote in the
first place)?  It's not so cut and dry.

I was thinking about this yesterday and I imagined some even cooler
things that could be done, such as scanning in the actual page itself
(it could be hosted on a separate site, with lots of access
restrictions, under fair use).  But now we're talking even more of a
pipe dream than the original plan.

> >Maybe I'm misunderstanding how these cites would be used, because that
> >was hell; it was even worse than I had thought before going through
> >the actual exercise.
> >
> >I don't think wiki markup is the proper solution for this.  And that
> >means significant redesign.  Feel free to prove me wrong here, though,
> >and show us a working model which is just as easy to edit as
> >Wikipedia.
> >
> >I think it's a great idea, I just think it's years ahead of its time
> >(and that assumes it's designed independently of Wikimedia, cramming
> >it through Wikimedia development processes would only hinder it).
> >
> >
> Perhaps.  When I asked my own question about what the rest of us can do
> I was not interested in a lot of theoretical material about what library
> scientists put into card catalogues.  I was considering the point of
> view of a normal Wikipedian (assuming such an animal exists) who is
> about to write an article and who already has adequate references that
> he is ready, willing and able to use.  His problem is to find a
> practical way to enter the citations in a way that will scale with the
> proposed theoretical framework.
>
Well, I think a good starting point would be to simply put the
reference(s) in the comment field.  Then someone or some software
could later go through those references and apply them to the
appropriate text (based on the diff).  I go back and forth as to
whether or not it'd be a good idea to have a separate field for this
(and whether or not to require it to be filled out, at least for
non-minor edits).

Putting in a reference with every single edit is probably a good idea
(reverts of vandalism being at least one exception), but I can't even
force myself to do it, so I guess it's best kept as some elusive
target rather than a real requirement.  It'd certainly slow down
editing, especially if you got carried away with it (fixing a spelling
error and referencing the page in the OED).

> The ultimate database seems more and more like the computer geek's
> response the the unified field theory of physicists.  There are still
> many agnostics among us who would like to see proof of 42's existence.
>
> Ec

Well, yeah, to really do it well you almost need artificial
intelligence, the holy grail of computer science.

Anthony


body:
Delirium wrote:
> No one has even
> informally defined what it would mean for it to be "successful", much
> less suggested how to measure that.
>
> One possible criterion: The overall number of bad edits on Wikipedia
> (counting new page creation and edits to existing pages) decreases.
>
> Another one: The overall number of bad edits on Wikipedia not caught
> within [x] hours (again counting both) decreases.
>
> Is anyone prepared to measure either of these, or some other useful
> statistic?

Those two are, quite obviously, difficult to measure.  Indeed, it is
very hard to come up with appropriate simple metrics, and so I think
what we need to do instead is take a holistic approach.  We have a rough
idea of the tradeoffs here, and we can see if things are working out the
way we expect.

"    * As a new page patroller, the new system does seem to be working.
It's pleasant to be spending more time fixing useful articles, and less
time getting rid of newbie tests. Kappa 15:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)"

That's a valid voice.  But only one.  What problems are we seeing?

Netoholic gathered some first-pass statistics:
	Before 	After
New pages 	2050 	1622
Article deletions 	1309 	929
New users 	3241 	6370 (!)

The increase in number of users seems out of proportion; he theorizes
that this has more to do with our massive press coverage than anything
else.  It'll like some more time to really assess this.

--Jimbo


body:
Delirium wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> Well at least so far, it seems that there have been two effects:
>>
>> 1. fewer crappy pages created
>> 2. the ones that are create are as easy to identify as ever, since some
>> of the anons are converting into 'anonymous redshirts' (i.e. users with
>> no userpage).
>>
>>
> You forgot:
> 3. more crappy edits to existing articles (anecdotally).
>
> I agree we should collect more data, but we can't forget collecting data
> on #3, or else it will be pretty useless.

I agee.  There are probably a number of other small second-order effects
as well.  For example, by encouraging new users to register when they
want to create a page, are we positively increasing the number of "good
wikipedians" by transforming good people from "well, I edit sometimes,
but I'm not a wikipedian, I don't have an account" to "Hey, I guess I'm
a wikipedian, I'll do more good work"?

I doubt if we are in a position to figure that out.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
> interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.

Plesae share your ideas.  And please Assume Good Faith in that
essentially everyone here is interested in "actually trying things to
make Wikipedia better".

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
Heinz wrote:
> Jimmy Wales schrieb:
>
>>
>> Absolutely.  We agree completely on that.
>>
> Who is "We"?

Well, you deleted the other person's comments, but generally when
speaking to someone, if I agree with them, I will write something like
"Yes, we agree about that."  The we refers to me and the other person.

--Jimbo


body:
--- SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, The Cunctator wrote:
> > On 12/5/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact
> >> that almost all, not just most, new pages created by anons on the
> >> English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.
> >
> > Do we have stats on that?
>
> New, usable articles created by anons accounted for around 40% of all new
> articles.  This ignores speedied articles, etc which might inflate the
> figure in favor of anon-creation.
>
> Lots of them need wikification and start life as stubs; I wouldn't call
> that "crap".

When I used to work new page patrol I found that most of all IP-created articles were deleted or
listed for deletion/copyvio. I would call those crap. Most of the remaining ones had significant
clean-up issues that needed to be fixed and/or were nearly useless stubs. I would call those
borderline cases since they add little in comparison to the increased maintenance burden on the
community. Most of total + most of remaining = almost all in my book

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> I think if you ask Jimbo, he'll say it's perfectly appropriate for me
> to question his motives.
>
> In fact, a clear sign of a dysfunctional society is one in which
> questioning authority is considered inappropriate.

Questioning authority is perfectly appropriate, but we should all try
not to question each other with hints about _motives_ other than a
sincere desire to help Wikipedia be better.  Such questioning of motives
tends to poison debate about practical matters.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ryan Delaney

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

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> The increase in number of users seems out of proportion; he
> theorizes that this has more to do with our massive press coverage
> than anything else. It'll like some more time to really assess
> this.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
Anecdotal evidence from an avid RC patroller:

I get the feeling that more people are registering accounts for the
purposes of creating bad articles, that previously would have been
created as anonymous users. This is somewhat annoying, since it means
that when I'm running CDVF I have to look at every new page created,
rather than just those created by anons. So there's a semi-serious
drawback for RC patrollers.

However, I also get the feeling that far fewer bad articles are being
created, especially those of the "adshfsfhdsfhahdf" variety. We still
get a lot of vanity and spam but those people would have been creating
their articles either way. Instead, nonsense vandals -- since they
can't create their own articles to vandalize -- are blanking other
more, which is far easier to catch and revert. So overall I
(tentatively) think this is making life much easier for RC patrol.

Ryan
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from_name: Martin Osterman

body:
Jimbo,

As long as you keep us posted on changes, be they intended or implemented, I
(and probably most others) won't have any problems whatsoever.  My business
is to help make the encyclopedia better through the knowledge I have;
knowing what changes are going to be made helps me in my task.

Take care,

Martin Osterman

PS -- Don't you just love the media? LOL  I've seen them do this a few times
before...

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 7:54 AM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

Martin Osterman wrote:
> Now, I don't profess to know why we were the last to find out... that
could
> be for any number of reasons.  However, I think that this experiment is
> going to yield interesting results, and for that reason I endorse it.
(Not
> as if anything needs my endorsing since I'm just one editor among
hundreds)

Let me put it this way: the news report which "announced" the change
would happen on Monday appeared on the web before I even knew that the
change would be possible on Monday.

Reporters were asking me how the site works, leading to discussions of
various small tweaks that might help make new pages patrolling easier,
and I was asked when we might see some changes.  I said something like
"probably by Monday".  The reporter took this to mean that this
_particular_ change would be implemented on _Monday_, and ran it as an
announcement.

It turned out, in a completely unrelated sequence of events, I had asked
how hard such a change would be to implement technically and he reported
back to me on Monday morning that it was ready.

I think we will be making a lot more changes, doing a lot more
experiments, and that we should do them on an experimental basis (try
it, see what happens, go back if it doesn't work, etc.) rather than try
to guess everything from an "a priori" basis.

--Jimbo
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
> One of the potential negative consequences of creating a barrier to
> entry is that fewer good people will become editors because they will
> have been discouraged from creating a new article.

It is high time that we encourage the improvement of existing articles over adding new ones that
will need to be maintained. This effort helps to push us in that direction. I hope we will change
policy again if and when the negatives outweigh the benefits of letting new users create new
pages. New users and anons can?t upload since undoing that is something that only admins can do.
Creating new pages is also something that only admins can undo. Ergo

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


body:
On 12/6/05, Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> >Maybe complicated isn't what I'm looking for.  But
> > consider the
> > following and whether or not you'd enjoy editing it
> > by hand:
> >
> >'''Roy [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 7|"Roy Orbison's
> > middle name is
> >Kelton"|"Kelton"]] Orbison'''
> > ([[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.9|"He was born
> >in Foo, Bar on April 23 of 1936"|"[[April 23]],
> > [[1936]]"]] ?
> >[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.11|"He died that same year,
> > on the 6th of
> >December"|"[[December 6]], [[1988]]"]]),
> >[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.13|"They called him "The
> > Big O""|"nicknamed
> >"The Big O""]], was ...
>
> Yes, that is extremely hairy.  I'll try and come up
> with something more manageable and post it on the Meta
> project site for review.

Hmm, just throwing something out there, but what if this is all kept
on a separate page?  So you'd have the regular wikitext, and then
you'd have a list of references, in the form (reference, cited text,
article text).  One problem with this is if the article text changes
*at all* the reference would have to be updated.  But *eventually*
mechanisms could be designed to resolve this, once we get away from
editing articles using raw ascii text.

As long as the article text in the reference matches the article text
in the article (you could even ignore markup if you want), then you
can tie the two back together to create those nice graphics.  Plus, at
least as the format of the reference itself gets more standardised,
you can start to generate the ==References== section automatically
(combining multiple references from the same source, standardising
into whatever format, optionally disincluding certain references).

Anyway, I just came up with this now, so I haven't completely thought
it through, but I figured it's something to throw out there.

Anthony


from_name: sydney poore

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>Or maybe he just wants Wikipedia to stop calling itself an encyclopedia
>(because it's really just a common carrier - an ISP).  I could
>actually see his point there, though I'm not sure if I agree and it's
>almost definitely not going to happen anyway.  Either way, if his only
>beef is with Wikipedia then why include the other two paragraphs about
>anonymity and lack of legal recourse.
>
>Anthony
>
>
Because he is a big thinker. As he points out laws can change. Also new legal precedents are possible. Is an Internet wiki encyclopedia different enough from other types of media or publishers to require new laws or interpretation?

This man is not a Wikipedia enemy. Did he overreact? Maybe. Very likely it was a case of the straw that broke the camels back. A generational issue, too.

In the long run, his feedback will help us more than hurt us.

Sydney

--


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
> > interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>
> Plesae share your ideas.  And please Assume Good Faith in that
> essentially everyone here is interested in "actually trying things to
> make Wikipedia better".
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Exactly.  Far too often we have endless a priori debates about certain
>things, debates which lead nowhere because we have no evidence.  A
>better approach is to be flexible and try things and see what happens,
>and proceed thoughtfully based on lessons learned.
>
>
Yes, but it would be nice if those experiments were driven by
Wikipedia's needs per se, not by PR.  Now this may have some positive
impact on Wikipedia (though I personally doubt it), but the timing sure
looks suspiciously like it was done for PR purposes, so we can say in
response to the current media frenzy of the week that we're "doing
something".

-Mark


body:
On 12/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
> > It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
> >
> > Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?
>
> I bet it is a permanent policy change because (a) it seems to be working
> quite well and (b) it is consistent with our commitment to remain open.

Okay, I'm trying really hard not to be very annoyed. As the person
running the "experiment" Jimbo is not supposed to make prejudgements
on the results while we're collecting data. But then, if we were all
willing to admit it's not an experiment, I'd be much happier.

As for point (b), Jimbo also wrote:
> That's rather a bit over the top, isn't it?  Wikipedia is still
> completely open to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate
> contribution.

"Completely open" means without *any* restrictions. Compelled
registration is not "completely open". All of those newspaper websites
that force you to register (for free) to read their articles are not
"completely open".

Wikipedia has not been completely open for a long time -- the ability
to move and delete articles has been pretty much always restricted.

I'm not saying this is necessarily bad (though I do have my opinions
about it) but that it is untrue that Wikipedia is completely open.

Let me make a practical example: say I, a longtime user, want to
create a new article but I'm not at my home computer. To do so I have
to log in again; I have absolutely no memory of my password. Before
Monday, I could still easily create the password. Now I have to have
the system send me a new password, open up my email, enter the new
password, and remember to change my settings at home with the new
password. These are new hurdles that I may not want to go through, so
no new article.


from_name: SJ

body:
On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> >Maybe complicated isn't what I'm looking for.  But
> > consider the
> > following and whether or not you'd enjoy editing it
> > by hand:
> >
> >'''Roy [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 7|"Roy Orbison's
> > middle name is
> >Kelton"|"Kelton"]] Orbison'''

No, this isn't the kind of markup you want to see when you 'edit this
page', though you could make it editable-by-hand at some deep level.

Yes, there should be a separate references page.

One piece of markup you *do* want to see in the regular page-editing is an
auto-citation generator that will subst: in the default cite for a given
ISBN or other identifier... just to save time.

Yes, having auto-generated References and Footnotes sections should be
possible... though you would also want a manually-edited subsection of
References.

Anthony writes:
> Hmm, just throwing something out there, but what if this is all kept
> on a separate page?  So you'd have the regular wikitext, and then
> you'd have a list of references, in the form (reference, cited text,
> article text).  One problem with this is if the article text changes

Definitely.  Bear in mind that most references are best-done in the form
of footnotes, floating at the end of a sentence, and only very loosely
assigned to a specific block of text (the default chunk would be the
preceding sentence, perhaps with simple markup that identifies the
preceding N sentences or the entire paragraph).   So these can be in the
wikitext in the form of a footnote; both linking to a short-cite at the
end of a page, and to a full-cite (including perhaps the entire
sentence-text when the cite was first inserted?  with some semi-automated
way to update that text?) on its References: page.

The References: page should just be a versioned wiki-page like any other,
but in a specific format that allows for auto-additions and auto-updates
when the article itself is changed in certain ways.

> *at all* the reference would have to be updated.  But *eventually*
> mechanisms could be designed to resolve this, once we get away from
> editing articles using raw ascii text.

SJ


body:
On 12/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Those two are, quite obviously, difficult to measure.  Indeed, it is
> very hard to come up with appropriate simple metrics, and so I think
> what we need to do instead is take a holistic approach.  We have a rough
> idea of the tradeoffs here, and we can see if things are working out the
> way we expect.
>
> "    * As a new page patroller, the new system does seem to be working.
> It's pleasant to be spending more time fixing useful articles, and less
> time getting rid of newbie tests. Kappa 15:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)"
>
> That's a valid voice.  But only one.  What problems are we seeing?
>
> Netoholic gathered some first-pass statistics:
>         Before  After
> New pages       2050    1622
> Article deletions       1309    929
> New users       3241    6370 (!)
>
> The increase in number of users seems out of proportion; he theorizes
> that this has more to do with our massive press coverage than anything
> else.  It'll like some more time to really assess this.

What's the time period here? We should continue this listing here.

It looks like this change may increase the percentage of "dead" accounts.

Other statistics of interest would be the percentage of IP to registered edits.


body:
>
> That's right. I didn't mean to cause any other impression. Neither did
> I want to question the existance of content in Cyrillic in general. I only
> wanted to point out that the discontentment with the current way Wikipedia
> handles this issue ought to be taken seriously.

Arbeo, your proposal was pretty on-the-spot. I think it reflected well the
current situation in Moldova.

> You probably don't know the history of the language well. In fact both
> > Romanian and Moldovans has been Orthodox Christians and used Cyrillic
> > script for several ages.
>
> I knew that the Cyrillic script had been used in Moldova before the Soviet
> era. I must admit that the fact that it has been used in Romania as well
> is
> completely new to me.

A modified version of the Cyrillic script was used in *parts* of present-day
Romania until the 1800s. Transylvania never used this script. Wallachia and
Moldavia, the other two historical regions, converted to Latin script after
this time. So for around 150 years, Romanians have been writing in Latin
script only. Outside of historical documents, the Cyrillic script is never
seen anywhere in Romanian.

> By the way, do you know much about the unfree days? They were not totally
> that "unfree".
> > :) Be more neutral. ;)
>
> Of course I don't know so much about them for I grew up in Western Europe.
> What I do know is the way officials (not the people in general, of
> course!)
> treated us and other tourists during a visit in the Eastern Bloc (I could
> tell
> some appalling things but they don't belong here). I also remember how
> every how each and every letter we sent to friends at other side of the
> "Iron Curtain" (or that they sent to us) was opened and read by people
> for whom it was not intended. Or how there was a third person in every
> phone call.
> Or how the secret service stole Christmas or birthday gifts we sent to our
> friends.

The situation was pretty bad, I can tell you. I've heard of how Romania was
before 1989, I don't know about Moldova, but from studying history, the
Soviet Union was very unfree, and Moldova was further unfree because it went
through an even more rigorous policy of "de-Romanianisation" and
Russification. Many Russians, and Moldovenists (people that support a
Moldovan ethnicity separate of Romanian) will tell you that "Moldovans
wanted self-determination from Romania, they were never forced by the
'liberating' Soviet Union". Well, that's just propaganda.


body:
On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps my newness to the encyclopedia (member as of March, 2005) has left
> me feeling naieve.  However, I'm inclined to give Jimbo the benefit of the
> doubt.  He says it's an experiment, so I'm inclined to go with that.
>
> On what grounds do you suggest that this is a "permanent policy change" in
> the guise of an experiment?

Primarily because experiments are better designed. I think part of the
problem is that what I'm thinking of as an experiment is different
from how Jimbo's using the word. He's probably just using it to mean
"I'm making a change and I'm not 100% certain of what will happen,
even though I'm pretty sure it'll be good."

Whereas I expect "experiment" to mean "I'm making a change and I don't
know what will happen, but I've put in place mechanisms to measure as
many of its effects as I can, so that I will be able to determine
whether it is good or not."

My suggestion is also based in a little appreciation for the
immutability of human nature, which suggests that all institutions
institutionalize, that is, tend towards restrictiveness, hierarchy,
and centralization of control. Steps in that direction are rarely
reversed. This is a small step, but its direction is clear.


body:
>
> As a total outsider who has never been to Moldova, one more aspect has
> come to my mind while reading the above lines:
>
> Does the fact that a small minority of people might prefer to use
> the Cyrillic script for private purposes justify the enormous
> effort of building an entire encyclopedia for them - while they
> know the Latin script?
>
> My point is: if a society generelly uses one script (which seems
> to be so according to everything I have heard from our fellow
> Wikipedians who know the country as well as the language) it doesn't
> really matter if an individual likes another script better. They will
> have to adapt to the common standard if they want to read the paper,
> a current book, the phone book, the signs in public places, labels
> on products etc., make they annual tax declaration, do business, get
> a job, ride a train ... So are any severe reasons for Wikipedia to make
> an exception here?

In Moldova proper,  virtually everyone knows how to read/write Latin script,
because the government isn't allowed to use Cyrillic script (it's
unconstitutional, since Latin is specified as offical script). The case is
quite interesting - in rural areas, less people actually write in Cyrillic,
because rural areas are much less Russified. In urban areas, those who
previously wrote in Cyrillic have been accustomed so far to ubiquitous text
in Latin. So, as I said before, I don't think this Cyrillic script Wikipedia
serves any really practical purpose.

Having said that, there is still one open question: the issue of
> Transnistria which does not make things easier and may not be forgotten,
> of course.

Yes, Cyrillic is official there. Remember, though, that Transnistria is
basically the continuation of the Moldavian SSR (Soviet Moldova) - it has
the same flag, it operates under a dictatorial structure, and it's
maintained Moldovan-Cyrillic. There was media coverage some time ago that
the Transnistrian government had closed down Moldovan-Latin schools, which
were quite plentiful. Romanians/Moldovans in Transnistria are quite widely
persecuted and basically unrepresented politically. Their "emotional" links
to Moldova and to an extent Romania are therefore quite strong. I presume
about half of those people would know and prefer the Latin alphabet, which
leaves about 100,000 people that would actually write in Cyrillic and may
have some trouble reading/writing Latin script.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adam Curry

body:
So, lost in the press uproar over the Seigenthaler incident is the Adam
Curry / podcasting incident.

A friend who knows about the podcasting community tells me that our
article is currently not very good.  I personally think that the problem
is the age old problem which happens when partisans with a fight from
somewhere else on the Internet spill over into Wikipedia to have their
fight.

The solution is: get rid of the partisans, and focus the attention of
good Wikipedians on the topic.  Input from various factions is fine, but
we also need to take a firm stand on not allowing any of them to hijack
or subvert the article in an attempt to win points in their own external
fight.

I have no policy recommendations, but I do hope this email will prompt
several people to add these articles to your routine patrols.

--Jimbo


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Why not just copy the source HTML of a reference stable revision at the time of marking and serve
>that? That way whatever was in the template at the time of the snapshot will be displayed as the
>stable HTML copy.
>
>
Copying the state of the template at the time sounds like the most
foolproof solution, but it will have to be a copy of the wikitext rather
than an HTML copy if we want to keep all our various user-configurable
display features (e.g. date and link formatting).

-Mark


body:
On 12/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Delirium wrote:
> > Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >
> >> Well at least so far, it seems that there have been two effects:
> >>
> >> 1. fewer crappy pages created
> >> 2. the ones that are create are as easy to identify as ever, since some
> >> of the anons are converting into 'anonymous redshirts' (i.e. users with
> >> no userpage).
> >>
> >>
> > You forgot:
> > 3. more crappy edits to existing articles (anecdotally).
> >
> > I agree we should collect more data, but we can't forget collecting data
> > on #3, or else it will be pretty useless.
>
> I agee.  There are probably a number of other small second-order effects
> as well.  For example, by encouraging new users to register when they
> want to create a page, are we positively increasing the number of "good
> wikipedians" by transforming good people from "well, I edit sometimes,
> but I'm not a wikipedian, I don't have an account" to "Hey, I guess I'm
> a wikipedian, I'll do more good work"?
>
> I doubt if we are in a position to figure that out.

"Encouraging new users to register"? When did Jimbo start using doublespeak?
Try "forcing" or "compelling". Honesty and precision in language are
our weapons in the fight against unmeaning.

One of the potential negative consequences of creating a barrier to
entry is that fewer good people will become editors because they will
have been discouraged from creating a new article.


body:
On 12/5/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/5/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > > What is this:
> > >
> > > "This site has restricted the ability to create new pages. If you wish
> > > to create a new page, you must first create an account or log in
> > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin>.
> > >
> > > If you'd rather not create an account or log in, consider listing a
> > > request for someone else to create the page here
> > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles>."
> > >
> > > Since when is this wikimedia policy to restrict this?
> >
> > Since a few hours ago. It is more of a test than anything else.  Brion
> > implemented it today on Jimbo's request a few hours ago, so that some
> > kind of results can be obtained.  There is certainly not consensus
> > support for it in the community, though a large faction certainly do
> > agree.  I think this is "wait and see" time.
>
> For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact that almost all, not just
> most, new pages created by anons on the English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.

Do we have stats on that?


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

> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >New users and anons can?t upload since undoing that is something that only admins can do.
> >Creating new pages is also something that only admins can undo. Ergo

> >
> >
> In a very narrow sense that's true, but any user (admin or not), may tag
> an article (or image) for speedy-deletion, which is in effect as good as
> deleting it (speedy-tagged articles rarely last more than an hour before
> an admin comes along and clears them out).

And that is two actions instead of one to remove patent nonsense (at least double the work). Thus
it makes sense to limit the amount of patent nonsense we get (and thus that effort could be used
somewhere else). Not allowing anons and newbies to upload images limits the amount of crap images
we have to deal with.

If *too many* anons that would have created crap articles as IPs start to create user accounts to
post new pages, then it would be logical to extend the new page creation ban to new user accounts
just as we already don?t allow new users to upload images. Slippery slope? Not really since there
is already a ledge to land on that was created with the upload policy.

It is a matter of weighing costs vs benefits as they pertain to our goal of creating the best and
largest free encyclopedia in the world. We can and should remain as open as possible for as long
as possible. But we need to constantly monitor our processes to see if they are, on average,
bringing us closer or farther from our goal. Once a problem area is identified we then need to act
but try to do so in a deliberate and thoughtful way.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > The Cunctator wrote:
> >
> >>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
> >>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
> >
> > Plesae share your ideas.  And please Assume Good Faith in that
> > essentially everyone here is interested in "actually trying things to
> > make Wikipedia better".
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
> I think, unless I read english improperly today, that here, tc only says
>   he has ideas to make things better. And would share them with anyone
> interested.
>
> I do not read that he implies other ideas than his are bad. Nor does he
> imply that others are NOT trying to make things better themselves.

The key phrase is "if anyone's interested in actually trying things to
make Wikipedia better". The phrase "if anyone's interested in actually
trying to make Wikipedia better" clearly would imply that I don't
think Jimbo is interested in making Wikipedia better.

What I meant is that I'm skeptical that Jimbo is interested in doing
experiments; admittedly, I don't think this is a deeply thought
through plan to improve Wikipedia; it seems like a relatively hasty
response to a major tantrum--after all, I wouldn't want to be hauled
before Kyra Phillips and the like and be unable to say I'm not doing
anything to protect people from having their lives ruined. The primary
motive seems to be able to say "Look at the change we're making in
direct response to this wonderfully valid complaint--look at how
responsive and responsible Wikipedia is. When people point out
problems, by gosh, we fix them. It's the Wiki Way."

Sorry for the derailing. To make a suggestion of a real experiment,
try getting rid of ArticlesForDeletion.


from_name: Ilya Haykinson

body:
When I found Wikipedia, I had no intentions of registering. At some
point when I created my first article (err...stub) I was just an anon.
I only registered after I saw how that new article got picked up by
the community and expanded and made usable:  I got hooked watching the
history of that first article.

When you first approach the Wikipedia community it seems overwhelming,
and registering is a pretty big step.  I highly suspect that a large
number of people who registered did so after the success of an article
they created as an anon -- like me -- and wouldn't have created the
article if they had to take a step of registering.  Becoming part of a
community is not something that some people take lightly, especially
as active and complex a community as Wikipedia is.

Ultimately most decisions have to be justified in terms of improving
quality.  Will people who are determined enough to create fictitious,
libellous biographies be stopped by restricting page creation to
registered users?  Not very likely.

-ilya haykinson

On 12/7/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, The Cunctator wrote:
> > On 12/5/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact
> >> that almost all, not just most, new pages created by anons on the
> >> English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.
> >
> > Do we have stats on that?
>
> New, usable articles created by anons accounted for around 40% of all new
> articles.  This ignores speedied articles, etc which might inflate the
> figure in favor of anon-creation.
>
> Lots of them need wikification and start life as stubs; I wouldn't call
> that "crap".
>
> SJ
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry for the derailing. To make a suggestion of a real experiment,
> try getting rid of ArticlesForDeletion.

I still want to change AfD to explicitly be a "quality assurance"
function.  Right now it's slanted toward deletion by its very name,
and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Kelly