from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Michael Snow (wikipedia at earthlink.net) [050129 03:13]:
>
>
>>There are some people who don't seem terribly inclined to do the real
>>research necessary to actually contribute to the encyclopedia, so they
>>just go around slapping tags on whatever articles they run across. I
>>would much rather they spent their time adding appropriate categories
>>instead, which is something else that can be done with relatively little
>>prior knowledge about a subject. The category system still needs serious
>>organization and improvement, and would bring more real benefit to the
>>encyclopedia than happy-go-lucky tag-slapping.
>>
>>
>As I understood the (babelfished) de: quality page, what they did was a
>pile of tag-slapping, then going forth and trying to fix it. The first
>tells where to start on the second.
>
>
That's not my impression, though someone more active in the process
would be needed to say for sure. From my glances at the
Qualit?tsoffensive pages and some of the stuff that got worked on, it
looks more like a cross between Collaboration of the Week and the
Countering systemic bias project. They seem to collect ideas of what to
work on, then go from there. I didn't see much in the way of tags, and
in fact I saw more instances where categories were being used for this
sort of thing than templates. So my impression was that the German
Wikipedia has developed its practices somewhat differently from English
in that regard.

It's not necessarily right or wrong either way, of course. But what bugs
me particularly is that this sort of meta-information should be
temporary in nature, but in practice it's often a one-way street. If
there was actually a second wave of work that followed the first wave of
tag-slappers, things would be much better.

>I can't see {{unreferenced}} becoming a bargaining chip in an edit war.
>(People who remove references are an entirely different problem.)
>
>
I probably should have made more clear that I'm ranting generally about
this use of tags, not specifically about the idea of using them to
promote better use of references. In fact, the drive for better
practices in source citation is something I very much support, and this
sort of thing is fine if it helps. So far, at any rate, I've seen a lot
more results from the people urging more and better references than I
have from undifferentiated efforts like {{cleanup}}.

--Michael Snow


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Robert Brookes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests_for_arbitration/Robert_the_Bruce

body:
As I am currently unable to defend myself due to a
block on my proxy server (through some other activity
by someone else) I post here in the hopr that it can
be inserted as my first comment under the "Statement
by affected party".

Quote:

"I wish to bring it to the attention of the committee
that the first attempt by Exploding Boy for a RFA
failed as the dispute resolution process had not been
followed, specifically any attempt at mediation. I
subsequently requested mediation with him which he has
spurned. I therefore request that the AC instruct
Explosive Boy to submit to the Wikipedia dispute
resolution process and engage in mediation."

I quote from my request for mediation:

"Exploding Boy has instigated both an RfC and a
request for Arbitration against me. Together with this
he has made a number of allegations which are
contrived. I believe that the source of this animosity
towards me lies in a fundamental difference in POV.
His POV position has become even more evident
recently. My belief is that he has behaved atrociously
and as an admin has brought the office of admin/sysop
into disrepute. Through this mediation I hope to reach
an understanding with Exploding Boy that he ceases to
abuse the systems of Wikipedia as a means to
neutralise those with whom he has a POV disagreement.
Should the mediation fail I intend to take this issue
to the AC with the view of having him stripped of
admin/sysop position. - Robert the Bruce 18:04, 22 Jan
2005 (UTC)"

Thank you
Robert

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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Portal article numbers, and nl: has made 50k

body:
Could someone please update the article totals on the www.wikipedia.org
template, and put nl: into the top rank?

- d.


from_name: André Müller

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia???

body:
> I would, of course, support the idea of a K?lsch Wikipedia, and would
point
> out that there is, after all, one for plattd?tsch (sp?) as well. There
are
> also quite a few books in K?lsch, as well as an institute for learning
it. So
>I see no problem there.

The difference is that Plattd??tsch is a language on its own while
K?lsch is merely a dialect. If you want one Wikipedia in a German
dialect, others will come and soon you'll have entries in Swabian,
Bavarian, Saxon, Hessisch, Ruhrdeutsch and whatnot.
I think that's a clear no here.

- Andr?


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Donations links on non-Wikipedia wikis

body:
Could somebody please re-add the donation links to Wiktionary, Wikibooks,
Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource and Commons?

I just noticed they are missing and we are going to be having a fund drive in a
few weeks - so they do need to be there.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Illegitimate block.

body:
--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

> At 06:26 PM 1/28/2005 -0800, Robert Brookes wrote:

> >A comprehension problem perhaps?
>
> No. You're comparing the actions of people "here
> now" (ie, Wikipedians on
> Wikipedia) to the actions of brownshirts throwing
> bricks through windows of
> Jewish-owned shops (which you yourself state was a
> component of the
> Holocaust). It's right there.
>

Too broad a brush there I'm afraid. I am sadened that
you chose to present that I was refering to the whole
Wikipedia community as Nazis while I was clearly
refering to the very small group of people (whom I
term "gunslingers") with my comment:

"As it stands the evidence is already clear that there
are people who are being elected as sysops after a few
months purely on the basis that they will enforce
"discipline" as their sole contribution to Wikipedia."

So I put it to you that your attempt to twist this
precise and specific statement of mine into general
criticism of "Wikipedians" is disingenuous and
deserving of a public apology.

> >Let this reply by Skyring help you;
> >
> >"You used the phrase "Gestapo-like" to illustrate
> >heavy-handed admins. That was entirely appropiate.
>
> But this is exactly what I was disagreeing with; the
> comparison of the
> Gestapo to heavy-handed admins is emphatically not
> appropriate.

I specifically spoke of a sub-set of those admins "...
elected as sysops after a few months purely on the
basis that they will enforce "discipline" as their
sole contribution to Wikipedia."

Again, I stated very precisely and specifically that I
was refering to a very small group of people within
the admin/sysop structure.

> Maybe when
> the heavy-handed admins are rounding up editors and
> killing them en masse
> you might have basis for it, but right now it's
> _just a website_.

That's what they said way back then. What's a brick
through a shop window? The time to get worried is when
they start rounding up the Jews ...

> If an
> admin goes mad with power and bans you, it just
> means you've got some spare
> time in your day to browse webcomics or whatever.
> Get some perspective.

Some people are more equal than others then? I wonder
what would happen if one of these gunslingers banned
you?

I have perspective. I try to live up to the promise
that it must never happen again. I believe that
whenever we see evidence of the beast rising out of
the human breast we must stand up and be counted ...
even if we get knocked down in the process. I am
prepare to stand and be counted ... are you?

Ponder this:
============
Niemoller's address to the U.S. Congress

The exact text of what Martin Niemoller said,
and which appears in the Congressional Record,
October 14, 1968, page 31636 is:

"When Hitler attacked the Jews
I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned.

And when Hitler attacked the Catholics,
I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not
concerned.

And when Hitler attacked the unions and the
industrialists,
I was not a member of the unions and I was not
concerned.

Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church --
and there was nobody left to be concerned."

============

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Dirk Ingo Franke

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia???

body:
>
>The difference is that Plattd??tsch is a language on its own while
>K?lsch is merely a dialect. If you want one Wikipedia in a German
>dialect, others will come and soon you'll have entries in Swabian,
>Bavarian, Saxon, Hessisch, Ruhrdeutsch and whatnot.

Not to mention at least a dozen dialects of Plattd?tsch ;-)

Dirk

[[de:Benutzer:Southpark]] [[en:User:Zeitgeist]] [[meta:User:Southgeist]]


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright status of press releases

body:
On 28 Jan 2005, at 2:39 pm, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>> Maybe some of you would like to respond to this interesting question,
>> are press releases copyrighted?:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:News_release
>
> Press releases are clearly copyrighted.

Judging from all the conflicting information on the net, a lot of it
from reputable sources, it seems anything but clear. I've yet to see
one person cite a conclusive source in regard to law.

There is the argument that anything published is copyrighted unless
stated otherwise, however it is possible that the very word "release"
could be construed as such a statement. Who knows? I don't. And nobody
I've discussed this with on Wikimedia, so far, seems to know either.

> An argument could be made about this in court, but I have no interest
> *at all* in making such an argument.  On Wikinews and elsewhere, we
> can make use of a press release as factual information, but it would
> be absurd for us to just publish them or base stories directly on
> them, license or no license.
>
> Our journalistic standards should be higher than that of lazy
> reporters who simply regurgitate whatever a company tells them.

If the status of press releases proves to be inconclusive then, yes, it
clearly would not be a good idea for Wikimedia to be publishing them.
However, if it were proven that press releases were compatible with
Wikimedia licences, far from being absurd, I think there's a very good
argument for publishing them on Wikisource, so they can be linked to
from Wikinews articles. It's worth noting that current Wikisource
policy does not preclude press releases from being published (save for
probable copyright issues), and reasons to publish them on Wikisource
as opposed to simply linking to them externally are the usual suspects,
we don't have control over them; they could disappear or be edited.

Over recent years, as a reader of news on the internet, I have found it
extremely beneficial to refer to press releases; to make my own
judgements; to read exactly what the prime minister said rather than
what some other person believes she meant. Historically this ability
has been reserved for journalists, one reason being that traditional
mediums, such as newspapers, simply do not have the room. We obviously
don't have this restriction.

The idea that news readers should be sheltered from press releases by
groups of people with superior powers of deduction is elitist (can the
masses be allowed to decipher the world for themselves?) and flies in
the face of the goals of Wikimedia (to promote and spread knowledge).

One of the fundamental issues of media and propaganda today is the
fallacy that there is such a thing as objective news, even that which
attempts a NPOV. You may be able to write things with a neutral point
of view but the way we frame things is fundamentally woven into our
cultures, i.e. one culture's NPOV will be very different to another
culture's NPOV. Knowing who is saying what and what their world-view is
(or what culture they belong to) is key to getting around this problem,
which is what the ability to refer to press releases partially allows
one to do.

Wikinews is a news site. It's clearly to the benefit of news readers to
be able to refer to relevant press releases, therefore publishing a
copy of relevant press releases would be beneficial to Wikinews and its
goals. This is far from absurd it seems to me.

Of course this is all beside the point if there are copyright issues. :)

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] original research, sources, and verification

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> The biggest problem I have had experience with is
> with Marxist-Leninists,
> who while comprising a tiny minority, feel their
> view is of sufficient
> significance that it cannot be seriously
> contradicted. Generally they have
> not been satisfied with inclusion of their viewpoint
> in articles, but go on
> to insist on removal of negative information, often
> cloaking their rational
> in the jargon of political science.
>
> We have generally been successful in dealing with
> neonazis but have
> difficulty handling leftist totalitarianism.
>
> Fred
>

Where I edit I have a similar problem. In fact the
wording could fit perfectly into my situation. I would
like to add "anti-circumcision activists" as a group
who are difficult to handle.

regards
Robert

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
NSK wrote:

> 4. The authors are using ... a phpBB forum and a special collaboration
> platform to discuss and decide how to write the article. An example of
> a very good collaboration platform is phpCollab.

I must admit it would be interesting to experience what it would be
like to discuss things on a proper BB while doing editing in a Wiki. I
think, partially, the reason that people don't discuss things as much
as they should before editing (me included) is the difficulty in
keeping up with discussion on talk pages (in comparison to other
methods such as BBs).

Christiaan


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Copyright status of press releases

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>> Maybe some of you would like to respond to this interesting question,
>> are press releases copyrighted?:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:News_release
>
> To quote what I responded there: In strict terms I would see press
> releases as covered by copyright, but not the information in them.
> They are theoretically issued to inform, but in some cases to spin an
> air of truth into misinformation. When you use them as is, and in
> their words you are likely helping to propagate their spin. That
> result is sure to outweigh their losses arising from copyright
> infringement. I would be surprised to see any cases on this.

See my rant in response to Jimbo on [WikiEN-l] here:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-January/018797.html

Christiaan


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citing sources

body:
> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050129 04:02]:
>> I think it's a HORRIBLE idea!!!!!
>> There are far too many articles with no references.
> And *that*'s a horrible idea.
>>  This would be everywhere.
> See, a lack of references is a real problem with Wikipedia's
> reliability
> and perceived reliability. That means you have nothing to start with on
> seeing if an article has a source or is just off the top of someone's
> head.
> It might be crap with a reference that doesn't support it, but at least
> then you have a chance to find out.

Traditionally, encyclopedias are _not_ well-referenced. There are
sometimes what might be called "selected bibliographies," things the
writer things you might want to read next. But references, in the sense
of "here's where I got it," no.

Many, but by no means all of the articles in the EB 11th have a set of
contributor's initials (which you can look up in a table). Odd, since
it doesn't save that much space; the editors don't really want you to
focus on the contributor. Which is not that helpful anyway. When it's
someone like Ernest Rutherford, well, you probably can figure they knew
what they were talking about. For the rest, their credibility basically
rests on the jumble of letters after their name and the miniature
who's-who-like description.

Have I ever heard of "Arthur Dendy, D. Sc., F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.L.S.,
Professor of Zoology in King's College, London, Zoological Secretary of
the Linnean [sic] Society of London. Author of memoirs on systematic
zoology, comparative anatomy, embryology, &c?" No. Do I think he knows
his stuff when it comes to sponges? Well, yeah, sure, sounds like it,
probably. Most of my profs didn't have that many letters after their
name. I have no way of knowing whether he was a POV-pusher, though, and
you'd better believe you can have letters after your name and still be
a POV-pusher. Big-time.

But Wikipedia is different, because basically it's all written by
anons, registered or not.

I haven't been following the "bad reference/good reference" stuff but I
find the whole idea baffling. The purpose of a reference is very
simple. You're telling people where you got your information. It's not
a question of good or bad, it's a simple statement of fact. If I got my
"facts" from The National Enquirer, and I say I got them from the
National Enquirer and give the date and page number, that's a good
reference. The only bad reference would be an untruthful reference--if
I got them from the National Enquirer and said they were from The New
York Times.

But, either way: if I give the reference, I'm giving people reasonable
assurance that I didn't just make them up, unless I'm a total liar and
fraud, and there aren't that many of them contributing to Wikipedia.

And either way, a reference is verifiable. If someone says that The New
York Times published an article about a 400-pound eight-year-old girl
who was inseminated by a space alien and gave birth to a two-headed
unicorn, on page 7, July 16th, 2000, well as it happens I can go online
courtesy of my local public library and find out in about sixty seconds
whether there's really such an article. (I'll leave you in suspense as
to the answer on that one).

If I say "I got it from the National Enquirer, page 1, April 1st,
2000," well, first of all, a lot of people will be able to say right of
the bat, "Great, so I won't believe it."

Furthermore, _I can check the context._ Maybe it says "It is said that
the natives of some remote Canary Islands have an ancient legend that a
400-pound, etc." The chain of traceability is broken. Vanished into the
mists of the Canaries.

But maybe it says "Dr. Fargo M. Seneca, chief obstetrician at St.
Mary's Hospital in Madison, said that a 400-pound etc." Cool! Another
source citation! I can call up St. Mary's and say I'm writing an
article for Wikipedia and could I speak to Dr. Seneca.

(By the way: I've had _very_ good luck contacting "press" contacts by
email or phone, and saying "I'm editing an article in Wikipedia, the
free online encyclopedia, and I was trying to check thus-and-such
fact..." I always give Wikipedia's URL. And sometimes I even explain
that anybody can edit Wikipedia. So far, I've gotten respectful and
helpful treatment every time).

So, I say, cite your sources. If you got it from a secondary source,
just say so. The important thing is to _say where you got it_ and
maintain a chain of traceability.

P. S. True story. In grad school, there were a bunch of us discussing
whether or not UFOs were real. One guy was very impressed by a book
written by someone from APRO or NICAP or something, and, in particular,
by a statement that some pieces of an alien craft had been analyzed and
were of some substance--I forget what--of a purity that was never seen
on Earth and couldn't occur on Earth as the oxygen would do
something-or-other within a few weeks. I think this was someone who
knew enough chemistry/metallurgy to judge that if the stuff really was
that pure, it really did need to be extraterrestrial.

So I said, "OK, let's take this as our test case. How do we know he
wasn't just making it up?" Well, the scientist who did the analysis
was, I don't know, a Dr. Ortega Perez-Guillermo of the Metallurgy
Department, University of San Andr?s, La Paz, Bolivia, or something
like that.

Well, this was a big state university we were at and it had a fine
library. One thing I really, really, really miss about not being in
grad school is not being within a five minute walk of a fine library.
So we did a bit of poking around. Guess what? They had several staff
directories for Universidad de San Andr?s, La Paz, Bolivia. It turned
out that the University de San Andr?s hasn't even got a Departamento de
la metalurgia. And in any case, it didn't have anyone named Dr Ortega
Perez-Guillermo in any department.

I asked whether we should write to the university, but it was generally
agreed that it didn't seem as if that story was very credible.

Source citations are heap big medicine.

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


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Illegitimate block.

body:
At 06:26 PM 1/28/2005 -0800, Robert Brookes wrote:
>--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > At 08:38 AM 1/28/2005 -0800, Robert Brookes wrote:
> > >Was there a comparison?
> > >
> > >No!
> > >
> > >The holocaust started with the first brick thrown
> > >through the window of a Jewish owned shop ... or
> > with
> > >the first racist taunt. We have people here now
> > >exhibiting the same intolerance and actions of the
> > >brown shirts then
> >
> > Your denial of comparing Wikipedia to the Holocaust
> > was immediately
> > followed by a comparison of Wikipedia to the
> > Holocaust. This is not helping
> > your argument any.
> >
>
>A comprehension problem perhaps?

No. You're comparing the actions of people "here now" (ie, Wikipedians on
Wikipedia) to the actions of brownshirts throwing bricks through windows of
Jewish-owned shops (which you yourself state was a component of the
Holocaust). It's right there.

>Let this reply by Skyring help you;
>
>"You used the phrase "Gestapo-like" to illustrate
>heavy-handed admins. That was entirely appropiate.

But this is exactly what I was disagreeing with; the comparison of the
Gestapo to heavy-handed admins is emphatically not appropriate. Maybe when
the heavy-handed admins are rounding up editors and killing them en masse
you might have basis for it, but right now it's _just a website_. If an
admin goes mad with power and bans you, it just means you've got some spare
time in your day to browse webcomics or whatever. Get some perspective.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikipedia/Special:Export - conversion of img paths

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

Marek M?hling wrote:
| XML files from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export
| contain img refences like:
| [[Image:Flag_de-berlin_civil_300px.png|150px|Landesflagge Berlins]]
| this e.g. resolves to:
|
commons.wikimedia.org/upload/thumb/5/54/150px-Flag_de-berlin_civil_300px.png
|
| That means that I don't get enough information to reconstruct the path.
|
| Is any help available?
| E.g. how can I tell if an img comes from
| upload.wikimedia.org or commons.wikimedia.org/upload?

If it's in the local wiki's uploaded file set, that's used. Otherwise,
the commons file set is checked.

| What's the explanation for "thumb/5/54" in the example above?
| Are there rules for conversion?

The 'thumb' subdirectory is used for thumbnails. Please check the source
code for the exact details of how things are parsed, or look at the
mailing list archives for past discussions.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFB+xS9wRnhpk1wk44RApM1AJ4kqS0jYZ5nEosocmwJtHocz/O7dQCfaQuA
qYcds5va5ZsLucByx0HGHxM=
=xpfa
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
I've been looking at and thinking about the quality project page on de:.
(I would link to it but I've lost the URL! Anyone got it to hand?) A lot of
what they do is simply tagging deficient articles. As well as tags
corresponding to en:'s {{cleanup}}, {{stub}}, etc. (article-space tags
intended to provoke work to allow their removal), they have ones that speak
only of a particular national POV (German, Swiss or Austrian, with a flag
on and a request to add detail for other places).

One that occurred to me was an {{unreferenced}} tag, for an article that
does not have any sources, references or external links listed. I've just
created [[Template:Unreferenced]], with the following content:

:''This article does not include its [[Wikipedia:Cite sources|references or
sources]]. Please add references or [[Wikipedia:External links|external
links]].''

I'm picturing this going at the bottom of an article, where you would
expect to see sources or references.

Before I go wild adding this, what do others think of the idea?

- d.


from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Individual Wikipedias for different Sinitic
	vernaculars (Cantonese debate) - update

body:
On Jan 28, 2005, at 9:02 PM, Sheng Jiong wrote:

>> This is far from the truth. There is a standard written language, yes,
>> but it is based on Mandarin. Colloquial writings in regional varieties
>> use different grammar, different vocabulary, and even different
>> characters. (The popular book "he zanhwa" had to be translated to
>> Mandarin before it could be read by non-Wu speakers)
>
> You are discussing an extreme example. Look at all the broadsheets in
> Hong Kong(where most people only know how to speak Cantonese, not
> Mandarin), and their newspapers can still be understood by mainland
> Chinese. Of course some tabloids would use distinctive "Cantonese
> characters", but there are really not the standard.
>
> And really what is the use of setting up a Wikipedia if only *one*
> user is interested?
>
> [[User:Formulax]]

I would again like to propose that a "notability" standard be applied
to language division - if asked to show that there is a movement to
create a literature in the dialect that is distinct from the main
language - including, but not limited to, the native production of
dictionaries, social and literary apparatus and so on, could we do it?
If a division does not meet this notability standard - separate from
the desires of our users, then it should be considered only if there
are other extenuating circumstances. This is an extension of the "no
original research" standard.

Wikipedia should support, but not lead, the efforts to create language
identity.


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
John Lee (johnleemk at gawab.com) [050128 21:17]:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >:''This article does not include its [[Wikipedia:Cite sources|references or
> >sources]]. Please add references or [[Wikipedia:External links|external
> >links]].''

> >Before I go wild adding this, what do others think of the idea?

> I would suggest clarifying that external links and sources are different.

Feel free to hack it further :-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050128 21:18]:

> David, there is a {{Cite sources}} tag, which reads: "This article
> does not adequately cite its sources and may contain unverified
> information or original research. Please help Wikipedia by adding
> references or removing unreferenced material. See the talk page for
> details."

Ooh, I didn't know about that. Nice one.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050128 21:24]:
> slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050128 21:18]:

> > David, there is a {{Cite sources}} tag, which reads: "This article
> > does not adequately cite its sources and may contain unverified
> > information or original research. Please help Wikipedia by adding
> > references or removing unreferenced material. See the talk page for
> > details."

> Ooh, I didn't know about that. Nice one.

If you look at [[Tamplate talk:Cite sources]], you will see considerable
debate about {{Cite sources}} - and people asserting it should *only* go on
the talk page.

I was thinking of {{unreferenced}} as an article-space tag, to encourage
creators to add their sources and suggest to those wanting to raise
Wikipedia's quality another good thing to work on.

(Did I mention I'm a big fan of the de: quality drive?)

- d.


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Kwan saamsang, Lei hou

How about writing a 5 or 6 sentence article on Hong Kong, in
colloquial written HongKong Cantonese?

And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for
myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I
only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that
there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe.

Stirling, in both of these cases Wu and Cantonese would qualify for
separate Wikipedias under your criteria, as would Hakka (I don't know
about a movement for separate Hakka literature in the mainland, bt I
know there is one in Taiwan).

Mark

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:49:11 +0800, Alex Kwan <litalex at slashyalex.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> MilchFlasche?? wrote:
> > they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several
> > whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it
> > is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.
>
> Give me a topic and I might try (for Cantonese/Yue).
>
> > What we should treat seriously is what Toytoy always claims: there's
> > no need for vernaculars to be transcribed (he did said that), or at
> > least be used in knowledge, since what Cantonese scripts are used for
> > is to express vulgar speech or to publish gossip magazines.
>
> Well, that is true. Currently there are quite a number novels, etc., in
> Hong Kong that are written Cantonese, but not much.
>
> > and in Hong Kong, a modern metropolis which stayed intact out of
> > central control, Cantonese is not only used in popular publications,
> > but also in almost all movie subtitles (I hope Cantonese friends could
> > provide more usage of baihua in Hong Kong). So, stop the mirage of
>
> Actually, I don't know why Mandarin speakers keep using the word
> "baihua" to describe Yue/Cantonese. I've always viewed "baihua" as the
> opposite of "wenyan" instead. So, "baihua" to me means the Mandarin
> vernacular and nothing else.
>
> Anyway, most movies are actually subtitled in the Mandarin vernacular.
> Some kids movies from America and Japan are subtitled or dubbed in
> Cantonese. But I don't know how to provide an example...
>
> little Alex
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050128 22:14]:

> David, I see no reason not to put {{Cite Sources}} on the article
> itself. There's no point in putting it on the Talk page because it's
> not the Talk page that needs the references. ;-)  Like the neutrality
> tag, it's a warning to the reader, in this case that the article has
> not been properly sourced. I think either that one or your
> {{unreferenced}} tag would be a good thing to use on some articles.
> Yes, I can think of quite a few. ;-)

I'm thinking particularly of the sort of thing you see a lot of on hitting
"Random page" - four paragraphs which are probably true but don't contain
any clues as to where they came from, apart from off the top of the
writer's head.

- d.


from_name: Dori

body:
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 04:07:44 +0100, Marek M?hling <bonnmm at t-online.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> XML files from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export
> contain img refences like:
> [[Image:Flag_de-berlin_civil_300px.png|150px|Landesflagge Berlins]]
> this e.g. resolves to:
> commons.wikimedia.org/upload/thumb/5/54/150px-Flag_de-berlin_civil_300px.png
>
> That means that I don't get enough information to reconstruct the path.

Not directly, but you could try for the image from the wiki from which
you are getting the export, and if you don't find it there, try the
commons.

> What's the explanation for "thumb/5/54" in the example above?
> Are there rules for conversion?

It's some sort of checksum of the image that determines the path.

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


subject:
[Foundation-l] Donation pages/forms need to be translated before
	next fund drive

body:
I'm happy to report that the donation pages and forms for de, en, fr, it, ja,
and most recently nl are all translated!

See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising and
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donazioni for examples.

But in order to maximize donations for our next fund drive (to be held sometime
in early to mid February; exact days TBA) we need more translations.

Below is a table of those that still need some work:

 lang    page    Form-xx   Help-xx  Onetime-xx  Option-xx
 ar      yes     no        no       no          no
 cs      yes     no        no       no          no
 es      yes     no        no       no          no
 fi      yes     no        no       no          no
 he      yes     no        no       no          no
 ko      yes     no        no       no          no
 pl      yes     no        no       no          no
 pt      yes     yes       no       no          no
 sv      yes     no        no       no          no
 zh      yes     no        no       no          no

KEY (full instructions are on the linked pages)

*page (actual donation page | Extremely important)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF/Fundraising/En:

*Form-xx (used to translate donation forms | Very important)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:DonationForm-xx

*Help-xx (help for donors)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:DonateHelp-xx

*Onetime-xx (a message about one time donations)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:DonateOnetime-xx

*Option-xx (used for navigation between forms)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:DonateOption-xx

I'd also like to see translations for all languages for which there are 10,000+
Wikipedia articles. Here is a list of those that so far do not have anything
translated:

bg, ca, da, eo, no, ro, ru, and uk

Of course, all other translations are also welcome and will be posted to the
foundation wiki.

-----------

One last thing. I've noticed that there is no donation link in the side bar for
for many non-Wikipedia wikis and for some Wikipedias. If you are an admin in
any of these wikis *and* a version of the donation page is already on the
Foundation wiki in your language, then please do this:

Edit [[MediaWiki:Sitesupport-url]] and replace '{{SITENAME}}:Site_support' with
'Wikimedia:donate' with 'donate' being the name of the donation page in your
language on the foundation wiki (Spenden, Fundraising, Faites un don, ... etc).

Edit [[MediaWiki:Sitesupport]] and replace the '-' with the word 'Donations'
(or its closest equivalent) translated into your language.

That's it. :)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

PS - I you have any questions about any of this, then please either respond to
this email or ask me questions on my meta user talk page at  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Daniel_Mayer

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


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Donation pages/forms need to be translated before
	next fund drive


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
Zoney (zoney.ie at gmail.com) [050128 22:18]:

> I would suggest that such a tag should only be added to articles that
> are obviously in dire need of references/sources. (i.e., although all
> articles ideally should have references/sources, only focus on those
> with information that some question). In fairness, the vast majority
> of Wikipedia would otherwise be subject to tagging!

I'm struck by how many articles have *no* sources. That's what this is for.

I see there is also [[Template:Unsourced]], which is probably the same
thing. Except that contains the following text:

  This article lacks references. Members of WikiProject Fact and Reference
  Check and the Forum for Encyclopedic Standards are working to correct this
  problem. Please help Wikipedia become more credible and useful by adding
  sources.

To me, that seems to say "go away, we have a special group to fix it, not
you." Or, at best, "don't bother, someone else will do it." Is there any
good reason to keep that second sentence at all? More words on a tag muffle
the point.

- d.


body:
Are you kidding me?

Even you agree that there is a movement for separate Cantonese
literature, and there is definitely a gradual movement to write in
vernaculars, especially in Hong Kong, and Taiwan, but also to a lesser
degree in Shanghai.

You have already been provided with examples of separate Shanghainese
movies and literature and music, yet you pretend it hasn't been
presented and instead throw an ad-hominem attack at me. Very low class
of you, Stirling.

Mark

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:41:49 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
>
> On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:18 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > Kwan saamsang, Lei hou
> >
> > How about writing a 5 or 6 sentence article on Hong Kong, in
> > colloquial written HongKong Cantonese?
> >
> > And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for
> > myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I
> > only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that
> > there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe.
> >
> > Stirling, in both of these cases Wu and Cantonese would qualify for
> > separate Wikipedias under your criteria, as would Hakka (I don't know
> > about a movement for separate Hakka literature in the mainland, bt I
> > know there is one in Taiwan).
> >
> > Mark
>
> Handwaving again from a user who has been wrong over and over again. I
> said document, not assert.
>
>


from_name: NSK

subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
On Friday 28 January 2005 21:41, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
> I must admit it would be interesting to experience what it would be

BBs are great, but a collaboration groupware platform is even better for the
core members of a wiki! I have installed one for testing at
http://collab.wikinerds.org

A collaboration platform allows the creation of project teams which each
member being assigned a task.

For example, with phpCollab, you can start a project for the creation of an
article on Quantum Gravity. You can create a project team consisting of a
project leader and many members. The leader can assign tasks to the members,
such as writing the introduction, composing a section on mathematics
involved, collection of royalty-free images that can be used in the article,
legal checkup (such as spotting potential copyright violations, getting
permission from proprietors to use their work in the article et cetera. Every
member will get a different task, for example a journalist could be assigned
the introduction, a physicist could get to write the main article, a
mathematician could be assigned the maths section, a lawyer could check the
document for potential copyright violations, et cetera. Each task is assigned
a time priod, for example the introduction should be ready before February
while the maths section can be handed in in the summer. The Web-based
platform then creates automatically a Gantt Chart showing the progress of the
project in time.

In the phpCollab platform, project members can share documents by uploading
them via a Web form. They can also discuss in an integrated BB forum and post
news in a virtual newsdesk.

After the project finishes, the resulting article can be handed to the wiki
sysops to post it on the wiki and assign a distinct version number to it. A
stable version of the article would be posted on the main namespace, while a
publicly editable version would go to the Test: page (which replaces Talk:).
To allow communication between editors and readers, a "Discuss in Wikinerds
Portal" link would be added to the article, pointing to a preexisting phpBB
forum thread.

This idea, although may seem overly structural, is not antiwiki because the
article is still publicly editable in the Test: page. The only difference is
that the edits become part of the "official" article only after sysop
moderation and checkup from the article maintainers (who, ideally, should be
specialists, for example physicists maintaining a quantum gravity article).

Wikipedia is designed to utilise the willingness of thousands of people to
edit here and there whenever have some free time to spend. Although this
results in a very large user base, it means that the articles are moderately
good and not very deep. A good editor could edit for a day and then
dissappear. This may happen for many reasons that cause good editors to feel
unmotivated to contribute: Their name does not appear in the article, they
cannot choose licensing terms for their work, et cetera.

In contrast, my vision is to create wiki communities with very committed
motivated users (collaborating through the Web-based platform), while still
allowing occasional edits by casual readers (by editing the Test: page and
communicating with the authors, if they want, through the phpBB forum). Of
course, in order to keep a team of committed authors, we need to offer
something to them, and we do that by allowing them to display their name in
the articles (or paragraphs) they composed. You can see an example at
http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Zsync . Another potential way to
motivate wikiauthors would be to develop a micropayment scheme so that the
reader can click on a button and transfer some euro to the author of his
favourite article. As such a scheme currently doesn't exist, we offer
wikiauthors to link their name to a page where users can see a PayPal page,
an Amazon wishlist or whatever the author wants.

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


body:
--- Robert Brookes <the_robert_brookes at yahoo.com> wrote:
> As I am currently unable to defend myself due to a
> block on my proxy server (through some other activity
> by someone else) I post here in the hopr that it can
> be inserted as my first comment under the "Statement
> by affected party".

Can you edit without using the open proxy? If not, then what is the IP address
so that this can be unblocked?

> I quote from my request for mediation:
> ....

Unfortunately the mediation process is not really functional at this time. So
for now at least the ArbCom is not expecting people to seek mediation as part
of 'trying and failing to resolve the issue using the other steps of the
dispute resolution process.'

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
nas ral (jewishneoconipod at gmail.com) [050128 23:12]:

> I think its a good idea, but you should always remember
> [[m:instruction creep]]

Oh, definitely. It's also in a subcat of [[:Category:Wikipedia maintenance]].

I see that {{unsourced}} isn't actually used *anywhere*. Johnleemk put
{{unreferenced}} on [[cyanide]] - which is a pretty nice, well-written
article that would be on its way to feature material if it had references
and pictures! I put it on [[Enronomics]], which is more the sort of article
I was first thinking of. I also put it on [[electromagnetically
magnetically induced transparancy]], though that's a stub already so it's
probably redundent.

(Though that raises the question: what does a stub need *first*: references
or more text? Both, obviously, but pick one.)

- d.


body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>> Judging from all the conflicting information on the net, a lot of it
>> from reputable sources, it seems anything but clear. I've yet to see
>> one person cite a conclusive source in regard to law.
>>
>> There is the argument that anything published is copyrighted unless
>> stated otherwise, however it is possible that the very word "release"
>> could be construed as such a statement. Who knows? I don't. And
>> nobody I've discussed this with on Wikimedia, so far, seems to know
>> either.
>
> You have been given a direct clear answer, but you don't seem to like
> it.

I've been given many clear answers half of which contradict the other
clear answers.

> If you can approach the major press release bureaus and persuade them
> to release all their work, or some portion of it, under a free
> license, or if you can secure a direct release from individual
> companies who would like to do the same, then by all means we can
> surely publish these on wikisource.

Great.

Christiaan


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speaking of Apple Mac and Wikipedia

body:
> The other option might be to use the rather nice Firefox web browser:
> http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

or [[Camino]].

paz y amor,
[[User:Thebellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> We're in the final stages of Tiger here, which means daily test builds
> of the system - it's not uncommon to hear in the halls "you're still
> running that version?? It's over a week old!!"

Pray do tell more!

Christiaan


subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Wikineur

body:
> I work on paid consulting work about 5 hours per week and earn $ 100 000 per
> year.  That may not sound like much in the US, but it's quite a lot here.
> The rest of the time I work on economic development in nearby shanty towns,
> or go kayaking or climbing the mountain.

pardon?
$100 000? US$? This sounds quite a bit above average middle class to
me. And for 5 hours a week, that is unbelivable. You must be the first
person i have ever encountered who thinks that much dough (an amount
im never even going to dream of earning) isnt much.

btw, i cautiously like the sound of the suggested project, but i think
that it will need a little reworking before it can stand on its own
two feet. May we create a better world together.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
On 25 Jan 2005, at 4:47 am, John Robinson wrote:

> Welcome to the club. Wikipeida is no longer an encyclopedia, in my
> view. It has devolved into simply another write-enabled website where
> anyone with an opinion can have a rant.
>
> And that's sad.

Last time I looked it was still an encyclopedia.

Christiaan


body:
On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:18 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:

> Kwan saamsang, Lei hou
>
> How about writing a 5 or 6 sentence article on Hong Kong, in
> colloquial written HongKong Cantonese?
>
> And milchflasche, please be clear that I do not need an example for
> myself - I have already seen them and I am convinced well enough. I
> only requested an example to show doubters like you and shizhao that
> there really is a difference, contrary to what you may believe.
>
> Stirling, in both of these cases Wu and Cantonese would qualify for
> separate Wikipedias under your criteria, as would Hakka (I don't know
> about a movement for separate Hakka literature in the mainland, bt I
> know there is one in Taiwan).
>
> Mark

Handwaving again from a user who has been wrong over and over again. I
said document, not assert.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia/Commons media competition

body:
Somewhere, recently, here or on the foundation list, I saw a discussion
whereby someone was lamenting a lack of good photos on Commons and
there was talk of a competition. I can't for the life of me track this
discussion down. Could someone be so kind as to point me to the correct
archive?

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
Charles Podles (charles.podles at gmail.com) [050129 01:39]:
> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:01:43 +1100, David Gerard
> <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > (Though that raises the question: what does a stub need *first*: references
> > or more text? Both, obviously, but pick one.)

> References. A stub with references is simply easier to expand than one
> without: a difficult part of the research necessary to a good article
> (i.e. finding good sources) is already taken care of.

Excellent point. Though a stub with {{unrefenced}} *and* {{stub}} looks a
little overwhemled and may not have the desired effect, i.e. suggesting
someone fix it.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] sign.wikepedia.org?

body:
Shane Gilchrist ? hEorpa (shane.gilchrist.oheorpa at francismaginn.org) [050129 01:38]:
> David Gerard:
> > Shane Gilchrist ? hEorpa (shane.gilchrist.oheorpa at francismaginn.org)
> > [050128 09:43]:

> > > 3. There are 3 "sign-writing" systems out there - Sutton Writing System,
> > > Stokoe Notation System and HamNoSys (Hamburg Notation System) but it is
> > felt
> > > that the Sutton one will become the most popular as its simple to use
> > and
> > > easy to use - whereas Stokoe and Hamnosys are more used by academics
> > (deeper
> > > note-keeping really)

> > Can they be machine translated with usable accuracy? (Even as much as
> > Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese?) That would help a *lot*!

> (by machine) from English to the Sutton SignWriting - yeah - but from
> SignWriting to English, I don?t think so.
> It will take us a while before we can reach an agreement on this.

I meant between each other - Simplified and Traditional Chinese are
*mostly* a one-to-one correspondence between characters (with a few dodgy
bits). Do the three sign systems have a 1-1 or mostly 1-1 correspondence?

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] An external link in [[Hubble Space Telescope]]

body:
Hello, I propose to include this link in [[Hubble Space Telescope]]. It's my
article from my site, which was republished on two other sites: Kuro5hin and
Code0range ( http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/1/22/13500/4359 ,
http://www.code0range.net/node/1078 ).

My article is about the lack of budget for the fourth servicing mission and it
includes an overview of the three past servicing missions, as well as an
introduction to the telescope. It received very positive comments on the
sites where it was republished and also on blogs.

The article is licensed under CreativeCommons, but if you would like to
incorporate material from it in Wikipedia, you may e-mail to discuss about a
GFDL version.

If you believe my article is informational, please feel free to use this link
or change it as you like:

*[http://portal.wikinerds.org/node/183 The end of Hubble Space Telescope?] -
article by Wikinerds Portal on the lack of budget for the fourth servicing
mission

Thanks,
--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org/freehosting


from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Editing offline

body:
What follows is a duplicate of a message sent to the Admin notice board.
Additional comments are in {braces}.

=== [[User:Robert Blair]] ===
I've finally discovered through his [[User talk:Robert Blair|talk page]] that
this user has been editing offline and the installing his edited version over
the top of new articles. This has caused no end of problems, since it is
indistinguishable from reverts {and frequently does effectively revert. it
also overwrites contributions made in the meantime}. I don't think
administrative action (blocks etc) are needed, but what is '''urgently'''
needed is for an experienced Wikipedian to talk to him about this. Can anyone
help? - [[User:Jakew|Jakew]] 01:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)


from_name: sannse

body:
Christiaan Briggs wrote:
> Somewhere, recently, here or on the foundation list, I saw a discussion
> whereby someone was lamenting a lack of good photos on Commons and there
> was talk of a competition. I can't for the life of me track this
> discussion down. Could someone be so kind as to point me to the correct
> archive?
>
> Christiaan

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-January/001962.html

And the page about the competition is at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Media_competition

I'm hoping to get together with sj over the next few days and sort out
the last details.

-- sannse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.1 - Release Date: 27/01/05


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Illegitimate block.

body:
Sean Barrett (sean at epoptic.org) [050129 02:29]:
> Robert Brookes stated for the record:

> >The use of a
> >(Gestapo-style) heavy hand in controlling the actions
> >of people is not something Wikipedia should create an
> >environment to florish. (So stated to commemorate the
> >liberation of the prisoners from Auswitz 60 years ago)

> There speaks someone who has never experienced any oppression however
> slight or witnessed the least evil however banal.  It takes a truly
> ignorant and undiscriminating person to compare Auschwitz to Wikipedia.
> Your na?vet? is amazing.

[[Godwin's Law]]

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
Michael Snow (wikipedia at earthlink.net) [050129 03:13]:

> There are some people who don't seem terribly inclined to do the real
> research necessary to actually contribute to the encyclopedia, so they
> just go around slapping tags on whatever articles they run across. I
> would much rather they spent their time adding appropriate categories
> instead, which is something else that can be done with relatively little
> prior knowledge about a subject. The category system still needs serious
> organization and improvement, and would bring more real benefit to the
> encyclopedia than happy-go-lucky tag-slapping.

As I understood the (babelfished) de: quality page, what they did was a
pile of tag-slapping, then going forth and trying to fix it. The first
tells where to start on the second.

I can't see {{unreferenced}} becoming a bargaining chip in an edit war.
(People who remove references are an entirely different problem.)

- d.


from_name: Catherine Munro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] www.wikipedia.org portal

body:
I recently suggested a new design for the www.wikipedia.org portal, which
has since been developed by AlanBarrett and several others more talented
than I.   After some very positive feedback, another user has now put the
design up for a vote.  I would like to get full input from users of all
languages and browsers as this should definitely not be a decision made by
en: users alone.

* Current portal:  http://www.wikipedia.org/
Please note that the current portal has been recently updated to add the
Dutch Wikipedia (which just reached 50,000), but that the page is protected
so that contributors have not yet been able to work out an ideal solution
to the layout of seven 50+ languages -- if the current one is kept a better
solution will obviously be found.

* Proposed
portal:  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikipedia.org_portal/Catherine
Note that after the poll went up, it was discovered that this design does
not currently work in the Konqueror 3.1 browser.  Work is ongoing to find
the CSS bugs responsible, and any possible workarounds -- if you have
experience in this area, please comment on the talk page
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Www.wikipedia.org_portal/Catherine).

* The vote:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Www.wikipedia.org_portal#Poll_on_Catherine.27s_version
Voting set to end February 11.

Thank you for your time!
Catherine
[[en:User:CatherineMunro]]

+----------------------+
artslave at usa.net


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Illegitimate block.

body:
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 08:28:43 -0800 (PST), Robert Brookes
<the_robert_brookes at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
> > It takes a truly
> > ignorant and undiscriminating person to compare
> > Auschwitz to Wikipedia.
>
> I did?

No.

You used the phrase "Gestapo-like" to illustrate heavy-handed admins.
That was entirely appropiate. The Gestapo image is one that all can
appreciate. You then used that to mention the liberation of Holocaust
survivors, a day which should receive more commemoration, rather than
less.

I was in the Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday and was sad to see
that the place was all but deserted. A few adults and a few
schoolchildren. On such a day there should be a queue to get in.

I don't think you were all offensive. On the contrary, you made a
reference to an event which we should never forget.
--
Peter in Washington


from_name: Marek M�hling

body:
Hello,

XML files from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export
contain img refences like:
[[Image:Flag_de-berlin_civil_300px.png|150px|Landesflagge Berlins]]
this e.g. resolves to:
commons.wikimedia.org/upload/thumb/5/54/150px-Flag_de-berlin_civil_300px.png

That means that I don't get enough information to reconstruct the path.

Is any help available?
E.g. how can I tell if an img comes from
upload.wikimedia.org or commons.wikimedia.org/upload?

What's the explanation for "thumb/5/54" in the example above?
Are there rules for conversion?

Marek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Marek_Moehling
bn548mm at g214mx.net
(remove numbers to despam)


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] {{unreferenced}} tag?

body:
Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050129 04:02]:

> I think it's a HORRIBLE idea!!!!!
> There are far too many articles with no references.

And *that*'s a horrible idea.

>  This would be everywhere.

See, a lack of references is a real problem with Wikipedia's reliability
and perceived reliability. That means you have nothing to start with on
seeing if an article has a source or is just off the top of someone's head.
It might be crap with a reference that doesn't support it, but at least
then you have a chance to find out.

- d.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Swedish, Spanish, French Wikinews set up

body:
I have set up three new Wikinews editions in accordance with community
support:

http://sv.wikinews.org/
http://es.wikinews.org/
http://fr.wikinews.org/

The page for requesting new editions is at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition

I'm not counting signatures without links to user pages on Meta or
elsewhere for now, both because there has been lots of anonymous voting,
and because I think a serious contributor could at least go to the
effort of creating a user page.

Let me know if there are any problems. The logo can be put into place by
uploading a file called Wiki.png.

The next editions likely to be created are Bulgarian and Chinese.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Angela

body:
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:24:49 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Could somebody please re-add the donation links to Wiktionary, Wikibooks,
> Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource and Commons?

You forgot Wikipecies. :)

This also needs to be done for some of the Wikipedias.
Examples:
http://aa.wikipedia.org/ has no link
http://ga.wikipedia.org/ has a link to a non-existent page, not to the
Foundation wiki

Angela.


from_name: Robert Brookes

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Robert Brookes <the_robert_brookes at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > As I am currently unable to defend myself due to a
> > block on my proxy server (through some other
> activity
> > by someone else) I post here in the hopr that it
> can
> > be inserted as my first comment under the
> "Statement
> > by affected party".
>
> Can you edit without using the open proxy? If not,
> then what is the IP address
> so that this can be unblocked?

198.54.202.242

>
> > I quote from my request for mediation:
> > ....
>
> Unfortunately the mediation process is not really
> functional at this time. So
> for now at least the ArbCom is not expecting people
> to seek mediation as part
> of 'trying and failing to resolve the issue using
> the other steps of the
> dispute resolution process.'
>
> -- mav
>

Thank you for your reply. I think I should add James
W. Rosenzweig's comment from my RfA as it has bearing
on the issues:

"As mediation seems to be at the crux of this, I'd
just like to note that, as a member of the MC and
apparently its future Chair (unless someone decides
they want the job), we don't have our act together
right now and are unlikely to in the next several
weeks. While certainly mediation can occur outside of
the MC, I think it's fair to say that right now
Wikipedia doesn't have a fully functioning formal
mediation process, though it certainly should by this
time next month. I don't know if that impacts your
decision, but thought you'd want to be aware, at
least. Jwrosenzweig 22:35, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)"

This state of affairs is lamentable. If mediation is
indeed to be a part of the Wikipedia dispute
resolution process then an effort must be made to keep
the structures functioning. Pity fewer people seem
willing to volunteer as mediators than are queuing in
line to become administrators so they can block and
ban people at will. Sad for Wikipedia.

So what to do about a belligerent who spurns
mediation?

Beats me,
Robert

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do?
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Illegitimate block.

body:
Bryan Derksen stated for the record:

> At 06:26 PM 1/28/2005 -0800, Robert Brookes wrote:

>> "You used the phrase "Gestapo-like" to illustrate
>> heavy-handed admins. That was entirely appropiate.
>
>
> But this is exactly what I was disagreeing with; the comparison of the
> Gestapo to heavy-handed admins is emphatically not appropriate. Maybe
> when the heavy-handed admins are rounding up editors and killing them en
> masse you might have basis for it, but right now it's _just a website_.
> If an admin goes mad with power and bans you, it just means you've got
> some spare time in your day to browse webcomics or whatever. Get some
> perspective.

Give it up, Bryan.  It is clear that Robert is unable to tell the
difference between a slight irritation and mass murder.  A person who
cannot distinguish between the tales he has heard of a power-mad gang of
thugs deliberately set loose to terrorize a population and the duly
appointed agents of a community whom he sees properly enforcing widely
accepted and lenient laws is completely lacking the facility of
discrimination.  His heroic proclamation

	I have perspective. I try to live up to the promise
	that it must never happen again. I believe that
	whenever we see evidence of the beast rising out of
	the human breast we must stand up and be counted ...
	even if we get knocked down in the process. I am
	prepare to stand and be counted ... are you?

further demonstrates his astounding lack of perspective -- clearly he
thinks he's defending nothing less than Civilization itself against the
beastly hordes he expects will be kicking down his door at any moment --
beastly hordes of murderous Wikipedia admins.  This is a person who
needs more help than can be provided over a mailing list.

Another possibility exists, of course, which also should be handled by
dropping the argument.

== See also ==
* [[Don't feed the trolls]]
* [[Godwin's Law]]

--
  Sean Barrett     | I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
  sean at epoptic.com |


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The next editions likely to be created are Bulgarian and Chinese.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh

Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki
should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation
of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.

greetings,
elian
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body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The next editions likely to be created are Bulgarian and Chinese.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh

Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki
should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation
of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.

greetings,
elian
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body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The next editions likely to be created are Bulgarian and Chinese.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh

Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki
should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation
of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.

greetings,
elian
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body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> The next editions likely to be created are Bulgarian and Chinese.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh

Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki
should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation
of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.

greetings,
elian
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from_name: MilchFlasche瑋平

body:
Hi all,

I agree a lot with Mark. First of all, we need more persuasive
evidence to show the gap between Wu, Cantonese and Mandarin, even when
they are all transcribed in hanzi. I myself would like to see several
whole articles totally in Wu or Cantonese, just to stun me how hard it
is for a Mandarin speaker to understand those languages.

Shizhao's position is mainly that Mandarin Wikipedia is enough for all
users of different "dialects", since hanzi can provide a common
communication media among them (as Formulax has also suggested). This
kind of argument can't deny that other vernaculars are actually quite
different from Mandarin in speech, and in effect ignores the limited
role of hanzi in zh: it denotes mainly Mandarin, and to ask speakers
of other languages to use zh is to force them abandon their own tongue
to use Mandarin to think and write instead; to ignore such fact is to
wield the authority of the common language again.

Arguments that letting other Sinitic version establish would detract
users from zh are also quite impossible. I'd like to say that this is
the last thing zh users should worry about.

What we should treat seriously is what Toytoy always claims: there's
no need for vernaculars to be transcribed (he did said that), or at
least be used in knowledge, since what Cantonese scripts are used for
is to express vulgar speech or to publish gossip magazines. Is this
argument strong enough to block projects to increase texts and
accumulation of knowledge written in "dialects"? I think we should
spend more time reflecting such point. I agree that in history there
are far less publications and works in Wu or Cantonese or Holo, but I
wonder if past development of reality is the main concern of all
Wikipediae. In history, too, there are never many publications in
Asturianu or Plattd??tsch, do we say that "there's no need to
transcribe them in the past, and no Wikipedia is allowed for them"?
"The Free Encyclopedia" should encourage writing in languages which
were deprived of chances of publication due to early modern
development of "national language", especially regional tongues with
abundant population. Hanzi is absolutely domininating China, and this
helps the domination of Mandarin a lot, but such situation is mostly
created by state power and should be liberated. In times before 20th
century state-building, hanzi was also freely used in different
vernaculars, since there were no such ideas of "Putonghua" or "Guoyu";
and in Hong Kong, a modern metropolis which stayed intact out of
central control, Cantonese is not only used in popular publications,
but also in almost all movie subtitles (I hope Cantonese friends could
provide more usage of baihua in Hong Kong). So, stop the mirage of
"language unity" in China! Mandarin Wikipedia is for Mandarin ONLY,
and don't copy the government way and language nationalism on
Wikipedia.

I appreciate opinions to support me or challege me:)

MilchFlasche von Hroedeboerht.

-------
By the way, to reply long ago Mark's reply to me:
1. Actually I'm a Mandarin speaking Taiwanese, so "Jiang55" is enough
to pronounce my family name, or to use Minnan "Gang33" --- but in
Hakka, it's also "Gong24":)
2. As for I know, Toytoy is also a Taiwanese. I'm not sure how he
knows about Cantonese, but he  did mentioned on zh that he could have
learned Wu --- his father's tongue --- but he wouldn't like to.

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:48:12 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Yin,
>
> I understand everything you say but I have a small request for you.
>
> Can you provide a short sample in coloquial written Wu using Hanzi (if
> you can't find all the correct characters, I can insert them for you
> if need be)? I think that is wht doubters like Shizhao need, to see
> that there really is a huge difference between baihua and zanhe-?wo in
> hanzi.
>
> Until then Shizhao will continue to believe that Baihua is
> grammatically and vocabularically identical to all fengyan-kouwen
> because he can onlky speak and write Mandarin himself.
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 04:34:14 -0600, W Yin <yin at uchicago.edu > wrote:
> > I am replying to Sheng Jiong's opposition to the proposals for various Chinese
> > vernaculars.
> >
> > Quoting Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com >:
> > > It is totally absurd to set up so many Wikipedias for various Chinese
> > > dialects. Being a native Shanghainess, my mother tongue is Wu. But I
> > > have never seen any books written in the Wu dialect in my entire life,
> > > and I have only heard of one book that was written in Wu in the 1930s,
> > > and apparently it received very limited attention.
> >
> > There are many novels written in Wu since the late 1800's and they were quite
> > popular and highly acclaimed; if you are not aware of them, then selective
> > education has played a big part in your misconceptions.  Their popularity only
> > faded with the singular promotion of vernacular Mandarin by the Republican and
> > later Communist governments.  The idea of a vernacular Wu encyclopedia is not
> > very absurd so long as there are people willing to give the project a try.
> >
> > > Wikipedia being a *written* encyclopedia would mean that we
> > > only need *one* Chinese Wikipedia, written in Chinese characters.
> > > Speakers of the different dialects can pronounce each characters in
> > > very different ways (A Wu speaker can hardly understand Cantonese or
> > > Min-nan, and vice versa), they all have the same grammar and similar
> > > ways of expression, after thousands years of cultural integration
> > > within the unified country.
> >
> > The grammar is different, the expressions are even more different. I want to
> > remind you that written vernacular Chinese in *any* dialect, including
> > Mandarin Baihua, is a relatively recent development; the "thousands years of
> > cultural integration" mean little and can be quite frankly compared to
> > the "cultural intergration" that is western civilization. We no longer write
> > in Classical Literary Chinese.  Currently the Chinese written form is solely
> > based on the Mandarin vernacular; you are suggesting that it is normal for a
> > French speaker to read and write only in English (with English grammar) but
> > pronounce the words "as if in French," making quick mental changes for the
> > grammar and words without equivalents along the way.
> >
> > > (And by the way Mandarin also has a long
> > > history of being the "offical" spoken language in China: since Qing
> > > dynasty in the 1600s it has been adopted as the language spoken in
> > > Emperor's palace, and during the Republic of China period it was
> > > selected by the parliament as the official spoken language of the
> > > government after a democratic voting.)
> >
> > The officiality of a language should not be a primary reason for the
> > opposition of any new language Wikipedia. If so, many existing Wikipedias
> > (such as the 3 dialects of German, Esperanto, Anglo Saxon, etc) ought not to
> > exist as well. The success of Catalan on Wikipedia is a good reason to give
> > different vernacular Chinese languages a try; especially for a couple
> > culturally rich and high-population Chinese languages.
> >
> > > Interestingly also Mark seem to neglect the fact that really no native
> > > speakers of all these dialects support the proposal, knowing that it
> > > is a totally unworkable proposal.
> >
> > I am a native speaker of Shanghainese and Ningbo-hua, two very close dialects
> > of Wu. I personally know several people willing to work on such a project, and
> > that number will surely expand as the project grows. If my username shows only
> > a few Wikipedia edits, it is because I have just recently signed up, but have
> > for the past 2 years edited anonymously hundreds of China and Chinese related
> > articles.
> >
> > Best,
> > William Yin
> >
> > User:nishishei
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
2005, make signs happen!


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Swedish, Spanish, French Wikinews set up

body:
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 09:19:29 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you take
> care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating that only
> en and de exist.

The new languages were added to that page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews&diff=93846&oldid=93845

> I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do
> not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french
> version.

They are listed at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition/Archive#French

At least five people with a user page are required, and this was met
for the new wikis that were set up.

This is in accordance with the (proposed) policy at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages and
also with the original proposal at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Internationality

Angela.


from_name: Greg Andruk

body:
On Jan 28, 2005, at 2:40 AM, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> Has anyone else noticed the following? Often, though not always, when
> I edit a page containing accents like umlauts and acutes, when I press
> "preview" or "save," the accents come out mangled: for example, a "u"
> with an umlaut above it, comes out as a weird-looking Y, and it
> happens to words I haven't edited. In addition to changing the letter,
> this breaks the links to pages with accents in the title, leaving red
> links. I was told this happened with Macs, and I use a Mac, but I've
> only noticed it myself in the last week or so. Is there anything I can
> do my end to stop it from happening? I use OS 10.2.8 and the browser
> is usually Safari 1.0.3.

It's a character set mismatch, and older Safari was especially
susceptible to that problem.  Usually it's an ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) page
interpreted as Unicode, or vice versa. You can use the View->Text
Encoding menu to tweak it for a single page, and you can change the
default in the preferences (Appearance section).  It still may not be
100% reliable, though. Apple seems to treat Safari more as a test bed
for Web libraries than a production browser.  As others suggested, one
of the Mozilla family might be a good substitute.


from_name: Anthere

body:
I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you take
care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating that only
en and de exist.

Second, when the project was approved by the board, I think we agreed on
a couple of mandatory requests, in particular to insure that the
wikinews would not be managed by 2 editors with a particular bias.

I did not check for all the wikis you created, I only check for the
language I know.

I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do
not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french
version. I have no memory of much discussion about that on the french
pump either. A couple of guys mentionned it would be nice, but that is all.

My personal opinion Erik. I did not approve wikinews because I felt it
would be biaised and it would divide the community strength. Also, the
majority of french editors did not support it.

This is why some mandatory steps were added to try to limit the risk of
us having a baised project. To ensure enough support would exist for
each individual project.

In setting up a new wikinews without following these rules we commonly
aggreed with, you are making a joke of the whole agreement. I gave my
agreement for wikinews because there was such an agreement between us.

I stand up by these requirements of 5 editors interested and involved.

So, I think that in 1 or 2 weeks from now, I will look at these newly
created wikiprojects, and if the requirement of creation is not
respected (ie, at least 5 real editors working on it), I will either
block the new project or ask that a big stamp mentions proeminently that
the project in-work is not related to wikinews as well as have another
logo set on it.

Anthere

Elisabeth Bauer a ?crit:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> The next editions likely to be created are Bulgarian and Chinese.
>
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh
>
> Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki
> should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation
> of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.
>
> greetings,
> elian
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Trade Standard

body:
Erik Koopman wrote:

>Trade Standard is a project proposal for:
>(a) a public knowledge base for all information about goods, technology and
>(way of) trade to stimulate international development,
>(b) a public ethic standard and indicator to evaluate international trade
>and industry and
>(c) a public register to verify the ethic classification of goods,
>technology and trade.
>
>Although its high aim is Trade Standard an internet platform very equal to
>Wikipedia. The only differences are: (1) focus on technical and ethical
>subjects, (2) equal layouts for all articles, including a chapter for
>"ethical, social and sustainable characteristics". And (3) the addition of
>registers to list the ethical characteristics of chemicals, products etc.
>
>Trade Standard is a project with high potential that (a) stimulates
>international spread of free (technical) information, (b) connects
>technology with ethics and (c) offers a solution to upgrade today's very
>conservative, 'lowest standards'-oriented culture of international trade and
>industry.
>
The problem with this proposal is that it requires an ethical valuation
of products.  That would be a POV act, where there could be enormous
differences of opinion.  If some organization already makes such
valuations, we would do better to comment on the article for the product
that that organization values it in such a way.  Let them have the POV
fights.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] primary and secondary sources

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Matt Brown said:
>
>
>>It is definitely the case that we'd rather a bad cite than no cite.
>>
>>
>I strongly disagree.  The only cites should be good cites.  Bad ones are
>misleading and wasteful.  A good cite is easy enough to make: one that
>accurately describes the cited material and relates it to the subjectmatter.  This latest fuss was, at bottom, over attempts by some of us to
>transform a bad cite (a statement that a UN source said something that we
>didn't know it said) into a good one (a statement that a secondary source
>gave a figure and attributed it to a UN source).  The former would have
>misled the reader, the latter would have given the reader more accurate
>information.  As it turned out the cited UN source did not contain the
>information, but another UN source did.  The secondary source proved to be
>in error so the inference drawn from it was incorrect in a small but
>significant detail.
>
>
I would be more supportive of Matt's position.  When you try to divide
citations into "good cites" and "bad cites" you make a determination
which should also be subject to the "cite your sources" rule.  Rather
than proposing that one source or the other would have misled the
reader, we would do better in such circumstances to cite both sources,
and let the reader decide which misleading he prefers to follow.

Ec


body:
Angela a ?crit:
> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 09:19:29 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you take
>>care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating that only
>>en and de exist.
>
>
> The new languages were added to that page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews&diff=93846&oldid=93845

IN http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews this page
it is written

The internationality of the Wikimedia Foundation is one of our biggest
strengths, and the Wikinews projects is building on this strength right
from the start. Our first requirement is that Wikinews will be set up
like Wikipedia, with a language domain for every Wikinews project:

     * [de.wikinews.org]
     * [en.wikinews.org]
     * fr.wikinews.org (not yet set up)

 >>> the page is not updated.

>>I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do
>>not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french
>>version.
>
>
> They are listed at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition/Archive#French

Nod

     * pascalv 15:52, 4 Dec 2004 (West Australia Time)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Pascalv
Imho, not to be counted.
Less than 50 edits overall in 6 months.

     * Baf 09:17, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Baf
Will probably not be a very strong participant here given the number of
recent edits;

    * Un illustre inconnu 10:48, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Un%20illustre%20inconnu
An editor as well, but hardly a participant really

     * Greudin 17:52, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC), Greudin

Real participant

     * --Manu 20:18, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC), emmanuel legrand

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Manu
No participation since october

     * w:fr:Utilisateur:Franfois

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Franfois
Real participant, but with less than 50 contributions in 6 months

     * Vdt

No participant at that name

     * DCLXVI 08:19, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=DCLXVI
Less than 50 edits. Is bulgarian.

     * 159753, 1551, le 27 janvier 2005 (TU)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=159753
2 edits

     * --80.119.68.220 09:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
An ip vote.

> At least five people with a user page are required, and this was met
> for the new wikis that were set up.
>
> This is in accordance with the (proposed) policy at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages and
> also with the original proposal at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Internationality

Which is precisely outdated.
Which is why I mentionned it.

> Angela.

IN short, in the list of people supporting the wikinews and willing to
contribute seriously, there is ONE name, Greudin

Greudin is a very good guy, but alone I doubt he will do it all.

Sorry, this is *not* what I call sufficient support.


from_name: Sheng Jiong

body:
> This is far from the truth. There is a standard written language, yes,
> but it is based on Mandarin. Colloquial writings in regional varieties
> use different grammar, different vocabulary, and even different
> characters. (The popular book "he zanhwa" had to be translated to
> Mandarin before it could be read by non-Wu speakers)

You are discussing an extreme example. Look at all the broadsheets in
Hong Kong(where most people only know how to speak Cantonese, not
Mandarin), and their newspapers can still be understood by mainland
Chinese. Of course some tabloids would use distinctive "Cantonese
characters", but there are really not the standard.

And really what is the use of setting up a Wikipedia if only *one*
user is interested?

[[User:Formulax]]


body:
Anthere wrote:

> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Pascalv
> Imho, not to be counted.
> Less than 50 edits overall in 6 months.

Has over 50 edits on en as well, but was not counted anyway since he
had no user page linked to from meta.

> Baf
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Baf
> Will probably not be a very strong participant here given the number of
> recent edits;

165 edits since the start of last month. Is this not enough? How many
edits are people supposed to make before they are allowed to vote for
a Wikinews?

>  Un illustre inconnu
http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Un%20illustre%20inconnu
> An editor as well, but hardly a participant really

171 edits since the start of last month but was not counted anyway
since no user page linked to.

>  Manu
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Manu
> No participation since october

That's because he's changed username:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Emmanuel_legrand
75 edits since the start of last month

Was not counted anyway.

> DCLXVI
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=DCLXVI
> Less than 50 edits. Is bulgarian.

Has almost 1500 edits on bg.

> 159753
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=159753
> 2 edits

Also has around 800 edits on en.

> 80.119.68.220
> An ip vote.

Was not counted anyway.

There were also six people who voted in support of Wikinews on the
French voting page but did not list themselves on the new page.

How many edits do users need to have? I'm very surprised you think
that 160 edits in 2 months is not enough. What more do they need
before a Wikinews can be created?

Elian wrote:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh
> Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki
> should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation
> of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.

People were voting for the project as a whole then, not for individual
language versions. Now Wikinews exists, views of whether a new
language should be added may well change.

However, in the case of Chinese, the possibility of this leading to
the Chinese Wikipedia being blocked again ought to be considered
before this is created, despite it having 8 supporters (5 with a user
page).

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Illegitimate block.

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> Bryan Derksen stated for the record:
>
> > At 06:26 PM 1/28/2005 -0800, Robert Brookes wrote:
>
> >> "You used the phrase "Gestapo-like" to illustrate
> >> heavy-handed admins. That was entirely
> appropiate.
> >
> >
> > But this is exactly what I was disagreeing with;
> the comparison of the
> > Gestapo to heavy-handed admins is emphatically not
> appropriate. Maybe
> > when the heavy-handed admins are rounding up
> editors and killing them en
> > masse you might have basis for it, but right now
> it's _just a website_.
> > If an admin goes mad with power and bans you, it
> just means you've got
> > some spare time in your day to browse webcomics or
> whatever. Get some
> > perspective.
>
> Give it up, Bryan.  It is clear that Robert is
> unable to tell the
> difference between a slight irritation and mass
> murder.  A person who
> cannot distinguish between the tales he has heard of
> a power-mad gang of
> thugs deliberately set loose to terrorize a
> population and the duly
> appointed agents of a community whom he sees
> properly enforcing widely
> accepted and lenient laws is completely lacking the
> facility of
> discrimination.  His heroic proclamation
>
> 	I have perspective. I try to live up to the promise
> 	that it must never happen again. I believe that
> 	whenever we see evidence of the beast rising out of
> 	the human breast we must stand up and be counted
> ...
> 	even if we get knocked down in the process. I am
> 	prepare to stand and be counted ... are you?
>
> further demonstrates his astounding lack of
> perspective -- clearly he
> thinks he's defending nothing less than Civilization
> itself against the
> beastly hordes he expects will be kicking down his
> door at any moment --
> beastly hordes of murderous Wikipedia admins.  This
> is a person who
> needs more help than can be provided over a mailing
> list.
>
> Another possibility exists, of course, which also
> should be handled by
> dropping the argument.
>
> == See also ==
> * [[Don't feed the trolls]]
> * [[Godwin's Law]]
>

Sean,

Thanks for this reply. I will use it for comparitive
purposes with the AC as you see I once made a very
similar post about someone else and that is now being
cited as a personal attack by me. As your reply could
not possibly be a personal attack ... then neither
could mine, yes?

Robert

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subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal:  Wikineur

body:
VampWillow wrote:

>I'm just having dinner and let out a big "eep" when I saw this ...
>
>
>>There is nothing mysterious about creating wealth.  The right environment
>>combined with the right people automatically results in lots of
>>opportunities creating jobs and money.
>>
>>
>That'll be why all these Nigerian death scams work then ...
>
The many factories producing brand-name sneakers in south Asia creat a
lot of wealth ... just not for the people that are making the sneakers.

>>The idea behind Wikineur is that it acts as a complete resource to set up
>>a state from scratch
>>
>>
>WOW! are you planning to set up shop on Titan or Mars or stage a coup
>somewhere? (Your name is Mark Thatcher and I claim my ?5!)
>
As the name "Wikineur" implies, it's got a lot of nerve.

>>with all the institutions required to support the
>>economy.
>>
>>
>Hey ... that is why their are politicians!
>
The libertarian model would prefer not to have all those institutions.
They could be seen as interfering with wealth creation.

>>I clearly do not have knowledge of all the topics to be
>>covered but have a fair idea of the broad framework required.  This could
>>become an excepionally powerful teaching tool in developing countries.
>>
>>
>Your heart may be in the right place, but this whole proposal looks
>terribly conceited that anyone who got involved with it would have the
>audacity to tell others the "right way" to do anything, let alone run a
>country!
>
It's a proposal of a kind that comes from people who believe their own
rhetoric.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests_for_arbitration/Robert_the_Bruce

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

> Robert Brookes wrote:
>
> >So what to do about a belligerent who spurns
> >mediation?
> >
> >
> >
> Nothing. Just hope the Arbcom will recognise this
> and take it into
> account; if you're lucky, they may drop the case.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>

What are you telling me John? That interactions with
the Arbcom depend on luck?

Robert

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] sign.wikepedia.org?

body:
Shane Gilchrist ? hEorpa wrote:

>Thanks to everyone for their contributions :-)
>
>1. there are many different subgroups that makes up the deaf community - but
>often it?s the national sign language that unites us.
>
>2. there are hundreds of different sign languages around the globe - that?s
>why I have asked for sign.wikipedia.org to put them together instead of us
>asking for say, bsl.wikipedia.org, asl.wikipedia.org etc etc - it would be a
>central point for sign languages - and once we go to sign.wikipedia.org we
>can go into subgroups there in whatever group suits - for instance, there
>would be a NISL section for Northern Ireland Sign Language community etc.
>
>It can be in any written languages or sign-writing systems - but the main
>thing is that we need a central point for the national sign languages to be
>in the same category - and it can help us build information up etc.
>
>3. There are 3 "sign-writing" systems out there - Sutton Writing System,
>Stokoe Notation System and HamNoSys (Hamburg Notation System) but it is felt
>that the Sutton one will become the most popular as its simple to use and
>easy to use - whereas Stokoe and Hamnosys are more used by academics (deeper
>note-keeping really)
>
One important factor to keep in mind in this debate is that the
difficulty faced by deaf people is that they can't hear, not that they
can't see. This suggests to me that a sign.wikipedia would not serve
much of a purpose since the deaf can already read whatever language is
used their own community.

What would be more appropriate would be a sign.wiktionary where the
kinds of problems that have been discussed here can be treated, and
where cross-cultural and crass-language uses of the same sign can be
clarified. The traditional hand-alphabets are only a tiny part of
sign-language. In our ordinary techniques for teaching a first language
to children we do not insist that they learn the alphabet before thay
can be allowed to speak.

Ec


from_name: Peter Danenberg

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP IDE and debugger

body:
> What IDE and debugger are you using to work with MediaWiki's PHP?

     As in, above and beyond Emacs? ;)

     But  seriously: I used Zend Studio for a time and found
it cumbersome.

--
Peter Danenberg                                           .
wikisophia.org                                           ..:


from_name: Alex Kwan

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Individual Wikipedias for different
	Sinitic	vernaculars (Cantonese debate) - update

body:
Hello,

Sheng Jiong wrote:
> You are discussing an extreme example. Look at all the broadsheets in
> Hong Kong(where most people only know how to speak Cantonese, not
> Mandarin), and their newspapers can still be understood by mainland
> Chinese.

That's because we *are* trying to write in Mandarin baihua (since
"formal" and "proper" writing demands so).

> Of course some tabloids would use distinctive "Cantonese
> characters", but there are really not the standard.

No, they aren't the standard, but we're now talking about the
differences between the Mandarin and Cantonese, not the value (or lack
thereof) of tabloids. The tabloids write in the Cantonese vernacular.
Unless you can say there's no difference between how the tabloids write
and Mandarin baihua, then please, don't use how us HKers write as an
example.

Just because we HKers have accepted the Northerners' monopoly on what's
"proper" and "formal" writing doesn't mean there's no difference.

> And really what is the use of setting up a Wikipedia if only *one*
> user is interested?

I used not to be interested, but seriously, the more I listen to you
guys, the more I think a Cantonese/Yue wikipedia should be set up. I
have yet to hear any argument other than "it's going to take away the
resources from the zh.wikipedia" and "there's no difference between yue
and Mandarin".

little Alex


from_name: Urs C Muff

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP IDE and debugger

body:
Hi folks,

What IDE and debugger are you using to work with MediaWiki's PHP?  And
what platform is that on?

Thanks a lot for you answer!

- Urs