body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/20/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hoi,
>> With Single User Login, this scheme will not be possible anymore .. a
>> user is THAT user and no one else can impersonate him by having the same
>> user. So the basic argument here is incorrect. It will no longer be
>> possible and, this whole ugly affair demonstrates admirably that we need
>> SUL as soon as possible ..
>>
>> PLEASE BRION .. get this over and done with.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>     Gerard
>>
>>
>
> This doesn't address my point.
>
> There is very little difference between "Georgewilliamherbert" and
> "Georgewi11iamherbert" in most character displays.  This is bad enough, but
> we have people aware of it and looking for it.  There are non-latin
> characters which are visually indistinguishable from "o" and others
> available as well.  We *HAVE SEEN* an impersonation of an experienced editor
> where the impersonator used a greek omega that rendered as an "o" character.
>
> Refusing to pay attention to this problem rises to the level of a
> show-stopper for en, in my opinion.  We really really should not stomp all
> over one of the en defensive mechanisms against vandals without at least
> looking at the issues raised and alerting people to the impact.
>
> The ultimate answer may well be that en.wikipedia has to remove that policy
> and deal with it.  Has anyone posted any notice of this to wikien-l or the
> Village Pump on en, or do you think it's reasonable and fair to just do it
> without proper and fair notice and time to allow en to talk about it and
> figure out how to handle it?
>
>
>

As I say, the existing antispoofing filter supposedly works OK across
languages, and these particular examples should no longer be possible --
but SUL will test this filter in a way that has not happened hitherto.

-- Neil


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
 other communities


list: wikien-l

from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 12/19/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> If nothing else, this indicates another reason why nested-
>> transclusion is problematic, and why complexity like this ought
>> perhaps to be avoided.  (But of course this observation does
>> nothing to solve the current problem.)
>
> True!
>
> Perhaps a solution would be a sort of reverse whatlinkshere, showing
> all the pages that are transcluded by a page so that they can all be
> protected.  Time-limited protection would also be useful here, but I
> doubt this mitigates the disadvantages in other areas.
>

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toolserver/TStoc&diff=0&oldid=483075

I'm offline at the moment, so I can't remember exactly what it's called,
but I do recall that it looks through all the templates that are used -
or at least it would if the toolserver was working.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/19/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> There have also been suggestions of communicating with the vandal's ISP.
>> Should that just take place, instead of us trying to figure out how to
>> preempt the vandal?
>
> If it's one single consistent vandal, by all means call the ISP.
>
> Someone associated with OFFICE should do so, so that it's taken
> seriously, and not blown off as a random WP person making the call...
>

Given that that particular vandal was originating from a totalitarian
police state[1], I'd say that reporting them to their ISP would be a
Really Good Disincentive against future vandalism.

[1] I don't plan on going there any time soon.
--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Linksearch

body:
Luna wrote:
> I'm not aware of any current black magic solutions to sort by namespace,
> unfortunately, although it seems like Javascript would proooobably be up to
> the task. I'd also be intrigued if we could sort [[Special:Whatlinkshere]]
> results by namespace.
>
> Unfortunately, I know next to no JS. :p
>

Oh come on, surely you can work it out from that blinking orange bar of
death... :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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list: foundation-l

from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] Drupal POT Translation Completed/Cherokee C.O.R.E.
	Translation

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

Complete translations of all Drupal .pot message files into Cherokee
have been posted to:

Cherokee Syllabary ISO 639 Code CHR
ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/MediaWiki/drupal-639-chr-syl-pot-files-120606.tar.gz

Cherokee Text ISO 639 (english replacement)
ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/MediaWiki/drupal-639-chr-text-pot-files-120606.tar.gz

I have also emailed Drupal. These POT files were constructed based upon
the templates on
Drupal's site. The AI engine in wikitrans is getting better. 3 passes, 1
hour review/corrections, and its done.

Now that you have the POT files for Drupal in Cherokee, there is no
reaons C.O.R.E. cannot have Cherokee
language code support added.

Jeff

>>There's still no translation of Drupal at
>>http://drupal.org/project/Translations . Without that translation, almost
>>nothing on the site would actually be translated. The other languages added
>>all have language packs, though I can't add Slovenian for the same reason as
>>Cherokee.
>>
>>
>>
>I'll log into their site and see if I can whip one out quickly. I do
>have the most powerful computer assisted translation engine for Cherokee
>on the planet. Piece of cake.
>
>Jeff
>
>
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-21

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

Passed 462 of 481 tests (96.05%)... FAILED!


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Begging letters on our blogs?

body:
GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> When DirtyCom donates $20.000,- to the Wikimedia Foundation, it does not
> gain leverage on the WMF. So it does request us to be nice. When this gets
> in the news that they operate in this way, they will have a serious public
> relations issue. Not only did they raise their x level in order to raise the
> repeat sales, they also have raised a lot of negative sentiment for their
> brand.
>

... and under Australian law, their bribery will be tax-deductible :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Neil Harris schreef:
>
>> Birgitte SB wrote:
>>
>>
>>> en.WP is not the primary Wikipedia for many wikimedia
>>> editors.  These usernames *are* in the primary
>>> character set of the users home wiki.  I think it is
>>> perfectly reasonable to expect to not be blocked just
>>> because Wikimedia adopts SUL.  Bascially what this
>>> boils down to is someone who today edits as an IP
>>> without harrassment will be blocked after SUL as soon
>>> as an en.WP admin spots them on RC.  This will happen
>>> without the editor doing anything differently on their
>>> end.
>>>
>>> There is strong support for SUL throughout all
>>> communtities, but I cannot support going live with it
>>> if large chunks of the wikimedia community will be
>>> locally blocked without warning on any particular
>>> wiki.  If en.WP does not wish to adjust thier policies
>>> to this mew development perhaps en.WP can be left out
>>> of SUL.  Is it possible for en.WP to keep their own
>>> user database while all other wikis use a shared
>>> database?
>>>
>>> Birgitte SB
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Absolutely.
>>
>> Different-script blocking on en: must therefore stop as soon as SUL is
>> implemented.
>>
>> But, since human-readable usernames are essential to managing the wiki
>> system, and for many people names not in their native script are not
>> human-readable, there must necessarily be some sort of solution to the
>> name-incomprehensibility problem before SUL goes live.
>>
>> The truename + nickname idea looks to me like the favourite at the
>> moment. I definitely support it, with the provisos that:
>>
>> * truenames _and_ nicknames need to be made globally unique within the
>> single SUL namespace, otherwise they will present new opportunities for
>> misdirection (eg. nick of one user is the same as the truename of
>> another and vice versa, or that on another different-script wiki...)
>> * that each truename or nickname have characters only from a single
>> script system (although they will of course in general have different
>> script systems from one another, because that's the whole point)
>> * that the anti-spoofing code be used to filter both (which may need
>> some overdue improvements in the anti-spoofing algorithm to be put in
>> place, which I've got on the back burner already anyway)
>>
>> I would also suggest, at the risk of further controversy, that having an
>> appropriate nick be made compulsory if you intend to use your account to
>> edit in a wiki with a default script different from that of your username.
>>
>> Perhaps we could put in place some sort of human-driven wiki-based
>> please-translate-my-name-into-your-script service for this, or simply
>> generate a (also globally unique) machine-generated ID until users
>> create an appropriate nick, with regular nag messages to remind them to
>> do so?
>>
>> -- Neil
>>
> Hoi,
> You cannot have the cake and eat it too. All languages and scripts that
> we have are human readable. The notion that they are not is brain dead.
> The idea that nicks have to be unique too will be next to impossible to
> implement. Again, when a user is created in a Latin script, and he does
> "evil" things, you will have to check the talk page / history to find in
> what way you want to impose sanctions. This is no different from people
> with a user in another script.
>
> Again, I think that the suggestion of forcing to have people change
> their name is the wrong way to go. I am dead against it. It is
> discrimination pure and simple.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
>
>
"Human readable" != "readable by all humans". For example, most en:
editors simply cannot read most, or in some cases any, non-Latin
scripts. That is to say, things like "????????" and "??????????", or
"??????" and "??????" and "???????????", are as
incomprehensible to them, and as difficult to memorize or tell apart, as
"?$^&(*%^$&" and "$($"?%^&$&". And that to a reader of any of the
scripts in the example above, the reverse may well also apply.

Faced with a vandal called "?????", most en: users won't be able to
distinguish them from "?????". without looking very, very carefully at
the respective rendered character strings: and often, not even then. Nor
will they be able to think of those users by their names: if anything,
they will think of their names as unintelligible squiggles, and hence
their users as anonymous -- for if you can't understand or recognize a
name other than as a squiggle, what use is it to you?

This will be very damaging to the fundamental social fabric of
Wikipedia, and lead to an us-and-them mentality.

On the other hand, if our fictional user ? has his name rendered beside
a Latin script nick on en:, other users will instantly be able to put a
name to him: specifically, his real name, Takeshi, the same one as in
the kanji version of his true username, which will always be present
beside it on en: (Indeed, if they talk with or about him for long
enough, they will come to recognise that kanji character, too.) Of
course, on ar: he would have a different nick: which would also be
either another transliteration of "Takeshi", or some close variant.

And the same would apply symmetrically in all of the wikis: if I want to
edit in ar: I should either ask someone nicely to translate my name as
an Arab nickname, or put up with whatever Arabic-readable nick the
system automatically generated for me in lieu of a proper nickname.

So: to the technical requirements in my previous E-mails, I'd like to
add a couple of other, social, suggestions:

* it should be a guideline that users should always attempt to make
their nicks the same as their username, or a close variant if that is
not directly possible;

* and it should be frowned upon _not_ to create a nick if one is editing
for any significant time on a foreign-script Wikipedia (that is,
sticking with a machine-generated nick like x105234 should be regarded
as antisocial). Ideally, the system would generate periodic nag messages
to remind users to do so.

I hope you can see that in this scheme:

* no-one is asking _anyone_ to change their name
* all script systems are treated equally, without any privileged
character set or language
* everyone is actually more able to see, read and identify with other
people's real names than if they were presented on their own

-- Neil


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the
USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?

Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is
possibly going to be deleted for that reason.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
	other communities

body:
On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> I will again say how much I resent this policy of the English language
> Wikipedia, it is discrimination pure and simple. With SUL it will be
> easy to check WHO it is that is doing the editing. The most charitable
> way I can look on this huha is that when SUL is finally there, this
> discussion will prove to be a storm in a tea cup.

Your reply completely fails to address any points whatsoever of the
text you actually quoted.

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Neil Harris schreef:
> Birgitte SB wrote:
>
>> en.WP is not the primary Wikipedia for many wikimedia
>> editors.  These usernames *are* in the primary
>> character set of the users home wiki.  I think it is
>> perfectly reasonable to expect to not be blocked just
>> because Wikimedia adopts SUL.  Bascially what this
>> boils down to is someone who today edits as an IP
>> without harrassment will be blocked after SUL as soon
>> as an en.WP admin spots them on RC.  This will happen
>> without the editor doing anything differently on their
>> end.
>>
>> There is strong support for SUL throughout all
>> communtities, but I cannot support going live with it
>> if large chunks of the wikimedia community will be
>> locally blocked without warning on any particular
>> wiki.  If en.WP does not wish to adjust thier policies
>> to this mew development perhaps en.WP can be left out
>> of SUL.  Is it possible for en.WP to keep their own
>> user database while all other wikis use a shared
>> database?
>>
>> Birgitte SB
>>
>>
>>
>
> Absolutely.
>
> Different-script blocking on en: must therefore stop as soon as SUL is
> implemented.
>
> But, since human-readable usernames are essential to managing the wiki
> system, and for many people names not in their native script are not
> human-readable, there must necessarily be some sort of solution to the
> name-incomprehensibility problem before SUL goes live.
>
> The truename + nickname idea looks to me like the favourite at the
> moment. I definitely support it, with the provisos that:
>
> * truenames _and_ nicknames need to be made globally unique within the
> single SUL namespace, otherwise they will present new opportunities for
> misdirection (eg. nick of one user is the same as the truename of
> another and vice versa, or that on another different-script wiki...)
> * that each truename or nickname have characters only from a single
> script system (although they will of course in general have different
> script systems from one another, because that's the whole point)
> * that the anti-spoofing code be used to filter both (which may need
> some overdue improvements in the anti-spoofing algorithm to be put in
> place, which I've got on the back burner already anyway)
>
> I would also suggest, at the risk of further controversy, that having an
> appropriate nick be made compulsory if you intend to use your account to
> edit in a wiki with a default script different from that of your username.
>
> Perhaps we could put in place some sort of human-driven wiki-based
> please-translate-my-name-into-your-script service for this, or simply
> generate a (also globally unique) machine-generated ID until users
> create an appropriate nick, with regular nag messages to remind them to
> do so?
>
> -- Neil
Hoi,
You cannot have the cake and eat it too. All languages and scripts that
we have are human readable. The notion that they are not is brain dead.
The idea that nicks have to be unique too will be next to impossible to
implement. Again, when a user is created in a Latin script, and he does
"evil" things, you will have to check the talk page / history to find in
what way you want to impose sanctions. This is no different from people
with a user in another script.

Again, I think that the suggestion of forcing to have people change
their name is the wrong way to go. I am dead against it. It is
discrimination pure and simple.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/12/20, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>:

> There is very little difference between "Georgewilliamherbert" and
> "Georgewi11iamherbert" in most character displays.  This is bad enough,
> but
> we have people aware of it and looking for it.  There are non-latin
> characters which are visually indistinguishable from "o" and others
> available as well.  We *HAVE SEEN* an impersonation of an experienced
> editor
> where the impersonator used a greek omega that rendered as an "o"
> character.

Then BLOCK THEM FOR HAVING AN IMPERSONATING USER NAME. Is it that hard to
think of that solution? Surely, George WiIIiamherbert is much easier to
mistake for George Williamherbert than any combination of kana would be. Yet
the second one is blocked on the policy, the first one is not.**

> Refusing to pay attention to this problem rises to the level of a
> show-stopper for en, in my opinion.  We really really should not stomp all
> over one of the en defensive mechanisms against vandals without at least
> looking at the issues raised and alerting people to the impact.

See my comment above. Surely someone who has found weird characters that
look like "Jimbo Wales" can be blocked for having an impersonating name
without having to resort to blocking everyone with a non-latin-1 name?

The ultimate answer may well be that en.wikipedia has to remove that policy
> and deal with it.  Has anyone posted any notice of this to wikien-l or the
> Village Pump on en, or do you think it's reasonable and fair to just do it
> without proper and fair notice and time to allow en to talk about it and
> figure out how to handle it?
>

It's been brought up several times at several places.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


body:
Brion Vibber schreef:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> Different-script blocking on en: must therefore stop as soon as SUL is
>> implemented.
>>
>> But, since human-readable usernames are essential to managing the wiki
>> system, and for many people names not in their native script are not
>> human-readable, there must necessarily be some sort of solution to the
>> name-incomprehensibility problem before SUL goes live.
>>
>
> I should just point out that SUL *changes nothing* with regard to this
> situation.
>
> It has always been preferable for the same username to mean the same
> person on all wikis, but it isn't enforced until the system is ready to
> do that. That's all SUL does.
>
> A person may have different usernames on each wiki; they've always been
> and always will be free to do that. SUL does not change that.
>
> A person may also use a nickname for their signatures which is cuter or
> easier to type. Always have been, always will be. SUL does not change that.
>
> It might be useful to be able to make nicks more pervasive in their
> visibility. SUL does not change that.
>
> That doesn't depend on SUL, nor does SUL depend on it in any way.
Hoi,
With SUL intended to provide Single User Login, the functionality and
use of SUL is frustrated when people are then forced to create a user
when the English language Wikipedia insists that it has to be in a Latin
script.

You can not implement SUL and then say that it is OK to frustrate its
central premiss.

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Your reply completely fails to address any points whatsoever of the
> > text you actually quoted.

> It does not help that you only quote part of what I wrote. What you
> quote from is a message where I inform that the imposition of a policy
> that might force me to change my users will only make me retract from a
> project and in this particular case I would stop running the interwiki
> service that I have been running for more than a year.

Of course. But that's not what his email says at all, and so your
reply completely fails to address any points whatsoever of his
message. Which you actually quoted in the process!

Go back and read it again. His idea is symmetric, sensible and reasoned.

Even if you aren't, you do seem to be working on a fundamental
assumption that anyone from en:wp is fundamentally out to cause you
problems. This is not in fact the case. Please make an attempt to
assume better faith.

- d.


body:
Neil Harris schreef:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Neil Harris schreef:
>>
>>
>>> Birgitte SB wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> en.WP is not the primary Wikipedia for many wikimedia
>>>> editors.  These usernames *are* in the primary
>>>> character set of the users home wiki.  I think it is
>>>> perfectly reasonable to expect to not be blocked just
>>>> because Wikimedia adopts SUL.  Bascially what this
>>>> boils down to is someone who today edits as an IP
>>>> without harrassment will be blocked after SUL as soon
>>>> as an en.WP admin spots them on RC.  This will happen
>>>> without the editor doing anything differently on their
>>>> end.
>>>>
>>>> There is strong support for SUL throughout all
>>>> communtities, but I cannot support going live with it
>>>> if large chunks of the wikimedia community will be
>>>> locally blocked without warning on any particular
>>>> wiki.  If en.WP does not wish to adjust thier policies
>>>> to this mew development perhaps en.WP can be left out
>>>> of SUL.  Is it possible for en.WP to keep their own
>>>> user database while all other wikis use a shared
>>>> database?
>>>>
>>>> Birgitte SB
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Absolutely.
>>>
>>> Different-script blocking on en: must therefore stop as soon as SUL is
>>> implemented.
>>>
>>> But, since human-readable usernames are essential to managing the wiki
>>> system, and for many people names not in their native script are not
>>> human-readable, there must necessarily be some sort of solution to the
>>> name-incomprehensibility problem before SUL goes live.
>>>
>>> The truename + nickname idea looks to me like the favourite at the
>>> moment. I definitely support it, with the provisos that:
>>>
>>> * truenames _and_ nicknames need to be made globally unique within the
>>> single SUL namespace, otherwise they will present new opportunities for
>>> misdirection (eg. nick of one user is the same as the truename of
>>> another and vice versa, or that on another different-script wiki...)
>>> * that each truename or nickname have characters only from a single
>>> script system (although they will of course in general have different
>>> script systems from one another, because that's the whole point)
>>> * that the anti-spoofing code be used to filter both (which may need
>>> some overdue improvements in the anti-spoofing algorithm to be put in
>>> place, which I've got on the back burner already anyway)
>>>
>>> I would also suggest, at the risk of further controversy, that having an
>>> appropriate nick be made compulsory if you intend to use your account to
>>> edit in a wiki with a default script different from that of your username.
>>>
>>> Perhaps we could put in place some sort of human-driven wiki-based
>>> please-translate-my-name-into-your-script service for this, or simply
>>> generate a (also globally unique) machine-generated ID until users
>>> create an appropriate nick, with regular nag messages to remind them to
>>> do so?
>>>
>>> -- Neil
>>>
>>>
>> Hoi,
>> You cannot have the cake and eat it too. All languages and scripts that
>> we have are human readable. The notion that they are not is brain dead.
>> The idea that nicks have to be unique too will be next to impossible to
>> implement. Again, when a user is created in a Latin script, and he does
>> "evil" things, you will have to check the talk page / history to find in
>> what way you want to impose sanctions. This is no different from people
>> with a user in another script.
>>
>> Again, I think that the suggestion of forcing to have people change
>> their name is the wrong way to go. I am dead against it. It is
>> discrimination pure and simple.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>>
>>
>>
> "Human readable" != "readable by all humans". For example, most en:
> editors simply cannot read most, or in some cases any, non-Latin
> scripts. That is to say, things like "????????" and "??????????", or
> "??????" and "??????" and "???????????", are as
> incomprehensible to them, and as difficult to memorize or tell apart, as
> "?$^&(*%^$&" and "$($"?%^&$&". And that to a reader of any of the
> scripts in the example above, the reverse may well also apply.
>
> Faced with a vandal called "?????", most en: users won't be able to
> distinguish them from "?????". without looking very, very carefully at
> the respective rendered character strings: and often, not even then. Nor
> will they be able to think of those users by their names: if anything,
> they will think of their names as unintelligible squiggles, and hence
> their users as anonymous -- for if you can't understand or recognize a
> name other than as a squiggle, what use is it to you?
>
> This will be very damaging to the fundamental social fabric of
> Wikipedia, and lead to an us-and-them mentality.
>
> On the other hand, if our fictional user ? has his name rendered beside
> a Latin script nick on en:, other users will instantly be able to put a
> name to him: specifically, his real name, Takeshi, the same one as in
> the kanji version of his true username, which will always be present
> beside it on en: (Indeed, if they talk with or about him for long
> enough, they will come to recognise that kanji character, too.) Of
> course, on ar: he would have a different nick: which would also be
> either another transliteration of "Takeshi", or some close variant.
>
> And the same would apply symmetrically in all of the wikis: if I want to
> edit in ar: I should either ask someone nicely to translate my name as
> an Arab nickname, or put up with whatever Arabic-readable nick the
> system automatically generated for me in lieu of a proper nickname.
>
> So: to the technical requirements in my previous E-mails, I'd like to
> add a couple of other, social, suggestions:
>
> * it should be a guideline that users should always attempt to make
> their nicks the same as their username, or a close variant if that is
> not directly possible;
>
> * and it should be frowned upon _not_ to create a nick if one is editing
> for any significant time on a foreign-script Wikipedia (that is,
> sticking with a machine-generated nick like x105234 should be regarded
> as antisocial). Ideally, the system would generate periodic nag messages
> to remind users to do so.
>
> I hope you can see that in this scheme:
>
> * no-one is asking _anyone_ to change their name
> * all script systems are treated equally, without any privileged
> character set or language
> * everyone is actually more able to see, read and identify with other
> people's real names than if they were presented on their own
>
> -- Neil
Neil,
I have some 170*2 users on the Wiktionary projects all called GerardM
and RobotGMwikt. With SUL people will be able with one click to see that
this is indeed the same person on all of these projects. RobotGMwikt has
probably the most edits on most Wiktionaries. The way things are
configured are such that I can only have one user. I can promise you
that I will not change any of these users. If I am forced to do this, I
will stop running the bot that I have been running for more than a year
without any complaints as to the naming of these users.

I will again say how much I resent this policy of the English language
Wikipedia, it is discrimination pure and simple. With SUL it will be
easy to check WHO it is that is doing the editing. The most charitable
way I can look on this huha is that when SUL is finally there, this
discussion will prove to be a storm in a tea cup.
Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] New user log ?

body:
Matt R wrote:
> --- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>There is still the issue of "recognising" names, and a guideline for
>>that matter might be helpful. But it is not okay to force people to
>>change their user name just to fit one wikipedia rules.
>
>
> I disagree. I don't think it's OK to allow editors on the English language
> Wikipedia to have names that are going to be unmemorable and indistinguishable
> for most other editors.
>
> Perhaps the software can be set-up so that users with non-Latin-script names
> can specify a transliteration of their username for en?
>
> -- Matt

Please re-read what I wrote above. I didnot say an editor with a non
latin caracter name will necessarily edit the english wikipedia as is.
Solutions have been suggested, some suitable, maybe others non suitable.

But I repeat. There is no way the english wikipedia will force a
japanese editor to change his name to a name he can not himself read and
understand. Editors will be able to create accounts in a wide variety of
scripts. We pride ourselves in being an international project. If this
is so, editors should have the opportunity to work on wikipedia with a
user name they are able to understand.

A good question from Abigail. I did not see any answer to, and I hope
Brion can give a feedback on this.

She said

Does anyone know how SUL will work with the "new users" log?
Currently, we monitor the new users log, and then sometimes block
obvious sleeper accounts.  Do we get a single new users log for all
wikimedia projects?  Or will there be an "activate my SUL account on
this project" button that will put an entry in a site-specific new
users log, or what?

Brion ? How will that work ?

Ant


body:
David Gerard schreef:
> On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I will again say how much I resent this policy of the English language
>> Wikipedia, it is discrimination pure and simple. With SUL it will be
>> easy to check WHO it is that is doing the editing. The most charitable
>> way I can look on this huha is that when SUL is finally there, this
>> discussion will prove to be a storm in a tea cup.
>>
>
>
> Your reply completely fails to address any points whatsoever of the
> text you actually quoted.
>
>
> - d.
Hoi,
It does not help that you only quote part of what I wrote. What you
quote from is a message where I inform that the imposition of a policy
that might force me to change my users will only make me retract from a
project and in this particular case I would stop running the interwiki
service that I have been running for more than a year.

The suggestion is that having users tagged in Latin script on the
English language Wikipedia is a good thing. I counter that with the
argument that you drive people away. People who with their non-English
background are extremely valuable when you want to get a NPOV. On the
conference in Belgrade the presentation that impressed me most was one
where it was explained how the English language Wikipedia is not NPOV
and how hard it is to get traction for a presentation of facts that is
less POV.

This discriminatory policy is part of a problem and you mistake it as
part of a solution. It does not really help, and it does certainly hurt.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Eugene van der Pijll

subject: [WikiEN-l] New user log ?

body:
Anthere schreef:
> But I repeat. There is no way the english wikipedia will force a
> japanese editor to change his name to a name he can not himself read and
> understand.

If a Japanese editor cannot read or understand any word written in Latin
script, I don't want him or her editing the English wikipedia.

Eugene


subject: [Foundation-l] Automatic username transliteration for SUL

body:
James Hare wrote:
> On Wikipedia-l or something similar there has been discussion involving
> English Wikipedia's policy of blocking users with usernames that do not use
> the Latin alphabet. Reasons for opposition to this practice include
> ethnocentricism and messing up SUL. However, a point was raised in that
> people unfamiliar with the script will just see it as a bunch of
> squiggly-lines. A suggested remedy was having people transliterate their
> names depending on the wiki.
>
> I'm interested in combining this with a script similar to the Automatic
> Conversion script employed on the Chinese Wikipedia, that would, combined
> with SUL, automatically transliterate usernames contingent on the wiki they
> are on. For example, on French Wikipedia, your username would be in Latin
> script, whereas on the Hebrew Wikipedia your username would be in Hebrew
> script and on Arabic Wikipedia your username would be in Arabic script.
>
> I know there are scripts out there that can transliterate -- in addition to
> the aforementioned conversion script on the Chinese Wikipedia, there are
> quite a few scripts out there that will allow you to input something and
> have it output in a different script.
>
> http://vereb.free.fr/transliteration/transliterator.html has a pretty cool
> one that allows you to type with Latin alphabet settings and it will output
> in a different script. For example,
> - MessedRocker becomes ???????????? with the Cyrillic setting
> - MessedRocker becomes ????????c??? with the Greek setting
> - MessedRocker becomes ??????????? with the Arabic setting.
>
> If something could be created for SUL that would take a username and
> transliterate it depending on the language of the wiki, that would be great.
> I understand there are technical issues involved, but I would like to
> discuss it on a community level.
>
> --James
>

If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.

Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
to bootstrap this.

Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?

-- Neil


subject: [WikiEN-l] New user log ?

body:
Steve Bennett schreef:
> On 12/21/06, Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:
> > If a Japanese editor cannot read or understand any word written in Latin
> > script, I don't want him or her editing the English wikipedia.
>
> What if he's just adding interwiki links?

How would he know if it's the correct article to add the interwiki links
to?

Eugene


subject: [WikiEN-l] New user log ?

body:
Steve Bennett schreef:
> On 12/21/06, Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:
> > How would he know if it's the correct article to add the interwiki links
> > to?
>
> Perhaps because the Japanese article he was working on has an
> interwiki link to this article. I've updated interwiki links on
> foreign Wikipeida's before without being able to read the language.
> Only in Latin-based scripts, but I think the principle is the same.

There is no need for that; there are bots that do that equally badly as
you can do it by hand.

Eugene


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Neil Harris schreef:
>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Neil Harris schreef:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Birgitte SB wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> en.WP is not the primary Wikipedia for many wikimedia
>>>>> editors.  These usernames *are* in the primary
>>>>> character set of the users home wiki.  I think it is
>>>>> perfectly reasonable to expect to not be blocked just
>>>>> because Wikimedia adopts SUL.  Bascially what this
>>>>> boils down to is someone who today edits as an IP
>>>>> without harrassment will be blocked after SUL as soon
>>>>> as an en.WP admin spots them on RC.  This will happen
>>>>> without the editor doing anything differently on their
>>>>> end.
>>>>>
>>>>> There is strong support for SUL throughout all
>>>>> communtities, but I cannot support going live with it
>>>>> if large chunks of the wikimedia community will be
>>>>> locally blocked without warning on any particular
>>>>> wiki.  If en.WP does not wish to adjust thier policies
>>>>> to this mew development perhaps en.WP can be left out
>>>>> of SUL.  Is it possible for en.WP to keep their own
>>>>> user database while all other wikis use a shared
>>>>> database?
>>>>>
>>>>> Birgitte SB
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Absolutely.
>>>>
>>>> Different-script blocking on en: must therefore stop as soon as SUL is
>>>> implemented.
>>>>
>>>> But, since human-readable usernames are essential to managing the wiki
>>>> system, and for many people names not in their native script are not
>>>> human-readable, there must necessarily be some sort of solution to the
>>>> name-incomprehensibility problem before SUL goes live.
>>>>
>>>> The truename + nickname idea looks to me like the favourite at the
>>>> moment. I definitely support it, with the provisos that:
>>>>
>>>> * truenames _and_ nicknames need to be made globally unique within the
>>>> single SUL namespace, otherwise they will present new opportunities for
>>>> misdirection (eg. nick of one user is the same as the truename of
>>>> another and vice versa, or that on another different-script wiki...)
>>>> * that each truename or nickname have characters only from a single
>>>> script system (although they will of course in general have different
>>>> script systems from one another, because that's the whole point)
>>>> * that the anti-spoofing code be used to filter both (which may need
>>>> some overdue improvements in the anti-spoofing algorithm to be put in
>>>> place, which I've got on the back burner already anyway)
>>>>
>>>> I would also suggest, at the risk of further controversy, that having an
>>>> appropriate nick be made compulsory if you intend to use your account to
>>>> edit in a wiki with a default script different from that of your username.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps we could put in place some sort of human-driven wiki-based
>>>> please-translate-my-name-into-your-script service for this, or simply
>>>> generate a (also globally unique) machine-generated ID until users
>>>> create an appropriate nick, with regular nag messages to remind them to
>>>> do so?
>>>>
>>>> -- Neil
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> You cannot have the cake and eat it too. All languages and scripts that
>>> we have are human readable. The notion that they are not is brain dead.
>>> The idea that nicks have to be unique too will be next to impossible to
>>> implement. Again, when a user is created in a Latin script, and he does
>>> "evil" things, you will have to check the talk page / history to find in
>>> what way you want to impose sanctions. This is no different from people
>>> with a user in another script.
>>>
>>> Again, I think that the suggestion of forcing to have people change
>>> their name is the wrong way to go. I am dead against it. It is
>>> discrimination pure and simple.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>     GerardM
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> "Human readable" != "readable by all humans". For example, most en:
>> editors simply cannot read most, or in some cases any, non-Latin
>> scripts. That is to say, things like "????????" and "??????????", or
>> "??????" and "??????" and "???????????", are as
>> incomprehensible to them, and as difficult to memorize or tell apart, as
>> "?$^&(*%^$&" and "$($"?%^&$&". And that to a reader of any of the
>> scripts in the example above, the reverse may well also apply.
>>
>> Faced with a vandal called "?????", most en: users won't be able to
>> distinguish them from "?????". without looking very, very carefully at
>> the respective rendered character strings: and often, not even then. Nor
>> will they be able to think of those users by their names: if anything,
>> they will think of their names as unintelligible squiggles, and hence
>> their users as anonymous -- for if you can't understand or recognize a
>> name other than as a squiggle, what use is it to you?
>>
>> This will be very damaging to the fundamental social fabric of
>> Wikipedia, and lead to an us-and-them mentality.
>>
>> On the other hand, if our fictional user ? has his name rendered beside
>> a Latin script nick on en:, other users will instantly be able to put a
>> name to him: specifically, his real name, Takeshi, the same one as in
>> the kanji version of his true username, which will always be present
>> beside it on en: (Indeed, if they talk with or about him for long
>> enough, they will come to recognise that kanji character, too.) Of
>> course, on ar: he would have a different nick: which would also be
>> either another transliteration of "Takeshi", or some close variant.
>>
>> And the same would apply symmetrically in all of the wikis: if I want to
>> edit in ar: I should either ask someone nicely to translate my name as
>> an Arab nickname, or put up with whatever Arabic-readable nick the
>> system automatically generated for me in lieu of a proper nickname.
>>
>> So: to the technical requirements in my previous E-mails, I'd like to
>> add a couple of other, social, suggestions:
>>
>> * it should be a guideline that users should always attempt to make
>> their nicks the same as their username, or a close variant if that is
>> not directly possible;
>>
>> * and it should be frowned upon _not_ to create a nick if one is editing
>> for any significant time on a foreign-script Wikipedia (that is,
>> sticking with a machine-generated nick like x105234 should be regarded
>> as antisocial). Ideally, the system would generate periodic nag messages
>> to remind users to do so.
>>
>> I hope you can see that in this scheme:
>>
>> * no-one is asking _anyone_ to change their name
>> * all script systems are treated equally, without any privileged
>> character set or language
>> * everyone is actually more able to see, read and identify with other
>> people's real names than if they were presented on their own
>>
>> -- Neil
>>
> Neil,
> I have some 170*2 users on the Wiktionary projects all called GerardM
> and RobotGMwikt. With SUL people will be able with one click to see that
> this is indeed the same person on all of these projects. RobotGMwikt has
> probably the most edits on most Wiktionaries. The way things are
> configured are such that I can only have one user. I can promise you
> that I will not change any of these users. If I am forced to do this, I
> will stop running the bot that I have been running for more than a year
> without any complaints as to the naming of these users.
>
> I will again say how much I resent this policy of the English language
> Wikipedia, it is discrimination pure and simple. With SUL it will be
> easy to check WHO it is that is doing the editing. The most charitable
> way I can look on this huha is that when SUL is finally there, this
> discussion will prove to be a storm in a tea cup.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
>
Which part of "no-one is asking _anyone_ to change their name" did you
miss in the above?

Under any of the most recent proposals aired here, you won't have to do
a thing. Some kind of default disambiguation tag will simply be
displayed next to your username in all the relevant contexts: probably a
number in Arabic numerals.

And voila! All your accounts, robot and human respectively, are
disambiguated for those who can't read the Latin alphabet, in the same
way as the hypothetical User:? (102343), would be, before he decided
(for purely social, human reasons) to change his nick, to be displayed
as User:? (Takeshi) on Latin-script wikis, without changing his true
username at all: it was, is, and always will be just "?", regardless of
how many wikis he uses it on.

Thus, the only requirement for all users would be the need to recognize
strings made from the symbols "0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9", which is about as
culture neutral as it is possible to get, as people from most cultures
already either use, or can recognize the digits of the Arabic number system.

And users who don't want to do anything won't have to do anything at all.

If this does not satisfy you, perhaps you can come up with a better
solution which will let Latin-only readers distinguish at a glance
between ?, ?, and ?, (only one of whom is a vandal) and make them
sufficiently memorable that they can remember them distinctly some time
later?

-- Neil


body:
James Hare wrote:
> I don't know if IPA would work... I mean for all we know, "Bob" could have
> some random pronounciation of "ko-ho-ba-fay-jo-muh". When it comes to
> storing it in the database, I agree it should be some uniform script, like a
> Federation Standard of sorts...
>
>

Even "ko-ho-ba-fay-jo-muh" is better than ????????

Of course, we could always take the approach of putting them in IPA,
thus annoying everyone equally.

-- Neil


from_name: Aphaia

body:
Japanese editors around me is worried when they would be forced to
change their username and thought SUL as the Coming of such Latin-name
age. They worried with sadness to cast away their familiar accounts
which some of them have used for years or cannot choose good
alternation of their current username. For them, introduction of SUL
is equal to application of English Wikipedia naming policy. I would
like to say English Wikipedia community blocked one of foundation wiki
editor permanently only because his account wasn't in Latin and he had
a good history of edits for years. For my eyes the current "fighting
vandalism" on English Wikipedia is beyond the limit of common sense.
Before doing such rude and unthoughtful action, they could have
checked his contributions or user page.

And I would like to say the editor I introduced on the above is not
the first one who was blocked from this reason and forced to change
his username. I know another editor who was blocked permanently and
then was asked to change username. I think it is not a kind
persuasion. I wouldn't like to call their "request" voluntary. They
are not happy and feel treated as second citizens. One of such editors
came to me and said (in Japanese); I am accepting the fact the fact
preferences of English community takes over after all." That is the
result of what English Wikipedia is doing. Result of their
ethnocentric and rudeness.

Shifting to the general issue, As Gerald said, I am afraid "changing
user name with latin literation" is not a good idea from two reasons -
1) if they want, they would have done so already; Commons folks may
know Searobin, a Commons admin; his account on Japanese project has no
Latin character part. If they don't now, it could mean they don't like
so - most of them prefer to keep consistency of username on several
projects. And generally forcing someone to change their username in
that reason is not good. If we are going to recommend a modified
signature, it is fine for me and perhaps for others. 2) We have no
reason all Wikimedia editor know Latin-character. It would not make a
sense to have a username consisting in two parts, but nothing of them
cannot read for the editors. Latin-script using people may think that
too theoretical, but it could happen. Specially for young people in
non-Latin script language world, or rather illiterate folks. I am
afraid from this reason your idea is still Latin-character-centric.

I would like to point out the English Wikipedia rejected my proposal
for asking those people to render such combined signature. I thought
it a compromise but they didn't. So I am afraid, Neil,  you are better
first to go to them and persuade them to think compromise and
improvement. Now they are driving other communities even to folking.
It would be bad and disrespectful if we persuade non-Latin script
account editor to change their signature and after they follow, again
go to them and say "sorry, it couldn't be a comparison. You should
alter your username or just go away".

On 12/21/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Neil Harris schreef:
> >
> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Neil Harris schreef:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Gerard,
> >>>>
> >>>> The problem does indeed occur symmetrically, and while I phrased my
> >>>> reply in terms of making non-Latin names unambiguous on
> >>>> native-Latin-script Wikipedia editions, you might want to re-read my
> >>>> comment, and notice the bit that said:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Of course, to avoid any appearance of linguistic imperialism, the same
> >>>>> facility should be available for users with Latin-script names to add
> >>>>> transliterations in other scripts.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> -- Neil
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> I can only say that I disagree.
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>
> >>>       *?????????*
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Gerard,
> >>
> >> Given that you disagree with both of my suggestions of possible
> >> solutions for the script-incomprehensibility problem, perhaps you could
> >> suggest a better solution to the problem, preferably one that does not
> >> involve the users of every Wikipedia learning to be literate in every
> >> writing system supported by Wikipedia?
> >>
> >> -- ?? ???
> >>
> > Hoi,
> > There is no solution that suits both of us. I disagree with the stance
> > that people have to change their name in order to accommodate. When
> > people are happy to do that it is ok. When they are forced to do this it
> > is not ok. The key is that the user uses ONE script and is allowed to be
> > him or herself. Given the amount of people around there is no chance for
> > you to know if someone is ok even in Latin. You will have to check their
> > talk page and/or edits. This applies here as much.
> >
> > I did not react to the number game because I utterly dislike it.
> > Remember, this is the Wikimedia Foundation where people are allowed to
> > edit anonymously, and you propose to reduce people to numbers.. :( We
> > are talking here about people from other projects. These people that
> > also go to the English language wikipedia should be treated with respect
> > and not with suspicion.
> >
> > When you need a signalling system that someone is probably ok, then you
> > can think of all kinds of metrics that could be applied. Reducing people
> > to a number is ugly, requiring people to change their name is ugly.
> > Creating a system with metrics is ugly. To me it is the best of a bad
> > bunch. The saving grace of metrics is that it can be applied to everyone
> > with equal justification.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> >
>
> I'd be interested in the opinions of some of the native-language users
> of non-Latin scripts on this list about this idea, rather than having
> Gerard imagining what they might think.
>
> I'm not asking the (fictional) Takeshi to change his name, just to make
> it intelligible for others. If he's participating on en:, he is
> presumably able to read/write English. By extension, I'd like to be able
> to extend the same courtesy to others were I to participate on ar:, he:,
> zh:, ko: or jp:, rather than just assuming they could read English, and
> again I would hope that I would bother to learn to read/write
> Arabic/Hebrew/Chinese/Korean/Japanese respectively at at least an
> elementary level, before trying to make any non-trivial edit to those
> Wikipedias.
>
> For example, on ar: or am:, I'd rather that people didn't think of my
> own Latin-script name as "bunch of funny Latin letters I can't read and
> can't tell apart". Likewise, if my name was ?, I believe I'd much
> rather have other, non-Japanese-literate people on en: (ie. nearly all
> of them) think of me as "Takeshi", rather than as "yet another
> unintelligible squiggle".
>
> And again: nothing I'm proposing involves hiding anybody hiding their
> own, preferred spelling of their username in the script of the choice,
> just adding an extra tag to let others be able to read, pronounce and
> remember it. In effect, my proposal offers each user more personal
> choice, not less, since it offers them the ability to choose their
> preferred name in each script, without hiding their true, single, chosen
> unified username.
>
> Incidentally, a possible third option, instead of numeric tags, would be
> offer by default a machine-transliterated version of their name, if they
> don't choose their own: but this might be ugly, and providing machine
> transliteration code/tables for all script/language combinations will
> probably be too much to expect.
>
> It may be that my ideas are completely wrong; but not having a solution
> to the name-confusability problem is not an option because of the
> vandalism problem. Can anyone come up with a better solution?
>
> -- Neil
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
On 12/21/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...except admin. Why can't trusted users handle admin? It's not like
> admin is a big deal, so we should hand it out more liberally.
>

Adminship is a big deal. You may not want this to be the case but it is.

--
geni


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 12/20/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hello,
>>today a user on Japanese Wikipedia whose account is in Kana (a
>>Japanese script) came to our Admins' noticeboard to request for
>>chaning his username. He said he would have liked to do so because he
>>had changed his username on English Wikipedia.
>>
>>I repeat again the English Wikipedia community should reconsider how
>>shameful and discriptive policy they has about users' identity and
>>respect of cultural diversity, and how badly it affects other
>>communities. I am very sorry to see such a request fullfiled to our
>>request page.
>>
>>
>
>
>Although there are strong relationships between language and culture, I
>believe you are off the mark.
>
>It is not unreasonable for the English Wikipedia to have a policy of
>Latin-alphabet usernames.
>
Then it wouldn't be unreasonable for the Japanese wikipedia to have a
policy of only Kana usernames. You bloody yanks, limeys and ozzies and
other anglo saxon idiots are so fucking biased about everybody needs to
speak your f*******g language and nees to understand your f*****g
cultures it is disgusting. There are more peopel around speaking non
english based languages then there are people speaking the lingo. Learn
to adapt to that. I can only predict the whining of stupid Americans
about feeling discriminated when they would be requirde to login in
Chinese on the Chinese wikipedia or Thai on the Thai wikipedia.

Why the f*** should everybody learn your pissant of a language if you
refuse to learn others.,

Waerth .... extremely pissed off


body:
What his honourable Anglo-saxon refuses to portray is that he was just
as abusive himself.

Actually as I mentioned in private conversation to someone on IRC, this
is my reason this pisses me of so much:

	<waerth> 	as a non native english speaker it sometimes gets a bit
disgusting

	<waerth> 	just because you are not from en: us: or oz: you seem to be
from a third world country

	<waerth> 	I experience that in daily life

	<waerth> 	and the average brit and american expatriates over here in
Thailand consider everyone who doesn;t speak english to be some kind of
idiot

	<waerth> 	the way they look down on the local people here because the
average Thai simply doesn't speak english is disgusting

	<waerth> 	and the worst thing is

	<waerth> 	even Dutch people act like that who are here in Thailand

	<waerth> 	and all of them do not even try to learn Thai

	<waerth> 	something I am doing my best to master

	<waerth> 	all that they do is looking down in disdain on the locals here

	<waerth> 	because they do not speak english

	<waerth> 	and then I read it has actually spilled over to wikimedia

	<waerth> 	it hurts me

	<waerth> 	I am almost starting to refuse to speak english anymore

>On 20/12/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Um. I think a policy of expecting people to have usernames readable in the
>>primary character set of the Wikipedia is perfectly reasonable, whatever the
>>language, and nothing to flip out about.
>>Maybe you should reconsider your outrage.
>>
>>
>
>
>He was ranting similarly abusively on IRC just now, confessing he was
>extremely drunk. Let's assume good faith and assume he posts better
>sober.
>
>
>- d.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] interface question - viewing wiki source read-only

body:
Is there a way to examine the wiki source of an article except by
clicking "edit"?  I'm confident this is a newbie question so please
forgive me.

Zero.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Linksearch

references:
<69kgo2hfhm9tre6iglcrk2ql36cm4e4rej@4ax.com>
	<a1be7e0e0612191257j7cf9575bw8d03f37b80d172eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<10011a3a0612191307o114abcbaq962b96403d26ebf9@mail.gmail.com>
	<a1be7e0e0612191315q7c12aa2bmbcf2d776a440a30c@mail.gmail.com>
	<1adf38660612191624p4f0e40ebu6f64bcecc137410f@mail.gmail.com>
	<7t7io2pal1v6dnq486fdaa0ba42gqud002@4ax.com>

body:
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:24:42 -0800, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I'm not aware of any current black magic solutions to sort by namespace,
> >unfortunately, although it seems like Javascript would proooobably be up to
> >the task. I'd also be intrigued if we could sort [[Special:Whatlinkshere]]
> >results by namespace.
>
> OK.  Time for a feature request, then.
>
> Guy (JzG)

Wow, has this not been requested yet?  It would be really useful, I think.

--Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 12/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I found one once where a woman was even using photos I'd taken
> on her site...I wasn't sure whether to be flattered, offended, or
> just...confused.
>
> Steve

I guess that depends on the context in which the photos were being used.

--Ryan


from_name: Michael Noda

body:
On 12/21/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > The notion that the numbers used in the Latin script are universal is
> > also a fallacy.
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> >
> Yes, but it's quite a good approximation to reality. For example, the
> front pages of ar:, am:,he:, ru:, el:, th: and zh: are clear evidence
> that use of ASCII Hindu-Arabic numerals is widespread in common
> practice, even in cultures with their own distinct historic numeral
> systems.
>
> And if we really wanted to, we can also represent the same set of
> decimal digits in other writing systems, for example Devanagari
> numerals, since we already have the localization code to do this ready
> to go.
>
> I like Stephanie's suggestion of User:?????? <#2352562> as a display
> format: we could quite easily arrange that User:#2352562 would be an
> alias for User:?????? throughout the system, with ?????? remaining that
> user's true name everywhere.
>
> Thus, for the user "Examplename", User:Examplename would be their user
> page on every wiki, with User_talk:Examplename being their discussion
> page, and so on... but, for wikis where the script used in their name is
> not one of the native scripts for that wiki,
>
>     [[User:Examplename|Examplename]] <[[User:Examplename|#425256]]>
>
> would appear in every context where the machine-generated text
>
>    [[User:Examplename|Examplename]]
>
> would have appeared before, and "#425256" (or its equivalent with the
> decimal numerals in any other script) would also be usable in the
> software as a synonym for their real-name throughout the SUL universe.
> That is to say:
>
> * User:#425256 would be a redirect to User:Examplename on every wiki.
> * Blocking User:#425265 would have the effect of blocking User:Examplename
> * Special:Contributions/#425265 would have the same result as
> Special:Contributions/Examplename (and would display "User contributions
> for [[User:Examplename]]" at the top on home-script wikis, and "User
> contributions for [[User:Examplename]] <[[User:#425256|#425256]]>" at
> the top on others...
>
> Note that the numeric tags would only appear on ''system-generated''
> text: no user would ever be required to use their alternative numeric
> tag in any human context (unless they wanted to, of course).
>
> Net effect:
>
> * for most practical purposes, no visible change on any wiki, except in
> the immediate context of a username with "foreign-script" characters
> * no user will need to rename any of their accounts
> * no user will need to create any nicknames if they don't want to
> * most users won't even notice the change, since 99% of all editors tend
> to have same-script names
> * only formerly-unreadable "foreign script" names will appear with
> numeric tags on any given wiki, yet
> * either tags or names will work in any computer-input context such as
> blocking or user page display, throughout the entire SUL universe, but
> with the system always giving the true name display priority
>
> Just to gild the lily a bit more, we could also add a bit of latitude
> about what constitutes a "foreign" script: for example, if the community
> on zh: agreed that they could distinguish Latin characters (which they
> can in practice), or the community on en: was to agree that they could
> generally distinguish and remember Greek and Cyrillic characters, the
> software could be configured so that numeric tags could disappear on
> usernames in those scripts within those wikis. Or, contrariwise, if a
> community so desired, numeric tags could appear on all system-displayed
> usernames, even their own.

I think this can be a fair and readily implementable system, both
technically and socially.  It solves the problem en.wiki was
addressing (clumsily) with the username policy, and is fully
compatible with SUL.  It displays no bias for or against any
particular character set.  In other words, I now expect that the SUL
implementation team will account for this proposal, or something very
much like it, when SUL goes live.  If they're not considering it now,
I for one think they should.  (Although I like the earlier suggestion
of salting the account IDs to avoid silly status games over longevity
:-)  )

I'd just like to express my sadness at the lack of co-operative spirit
and foresight shown by some defenders of the en.wiki username policy,
and the lack of assumption of good faith all around.  While I
personally dislike the policy for its heavyhandedness, it's clear that
there is a problem that it addresses, and does so in one of the very
few ways available *in the current technical environment.*  What my
fellow en.wikipedians are failing to deal with properly is that the
technical environment is about to change, soon and inevitably.  SUL is
not going to just go away, because it's too useful to too many people.
 Plans need to be made now to deal with the major sociotechnical
changes that will accompany SUL's introduction.  One of those changes
must be a revision of the en.wiki username policy.  That will come
about through discussion and (cross-)community consensus, so flinging
what amount to accusations of bad faith around, right off the bat, is
less than helpful, to put it mildly.  We need to shed more light and
less heat on this subject, as soon as we can.  I hope we can come
together, as a community of communities, and rise to the challenge.

-Michael Noda


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy
	affects other communities


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
zero 0000 wrote:

>Here is a scenario that explores the boundaries of
>what counts as Original Reseach.  Suppose there is
>a legal issue about which there are two popular
>opinions, say A and B.
>
>Now I log into a well-known depository of legal
>journals and search for this issue.  I get about 20 hits.
>Then I look at each of these hits (articles published
>in peer-reviewed law journals) and in all cases the
>writer gives opinion A.
>
>Ok, so now I am itching to write in Wikipedia
>something like: "The consensus amongst legal
>scholars is that opinion A is correct"  (or similar),
>with a footnote stating the evidence.
>
>Can I do that?  My sources were the best that exist,
>and everything I did can be verified easily by anyone
>with a good library.  On the other hand, I have drawn
>my own conclusions from these observations so
>maybe I'm afoul of the No Original Research policy.
>
>I tend to think it's ok because the conclusions I drew
>were the same as any reasonable person would draw,
>and these conclusions don't require any private
>information.  I admit it is a boundary case though.
>What do you think?
>
That sort of conclusion about the consensus is sensible, and I don't see
how it could possibly be contrary to original research guidelines.  How
you handle opinion B is more tricky.  You began by saying it was
"popular";  there must have been some basis for saying that so the
popularity needs to be dealt with.

Ec


body:
David Gerard schreef:
> On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>> Your reply completely fails to address any points whatsoever of the
>>> text you actually quoted.
>>>
>
>
>> It does not help that you only quote part of what I wrote. What you
>> quote from is a message where I inform that the imposition of a policy
>> that might force me to change my users will only make me retract from a
>> project and in this particular case I would stop running the interwiki
>> service that I have been running for more than a year.
>>
>
>
> Of course. But that's not what his email says at all, and so your
> reply completely fails to address any points whatsoever of his
> message. Which you actually quoted in the process!
>
> Go back and read it again. His idea is symmetric, sensible and reasoned.
>
> Even if you aren't, you do seem to be working on a fundamental
> assumption that anyone from en:wp is fundamentally out to cause you
> problems. This is not in fact the case. Please make an attempt to
> assume better faith.
>
>
> - d.
Hoi,
The fact that it is "symmetric, sensible and reasoned" in your opinion
does not mean that I have to agree with it at all. I do not. In my
opinion it is fundamentally flawed. It is your words that make it seem
as if I have a problem with the English language Wikipedia. I have a
problem with this policy. Talk about good faith by making it seem as if
I have by inference a problem with "anyone" of this project.

The fact that something is symmetric and reasoned does not mean that it
is sensible in the eyes of those that do not push this particular POV. I
can quote Brion who says: "tell the idiots who are trying to push a
ban-on-sight policy".
Thanks
     Gerard


body:
Neil Harris schreef:
> James Hare wrote:
>
>> I don't know if IPA would work... I mean for all we know, "Bob" could have
>> some random pronounciation of "ko-ho-ba-fay-jo-muh". When it comes to
>> storing it in the database, I agree it should be some uniform script, like a
>> Federation Standard of sorts...
>>
>>
>>
>
> Even "ko-ho-ba-fay-jo-muh" is better than ????????
>
> Of course, we could always take the approach of putting them in IPA,
> thus annoying everyone equally.
>
> -- Neil
Hoi.
When you get ?????? it makes sense to install more fonts. The use of IPA
is problematic because it is often done incorrectly and most people have
not had training to do IPA correctly. It takes a lot of training to do
this correctly. My name for instance is notoriously difficult to
pronounce for people who are not Dutch while even a name like "Bob"
should be written in many ways when you consider in how many ways it is
pronounced.

When IPA is used correctly, you will get characters that people will not
be able to read and consequently your problem is not different from the
one you tried to solve.

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
Stephanie Erin Daugherty schreef:
>> Even "ko-ho-ba-fay-jo-muh" is better than ????????
>>
>> Of course, we could always take the approach of putting them in IPA,
>> thus annoying everyone equally.
>>
>> -- Neil
>>
>>
> I think the most important part of the objection to "foreign" character
> sets is that many people on en in particular are unaware of what
> facilities exist for dealing with them. As people in countries using
> Latin character sets rarely see, and almost never have to work with
> anything that's in another character set, they are usually unaware of
> what tools exists for interoperating with them. This is especially true
> when abusive users have deliberately taken advantage of this fact in
> order to make the lives of administrators and of other Wikipedians as
> difficult as possible, and it's also true for those handful of users
> that will mix character sets to "look cool" at the inconvenience of others.
>
> The fact that usernames in foreign character sets pose special technical
> challenges for users unfamiliar with them, and that mainstream
> multilingual support is especially lacking in applications with a Latin
> language family ethnocentricity (in particular large number of Windows
> applications and Windows itself, at least for en-US locale), means that
> functions for working with usernames need to be looked at carefully.
>
> One of the more obvious ways that this can be made to work is to make
> numeric userids more visible and more useful for various operations
> where a username may be near impossible to type, and may even be
> difficult to see. I'd strongly recommend this for usernames using
> characters outside the ranges that a typical user on a given project
> will be able to enter with a "normal" input method. Displaying something
> like  User:???????? <#2352562> would help considerably for those
> situations, but it needs to work consistently for things like accessing
> talk pages, accessing contributions, accessing userpages, and accessing
> logs.
>
> "Nicknames" or aliases, as proposed by someone else in this thread would
> also help - they could be constrained to the characters typically usable
> on a given wiki. I'd also suggest that when showing a "non-native"
> username, that we indicate clearly what character set or even what
> language it's in, this will become even more useful once SUL is
> implemented (hopefully it's going to be part of SUL anyway, dealing with
> namespace collisions otherwise will be insane.)
>
> Transliterations would be useful in some situations, but I'd suggest we
> make this a display option - to be respectful of other cultures means
> that we should respect their writing and their culture wherever
> possible. IPA could be handled in the same way, and this would probably
> be appreciated by at least a few people who would otherwise be confused
> on how to pronounce a given name.
>
> Would a format for  usernames with foreign characters like
> "User:???????? (Arabic) <#2352562>" really be so bad? (This would apply
> equally to projects where latin characters might not be displayable).
>
> -Stephanie
Hoi,
At issue is that the function of NOT seeing the characters, hence the
??????, is a function of your local system. It is easily remedied by
installing fonts. These are for the majority of languages available as
part of your operating system. Making this a display option will get you
into problems too. It would help if we knew what the primary language is
of the person involved. That is something that is relatively easy to
address as we have to address it in the "Multilingual MediaWiki". Here
it is however not compulsory to make this info available.

I want to repeat my question I posted before: Is this the Wikimedia
Foundation that allows people to edit its project anonymously ? Does
this whole idea not reek of bad faith ? How hard is it to have people
install fonts if they object to having to see ??????

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
Neil Harris schreef:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Neil Harris schreef:
>>
>>
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Neil Harris schreef:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Birgitte SB wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> en.WP is not the primary Wikipedia for many wikimedia
>>>>>> editors.  These usernames *are* in the primary
>>>>>> character set of the users home wiki.  I think it is
>>>>>> perfectly reasonable to expect to not be blocked just
>>>>>> because Wikimedia adopts SUL.  Bascially what this
>>>>>> boils down to is someone who today edits as an IP
>>>>>> without harrassment will be blocked after SUL as soon
>>>>>> as an en.WP admin spots them on RC.  This will happen
>>>>>> without the editor doing anything differently on their
>>>>>> end.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is strong support for SUL throughout all
>>>>>> communtities, but I cannot support going live with it
>>>>>> if large chunks of the wikimedia community will be
>>>>>> locally blocked without warning on any particular
>>>>>> wiki.  If en.WP does not wish to adjust thier policies
>>>>>> to this mew development perhaps en.WP can be left out
>>>>>> of SUL.  Is it possible for en.WP to keep their own
>>>>>> user database while all other wikis use a shared
>>>>>> database?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Birgitte SB
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Absolutely.
>>>>>
>>>>> Different-script blocking on en: must therefore stop as soon as SUL is
>>>>> implemented.
>>>>>
>>>>> But, since human-readable usernames are essential to managing the wiki
>>>>> system, and for many people names not in their native script are not
>>>>> human-readable, there must necessarily be some sort of solution to the
>>>>> name-incomprehensibility problem before SUL goes live.
>>>>>
>>>>> The truename + nickname idea looks to me like the favourite at the
>>>>> moment. I definitely support it, with the provisos that:
>>>>>
>>>>> * truenames _and_ nicknames need to be made globally unique within the
>>>>> single SUL namespace, otherwise they will present new opportunities for
>>>>> misdirection (eg. nick of one user is the same as the truename of
>>>>> another and vice versa, or that on another different-script wiki...)
>>>>> * that each truename or nickname have characters only from a single
>>>>> script system (although they will of course in general have different
>>>>> script systems from one another, because that's the whole point)
>>>>> * that the anti-spoofing code be used to filter both (which may need
>>>>> some overdue improvements in the anti-spoofing algorithm to be put in
>>>>> place, which I've got on the back burner already anyway)
>>>>>
>>>>> I would also suggest, at the risk of further controversy, that having an
>>>>> appropriate nick be made compulsory if you intend to use your account to
>>>>> edit in a wiki with a default script different from that of your username.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps we could put in place some sort of human-driven wiki-based
>>>>> please-translate-my-name-into-your-script service for this, or simply
>>>>> generate a (also globally unique) machine-generated ID until users
>>>>> create an appropriate nick, with regular nag messages to remind them to
>>>>> do so?
>>>>>
>>>>> -- Neil
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> You cannot have the cake and eat it too. All languages and scripts that
>>>> we have are human readable. The notion that they are not is brain dead.
>>>> The idea that nicks have to be unique too will be next to impossible to
>>>> implement. Again, when a user is created in a Latin script, and he does
>>>> "evil" things, you will have to check the talk page / history to find in
>>>> what way you want to impose sanctions. This is no different from people
>>>> with a user in another script.
>>>>
>>>> Again, I think that the suggestion of forcing to have people change
>>>> their name is the wrong way to go. I am dead against it. It is
>>>> discrimination pure and simple.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>     GerardM
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> "Human readable" != "readable by all humans". For example, most en:
>>> editors simply cannot read most, or in some cases any, non-Latin
>>> scripts. That is to say, things like "????????" and "??????????", or
>>> "??????" and "??????" and "???????????", are as
>>> incomprehensible to them, and as difficult to memorize or tell apart, as
>>> "?$^&(*%^$&" and "$($"?%^&$&". And that to a reader of any of the
>>> scripts in the example above, the reverse may well also apply.
>>>
>>> Faced with a vandal called "?????", most en: users won't be able to
>>> distinguish them from "?????". without looking very, very carefully at
>>> the respective rendered character strings: and often, not even then. Nor
>>> will they be able to think of those users by their names: if anything,
>>> they will think of their names as unintelligible squiggles, and hence
>>> their users as anonymous -- for if you can't understand or recognize a
>>> name other than as a squiggle, what use is it to you?
>>>
>>> This will be very damaging to the fundamental social fabric of
>>> Wikipedia, and lead to an us-and-them mentality.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, if our fictional user ? has his name rendered beside
>>> a Latin script nick on en:, other users will instantly be able to put a
>>> name to him: specifically, his real name, Takeshi, the same one as in
>>> the kanji version of his true username, which will always be present
>>> beside it on en: (Indeed, if they talk with or about him for long
>>> enough, they will come to recognise that kanji character, too.) Of
>>> course, on ar: he would have a different nick: which would also be
>>> either another transliteration of "Takeshi", or some close variant.
>>>
>>> And the same would apply symmetrically in all of the wikis: if I want to
>>> edit in ar: I should either ask someone nicely to translate my name as
>>> an Arab nickname, or put up with whatever Arabic-readable nick the
>>> system automatically generated for me in lieu of a proper nickname.
>>>
>>> So: to the technical requirements in my previous E-mails, I'd like to
>>> add a couple of other, social, suggestions:
>>>
>>> * it should be a guideline that users should always attempt to make
>>> their nicks the same as their username, or a close variant if that is
>>> not directly possible;
>>>
>>> * and it should be frowned upon _not_ to create a nick if one is editing
>>> for any significant time on a foreign-script Wikipedia (that is,
>>> sticking with a machine-generated nick like x105234 should be regarded
>>> as antisocial). Ideally, the system would generate periodic nag messages
>>> to remind users to do so.
>>>
>>> I hope you can see that in this scheme:
>>>
>>> * no-one is asking _anyone_ to change their name
>>> * all script systems are treated equally, without any privileged
>>> character set or language
>>> * everyone is actually more able to see, read and identify with other
>>> people's real names than if they were presented on their own
>>>
>>> -- Neil
>>>
>>>
>> Neil,
>> I have some 170*2 users on the Wiktionary projects all called GerardM
>> and RobotGMwikt. With SUL people will be able with one click to see that
>> this is indeed the same person on all of these projects. RobotGMwikt has
>> probably the most edits on most Wiktionaries. The way things are
>> configured are such that I can only have one user. I can promise you
>> that I will not change any of these users. If I am forced to do this, I
>> will stop running the bot that I have been running for more than a year
>> without any complaints as to the naming of these users.
>>
>> I will again say how much I resent this policy of the English language
>> Wikipedia, it is discrimination pure and simple. With SUL it will be
>> easy to check WHO it is that is doing the editing. The most charitable
>> way I can look on this huha is that when SUL is finally there, this
>> discussion will prove to be a storm in a tea cup.
>> Thanks,
>>      GerardM
>>
>>
>>
> Which part of "no-one is asking _anyone_ to change their name" did you
> miss in the above?
>
> Under any of the most recent proposals aired here, you won't have to do
> a thing. Some kind of default disambiguation tag will simply be
> displayed next to your username in all the relevant contexts: probably a
> number in Arabic numerals.
>
> And voila! All your accounts, robot and human respectively, are
> disambiguated for those who can't read the Latin alphabet, in the same
> way as the hypothetical User:? (102343), would be, before he decided
> (for purely social, human reasons) to change his nick, to be displayed
> as User:? (Takeshi) on Latin-script wikis, without changing his true
> username at all: it was, is, and always will be just "?", regardless of
> how many wikis he uses it on.
>
> Thus, the only requirement for all users would be the need to recognize
> strings made from the symbols "0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9", which is about as
> culture neutral as it is possible to get, as people from most cultures
> already either use, or can recognize the digits of the Arabic number system.
>
> And users who don't want to do anything won't have to do anything at all.
>
> If this does not satisfy you, perhaps you can come up with a better
> solution which will let Latin-only readers distinguish at a glance
> between ?, ?, and ?, (only one of whom is a vandal) and make them
> sufficiently memorable that they can remember them distinctly some time
> later?
>
> -- Neil
Hoi,
The notion that the numbers used in the Latin script are universal is
also a fallacy.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: habj

body:
2006/12/21, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:

> Is this the Wikimedia
> Foundation that allows people to edit its project anonymously ? Does
> this whole idea not reek of bad faith ? How hard is it to have people
> install fonts if they object to having to see ??????

A minor point, but...

What about the people who edit from computers on which they can not
install software? Public computers, computers at work, the parents' or
boyfriends' computer. Lots of people do this from time to time. Then
we have people like me. I've tried a couple of times to get Japanese
characters in my box simply because I think it would be cool but I
have failed, maybe because my OS is old and stuff is not supported any
more - maybe because I just did it wrong. (No info on how to do that
in this thread, please. I promise you, the first three things you'll
tell me I have already tried - and it does not belong on this list,
anyhow.)

/HB


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
--- Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:

> Nicholas Moreau wrote:
> > What about setting things up so that to create a
> SUL username with say,
> > Tegulu characters, you *must* register at TE, no
> other language's
> > registration form will accept it. That will
> significantly cut down on vanity
> > and vandal usage of the such characters.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> >
> > Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:50:33 -0500
> > From: Stephanie Erin Daugherty
> <stephanie at sosdg.org>
> >
> > This is especially true when abusive users have
> deliberately taken advantage
> > of this fact in order to make the lives of
> administrators and of other
> > Wikipedians as difficult as possible, and it's
> also true for those handful
> > of users that will mix character sets to "look
> cool" at the inconvenience of
> > others.
> >
> >
> Stephanie,
>
> Character set mixing within usernames is no longer
> allowed, at least on
> en: -- that is to say, each username must contain
> characters from only a
> single writing system, in order to prevent
> cross-script homograph
> attacks, and cannot contain any characters that are
> not associated with
> a human natural writing system (such as math
> characters, symbols, line
> art characters, and so on...)
>
> When SUL is rolled out, this restriction will need
> to be applied to all
> wikis.
>
> I like Nick's idea of only being able to register
> name at a wiki that
> has the script of that name in common use: this
> would mean that
> registering abusive nicknames in wikis that do not
> understand a
> particular script will easily be caught, and aid the
> socialization of
> new users into the appropriate communities.
>
> -- Neil
>
>

I can see two ways where this will not be possible.

*There is only a shared user creation log; local logs
no longer exists.

*Local logs exist but do not distinguish from new
users to the shared database and existing database
users who have just edited for the first time locally.

Is there any defintive information yet on how the user
creation log will work after SUL?

Birgitte SB

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[WikiEN-l] issue with an admin refusing to allow me "right to
 vanish"

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> It's the hidden from non-admins part that is a problem.
> If you did any significant editing, the discussions on your talk page could
> be of interest to other editors even after you leave. It could be tagged as
> belonging to a left user, it can be protected from trolls, and it might even
> be blankable, but it cannot be deleted.

In general, I do not agree with this approach.  Allowing people to
vanish, including deleting their user and user_talk pages, is often the
best way to part company with dignity.  "Could be of interest" should
not be the standard, I think, but rather "Is indispensable to the
functioning of the encyclopedia."

There can be exceptions, of course.  If a user repeatedly joins and
deletes (perhaps sockpuppeting), causing a lot of disruptive demands to
delete their userpage, we could just ignore it if that seemed like the
best way to deal with it.

But in general, I see no reason to have a general policy of keeping talk
pages around that make someone who would like to leave us unhappy.


body:
2006/12/21, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk>:

> On the other hand, if our fictional user ? has his name rendered beside
> a Latin script nick on en:, other users will instantly be able to put a
> name to him: specifically, his real name, Takeshi, the same one as in
> the kanji version of his true username, which will always be present
> beside it on en: (Indeed, if they talk with or about him for long
> enough, they will come to recognise that kanji character, too.)

Could you please specify what you mean by "nick" in context? Do you
refer to the username, which is a common meaning of "nick" and
"nickname" - or to an addition, something to be shown along the
username for easier identification for those who can not see the
characters in question?

I understood the suggestion as people should be able to have a
username with any kind of characters in it on any wiki, but they
should be asked to add something - not into the actual username, but
in some field that we currently do not have - in some kind an alphabet
understandable on the local wiki, or similar, for easier
identification. It is similar to Brigitte's suggestion of displaying
the user number, but with something more easy to remember than just a
number. GerardM's reactions make me wonder if i misunderstood.

/habj


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

body:
On 12/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I would like to say they even have no need to install fonts ... just
> turning their "browser" language encoding setting from US-en or
> Latin-1 (iso-8859-1) to UTC-8. Sometimes font installation is
> necessary, but in most cases tuning browser setting is adequate, I
> found it from my experience.
>

You mean UTF-8. UTC-8 is Los-Angeles-centric ;)

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy
	affects other communities

body:
en.WP's username policy is incompatible with SUL.
This is a problem.  We have heard from brion that the
implementation of SUL is not negotiable.  We have
heard from several en.WP editors that they are not
willing to give up the non-Latin username blocks
without further development work to mitigate the
issue.  Considering that the brion (the developer) is
not negotiating, I find the arguments about exactly
which technical developments en.WP would demand in
order for a policy change strange.

This appears to be heading to a showdown.  I think
*that* is the worse than blocking ru.WP admins and
non-latin vandals going to town at en.WP together.  I
would like to hear from anyone who does not strongly
disagree with one of the two polar positions that have
restated many times.

Are there any en.WP editors who believe blocking users
on sight based on their font is not a useful enough
process to be worth breaking SUL for other editors?

Is there anyone outside of en.WP who believes that SUL
is not a useful enough process to be worth creating
bad blood between wikis?

Birgitte SB

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
On 12/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/21/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ...except admin. Why can't trusted users handle admin? It's not like
> > admin is a big deal, so we should hand it out more liberally.
>
> Adminship lets you do lots of very different things, including
> protecting/unprotecting, accessing deleted revisions of pages,
> deleting pages, blocking users, rollback, modifying protected
> articles, templates, and stylesheets and more. This range of powers is
> so diverse that it's hard to even imagine one person actually needing
> them all.

I've done pretty much all of them other than messing with monobook.js
and monobook.css

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
On 12/21/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that it isn't a big deal the way most admins use it.  It's
> reasonable to say that for controversial people, it becomes a bigger
> deal for the community.
>
> The definition of controversial has expanded somewhat, and despite it
> having bitten me recently, I think I agree with that.

The potential for it to be a very big deal indeed on the occasion is
enough to make it a big deal.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On 12/21/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Sure.  I think we first need to recognize that an OFFICE action is an
> emergency action by a person who is faced with a crisis and must act
> immediately.  Powers exercised in an emergency have a greater likelihood
> of being wrong than those which have been subject to consultation and
> reflection.  The errors do not impugn the good faith of the person
> exercising the power.
>
> Extraordinary powers require extraordinary safeguards against both their
> intentional or accidental abuse.
>     1. OFFICE actions should automatically expire after a week unless
> there has been separate positive efforts to extend for a further period
> of one week.

I would argue for 2.

>     2. Key admins should be notified of the reasons for the action, and
> asked to initiate a cleanup.

Can see problems with this one. I would argue that letting arbcom know
after 2 weeks would provide a significant measure of protection.

>     3. Disciplinary sanctions for defying the action  should not be the
> responsibility of the office.
>

Who else is there? Stewards? Generaly stay away from en.

--
geni


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:54:03 -0500, "James Hare"
<messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

>Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).

So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden?  Really?  I am honestly
confused here.  What about, say, a painting of an aircraft?  Is that
unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
I have a friend who is a commercial artist, that is not an idle
question.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject:
[WikiEN-l] issue with an admin refusing to allow me "right to
	vanish"

body:
It's the hidden from non-admins part that is a problem.
If you did any significant editing, the discussions on your talk page could
be of interest to other editors even after you leave. It could be tagged as
belonging to a left user, it can be protected from trolls, and it might even
be blankable, but it cannot be deleted.

Mgm

On 12/20/06, X P <xpwiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> An administrator, CHAIRBOY, has accused me on User:XP of being some banned
> user. I have no interest, having seen the prolonged wars that can develop
> from these things, of participating further in Wikipedia. However, I
> choose
> to exercise my right to vanish and specifically requested that my talk
> page
> be blanked, protected, and hidden from non-admins. However, this
> administrator has now twice reverted me on my own talk page, including
> with
> use of the admin revert tool--which, as far as I know, is a violation.
>
> Why am I not allowed to blank and vacate my own talk page, and have it
> protected afterwards to keep troll comments off of it? This CHAIRBOY
> individual has taken ownership of my talk page.
>
> - XP
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
On 12/21/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> A lot of what gets written would get people arrested or worse
> elsewhere in the world.
>
> This even applies in Europe - see Irving just having gotten out of
> jail in Austria.

Bits of europe. Our legal systems are not harmonised (heh even the
legal systems within the UK have their differences).

--
geni