body:
On 12/8/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have the same problem with merges.
> Some people don't seem to think it's neccesary to attribute material
> to the original article and author when merging something. I'm not
> even sure of a majority of them actually say it's a merge in the
> summary.
>
> That really needs to change.
>
> Mgm
>
It certainly won't change until there's a solution which actually
makes sense, such as an editable history section like I suggested.
Putting authorship information in the comment column, and not in the
authorship column?  I can see why people don't do that, it doesn't
make any sense.

> On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > On 12/8/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > We may pretend it does not matter at all; but the truth is that most
> > > > > authors are proud of their work. And it is hard to be striped of one's
> > > > > authorship. If it were not true, we would not be so numerous to list
> > > > > articles we wrote.
> > > > >
> > > > We should add an *editable* history section.  Call it the history
> > > > namespace.  Put a link to it next to the link to the talk page.
> > > > Automatically add a username to it when the user edits a page (at
> > > > least if they are making a new edit for the year), and manually add a
> > > > username to it when text is copied.
> > >
> > >
> > > It seems to me that this could be resolved by properly referencing the
> > > source of the material in the summary. For example, copied from WP:AFC
> > > request per [[User:ip.add.res.s]]. And editors should be instructed when
> > > copying information from one article to another - to put the version of the
> > > source article just prior to the cut in the target article summary.
> > >
> > > This would point them to the article before the cut and reference the
> > > authors that created the source article up until then.
> >
> > This would work relatively OK if everyone did it correctly and
> > consistently 100% of the time.  Which is to say, we've already tried
> > this, it doesn't work.
> >
> > As for Ant's particular problem, one could suggest that she simply
> > make some minor edit to the text, and thus her name will then show up
> > as an author.  But that's kind of a kludge, and someone looking at the
> > actual diffs would get the wrong impression as to what she was the
> > author of.  It also doesn't address the GFDL requirement to include
> > the title of the work (the title at the time it was edited), if a page
> > is moved, and it makes the list of authors way too long and awkward
> > (we don't need to list the same author more than once per year, in
> > fact in my opinion there should only be one line in the history
> > section per year, listing all the authors, unless the title changes or
> > there is a merger from a different work in which case you'd want one
> > line per title).
> >
> > Anthony
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] BBC R4, now at 17:35 UTC (was BBC Radio 4 "PM" interview
	17:40ish UTC )

body:
I wrote:

>It'll be on the subject of recent changes to Wikipedia and the current
>storm in a teacup. I just chatted to someone there setting up the
>technical details and mentioned the planned UK organization, so that
>might get mentioned too.

Now on 17:35 UTC. Practicing my snappy little soundbites ...

- d.


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: BBC R4,
	now at 17:35 UTC (was BBC Radio 4 "PM" interview17:40ish UTC )

body:
"David Gerard" wrote:
[snip]
> Now on 17:35 UTC. Practicing my snappy little soundbites ...

Might just catch you before I have to leave the office, otherwise I'll try
to remember to listen again in the morning...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] User ratings

body:
Nyenyec N wrote:

>I missed this email, but I just suggested a poor man's substitute for this
>here:
>http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4221
>Simply display the number of edits the user made in the article namespace
>next to their name. Don't change the permissions based on this number, just
>display it.

    http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Kate

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request management

body:
We have been using templates for various management tasks for quite some
time now. Cleanup, wikifikation, deletion, all done through templates
and, sometimes, categories.

While some of these work out OK, AfD seems to be a mess, and Articles
for Creation (for anons on en.wikipedia) seems to be heading that way.
Handling of these task-tags requires editing of pages, making the page
history grow and generally being a pain (what was that template name?
did it have parameters?).

I hereby suggest a mechanism for "request management". Each article
would have a "Request" (or "task") tab, and there would be a
Special:Requests page. Through these, requests of all kind could be
handeled (added, listed, removed). Each request would get its own
"Request:" page for discussion.

A request would consist of:
* Article name (automatically filled in)
* Request type (chosen from a list)
* Comment/reason/explanation text
* Status (from a list, similar to bugzilla; "open", "solved", "wontfix")
* Other automatically filled-in information (who requested it, time of
request)

Requests would be shown in the sidebar of the page (like "Requests:
cleanup, wikify"). Details would be shown of the Special:Request page
*for that article*. All requests, sorted and filtered, would be shown on
Special:Request (*not* for a specific page).

Optionally, a filter could be applied for the categories an article is
in. This would allow me too see all articles in "Biochemitry" that need
a cleanup, for example.

Quick, tell me what you think, while I'm in a coding mood ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request management

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
>
> I hereby suggest a mechanism for "request management". Each article
> would have a "Request" (or "task") tab, and there would be a
> Special:Requests page. Through these, requests of all kind could be
> handeled (added, listed, removed). Each request would get its own
> "Request:" page for discussion.
>
> A request would consist of:
> * Article name (automatically filled in)
> * Request type (chosen from a list)
> * Comment/reason/explanation text
> * Status (from a list, similar to bugzilla; "open", "solved", "wontfix")
> * Other automatically filled-in information (who requested it, time of
> request)
>
> Requests would be shown in the sidebar of the page (like "Requests:
> cleanup, wikify"). Details would be shown of the Special:Request page
> *for that article*. All requests, sorted and filtered, would be shown on
> Special:Request (*not* for a specific page).
>
> Optionally, a filter could be applied for the categories an article is
> in. This would allow me too see all articles in "Biochemitry" that need
> a cleanup, for example.
>
>
> Quick, tell me what you think, while I'm in a coding mood ;-)
>
> Magnus
>

That's a great idea: Wikipedia workflow!

-- Neil


from_name: Brian Haws

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:  Keith Old wrote:

>People should give serious thought to the consequences of such actions
>before they post. All that would happen is that we would end up with one
>hell of a mess.
>
>In any case, those people who are so concerned about AfD should come up with
>a serious proposal that would work better. As yet, I have not seen such a
>proposal.
>
>Regards
>
>
>*Keith Old*
>
>User: Capitalistroadster
>
>
Ok, if someone comes up with a serious proposal then I'll voice my nay
or aye on it but the thought of entirely turning off AFD for even a
short period of time is ludicrious.

-Jtkiefer
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
At the risk of being a bore on this topic, I think Uncontested  Deletions has some potential as a way to reduce the volume at AFD....

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_reform/Proposals/Uncontested_deletions

    "According to Dragonsflight?s 100 days survey, 58.2% of all AFD nominations resulted in uncontested deletions. No one, not even the creator, voted to keep those articles."

    I'm not proposing this as a total replacement of AFD however....


body:
Well, that was surprisingly fluffy, and I actually managed to correct
the common factual errors - (a) we're not blocking all anonymous
contribution, only creating new articles and (b) it wasn't because of
Siegenthaler. Also said we were working on how to polish up this raw
material and pointed out there's no substitute for thought. So far, so
good. Anyone who gets a transcript, send it in and I'll put it up on
my LiveJournal (http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/).

- d.


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
I would support such a move if substantial leeway was given to newpages
patrollers to speedily delete obvious ads, spam, forumcruft, etc. - pages
that may not necessarily currently fall under speedy delete criteria but
would clearly and unambiguously lose if placed on the now-closed AfD. I've
gone back to doing newpages since the anon ban, and the rate of sheer crap
coming in is still spectacularly high.

-FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/8/05, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/8/05, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > By the way, I really hope the experiment of switching off anon page
> > > > creation is followed up with an experiment in switching off AFD for a
> > > > month.
> > >
> > > Isn't that a bit like experimenting with not taking out your trash for a
> > > month? They're both fairly unpleasant experiences that no one really
> > wants
> > > to do, but they can't be halted without some other way of getting rid of
> > the
> > > refuse.
> >
> > Turn off AfD, let all editors delete articles.
>
>
> I don't want to know how many times [[George Bush]] would be deleted. :)
>
Of course, the rules against vandalism and the 3RR would apply. People
who arbitrarily or abusively delete articles would be treated just
like any other abusive editor.


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

body:
On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We have the same problem with merges.
> > Some people don't seem to think it's neccesary to attribute material
> > to the original article and author when merging something. I'm not
> > even sure of a majority of them actually say it's a merge in the
> > summary.
> >
> > That really needs to change.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
> It certainly won't change until there's a solution which actually
> makes sense, such as an editable history section like I suggested.
> Putting authorship information in the comment column, and not in the
> authorship column?  I can see why people don't do that, it doesn't
> make any sense.
>
>
>
>
> > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > On 12/8/05, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > > On 12/8/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > > We may pretend it does not matter at all; but the truth is that most
> > > > > > authors are proud of their work. And it is hard to be striped of one's
> > > > > > authorship. If it were not true, we would not be so numerous to list
> > > > > > articles we wrote.
> > > > > >
> > > > > We should add an *editable* history section.  Call it the history
> > > > > namespace.  Put a link to it next to the link to the talk page.
> > > > > Automatically add a username to it when the user edits a page (at
> > > > > least if they are making a new edit for the year), and manually add a
> > > > > username to it when text is copied.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > It seems to me that this could be resolved by properly referencing the
> > > > source of the material in the summary. For example, copied from WP:AFC
> > > > request per [[User:ip.add.res.s]]. And editors should be instructed when
> > > > copying information from one article to another - to put the version of the
> > > > source article just prior to the cut in the target article summary.
> > > >
> > > > This would point them to the article before the cut and reference the
> > > > authors that created the source article up until then.
> > >
> > > This would work relatively OK if everyone did it correctly and
> > > consistently 100% of the time.  Which is to say, we've already tried
> > > this, it doesn't work.
> > >
> > > As for Ant's particular problem, one could suggest that she simply
> > > make some minor edit to the text, and thus her name will then show up
> > > as an author.  But that's kind of a kludge, and someone looking at the
> > > actual diffs would get the wrong impression as to what she was the
> > > author of.  It also doesn't address the GFDL requirement to include
> > > the title of the work (the title at the time it was edited), if a page
> > > is moved, and it makes the list of authors way too long and awkward
> > > (we don't need to list the same author more than once per year, in
> > > fact in my opinion there should only be one line in the history
> > > section per year, listing all the authors, unless the title changes or
> > > there is a merger from a different work in which case you'd want one
> > > line per title).
> > >

I'm wondering how many US copyright lawyers are participating in this
discussion.

While we're all speaking out of our butts, let me add that simply
explicating that by submitting to Wikipedia you're willing to accept
authorship credit under the collective name of "Wikipedia
contributors" would likely handle any legal considerations.

But IANAL. And it's not like lawyers actually know anything. It's all
whistling Dixie until a court rules.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Jtkiefer wrote:

> Ok, if someone comes up with a serious proposal then I'll voice my nay
> or aye on it but the thought of entirely turning off AFD for even a
> short period of time is ludicrious.

That's bit of an opinion. Personally, I can't see why turning it off for
a short time is "ludicrous"; if it turns out to suck and we turn it back
on it'll just have to run at slightly higher capacity than usual to work
through the backlog that built up during the outage. If AfD can't handle
running at a slightly higher capacity then it's all going to fall apart
in a little while anyway once Wikipedia grows past that limit.


body:
On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, that was surprisingly fluffy, and I actually managed to correct
> the common factual errors - (a) we're not blocking all anonymous
> contribution, only creating new articles and (b) it wasn't because of
> Siegenthaler. Also said we were working on how to polish up this raw
> material and pointed out there's no substitute for thought. So far, so
> good. Anyone who gets a transcript, send it in and I'll put it up on
> my LiveJournal (http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/).

> what is my name
Your name is John Siegenthaler Sr. [Footnote 1]
> footnote 1
Not a very good name, is it?
> complain about Wikipedia
As you complain about Wikipedia, anonymous editors were blocked from
creating new articles. There is no causal relationship between the two
events.

5 points for the reference. And 10 points for the followup line to the
last line above.


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>> I may be confused here, but I was under the impression we were
>> discussing being sued _in a UK court_, not _by the UK government_.
>> Very different things; HMG really doesn't give a damn about us and is
>> very unlikely to unless we do something insanely stupid like publish
>> Vanguard patrol details.
>
>
> You forget, Anthony's American.  Americans don't realise that the UK
> (or, indeed, any Western country) is a democracy with separation of
> powers and everything.

No, we simply own dictionaries (including your very own OED!) which
properly point out that the word "government" has multiple meanings.
One of them is, in Parliamentary systems, a collective term for the
current ruling coalition and their attendant services, agencies, and
whatnot, as in "the government lost a vote of no confidence".  Another
one is, much more generally, a collective term for the apparatus of the
state, as in "Myanmar has an authoritarian government", or "the UK's
system of government is constitutional monarchy".

-Mark


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is "gold dust" (Guardian article and leader)

body:
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:42:09 +0100, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com>
wrote:

>
>
> There's gold in them there hills!
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1661693,00.html
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1661567,00.html

Nice to see some "good press" for a change, but theyr factual accuracy
could have been better... Refering to www.wikipedia.com rather than
en.wikipedia.org and saying that contributions by anonymous users are
banned (they can contribute just fine, just not create new articles), and
saying there are 600 editors (asume they mean admins) and such.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>Of course, the rules against vandalism and the 3RR would apply. People
>who arbitrarily or abusively delete articles would be treated just
>like any other abusive editor.
>
>
I shudder at the thought of it, Wikipedia would turn into chaos, trolls
would go wild, in short I am extremely opposed to the idea of turning
off AFD for even a day.

-Jtkiefer


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request management

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>> Magnus Manske wrote:
>>
>>> Quick, tell me what you think, while I'm in a coding mood ;-)
>>>
>>> Magnus
>>>
>>>
>> That's a great idea: Wikipedia workflow!
>>
>
> So long as readers can very easily see the workflow status of the article w/o having to access a
> tab, then I?m all for it. In other words ; this system should look the same as what we do now. The
> only difference would be added software support to make things easier for editors.
>

Currently, they can see "this article needs cleanup" (or the like). I
though along the lines of a sidebar note; maybe a little less prominent
than the current style.

Magnus


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, that was surprisingly fluffy, and I actually managed to correct
> the common factual errors - (a) we're not blocking all anonymous
> contribution, only creating new articles and (b) it wasn't because of
> Siegenthaler. Also said we were working on how to polish up this raw
> material and pointed out there's no substitute for thought. So far, so
> good. Anyone who gets a transcript, send it in and I'll put it up on
> my LiveJournal (http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/).
>
>

No transcript as yet, but if anyone wants to listen, it's on this.  PM
is a daily radio programme that runs from about 1700 UTC for about an
hour every day, so the interview will not be available on this URL for
long.  If you have a way of snaffling the sound for posteriority (an
olde steam-powered tape recorder should do) do it quickly.

The piece is at 36'40" and starts with a woman's voice reading the
introduction to the Wikipedia article on the PM program.  Then there's
a telephone interview with David Gerard, with his strong Australian
accent very evident.  It finishes at around 41'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/shows/rpms/radio4/pm.ram


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>I'm wondering how many US copyright lawyers are participating in this
>discussion.
>
>While we're all speaking out of our butts, let me add that simply
>explicating that by submitting to Wikipedia you're willing to accept
>authorship credit under the collective name of "Wikipedia
>contributors" would likely handle any legal considerations.
>
>But IANAL. And it's not like lawyers actually know anything. It's all
>whistling Dixie until a court rules.
>
>
That, in a manner of speaking, would be one reason why wise lawyers
often refrain from joining in discussions where they might end up
dispensing legal advice without any idea to whom they might be giving
it, or how those people might use it. And why, on those occasions when
they do offer such statements to the general public, they frequently
lard it up with disclaimers about how it is not legal advice.

--Michael Snow


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

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

body:
>>
> Thanks, I'm figuring it out now. What I can't figure out was who
> had the
> bright idea to limit the log type and action to varchar(10) fields,
> having me wonder why the action is always "stablevers" instead of
> "stableversion", and why the log doesn't display them :-(

Anyone with decent common sense wouldn't put descriptions into
logging table. You may use mediawiki native language interfaces for
that.

Domas


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On 08/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> No transcript as yet, but if anyone wants to listen, it's on this.  PM
> is a daily radio programme that runs from about 1700 UTC for about an
> hour every day, so the interview will not be available on this URL for
> long.  If you have a way of snaffling the sound for posteriority (an
> olde steam-powered tape recorder should do) do it quickly.

Actually, it will be around for 7 days, because that's the standard
storage time on the BBC's "Listen Again" service, regardless of how
regular a program is. You just need to select the right day of the
week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/radio4/aod.shtml?radio4/pm_thu

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Keith Old wrote:

>People should give serious thought to the consequences of such actions
>before they post. All that would happen is that we would end up with one
>hell of a mess.
>
>In any case, those people who are so concerned about AfD should come up with
>a serious proposal that would work better. As yet, I have not seen such a
>proposal.
>
>Regards
>
>
>*Keith Old*
>
>User: Capitalistroadster
>
>
Ok, if someone comes up with a serious proposal then I'll voice my nay
or aye on it but the thought of entirely turning off AFD for even a
short period of time is ludicrious.

-Jtkiefer


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

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
>>>
>> Thanks, I'm figuring it out now. What I can't figure out was who had the
>> bright idea to limit the log type and action to varchar(10) fields,
>> having me wonder why the action is always "stablevers" instead of
>> "stableversion", and why the log doesn't display them :-(
>
> Anyone with decent common sense wouldn't put descriptions into logging
> table. You may use mediawiki native language interfaces for that.
"stableversion" is a key, not a translation nor a description...

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] What's the big deal about anonymous editing?

body:
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:42:23 +0100, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:

<snip>
> Many people don't want to get fully involved at first. I was one of
> them, and many Wikipedians I've talked to also started out this way. If
> we had to pass through the registration barrier, all of us would never
> have joined. As it occurred, we joined after making at least a few dozen
> edits and realising how addictive Wikipedia was. This is of course
> purely anecdotal, but based on it, I have no doubt at all when I say
> Wikipedia would not be anywhere near its present size if you could not
> contribute without registering from the start.

True, I myself created 9 articles and 2 categories as an anon. I only
registered because it was the only way to upload images, and then I fell
in love with the watchlist and all the rest.

Would I have become hooked if I was not allowed to create articles though?
Hard to tell, but I think soo, most people can find a few articles they
can fiddle with without needing to create an article. Others might react
differently though. I have seen one or two good contributors who refuse to
register and consider userpages, and comunity building a complete and
utter waste of time. It would be a shame to loose these as they are
dedicated to providing good content, but as long as they can still edit
existing pages I don't think it will become a huge deal. If push comes to
shove those people will just create a "dispisable" acount, use it to
create pages and maybe upload images, and otherwise keep editing without
logging in (this is anoying if they forget to provide source and copyright
info on the images as you can't get in touch with them again, but
otherwise not rely a problem).

--
[[User:Sherool]]


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Admins - another experiment in relation to a
	Seigenthaler-style incident

body:
Coming from someone who's consistently opposed good faith efforts to make it
easier for admins to get rid of crap wiki pages, and, in fact, is at this
very moment proposing to not allow crap-but-not-speedy-crap wiki pages to be
deleted at all for a month, I find that statement quite amusing.

On 12/8/05 8:55 PM, "Tony Sidaway" <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why?  Are we building an encyclopedia or just hosting a playpen for
> anybody to put crap into wiki pages?


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Articles for Creation vs. Requested Articles

body:
I've already seen Articles for creation being useful and weeding out
suggestions for which people provided no basic info to include. Those
would've ended up as eternal stubs if the anon in question was free to
create it.

Mgm

On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > > > From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> > > > >
> > > > > I bet it is a permanent policy change because (a) it seems to be working
> > > > > quite well and (b) it is consistent with our commitment to remain open.
> > > > >
> > > > > --Jimbo
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] is already 62 kb long.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > geni
> > >
> > > The "Requested Articles" pages are longer.
> > >
> > > Actually I don't know even how long they are, because they are currently
> > > a medium-sized page consisting of nothing but links to a hundred or so
> > > medium-sized pages consisting of nothing but article names.
> > >
> > > So, what's your point?
> >
> > [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] is heading towards being
> > unmanageable. It's useing up rescources that could better be spent
> > elsewhere.
> >
> >
> > --
> > geni
>
> What articles are sitting there?  Are they ones we really need?  If
> not, maybe the problem is that we have an "articles for creation" in
> the first place.
>
> As for the indication that this change is working, I'd like to see
> some more details.  How is it working?  How is it failing?  One place
> it is probably working well is with those one liners that non-logged
> in users create when they click on a red link and wind up with a text
> box.  This probably isn't even malicious in many cases.  Maybe we
> could try addressing this but still allowing people to create new
> articles without logging in if they do so explicitly.
>
> I've tried to keep an open mind about this experiment because I agree
> with Jimbo that it doesn't really change the openness of the site.
> Pretty much anyone can create an account if they want to.  It also
> doesn't disallow anonymity, since in fact the only way to really be
> anonymous (to those without CheckUser) would be to create a new
> account with each edit anyway.  (Note that these points wouldn't apply
> to other changes like not allowing new accounts to create new
> articles.)  The way I see it, this is basically a question of
> efficiency, what policy best facilitates the creation of good articles
> but hinders the creation of bad ones.  I still haven't seen enough
> data to make up my mind though.
>
> Oh yeah, I'd like to point out the one data point which I found most
> persuasive.  In the statistics that were given, the number of new
> articles went down by nearly exactly the same as the number of
> deletions.  If that holds up over a long period of time, damn that's a
> good statistic.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Yes, this kind of articles makes me wish the guardian had an edit button.
Does anyone know how to reach the person who wrote it to get it corrected?

Mgm

On 12/8/05, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:42:09 +0100, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > There's gold in them there hills!
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1661693,00.html
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1661567,00.html
>
> Nice to see some "good press" for a change, but theyr factual accuracy
> could have been better... Refering to www.wikipedia.com rather than
> en.wikipedia.org and saying that contributions by anonymous users are
> banned (they can contribute just fine, just not create new articles), and
> saying there are 600 editors (asume they mean admins) and such.
>
> --
> [[User:Sherool]]
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 08/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> What exactly is an "eternal stub", anyway?  I thought by definition a
> stub was able to be expanded.

An eternal stub is one that is eternally able to be expanded... but
no-one ever does.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Ben Emmel

body:
Excellent job, David. It's so crucial to correct misconceptions about
Wikipedia (gospel-like and so on), and hopefully this will reach some
listening ears. Might even be enough for me now to crawl out of my
wiki-hole!

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


body:
On 12/8/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Actually, it will be around for 7 days, because that's the standard
> storage time on the BBC's "Listen Again" service, regardless of how
> regular a program is. You just need to select the right day of the
> week:
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/radio4/aod.shtml?radio4/pm_thu
>

Are you by any chance an Archers fan? :)

Thanks.  Perhaps understandably, given the byzantine complexity of our
recent experiences, the BBC's Eddie Mair had a bit of a garbled
account of what Wikipedia was up to.  I loved to hear David calmly
correcting Eddie Mair on every single question he put, without
betraying the least sign of vexation or impatience.

I thought Eddie came out of it quite well, too.  Possibly the most
shaggable voice on radio.  Men with Scottish accents make my toes
tingle.


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is "gold dust" (Guardian article and
	leader)

references:
<p06230913bfbdf66eaa30@192.168.116.8>
	<op.s1g8gaddr18sbe@mainframe.mshome.net>
	<op.s1g8gaddr18sbe-xscV+lpWsrXe8AuGaXSDWeTW4wlIGRCZ@public.gmane.org>
	<fb7fdd9c0512081235m63c6cefbp84f969032fea4dcd@mail.gmail.com>

body:
In message
<fb7fdd9c0512081235m63c6cefbp84f969032fea4dcd at mail.gmail.com>,
MacGyverMagic/Mgm
<macgyvermagic-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>Yes, this kind of articles makes me wish the guardian had an edit button.
>Does anyone know how to reach the person who wrote it to get it corrected?
>
>Mgm

"It is the policy of the Guardian to correct significant errors as soon
as possible. Please quote the date and page number. Readers may contact
the office of the readers' editor by telephoning +44 (0)20 7713 4736
between 11am and 5pm UK time Monday to Friday excluding public holidays.
Send mail to The Readers' Editor, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER.
Fax +44 (0)20 7239 9997. Email: reader at guardian.co.uk"

>On 12/8/05, Sherool <jamydlan-f/vm7P8qpiNhl2p70BpVqQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:42:09 +0100, Gordon Joly
>><gordon.joly-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > There's gold in them there hills!
>> >
>> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1661693,00.html
>> >
>> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1661567,00.html
>>
>> Nice to see some "good press" for a change, but theyr factual accuracy
>> could have been better... Refering to www.wikipedia.com rather than
>> en.wikipedia.org and saying that contributions by anonymous users are
>> banned (they can contribute just fine, just not create new articles), and
>> saying there are 600 editors (asume they mean admins) and such.
>>
>> --
>> [[User:Sherool]]
>>

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


body:
On 08/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually, it will be around for 7 days, because that's the standard
> > storage time on the BBC's "Listen Again" service [...]

> Are you by any chance an Archers fan? :)

No, but my mum is. And she lives in Holland.

> I loved to hear David calmly
> correcting Eddie Mair on every single question he put, without
> betraying the least sign of vexation or impatience.

Yeah, can I just say, I thought the mention of the "big yellow and
black Under Construction sign" was a very good thing to have out
there, in the public media - even if we're not actually going to
create such a label on our website, it's maybe something we should
insert into the coverage more often.

So yes, I'll add my congratulations to David for fielding this very well. :)

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
G'day Ray,

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
>>> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
>>> Look at it this way:
>>
>> Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
>> by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
>> that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
>> the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
>> legal presense in the UK).
>
> It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
> Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
> be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
> interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
> country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
> precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
> "Ugly American".

While I'm behind you 100% on the "America is not the world!" position
(heck, earlier I was getting irritated at the US-centricism of [[Safety
orange]], for cryin' out loud), I don't think Anthony meant what you
think he meant.  You (presumably) read it as "UK law is not worth
talking about unless you're English, and we're American", while Anthony
(presumably) meant it as "the servers are in Florida, so US law is what
we *really* need to worry about".

I agree that it wasn't phrased as well as it could have been, but this
isn't the time to start complaining about US-centricism, and Anthony
isn't the person to rant at (yet).

> The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
> naturally caries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
> the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
> implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
> more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
> same world as the rest of us.

Everything in the para above, except the clause about "bushshit", was
perfect.  Hurrah!

Cheers,

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 6/12/2005


body:
On 12/8/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yeah, can I just say, I thought the mention of the "big

1995-style!

yellow and
> black Under Construction sign" was a very good thing to have out
> there, in the public media - even if we're not actually going to
> create such a label on our website, it's maybe something we should
> insert into the coverage more often.
>

I wonder if it'd be possible to show one segment of the WikMedia globe
symbol as a yellow-and-black triangle, just enough to get the message
through without destroying the prettiness of the design.

Wikipedia has built the web quicker than anything since Altavista (yes
I know that sounds like saying we're the most innovative design since
the bubble car...) so a little reminder of how we do it might not be
out of place.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
G'day Anthony,

> On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>What you may or may not be personally interested in is not a problem.
>>It's perfectly normal for anyone to be interested in the laws of his own
>>country, and citizens of other countries will have concerns about how
>>they are affected by US law
>
> But it's wrong to point out that most people on this list don't live
> in the UK, and therefore don't care about UK libel law?

*I* don't live in the UK (I'm a fan of sunshine, thankyou), but I *am*
interested in British law.  Your logical expressions need work.

Also: stop digging.  *Please*.  Ray took something you said the wrong
way; the stupidest thing you could do as a result is to argue for the
sake of arguing and convince him he was right.

Cheers,

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 6/12/2005


body:
We have the same problem with merges.
Some people don't seem to think it's neccesary to attribute material
to the original article and author when merging something. I'm not
even sure of a majority of them actually say it's a merge in the
summary.

That really needs to change.

Mgm

On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > On 12/8/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > We may pretend it does not matter at all; but the truth is that most
> > > > authors are proud of their work. And it is hard to be striped of one's
> > > > authorship. If it were not true, we would not be so numerous to list
> > > > articles we wrote.
> > > >
> > > We should add an *editable* history section.  Call it the history
> > > namespace.  Put a link to it next to the link to the talk page.
> > > Automatically add a username to it when the user edits a page (at
> > > least if they are making a new edit for the year), and manually add a
> > > username to it when text is copied.
> >
> >
> > It seems to me that this could be resolved by properly referencing the
> > source of the material in the summary. For example, copied from WP:AFC
> > request per [[User:ip.add.res.s]]. And editors should be instructed when
> > copying information from one article to another - to put the version of the
> > source article just prior to the cut in the target article summary.
> >
> > This would point them to the article before the cut and reference the
> > authors that created the source article up until then.
>
> This would work relatively OK if everyone did it correctly and
> consistently 100% of the time.  Which is to say, we've already tried
> this, it doesn't work.
>
> As for Ant's particular problem, one could suggest that she simply
> make some minor edit to the text, and thus her name will then show up
> as an author.  But that's kind of a kludge, and someone looking at the
> actual diffs would get the wrong impression as to what she was the
> author of.  It also doesn't address the GFDL requirement to include
> the title of the work (the title at the time it was edited), if a page
> is moved, and it makes the list of authors way too long and awkward
> (we don't need to list the same author more than once per year, in
> fact in my opinion there should only be one line in the history
> section per year, listing all the authors, unless the title changes or
> there is a merger from a different work in which case you'd want one
> line per title).
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 12/8/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 08/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > What exactly is an "eternal stub", anyway?  I thought by definition a
> > stub was able to be expanded.
>
> An eternal stub is one that is eternally able to be expanded... but
> no-one ever does.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
I was referring to anons creating these substubs before the anon
article creation was blocked. Eternal stubs can refer to either the
type Andrew mentioned or substubs which some people say are
expandable, but actually aren't.

Articles at least need a solid base on which to build: a definition
and slightly more info. If no one is willing to submit that, I don't
see the point in keeping it.

Mgm


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone who gets a transcript, send it in and I'll put it up on
> my LiveJournal (http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/).
>

Nice interview, David,

I've uploaded a recording to commons (which I also posted in the
comments on your blog)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:DavidGerardRadio4Dec2005.ogg

It's not the best so feel free anyone to redo and paste over. Also,
what's the copyright status of something liek this which I've grabbed
from an audio stream? Fair use?

Cormac


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: BBC R4,	now at 17:35 UTC (was BBC Radio 4 "PM"
	interview17:40ish UTC )

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Thanks.  Perhaps understandably, given the byzantine complexity of our
> recent experiences, the BBC's Eddie Mair had a bit of a garbled
> account of what Wikipedia was up to.  I loved to hear David calmly
> correcting Eddie Mair on every single question he put, without
> betraying the least sign of vexation or impatience.

He was fine - it's knowing when to ignore the question and just say
whatever it was you wanted to say ;-)

> I thought Eddie came out of it quite well, too.  Possibly the most
> shaggable voice on radio.  Men with Scottish accents make my toes
> tingle.

You goddamn freak!

(it's not my toes)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] disputing block: 69.108.172.162, lysdexia

body:
Hermione1980 wrote:

> She's emailed me now about this block three times. The first time
> (please note, I am paraphrasing) it was "Please help a poor, abused
> Wikipedian out", the second time it was "Where does it say I need to
> have a good attitude?", the third time she out-and-out called me a
> liar. After the second email, I asked her to cease emailing me, as I
> wasn't going to do anything about her block; she did so anyway. I
> guess that's one of the perks of being an admin, is I get to receive
> messages from irate people demanding to be unblocked. Yippee.

And then be gracious every time! %-D

- d.


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 12/8/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> While we're all speaking out of our butts, let me add that simply
> explicating that by submitting to Wikipedia you're willing to accept
> authorship credit under the collective name of "Wikipedia
> contributors" would likely handle any legal considerations.

The legal consideration is about the license Wikipedia uses, the GFDL,
and is a question about what sorts of requirements it puts upon uses
of the text. It is not a terribly difficult document to understand for
the most part even without legal training.

Personally I think most of the discussions here are in relation to the
fact that the GFDL was really designed to work with software manuals
more than anything else, if I recall. I don't think it really works
perfectly for a wiki encyclopedia, much less all of the different
formats of media we have on it (sound, images, etc.).

My crystal-ball prediction is that someday we'll end up with a
modified (though GFDL-compatible) license, WFDL or something like
that, more tailored to our needs. But of course we don't know all of
our current much less future needs, so it would be hasty to worry
about that too much now, I think.

As an aside, I'm not sure trying to make MediaWiki bend backwards to
accommodate the GFDL's more intricate interpretations is the right way
to go either.

FF


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/8/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> People should give serious thought to the consequences of such actions
> before they post. All that would happen is that we would end up with one
> hell of a mess.
>
> In any case, those people who are so concerned about AfD should come up with
> a serious proposal that would work better. As yet, I have not seen such a
> proposal.
>
I'm having real trouble determining if people are being facetious or
not when they write such things as the above. "People should give
serious thought to the consequences of such actions before they post."
That sounds like Ari Fleischer's admonition to Bill Maher:

"It's a terrible thing to say, and it's unfortunate... There are
reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say,
watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that;
there never is."

http://unquietmind.com/presssec.html

My proposal is entirely serious; just because someone doesn't like the
thought of it doesn't make it unserious. Just because someone thinks
it will fail or have negative consequences doesn't make it unserious.
You *might be wrong*, you know.

I often am.

Because I'm human.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Next experiment: switch off AFD for a month. (was
	Guardian in defense of Wikipedia)

body:
On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Carbonite wrote:
> >On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> By the way, I really hope the experiment of switching off anon page
> >> creation is followed up with an experiment in switching off AFD for a
> >> month.
>
> >Isn't that a bit like experimenting with not taking out your trash for a
> >month? They're both fairly unpleasant experiences that no one really wants
> >to do, but they can't be halted without some other way of getting rid of the
> >refuse.
>
>
> If the volunteer garbagemen are driving people out of the town as hard
> as they can, it would probably be less damaging to the community and
> be a REALLY GOOD incentive to come up with something less socially
> toxic. See evidence in current RFAr.
>

Look at the figures.

We get around 1500 new articles a day (this is when you count after
seven days, after the obvious nonsense has been deleted).

Running flat out, AfD is struggling to cope with around 140 deletions
a day and will probably start acting really funny at around 200.

Most new articles are, at this stage, of a quality that would cause
many of those in AfD would throw up their hands in horror.

It doesn't matter, it's a wiki.  That's how wikis work.  If we turned
off AfD for a month, maybe 5000 that would have been deleted would not
have been deleted.  But Wikipedia is growing at a rate of around
50,000 articles a month.  And most of those new articles are as bad or
worse than stuff is regularly deleted by AfD.

I suggest that we invest in technology to detect nonsense articles,
commercial spam and the like.  Mucking about with kids who write up
their school rock band or write a webzine with two enthusiastic
readers, one of whom is the editor's mom, isn't going to make a bit of
difference.  In six months time the kid will have moved on and the
article can be purged because nobody's accessing it, it hasn't been
edited  much. and one or two humans (call them sluggish deleters if
you like) have looked at the article to check that isn't an article
about Darwin's speech on worm casts (redirect to [[Charles Darwin]])
or an article about a school magazine (merge with school article) or
whatever.

AfD is ugly and quickly becoming completely useless.  And it takes up
so much of the energy of some of our most intelligent editors.  Let's
take a one month holiday from it and see what happens.  The 5000 or so
articles that won't be deleted are only equivalent to three days
normal growth.


body:
On 12/8/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > geni wrote:
> > >On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Alan_Dershowitz
> >
>
>
> Dunno why, but when I saw that name I thought "What is Weird Al
> Dershowitz complaining about?"  I think I'll avoid editing the content
> for now.  I'm going to avoid the temptation to add to the article on
> "Weird Al" Yankovic the statement: "Weird Al Yankovic is no relation
> to Al Dershowitz."

Sorry to be blunt, but it seems to me that Jimbo has got some
'splaining to do. I hope he hasn't started morphing into LMS. Jimbo
really has done a great job of *staying away from editing individual
articles* and deciding to institute policies until recently, so far as
I can tell. But then I hadn't been paying much attention of late.

Sorry about that.

Come back to the light, Jimbo, back to the light! You've spent too
much time with the nattering nabobs...


from_name: John Lee

body:
Nyenyec N wrote:

>I've been following this argument with great interest for a long time.
>
>I have to admit that I never really understood why anonymous editing
>was such an important thing for so many people. Especially, since it
>doesn't give you more privacy than a username does.
>
>A typical internet user creates user accounts on dozens of sites. You
>can't even read email without a user account. You can't even access
>the internet without some sort of user account at your ISP.
>
>I admit but sometimes it's convenient not having to log in, but both
>the server and modern browsers help you remember your username /
>password, so mostly it takes less than 10 seconds to log in.
>
>And it seems that no one talks about this, but its soo *frustrating*
>to communicate with anonymous users? Has the anonymous editor been
>warned already not to upload copyrighted material? Not to write in ALL
>CAPS? Pointed to various policies or guidelines? Was this her first
>edit?  You can't tell, because they don't have a user name.
>
>Can anyone tell if Wikipedia wouldn't have reached its current size if
>you required the creation of a user account, just like 99.9% of the
>websites does?
>
>Did anonymous editing make such a great difference? Can someone prove it?
>
>-- nyenyec
>
>
>

Many people don't want to get fully involved at first. I was one of
them, and many Wikipedians I've talked to also started out this way. If
we had to pass through the registration barrier, all of us would never
have joined. As it occurred, we joined after making at least a few dozen
edits and realising how addictive Wikipedia was. This is of course
purely anecdotal, but based on it, I have no doubt at all when I say
Wikipedia would not be anywhere near its present size if you could not
contribute without registering from the start.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] Return of the FlickrLickrs

body:
Flickr has finally updated their API, so the FlickrLickr project is back
in operation. We now have metadata for more than 50,000 new images, so
that should keep us busy for a while. All existing FlickrLickr users
have new slices.

If you don't know FlickrLickr yet - it's a project to select, describe
and categorize images on Flickr that are licensed under CC-BY[*] and
upload them to the Wikimedia Commons. FlickrLickr users have a
convenient interface to select photos and edit metadata.

See
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:FlickrLickr
for a screenshot and details about the project.

This is far from a dumping process. Good FlickrLickr users spend many
hours to produce accurate metadata and select only the best photos. So
far, we have uploaded more than 4000 images, and reviewed 55000.

In spite of the effort involved, many users find the project addictive,
since it provides a never-ending flow of photos while also being useful
to Wikimedia. You can also get your name into the statistics:

http://epov.org/cgi-bin/flickrlickr.pl?stats=1

(Every slice has 1,000 photos.)

If you would like to become a FlickrLickr, drop me a private message.

Best,

Erik

[*] There are over 700,000 photos under that license, so I haven't
bothered with crawling CC-BY-SA metadata yet. There's more than 550,000
photos under CC-BY-SA. Even if we finished reviewing all of those, the
daily stream of photos is big enough to keep quite a few users busy. See
http://flickr.com/creativecommons for details.


body:
Carbonite wrote:

>On 12/8/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Carbonite wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>By the way, I really hope the experiment of switching off anon page
>>>>>creation is followed up with an experiment in switching off AFD for a
>>>>>month.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Isn't that a bit like experimenting with not taking out your trash for
>>>>
>>>>
>>a
>>
>>
>>>>month? They're both fairly unpleasant experiences that no one really
>>>>
>>>>
>>wants
>>
>>
>>>>to do, but they can't be halted without some other way of getting rid
>>>>
>>>>
>>of the
>>
>>
>>>>refuse.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>If the volunteer garbagemen are driving people out of the town as hard
>>>as they can, it would probably be less damaging to the community and
>>>be a REALLY GOOD incentive to come up with something less socially
>>>toxic. See evidence in current RFAr.
>>>
>>>
>>Right.  And "trash" is more akin to speedy deletes, which is
>>altogether different.  AfD candidates are rarely hurting anyone; just
>>out of place or against one or another content policy.
>>
>>
>
>
>Looking at the huge number of articles on AfD that are unanimously
>deleted, I'm not sure how else to describe them other than "trash". These
>articles may not be as bad as speedy deletes (the decaying food that will
>cause a stench if not quickly removed), but that doesn't mean they should be
>kept. What we need is a process to efficiently remove articles that
>currently receive 100% support for deletion on AfD. If these articles no
>longer had to go through AfD, I think we probably could scrap the whole
>thing and send the volunteer garbagemen packing.
>
>Carbonite
>
>

This might be a good time to plug my year-old proposal,
[[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion]] (the only one to have ever received
support from a majority of Wikipedians). Of course I'm not saying we
should put up for yet another vote. It might be a good idea to review it
and cull some material for the ongoing process of deletion reform
(that's as slow as ever, I might add). For the umpteenth time, AFD isn't
scaling. It works, but it's not scaling. Plain and simple. We're already
seeing almost 200 article debates in one day. If we're 10 times smaller
than Google or MSN, what happens when we reach that size? 2000 debates
in a day. We'll have to break it down by hour! This simply ain't gonna'
scale, folks. We need to come up with something. It's alright to proceed
slowly, but from what I can see, deletion reform is as slow and as
stalled as it was a year ago when I mooted Preliminary Deletion.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
Being able to change the author column would help,
but I could still see problems.
How would you avoid people crediting others for edits they didn't make
or suggest?
Also, some people are inherently lazy and still won't proper attribute
something even if there's an easy way to do so. Proof is in the fact
people fail to listen to multiple clear instructions on both the help-
and reference desk which are explained and should make sense.

Any idea on how to avoid such problems. Re-educating users would safe
coders a lot of work, not to mention another scheduled downtime to
upgrade databases like when the current id was being changed so diffs
to the latest version could remain static.

Mgfm

On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We have the same problem with merges.
> > Some people don't seem to think it's neccesary to attribute material
> > to the original article and author when merging something. I'm not
> > even sure of a majority of them actually say it's a merge in the
> > summary.
> >
> > That really needs to change.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
> It certainly won't change until there's a solution which actually
> makes sense, such as an editable history section like I suggested.
> Putting authorship information in the comment column, and not in the
> authorship column?  I can see why people don't do that, it doesn't
> make any sense.
>
>
>
>
> > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > On 12/8/05, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > > On 12/8/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > > We may pretend it does not matter at all; but the truth is that most
> > > > > > authors are proud of their work. And it is hard to be striped of one's
> > > > > > authorship. If it were not true, we would not be so numerous to list
> > > > > > articles we wrote.
> > > > > >
> > > > > We should add an *editable* history section.  Call it the history
> > > > > namespace.  Put a link to it next to the link to the talk page.
> > > > > Automatically add a username to it when the user edits a page (at
> > > > > least if they are making a new edit for the year), and manually add a
> > > > > username to it when text is copied.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > It seems to me that this could be resolved by properly referencing the
> > > > source of the material in the summary. For example, copied from WP:AFC
> > > > request per [[User:ip.add.res.s]]. And editors should be instructed when
> > > > copying information from one article to another - to put the version of the
> > > > source article just prior to the cut in the target article summary.
> > > >
> > > > This would point them to the article before the cut and reference the
> > > > authors that created the source article up until then.
> > >
> > > This would work relatively OK if everyone did it correctly and
> > > consistently 100% of the time.  Which is to say, we've already tried
> > > this, it doesn't work.
> > >
> > > As for Ant's particular problem, one could suggest that she simply
> > > make some minor edit to the text, and thus her name will then show up
> > > as an author.  But that's kind of a kludge, and someone looking at the
> > > actual diffs would get the wrong impression as to what she was the
> > > author of.  It also doesn't address the GFDL requirement to include
> > > the title of the work (the title at the time it was edited), if a page
> > > is moved, and it makes the list of authors way too long and awkward
> > > (we don't need to list the same author more than once per year, in
> > > fact in my opinion there should only be one line in the history
> > > section per year, listing all the authors, unless the title changes or
> > > there is a merger from a different work in which case you'd want one
> > > line per title).
> > >
> > > Anthony
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Cormaggio put a copy on Commons at:

 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:DavidGerardRadio4Dec2005.ogg

Since that's probably a blatant copyright violation and will be shot as
soon as it's spotted by a Commons admin, I've put a better rip here:

 http://static.rocknerd.org/david/DavidGerardRadio4Dec2005.ogg

(Produced by RealAudio -> AIFF -> Ogg, no less. 1.7 MB.)

I didn't mention other languages much, but then I was running out of
space to get my soundbites in.

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC R4,
 now at 17:35 UTC (was BBC Radio 4 "PM" interview17:40ish UTC )


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote trimming

body:
Can people here please try to trim down quoted material when
replying?  Some of you are quoting back pages and pages of stuff,
when all that's needed is a brief excerpt to establish context.  The
worst excesses in this regard tend to go along with [[top-posting]],
though quoting back a huge post and then bottom-posting beneath it
can be pretty annoying too.  Sometimes people are even quoting back
the list footer; a post a couple of days ago actually had *four*
copies of it trailing off the end.

http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request management

body:
On 08/12/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Currently, they can see "this article needs cleanup" (or the like). I
> though along the lines of a sidebar note; maybe a little less prominent
> than the current style.

Well, some things need a more prominent notice than others - e.g. a
page listed for deletion needs to really draw attention to that fact.
Obviously, this could still be done manually with templates, but it
would be nice if the software would do it for you (it would also keep
"meta" info out of the article source, though it could stay in the
history as null revisions, like page moves do).

Perhaps a notice displayed at the top of the page, configurable as a
wikitext-rich MediaWiki page per request type. That way "needs
cleanup" could just be a little italic note, and "may be deleted
shortly" could be a large red box with lots of exclamation marks.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: rudy at stealthaccess.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why am I blocked? Beckjord

body:
 Can anybody get anyone else blocked?

Nlu blocked me because I posted a polite comment on Martial Law's talk page.

Or because I placed some minor edits on the Bigfoot page.

What is going on?

This makes me want to bail out of Wikipedia.

         Jon-Erik Beckjord

"beckjord"


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC R4,
	now at 17:35 UTC (was BBC Radio 4 "PM" interview17:40ish UTC )

body:
On 12/9/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Cormaggio put a copy on Commons at:
>
>  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:DavidGerardRadio4Dec2005.ogg
>
> Since that's probably a blatant copyright violation and will be shot as
> soon as it's spotted by a Commons admin, I've put a better rip here:
>
>  http://static.rocknerd.org/david/DavidGerardRadio4Dec2005.ogg
>
> (Produced by RealAudio -> AIFF -> Ogg, no less. 1.7 MB.)
>

Yes, that's much better - i was just working with what i had
(Audacity) and first time at it too - I haven't got used to Real
Player yet either.

And yes, my copyvio was indeed "shot on sight"

Cormac


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:

>> Of course, the rules against vandalism and the 3RR would apply. People
>> who arbitrarily or abusively delete articles would be treated just
>> like any other abusive editor.

> I shudder at the thought of it, Wikipedia would turn into chaos, trolls
> would go wild, in short I am extremely opposed to the idea of turning
> off AFD for even a day.

No, I mean just turn it off, not Cunc's plan. See Tony Sidaway's email
for the numbers: AFD is not the last barrier against the downfall of
Wikipedia, it's now just somewhere people try to win arguments and salt
the earth. It would result in only a few more articles staying around
and a lot less querulousness and bad faith to newcomers.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Jtkiefer wrote:

> Ok, if someone comes up with a serious proposal then I'll voice my nay
> or aye on it but the thought of entirely turning off AFD for even a
> short period of time is ludicrious.

Answer the numbers in Tony's post in detail.

- d.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/9/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> David,
>
> What I think is what would happen is that more articles would end up being
> speedy deleted with the author often not even having a say. Nor would they
> have the chance to improve their articles in response to criticism.

Yes.  Those non-speedy candidates that are deleted out-of-process and
are capable of being articles of some kind can be speedy undeleted
again under the undeletion policy.  This isn't rocket science.


body:
On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> >On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Alan_Dershowitz
>

Dunno why, but when I saw that name I thought "What is Weird Al
Dershowitz complaining about?"  I think I'll avoid editing the content
for now.  I'm going to avoid the temptation to add to the article on
"Weird Al" Yankovic the statement: "Weird Al Yankovic is no relation
to Al Dershowitz."


from_name: M. Creidieki Crouch

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Press pages for the projects & funddrive press
	release

body:
On 12/7/05, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> It should be linked from the main page and contain at least the
> following information:

When you say "linked from the main page", do you mean directly linked?
 The current English page is linked via the "Contact Us" page in the
sidebar, which seems quite sufficient to me.

--  Creidieki


from_name: V. Ivanov

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

body:
Seems, that you assign somedy else's thoughts to me, which is not a
good habit. I have never told Romanian (and/or Modovan) is a Slavic
language.

As for the myth about this or that alfabet fitting better or worse to
this or that language, I even don't wont to discuss it. A good
alphabet is a phonematic one ("one phoneme" <--> "one symbol"), and
the shape of letters is just an accessory thing.

2005/12/5, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com>:
> > You probably don't know the history of the language well. In fact both
> > Romanian and Moldovans has been Orthodox Christians and used Cyrillic
> > script for several ages. The modern Latin script is relatively a news
> > in both lands. So one can's speak in such a self-confindent way about
> > Moldovan Cyrillics as "decreed in the unfree days". By the way, do you
> > know much about the unfree days? They were not totally that "unfree".
> > :) Be more neutral. ;)
>
> For some reason, Slavic people seem to think that "Romania is really just a
> Slavic language that has only recently tried to affirm itself as
> Latin/Romance". Not only you, but others as well. Romanian, while influenced
> by Slavic languages to a degree, is still overwhelmingly Romance and the
> Latin alphabet is the best alphabet to represent it...

--
Esperu cxiam!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/9/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If we got rid of AfD, we'd have to sort through the Deletion logs,

Only for a short while.  After a few waggy fingers and blocks, the
administrators performing inappropriate out-of-process deletions would
stop.  Trust me on this.  Calvinball.


body:
On 12/9/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry to be blunt, but it seems to me that Jimbo has got some
> 'splaining to do.

Why?  Are we building an encyclopedia or just hosting a playpen for
anybody to put crap into wiki pages?


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

body:
2005/12/6, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
> Currently, it is limited to the english wikipedia.
...
> I suppose other communities will be given the opportunity to make their
> own decisions according to cultural background and state of development.

In smaller Wikipedias, where every edit is viewed by somebody else,
there is no need of such system. It might even be harmful. In larger
Wikipedias, like the English, it's a good idea, I believe.

Sl.

--
Esperu cxiam!


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Uzbek wiktionary

body:
Hi, by chance I had a look at uz.wiktionary.org - it is being vandalised
(or better spammed with urls) regularly, but up to now has no obvious
contents. wouldn't it make sense to block it from being edited? Or at
least find someone who looks after it once a month to do the clean-up
(having admin rights)?

Thanks,

Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo
http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

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

body:
--- Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> The way I read your answer, you assume that all improvement is coming
> from our existing editors. I do not know what you base this on.

That is not what I meant at all. I was simply pointing out that on a large wiki, such as
en.wikipedia, the negatives start to outweigh the positives of allowing anon and newbie new page
creation. In other words (for large wikis), the bad effects of additional maintenance and strain
on existing users start to outweigh the benefit of recruitment and the relatively small part of
anon new pages that survive. We also have to consider Jimmy's reasoning; that new pages are much
more likely to have far fewer eyeballs on them and thus more likely to contain libel, slander, or
blatantly false information. Thus limiting that function to people who are less likely to do that
(at least on impulse), is something to try.

We may in fact have just shifted much of the problem to new users and may need to extend this
experiment to cover new user accounts as well. Undoing a page creation is only something that
admins can take care of, so this would be not-unlike our prohibition on page moves by newbies
since multiple page moves can only be fixed by admins.

> But thinking
> that we can get absolute good quality is an achievable goal is like
> believing in Santaclaus.

Nobody here is that naive. What we must do, however, is decrease the probability of creating bad
content and increase the probability of creating good content. We need to scale our processes to
meet new demands. Our software and methods need to adapt to an environment where people depend on
the larger wikis to be as correct as possible and where our fame and license makes the libel,
slander, and false information we host that much more harmful; both to those it directly puts into
a bad light and ourselves.

> Having made the step to have a user account like described is a big step
> towards becoming a community member. That is the point that you try to deny.

Have you seen the number of user accounts created on the Enlglish Wikipedia? It is an order of
magnitude greater than the size of the community. That misses the whole point anyway; our goal is
to create the world's largest and best free encyclopedia. The community is a means to that end.
Granted, the community is vitally important, but concerns about it should not trump our goal.
Let's not deny our goal.

-- mav

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


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

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

body:
On 12/8/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Being able to change the author column would help,
> but I could still see problems.
> How would you avoid people crediting others for edits they didn't make
> or suggest?

It's not really that horrible to have a few spurious authorship lines
here and there.  I'd much rather have a few extra than a few missing.
Anyway, you'd avoid it by reverting the edits which do so.

I don't say the system is magic, but I think it's a lot better than
what we have now (and it'd be in addition to what we have now anyway).

> Also, some people are inherently lazy and still won't proper attribute
> something even if there's an easy way to do so. Proof is in the fact
> people fail to listen to multiple clear instructions on both the help-
> and reference desk which are explained and should make sense.
>
Right.  It's not perfect.  Just better.  At least if someone is lazy
and doesn't attribute something and then someone else catches them, it
can be fixed.

If we added a "references" field to the edit page, even if it was
optional, the number of attributions would probably increase even
more.  The field would be unformatted, so someone could of course type
"I just knew it" or "copied from some website" or even "poop" for
their reference, but it'd be one more thing to look into if someone
put their reference as "Wikipedia".  Remember, one of the reasons
academics and publishers are so tough on references is to avoid
plagiarism.  If someone can check your reference and see that the
information you added is in that source, then there's much less of a
chance you just copy-pasted it (to use the electronic version) from
some other place.

> Any idea on how to avoid such problems. Re-educating users would safe
> coders a lot of work, not to mention another scheduled downtime to
> upgrade databases like when the current id was being changed so diffs
> to the latest version could remain static.
>
> Mgfm
>
Hmm, the way I see it it'd be a relatively simple feature, and
wouldn't require any changes to the database.  Just add a namespace
called History, put a link to it next to Talk, and put some code in
the software to automatically edit the History page whenever the
article gets edited.  The database wouldn't change at all.

Now, adding a references section would preferably add a column to a
database table.  Whether or not that would require scheduled downtime,
I don't know.  The last version of MySQL I used was pretty crappy when
it comes to altering tables on the fly.  There are ways to do it in
MySQL, but it takes a little bit of thinking and good design.
Scheduled downtime should be unacceptable on a site this big;
unfortunately it isn't.  (BTW, it's trivial to alter tables, on a live
database, without downtime, in PostgreSQL.  And I say this as someone
who personally prefers MySQL, so it's not just advocacy.)

> On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > We have the same problem with merges.
> > > Some people don't seem to think it's neccesary to attribute material
> > > to the original article and author when merging something. I'm not
> > > even sure of a majority of them actually say it's a merge in the
> > > summary.
> > >
> > > That really needs to change.
> > >
> > > Mgm
> > >
> > It certainly won't change until there's a solution which actually
> > makes sense, such as an editable history section like I suggested.
> > Putting authorship information in the comment column, and not in the
> > authorship column?  I can see why people don't do that, it doesn't
> > make any sense.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > On 12/8/05, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On 12/8/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > > > On 12/8/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > We may pretend it does not matter at all; but the truth is that most
> > > > > > > authors are proud of their work. And it is hard to be striped of one's
> > > > > > > authorship. If it were not true, we would not be so numerous to list
> > > > > > > articles we wrote.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > We should add an *editable* history section.  Call it the history
> > > > > > namespace.  Put a link to it next to the link to the talk page.
> > > > > > Automatically add a username to it when the user edits a page (at
> > > > > > least if they are making a new edit for the year), and manually add a
> > > > > > username to it when text is copied.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > It seems to me that this could be resolved by properly referencing the
> > > > > source of the material in the summary. For example, copied from WP:AFC
> > > > > request per [[User:ip.add.res.s]]. And editors should be instructed when
> > > > > copying information from one article to another - to put the version of the
> > > > > source article just prior to the cut in the target article summary.
> > > > >
> > > > > This would point them to the article before the cut and reference the
> > > > > authors that created the source article up until then.
> > > >
> > > > This would work relatively OK if everyone did it correctly and
> > > > consistently 100% of the time.  Which is to say, we've already tried
> > > > this, it doesn't work.
> > > >
> > > > As for Ant's particular problem, one could suggest that she simply
> > > > make some minor edit to the text, and thus her name will then show up
> > > > as an author.  But that's kind of a kludge, and someone looking at the
> > > > actual diffs would get the wrong impression as to what she was the
> > > > author of.  It also doesn't address the GFDL requirement to include
> > > > the title of the work (the title at the time it was edited), if a page
> > > > is moved, and it makes the list of authors way too long and awkward
> > > > (we don't need to list the same author more than once per year, in
> > > > fact in my opinion there should only be one line in the history
> > > > section per year, listing all the authors, unless the title changes or
> > > > there is a merger from a different work in which case you'd want one
> > > > line per title).
> > > >
> > > > Anthony
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Keith Old wrote:

> What I think is what would happen is that more articles would end up being
> speedy deleted with the author often not even having a say. Nor would they
> have the chance to improve their articles in response to criticism.

The creator often doesn't have a chance now, because the AFD regulars
think it's too much like work to notify them.

> Personally, I don't go to Articles for Deletion to win arguments or to salt
> the earth. Nor do the vast majority the hundreds of other people who
> participate in the process. From my experience most people on AfD are
> amenable to good argument. We should Assume Good Faith regarding
> participants in Articles for Deletion.

See current RFAr. It blatantly encourages an atmosphere of bad faith and
that's damaging.

- d.


body:
On 12/8/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> My crystal-ball prediction is that someday we'll end up with a
> modified (though GFDL-compatible) license, WFDL or something like
> that, more tailored to our needs. But of course we don't know all of
> our current much less future needs, so it would be hasty to worry
> about that too much now, I think.
>
Lawrence Lessig, working through Creative Commons, annouced on
cc-lessigletter that he is "launching a project to facilitate
interoperability among sufficiently compatible license types."  I'd
strongly recommend the newsletter to anyone interested in these sorts
of things.  It's a once a week letter so it's low traffic and usually
fairly interesting.  The last edition talked about how "Erik M?ller
argues against the use of a Creative Commons NonCommercial (NC)
license" and how "content licensed under a NC license can't be
included within Wikipedia."

> As an aside, I'm not sure trying to make MediaWiki bend backwards to
> accommodate the GFDL's more intricate interpretations is the right way
> to go either.
>
> FF

I don't really think so either.  I was more responding to Ant's
concern that about being "strip[p]ed of one's authorship".  Forgetting
the GFDL completely, there should *still* be a place where people can
go to see a list of the authors of an article (without sifting through
10,000 lines of history just to see the 200 authors, or writing a bot
to do so).  If we're going to make this, we might as well add in the
years and the titles and make it GFDL compatible to boot.

Anthony


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Well, we have at least one important supporter

body:
I know he's Canadian, & for some reason I think he lives in Vancouver.
If that's right, then I suspect he must be on speaking terms with Ray.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20051209

Geoff


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/9/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>   >
> >>Basically, I am asking whether the policy is shoot libel on sight.
> >
> >
> > Libels should be removed as soon as they are discovered.
>
> The next question, obviously, is which country's definition of libel do
> we use?

Untrue statements should be removed.

True statements which do not add encyclopedia value should be removed.

Kelly


body:
On 12/9/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I don't really think so either.  I was more responding to Ant's
> concern that about being "strip[p]ed of one's authorship".  Forgetting
> the GFDL completely, there should *still* be a place where people can
> go to see a list of the authors of an article (without sifting through
> 10,000 lines of history just to see the 200 authors, or writing a bot
> to do so).  If we're going to make this, we might as well add in the
> years and the titles and make it GFDL compatible to boot.
>
Let me give an example of what I'm thinking:

*'''Bill Gates''', copyright (c) 2005, written, and published by
Wikipedia users Psy guy, JJman69, Adam Bishop, Sceptre, Bluemoose,
Everyking, Anetode, FireFox, Idont havaname, GraemeL, Android79,
Rebroad, Thatdog, Y0u, Fredrik, Bwithh, Esprit15d, JoanneB, Greenmind,
Throup, [blah blah blah], and various anonymous contributors to
Wikipedia
*'''Bill Gates''', copyright (c) 2004, written, and published by
PeregrineAY, SeventyThree, Henrygb, OoberMick, Wimt, Veemonkamiya,
Phoenix2, Alex.tan, MrGALL, Merovingian, Chealer, Krystyn Dominik,
WikiED, Jpers36, Adoniscik, Ric man, Sarg, R3m0t, [blah blah blah],
and various anonymous contributors to Wikipedia
*'''Bill_GateS''', copyright (c) 2004, written, and published by [blah
blah blah, let's pretend this was an old title]
*[[Melinda Gates]], copyright (c) 2005, written and published by [blah
blah blah, let's pretend this was a merge and redirect]
*[http://blah Taking Over the World], an article in the [[Free On-line
Dictionary of Computing]], copyright (c) 2005, written by whoever,
published by Denis Howe, used with permission under the GFDL.
[pretending this was an article from an outside source used under the
GFDL]
*[http://blah Bill Gates], an article in the [http://blah German
Wikipedia], written and published by [blah blah blah] and various
anonymous contributors to the German Wikipedia, translated with
permission under the GFDL.

Anyway, there are a few questions as to exactly what format to use,
etc., but that's my basic idea.  I think it'd be a lot easier to read
than http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Gates&limit=500&action=history
, and I think it'd make it a lot easier for answers.com and other
reusers to actually give credit to the people who have written the
work that they're using.  Being more GFDL compliant is a bonus - this
should be done regardless of the GFDL.

Anthony


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote trimming

body:
"Daniel R. Tobias" wrote

> Can people here please try to trim down quoted material when
> replying?

I agree with the sentiment.  But I have actually killfiled a number of
posters to this list who really cannot hack the basic etiquette (guys, if I
ever need to read those posts, they are there on the Web archive - but if
you can't keep it crisp then I'm not going to see it on my first pass).

Charles


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Account creation spike on enwiki after anonymous page
	creation got disabled

body:
On 12/9/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> I made a plot[1] of account creations on the English Wikipedia based
> on Newuserlog data, there has been quite a spike since anonymous page
> creation got disabled, although the numbers are a bit inaccurate since
> it has also been in the press lately.

Damn you!  I was going to do that! :)

Kelly


from_name: Keith Old

body:
Folks

So far, I think that the articles for creation process is working well after
three days.

We also see if there is some interest in the articles created or not. I
think it has potential even if anonymous users were allowed to create
articles.

Perhaps there is room for a merge between the two processes with the
requested articles having room for people to explain why they are requesting
the articles.

Regards

*Keith Old*

Keith Old

On 12/9/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 12/8/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 08/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > What exactly is an "eternal stub", anyway?  I thought by definition
> a
> > > > stub was able to be expanded.
> > >
> > > An eternal stub is one that is eternally able to be expanded... but
> > > no-one ever does.
> > >
> > > --
> > > - Andrew Gray
> > >  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> > I was referring to anons creating these substubs before the anon
> > article creation was blocked. Eternal stubs can refer to either the
> > type Andrew mentioned or substubs which some people say are
> > expandable, but actually aren't.
> >
> > Articles at least need a solid base on which to build: a definition
> > and slightly more info. If no one is willing to submit that, I don't
> > see the point in keeping it.
> >
> > Mgm
>
> Your theories on eternal stubs are interesting.  I'll leave it at
> that.  But anyway, if "Articles for creation" is wasting a lot of time
> and not much good is coming out of it, then we should get rid of it,
> regardless of whether or not we turn back on new article creation for
> users that aren't logged in.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/9/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Basically, I agree with Keith here.
> We need some centralized discussion. Not only is does it take a lot
> less time for admins to manage one central place and delete what needs
> to be deleted, it's also easier to refer people to that place.
>
> Also without AFD, there's still too many articles that can't get
> speedied because of a technicality. "More than one person bvut still
> vanity" and "advertising" come to mind. They're deleted 99% (figure of
> speech) of the time and AFD research shows those are the kind of
> deletions often uncontested.
>
> How are we going to get rid of non-speediable crap without AFD?
> How is everyone going to have input (the wiki way)?
>
> Turning off AFD even for one day will cause too much of a mess.
> Sure, we can clean it up eventually, but why open your bag of trash
> indoors when the garbage man is waiting outside?

That's what you think the result of the experiment will be. But we
*don't know* because we haven't done it.

When people have a difference of opinion about the consequences of a
change, some positive, some negative, that's a sign that trying the
change as an experiment would be a good idea.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Harlan Ellison

body:
The latest prominent "WikiEnemy" to emerge: Harlan Ellison.  (See the
talk page of his article for a big, vitriolic anti-Wikipedia rant
allegedly authored by him.)

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [WikiEN-l] UK libel law and reusers

body:
On 12/9/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > On 12/8/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Okay then, let me try another tack which has occurred to me given the
> >>Wikipedia stance on "fair use".
> >>
> >>How is a commercial reuser going to feel when it is issued with a writ?
> >
> >
> > Probably not very good.  What do you suggest we do about this?
>
> Remove libel.  As I responded to Kim, the next question is which libel
> laws we have to wrry about.  In which countries are suits likely to be
> brought?  Australia and the United Kingdom look likely candidates, any
> others?
>
We already do remove libel.

As for which libel laws we have to worry about, assuming by "we" you
mean the foundation, none, we don't have to worry about any libel
laws.  We should remove libel because it's false information, and we
don't keep false information in the encyclopedia.  To the extent that
any country defines true information as libel, we should ignore it.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/8/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Anthony,
>
> > Libel, at least so far as it consists of false information, has no
> > place in Wikipedia.  This has nothing to do with UK law, though.  If
> > we're talking about true information, then I'd argue that Wikipedia
> > *should not* bow down to the UK or any other legal authority if there
> > is any possible way for it to avoid coming into their jurisdiction.
>
> On the other hand, we shouldn't publish stuff just because it's true,
> either (this is the cue for the "you deletionist vandal!" crowd to start
> making a ruckus on this issue, too).  In Australia, one can defend
> against a defamation suit if a) the information is true, *and* b) it's
> in the public interest for the information to be published.
>
> Truth in an of itself is not a defence, neither is "important if true".
>   This additional burden presumably makes Australian law as nightmarish
> and evil as UK law (they hate freedom!), but is something I think it
> would do us no harm to heed.  We should not be publishing defamatory
> information just because it's true, even if we really really dislike the
> subject.  The truth of a statement is not sufficient for its inclusion
> in an encyclopaedia.
>
> (Admittedly, WP:NOR can cover most instances of this, since if the
> information is verifiable, someone else will have already made the call).
>
> > If use of the seven dirty words is illegal in Pennsylvania, should
> > Wikipedia develop a policy around that situation?  I think we can all
> > agree that it absolutely should not.
>
> Good point.
>
>
> <snip />
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Mark Gallagher
> "What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
> - Danger Mouse

No, we shouldn't publish it simply because it's true.  Actually, "we"
shouldn't publish anything.  We should provide the servers to allow
others to publish things.

Anyway, you seem to be getting into privacy issues with part b).  I
think our policy of no original research should be enough to avoid any
problems there.  If it's already been published by some other
respectable source, then we should include it in the encyclopedia.  If
it hasn't, then we shouldn't.  Again, this really has nothing to do
with laws, but fortunately it means we would be in compliance with the
laws of most of the world.  If you can think of a situation where this
isn't the case, maybe you could change my mind there, though.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

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

JAY JG stated for the record:

>> From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
>>
>> On 12/9/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > If we got rid of AfD, we'd have to sort through the Deletion logs,
>>
>>
>> Only for a short while.  After a few waggy fingers and blocks, the
>> administrators performing inappropriate out-of-process deletions would
>> stop.  Trust me on this.  Calvinball.
>
>
> Here's an even better idea; let's not mess with something that's working
> reasonably well.
>
> Jay.

Which certainly describes AfD, for sufficiently /unreasonable/ and /bad/
values of "reasonably well."

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Dear Santa, for Christmas I would like
 sean at epoptic.org | a copy of your list of naughty girls.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Harlan Ellison

body:
On 12/9/05, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> The latest prominent "WikiEnemy" to emerge: Harlan Ellison.  (See the
> talk page of his article for a big, vitriolic anti-Wikipedia rant
> allegedly authored by him.)
>
Harlan Ellison is a great SF luminary, but he is a well-known Serious
Pain in the Ass. Playing well with others has never been his strong
suit.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Steve Block wrote:
>>
>>> geni wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
>>>>> suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
>>>>> remove it completely from the edit history?
>>>>
>>>> I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
>>>
>>> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
>>> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding
>>> this. Look at it this way:
>>>
>>> * Newspaper editors are often named in suits, at least within the UK.
>>> * The reason they are named is that they authorise content which is
>>> published.
>>> * By saving a page, I am creating an edition which is published.
>>> * I am called an editor.
>>>
>>> Also note the [[McLibel case]].
>>>
>>> Those sued did not make the statements, they simply distributed them.
>>>
>>> I would think a lawyer will make a good argument that it is possible
>>> we can be named in a suit if we have edited a page containing a
>>> libellous statement and failed to remove it.
>>
>> Your hypotheseis leads to an absurd result.  If I edit this page
>> containing an alleged libel for matters unrelated to that statement
>> how am I supposed to know what is libellous in that article?  By your
>> line of reasoning, if I want to be safe I might as well delete the
>> entire article.  Your reading would make busibodies of us all.
>
> Exactly my point.  Why do you think I asked it?  Does someone with the
> neccessary understanding have a better answer than "I don't like the
> result, therefoe I will ignore the hypothesis."

My apologies for missing the irony in your comments.  Who uses irony on
this list can sometimes be obscure.  Of course it goes beyond merely not
liking the results.

Ec