body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> These languagecodes can then have a script associated with them eg
> cmn-Hans for simplified Chinese. When there are dialects within a
> language they can be identified as well.
>
> Using zh is imho utterly confusing and associating them with countries
> does not help at all. More than one language is spoken in Taiwan and
> therefore zh-hans-tw does not cut it. When you replace traditional with
> simplified, within one language I can understand what you are doing.
> However when you in essence start moving across languages and is that
> not the implication when you talk about things having different
> terminology are you then not trying to provide translations ?

The written language is much more closely standardised than the spoken
language. Speakers of mutually incomprehensible variants of Chinese
write in a common script based on Mandarin. Differences in terminology
do occur, and in some cases, such as "Cantonese colloquial", characters
are introduced to describe words in the local dialect that do not exist
in Mandarin. However, these differences are much easier to resolve in
software than full translation between languages written phonetically.
For conversion to zh-hk, MediaWiki uses a dictionary of 211 entries in
addition to the simplified/traditional tables, and for conversion to
zh-sg, there is only 15 extra entries.

Is it translation? Or is it just an spelling and terminology change,
like conversion from US English to Commonwealth English? Maybe somewhere
in between.

-- Tim Starling


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Eloquence #01 - libelous info

body:
On 6/9/06, Zack Clark <meta at world1tours.com> wrote:
> Thanks so much for your excellent example of the problem.
> It leaves me aching to know:
> 1) How & why was WP structured so fragile in the first place?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

> 2) What can be done to protect WP from this vulnerability?

Clearly distinguish reviewed and unreviewed content.

> 3) Who is developing plans to address such issues?

I'm working on it.

> 4) Is any subject more crucial to our future??

Possibly.

> 5) What do YOU feel is the ideal solution?

See 3).

Erik


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] For your browsing pleasure...

body:
This masterpiece:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_validity_of_astrology

Not sure whether it's fixable or not.

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] How often should exceptions be used?

body:
[Tim Starling wrote] :
> For unexpected code branches which appear to be unreachable through
> ordinary user action, the previous code exited with a backtrace; I
> replaced these with an exception throw to produce similar behaviour.
>
> For the benefit of extensions and other unmigrated code, the old
> interfaces such as OutputPage::errorpage() and wfDebugDieBacktrace()

Can I please ask what the new Exceptions looks like in the HTML
output? How will I know one if I see one?

I'm familiar with the format of the old wfDebugDieBacktrace output,
which looked like this:

==========================================
Something went wrong.

Backtrace:

    * GlobalFunctions.php line 659 calls wfBacktrace()
    * DoStuff.php line 8121 calls wfDebugDieBacktrace()
    * Linker.php line 141 calls Linker::DoStuff()
    * Linker.php line 1594 calls Linker::Bar()
    * Parser.php line 140 calls Linker::Bar()
    * Parser.php line 1511 calls Parser::Foo()
    * Parser.php line 849 calls Parser::replaceInternalLinks()
    * Parser.php line 240 calls Parser::internalParse()
    * EditPage.php line 1312 calls Parser::parse()
    * EditPage.php line 1163 calls EditPage::getPreviewText()
    * EditPage.php line 923 calls EditPage::showPreview()
    * EditPage.php line 308 calls EditPage::showEditForm()
    * EditPage.php line 148 calls EditPage::edit()
    * Wiki.php line 380 calls EditPage::submit()
    * Wiki.php line 50 calls MediaWiki::performAction()
    * index.php line 136 calls MediaWiki::initialize()
    * index.php line 3 calls require()
==========================================

Just wondering what the new Exceptions look like, so that I can grep
for them for when testing.

Previously I would grep for the string "wfDebugDieBacktrace", and if
that occurred in the output, it was a pretty good bet that something
went wrong; Could I for example now grep the output for the string
"Exception"?

All the best,
Nick.


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
On 10/06/06, Essjay <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> > Solution A:
> > Increase the number of admins, which will increase the number of deletions.
> >
> True, but also increases the number of controversial deletions; on a
> normal project, any time you delete something, you risk being yelled at
> by the people on that project. On Commons, you risk being yelled at by
> everybody involved with Wikimedia. That's a lot of pressure to put on
> someone, especially when they can't easily leave a "Hey, I noticed
> [image] seems to need deletion, but you're using it" message (because we
> have hundreds of languages, and nobody can hope to speak them all).

Essjay!!!!!!!!!!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Translations

Apparently our policies officially say that copyvios (+ maybe NSD/NLD?
I can't remember) can be deleted without removing the image from use.
At least Arnomane and Duesentrieb argue this line and presumably carry
it out. But myself, Fred, Bastique, Angr...don't know who else... we
fear the wrath of 100+ WM projects too much, so we follow this
removing method for all image deletion.

Also: we have at least one functioning "Delinker Bot", but we're not
allowed to use it (even with translated messages) because local
projects get shitty about unregistered/anonymous bots. Can you imagine
registering a bot on some 200 projects?

I hope with the universal login (which was coming "soon" in January,
sigh), we can offer an ultimatum and say, "Let our bot work on your
project or else DEAL with redlinks", because the situation is too
ridiculous.

> I am a Commons admin, and the thing that scares me most about Commons
> admin work is deletion: Almost everything on Commons, if deleted, cannot
> be recovered, and Commons materials are used on all Wikimedia projects.

But think: most of the things that need deleting are random things
that people got off the internet. I figure if they got it off the
internet once, if it's really important, odds are they can go and do
it again, especially if deletion is close to upload date.

And if it's their own work (or they claim it is ;)), then of course
they would have a copy on their own computer. No one would upload
something precious to the Commons and then delete it off their own
computer! Right?

Brianna


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
Anthere wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight
>
> Hello,
>
> It seems I have entirely missed the whole discussion over this new tool.
> I discovered the tool just today and I was wondering :
>
>
> * how did the current editors with access to this tool got it ? (which
> process to get that new status). Are the people only from the arbcom ?
> Or are they accepted by the arbcom ?

I gave it to myself since I was already doing that manually before I wrote the
tool to assist me.

If anyone else has it, that's a mystery to me. Check the steward log?

> * what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?

Extreme bannination.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: textbook-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [Textbook-l] Game Guides

body:
On 6/10/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Do you mean, though, that the 'How-to' books are being removed from
> Wikibooks to Wikia, or simply used there under the GFDL? I hope it's
> the latter, but, if the former, which ones?

I'm not aware of anything being moved on mass to Wikia. There have
been deletions made in favor of moving the content to unrelated sites
though. For example, moving game guides to strategywiki.net, final
fantasy books to some FF wiki (I don't know which one, that's all the
deletion log says), and all of the Pokemon pages to gmcfoley.com and
wikiknowledge.net (which is not GFDL). If anything, there's an
opposition on Wikibooks to allowing to be moved to Wikia.

Angela.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Simplified/traditional Chinese on Commons

body:
There are tons of Chinese languages. Yes. Not all of them have
Wikipedias. So I guess we won't be consolidating the
Special:Preferences, I get that.  What codes should we use when
writing translations? Should the traditional folks write zh-tw and
just copy it to zh-hk? Ditto zh-cn/zh-sg? Seems like unnecessary
duplication.

Brianna


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category translation

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> Just fwiw, one simple basic example I have dealt with.
>
> [[fr:Carnac]] discusses both the township of Carnac and the famous
> Carnac stones which are found within the town.
>
> I split [[en:Carnac]] into that article which only discusses the town,
> and [[en:Carnac stones]] which discusses the megalithic site.

Another example from a different field is [[en:Chloral]] and
[[en:Chloral hydrate]].  These are two distinct compounds, and the
interwiki linking quite sensibly follows the distinction.  However, if
you look at the articles, you'll note that there's a lot of redundant
information in them: the problem is that the compounds readily convert
to each other depending on the presence or absence or water, such that
it's difficult to discuss the chemistry of one without also describing
the other.

That might make the articles reasonable candidates for merging, and
indeed many other Wikipedia have done so.  However, there is no
agreement on which title the combined article should have.  The French
article, which is the most detailed one, is at [[fr:Chloral]], despite
mainly describing the hydrate.  The German, Dutch, Russian and Turkish
Wikipedias only have articles on the hydrate.  Only the English, Polish
and Japanese Wikipedias have both, and on the latter two both are stubs.
  So was [[en:Chloral]] before I started expanding it -- most of the
info is still at the hydrate article.

I suppose the ideal solution would be to either merge or split the
articles consistently across languages.  But I don't really see that
happening soon, and in any case the reasonability of having one or two
articles depends a lot on the amount of information present, which
varies a lot between different Wikipedias; most, of course, don't have
any information at all on either compound.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

references:
<e6far8$a80$1@sea.gmane.org> <448B36A2.5010603@pobox.com>
	<e6ff41$knt$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Anthere wrote:
>>> * what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?
>>
>> Extreme bannination.
>
> How can evidence of misuse be gathered ?

If alerted, a database admin can look in the hidden table.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Essjay

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 10/06/06, Essjay <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Magnus Manske wrote:
>>
>>> Solution A:
>>> Increase the number of admins, which will increase the number of deletions.
>>>
>>>
>> True, but also increases the number of controversial deletions; on a
>> normal project, any time you delete something, you risk being yelled at
>> by the people on that project. On Commons, you risk being yelled at by
>> everybody involved with Wikimedia. That's a lot of pressure to put on
>> someone, especially when they can't easily leave a "Hey, I noticed
>> [image] seems to need deletion, but you're using it" message (because we
>> have hundreds of languages, and nobody can hope to speak them all).
>>
>
> Essjay!!!!!!!!!!
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Translations
>
>
I'll have to look at that first thing tomorrow; I'm off to bed right now
> Apparently our policies officially say that copyvios (+ maybe NSD/NLD?
> I can't remember) can be deleted without removing the image from use.
> At least Arnomane and Duesentrieb argue this line and presumably carry
> it out. But myself, Fred, Bastique, Angr...don't know who else... we
> fear the wrath of 100+ WM projects too much, so we follow this
> removing method for all image deletion.
>
> Also: we have at least one functioning "Delinker Bot", but we're not
> allowed to use it (even with translated messages) because local
> projects get shitty about unregistered/anonymous bots. Can you imagine
> registering a bot on some 200 projects?
>
> I hope with the universal login (which was coming "soon" in January,
> sigh), we can offer an ultimatum and say, "Let our bot work on your
> project or else DEAL with redlinks", because the situation is too
> ridiculous.
>
>
See? This is what I was talking about. Everybody wants to benefit, but
nobody wants to accept the responsibility that comes with using what we
offer. If you're going to use Commons images, you've got to accept that
you're using something under a different set of policies, with a
different set of procedures, and adjust to that. Unfortunately, most
projects wont.
>> I am a Commons admin, and the thing that scares me most about Commons
>> admin work is deletion: Almost everything on Commons, if deleted, cannot
>> be recovered, and Commons materials are used on all Wikimedia projects.
>>
>
> But think: most of the things that need deleting are random things
> that people got off the internet. I figure if they got it off the
> internet once, if it's really important, odds are they can go and do
> it again, especially if deletion is close to upload date.
>
> And if it's their own work (or they claim it is ;)), then of course
> they would have a copy on their own computer. No one would upload
> something precious to the Commons and then delete it off their own
> computer! Right?
>
>
You're more optimistic than I am; it would not surprise me for a second
to hear "I uploaded it here, so why keep it!" And when someone is
screaming at a Commons admin for deleting an image in process, they're
probably not in a place where a rational argument like "You didn't
follow process" is going to work.

I still think the best thing to have would be a way to recover deleted
images for a short period of time.

Essjay

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/

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from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

body:
For Min-Nan, Peh-Oe-Ji (POJ) is been widely used in Mid. and Southern Taiwan
for elemetary education. I have some relatives teach as POJ teachers in the
elementary school in those area.

Also, POJ is been used for writing an encyclopedia on zh-min-nan.wp, see
http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org

Min-Nan and Hakka are also been widely used in the southern China, however,
I do not know if they have any writing forms for those Chinese speaking
languages  in there.

FYI.

Regards,
H.T.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 2:56 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Simplified/traditional Chinese on Commons

And although colloquial writing can be found in every major regional variety
of Chinese, as a popular phenomenon it is limited mostly to Cantonese, Wu,
Minnan, and Hakka for a few reasons: Cantonese and Wu are both the languages
of huge (HUGE) urban centers where people take pride in their local
identity; Minnan and Hakka are used on Taiwan, which doesn't currently have
a rabid government movement to eradicate local varieties so people who want
to develop written forms for the native languages have had quite a bit of
success.

Having said that, most people who write Minnan do not write it in Peh-oe-ji.
There is no single agreed-upon orthography, but most people use a mixture of
Chinese characters and Roman letters (and occasionally Japanese characters
as well). This is not currently practical for writing an encyclopaedia
though, because a huge portion of the words in the language have no
consensus as to what character should be used to write them.

Mark

___________________________________________________
 ??? Yahoo!?????? 7.0???????????
 http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My first message

body:
mboverload wrote:
> I'm just going to be the noob and let you all know I just joined...so hi =)
> I'm User:mboverload on en.wikipedia

hi :-)

ant


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Just wondering what the new Exceptions look like, so that I can grep
> for them for when testing.
>
> Previously I would grep for the string "wfDebugDieBacktrace", and if
> that occurred in the output, it was a pretty good bet that something
> went wrong; Could I for example now grep the output for the string
> "Exception"?

If I put

throw new MWException('hello');

in index.php, it produces:

hello

Backtrace:

#0 {main}

with a variable header and footer. You could search for
"
Backtrace:

#0". In command line mode, it will instead be
"\nBacktrace:\n#0".

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Dirk Riehle

subject:
[Wikitech-l] CfP: WikiSym 2006,
	The 2006 International Symposium on Wikis

body:
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

WIKISYM 2006: THE 2006 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON WIKIS

August 21-23, 2006, Odense, Denmark

CO-LOCATED WITH ACM HYPERTEXT 2006

See http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006

Archival - Peer Reviewed - ACM Sponsored

EARLY REGISTRATION DEADLINE APPROACHING: June 19, 2006

GENERAL INFORMATION

This year's Wiki Symposium brings together wiki
researchers and practitioners in the historic and
beautiful city of Odense, Denmark, on August
21-23, 2006. Participants will present, discuss,
and move forward the latest advances in wiki
contents, sociology, and technology. The
symposium program offers invited talks by Angela
Beesley ("How and Why Wikipedia Works"), Doug
Engelbart and Eugene E. Kim ("The Augmented
Wiki"), Mark Bernstein ("Intimate Information")
and Ward Cunningham ("Design Principles of
Wikis"). The research paper track presents and
discusses breaking wiki research, the panels let
you listen to and contribute to topics like
"Wikis in Education" and "The Future of Wikis",
and the workshops let you get active and
contribute to on-going research and practitioner
work with your peers. (Many workshops accept
walk-ins, so it is not too late!) What's more,
for the first time, we will have an on-going
openspace track (to replace BOFs) so you can get
active and involved in an organized fashion on
any wiki topic you like. We believe this is how
to get the most out of your experience at WikiSym 2006!

And, of course, if you can't wait, please join
our conversation on wiki research and practice on
the symposium wiki at http://ws2006.wikisym.org

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

See http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/program.html

Keynotes and invited talks:

* Angela Beesley: How and Why Wikipedia Works
* Doug Engelbart and Eugene E. Kim: The Augmented Wiki
* Mark Bernstein: Intimate Information
* Ward Cunningham: Design Principles of Wiki

Panels on:

* Wikis in Education
* The Future of Wikis

Research papers and practitioner reports on:

* wiki technology
* wiki sociology and philosophy
* wiki uses, for example, in software, education, and politics

and many more, see http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/program.html#Papers

Workshops on:

* wikis in education
* wikipedia research
* wiki markup standards
* wikis and the semantic web

And, of course: Demos! We have pre-set demos, but
please feel free to bring your own notebook! We
will provide space for you to demo on-the-spot in
our Monday night demo session, a favorite from WikiSym 2005.

SYMPOSIUM LOGISTICS

Handled through the Hypertext 2006 website:

* Conference registration:
http://hypertext.expositus.com/information.asp?Page=76&menu=13
* Conference hotel:
http://hypertext.expositus.com/information.asp?Page=93&menu=13
* Travel information:
http://hypertext.expositus.com/information.asp?Page=91&menu=13

SYMPOSIUM COMMITTEE

Dirk Riehle, Bayave Software GmbH, Germany (Symposium Chair)
Ward Cunningham, Eclipse Foundation, U.S.A.
Kouichirou Eto, AIST, Japan (Publicity Co-Chair)
Richard P. Gabriel, Sun Microsystems, U.S.A.
Beat Doebeli Honegger, UAS Northwestern Switzerland (Workshop Chair)
Matthias L. Jugel, Fraunhofer FIRST, Germany (Panel Chair)
Samuel J. Klein, Harvard University, U.S.A.
Helmut Leitner, HLS Software, Austria (Publicity Co-Chair)
James Noble, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Program Chair)
Sebastien Paquet, Socialtext, U.S.A. (Demonstrations Chair)
Sunir Shah, University of Toronto, Canada (Publicity Co-Chair)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

James Noble, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Program Chair)
Ademar Aguiar, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Robert Biddle, Carleton University, Canada
Amy Bruckman, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A.
Alain D?silet, NRC, CNRC, Canada
Ann Majchrzak, University of Southern California, U.S.A.
Frank Fuchs-Kittowski, Fraunhofer ISST, Germany
Mark Guzdial, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A.
Samuel J. Klein, Harvard University, U.S.A.
Dirk Riehle, Bayave Software GmbH, Germany
Robert Tolksdorf, Freie Universit?t Berlin, Germany


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
Brion wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>> * what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?
>
> Extreme bannination.

Say, is that what happened to Mark Gallagher, that he can never
hear what people are saying? :-)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia

body:
On 6/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> prose. The worst ones, IMO, are pop culture references sections (last
> time I checked, [[Alan Turing]] is a good example of this) which don't
> add anything meaningful to the article and act as a magnet for info that
> most people won't care about at all (relativists who suggest that this

What I like about cultural references sections is that they stop the
rest of the article being polluted. They do act as a magnet for
trivial information, but fortunately, from time to time we can just
throw that magnet in the bin, with all the trivial iron filings it has
gathered.

This is one of the real arts in managing Wikipdia: letting people
contribute in such a way that wey can easily discard the least helpful
contributions without offending anyone.

Steve


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Tim, please see yue: and proposed (and "approved") wuu:
>
> The "words" that don't exist in Mandarin aren't just words -- there
> are grammatical differences as well.

I'm aware of this. This thread is about enabling the language converter on
commons, and thus allowing automatic conversion between the various formal
written forms of Mandarin, not about the comprehensibility of these written
forms to children, nor about the phonetic orthographies. I mentioned
colloquial Cantonese merely as an aside.

As far as I know, the language converter does not deal with colloquial
characters. If a colloquial translation is to be given, it would have to be
created manually.

Of course, this has no bearing on whether or not the converter should be
enabled on Commons. The only issue there is adapting the code, which won't
work on Commons without some modification. I don't think there's any
question that having a converter available would be useful, there's just
some technical details to be dealt with, some of which have been discussed
in this thread.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Category translation

body:
On 6/10/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> I suppose the ideal solution would be to either merge or split the
> articles consistently across languages.  But I don't really see that

Is there any precedent for interwiki article naming consistency? The
prevailing attitude seems to be "The people at it.wikipdia chose to do
that? Heh." Not sure if it's a bad thing or not.

Steve


body:
Nice. Good luck!

Steve

On 6/10/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> This masterpiece:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_validity_of_astrology
>
> Not sure whether it's fixable or not.


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/10/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good writers should also be able to write in a style contrary to their own:
> in this case, writing AE when BE is their preference.

That may or may not be true, but it certainly isn't relevant to the
discussion of whether Wikipedians must respect the language style
choices of their predecesors.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/10/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> There seem to be lots of American editors who think that British
> English is *wrong*, and likewise British editors who think that
> American English is *wrong*.  (They rarely come out and say this

I think you're mischaracterising it. There are a number of Americans
in general who have had very little contact with British spelling, and
find it *wrong*. Most British-spellers have had contact with American
spelling, and those that object, find it *bad*. They generally accept
it as a valid choice, they just don't like it.

So, generalising a lot, Am->Br is usually done out of ignorance,
Br->Am out of bloody-mindedness.

> explicitly, but the vigor with which they debate a change from
> one to the other suggests that's how thy really feel, deep down.)
> But, of course, it's not that one or the other is Right or Wrong;
> they're just different.

AmE in an article about cricket is "wrong".

> (The problem's just as bad over on Wiktionary, where there are
> stubbornly, defiantly distinct pages for `color' and `colour'.
> Huge, repetitive, internecine arguments regularly erupt, whenever
> anyone has the temerity to suggest that the two entries be merged
> somehow since they're "obviously" just two spelling variants
> for "the same" word.)

Eep.

Steve


from_name: John Lee

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 6/10/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>
>
>>You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century
>>American Television?  Really?  Or do you mean in any "general"
>>encyclopedia.  Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a
>>specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows -
>>but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
>>
>>
>
>I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing
>all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries
>with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated
>Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.
>
>Steve
>
>
That's my beef with a lot of our pop culture articles, TBH. The quotes
section should go to Wikiquote. If any quotes (I imagine Patrick Henry's
"Give me liberty or give me death" would be a good example) are notable
enough to be in an encyclopaedia, we should have some commentary on them
and their impact. Plot summaries aren't that bad - at least they're
prose. The worst ones, IMO, are pop culture references sections (last
time I checked, [[Alan Turing]] is a good example of this) which don't
add anything meaningful to the article and act as a magnet for info that
most people won't care about at all (relativists who suggest that this
is none of our business ought to note that we're an encyclopaedia - when
we collect information, we ought to comment on it), and also trivia
sections which serve the same purpose on pop culture articles (look at
the article on [[House, M.D.]] before I trimmed the trivia section).

John


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] New diff feature for MediaWiki

body:
Roman Nosov wrote:
> I'm totally agree with Timwi ? proper Unicode support is a requirement
> not a feature. However can someone tell me why PHP comes with no
> appropriate out-of-box support for such vital feature in 21 century?

Well, you see, that (the fact that PHP misses out on the most basic
vital features, not just Unicode specifically) is kind of why no
sensible 21st-century programmer would ever recommend PHP to start
writing something new, and why the only people who choose or even
recommend PHP are amateurs. Now obviously we are "stuck" with MediaWiki
written in PHP, so we have to use it and live with its severe
shortcomings...

> For example look no further than Wikipedia's current diff engine.

You have mentioned some properties of the current diff engine, but I'm
afraid I don't see how any of them are in any way a problem or an issue.

Timwi


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 10/06/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Well, you see, that (the fact that PHP misses out on the most basic
> vital features, not just Unicode specifically) is kind of why no
> sensible 21st-century programmer would ever recommend PHP to start
> writing something new, and why the only people who choose or even
> recommend PHP are amateurs.

Got a penchant for trolling, eh?

Rob Church


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

body:
On 6/10/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On a somewhat subtle point, being on the Board would presumably
> involve publicly revealing one's real-life identity, no?  That might
> be a factor for people like Essjay, who have generally avoided doing
> so.

As I recall, the legal name and residence of Board members is reported
on the Foundation's tax filings (which are public record), so yes.

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] on (re)organizing wikimedia

body:
On 6/10/06, Nathan Carter <magnaboy at westnet.com.au> wrote:
> I have quite a large number of opinions on this.
> There needs to be an executive in place with the subcommittees which can
> act relatively autonomously but are responsible to the executive. At the
> same time I would like to see us have Wikicouncil, where people from the
> projects meet to discuss them and issues arising out of them.
>
> Wikicouncil would then have someone who reported back to the executive
> and again be responsible to them.
>
> The fact is, Joe and Joanne editor couldn't really care less how the
> organisation is ran so long as everything works. The organisation needs
> to be ran by experts with a small amount of accountability to the user
> base (which I feel Wikicouncil would achieve)

I've long believed that we should have a council/assembly/etc.
composed of representatives selected by each project; this body should
elect, at the very least, some portion of the board of directors.

Kelly


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 6/10/06, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 03:06:25AM +1000, Angela wrote:
> > With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> > interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> > interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> > available. If that is something you'd consider, please let me know.
>
> The old internet maxim is that anyone who wants the job, probably isn't
> suited to it. It might be wiser to find people who might be suitable,
> and then somehow do them an offer they cannot refuse.
>
> I don't know any people from outside wikimedia at this moment in time
> who might be helpful. I'll leave that to others.
>
> I do know people from the community, and can make some reccomendations.
>
> People who would likely actually be suited from the community or
> otherwise might be:
> * Members of chapter boards , who we could steal
> * people currently doing other foundation work who could be "promoted"
> * People generally trusted inside a particular wikipedia community
> * all around smart people.
>
> Some aspects that might be good
> * Typically "older" users who have a lot of experience
> * People who are mild, and unlikely to enter conflict
> * People who have also had some amount of real life experience.
>
> Here's some people with current responsibilities, that I know of and can
> quickly dig up out of my (endo)memory.
>
> * James Forrester (arbitration, current foundation work, uk chapter)
> * Sannse (mediation and arbitration, otrs)
> * Mindspillage (Mediation and arbitration, otrs, press contact)
> * Oscar (Did interim management irl, setting up wikimedia netherlands
>   chapter, otrs, might not enjoy getting more work)
> * Essjay (Some current foundation work, highly trusted. Wikipedoholic)
> * Amgine (Often more approachable than anyone else on foundation
>           matters, press)
> * Elian  (Already used to bossing jimbo around O:-) )
> * Delphine (Chapters committee)
> * Bishonen (Known to a lot of people, seen as voice of reason)
>
> * Explicitly not Brion. He's doing too much useful work as a
>   developer. :-)
>
> If eveyone else searches their memory in the same way, we'll quickly
> have a decent shortlist.
>
> Only come up with suitable people for now.  Don't worry if they protest
> or refuse for now, we'll sort that part out later.
>
> So now it's up to the rest of the list to come up with some more names.
> Ideas?

On a somewhat subtle point, being on the Board would presumably
involve publicly revealing one's real-life identity, no?  That might
be a factor for people like Essjay, who have generally avoided doing
so.

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Zack Clark wrote:

>on  Thu, 8 June 20:43:11 Erik Moeller explained
>
>==================== Quote ====================
>See [[John Seigenthaler, Sr.]]. We publish potentially libelous
>information alongside a huge collection of well-referenced quality
>material, under the same logo, without any distinction for the reader
>between one and the other. We make that information available as free
>content, and allow anyone to scrape it off our site or download our
>database, meaning that the libelous information gets copied all over
>the place. Legally speaking, if Wikipedia didn't exist, no lawyer
>would ever approve it.
>================== END Quote ==================
>Thanks so much for your excellent example of the problem.
>It leaves me aching to know:
>1) How & why was WP structured so fragile in the first place?
>2) What can be done to protect WP from this vulnerability?
>3) Who is developing plans to address such issues?
>4) Is any subject more crucial to our future??
>5) What do YOU feel is the ideal solution?
>
Any new venture is fragile and vulnerable.  Regretably, more fail than
succeed.  A new venture that starts in an atmosphere of safety, security
and risk aversion leaves very little chance for creating anything really
new.  A person who undertakes an ordinary venture with meticulous
attention to details and little risk will likely end up with ordinary
results.  Competent but ordinary.  Perhaps the fragility that was there
in the structure in the first place was was because there was no
preconception about the structure.  There are circumstances where
fragility and vulnerability can be great strengths.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight

Hello,

It seems I have entirely missed the whole discussion over this new tool.
I discovered the tool just today and I was wondering :

* how did the current editors with access to this tool got it ? (which
process to get that new status). Are the people only from the arbcom ?
Or are they accepted by the arbcom ?

* what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?

Ant


from_name: Roman Nosov

body:
Hmm I don't think this thread is a good place for fighting language
wars. Your POV is that PHP is a bad language; my POV is that PHP
offers reasonable trade-off between performance, standards support,
cost, reliability, complexity and so on. However, I did some research
and it looks like the first prize in the category "Best support of
Unicode in regular expressions" goes to Perl (Perl is cited as example
many times by Unicode.org). Unfortunately PHP clearly sucks at the
moment (even with mbstring extension). Perhaps version 6 will change
that. So it might make sense to rewrite standalone component of a new
diff engine in Perl.

Also it looks like some people don't understand punctuation issue. In
Unicode *standard* punctuation marks can be below 0xc0 as well as
*above*. If you look at code written by Tim Starling you'll see:
// Punctuation and control characters
	if (ch < 0xc0) return false;
So basically code above assumes that punctuation marks can only have
codes below 0xc0 which is incorrect. On the other hand if you type in
MS Word left single quotation mark then sequence of letters then right
single quotation mark only sequence of letters will be spell checked.
Which is nice and shows that MS Word developers respect at least
Unicode standard. In other words Word sees difference between *all*
Unicode punctuation marks and all Unicode letters.
But you won't be able to repeat same trick with Mediawiki. Current
diff engine considers all punctuation marks with codes above 0xc0 to
be letters and makes them part of a word. Tim Starling in his defence
says that high numbered punctuation is rare and the fact it is
processed incorrectly won't do much damage. Well to a certain extend
it's a good defence but if you accept it then you should also accept
statements like "Opera is rarely used browser so if Wikipedia renders
incorrectly in Opera it wouldn't do much damage" or "Supporting of
just IE and FF is sufficient enough". BTW I noticed few glitches with
how Wikipedia is displayed in Opera.
Probably I've drunk too much open source Kool-Aid but here is a good
example of proprietary product (manufactured by so-much-hated
Microsoft) obeying standards and open source software that selectively
supports standards.
Someone suggested to me to fix it. Well I'm afraid I'm more on a bug
creating side of things :)
In fact, I was expecting that "Unicode Nazis" will rush to fix it.
Instead all I got were "who cares" type of responses.  I guess I
should add more water to my Kool-Aid next time ?
Also small suggestion to all new participants in this thread ? please
state whether you like or not feature in question (you can find a
description in the original e-mail).

On 10/06/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Roman Nosov wrote:
> > I'm totally agree with Timwi ? proper Unicode support is a requirement
> > not a feature. However can someone tell me why PHP comes with no
> > appropriate out-of-box support for such vital feature in 21 century?
>
> Well, you see, that (the fact that PHP misses out on the most basic
> vital features, not just Unicode specifically) is kind of why no
> sensible 21st-century programmer would ever recommend PHP to start
> writing something new, and why the only people who choose or even
> recommend PHP are amateurs. Now obviously we are "stuck" with MediaWiki
> written in PHP, so we have to use it and live with its severe
> shortcomings...
>
> > For example look no further than Wikipedia's current diff engine.
>
> You have mentioned some properties of the current diff engine, but I'm
> afraid I don't see how any of them are in any way a problem or an issue.
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 6/10/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>
>
>>You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century
>>American Television?  Really?  Or do you mean in any "general"
>>encyclopedia.  Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a
>>specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows -
>>but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
>>
>>
>I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing
>all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries
>with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated
>Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.
>
Perhaps the proof lies in the simple fact that others DID imagine doing
such things.  :-)

Pop culture needs to be given credit for being popular.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising

body:
A list of suggestions, kindly sent offling by one of our participant and
reworked to suit our organisation.

I'd like that these are taken into account by the Foundraising committee
(the job of the Fundraising committee is not only to raise money in
summer 2006, but also to organise sustainable Fundraising practices.

Spend no more than 35% of related contributions on fund raising. Related
contributions include donations, legacies, and other gifts received as a
result of fund raising efforts.
-->Compute and publish the cost of fundraising per year

Address privacy concerns of donors by providing a clear, prominent and
easily accessible donor privacy policy that tells donors (i) what
information, if any, is being collected about them and how this
information will be used, (ii) how to contact us to review personal
information collected and request corrections, (iii) how to inform us
(e.g., a check off box) that the donor does not wish his/her personal
information to be shared outside the organization, and (iv) what
security measures we have in place to protect personal information.

Clearly disclose how we benefit from the sale of products (cafepress)
that state or imply that the Foundation will benefit from a consumer
sale or transaction. Such promotions should disclose, at the point of
solicitation:
*the actual or anticipated portion of the purchase price that will
benefit WMF (e.g., 5 cents will be contributed to Foundation for every
xyz company product sold. Make that be not only on the official webshop,
but only any related product sold by a local associaton (in this case,
list the product and mention the benefit goes to the local association)
*the duration of the campaign (e.g., the month of October),
*any maximum, minimum or average contribution amount. Which benefit may
be obtained from giving over 1000 dollars, over 10 000 dollars etc...

Respond promptly to and act on complaints brought to its attention about
fund raising practices (OTRS essentially).

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
On this page, the paragraph ''how your donation will help" is badly
outdated (some of the links go to pages which are no more active).


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Newbie SMTP troubles

body:
Seems obvious but... do you have a configured and running SMTP server on
192.168.1.2 ?

Teh blank page is due to _some error_ Your php configuration is such that
when an error is found it doesn't reveal anything. More difficult to debug,
but more secure as intruders don't know the error message. Perssonally, i'd
low it.

"Fred LaCroix" a ?crit:
> Hi,
>
>  I've got Mediawiki 1.6.6 running on a Windows XP SP2 system with Apache
> 2.2, php 5.1.4, PEAR's Mail package ver. 1.1.10 and MySQL 5.0.21.  This PC
> is being run behind a firewall and will be accessed only by internal
> users.  The system is up and running and I can login, create new
> discussions, edit...etc but when I try to "Confirm your email address" by
> pushing the "Mail a confirmation code" button, all I get is a blank page
> and no email is sent.
>
>  My localsetting.php file contains the following:
>
>  $wgEnableEmail = true;
> $wgEnableUserEmail = true;
>
>  $wgEmergencyContact =
> "wikiadminl at internaltest.com";
> $wgPasswordSender = "wikiadmin at internaltest.com";
> $wgSMTP             = array(
> "host"     => '192.168.1.2',
> "IDHost"   => 'internaltest.com',
> "port"     => "25",
> # 'auth'     => false,
> "auth"     => true,
> "username" => 'wikiadmin',
> "password" => 'BlahBlah'
>
>  For "host" I have tried the ip address of the system, the machine name,
> smtp.machine name, smpt.machine name.FQDN but no luck.
>
>  My php.ini has:
>
>  [mail function]
> ; For Win32 only.
> SMTP = 192.168.1.2
> smtp_port = 25
>
>  ; For Win32 only.
> sendmail_from = wikiadmin at internaltest.com
>
>  Any suggestions that could be offered would be appreciated.
>
>  Thanks.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
On 6/10/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight
>
> Hello,
>
> It seems I have entirely missed the whole discussion over this new tool.
> I discovered the tool just today and I was wondering :
>
>
> * how did the current editors with access to this tool got it ? (which
> process to get that new status). Are the people only from the arbcom ?
> Or are they accepted by the arbcom ?
>

Mixture of Devs and arbcom. Arcom would have had a hard time getting
elected if they were not trusted and devs could already do this

It is needed to allow us to remove person information from page
histories without hammering the servers.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] List admin needed

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:

>On 6/5/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Dear god that was the worst pun ever. You should be ashamed.
>>
>>
>Oh, come on.  Puns are the best.
>
Ah!  The magic of a medieval shaman!

>Googled "medieval puns" and got this
>gem (and you thought what I wrote was bad...):
>
>Back in the middle ages, there was a travelling show which travelled
>throughout Europe. It was famous across the whole continent for it's
>fabulous and death defying shows.
>The show was named "The Show of Tension", because of the daring nature
>of most of the stunts, and thus the performers and other staff
>associated with the show gained the nickname "Tensions".
>Sadly, the shows didn't survive the poverty that swept Europe in the
>middle ages. As people got poorer, they couldn't afford to spend money
>on frivolous things like a travelling show.
>And thus was born the expression "unable to pay a tension"...
>
>
Puns like that only prove that the way to hell is paved with good in
tension.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] List admin needed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight
>>
>>Hello,
>>
>>It seems I have entirely missed the whole discussion over this new tool.
>>I discovered the tool just today and I was wondering :
>>
>>
>>* how did the current editors with access to this tool got it ? (which
>>process to get that new status). Are the people only from the arbcom ?
>>Or are they accepted by the arbcom ?
>
>
> I gave it to myself since I was already doing that manually before I wrote the
> tool to assist me.
>
> If anyone else has it, that's a mystery to me. Check the steward log?
>
>
>>* what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?
>
>
> Extreme bannination.

How can evidence of misuse be gathered ?

Ant


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-11

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!

Passed 391 of 404 tests (96.78%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
geni wrote:
> On 6/10/06, Anthere <Anthere9-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight
>>
>>Hello,
>>
>>It seems I have entirely missed the whole discussion over this new tool.
>>I discovered the tool just today and I was wondering :
>>
>>
>>* how did the current editors with access to this tool got it ? (which
>>process to get that new status). Are the people only from the arbcom ?
>>Or are they accepted by the arbcom ?
>>
>
>
> Mixture of Devs and arbcom. Arcom would have had a hard time getting
> elected if they were not trusted and devs could already do this
>
> It is needed to allow us to remove person information from page
> histories without hammering the servers.
>

okay

I found this one :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Oversight_rights_for_English_Wikipedia

It seems to imply others than arbcom could have the access, but this
would be granted by arbcom. I suppose it would be similar ruling than
for the checkuser access.

ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
On 6/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> okay
>
> I found this one :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Oversight_rights_for_English_Wikipedia
>
> It seems to imply others than arbcom could have the access, but this
> would be granted by arbcom. I suppose it would be similar ruling than
> for the checkuser access.
>
> ant

Nothing to stop arbcom saying that they think person X should have
these rights. Wether it should be cleared with the wikipedia comunity
(read vetoed have you seen how tough it is to make even buracrat on
en.wikipedidia?) and what the devs think (since they are the people
who would have to do any cleanup they should have the final say) would
be other issues.

--
geni


from_name: Kim Bruning

in_reply_to:
<0F24E845-7B7C-4675-A5F5-33D48071DBCD@wikipedia.be>;
	from muijz@wikipedia.be on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 08:55:23AM +0200

body:
On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 08:55:23AM +0200, Erik van den Muijzenberg wrote:
> On 10-jun-2006, at 2:44, oscar wrote:
>
>
> Again I don't understand why such a strict separation should be
> necessary.

What's your proposal, Muijz? :)

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

--
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5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


in_reply_to:
<8b722b800606051006u3bbd8122s3cdcfc51f32afb72@mail.gmail.com>;
	from beesley@gmail.com on Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 03:06:25AM +1000

body:
On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 03:06:25AM +1000, Angela wrote:
> With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> available. If that is something you'd consider, please let me know.

The old internet maxim is that anyone who wants the job, probably isn't
suited to it. It might be wiser to find people who might be suitable,
and then somehow do them an offer they cannot refuse.

I don't know any people from outside wikimedia at this moment in time
who might be helpful. I'll leave that to others.

I do know people from the community, and can make some reccomendations.

People who would likely actually be suited from the community or
otherwise might be:
* Members of chapter boards , who we could steal
* people currently doing other foundation work who could be "promoted"
* People generally trusted inside a particular wikipedia community
* all around smart people.

Some aspects that might be good
* Typically "older" users who have a lot of experience
* People who are mild, and unlikely to enter conflict
* People who have also had some amount of real life experience.

Here's some people with current responsibilities, that I know of and can
quickly dig up out of my (endo)memory.

* James Forrester (arbitration, current foundation work, uk chapter)
* Sannse (mediation and arbitration, otrs)
* Mindspillage (Mediation and arbitration, otrs, press contact)
* Oscar (Did interim management irl, setting up wikimedia netherlands
  chapter, otrs, might not enjoy getting more work)
* Essjay (Some current foundation work, highly trusted. Wikipedoholic)
* Amgine (Often more approachable than anyone else on foundation
          matters, press)
* Elian  (Already used to bossing jimbo around O:-) )
* Delphine (Chapters committee)
* Bishonen (Known to a lot of people, seen as voice of reason)

* Explicitly not Brion. He's doing too much useful work as a
  developer. :-)

If eveyone else searches their memory in the same way, we'll quickly
have a decent shortlist.

Only come up with suitable people for now.  Don't worry if they protest
or refuse for now, we'll sort that part out later.

So now it's up to the rest of the list to come up with some more names.
Ideas?

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

--
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from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Kelly Martin schrieb:

> I've long believed that we should have a council/assembly/etc.
> composed of representatives selected by each project; this body should
> elect, at the very least, some portion of the board of directors.

The page is on meta since ages:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil

Maybe we'll get it started one time.

greetings,
elian


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
With all the talk about who is willing and unwilling to be on the board, it
may be worthwhile to get a precise description of what board membership
entails. It is *not* a step up in some imaginary hierarchy--admin, bureacrat,
steward, board member. Far from it.

First and foremost, being on the Board implies fiduciary *responsibility,*
i.e., if the Foundation gets sued, it is the Board members that they will come
after.

It is the ability to exercise oversight, particularly financial oversight.
Are we going to spend half a million dollars on bandwidth or hardware, and if
so, why, i.e., are the monies entrusted to the Foundation being used
responsibly?

For more information, see _http://www.boardsource.org/_
(http://www.boardsource.org/) . And no. When  dealing with legal issues or an audit, the Board
cannot argue that it is is  "creating a new organizational model."

I hope all the self-proclaimed candidates have asked themselves whether  they
really meet these criteria. Furthermore, I would hope that the current  Board
vets any candidates in advance regarding their previous experience--and I
don't mean organizing their fraternity/sorority beer fund.

Danny


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Commons-l] An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes

body:
On 6/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests
> frequently sees recurring copyright debates, which I believe is
> basically because we are a bunch of amateurs trying to make decisions
> on complex international copyright law.
>
> This is no slight on the people who take part in these debates (I am
> one of them), but it simply seems to me quite silly. No one can be
> sure who is right, we argue in circles and it's really inefficient. I
> really feel out of my depth trying to argue on copyright cases, but I
> do it because *someone* has to - there just isn't enough attention
> given to these cases.
>
I agree that this tends to be a problem.  I think the only solution
though is to come to a rough consensus on the major issues and then
write them down so that the same work isn't being done over and over
again.

> And yet Wikimedia has a legal department:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_department . Villy
> (Jean-Christophe Chazalette), who is part of it, used to be quite
> active on Commons but hasn't been for some time.
>
> Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal
> department to create and fill a permanent position known as something
> like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate
> requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing
> list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about
> two weeks on any given issue.
>
> I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department,
> because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues,
> unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else.
>
The main job of the Foundation's legal department is to protect the
Foundation from copyright infringement.  This is a *much* different
task from deciding whether or not content is free enough to exist in
Commons.  Further, the task does not lend itself to an open process,
while the task of deciding what to allow in Commons should be an
extremely open process.

It'd be nice to get some real legal help on the important legal
issues, but the Foundation's legal team is almost surely not the best
way to do it.  Something like having a separate but overlapping group
like the folks over at freedomdefined.org provide this type of help
would be more appropriate.  Of course that group is currently still in
the early stages of development,  so I wouldn't expect a whole lot of
in depth help from them right away.

> Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved:
> * To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we
> bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers). Country
> copyrights vary considerably with regards to duration of copyright,
> "freedom of panorama" (Panoramafreiheit) /whether public objects such
> as statues and even buildings can be freely photographed and there is
> a lot of confusion about this. Should we respect local law always or
> interpret in terms of US law?

Sure, images on commons shouldn't be illegal for the Foundation to
distribute.  And when they are, the Foundation should step in and
delete them.  But being legal for the Foundation to distribute is only
a very basic baseline to whether or not content is free.  It's
necessary, but by no means sufficient.

Anthony


from_name: Traroth

subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  on (re)organizing wikimedia

body:
I think Oscar's idea is really great, because it mixes representativity (an elected board) and efficiency (a designated CEO and a perennial administrative staff). The best proposal I have heard.
I would like people against his proposition express their arguments.

Traroth

----- Message d'origine ----
De : oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com>
? : Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Envoy? le : Samedi, 10 Juin 2006, 2h44mn 15s
Objet : [Foundation-l] on (re)organizing wikimedia

hi all,

i would like to share with you some thoughts on (re)organization.
i read that there are plans to put a ceo in place to take care of executive
responsibilities. executive responsibilities are very different from those
of responsible wikians within the projects. so far these things have not
been separated at all, that is understandable for a young and growing
organization, but such cannot last or work well forever.

in my opinion:
1. the only way this organization, its projects and mission, its vitality
and appeal, will survive will be if a strict separation be implemented
between volunteer-work, executive tasks and their respective supervision.
2. separation of executive and project-related responsibilities by
installing an elected council of representatives from the projects is
mandatory.
3. the task of an appointed board should be supervising the work of the
executives, it should be a type of board consisting of very professional
people (the kind which in a way of speaking should have "better things to
do", if you get my meaning), and in general not deal with the projects at
all.
4. the council of representatives should supervise the projects, advise the
executive level, and in general not deal with the board at all.

i could be more elaborate in explaining the rationale behind these thoughts,
but i chose to keep things concise. note however, that i spoke of how
specific tasks, responsibilities and work can be organized, avoiding the
who-does-what, which is not of my concern now.
also these things should definitely not be mixed up.

for what it's worth these are my two euros ;-)

oscar
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [Wikitech-l] single signon status?

body:
John Ky wrote:
> Is there a document describing how it will work?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Single_login_specifications

There's also

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Single_signon_transition
which is older and might be out-of-date, and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Single_login
which is marked as archaic.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bogdanov affair and dishonesty of Wikipedia

body:
The url of the arbitration case is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/
Regarding_The_Bogdanov_Affair

I would say there is no good solution. The Bogdanov's themselves
edited (lot of sockpuppets). The others did a hatchet job. Basically
we said that if you are not a regular Wikipedia editor, don't drag
your personal stuff onto Wikipedia. But that may have happened. The
person complaining sounds like one of the Bogdanovs. He may well have
a valid complaint about the other editor, but letting them edit
freely is no solution either.

Fred

On Jun 11, 2006, at 6:55 AM, Steve Summit wrote:

> I had never heard of the Bogdanov affair before this.  I'm not
> sure what your criticism of the Wikipedia article is, but to me
> it looks balanced and well written.  I enjoyed reading it, and
> it is easy to form my own opinion of the matter.  Thanks for
> bringing it to my attention.
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
I had never heard of the Bogdanov affair before this.  I'm not
sure what your criticism of the Wikipedia article is, but to me
it looks balanced and well written.  I enjoyed reading it, and
it is easy to form my own opinion of the matter.  Thanks for
bringing it to my attention.


subject:
[Commons-l] Opinions on some issues (was Re: An idea to help solve
	Commons copyright woes)

body:
On 6/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ).
>
The discussion is at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing/ADRM

I never liked these anti-DRM clauses.  It should be noted though that
many of the current licenses have them.  The GFDL, for instance,
states that "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control
the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute."

Personally I think it's better to state things as a permission, rather
than a restriction.  IOW, I'd favor "You may circumvent any technical
measures which attempt to obstruct or control the reading or further
copying of this work." [the exact wording might have to be put into
better legalease]  Since circumvention only has to happen once to free
the work from any DRM, I don't see the potential harm of any DRM
restrictions that don't have the power of law backing them up.

> * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there
> is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we
> consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even
> possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo_1998.jpg
> )
>
It's possible to consider the effects of copyright law independently
of the effects of trademark law.  I'm not sure how useful of an
exercise this is, though.

As I understand it, trademark law, even internationally, doesn't
restrict the types of uses which commons was created for.  Does
commons want to create a repository of content which you can then use
in your car commercial?  If so, then I guess trademark law is
important.  If not, then I think it'd be good to hear some input from
lawyers in various jurisdictions as to what restrictions trademark law
*does* impose.

> * "Agencia Brasil" license  (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also
> has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a
> website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that
> as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus
> Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they
> intend to allow these specific rights?"
>
That's an interesting question, though not really at all a legal one.
Personally I'd say the answer is somewhere in between, (try to get an
explicit license, and don't delete immediately, but possibly delete if
no response comes).  Of course, Wikimedia Commons pretty much relies
on the false assumption that it's possible to issue a non-revocable
license to everyone in the world.  So getting too technical about such
things is bound to fail.

> * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star
> Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits
> of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this
> before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21
> ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily
> resolved.
>
This is similar to the trademark law question.  And I think it comes
back down to the question of what type of use is commons
contemplating.  Probably the majority of images on commons could be
cropped and used in some way which might violate someone's IP rights
in some jurisdiction.  On the other hand, it seems very unlikely that
someone is going to lose a lawsuit for using a photo of a can of
Pringles.  You could construct a hypothetical, but it'd be little more
than a mind experiment.

It would be nice to hear from some legal experts (licensed or not) in
various jurisdictions as to whether or not this is true.  What type of
cases have been lost over things like this?  We live in a world where
the Girl Scouts were threatened with a lawsuit for singing copyrighted
songs at the campfire, so maybe there are some such ridiculous
situations.

> * US presidential portraits (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paintings_held_by_the_U.S._Government
> ).
>
In this discussion and the previous one I've seen a lot of just plain
old incorrect statements of legal facts.  From what I've read it seems
to me that the works are probably technically copyrighted, but that
it's unlikely anyone is going to get sued over them.  Legal experts
should certainly be involved in determining if that's the case, but
the bigger question is what to do in such a case - similar to the one
about something "freely licensed" without a specific license.

> * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD,
> is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any
> photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall  is not? (Because it
> is 3-D, not 2-D anymore)
>
That statement is not true in every situation nor in every jurisdiction.

> * Personality rights. What permission is required of people
> photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish
> your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is
> this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need
> to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can
> you decide that anyway?)? (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_of_little_girls_uploaded_by_User:Belginusanl
>  , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before)
>
In the US it's not copyright law, but "other law".  But I don't think
that means it can be ignored.

I'd say privacy rights are more similar to copyright law and that
images (or other content) which violates privacy rights shouldn't be
allowed.  But publicity rights are more like trademark law - they only
affect particular types of uses.

Then again, publicity rights tend to have a greater reach than
trademark rights.  I've just recently learned that some US states even
recognize publicity rights after death.  See (and listen to) this
story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5440241

If such a case holds up this could have a huge chilling effect on
things like Wikimedia Commons.  It'd be so bad I'd be inclined to say
that commons should outright ignore such laws.  Of course, I fail to
see how such a ruling could possibly be found consistent with the
First Amendment.

> * Stock xchange images (current:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it
> seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images
> (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they
> might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order
> to use current images?
>
> I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now.

Heh, I do, but partly because I think there's a misconception involved
as to what questions are involved.

> I want to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate
> to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or
> not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a
> good idea or not.
>
I think there are some places where it'd be nice to have input from
legal experts, which is very different from getting professional legal
advice.  I also think there are lot of people who are giving really
bad input on the legal matters, and something should be done to make
it easier to filter them out.

But in most cases I think the issue comes down to a policy question,
and not a legal question.  And I actually think one of the biggest
problems is that people keep confusing the two.

Anthony


body:
On 6/11/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> For more information, see _http://www.boardsource.org/_
> (http://www.boardsource.org/) .

I'm having some trouble finding very much useful information on that
site.  Lots of links to stuff I can buy, but I can't even find the
description of "what board membership entails" that you allude to.
Can you give a more specific link, or were you suggesting we sign up
for the seminar?  The latter might be an excellent idea for those
board members that can attend, though it's important to check out a
few competing services first.

Anthony


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] specialised encyclopaedias (was Re: To: Jimmy Wales
 - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia)

body:
* Mark Gallagher wrote:

> Americans call a programme's series a "season", and the programme itself
> a "series".

You have no idea how much this confused me when I heard the recent Doctor
Who episodes (Rose Tyler & Captain Jack and the Bad Wolf and all that)
repeatedly called "the first series". I eventually figured out that they
meant 'first year of the latest television show about Doctor Who'... but
to us West-ponders it sounds like they are claiming the first Doctor Who
show was aired in 2005... rather than decades ago.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] specialised encyclopaedias (was Re: To: Jimmy Wales
	- Admin-driven death of Wikipedia)

body:
On 6/11/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> [1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent
> articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others
> which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.
>

Science is difficult. There are areas that eirther require a hight
level of background knowlage to understand or would have to be several
hundread pages long. [[Biaxial nematic]] for example.

--
geni


body:
In a message dated 6/11/2006 9:35:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
wikilegal at inbox.org writes:

I'm  having some trouble finding very much useful information on  that
site.  Lots of links to stuff I can buy, but I can't even find  the
description of "what board membership entails" that you allude  to.
Can you give a more specific link, or were you suggesting we sign  up
for the seminar?  The latter might be an excellent idea for  those
board members that can attend, though it's important to check out  a
few competing services first.

Start with the Q&A's and work your way through the site. This is not  about
attending seminars. This is about the basic responsibilities of Board  members.


body:
On 6/11/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> Start with the Q&A's and work your way through the site. This is not  about
> attending seminars. This is about the basic responsibilities of Board  members.

There's a Q&A on the "Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards".
 I won't quote it all here, but they include determining and
communicating the mission, choosing and overseeing a chief executive,
overseeing financials, and maintaining accountability.

I'd say that while the board chair should probably have extensive
experience, for the most part the main qualifications of the other
board members are moral integrity and a committment to the goals of
the organization.  I guess I'd add in lack of hubris.  So long as a
board member knows she's not an expert in something and is willing to
ask for outside help, I think she'll be just fine.  As the site says,
"Much of the work that a board does is accomplished through its
committees and task forces.  With the exception of the Executive
Committee, which acts on the board's behalf, committees recommend
action to the full board for discussion and action."  I'd say it's
these committees and and task forces that really need the experts.  If
the experts can also serve on the board, even better, but I don't see
why it's required.  When it comes down to it, the main thing that's
done by the board outside of a committee is that they discuss and
vote.

I also see a question about whether or not the Chief Staff Executive
should be a member of the board.  The answer mentions how "some feel
that board membership blurs the distinction between the board's
responsibilities and the executive's responsibilities and makes it
difficult for the board to assess the executive's performance
objectively."  Sounds like the situation Wikimedia has itself in right
now.

Anthony


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

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

Phil Sandifer stated for the record:

> Daniel Brandt is a notable public figure. By all rights, he should
> have an article in Wikipedia. And the article we have on him is a
> good one.
>
> We should also, after contacting Brandt, delete it.

> <reasoning snipped>

?We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
    No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
    And the nation that plays it is lost!?

See also Terrorists#negotiating with

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I don't have a beer gut, I have a
 sean at epoptic.com | protective covering for my rock hard abs.
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body:
On 6/11/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I'd say that while the board chair should probably have extensive
> experience, for the most part the main qualifications of the other
> board members are moral integrity and a committment to the goals of
> the organization.

"Moral integrity" probably isn't the term I was looking for.  I should
have left it as "integrity".


from_name: Joe Anderson

body:
Sorry to be a geek, but 4 series? It must be more than that. 3 TOS, 7 TNG,
6/7 DS9, around 4 VOY.

On 6/11/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/
> > encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not).  It
> > included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is,
> > their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about
> > recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1],
> etc.
>
> I own the 1999 version of the Star Trek Encyclopaedia, covering the
> four series and the nine movies up to that point. It's just like the
> one you describe, it's concise and accessible for non-fans (although I
> doubt how many non-fans would be reading it - but the point is they
> could read it if they wanted).
>
> Importantly, it treated the fictional stuff as "true", like a reader
> of an encyclopaedia within the fictional universe would expect, but it
> simultaneously presented information about the shows, the actors, etc
> alongside the fictional stuff, without each trying to pretend that the
> other didn't exist. It's hard to describe, but I think it's a
> marvellous example of how encyclopaedias should address fictional
> matters.
>
> > I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a
> > problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep
> > in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know
> > heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with
> > fan theories and other such crud.
>
> Indeed. WP is of course a generalist encyclopaedia, and although it is
> not paper, and can include much more material than other generalist
> works, we should always be writing for a generalist audience [1].
> There are now, of course, specialist wiki encyclopaedias for these
> subjects (like Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia) which are a much better
> place for specialist content.
>
> [1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent
> articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others
> which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
I think a straw poll would've being better to see if this should exist.
Also, there should be a Request for Oversight Privelages page.

On 6/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Anthere wrote:
> >
> >>>>* what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?
> >>>
> >>>Extreme bannination.
> >>
> >>How can evidence of misuse be gathered ?
> >
> >
> > If alerted, a database admin can look in the hidden table.
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> Brion, could not it be possible that at least all those with oversight
> actually *see* the deleted revisions ?
>
> I understood this was a temp hack. Would it be possible to make hidden
> version visible to oversight people ?
>
> Ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
On 6/11/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I think a straw poll would've being better to see if this should exist.

I don't. Deletion of individual revisions is needed (not as if admins
cant do it anyway it just takes time and is impracticle on pages with
large histories).

> Also, there should be a Request for Oversight Privelages page.

Suggested that on IRC a while back. Responce was someone what negtive.
In any case it isn't as if anyone could get a request past the
community

--
geni


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising

body:
Anthere wrote:

>A list of suggestions, kindly sent offling by one of our participant and
>reworked to suit our organisation.
>
>I'd like that these are taken into account by the Foundraising committee
>(the job of the Fundraising committee is not only to raise money in
>summer 2006, but also to organise sustainable Fundraising practices.
>
Has any thought gone into producing printed materials (either on CD or
even dead tree format) for high quality materials derived from Wikimedia
project pages?  I know this has been suggested many times in the past,
but the quality of many of the Wikimedia pages, particular a focused
sub-set of Wikipedia (like the Astronomy Wikiproject, for example, or
the Chemistry Wikiproject pages) would do quite well.  There are also a
number of Wikijunior books that are in fairly good shape, and if there
was a group ready to do formal publication of Wikimedia materials like
this I think the formal proofreading necessary for publication would
come and make some of these projects of even higher quality than they
already are.  And the multi-lingual versions of almost all of these
higher quality Wikimedia pages are already translated as well.

Sure, I can (and have) print this stuff on my own, but it would be a
good steady income for the Foundation if there were some sort of on-line
store available for people to purchase these products.  And this would
also be consistant with Wikimedia goals for the dissemination of this
content.  It will be done sooner or later anyway, and it would be nice
to see an initive that would involve active Wikimedians instead of some
profiteer who doesn't care about the WMF or the Wikimedia projects.  If
this were part of an official WMF effort rather than something ad-hoc by
some users, it also wouldn't be too far off to even have links directly
from Wikimedia project pages to a "printed version" of the content.  I
don't think too many people would object to seeing that sort of link,
especially if it wasn't obnoxious.

There are groups like Lulu press that offer things like this, and I'm
sure there are other resources available to help with the physical
printing.  What really needs to happen is that somebody tie all of this
together and actually do it, rather than talk about it.  The other
problem is that it will take a little bit of seed money to get started,
and that is some initial financial risk as it is possible that you could
end up with a huge stack of books or CDs that nobody wants to buy.  I
believe this risk can be minimized, and once it has been proven that
content of this nature can be sold, you can expand the offerings.  The
other challenge is that Wikimedia projects have a truly world-wide
reach, so perhaps seperate efforts at local Wikimedia chapters might be
better to offer this?

Anyway, this is some food for thought, and I hope that there are others
who might be interested in seeing this happen.  I think the time has
come to put something like this together.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 6/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I strongly believe the CEO should not be on the board. It seems to make
> sense in small organisations, but I would say it is not suitable in our
> case.
>
> Doubly when the CEO is not only on the board, but also the chair of that
> board.
>
> And triply (if that term exist) when the CEO not only is the chair of
> the board, but also the foundator of the leading project.

Indeed, it is highly inappropriate for the CEO to be on the board.  It
is not uncommon for the CEO to be ex-officio a member of the executive
committee, but the CEO should not serve on the board.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE : Re: Bogdanov affair and dishonesty of Wikipedia

body:
On Jun 11, 2006, at 9:39 AM, Laurence Soixante-sept wrote:

> I sincerely hope that you were better as a lawyer with your "real"
> clients than you were in this case.

No, I did not put up with nonsense then either and I had several
clients who were extremely dissatisfied. I have no regrets on that
score. I was not a very good "mouthpiece".

Fred


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Request to mailing list Wikipedia EN-l rejected
	("Oversight")

body:
I rejected a message from Selina last night, but it appeared to be
gibberish, not content. (As in nonsense characters not words - not as
in "an incoherent rant")

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu      AIM: Snowspinner

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

 >

On Jun 11, 2006, at 11:11 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 6/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> Personally I would have let this one through, but it does not really
>> advance the discussion since it is premised on a factual error.
>> Developers *do* have access, nothing is destroyed, and we are asking
>> Brion to create an interface whereby oversights can oversight each
>> other
>> by checking the stuff that has been deleted.
>
> Hello,
> I didn't reject this message, and I don't know who did. Selina
> probably assumed I did as I have rejected messages from her in the
> past, always providing an explanation and signing it with my name.
>
> I think I would have let it through too, not sure what happened here?
>
> Steve


from_name: sannse

body:
Nathan Carter wrote:
>
> Kim Bruning wrote:
>
>> Some aspects that might be good
>> * Typically "older" users who have a lot of experience
>> * People who are mild, and unlikely to enter conflict
>> * People who have also had some amount of real life experience.
>>
> I agree with these guidelines except for the second. There is no use
> having someone who is just going to follow the group dynamic and agree
> on everything just because they are afraid of being confrontational. In
> most organisations the real changes come from conflict. Conflict when
> constructive and directed properly is useful and should not be something
> we shy away from.
> Cheers,
> Nathan.

There is a big difference between being assertive and active, and being
confrontational and aggressive.

--sannse


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Steve Summit wrote:

>(The problem's just as bad over on Wiktionary, where there are
>stubbornly, defiantly distinct pages for `color' and `colour'.
>Huge, repetitive, internecine arguments regularly erupt, whenever
>anyone has the temerity to suggest that the two entries be merged
>somehow since they're "obviously" just two spelling variants
>for "the same" word.)
>
It's not a problem.  The reasonable people understand that it needs to
be on two separate pages.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>>>>* what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?
>>>
>>>Extreme bannination.
>>
>>How can evidence of misuse be gathered ?
>
>
> If alerted, a database admin can look in the hidden table.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Brion, could not it be possible that at least all those with oversight
actually *see* the deleted revisions ?

I understood this was a temp hack. Would it be possible to make hidden
version visible to oversight people ?

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
No good, compared to the real enemies of free expression, Daniel
Brandt is just a nuisance. Some things just come with the territory.

Fred

On Jun 11, 2006, at 11:30 AM, Phil Sandifer wrote:

> Daniel Brandt is a notable public figure. By all rights, he should
> have an article in Wikipedia. And the article we have on him is a
> good one.
>
> We should also, after contacting Brandt, delete it.
>
> I don't know if you all caught what Brandt and the folks at Wikipedia
> Review did to me last month. If you didn't, here: http://
> www.boingboing.net/2006/05/22/u_florida_cops_ask_f.html Basically,
> someone on Wikipedia Review contacted my University to express
> concern that I was a murderer, and I got to deal with a week of being
> the subject of a police investigation that demanded my fingerprints.
>
> In my case, who I am is public knowledge, and I decided to make it
> that way. But that's not the case for everyone on Brandt's Hive Mind
> site. A lot of them are people who didn't accept their RFA expecting
> that they'd have their names, cities of residence, and photos
> released. Nobody on Wikipedia, I don't think, realized that accepting
> adminship meant painting a target on yourself, and, frankly, on your
> family and friends.
>
> The Foundation doesn't and can't provide admins with protection here.
> And we need protection. The other admins on this site should not get
> to go through what I did, or any of the far worse things that can and
> will eventually happen to us.
>
> But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
> its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
> is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
> the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful
> trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for
> forcing us to make it.
>
> But we should make it. Because the consequences of not making it are
> just too dangerous.
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> 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: James D. Forrester

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:

> Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal
> department to create and fill a permanent position known as something
> like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate
> requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing
> list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about
> two weeks on any given issue.
>
> I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department,
> because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues,
> unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else.

This would significantly blur the line between the Foundation and the
community, and (for the obvious reasons) almost certainly make the
Foundation legally liable for copyright violations without anything like
the elasticity that we currently enjoy. I would strongly counsel against
it, but then I'm sure the legal group is aware of the issues anyway.

Yours sincerely,
--
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
On 6/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> * how did the current editors with access to this tool got it ? (which
> process to get that new status). Are the people only from the arbcom ?
> Or are they accepted by the arbcom ?

The current ArbCom has it, Jimbo has it, Brion has it (as a developer)
and Essjay has it (the ArbCom gave it to him).

This Signpost article explains it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-06-05/Oversight

There is also a log, although it doesn't indicate much:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/oversight

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Alison Wheeler

body:
On Sun, June 11, 2006 02:38, Kim Bruning wrote:
> The old internet maxim is that anyone who wants the job, probably isn't
> suited to it. It might be wiser to find people who might be suitable,
> and then somehow do them an offer they cannot refuse.

Maybe we should start on the principle that anyone reading Foundation-l in
the first place is already too far gone but are more likely to be
'persuadeable' ;-0

> Some aspects that might be good
> * Typically "older" users who have a lot of experience
> * People who are mild, and unlikely to enter conflict
> * People who have also had some amount of real life experience.

The age range we have working on Wikimedia is amazing. Regularly I am
surprised to find that the person I thought was "old" is actually "young",
and vice-versa. And long may that remain so. Foundation activitity though
does, as you say, require more 'real life' skills and an ability to make
connections, decisions and responses that will stand up to scrutiny - both
professionally, legally and from the community.

I would strongly disagree with the second one there though. Not with
'conflict', as that really is something we don't need (and, arguably, have
some of already that we need to sort out) but there are difficult
decisions ahead for WMF and the projects both that will not be easy.

As a whole we are now becoming more visible to the non-net person;
regularly quoted in newpaper and magazine articles to readers who aren't
online and don't - quite - realise our modus operandi is truly as open and
free as it is. And that will mean with the explosive growth we have
experienced - and will no doubt continue to find ourselves in - there will
come a point when we need to decide which paths are the ones best taken.
That will require a Board prepared to take the 'hard decisions' and a
wider membership willing to make practical and *possible* suggestions with
methodologies that can be considered and to accept the choices that get
made. And all to work together to make it happen without total all-out
conflict getting in the way.

> Only come up with suitable people for now.  Don't worry if they protest
> or refuse for now, we'll sort that part out later.

hmmmn. Not quite so sure I could support that option. Wasn't there someone
who once said "If nominated I won't stand, if elected I won't serve"? We
need people who will *do* things not just talk about them or refuse to get
involved!

Alison Wheeler


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 6/9/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>*sigh* People pursuing BE and AE should see what it's like to be a writer
>>who has to write a certain way because our style guide says so. Our company
>>writes in AE, while I personally dislike AE and prefer to write in BE as
>>much as possible. I write in AE in my company because I'd likely get fired
>>if I didn't.
>>
>>
>I am in that exact same situation - I'm employed to write in AmE,
>although AusE (or even BE) is my preference. It's confusing, and
>mostly manifests itself with words like "behavio[u]r", and
>occasionally "level[l]ed" etc.
>
>
>>I prefer to to write in BE, but when I see people trying to convert American
>>articles to BE, such as [[Special Activities Division]], it annoys me
>>greatly. Same with British articles to AE (such as [[Harry Potter]]). This
>>also applies to articles that could be written in either AE or BE, but were
>>first written in one form, and people come to convert it over. I wish I
>>could apply a category or template to indicate that the article is written
>>in AE, and please piss off with the BE conversions (and vice versa).
>>
>>
>I tend to think conversions are a kind of "noise" that should be
>justified by a considerable contirbution. A 20 paragraph article that
>becomes a 25 paragraph article accompanied by a conversion from BE to
>AE seems like a good deal. A conversion with no other redeeming
>features tends to grate, however.
>
As a user of Canadian English I find it best to have a compromise hybrid
where some words will have an affinity to AmE and others to BrE,
although any single word should be spelled consistently throughout an
article.  Insisting on all American or British spelling is really just
another form of POV pushing.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] "You wrote"

body:
It would be really nice if you stopped using the phrase "you wrote" with
everything that you quote.  I would be more enlightening if you
identified the person who really said whatever is quoted.  Doing so is
certainly the norm for contributors to this list.

Ec

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:49:39 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
>
>
>>I was wondering if you could review the proposals. If
>>you think that the concerns are valid and that the
>>suggestions made in the proposals has some merit, I
>>would be glad to discuss the issue (not the problems
>>but the possible solutions which I think are
>>reasonable) further. I have a couple of similar
>>suggestions that I believe are critical and can be
>>useful to gently modify the structure of the project
>>and prepare it for the future if it will be expanding
>>in the years to come.
>>
>>
>Don't tell me: one of them calls for the removal of images which a
>small minority of editors find offensive from articles on important
>events, and another one calls for administrators to be prevented from
>blocking users who unilaterally remove content they find offensive
>despite overwhelming consensus to keep it?  Am I close?
>