from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:No factions of belief

body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> Based on the discussion about divisive behavior and following my
> earlier comments, I have created a new policy proposal:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_factions_of_belief
>
> Please comment!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erik

I suppose exceptions will be made for upholding policy? It'd be pretty
silly if we *weren't* a permament faction around certain beliefs.

~maru


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones
>
It's great. I have two suggestions.

First, make friends with the {{cite...}} templates which allow you to format
the references with authors, dates and other meta-data. You can include them
inside the <ref> tags.

Second, I for one desperately want a map showing where all those stones are
in relation to each other.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Is-this-overciting--t1633931.html#a4426510
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Summit

subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Image Credits" proposal to allow images to link
	to pages

body:
Without getting too bogged down in the "Image Credits" proposal,
which as Gregory Maxwell points out is somewhat of an orthogonal
issue, I'd like to propose Keeping it Simple and looking just at
the image linking part of the idea, highlighting the distinction
Elliott Cable pointed out between icons and images.

There's been no shortage of suggestions for syntax, so I won't
rehash those here.  The main objection is the loss or hiding of
the copyright and other information to be found attached to the
larger image.  But proposals to try to make the link(s) go both
ways quickly descend into a morass of complexities.

I suggest we do allow the optional linking of images to other
content, with the following proviso: doing so is acceptable only
the image is used as a navigational icon.  Typically it will
either be a drawn image (a button), or a thumbnail photo.
So I would propose this formal specification of the proviso:
"navigational" linking is acceptable if:

	   1. The image is 100x100 px or smaller, and
	( 2a. the image is PD, or
	  2b. the same image also appears on the linked-to page
	      and, there, has the old behavior of linking to the
	      full-size image plus its metainformation. )

Whether to try to enforce such a requirement by policy or in
software is an interesting next question.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] The lang tag in <HTML> ain't identical to
	$wgContLanguageCode

body:
Shinjiman and Happy Rabbit, I don't know about everybody else
here, but I'd find this issue easier to think about if I
understood a bit more about what you're trying to accomplish.
Apologies for not knowing as much as I should about these issues.

My main question is this.  Why do we need the extra mapping of
the HTML lang tag?  Why is it not adequate to set the value of
$wgContLanguageCode appropriately for each wiki, so that it
matches the language that the wiki's pages are written in?

(I'm ignoring the question of interwiki links, and of the wiki's
customized pages, because I think those are separate issues,
and not the one I think we're most interested in here.)

I can guess what the problem might be, but I'm not sure.  Please
tell me which of the following scenarios it is, or if it isn't
any of these, please explain what the issue really is.

1. Perhaps, within one wiki, there are different pages written in
   different variants of the language.  Since $wgContLanguageCode
   is constant across the whole wiki, it can't be correct for
   each page.  It must be overridden depending on the page being
   displayed.

2. Perhaps some browsers are broken, and don't choose the correct
   font based on the HTML lang tag.  So even if $wgContLanguageCode
   is set correctly for the language a wiki's pages are written
   in, some users will see it incorrectly.  So those users need
   a way to override the value of $wgContLanguageCode.

3. Perhaps the problem is this "Language Converter" thing.
   Even though a wiki's pages are written in one language, that
   language can be automatically altered, on the fly, as the page
   is displayed, to some other variant of the language.  But when
   this is done, the value of $wgContLanguageCode for that wiki
   is no longer correct for the language being displayed.

Also, i don't understand what information would be used to adjust
the HTML lang tag.  Brion has suggested that $wgContLanguageCode
should always be used, that is, that

	html_lang_tag = $wgContLanguageCode

You're suggesting that the HTML lang tag has to be derived as a
function of $wgContLanguageCode and some other information:

	html_lang_tag = f( $wgContLanguageCode, ??? )

The question is, what is the other information?  A per-user
preference?  Extra tags on the page being displayed?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>  Somewhat in response to Jimbo's post, I thought I'd offer an example
> of an article I've been working on, which has a massive number of
> footnotes. Pretty much every sentence in it I wrote with reference to
> one website or another, so I footnoted them all. Perhaps I suspect
> some of it is dodgy, so I prefer the source being explicitly stated.
>
> Anyway:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones
>
> I would like to hear from people whether they consider this level of
> footnoting excessive, about right, deficient etc. I believe that this
> article may almost meet WP:V, if it wasn't for the fact that most of
> the sources are amateur websites. The sentence about Kermarquer is
> definitely Original Research, but I'm sure sooner or later I'll find a
> source to back me up.
>
> Steve

You didn't cite in the intro the "exceptionally dense collection" claim. :)

But that's pretty good. Ideally, from my standpoint, those references
in the bottom would contain not just the source information, but the
actual quotes you were using, so one does not need to pore over the
article/long research paper/whatever.
For an example of what I sort of mean, see my [[Encyclopedia of the
Brethren of Purity]]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_of_Purity

~maru


body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I suppose exceptions will be made for upholding policy? It'd be pretty
> > silly if we *weren't* a permament faction around certain beliefs.
>
> I added the following clarification to the intro earlier:
>
> "This policy does not concern groups of individuals who are merely
> articulating or enforcing the shared ideals and principles of the
> Wikipedia community in different ways (e.g. Wikipedia:Esperanza,
> Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit)."
>
> Is that what you're referring to?
>
> Erik

Pretty much. There are still edge cases. For example, is it a shared
ideal and principle of the Wikipedia community that we should only use
free software and despise proprietary non-free software? (Ie. would it
be legitimate to have a userbox stating that "this user hates nonfree
software and works towards its demise", or must that be stated as
"this user like free software"?) Or is our conception of freedom
limited to the products of our labor like Mediawiki and the articles
themselves? &etc.

~maru


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Baidupedia (the downside to free content?)

body:
Matt R wrote:

>>That makes copyleft licences useless.  Wikipedia as a whole has shown
>>great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios.  It
>>also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an
>>article.  This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote.  It means
>>that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material.
>>It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can
>>take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright
>>without any fear that it will be seriously challenged.  I accept the
>>GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial
>>interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge
>>its viral nature.  Who defends that?  Who defends it 20 years from now?
>>
>>
>Baidupedia is a public website: that is, if they improve our GFDL-licensed work, then anyone can use those derived works under the GFDL; whether or not they acknowledge it or advertise it doesn't change that fact. Therefore, I don't see copyleft being useless in this instance.
>
In theory you may be right, but unless the person who uses their
material knows that that material is covered by GFDL he needs to assume
that their copyright is valid.  For copyleft to work their needs to be
an unbroken chain of attributions.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Rob Church wrote:

>On 17/05/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as
>>opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia" are specifically
>>disallowed in the guideline "Wikipedia:User page".  While this is a
>>guideline, and not policy, it does create a presumption that, if
>>someone objected to an apparently polemical statement on your
>>userpage, you'd at least undertake a good faith effort to demonstrate
>>how this benefits the project.  You really don't get to tell the
>>fellow "stay off my userpage."
>>
>>
>That ought to become one of our de facto policies; it would lash back
>at most of the MySpace and LiveJournal wannabes, who could then go all
>emo, get such a blog and start writing about how mean Wikipedia is for
>wanting to emphasise improving content, not hosting all sorts of crap
>
What's "emo"?

>>I can see a lot of administrators getting pretty worried if you
>>persistently retained a statement of personal opinion similar to the
>>one you gave above on a page anywhere in Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>Worried? I can see a lot of them jumping to block.
>
I'm not particularly concerned about such comments about a political
figure on a user page; it says a lot about that user in very concise terms.

Nevertheless, I would be more concerned about the uneven application of
such a policy to one end of the political spectrum only.

Ec


from_name: Ruud Koot

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> It's also common sense that an encyclopedia article on [[Fahrenheit
> 451]] is going to contain, you know, details on the plot of Fahrenheit
> 451.
>
> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>
> Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm serious.  I
> hate that template.

I would support delting that template. But failing that, you can add

.spoiler { display: none; }

to your monobook.css to hide them.

Ruud


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>I think George W. Bush is a criminal, if you feel offended by that
then by all means stay off my userpage

Is this a challenge?  There is a reasonable limit on what one can say
on a userpage,

"Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as
opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia" are specifically
disallowed in the guideline "Wikipedia:User page".  While this is a
guideline, and not policy, it does create a presumption that, if
someone objected to an apparently polemical statement on your
userpage, you'd at least undertake a good faith effort to demonstrate
how this benefits the project.  You really don't get to tell the
fellow "stay off my userpage."

I can see a lot of administrators getting pretty worried if you
persistently retained a statement of personal opinion similar to the
one you gave above on a page anywhere in Wikipedia.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Factions vs. Division (was Re: Divisive and
	InflammatoryBehavior, was CSD T1)

body:
On 5/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Republican => interested in politics
> > anti-Scientologist => interested in Scientology
> > deletionist=> interested in AfD
> > nymphomaniac => interested in contraception
>
> Smells like euphemisms. And it pretty much amounts to the same thing.

No, there's one crucial difference. I would put myself in "interested
in Christianity", even though I am a staunch atheist. I suspect that
so would many others. It's not about hiding your beliefs - I think
that would be pointless. My argument is that _identifiable factions_,
that is, permanent groups that are categorized and listed, should be
open to all convictions about a given subject. They can be
subject-specific, but they shouldn't be belief-specific.

If you want to say on your user page that you're a Christian, that's
one thing. If you want to form a group of Christians who work together
because they share their belief system, then you're on the wrong site.
Certainly, you can find others who want to work with you on
Christianity articles. But you will have to accept that they may
disagree with you about the fundamentals.

It's true that for many subcultures, "being interested in" will be
equivalent to "being a fan/member of". You will find that in many
existing WikiProjects (e.g. most members of the LDS WikiProject are
Mormons), but I haven't heard anyone ever suggest that WikiProjects
and Portals are harmful in the way "divisive" userboxes are. That's
because WikiProjects (should) accept members of all persuasions on a
topic.

Erik


from_name: Molu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
Hello,

  In anticipation, the wise author of the page has appealed to the masses to keep the page off itself. Anyway, I've moved the page to Historic debates. Currently it lists the Cartoon controversy, Lolicon and Userbox. What else do you think is significant enough to be included?

  Molu

  On Tue, 16 May 2006 22:10:49 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>"May, 2006: a debate between Charles Matthews and Fred Bauder on
>whether historic or historical was the correct term for this list..."

>Guy (JzG)

---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1¢/min.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project
> just for being lousy writers.  (This is not a policy statement, just a
> statement of attitude and frustration.)

I realize it's written out of frustration, but you really have to
appreciate much more how difficult it is to "kick out" people. You do
know that Lir is still around, right? How many times did we block the
guy? The fact that problem users become invisible in terms of
traceable identities doesn't make them go away. It makes the problem
worse. And you also remember User:Michael, I'm sure. I think that
experiment is generally considered to be successful?

Wikipedia is an open system. Creating a new account is trivial; so is
circumventing a block. For most people who have dynamic IPs, it
doesn't even take any effort other than waiting a few hours. Heck, we
don't even _require_ people to register, and when they do, we don't
require email address confirmation (which itself is trivial to
circumvent - mailinator.net, etc.).

Unless we want to radically reduce that level of openness, we need to
stick to our usual patience in dealing with problem users. Otherwise
we risk to turning an incompetent good faith editor into a malicious
sock puppetteer. The fact that we have all these complex processes and
policies - RfC, ArbCom, mediation, etc. - makes it all work.

That doesn't mean that we can't do more. We should make better use of
the key advantage we get from _not_ blocking problem users and bad
writers: traceability. There's nothing wrong with telling someone: "We
appreciate your contributions, but their quality is not yet up to our
standards, so we're going to put you in a different class of users."

Highlight their edits. Create a page where volunteers can sign up as
mentors to deal with them. Only in the worst cases, tell them that if
they don't find someone to mentor, they will be blocked. And I
probably should polish my "School of Wikipedia" idea a bit more.
Writing is a skill that can be acquired.

Erik


from_name: Earthhope Action Network

subject:
[WikiEN-l] 7. Re: Zero information is preferred to misleading or
	false

body:
Erik Moeller said: RfC, ArbCom, mediation, etc. - makes it all work.

I'm just wondering. I am an editor, who. while never accused of lousy
writing, has been blocked indefinitely from editing on Wikipedia and never
had any RfC, ArbCom, mediation, or any dispute resolution at all. Never.
Just wondering why this was. And also wondering why my unblock request was
removed, and why my last blocker BunchofGrapes blocked my email so that I
cannot contact him. User:thewolfstar in peace and justice for the wildthings,
Margie Laupheimer http://earthhopenetwork.net/


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Molu wrote:
> >  I
> > think George W. Bush is a criminal, if you feel offended by that then
> > by all means stay off my userpage,
>
> And if you feel that the best way to participate on the Internet is by
> posting inflammatory statements on your userpage, then by all means stay
> off of Wikipedia.  Go find a project which welcomes political rants and
> leave us alone.
>
> --Jimbo

Inforceing that one could be interesting. The effect of deleting

[[User:Kingstonjr]]
[[User:Hashbrowns]]
[[User:Markaci/Nudity]]
[[User:Cyde/Weird pictures]]
(seriously NSFW)

is unlikey to involve people acting calmly. At least going by the
normal reaction of the various wikipedia is not censored groups.

--
geni


body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project
> just for being lousy writers.  (This is not a policy statement, just a
> statement of attitude and frustration.)

No they need to have their energies redirected to some element of the
project where they can be more useful.

--
geni


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Divisive and Inflammatory Behavior, was CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> True, but the blocking policy allows blocking for disruption, in so
> many words. Something being prohibited is essentially the same as
> something being a valid reason to block according to the blocking
> policy.
>

Yep. This is what I was referring to.

Ryan


body:
Based on the discussion about divisive behavior and following my
earlier comments, I have created a new policy proposal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_factions_of_belief

Please comment!

Thanks,

Erik


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

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

geni stated for the record:
>
> Inforceing that one could be interesting. The effect of deleting
>
> [[User:Kingstonjr]]
> [[User:Hashbrowns]]
> [[User:Markaci/Nudity]]
> [[User:Cyde/Weird pictures]]
> (seriously NSFW)
>
> is unlikey to involve people acting calmly. At least going by the
> normal reaction of the various wikipedia is not censored groups.

I'm personally going to see to it that most of [[User:Kingstonjr]]
becomes a collection of dead links.

For those just tuning in now, Kingstonjr is uploading dozens if not
hundreds of copyright-reserved images, making absurdly false statements
regarding their status (public domain because he found them on
Usenet!?!), and then using those copyright violations only on his User page.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | The Government is investigating you to find
 sean at epoptic.com | out why you don't trust the Government.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEayeDMAt1wyd9d+URAmU/AJ9dWHX85Uv6mv8iE+KjHG1HG13VowCfWO0I
+QLcD7rlqHEmctxyrcV/xxg=
=8OiN
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from_name: Prasad J

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tearing down the Chinese Firewall

body:
As a side note, I really do suspect that George Orwell was referring
to the U.S when he wrote 1984!


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> It is probably significant to note that Anthony DiPierro and Peter McKay
> are on the same side of this question.
>
Why?  Who is Peter McKay?  Or is it Peter Mackay?

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > On 5/16/06, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk> wrote:
> >> Peter Mackay wrote:
> >>>> Jimbo's word on the matter:
> >>>>
> >>>>   The point is, we don't act *in Wikipedia* as a Democrat, a
> >>>>   Republican, a pro-Lifer, a pro-Choicer, or whatever. Here we are
> >>>>   Wikipedians, which means: thoughtful, loving, neutral.
> >>> With all due respect to you and Jimbo, that's not the way it happens.
> >>> Thoughtful, loving, neutral, touchy-feely gets good marks, but editors don't
> >>> suddenly turn into opinionless automatons. Nor do we want them to. We want
> >>> Republicans to have input into articles on the Republican Party. We just
> >>> don't want it to be Republican propaganda.
> >> With all due respect to you, I think you're slightly misinterpreting
> >> what Jimbo (and I) actually mean. I don't think either of us are
> >> suggesting that editors should be 'opinionless automatons', just that
> >> they shouldn't let their opinions influence the way they write articles.
> >>
> > I'd say that's pretty much impossible.  If nothing else, what you
> > believe is going to affect what you know, and that's going to have a
> > significant influence on the way you write an article.  IMO the way
> > Wikipedians should produce an NPOV article is through the consensus of
> > people with multiple points of view.  Templates regarding points of
> > view can very much support this.
> >
> > That isn't to say that I think a template which says "This user think
> > George W. Bush is a moron" is an example of such a template.  Actually
> > I'd say a person using such a template is showing a lack of the skills
> > needed to work with others.  But "This user is an atheist", or "This
> > user is a Linux user", on the other hand, I think is not only
> > non-harmful, I think it is helpful.
> >
> > Again just my opinion, but I don't think there's a consensus on this
> > matter, and his majesty Jimbo has explicitly stated that he has not
> > made an edict on the matter, so speedy deletion should be out of the
> > question.
> >
> > Anthony
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I can NOT emphasize this enough.
>
> There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
> random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
> tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
> aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
> information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
> living persons.
>
I seriously doubt you've edited enough with sockpuppets to understand
what this is all about.  Either that or you've abandoned your previous
notion that edit warring is bad.

I do agree with you about negative information on living people,
especially non-incredibly famous living people.  But in general the
best a non-admin can do is point things out and hope someone listens.

Anthony


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 17/05/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as
> opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia" are specifically
> disallowed in the guideline "Wikipedia:User page".  While this is a
> guideline, and not policy, it does create a presumption that, if
> someone objected to an apparently polemical statement on your
> userpage, you'd at least undertake a good faith effort to demonstrate
> how this benefits the project.  You really don't get to tell the
> fellow "stay off my userpage."

That ought to become one of our de facto policies; it would lash back
at most of the MySpace and LiveJournal wannabes, who could then go all
emo, get such a blog and start writing about how mean Wikipedia is for
wanting to emphasise improving content, not hosting all sorts of crap

> I can see a lot of administrators getting pretty worried if you
> persistently retained a statement of personal opinion similar to the
> one you gave above on a page anywhere in Wikipedia.

Worried? I can see a lot of them jumping to block.

Rob Church


body:
On 17/05/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 16, 2006, at 6:20 PM, Prasad J wrote:
>
> > As a side note, I really do suspect that George Orwell was referring
> > to the U.S when he wrote 1984!
>
> He wasn't.
>
> He was referring to Stalin, his work at the BBC during World War II,
> the British Empire, Nazi Germany, etc.

And the US didn't enter his mind at any point? Can't believe that,
myself, although I'm not going to push the issue. WikiEN-l isn't the
place for that sort of intellectual debate.

I'll echo the sentiments of the respondent, though. This is a mailing
list about Wikipedia; regardless of how much of a tosser you
personally think George Bush is, or how much you disagree with the US,
the UK or any of those countries, *don't post it*; it's off-topic and,
due to the geographical and political alignment of a lot of
subscribers, could be considered mindless trolling.

Rob Church

Rob Church


body:
On 5/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suppose exceptions will be made for upholding policy? It'd be pretty
> silly if we *weren't* a permament faction around certain beliefs.

I added the following clarification to the intro earlier:

"This policy does not concern groups of individuals who are merely
articulating or enforcing the shared ideals and principles of the
Wikipedia community in different ways (e.g. Wikipedia:Esperanza,
Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit)."

Is that what you're referring to?

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/17/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro schrieb:
> > So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Spoilerhinweis
> 17 supporters, 81 people voting contra and 29 against even posing the
> question for an encyclopedia.
>
Even the Google-translated version of that vote makes about as much
sense to me as the English vote (which is, not at all).  "Property me
the spoiler references in the English Wikipedia looked at and feels
you as additional information. So white I at the beginning whether in
the text a possible tensionful action is uncovered or not."

Heh, sorry, I can't even figure out what the people are voting for and
against, though I do find it disappointing that De Wikipedians vote in
the first place (and apparently without even apologizing about it like
the En Wikipedians do).

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

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

Steve Bennett stated for the record:

> On 5/17/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm personally going to see to it that most of [[User:Kingstonjr]]
>>becomes a collection of dead links.
>
>
>
> Aren't there better ways to go about achieving that though? Maybe involving
> censure, stern warnings, blocks etc?
>
> Steve

Tagging and removal of copyright violations takes priority over beatings
with the cluebat, unless the offender actively tries to resist the
removal.  So far, the process is working.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | The Government is investigating you to find
 sean at epoptic.com | out why you don't trust the Government.
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Boalch
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
> >>> NPOV, for example, depends on different points of view, including
> >>> political
> >>> opinions, being given space consistent with their level
> of support.
> >>
> >> Consistent with their level of support in the world, yes.
> Consistent
> >> with their level of support among the Wikipedia editing community,
> >> no. There is a crucial difference.
> >
> > Beg pardon, but I think you've got that the wrong way around...
>
> I don't think so. Take [[Criticism of Wikipedia]], for
> instance. I imagine that most regular Wikipedia editors
> disagree with many of those criticisms. For example, I doubt
> that many of us agree with Robert McHenry and Andrew Orlowski
> that it is improper and unsuitable for Wikipedia to call
> itself an encyclopaedia. However, this is an opinion

Hardly an average Wikipedia article, wouldn't you agree?

> Accordingly on other articles, different points of view need
> to be included based on their prominence and level of support
> in the real world, not just on which happens to be most
> popular among the Wikipedia editing community.

That's the problem. In theory, theory and practice are identical. In
practice, they aren't.

WP articles are not written by the general community, they are written by
editors, usually a handful of core contributors. NPOV works out to what
these editors agree it is, simply because nobody else has any significant
input.

This especially applies to articles on specialist or relatively obscure
topics. High-profile articles fare better because there are more eyes on
them.

> >>> People are free to express their political opinions so
> long as it is
> >>> done in a civil and non-inflammatory manner.
> >>
> >> They may be free to express them, but my point is that they
> >> aren't free to inflict them on articles.
> >
> > That's precisely what I *do* mean. Articles are written by
> people with
> > political views, and where I know an editor's political
> opinions (if
> > they are revealed on user or talk pages), I find it extremely rare
> > that they write something in an article that is contrary to those
> > opinions.
> >
> > A good editor will do it in a civil, factual, sourced and
> > non-inflammatory manner, consistent with NPOV.
>
> Yes. Which is exactly what I said above.

It may be what you meant to say, but it certainly is not what I understood
you to say. Hence my response.

> Writing consistently
> with NPOV is not 'inflicting your opinion on an article'.
> Biasing an article towards your own opinions *is* inflicting
> your opinion on an article, is obviously not consistent with
> NPOV.

Beg pardon, but it is. If (say) a Republican and a Democrat write an
article, each one only writing material that supports and reinforces their
partisan views, but the end result is balanced and consistent with community
support, then that is NPOV.

> I don't particularly want to end up rehashing the whole
> userbox debacle, but we *have* seen groups of users banding
> together with the specific, identified purpose of
> systematically applying bias to Wikipedia articles.

Sure. Wikipedia is generally able to handle this.

> >>Jimbo's word on the matter:
> >>
> >>   The point is, we don't act *in Wikipedia* as a Democrat, a
> >>   Republican, a pro-Lifer, a pro-Choicer, or whatever. Here we are
> >>   Wikipedians, which means: thoughtful, loving, neutral.
> >
> > With all due respect to you and Jimbo, that's not the way
> it happens.
> > Thoughtful, loving, neutral, touchy-feely gets good marks,
> but editors
> > don't suddenly turn into opinionless automatons. Nor do we
> want them
> > to. We want Republicans to have input into articles on the
> Republican
> > Party. We just don't want it to be Republican propaganda.
>
> With all due respect to you, I think you're slightly
> misinterpreting what Jimbo (and I) actually mean. I don't
> think either of us are suggesting that editors should be
> 'opinionless automatons', just that they shouldn't let their
> opinions influence the way they write articles.

That's plain bizarre. There's absolutely nothing wrong with editors
inserting their own opinions into articles. It happens every day. So long as
it is done with NPOV in mind it works fine. Here is the fundamental
statement of NPOV, taken from [[WP:NPOV]]:

"The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The
policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these
should be presented fairly, but not asserted. All significant points of view
are presented, not just the most popular one. It should not be asserted that
the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different
views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions."

May I highlight that sentence: "All significant points of view are
presented, not just the most popular one."

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help needed

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy
> Chapman aka JzG

> We recently deleted a couple of hoaxes by
> [[User:Cro..Scream]].  He has sent me an insulting email
> which states that there are thirteen other hoaxes of his on
> the project, under one or more other usernames, including one
> fake Indian writer.  I think actually one or more might have
> been spotted due to interleaved edits with different accounts
> / IP edits, but if someone with time and checkuser rights
> could see which other accounts have been using the same IPs
> (if it's not a huge
> ISP) and wouldn't mind quietly letting me know I don't mind
> doing the detective work.

Possibly the claim of thirteen other hoaxes is a hoax in itself?

--Peter in Canberra


subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions arguments

body:
William Allen Simpson-2 wrote:
>
> Is is possible to redefine ParserFunctions to pass variable parameters
> and let each function process them?
>
Yes.

Go here and look at how #switch is implemented:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ParserFunctions/ParserFunctions.php?view=log

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/ParserFunctions-arguments-t1635657.html#a4431943
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers forum at Nabble.com.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [ANN] PHP OpenID 1.1.0 patch for MediaWiki 1.5.8
 released

body:
Isn't this a little behind the times?
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/-ANN-PHP-OpenID-1.1.0-patch-for-MediaWiki-1.5.8-released-t1623431.html#a4432064
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers forum at Nabble.com.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia make it clear to users that it is
	not censored for minors?

body:
On 17/05/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> And the portal is so well-maintained too. More proof that most
> Wikipedians are male!

It takes the arrogance of a male to assume that.

Rob Church


body:
Jimbo's original post was specifically referring to living individuals.
Let's not get off track, this is an important topic (and important
distinction).

k

On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > In the case of living individuals?  You want to pay for the lawsuits?
> > I can't see any problem at all with requiring all critical information
> > on living individuals to be robustly sourced before insertion. Where's
> > the downside?  That we fail to repeat speculation on blogs and attack
> > sites?  Seems to me that would improve credibility, not reduce it.
>
> Living individuals aside.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> 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: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions arguments

body:
I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to replace the flawed
"{{fullurl:" with a ParserFunction "{{#fullurl:" that would correctly
encode its parameters, while keeping in mind a more formal wikimarkup
language definition implemented by recursive descent.

In trying to understand the abtruse calling sequence for the
ParserFunctions, one of the definitional difficulties is that the
parameters are expanded (using call_user_func_array).  The currently
defined ParserFunctions all have fixed positional parameters.

Unfortunately, fullurl/localurl/whateverurl should have a variable number
of parameters.  Future functions might also have a variable number of
parameters, or possibly named parameters with defaults.

The current handling doesn't seem very amenable to formal language
definition or future mixing of a compiled parser with calls to external
PHP functions.

Is my reading of the code correct?

Is is possible to redefine ParserFunctions to pass variable parameters
and let each function process them?


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Now, my own view is that even among extremely conservative parents, even
> wikipedia articles on fairly hair-raising topics are sufficiently
> factual and dull that *if* their children are searching on the internet
> for the topic, the parents should be quite happy that the kids come
> across wikipedia instead of something else.

I would love for us to test this empirically. I suspect the images on
our anatomy pages would raise a few eyebrows.

Steve


body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> No, there's one crucial difference. I would put myself in "interested
> in Christianity", even though I am a staunch atheist. I suspect that
> so would many others. It's not about hiding your beliefs - I think
> that would be pointless. My argument is that _identifiable factions_,
> that is, permanent groups that are categorized and listed, should be
> open to all convictions about a given subject. They can be
> subject-specific, but they shouldn't be belief-specific.

Ok, fair enough. What if they were worded as "I work on ... articles."
That would be even more project-oriented. If you're not working on
articles about the Monster Raving Loony Party, you shouldn't be
professing your allegiance to it...it's just not relevant.

Steve


body:
On 5/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Everything on our site is supposed to be encyclopedic. Even articles
> about pornographic websites are written in a dispassionate, neutral,
> and almost completely bored tone.

Indeed. And where, but on Wikipedia, do you find a "Pornography
Portal" that includes free content photography of porn stars, and fun
facts such as:

Did you know

...that the Miller test is the United States Supreme Court's test for
determining whether speech or expression can be labelled obscene?
...that Linda Lovelace, a porn actress who starred in the
groundbreaking pornographic movie Deep Throat, later became an
advocate against pornography?
...that The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is an 1820 woodcut by
Hokusai depicting a woman sexually molested by a pair of octopuses,
perhaps the first instance of tentacle rape depicted?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Pornography

It makes me proud to be a Wikipedian.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I still hate that damn template.  At the very least I think most would
> agree that it is overused.

You can't hate it until you've read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyone_poops

Now you can hate it.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/17/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's just poor use of the template.  Whenever I see something like
> that, I try to move as much non-spoiler text out of the spoiler
> section as I can.

I agree. Common sense would suggest that something like the first 70%
of a book can be discussed without fear of "spoiling" it. Only the big
denouements should be placed between those spoiler tags.

Currently they're pretty much used to demarcate a section which
discusses the plot, which is a misuse.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
Hi all,
 Somewhat in response to Jimbo's post, I thought I'd offer an example
of an article I've been working on, which has a massive number of
footnotes. Pretty much every sentence in it I wrote with reference to
one website or another, so I footnoted them all. Perhaps I suspect
some of it is dodgy, so I prefer the source being explicitly stated.

Anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones

I would like to hear from people whether they consider this level of
footnoting excessive, about right, deficient etc. I believe that this
article may almost meet WP:V, if it wasn't for the fact that most of
the sources are amateur websites. The sentence about Kermarquer is
definitely Original Research, but I'm sure sooner or later I'll find a
source to back me up.

Steve


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>            1. The image is 100x100 px or smaller, and
>         ( 2a. the image is PD, or
>           2b. the same image also appears on the linked-to page
>               and, there, has the old behavior of linking to the
>               full-size image plus its metainformation. )
2c. the image is GFDL or CC-SA with no attribution requirements.

(I don't see the necessity in providing readily accessible attribution
info for an image where the author didn't request it)

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Okay, this is a request for the devs.  Can one of you please apply the
> patch at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 and enable
> rel="nofollow" outside NS_MAIN?
>
> We can then, having solved the uncontroversial part of the problem,
> continue debating the merits of nofollow in the main namespace at leisure.
>
Looking at the patch, it seems to me that a better solution would handle
both NOINDEX *and* NOFOLLOW.

Certainly, most namespaces should be indexed, while "User" and "User talk"
should probably never be indexed or followed.  Meanwhile, "Wikipedia" and
"Wikipedia talk" should probably always be both indexed and followed, as
the problem of spam links is low, but valuable cross-wiki links is high.


from_name: Joe Anderson

body:
Just an idea, but for articles not suitable for minors
ICRA<http://www.icra.org/>could be used.

On 5/17/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 17/05/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > And the portal is so well-maintained too. More proof that most
> > Wikipedians are male!
>
> It takes the arrogance of a male to assume that.
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Template:spoiler

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
>
> It's also common sense that an encyclopedia article on
> [[Fahrenheit 451]] is going to contain, you know, details on
> the plot of Fahrenheit 451.
>
> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while
> we're at it?
>
> Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm
> serious.  I hate that template.

Does it really hurt? Believe it or not, there are some folk around who don't
know if Hamlet becomes King of Denmark or if Romeo gets the girl, and maybe
they want to know a bit about the historical and publishing background
before they read a novel or see a play. Maybe they get to the article
through Google and they are really looking for information on Ray Bradbury
or Julie Christie ***sigh*** ond don't care to have plot details revealed.

Our readers don't always come to our articles by typing in the title.

--Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
>
> On 5/16/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:

> > Does it really hurt?
>
> It's annoying, about on the level of those ads some websites
> place in the middle of their news articles.  I wish there was
> at least a way to turn them off, but then again I usually
> don't log in so that wouldn't help me all that much.
>
> > Believe it or not, there are some folk around who don't
> > know if Hamlet becomes King of Denmark or if Romeo gets the
> girl, and
> > maybe they want to know a bit about the historical and publishing
> > background before they read a novel or see a play. Maybe
> they get to
> > the article through Google and they are really looking for
> information
> > on Ray Bradbury or Julie Christie ***sigh*** ond don't care to have
> > plot details revealed.
> >
> > Our readers don't always come to our articles by typing in
> the title.
> >
> Well, using [[Hamlet]] as an example, if they read through
> the article and stop when it gets to the sections that have
> the titles "Main characters" or "Plot Summary", then they'd
> accomplish that perfectly well *without* a warning.  I mean,
> the section is called "Plot Summary".  Isn't that warning enough?
>
> Seriously, look at that article.  It reads (in pseudo-wikitext):
>
> ==Plot summary==
> Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
>
> Go figure, plot details follow a headline which says "Plot summary".

<grin>

Point taken. Personally I see it as a reinforcement. Like having a red STOP
sign as well as a broad white stripe across the road surface.

Then again, this isn't an issue that will have me fighting and debating and
voting on talk pages (assuming I was able to do so, ahem).

Maybe the real issue is the visibility of the template, and if we toned down
the warning to make it less intrusive we could still satisfy everybody.
</grin>

--Peter in Canberra


subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions arguments

body:
Rob Church wrote:
> On 17/05/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to replace the flawed
>> "{{fullurl:" with a ParserFunction "{{#fullurl:" that would correctly
>> encode its parameters, while keeping in mind a more formal wikimarkup
>> language definition implemented by recursive descent.
>
> Don't replace built-ins with extensions. Fix the existing problem. :)
>
I'm concerned with backward compatibility, and future extensibility.

There are quite a few instances of both "{{fullurl:" and "{{localurl:",
and it will be bloody hard to find and fix them all on a flag day.  My
thought is that it might easier to change to the new "{{#...:" syntax,
allowing gradual migration.

Admittedly, this assumes that there was a reason for the parameters not
being encoded.  I'd asked whether this was deliberate, and got no answer,
in the "odd behaviour of {fullurl:...}" thread.  Nobody can remember?

Also, the current "{{fullurl:" and "{{localurl:", are extremely
wikipedia specific, following different conventions from the standard
encode(), rawencode(), encodeURL(), urlencode(), rawurlencode() functions
(to cite a few different languages).  That might not be desirable for all
future wiki.

Finally, there is an attempt to move in the direction of standard syntax,
getting away from "Magic Word" reserved template names to generalized
functions and configurable language internationalization.  Unless I'm
completely misinterpreting earlier messages?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> You didn't cite in the intro the "exceptionally dense collection" claim. :)

True. I threw that in to avoid being a hypocrit when I say all
articles should claim notability. :) I'll try and fix that.

> But that's pretty good. Ideally, from my standpoint, those references
> in the bottom would contain not just the source information, but the
> actual quotes you were using, so one does not need to pore over the
> article/long research paper/whatever.

Ah yeah. That may be the only convenient way to quote long web pages,
where you don't have page numbers to point the reader to the relevant
section, actually.

> For an example of what I sort of mean, see my [[Encyclopedia of the
> Brethren of Purity]]:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_of_Purity

How come you aren't using <ref> tags? Because of the wordiness of the footnotes?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
> Sent: Wednesday, 17 May 2006 9:32 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler
>
>
> On 5/16/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Believe it or not, there are some folk around who don't
> > know if Hamlet becomes King of Denmark or if Romeo gets the
> girl, and
> > maybe they want to know a bit about the historical and publishing
> > background before they read a novel or see a play.
>
> I just looked at [[Romeo and Juliet]], and it's even worse.
> The spoiler warning comes after only two lines of text, and
> the first section (where the warning is) is called "Plot",
> and so it obvious contains details of the plot.
>
> Then again, the section entitled "Farce" also contains a
> spoiler, and doesn't have a warning (I guess once you have
> one everything below that is fair game?).

That would be my reading of it. I suppose we could have the plot details
right at the end of the article...

But on looking at the template itself, it's not that bad. Can't you just
grit your teeth?

There's lots about WP that annoys me, but I find my life is less stressful
if I just ignore the small stuff and enjoy the good bits.

Like having one of my photographs selected to illustrate a day of the year.
[[Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 23]] - I stood out in the cold
for about ten minutes before I got the curl of the flag just right, and I'm
proud of that small detail, even if my ungloved hands still give me twinges
of pain each year on that day...

--
Peter in Canberra

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On 5/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pretty much. There are still edge cases. For example, is it a shared
> ideal and principle of the Wikipedia community that we should only use
> free software and despise proprietary non-free software? (Ie. would it

I would say no. Wikipedia can publish the same encyclopaedia without
using free software. Therefore it's not a core ideal.

> be legitimate to have a userbox stating that "this user hates nonfree
> software and works towards its demise", or must that be stated as
> "this user like free software"?) Or is our conception of freedom
> limited to the products of our labor like Mediawiki and the articles
> themselves? &etc.

What's the relevance? What does it have to do with the project? If
you're working on articles about free software, why not a userbox "I
work on articles about free software", as I proposed earlier?

Steve


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
On 5/17/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Looking at the patch, it seems to me that a better solution would handle
> both NOINDEX *and* NOFOLLOW.
>
> Certainly, most namespaces should be indexed, while "User" and "User talk"
> should probably never be indexed or followed.  Meanwhile, "Wikipedia" and
> "Wikipedia talk" should probably always be both indexed and followed, as
> the problem of spam links is low, but valuable cross-wiki links is high.

The incidence of uncaught spam in everything except main (i.e.
including main talk) is *much* higher than in main.  I'm not aware of
anyone that really protests nofollow in those other NSes. User pages
are probably the worst, because no only are people not paying
attention, they feel compelled not to remove spam when they see it...
but the problem is pretty significant in other NSes too.

Noindex will impact the use of google to find interior pages and
shouldn't be done until our own search engine is more functional.
Eventually we *should* turn it on.. if nothing else than to avoid
confusing random outsiders with our sausage making (just as we've done
with the AFD pages).


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 3:50 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> What's "emo"?

{{pov}}

Emo is a widely-mocked youth subculture that's all about venting
depression and angst (particularly over the internet), often via
poetry of questionable literary merit. Like most youth subcultures,
it started from a musical genre of equally questionable artistic merit.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On May 17, 2006, at 12:00 AM, maru dubshinki wrote:

> Pretty much. There are still edge cases. For example, is it a shared
> ideal and principle of the Wikipedia community that we should only use
> free software and despise proprietary non-free software? (Ie. would it
> be legitimate to have a userbox stating that "this user hates nonfree
> software and works towards its demise", or must that be stated as
> "this user like free software"?) Or is our conception of freedom
> limited to the products of our labor like Mediawiki and the articles
> themselves?

Wikipedians may, on average, be more in favor of free software than
non-Wikipedians, but I'm loath to call it a shared ideal and
principle. Most Wikipedians use non-free software on a daily basis,
and for many Wikipedians, free software and free content is, in
Wikipedia's case, a means to an end.

Wikipedia must be free, and I help write Wikipedia. MediaWiki should
be free, and while I don't help write MediaWiki, there are other
members of the community who do. But I write other things too, and
those other things aren't free, they're mine, and closely guarded as
such. I'm sure some MediaWiki developers write non-free software as
well.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
Although if you want to go ahead and waste everyone's time with anti-
American trolling, I'm sure many Wikipedians will welcome you.

--
Philip L. Welch

I'm not sure how my views about America have anything to do with how
the Wikipedia Community treats me as long as those views are not
stated on the latter website. Also the excalamation mark (!) at the
end of my statement was meant to indicate that my observation had been
made in a sarcastic manner.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
 information

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>
>Here's an example: [[Solo climbing]], as I found it a few months ago:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solo_climbing&oldid=27480122
>
>No sources, no guarantee of accuracy. However, I found my way onto
>this page when someone told me that the crazy video I'd just seen was
>representative of "free soloing". Wikipedia certainly explained what
>the concept was and gave me some background. Would a blank article
>have been preferable? I would say no.
>
This is indeed an interesting example, because although I haven't
touched that article, I can vouch for every statement, at least
partly because I did a tiny bit of free soloing in my younger days
(heart in mouth the whole time :-) ). But my personal library of
climbing literature is kind of oldish and includes no references
to the practice, so presumably I learned about it by word of mouth,
or perhaps from magazines.

Right now I don't see that we have a "culture of referencing" in
the same way that we have a "culture of completeness" organized
around lists of missing articles, or a "culture of image tagging"
that has become fairly effective at searching out and destroying
bad uploads. For instance, my own library is in some areas better
than what most universities have, yet I have no idea if there are
articles that need me to go pull a book off the shelf, check the
claims, and type in the reference if OK. I could also imagine a
future culture where an unsupported claim is handled like an
untagged image, and gets a seven-day grace period before being
reverted. As with images, good faith is helped along by having
a bit of incentive and punishment.

Stan


subject: [Wikitech-l] Vandalism from tor anonymity network

body:
On 5/17/06, Jan Kulveit <jk-wikitech at ks.cz> wrote:
> I've noticed some vandalism on cswiki proxied through
> tor (http://tor.eff.org/) routers. Any ideas how to
> deal with it some other way than blocking addresses
> one-by-one?

The TOR software automatically maintains a database of all exits.

We could create an extension for automatic blocking based on this
data... or just a bot that would perform blocks/unblocks.  As far as
I'm aware no one has done this. If someone does, please don't block
non-exit nodes... they can't be used to reach Wikimedia via TOR and
will block a lot of people unnecessarily (I'm making a point of
mentioning this because Wikinews has done so in the past).

Until we have the software support to create blocks which only inhibit
new accounts and anon edits, I don't see a huge incentive to create
special support for TOR.


body:
On 5/17/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Just an idea, but for articles not suitable for minors
> ICRA<http://www.icra.org/>could be used.

I'm not dreaming, we *did* discuss all this like 2 months ago didn't we?

Steve


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> >            1. The image is 100x100 px or smaller, and
> >         ( 2a. the image is PD, or
> >           2b. the same image also appears on the linked-to page
> >               and, there, has the old behavior of linking to the
> >               full-size image plus its metainformation. )
> 2c. the image is GFDL or CC-SA with no attribution requirements.
>
> (I don't see the necessity in providing readily accessible attribution
> info for an image where the author didn't request it)

And how do we tell that the image is "GFDL without requested attribution?".

... This will be a nightmare to police, and I don't see how we can
easily get the software to enforce it.

Perhaps some kind of bit that only administrators can set on the image
to permit this kind of usage?   Still nothing easy to impliment.

Also, I've been checking, and many of these navigation icons have
attribution requirements. Most seem to be LGPLed, taken from varrious
free software packages.


subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 5/17/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Looking at the patch, it seems to me that a better solution would handle
>> both NOINDEX *and* NOFOLLOW.
>>
>> Certainly, most namespaces should be indexed, while "User" and "User talk"
>> should probably never be indexed or followed.  Meanwhile, "Wikipedia" and
>> "Wikipedia talk" should probably always be both indexed and followed, as
>> the problem of spam links is low, but valuable cross-wiki links is high.
>
> The incidence of uncaught spam in everything except main (i.e.
> including main talk) is *much* higher than in main.  I'm not aware of
> anyone that really protests nofollow in those other NSes. User pages
> are probably the worst, because no only are people not paying
> attention, they feel compelled not to remove spam when they see it...
> but the problem is pretty significant in other NSes too.
>
Had not seen it in Wikipedia or Wikipedia talk spaces.  Again, supports
the notion of fairly fine-grained control, as the proposed patch allows.

> Noindex will impact the use of google to find interior pages and
> shouldn't be done until our own search engine is more functional.
> Eventually we *should* turn it on.. if nothing else than to avoid
> confusing random outsiders with our sausage making (just as we've done
> with the AFD pages).

I was unaware of the NOINDEX on AfD, and would extend it to CfD and TfD.
There's no need for indexing User and User talk, either, and for similar
reasons.  Again, supports the notion of fairly fine-grained control.

Can the http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 patch be
extended to NOINDEX?


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 5/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> or a "culture of image tagging"
> that has become fairly effective at searching out and destroying
> bad uploads.

I wish.  We're managing to keep the worst of the worst out, but that
basically means images where the uploader can't be bothered to find
source information, or where nobody's gotten around to sticking a
"fair use" tag on it.  The new CSD criteria will help a little with
the worst abuses of the {{fairuse}} and {{fairusein}} tags, but
there's still no effective way of getting rid of things like the mess
at [[Category:Fair use magazine covers]].

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
I doubt you can overcite anything.
I would consider this sufficiently cited, although I haven't checked the
reliability of the sites in question.

By the way, I recommend you put the protest website in the external links
section and not within the article. It sounds a little POV-ish to put
external links with a particular POV in an article. Besides, the Manual of
Style is pretty much against it.

Mgm

On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> Somewhat in response to Jimbo's post, I thought I'd offer an example
> of an article I've been working on, which has a massive number of
> footnotes. Pretty much every sentence in it I wrote with reference to
> one website or another, so I footnoted them all. Perhaps I suspect
> some of it is dodgy, so I prefer the source being explicitly stated.
>
> Anyway:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones
>
> I would like to hear from people whether they consider this level of
> footnoting excessive, about right, deficient etc. I believe that this
> article may almost meet WP:V, if it wasn't for the fact that most of
> the sources are amateur websites. The sentence about Kermarquer is
> definitely Original Research, but I'm sure sooner or later I'll find a
> source to back me up.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
>
> On 5/16/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > But on looking at the template itself, it's not that bad. Can't you
> > just grit your teeth?
> >
> I think part of the annoyance is that the template is so
> often put in a ridiculous place (such as the two examples I
> gave where it was in a section which was already obviously
> about plot).  Can I just grit my teeth?  Sure.  It's what I
> do when I see something stupid on all those other sites that
> I *can't* edit.

Perhaps the issue is placement. I guess a lot of editors just copy and paste
when starting a new article, and the template is automatically included,
even if it's not appropriate in that position, or it gets moved around a
bit. This is where intelligent editing comes in.

So long as we don't have a bunch of spoiler-template nazis whose aim is to
preserve these templates and maybe spread them around even more and it all
turns into a wikiwar, I really can't see the harm in removing them when the
section title says "Plot summary".

> ...And I should stop worrying about whether the term
> "anal-retentive" should be spelled with or without a hyphen.

LOL!

> > Like having one of my photographs selected to illustrate a
> day of the
> > year. [[Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 23]] - I
> stood out
> > in the cold for about ten minutes before I got the curl of the flag
> > just right, and I'm proud of that small detail, even if my ungloved
> > hands still give me twinges of pain each year on that day...
> >
> I was quite pleased when I ran across one of my photos on a
> website outside of Wikipedia.  Granted, it was a Wikicities
> site, but still :).
>
> And hey, that photo is awesome (though I couldn't help but
> wonder whether the statue is a derivative of the original
> photo and therefore your photo is copyright-tainted - see,
> this is what I've gotta stop).

Thanks for the kind words. The original photograph is just awesome. Someone
even wrote a book about it: Flags of our Fathers. I wanted to get the flag
fluttering out dramatically like in the original, so yeah, I was being a bit
derivative with my shot of the monument.


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> ... This will be a nightmare to police, and I don't see how we can
> easily get the software to enforce it.

Does anyone have a sense for how much abuse is likely?  If it
doesn't end up being a big problem, we may not have to worry
about policing it.

> Perhaps some kind of bit that only administrators can set on the image
> to permit this kind of usage?   Still nothing easy to impliment.

How hard would it be to write a background bot that scanned for
image tags which used the hypothetical new "link to somewhere
else" mechanism, then checked the corresponding Image: page to
ensure that the license was one of those that don't require
attribution?

> Also, I've been checking, and many of these navigation icons have
> attribution requirements. Most seem to be LGPLed, taken from varrious
> free software packages.

So don't use those.

(In fact, if we're worried about proper attribution, we clearly
*can't* use those as navigation links, since they would be the
last ones we'd want to put some kind of little "credits" link
next to!  Boy, would that be a confusing user experience.)


subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
William Allen Simpson wrote:
> Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>> Okay, this is a request for the devs.  Can one of you please apply the
>> patch at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 and enable
>> rel="nofollow" outside NS_MAIN?
>>
>> We can then, having solved the uncontroversial part of the problem,
>> continue debating the merits of nofollow in the main namespace at leisure.
>
> Looking at the patch, it seems to me that a better solution would handle
> both NOINDEX *and* NOFOLLOW.

As Ilmari suggested, let's not complicate the issue too much.
Let's get nofollow turned off *now* (it really does seem like a
no-brainer, even for the main namespace), then worry about noindex.


body:
Thanks for all that background, Brion.

You wrote:
> Now, it would appear to make reasonable sense to pick a more detailed
> language code when variant conversion is in use, so that browsers'
> font selections pick the matching variant. On this I concur completely.

So if I'm understanding all this (including several of the other
things you wrote) the progression would be:

First implement language code adjustment when variant conversion
is in use (and based solely on that variant conversion).  This
seems to be the most clearly required, the most straightforward
to implement, and the most likely to yield big benefits.

Then, if there are still problems which variant conversion can't
solve, investigate additional language code adjustment based on
the user's user interface language preference.

Then, if there are *still* problems, revisit the possibility of
also looking at the browser's Accept-Language header.


from_name: Harish Ganesan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request (Autoblock). -
	(Hganesan)(169.229.80.218)- Please warn admin William M. Connolley

body:
He is being excessively unfair. Not only is he fully
biased, he is simply blocking me again and again, and
giving vandalism a free pass on the Steve Nash page.
He has blocked me again for the second time in two
days, now because I made some edits, and now he is
citing edit warring. He needs to notice that the
people deleting and vandalizing everything i posted
are edit warring also.  I want this guy off Wikipedia.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's great. I have two suggestions.
>
> First, make friends with the {{cite...}} templates which allow you to format
> the references with authors, dates and other meta-data. You can include them
> inside the <ref> tags.

That's on my list of things to do. I only just made friends with
<ref>. Cite is next :)

Incidentally, a tip for the readers at home: <ref> is incredibly easy
to use, if you don't bother with cite. This is all you need to "cite"
a url nicely:

Some text <ref>http://my.url.com</ref>

==References==
<references />

That's all it takes!

> Second, I for one desperately want a map showing where all those stones are
> in relation to each other.

Me too :( I've started compiling a list of such maps, and when time
and skills permit, will start drawing one. There are two links in the
"online maps" section. Clues to how to draw a map would be appreciated
(presumably one doesn't have to use MSPaint...)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I doubt you can overcite anything.
> I would consider this sufficiently cited, although I haven't checked the
> reliability of the sites in question.

Cool - you see so little citing on non-controversial topics that it
seems out of place.

> By the way, I recommend you put the protest website in the external links
> section and not within the article. It sounds a little POV-ish to put
> external links with a particular POV in an article. Besides, the Manual of
> Style is pretty much against it.

Good idea. I included it more as a demonstration that such protest
groups do exist. Moved to external links.

Steve


from_name: Uncle Jiang

subject: [WikiEN-l] Possibly unfree US government portraits

body:
I am involved in a dispute at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images#Wikipedia:_Possibly_unfree_images.2FUS_government_portraits
regarding
the copyright status of official potraits commissioned by the U.S.
government. Since this could lead to the deletion or "fair use" tagging of
these images, some more input here is really needed here.

I listed [[:Image:Rbreich.jpg]] as a PUI because the painter, Richard
Whitney, does not seem to be a U.S. federal government employee. According
to 17 U.S.C. ?101 "A 'work of the United States Government' is a work
prepared *by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part
of that person's official duties*." If Richard Whitney was not employed by
the DoL with the assigned duty of painting an official portrait, then I do
not believe the image can be claimed to be public domain. Commissioned works
and works for hire can still be copyrighted, as 17 U.S.C. ? 105 states
"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the
United States Government, *but the United States Government is not precluded
from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment,
bequest, or otherwise*." (Disclaimer: IANAL)

Some with the legal expertise or insight should comment. If I am held to be
right, then a great number of images clearly not created by a federal
employee or officer will have to be de-tagged as PD.

Jiang


subject: [WikiEN-l] Complaints about Admin William M. Connolley. (Hganesan)

body:
He has yet to reply to any emails I have sent him
explaining why he is blocking me. He is totally biased
and is frustrating me. I want him off Wikipedia. I
understand why I was blocked yesterday for the first
time, but now it is just getting unfair.

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


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 17 May 2006, at 07:39, Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 5/17/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Everything on our site is supposed to be encyclopedic. Even articles
>> about pornographic websites are written in a dispassionate, neutral,
>> and almost completely bored tone.
>
> Indeed. And where, but on Wikipedia, do you find a "Pornography
> Portal" that includes free content photography of porn stars, and fun
> facts such as:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Pornography
>
> It makes me proud to be a Wikipedian.

Illustrated with free pictures too, remarkably. Which shows that
if we can get these we should delete all the non free pictures
to encourage this sort of quality content.

Justinc


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]
>
> Highlight their edits. Create a page where volunteers can sign up as
> mentors to deal with them. Only in the worst cases, tell them that if
> they don't find someone to mentor, they will be blocked. And I
> probably should polish my "School of Wikipedia" idea a bit more.
> Writing is a skill that can be acquired.
>

I fully agree that editing Wikipedia is a learning process, as would,
I hope, practically everyone on the project. This is, in fact, one of
the main ideas behind the current plans for Wikiversity [1] - to
provide for a way for people to learn how to do useful things related
to Wikimedia projects - such as, say, identify and critique sources
for Wikipedia articles or Wikibooks, grab and edit video clips
(Commons, Wikipedia), create diagrams and illustrations for articles,
textbooks, etc.

Wikipedia is a strong learning community, but not all the time. Too
often, I see people saying things like "You have no idea what you're
talking about", when the person is merely expressing what they believe
to be true - which results in a typical flamewar, arbitration case
etc. I think that we need to have a place for people to be free to
experiment and to learn collaboratively - there are, of course aspects
of this inherent in Wikipedia (as in all wikis) but it's not enough in
my opinion. I think that Wikiversity should be that "School of
Wikip/media".

Best,
Cormac (Cormaggio)

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request (Re: 7. Re: Zero information is
	preferred to misleading or false)

body:
On 5/17/06, Earthhope Action Network <contact at earthhopenetwork.net> wrote:
> Erik Moeller said: RfC, ArbCom, mediation, etc. - makes it all work.
>
> I'm just wondering. I am an editor, who. while never accused of lousy
> writing, has been blocked indefinitely from editing on Wikipedia and never
> had any RfC, ArbCom, mediation, or any dispute resolution at all. Never.
> Just wondering why this was. And also wondering why my unblock request was
> removed, and why my last blocker BunchofGrapes blocked my email so that I
> cannot contact him. User:thewolfstar in peace and justice for the wildthings,

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:Thewolfstar
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=52270276&oldid=52269274

Whee. I think "lousy writing" would be a preferable sin to commit than
apparently what you've been up to. Pleading ignorance on this list is
also poor form.

Steve


from_name: Jan Kulveit

body:
I've noticed some vandalism on cswiki proxied through
tor (http://tor.eff.org/) routers. Any ideas how to
deal with it some other way than blocking addresses
one-by-one?

Thanks,

Jan Kulveit [[User:Wikimol]]


from_name: Thomas Voghera

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
What about Google Earth pins?

--
regards /Thomas V

"Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:f1c3529e0605170218i560d98b2x5af43068b46def64 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 5/17/06, Phil Boswell
> <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's great. I have two suggestions.
>>
>> First, make friends with the {{cite...}} templates which allow you to
>> format
>> the references with authors, dates and other meta-data. You can include
>> them
>> inside the <ref> tags.
>
> That's on my list of things to do. I only just made friends with
> <ref>. Cite is next :)
>
> Incidentally, a tip for the readers at home: <ref> is incredibly easy
> to use, if you don't bother with cite. This is all you need to "cite"
> a url nicely:
>
> Some text <ref>http://my.url.com</ref>
>
> ==References==
> <references />
>
> That's all it takes!
>
>> Second, I for one desperately want a map showing where all those stones
>> are
>> in relation to each other.
>
> Me too :( I've started compiling a list of such maps, and when time
> and skills permit, will start drawing one. There are two links in the
> "online maps" section. Clues to how to draw a map would be appreciated
> (presumably one doesn't have to use MSPaint...)
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
Mark Wagner wrote:

>On 5/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>>or a "culture of image tagging"
>>that has become fairly effective at searching out and destroying
>>bad uploads.
>>
>
>I wish.  We're managing to keep the worst of the worst out, but that
>basically means images where the uploader can't be bothered to find
>source information, or where nobody's gotten around to sticking a
>"fair use" tag on it.  The new CSD criteria will help a little with
>the worst abuses of the {{fairuse}} and {{fairusein}} tags, but
>there's still no effective way of getting rid of things like the mess
>at [[Category:Fair use magazine covers]].
>
I knew there would be somebody naysaying this. :-) I wasn't trying to
declare victory, just observing that, unlike, say, the AfD or userbox
situations, the sourcing/licensing process runs with very little
interference or debate (of course there is plenty of grumbling), and
the rate at which it goes is really only limited by the number of
participants.

By contrast, we don't have an agreed "culture of fair use", and so
there are daily skirmishes over that.

Stan


from_name: Prasad J

body:
And the portal is so well-maintained too. More proof that most
Wikipedians are male!


subject:
[WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about the edit wars but
	it makes no sense!!!!!!!!!

body:
Why? Because the other wikipedians are vandalizing and
deleting ALL THE FACTS I WRITE that completely RELATE
TO THE SUBJECT. I did not do anything wrong this time,
but he is upset by the info I post. I am steaming
about this. He is a horrible admin.

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 13:24:29 +0200, you wrote:

>I'm happy to be corrected, but I was under the
>impression that as long as we can convey that the information is not
>guaranteed accurate (by the use of cite tags), then "speculative"
>information is better than none.

In the case of living individuals?  You want to pay for the lawsuits?
I can't see any problem at all with requiring all critical information
on living individuals to be robustly sourced before insertion. Where's
the downside?  That we fail to repeat speculation on blogs and attack
sites?  Seems to me that would improve credibility, not reduce it.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 10:37:58 +0200, you wrote:

>I doubt you can overcite anything.
>I would consider this sufficiently cited, although I haven't checked the
>reliability of the sites in question.

Yup, I agree entirely.  A well-referenced article, in fact.  I also
agree with your suggestion (subsequently adopted) re the external
link.

One down, 999,999 to go :-)

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


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
On 5/17/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>   In anticipation, the wise author of the page has appealed to the masses to keep the page off itself. Anyway, I've moved the page to Historic debates. Currently it lists the Cartoon controversy, Lolicon and Userbox. What else do you think is significant enough to be included?
>
>   Molu

As a start

Schools +the various other deletionist/inclusionist battles

Autofellatio

[[Wikipedia:Miscellaneous deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians
for Decency]]

BC/BCE (BVE got ignored poor thing)

The traditional april fools battle

--
geni


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Anthony DiPierro schrieb:
> It's also common sense that an encyclopedia article on [[Fahrenheit
> 451]] is going to contain, you know, details on the plot of Fahrenheit
> 451.
>
> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>
> Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm serious.  I
> hate that template.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Spoilerhinweis
17 supporters, 81 people voting contra and 29 against even posing the
question for an encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansel_and_Gretel was a very useful example.

greetings,
elian

PS: some random musings...

==Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow===

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe - spoiler warning present, though
no spoiler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeus - *wow* Mozart dies, who would have
guessed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel) - I was reading the book
looking forward to the end and now you've spoiled it *booohooo*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake - another work which people
only read for its really surprising plot and end

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Will - "The film fades to
black as the entire crowd sings the Horst Wessel Lied." - who would have
thought?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King  - I mean, there's one
person who was really very sad when someone told her the outcome of the
tragedy. But she's a fictional movie character. (big surprise: the
article about the movie _lacks_ a spoiler warning!)


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
On 17/05/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  In anticipation, the wise author of the page has appealed to the masses to keep the page off itself. Anyway, I've moved the page to Historic debates. Currently it lists the Cartoon controversy, Lolicon and Userbox. What else do you think is significant enough to be included?

The inclusion/exclusion debate over schools (2004/5?) was pretty
significant, and to a lesser extent the various ancillary notability
debates. (It also had some really annoying knock-on effects I wish
we'd seen at the time...)

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


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
> > random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
> > tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
> > aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
> > information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
> > living persons.
> >
> I seriously doubt you've edited enough with sockpuppets to understand
> what this is all about.  Either that or you've abandoned your previous
> notion that edit warring is bad.

I agree that Jimbo's ideal is a very, very long way from being current
accepted practice. Indeed, I did think that random speculative info
was better than none. I'm happy to be corrected, but I was under the
impression that as long as we can convey that the information is not
guaranteed accurate (by the use of cite tags), then "speculative"
information is better than none.

As a reader, often you approach a topic knowing nothing at all. If
Wikipedia can at least give you a broad outline of the topic with some
clues as to where it fits with respect to other topics, then it's
doing well. Whether or not it's a neutral, balanced and totally
factually accurate article is a secondary concern to me, as a reader.

Here's an example: [[Solo climbing]], as I found it a few months ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solo_climbing&oldid=27480122

No sources, no guarantee of accuracy. However, I found my way onto
this page when someone told me that the crazy video I'd just seen was
representative of "free soloing". Wikipedia certainly explained what
the concept was and gave me some background. Would a blank article
have been preferable? I would say no.

If we are implementing a hard line "all unsourced information must be
removed immediately" policy, then, that's ok - but it's going to a be
a major shock to a lot of people, and is a significant departure from
current practice.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> What's "emo"?

>From [[Emo (sland)]]
Alternative uses

The term "emo" has also been used in recent years on the Internet as a
form of derogatory insult, especially toward those who appear
emotionally unstable, or those who talk about issues in their lives to
people in public forums or chat rooms. Similar to popular curses, it
tends to be used as a general insult even when it is not directly
applicable. Phrases such as "don't cry emo kid" are used frequently as
a quick brush-off in this context. Some use the term "emo" to describe
a feeling of depression, harking back to the association of depression
with the Emo subculture.

(I'm just taking a guess here)

Steve


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
...
>> But that's pretty good. Ideally, from my standpoint, those references
> > in the bottom would contain not just the source information, but the
> > actual quotes you were using, so one does not need to pore over the
> > article/long research paper/whatever.
>
> Ah yeah. That may be the only convenient way to quote long web pages,
> where you don't have page numbers to point the reader to the relevant
> section, actually.

Well, not just web pages. At least with web pages, one can search
within them. Quoting is especially important with books! I mean, if
one has a 700 page book on Japanese poetry which one is using in
[[Fujiwara no Teika]], then at the very minimum, you have to give the
page number.

> > For an example of what I sort of mean, see my [[Encyclopedia of the
> > Brethren of Purity]]:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_of_Purity
>
> How come you aren't using <ref> tags? Because of the wordiness of the footnotes?
>
> Steve

That, and the fact I don't know/understand the <ref> tag system yet,
whereas I do know {{note}} and {{ref}}.

~maru


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
>> Anthony DiPierro schrieb:
>>> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Spoilerhinweis
>> 17 supporters, 81 people voting contra and 29 against even posing the
>> question for an encyclopedia.
>>
> Even the Google-translated version of that vote makes about as much
> sense to me as the English vote (which is, not at all).  "Property me
> the spoiler references in the English Wikipedia looked at and feels
> you as additional information. So white I at the beginning whether in
> the text a possible tensionful action is uncovered or not."
>
> Heh, sorry, I can't even figure out what the people are voting for and
> against, though I do find it disappointing that De Wikipedians vote in
> the first place (and apparently without even apologizing about it like
> the En Wikipedians do).

If you are referring to "Habe mir die Spoilerhinweise in der englischen
Wikipedia angeschaut und empfinde Sie als Zusatzinformation. So wei? ich
am Anfang ob im Text eine eventuelle spannungsvolle Handlung aufgedeckt
wird oder nicht. -- Carl Steinbei?er 17:01, 8. Mai 2006 (CEST)" it
loosely translates as:

"[I] have looked at the spoiler signs in the English Wikipedia and I
consider them an additional information. Thanks to them I know from the
beginning that this text might reveal some [spannungsvoll is not even a
word, I think he is referring to "spannend" = exciting] plot or not."

Mathias

I can confirm that even the original part does not make sense in its
original language.


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Suggestion for standards for contributions to
	articles

body:
On 17/05/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> There is a basic problem that Jimbo has referred to, whereby unsourced
> information is unattractive to Wikipedia because it brings down the
> overall standard of quality. However, in an article of low quality,
> any information that is probably accurate seems to me to have some
> value. Moreover, I notice that at [[Template:Grading scheme]] we have
> the beginnings of a system for designating that articles are in
> particular "grades" or "classes" of quality.
>
> Could we have some policy/guideline that says that contributions must
> respect the norms of th e class of article that the contributions are
> made to? This defines an absolute minimum for the article, and for
> additions made to it, to prevent situations where someone deletes a
> slab of useful but slightly POV material from a near-stub - in this
> case, surely the goal of having useful information outweighs the goal
> of having NPOV information.
>
> For example: (going by the established grading scheme)
>
> "Stub" class:
> Must sufficiently define topic to allow further expansion. Must not be
> libelleous or blatantly and deliberately POV. Must not violate
> copyright.

I'd write this as:

"Must define topic far enough to allow for further expansion, without
containing libel or obvious bias or overemphasis of opinion. Must not
infringe copyrights."

Same stuff, different wording, but the key is in the simplicity of the
first few words. We might want to ponder over what "sufficiently
define[d]" or "far enough" are, though...I've also expanded the "POV"
bit, because I'm sick of the three-letter acronyms being sloshed about
like booze at a party. New users *don't know what* "POV editing" is,
and shouldn't have to - we shouldn't be afraid to use real words;
words which describe the problem better. We're a knowledge base, for
fuck's sake, not a government agency.

> "Start" class:
> Information must in all likelihood have been published somewhere, even
> if a source is not immediately known.

At least one reference would be nice, even if it's a generic source
for the whole stub or whatever.

> "B" class:
> Must have basic wiki formatting. Contribution of slabs of unformatted
> text are not acceptable.

Yup.

> Given such a system, it would be a lot clearer exactly what is and
> isn't "acceptable" for a given article. An article in violation of
> this system would have two choices: chop out the offending material,
> or downgrade in classification. It would seem to me to avoid a lot of
> the awkward choices we currently have to make about leaving unsourced,
> unformatted or POV material in an article, knowing that it violates
> various guidelines or policies.

On the whole, I like the idea of some sort of rating system, but I do
fear it would add to the administrivia. Question is, can we afford not
to review our work? Answer: no.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] Suggestion for standards for contributions to articles

body:
Hi all,
There is a basic problem that Jimbo has referred to, whereby unsourced
information is unattractive to Wikipedia because it brings down the
overall standard of quality. However, in an article of low quality,
any information that is probably accurate seems to me to have some
value. Moreover, I notice that at [[Template:Grading scheme]] we have
the beginnings of a system for designating that articles are in
particular "grades" or "classes" of quality.

Could we have some policy/guideline that says that contributions must
respect the norms of th e class of article that the contributions are
made to? This defines an absolute minimum for the article, and for
additions made to it, to prevent situations where someone deletes a
slab of useful but slightly POV material from a near-stub - in this
case, surely the goal of having useful information outweighs the goal
of having NPOV information.

For example: (going by the established grading scheme)

"Stub" class:
Must sufficiently define topic to allow further expansion. Must not be
libelleous or blatantly and deliberately POV. Must not violate
copyright.

"Start" class:
Information must in all likelihood have been published somewhere, even
if a source is not immediately known.

"B" class:
Must have basic wiki formatting. Contribution of slabs of unformatted
text are not acceptable.

etc etc.

Given such a system, it would be a lot clearer exactly what is and
isn't "acceptable" for a given article. An article in violation of
this system would have two choices: chop out the offending material,
or downgrade in classification. It would seem to me to avoid a lot of
the awkward choices we currently have to make about leaving unsourced,
unformatted or POV material in an article, knowing that it violates
various guidelines or policies.

If anyone understood the above, please comment :)

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions arguments

body:
On 17/05/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to replace the flawed
> "{{fullurl:" with a ParserFunction "{{#fullurl:" that would correctly
> encode its parameters, while keeping in mind a more formal wikimarkup
> language definition implemented by recursive descent.

Don't replace built-ins with extensions. Fix the existing problem. :)

Rob Church


body:
On 5/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> In the case of living individuals?  You want to pay for the lawsuits?
> I can't see any problem at all with requiring all critical information
> on living individuals to be robustly sourced before insertion. Where's
> the downside?  That we fail to repeat speculation on blogs and attack
> sites?  Seems to me that would improve credibility, not reduce it.

Living individuals aside.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
On 5/17/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>   In anticipation, the wise author of the page has appealed to the masses to keep the page off itself. Anyway, I've moved the page to Historic debates. Currently it lists the Cartoon controversy, Lolicon and Userbox. What else do you think is significant enough to be included?

Go to WP:LAME. It's always a good pick me up, and must be a rich
breeding ground. Jimbo's talk page history should give you some clues
too.

Steve