from_name: Brian Salter-Duke

body:
On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 04:35:26PM -0500, Phil Sandifer wrote:
> [[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become
> a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and
> more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique
> that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal. It
> has become one of the worst examples of a de facto committee on en,
> and is far past the point where any of its decisions should be
> considered binding.
>
> All of our notability guidelines, which fit together to provide a
> completely ludicrous overall picture. (It's far easier to get onto
> Wikipedia as a pornographic actor than as a webcartoonist. Or, if you
> want to ) These are a mess of kludges created to sort out a momentary
> instance where six or seven articles of a given topic got AfDed in a
> short time period, leading to a guideline, usually written primarily
> by the people who wanted the articles deleted. We have, meanwhile, no
> generalizable criteria for notability, and thus no useful end in
> sight for these guidelines.
>
> [[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on
> what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into
> utter madness.
>
> [[WP:FA]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:GA]], which, like RFA, suffer
> from such a wildly disparate set of standards that the process of
> passing them is more a process of politics than of actual quality.
>
> [[WP:RS]] still stands, due to the lack of passage of [[WP:ATT]].
> It's still as big a problem as ever.

OK, I passed on 4 of your [[WP:TLA]]s and failed on 2. Please write in
english.

[[User:Bduke]]

> Best,
> Phil Sandifer
> sandifer at english.ufl.edu
>
> You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
> boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
>
> >
>
>
> On Nov 3, 2006, at 11:43 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>
> >What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful?
> >Please list and elaborate.
> >
> >This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or
> >just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just
> >awful.
> >
> >
> >- d.
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
> ------------------------------

--
Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke) b_duke at bigbond.net.au - NB New! Old still works
       Post: 626 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood, VIC, 3015, Australia
 Phone 03-93992847. http://www.salter-duke.bigpondhosting.com/brian/index.htm
    Honorary Researcher Fellow, Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Univ.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Enwiki dump failing (twice in a row)

body:
John Grohol wrote:
> The past two dumps of enwiki have failed; last successful dump was in September.
>
> Any ideas on what might be causing this?

I don't think there's any mystery. It's not restartable, and there's all
sorts of things that can make the process die. A simple solution would
be to split the dump by page_id, say into 10 files. Then if the process
died, you could restart from the start of that file, rather than the
start of the wiki. If it's too big a hassle for clients to download 10
files instead of 1, then you can always put them in a separate directory
and serve them by anonymous FTP.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
> John Grohol wrote:
> > The past two dumps of enwiki have failed; last successful dump was in September.
> >
> > Any ideas on what might be causing this?
>
> I don't think there's any mystery. It's not restartable, and there's all
> sorts of things that can make the process die. A simple solution would
> be to split the dump by page_id, say into 10 files. Then if the process
> died, you could restart from the start of that file, rather than the
> start of the wiki. If it's too big a hassle for clients to download 10
> files instead of 1, then you can always put them in a separate directory
> and serve them by anonymous FTP.
>
> -- Tim Starling

Wasn't there talk about something snazzy being added so that if the database connection went away or a query failed whilst creating
the dump, it would catch an exception, sleep a bit, and keep retrying that operation until the connection was re-established or
query succeeded?

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Wiki-research-l] Wikimania 2007 Hacking Days
	call-for-help

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Hello Mike,
>
> Apologies, but it was unclear to me whether there is a wiki page set up
> for the 2007 hacking days.
> If there is no such page, can you set up one so that it is easier to
> follow plans and discuss programmes ?
>
> One feedback I had from hacking days 2006 was that it was necessary to
> have more cool time in small groups, and less "academic-type"
> presentations in front of 20 people. In short, they need not only a room
> with some presentations going on, but also a nice and cosy place to sit,
> with drinks etc...

Indeed there was a strong feeling that the hacking days were
overproduced last year, with too many outsiders, too heavy scheduling,
too many talks.

The hacking days are meant to be informal and, hopefully, productive. :)
Some really nice points did get made in the middle of it, but I and
others found the overall experience rather frustrating. In contrast, in
2005 we really weren't organized enough, and while there was good
socializing which helped build team spirit we didn't come out with much
directly productive.

My recommendation: don't invite too many people, don't have lots of
talks. Talks would be more appropriate for a tech track during Wikimania
proper.

A few small workshop-type sessions to let people strategize, socialize,
roadmap, experiment, and accept tasks to work on for the coming months
would be a lot nicer, and would better justify having a distinct
"hacking days" period before/after the main conference.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bad And Wrong Policy/Procedure/Guideline Hitlist

body:
On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 08:34:31 +0100, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't really object to either A7 or G11, but the idea that these
> bits of jargon justify a deletion is a problem. Especially since when
> new criteria are added, A7 may become A8, leaving anyone looking at
> the deletion log in future very confused. (...)
<snipped>

Actualy when new criterea gets added they tend to be given a higher
number, also when criterea are removed or merged a placeholder is left
spesificaly with links/references from the deletion log in mind (see for
example Criterea 4 and 6 for articles).

I do agree that writing just "a7" or "g11" and such in the deletion
summary should be strongly discouraged though. It's just plain lazy and
extremely confusing to people who are unfamiliar with CSD jargon. Most
browsers have various types of auto complete or other ways to insert
pre-prepared verbose "boilplate" text into web forms (I particularly love
Opera's "notes" feature) with just a few keystrokes, and even without that
typing 2-3 words (even if it's just "blatant advertising" or "non notable
band" or whatever) or at least typing [[WP:CSD#A7]] rater than just a7 so
people can at least follow the link to the actual criterea doesn't take
*that* much longer. Maybe creating a "warning" template simmilar to
{{Summary2}} to remind admins of this might be in order.

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mailing list search changes

references:
<eigdq9$ev9$1@sea.gmane.org>	<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKMECGJDAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<eigng9$boa$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Nick Jenkins wrote:
>> If I recall correctly, at least one of the requests was from someone
>> ("user-A") who used their real name and their Wikipedia username
>> together (just once) in an email to one of the mailing lists.
>
> Argh. You know what this means? Just because one user did something they
> regretted, we are now all prevented from googling the archives. WTF?
> Surely the scenario you described was their problem, not ours, so why
> are we penalised for it?

After a few dozen of those, yeah. I'm tired of fighting with people over
stupid shit like that.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Re:  Bad And Wrong Policy/Procedure/Guideline]

body:
I should have noted that the hyperbole might apply to Fred's position as
well, not just Chip Berlet's. My point was intended to comment on the
general situation, not any one person's involvement.

--Michael Snow

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [WikiEN-l] Bad And Wrong Policy/Procedure/Guideline
Date: 	Sat, 4 Nov 2006 05:27:56 -0700
From: 	Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
To: 	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
CC: 	Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>, Michael Snow
<wikipedia at earthlink.net>
References: 	<mailman.1134.1162588000.25378.wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
<454C3843.9090606 at earthlink.net>

On Nov 3, 2006, at 11:50 PM, Michael Snow wrote:

> Rob wrote:
>
>> On 11/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Have a look at the arbcom pages some time. Fred Bauder seriously
>>> proposed some time last year that Chip Berlet should not be
>>> allowed to
>>> edit articles about the LaRouchians because - hah! - his
>>> expertise on
>>> the subject meant he was too involved.
>>
>> Did he actually say that "expertise" should be a disqualification
>> from
>> editing or did he say that due to his experience Berlet may have a
>> preconceived notion that the LaRouchians were all nuts and should
>> thus
>> be disqualified?
>
> After allowing for some hyperbole in this description of Berlet's
> views
> regarding LaRouche supporters--at some point, when all the experts
> have
> reached the conclusion that the earth orbits the sun, you can't
> disqualify them from writing articles that describe the solar system,
> simply on account of their vehemence in making that argument in the
> past. In particular, when people show that they can write neutral
> prose
> in articles, it should matter very little that they express strong
> views
> on the talk pages.
>
> --Michael Snow

I don't think I said any such thing in the first place.

Fred

This will have to be forwarded to the mailing list if it is to appear
there.


body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
>> John Grohol wrote:
>>> The past two dumps of enwiki have failed; last successful dump was in September.
>>>
>>> Any ideas on what might be causing this?
>> I don't think there's any mystery. It's not restartable, and there's all
>> sorts of things that can make the process die. A simple solution would
>> be to split the dump by page_id, say into 10 files. Then if the process
>> died, you could restart from the start of that file, rather than the
>> start of the wiki. If it's too big a hassle for clients to download 10
>> files instead of 1, then you can always put them in a separate directory
>> and serve them by anonymous FTP.
>>
>> -- Tim Starling
>
> Wasn't there talk about something snazzy being added so that if the database connection went away or a query failed whilst creating
> the dump, it would catch an exception, sleep a bit, and keep retrying that operation until the connection was re-established or
> query succeeded?

Yes, and that does in fact work -- if you sit and watch the dump status
you'll sometimes see the message that it disconnected and it waiting to
retry.

This last dump, though, had an unknown problem in the XML skeleton dump
which didn't produce any output error message.

The skeleton dump is usually very reliable, as it doesn't have to sit
there begging external storage servers for data. I'll have to take a
peek at it...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> This last dump, though, had an unknown problem in the XML skeleton dump
> which didn't produce any output error message.
>
> The skeleton dump is usually very reliable, as it doesn't have to sit
> there begging external storage servers for data. I'll have to take a
> peek at it...

A few weeks ago, the mode constants for the WikiExporter class were
renamed and not all uses were updated. One of the uses was in
backup.inc, used by dumpBackup.php which generates these dumps.

Since the old name of the constant was no longer valid, the exporter
object wasn't informed that the dump wanted to use unbuffered queries.

Since the database connection wasn't switched to unbuffered mode, the
*entire contents of the page and revision tables* were buffered into
memory before the XML skeleton output could be produced.

That works on small wikis, but on the biggest ones this is too much data
to fit in memory, leading to the process being killed by the operating
system.

I've fixed backup.inc to refer to the new name of the constant in r17405.

enwiki dump is restarted now; dewiki should get around later in its dump
group cycle. Sighhs :)

A general note: I've been planning to replace dumpTextPass.php with a
more reliable manager program (perhaps Java, to reuse existing mwdumper
code) which interfaces with a minimal PHP script that just loads text
records out of the database. If the PHP crashes out, the manager program
can just restart it at will.

[The PHP layer is needed because our text storage is hideously
complicated, with ever-shifting database pools, legacy encodings,
compression, batch compression, etc. It's easier to leave that logic in
one place in MediaWiki rather than try to reproduce it and keep that in
sync in a utility program.]

I haven't quite got around to writing this yet. If someone *really*
wants to do it in the next week or two they'd be my friend, otherwise
it's on my todo list... :)

In short it needs to:

a: read in skeleton XML dump [all page/revision data, no text]
b: read in previous full XML dump [which has text!]
c: talk to MediaWiki script to pull text revisions not found in previous
full XML dump, restarting if it dies
d: output full XML including text

Shouldn't be *that* hard.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: foundation-l

from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

body:
Sorry, I don't understand... is it blocked the domain?

Do you see this content http://www.encyclopaedic.net/ for
example?

If you see the clones wikipedia is not blocked, is blocked the
domain!

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: shizhao at gmail.com
Data: 04.11.06 15.59
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Oggetto: [Foundation-l] wikimedia again blocked in China

some people report: all wikimedia projects again blocked in China.

--
Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/

[[zh:User:Shizhao]]
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] wikimedia again blocked in China


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Phil Sandifer

references:
<fbad4e140611030843m59b841e8y7487d80c26526082@mail.gmail.com>
	<FA50EEFE-FA02-4916-BF3C-A3DE1EC91D40@gmail.com>
	<6ahnk21tdl02bpfffjdkvbh477oob4c6fk@4ax.com>

body:
On Nov 3, 2006, at 5:45 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 16:35:26 -0500, Phil Sandifer
> <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [[WP:DRV]]. Allegedly set up to hear procedural cases, it has become
>> a court of appeal whereby procedure is considered sporadically, and
>> more often, where decisions that are unpopular among the main clique
>> that watches DRV get overturned with no further chance of appeal.
>
> Rarely.  Few are overturned and deleted, I think slightly more are
> overturned and undeleted, but in most cases it seems to me to be
> people bitching about deletion of fundamentally unverifiable articles.
>

I can usually find one absolutely god-awful deletion a day on it that
is getting inadequate consideration for reasons that have nothing to
do with any useful definition of verifiability. Today's is [[Girly]],
which I just went ahead and undeleted on the grounds that there was
no point in sitting through a charade on DRV.
>

> Again, I think this is nonsense.  Most of them seem to be written by
> the people who want the crud *included*, which is why we have such a
> farcically low bar to porn "stars".

It tends to be, specifically, an uneasy and crappy consensus of the
people who want to delete all of them and the people who want to
include all of them, with an understandably but unfortunately low
amount of input from the people who really don't care very much about
porn stars. As a result every notability guideline tends to be a
roughly halfway point between delete all/include all such that there
is no consistency across topics.

>
> What, people's refusal to find decent sources?  Sure is.

That and a complete lack of understanding of what a decent source is.
The latter is increasingly more prevalent than the former - citation
of something to a mediocre source, particularly when nobody seriously
doubts the accuracy of the information, is a far more preferable
outcome than deletion of things that are sourced to completely
reliable sources that fail to meet some editor's desire for a test
that can be operated by a robot.

-Phil


body:
On Nov 3, 2006, at 4:48 PM, geni wrote:

>
> "Overturned with no further chance of appeal"? Nothing to stop you
> from listing it on AFD other the the risk of large amounts of drama.
>

Except that keeps are frequently being overturned to deletes (Or
simply overturned unilaterally and then upheld on DRV). There remains
the fundamental imbalance that articles can be AfDed three, four,
five, etc times, but that undeletion is a one-shot deal. This
problem, while not the whole of the problem with our deletion system,
underscores the bulk of the flaws.
>

> Hmmm it would be quite odd to see a study that backed that claim up.
> By easier do you mean "amount of effort expended" or percentage of
> people in a certian area covered.
>
> Pornographic actors tend to be better known and there are more
> publications out there writeing about them.

Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an
encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail
than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an
excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the
world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it)
pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more
selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone
who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex.

>
> Mulitple independent sources.
>

A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the
most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to
approach the topic.

> People have been saying that for rather a long time. Shouldn't it have
> exploded or something by now?

Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long
time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion.

-Phil


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bad And Wrong Policy/Procedure/Guideline

body:
jf_wikipedia at mac.com wrote

> There is no consensus for the section on COIs and close relationships
> as only a very few editors have engaged in the discussions.

Sure, it is contentious. It speaks to the root cause of many POV disputes. That means that it is near the knuckle, for many editors. I expect discussion of 'conflict of interest' to run and run.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


body:
On Nov 4, 2006, at 5:15 PM, Earle Martin wrote:

>
> TL;DR and then some. Can you believe that this is actually *so long*
> that it had to be split into sub-pages? Ye gods, these people actually
> expect us to read all this crud before even applying to become an
> admin!

I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as
to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its
subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate
a point.

-Phil


from_name: Angela

body:
I don't really object to either A7 or G11, but the idea that these
bits of jargon justify a deletion is a problem. Especially since when
new criteria are added, A7 may become A8, leaving anyone looking at
the deletion log in future very confused. Most people wanting to know
why something was deleted will have no idea what these codes mean and
it gives a bad impression that you need to understand this sort of
thing to get involved with the project.

Blocking people for having usernames in non-Latin characters is the
worst policy I've seen on Wikipedia. It's going to become even worse
when we have single login and people from the wikis that use other
alphabets find they need to log out before editing or risk a permanent
block of their username.

Other policies are sometimes fine, but their application is
inconsistent which gives an appearance to unfairness, so perhaps the
application of these ought to be looked at - not just the policies
themselves.

Angela.


body:
On 11/4/06, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that WP:COI (or Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest) is botched.
...
> If that's the case, why is it that:
>
> (1)  Angela Beesley has edited the article about Wikia.com

Because the policy didn't exist then. [[WP:COI]] was a guideline about
not making vanity pages until October 10th.

Angela.


from_name: Tian-Jian "Barabbas" Jiang@Gmail

body:
Dear Anthere,

Anthere wrote:
> Hello Mike,
>
> Apologies, but it was unclear to me whether there is a wiki page set up
> for the 2007 hacking days.
> If there is no such page, can you set up one so that it is easier to
> follow plans and discuss programmes ?
>
My bad, I totally forgot to provide the link.

The public wiki page is here to welcome everyone advises:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Days
> One feedback I had from hacking days 2006 was that it was necessary to
> have more cool time in small groups, and less "academic-type"
> presentations in front of 20 people. In short, they need not only a room
> with some presentations going on, but also a nice and cosy place to sit,
> with drinks etc...
>
I can not agree with you anymore!
With my experiences, I would like to suggest having a Hack-athon or even
a contest.
Based on WWDC, Google Contest and Yahoo! Hack Days successful stories,
those kind of approaches may be promising.

Sincerely,
Mike


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> Why is it so necessary to have everything spelled out in such detail?
> You are making "conflict of interest" an issue that is out of all
> proportion to its importance.

Hmmm. I remember some very long threads of discussion here, quite recently, about corporate interests. Are you just assuming those will go away? Isn't it more natural to assume that with every milestone Wikipedia passes, in terms of its audience, there is a corresponding increase in the number of those who will come to edit Wikipedia, without having WP's best interests at heart, because they put something else ahead of those? Think of the need to go into what we mean by that as part of the price of success in reaching a mass audience.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


references:
<fbad4e140611030843m59b841e8y7487d80c26526082@mail.gmail.com>
	<FA50EEFE-FA02-4916-BF3C-A3DE1EC91D40@gmail.com>
	<6ahnk21tdl02bpfffjdkvbh477oob4c6fk@4ax.com>
	<F656F6E3-4DF3-4BCA-9033-3BA550D4367C@gmail.com>
	<0faqk2psljatqpni0k00u0gfouc643ksom@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611041625i43d01368kee4c9bf0502d45fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<ricqk2tc0fg1n7m4e3ctjrr0q0huqjgqum@4ax.com>

body:
On Nov 4, 2006, at 7:42 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>

> How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using
> a novel interpretation of what is significant?  Secondary sources, not
> "I know better".  And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I
> trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I
> know better".

I've provided six separate claims for the notability of [[Girly]] on
the DRV.

-Phil


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:
> Declaring an interest, saying you work for IBM and will be looking
> after articles for them, is not OK.

I'm sure this point got raised in the long thread, too, but:
if declaring an interest excludes you from editing the very
articles you want to edit, isn't that a sure-fire way of
guaranteeing that no one declares their interests?


from_name: Robth

references:
<fbad4e140611030843m59b841e8y7487d80c26526082@mail.gmail.com>
	<FA50EEFE-FA02-4916-BF3C-A3DE1EC91D40@gmail.com>
	<6ahnk21tdl02bpfffjdkvbh477oob4c6fk@4ax.com>
	<F656F6E3-4DF3-4BCA-9033-3BA550D4367C@gmail.com>
	<0faqk2psljatqpni0k00u0gfouc643ksom@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611041625i43d01368kee4c9bf0502d45fe@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/4/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the
> area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the
> particular subject.

Academic experts are uniquely qualified to judge the relative notability of
subjects within their area of expertise.  They are also, in general, probably
not the people we would want to have judging the overall notability of their
entire area of expertise.  (I do not think I have ever known an academic
whose estimation of his or her own field's importance was not substantially
higher than the outside world's estimation of the same.)  We should ask
carefully which is occurring in any "expert judgement" scenario.

--
Robth
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] News from English Wikisource

body:
I thought it would be a good idea to share some news about another  project,
the English Wikisource, which has been doing some remarkable work in  the past
few months, thanks to a small group of dedicated editors and  contributors.
First for some background: Wikisource is much more than a library of old  and
PD texts. It can, and should, operate in tandem with the other projects, by
providing the background to the information we offer. For instance, take a
look  at our English Wikipedia article on the Book of Omni, one of the books of
the  LDS scriptures. (_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Omni_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Omni) ). By clicking on any of the verses mentioned
in  the citations, you will be taken directly to the actual verses in
Wikisource,  set in the context of the entire chapter. One of our goals is to make this
 possible for a wide range of texts, including the Qur'an, the Vedas, and, of
 course, the Bible, as well as classical Greek and Latin texts, which have a
standardized verse numbering system. One of our contributors, Robth1, is
already  working on a version of Xenophon's Hellenica which will be integrated as
source  material into the relevant Wikipedia articles, where chapter and verse
will link  to chapter and verse.
Wikisource, however, is not just for old sources that already exist. We  are
also doing some fascinating translation work, some of it never before seen.
One contributor, Dmitri Smirnov, is hard at work creating stunning translations
 of some of the major Russian poets, including Baratynsky, Mandelstam, and
Pushkin. Here is just one example:
_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/More_tender_than_tender_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/More_tender_than_tender) .
BirgitteSB managed to find a document in French,  describing the establishment of
colonies along the  Mississippi. It has already been  transcribed and posted to
French Wikisource, and a new English translation is on  the way. You can see it
here: _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_account_of_the_founding_of_St._Louis_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_account_of_the_founding_of_St._Louis) . In
breaking news, we are about to collaborate  with the Italian Wikisource to
transcribe and translate a series of manuscript  letters by Michelangelo and
Galileo, found by Sherurcij. These letters appear  nowhere on the Internet, and
will be a great addition to our collection.
We are also examining ways to handle multiple versions and translations  of
texts. This month, our featured text is Donne's Elegie II, a poem for which  we
have two editions (1663 and 1896). You can read the editions individually, or
 find a comparison here:
_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elegy_II_Comparative_text_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elegy_II_Comparative_text) . The Bible
offers a particularly challenging  problem, when it comes to multiple transl
ations. To see one way that we are  handling it, check
_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible/Obadiah/1/1_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible/Obadiah/1/1)  for
the first verse of the Book of Obadiah.
Journals are a great addition to Wikisource, and can provide some great
references for articles in other projects. For instance, in 1917, National
Geographic published an article about the Russian Revolution and its impact on
America. You can  find the article, along with the images here:
_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_1917/The_Russian_Situ
ation_and_Its_Significance_to_America_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_1917/The_Russian_Situation_and_Its_Signif
icance_to_America) . That same year, NG published a series of  sketches on
warblers, complete with paintings by famed Swiss-American naturalist  Louis
Agassiz. You can find an example here
(_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_1917/Friends_of_Our_Forests/Magnolia_Warbler_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_19
17/Friends_of_Our_Forests/Golden-winged_Warbler) ), complete with links to
the English Wikipedia  (click on the link above the painting) and Wikispecies
(click on the Latin  name).
Finally, a word about other encyclopedias ? we have them too, and many
different ones to keep us busy. Laverock is hard at work adding the original
letter B articles from the 1911 edition of Britannica, but we also have
specialized encyclopedias of Catholicism, the Bible, and more. Shanel,  BookofJude,
Shimgray and others have been adding to The New Student's Reference  Work, a 1914
edition of an encyclopedia for young people: Here is an article  about
Australia:
_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student%27s_Reference_Work/Australia_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student's_Reference_Work/Australia)
.
Some of our texts appear nowhere else on the Internet. These include  poems
by Francis Ledwidge (_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Francis_Ledwidge_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Francis_Ledwidge) ) and the Historical
Library of Diodorus Siculus,  is being developed by Zhaladshar. Soon to come are
the diaries of Kaiser Wilhelm  II. Also, keep an eye out for our new French
Literature portal, which was  developed by our friends in French Wikisource.
You will probably notice the specialized headers on each of these pages,
which were created by Pathoschilde. They help to create a uniformity among all
the texts, and make it easier to skip from one chapter to the next.
This is just some of the news from the English Wikisource. I hope people
will drop by and suggest ways that can help their pet projects by providing a
reliable system of internal sources. With all these projects underway, we are
also looking for volunteers to help transcribe, translate, scan, proof, link,
and add their favorite texts. All of the projects mentioned above are "in
progress," and we need all the help we can get. For more information, drop by
the #wikisource channel on IRC.
Danny


from_name: Earle Martin

body:
On 03/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> [[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on
> what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into
> utter madness.

Seconded, of course, because it leads to some over-keen individuals
creating loony things like [[Wikipedia:Admin school]]. I had the
displeasure to just discover this prime example of instruction creep,
which begins:

"Prerequisites and required reading...
1000 edits on Wikipedia encyclopedia articles and/or lists
1000 edits in the Wikipedia and/or Help namespace
Familiarity with Help:Contents, 2-levels deep
Familiarity with Wikipedia:Contents, 3-levels deep
Familiarity with Wikipedia:Department directory, 2-levels deep."

(I'd never even heard of [[Wikipedia:Contents]] before, let alone
[[Wikipedia:Department directory]].)

RfA seems to have assumed a near-cult-like status with a certain group
of people, and has developed a toxic culture that is spreading
outwards to choke other areas, much like kudzu. It needs to be killed
at the root.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


body:
On 04/11/06, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> On 03/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [[WP:RFA]], which, like notability, lacks any consensus anymore on
> > what the overall standards should be, and has thus degenerated into
> > utter madness.
>
> Seconded, of course, because it leads to some over-keen individuals
> creating loony things like [[Wikipedia:Admin school]].

As if that wasn't bad enough!

[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards]]

TL;DR and then some. Can you believe that this is actually *so long*
that it had to be split into sub-pages? Ye gods, these people actually
expect us to read all this crud before even applying to become an
admin!

More tripe:

[[User:Legolost/Admin Assessment Scale]]

If writing stuff like this keeps you happy, feel free. Just don't
expect me to read it.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research in today's featured article

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=V_for_Vendetta_%28film%29&action=history
People keep restoring a section with a number of supposed references in
the film to the number 5 and the letter V, claiming that just because it
appears to be deliberate it must be. I've probably passed 3RR; block me
for trying to remove original research.


body:
On Nov 4, 2006, at 10:16 PM, SPUI wrote:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=V_for_Vendetta_%28film%
> 29&action=history
> People keep restoring a section with a number of supposed
> references in
> the film to the number 5 and the letter V, claiming that just
> because it
> appears to be deliberate it must be. I've probably passed 3RR;
> block me
> for trying to remove original research.

Happy to.

-Phil


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>
> >Ray Saintonge wrote
> >
> >
> >>Why is it so necessary to have everything spelled out in such detail?
> >>You are making "conflict of interest" an issue that is out of all
> >>proportion to its importance.

> >Hmmm. I remember some very long threads of discussion here, quite recently, about corporate interests. Are you just assuming those will go away?

> There was indeed the long thread that you mention.  I am not a supporter
> of the corporatist agenda, but the best way to keep an eye on it is to
> have it right out there in the open.  Let them have their paragraph
> (sometimes more depending on the topic), and there will still be room
> for rebuttals or criticisms of their agenda.  The real neutrality will
> often be somewhere in between.  If they parrot the company's PR line it
> will be evident that it is exactly that.

But there is and was more to it. One of my 'tedious' additions to the guideline was to make it plain that 'declaring an interest' is not a quid pro quo, in the sense that it gives no 'locus standi' (to adopt the lawyers' term). The point is still there, in a muffled form.

That is, you might have thought, coming from outside, that if you declare your interest, you can then behave as a 'proponent', a 'defender', an 'advocate', whatever you might wish to call it. Basically people from outside WP who want to be hired guns may well think that it would be OK, provided thay are open about it.

Well, it ain't OK. Declaring an interest, saying you work for IBM and will be looking after articles for them, is not OK. Imagine this from the other side: does IBM hire one clerical assistant for this, an office of three or four? It's a money thing for them, isn't it? But if it gets professionalised like that, there will be essentially no chance that someone who edits WP of an evening will be able to track all the editorial activity.

We might be flattering ourselves right now, to think that it matters so much to corporations. Come 2010, we absolutely do not want to be told that we have flacks like termites in the foundations.

WP has experienced exponential growth (I'm a mathematician, I don't the term lightly). This is a rare thing, in the real world. Because things do _not_ scale; the scaling issues cannot be ignored with impunity. The hubbub caused by Danny a little while is a symptom. The relationship WP-corporate world is precisely the sort of thing that can exhibit a tipping point.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: shi zhao

body:
some people report: all wikimedia projects again blocked in China.

--
Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/

[[zh:User:Shizhao]]


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] benefactors page

body:
On 11/3/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
> > Also, would there be any new names we could add to the list of
> > benefactors. Most is at best early 2006. No big support since then ?
> > I would actually suggest we put the most recent donations top down rather
> > than down to top.
>
> Keeping this page up-to-date should be the responsibility of a few different committees; fundcom,
> events, and special projects (IIRC, that is were the grants function is).

How about a special interest group or taskforce of people relevant
from committees (in this case, three)?

Sometimes Sabine and I talked wrapping of interests and activities
between Language committee and Translation committee and that idea
came to me consequently. If we find several committee are involved in
a same issue, special team of already rattified committee members
would be more easily set up than another new committee which would be
required the Board approval.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] benefactors page


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:36:07 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

>I can usually find one absolutely god-awful deletion a day on it that
>is getting inadequate consideration for reasons that have nothing to
>do with any useful definition of verifiability. Today's is [[Girly]],
>which I just went ahead and undeleted on the grounds that there was
>no point in sitting through a charade on DRV.

In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to
endorse deletion, but you "know better".  Maybe you do, but doesn't it
strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?

Seems to me that when DRV endorses the process because it's valid then
DRV is "broken", but when it overrides AfD supermajority it's
"broken".  I've been watching DRV for a while, most of them seem
pretty uncontentious, I am having trouble finding the brokenness.  AfD
is, without doubt, problematic, but the issue there is essentially
that it doesn't scale properly to encompass the sheer volume of crap
articles being created.  I personally feel that an article tagged for
cleanup as unsourced should be deleted if not fixed within 14 days,
that would remove a lot of the problems.

>> Again, I think this is nonsense.  Most of them seem to be written by
>> the people who want the crud *included*, which is why we have such a
>> farcically low bar to porn "stars".

>It tends to be, specifically, an uneasy and crappy consensus of the
>people who want to delete all of them and the people who want to
>include all of them, with an understandably but unfortunately low
>amount of input from the people who really don't care very much about
>porn stars. As a result every notability guideline tends to be a
>roughly halfway point between delete all/include all such that there
>is no consistency across topics.

That's compromise, not consensus.  Compromise on which everyone can
agree, that's consensus.  And in the end, what's so wrong?  We see
with [[WP:SCHOOLS]] what happens when people *refuse* to compromise:
pain, absurdity.  PORNBIO sets the bar too low, I guess others might
be too high, but I see no real informed dissent form the view that
there should be some significance bar to inclusion.  Debate on where
the bar lies is, of course, perfectly legitimate.
>> What, people's refusal to find decent sources?  Sure is.

>That and a complete lack of understanding of what a decent source is.
>The latter is increasingly more prevalent than the former - citation
>of something to a mediocre source, particularly when nobody seriously
>doubts the accuracy of the information, is a far more preferable
>outcome than deletion of things that are sourced to completely
>reliable sources that fail to meet some editor's desire for a test
>that can be operated by a robot.

Maybe, but that's a pendulum thing.  In the end the best result for
the project is if people talk about stuff, rather than hurling
accusations of wanting to delete "everything" or keep "everything".

The most frustrating thing for me is this: there is absolutely no
shortage of places where you can find crap off "teh internets".  I was
attracted to Wikipedia because of the aspiration to be rather better
than that; setting a higher standard than "I heard it on teh
internets".  Sure, people pick the low-hanging fruit, but much of the
most contested stuff is well beyond low hanging and into well-rotted
worm-ridden windfalls.  Do we *really* need articles on every Flash
cartoon and porn "star" on the planet?  Or should that perhaps wait
until we've taken the trouble to document those subjects which require
a bit of work to find out about?  Those where a Google search is not
going to give an immediate and compendious answer?  Every now and then
we should actually take a trip to the library, to save someone else
having to.

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


body:
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:43:33 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

>I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as
>to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its
>subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate
>a point.

In this case we agree completely :-)

My admin criteria are, roughly:
* Have seen them around, so I know them from a hole in the ground
* Have seen nothing that scares me

As long as they have been around for a few months and I've actually
had civil discussion with them somewhere (more or less anywhere) I
will vote support.

It is a source of some annoyance to me that we rejected Stephen B
Streater, especially, and also Jeff Raymond, both of whom I believe
would have made excellent admins, and neither of whom would, in my
judgment, be likely to damage the project by any ill-advised action.
Stephen's RFA was the worst example of RFA utterly missing the point
that I can recall.

This despite the fact that I can hardly recall a single occasion on
which I've agreed with Jeff.  Who needs another cabal?

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


from_name: David Gerard

references:
<fbad4e140611030843m59b841e8y7487d80c26526082@mail.gmail.com>
	<FA50EEFE-FA02-4916-BF3C-A3DE1EC91D40@gmail.com>
	<6ahnk21tdl02bpfffjdkvbh477oob4c6fk@4ax.com>
	<F656F6E3-4DF3-4BCA-9033-3BA550D4367C@gmail.com>
	<0faqk2psljatqpni0k00u0gfouc643ksom@4ax.com>

body:
On 05/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to
> endorse deletion, but you "know better".  Maybe you do, but doesn't it
> strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?

It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the
area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the
particular subject.

That is: this is plain expert undeletion, despite attempts by process
defenders to claim their particular subprocess "owns" the decision.

- d.


body:
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 00:25:05 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to
>> endorse deletion, but you "know better".  Maybe you do, but doesn't it
>> strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?

>It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the
>area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the
>particular subject.

There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an
oxymoron.  There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now
who support deletion.

We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been
pushing his novel theories.  How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using
a novel interpretation of what is significant?  Secondary sources, not
"I know better".  And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I
trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I
know better".

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


body:
On 05/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 00:25:05 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> >> In other words, there was consensus to delete, a strong majority to
> >> endorse deletion, but you "know better".  Maybe you do, but doesn't it
> >> strike you as just the *teensiest* bit arrogant?

> >It may be worth pointing out that Phil is an academic expert in the
> >area in question, so his opinion is actually worth more on the
> >particular subject.

> There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an
> oxymoron.  There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now
> who support deletion.

To be specific, Dragonfiend is claiming expertise but singularly
failing to substantiate said claim when asked directly several times;
in the meantime conducting increasingly shrill personal attacks on
Phil.

> We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been
> pushing his novel theories.  How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using
> a novel interpretation of what is significant?  Secondary sources, not
> "I know better".  And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I
> trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I
> know better".

Well, yes. But does an expert count more than five people who know
nothing about a field? I submit it does. Wikipedia is supposed to
respect experts, after all, not say "fuck off, you were outvoted by
us."

- d.


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/4/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Except that keeps are frequently being overturned to deletes (Or
> simply overturned unilaterally and then upheld on DRV). There remains
> the fundamental imbalance that articles can be AfDed three, four,
> five, etc times, but that undeletion is a one-shot deal. This
> problem, while not the whole of the problem with our deletion system,
> underscores the bulk of the flaws.

Ever read [[WP:CSD#G4]]?

Any re-creation that isn't heavily based on a previous version can't
be speedied.

> Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an
> encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail
> than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an
> excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the
> world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it)
> pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more
> selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone
> who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex.

Pokemon is setting the bar rather high. Other than perhaps playboy I
doubt there is much in the field of porn better know than pokemon.

You have ignored my second point. People write about porn. It is after
all where the word comes from.

> A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the
> most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to
> approach the topic.

Not really. You just follow the standard aproach that they only need
to be produced when their existance is challanged

> Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long
> time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion.
>
> -Phil

There were rather fewer when people started complaining. Things change
adminship is a bigger deal than it used to be (so is editorship for
that matter).

--
geni


from_name: Virgil Ierubino

subject: [Foundation-l] Project proposal: Lookup directory wiki

body:
I have suggested a new project at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lookup_directory_wiki . Please have a look.

In short, the wiki has information on any person or organisation on the
planet. The page explains this concept in more detail.

Types of information include: contact, biographical, genealogical,
corporate, etc.

Strict attention is paid to data-protection laws, so very strong emphasis is
placed on citing sources and verifiability, although legitimate sources are
slightly more lax than Wikipedia (e.g. a home website is a good source for a
person's contact information). Vandalism through attacks, and personal
vanity, are kept strictly in check just like on Wikipedia.

*Any* person or organisation may have a page as anyone may be of interest to
someone else; and the wiki is interested in demographics, a global
documentation of individuals.

Tell me what you think!


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikistats (to Brion)

body:
Brion a few weeks ago you told me on IRC wikistats were offline on purpose.
I told you I never received the mail you sent me about it.
You were busy and asked me to mail you, which I did to several addresses, no
answer.
I'm still puzzled about what necessitated taking wikistats offline and what
needs to be changed. Can you explain here or on my user talk page?

Also the Tomeraider files that were thrown away have been reuploaded to
/home/ezachte/tr
Are there any offline backups made in the colocation? If so could you add
these files?

Thanks. Erik Zachte


from_name: Delirium

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 17:43:33 -0500, Phil Sandifer
> <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I am sorely tempted to add "Has displayed sufficient common sense as
>> to have not read the inordinate amount of crap on this page and its
>> subpages" as a criterion. As always, helping Wikipedia to demonstrate
>> a point.
>>
>
> In this case we agree completely :-)
>
> My admin criteria are, roughly:
> * Have seen them around, so I know them from a hole in the ground
> * Have seen nothing that scares me
>

That was initially my view, but as of late I've taken the more expansive
view, and vote by:
1. Identifying votes on RFA which seem to be anything other than 90%+ in
favor
2. Doing a quick spot check to see if the nominee in question seems
reasonable
3. Voting yes if so

The only way to counter the process-wonk culture at RFA is for a number
of non-process-wonks to consistently vote "yes" every time any of them
try to vote "no" for some bullshit reason, after first checking that the
nominee really isn't someone completely insane.

It's not like we're making any sort of lifelong commitment or appointing
Wikipedia dictators.  IMO, anyone who's been around Wikipedia for a few
months and not done anything crazy should automatically get access to a
few additional admin tools.  If they turn out to misuse them, we can
always de-admin them.  Now that images can be undeleted, literally every
single admin action can be undone, usually easily, so it's not really a
problem.

-Mark


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikistats (to Brion)

body:
Hello,

On 11/5/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
>
> Brion a few weeks ago you told me on IRC wikistats were offline on
> purpose.
> I told you I never received the mail you sent me about it.
> You were busy and asked me to mail you, which I did to several addresses,
> no
> answer.
> I'm still puzzled about what necessitated taking wikistats offline and
> what
> needs to be changed. Can you explain here or on my user talk page?
>

Dunno about the /when/, but a beginning of explanation about the /why/ is
given here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_site_feedback#Where_are_the_STATS.3F

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


from_name: Brian Salter-Duke

body:
On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 10:59:01AM -0500, Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> On Nov 3, 2006, at 9:39 PM, Brian Salter-Duke wrote:
>
> >
> >OK, I passed on 4 of your [[WP:TLA]]s and failed on 2. Please write in
> >english.
>
> You could just type them into Wikipedia and see what comes out.

I did, but I should not have to. I have been around for 12 months on WP
and I still do not know all of these. Using them all the time as on this
mailing list excludes people, and we should not be doing that. Is it
asking too much that people on this mailing list should take some effort
to be clear what they are talking about? I have been guilty too on talk
pages and I have resolved to improve.

Brian.

> -Phil

--
          Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au
               [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
 Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki, WikiNews, WikiBooks and Commons


body:
There is no formal relationship between Wikisource and Project Gutenberg,
Googlebooks, the Perseus Project, or any other online library of texts, except
that we scour their offerings for ideas and content. I believe that through
hyperlinks and our translation and format projects, we are taking these texts
to  the next level, where they integrate fully into our other projects. Of
course,  there is still a LOT of work to be done, butr gradually we are making
headway. As an example, _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives/Tiberius_Gracchus_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives/Tiberius_Gracchus)  contains  text that
can also be found in Project Gutenberg's library as part of a larger  book,
Plutarch's "Lives." By linking to the relevant Wikipedia articles, we have
created an original annotated text.

Our translations are, of course, original works, and we also have some
content that does not exist in other repositories, such as individual letters,
etc. See this
_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Louis-Philippe_to_Mary_Todd_Lincoln%2C_Friday%2C_May_5%2C_1865_
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Louis-Philippe_to_Mary_Todd_Lincoln,_Friday,_May_5,_1865)  for  an example of an interesting
letter that complements an existing article on  Wikipedia. We can also run
translated texts parallel to the originals, as you  can see here with this text from
Poland _http://en.wikisource.org/w
iki/Protest_of_Zofia_Kossak-Szczucka?match=pl_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Protest_of_Zofia_Kossak-Szczucka?match=pl) .

In short, we admire what the other online libraries are doing, but we
believe that Wikisource can be more than just a datadump of words and images. It
can be a very useful collection, fully integrated into all our other  projects.

Danny

In a message dated 11/5/2006 9:51:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
dgerard at gmail.com writes:

On  05/11/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

> I  thought it would be a good idea to share some news about another
project,
> the English Wikisource, which has been doing some remarkable  work in  the
past
> few months, thanks to a small group of  dedicated editors and  contributors.
> First for some background:  Wikisource is much more than a library of old
and
> PD texts. It  can, and should, operate in tandem with the other projects, by
>  providing the background to the information we offer. For instance, take  a

I have a question: what's Wikisource's relations like with that  other
well-known source text archive, Project Gutenberg, and its  associated
Distributed Proofreaders? And any other source text archives. I  must
confess I have absolutely no idea of our relations with them, and  it's
the first question that sprang to my mind when I heard of  Wikisource.

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


references:
<fbad4e140611030843m59b841e8y7487d80c26526082@mail.gmail.com>
	<FA50EEFE-FA02-4916-BF3C-A3DE1EC91D40@gmail.com>
	<6ahnk21tdl02bpfffjdkvbh477oob4c6fk@4ax.com>
	<F656F6E3-4DF3-4BCA-9033-3BA550D4367C@gmail.com>
	<0faqk2psljatqpni0k00u0gfouc643ksom@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611041625i43d01368kee4c9bf0502d45fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<ricqk2tc0fg1n7m4e3ctjrr0q0huqjgqum@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611041727n68879712i28e64bb181c1b813@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 01:27:20 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> There are those who consider "academic expert on webcomix" to be an
>> oxymoron.  There are also others who claim expertise in DRV right now
>> who support deletion.

>To be specific, Dragonfiend is claiming expertise but singularly
>failing to substantiate said claim when asked directly several times;
>in the meantime conducting increasingly shrill personal attacks on
>Phil.

For sure.  I have asked Dragonfiend to calm down, these comments are
out of line.  And I apologise to Phil for not doing that yesterday,
because I certainly did notice.

>> We have an ongoing RFAR on pseudoscience where an expert has been
>> pushing his novel theories.  How am I supposed to ell if Phil is using
>> a novel interpretation of what is significant?  Secondary sources, not
>> "I know better".  And actually I trust Phil's judgment, just as I
>> trust Tony Sidaway's, but Tony usually brings better arguments than "I
>> know better".

>Well, yes. But does an expert count more than five people who know
>nothing about a field? I submit it does. Wikipedia is supposed to
>respect experts, after all, not say "fuck off, you were outvoted by
>us."

Like I said, I trust Phil's judgment, but the style was excessively
brusque.

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


references:
<fbad4e140611030843m59b841e8y7487d80c26526082@mail.gmail.com>
	<FA50EEFE-FA02-4916-BF3C-A3DE1EC91D40@gmail.com>
	<6ahnk21tdl02bpfffjdkvbh477oob4c6fk@4ax.com>
	<F656F6E3-4DF3-4BCA-9033-3BA550D4367C@gmail.com>
	<0faqk2psljatqpni0k00u0gfouc643ksom@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140611041625i43d01368kee4c9bf0502d45fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<ricqk2tc0fg1n7m4e3ctjrr0q0huqjgqum@4ax.com>
	<51A52351-2EE2-49DD-A818-63B9BE571FBF@gmail.com>

body:
On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 19:43:45 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

>I've provided six separate claims for the notability of [[Girly]] on
>the DRV.

Some of which I think are a  bit iffy.  But the fact that the author
makes appreciable money form it, and the availability of a print
version from a non-vanity press, are certainly persuasive.

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


from_name: Anthere

body:
Well, thanks for that great report and to all wikisourcies :-)

The Foundation far too often focuses on Wikipedia. I thought it was
worth putting it here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

I hope you do not mind :-)

ant

  daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> I thought it would be a good idea to share some news about another  project,
> the English Wikisource, which has been doing some remarkable work in  the past
> few months, thanks to a small group of dedicated editors and  contributors.
> First for some background: Wikisource is much more than a library of old  and
> PD texts. It can, and should, operate in tandem with the other projects, by
> providing the background to the information we offer. For instance, take a
> look  at our English Wikipedia article on the Book of Omni, one of the books of
> the  LDS scriptures. (_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Omni_
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Omni) ). By clicking on any of the verses mentioned
> in  the citations, you will be taken directly to the actual verses in
> Wikisource,  set in the context of the entire chapter. One of our goals is to make this
>  possible for a wide range of texts, including the Qur'an, the Vedas, and, of
>  course, the Bible, as well as classical Greek and Latin texts, which have a
> standardized verse numbering system. One of our contributors, Robth1, is
> already  working on a version of Xenophon's Hellenica which will be integrated as
> source  material into the relevant Wikipedia articles, where chapter and verse
> will link  to chapter and verse.
> Wikisource, however, is not just for old sources that already exist. We  are
> also doing some fascinating translation work, some of it never before seen.
> One contributor, Dmitri Smirnov, is hard at work creating stunning translations
>  of some of the major Russian poets, including Baratynsky, Mandelstam, and
> Pushkin. Here is just one example:
> _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/More_tender_than_tender_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/More_tender_than_tender) .
> BirgitteSB managed to find a document in French,  describing the establishment of
> colonies along the  Mississippi. It has already been  transcribed and posted to
> French Wikisource, and a new English translation is on  the way. You can see it
> here: _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_account_of_the_founding_of_St._Louis_
> (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_account_of_the_founding_of_St._Louis) . In
> breaking news, we are about to collaborate  with the Italian Wikisource to
> transcribe and translate a series of manuscript  letters by Michelangelo and
> Galileo, found by Sherurcij. These letters appear  nowhere on the Internet, and
> will be a great addition to our collection.
> We are also examining ways to handle multiple versions and translations  of
> texts. This month, our featured text is Donne's Elegie II, a poem for which  we
> have two editions (1663 and 1896). You can read the editions individually, or
>  find a comparison here:
> _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elegy_II_Comparative_text_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elegy_II_Comparative_text) . The Bible
> offers a particularly challenging  problem, when it comes to multiple transl
> ations. To see one way that we are  handling it, check
> _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible/Obadiah/1/1_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible/Obadiah/1/1)  for
> the first verse of the Book of Obadiah.
> Journals are a great addition to Wikisource, and can provide some great
> references for articles in other projects. For instance, in 1917, National
> Geographic published an article about the Russian Revolution and its impact on
> America. You can  find the article, along with the images here:
> _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_1917/The_Russian_Situ
> ation_and_Its_Significance_to_America_
> (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_1917/The_Russian_Situation_and_Its_Signif
> icance_to_America) . That same year, NG published a series of  sketches on
> warblers, complete with paintings by famed Swiss-American naturalist  Louis
> Agassiz. You can find an example here
> (_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_1917/Friends_of_Our_Forests/Magnolia_Warbler_
> (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Magazine/Volume_31/April_19
> 17/Friends_of_Our_Forests/Golden-winged_Warbler) ), complete with links to
> the English Wikipedia  (click on the link above the painting) and Wikispecies
> (click on the Latin  name).
> Finally, a word about other encyclopedias ? we have them too, and many
> different ones to keep us busy. Laverock is hard at work adding the original
> letter B articles from the 1911 edition of Britannica, but we also have
> specialized encyclopedias of Catholicism, the Bible, and more. Shanel,  BookofJude,
> Shimgray and others have been adding to The New Student's Reference  Work, a 1914
> edition of an encyclopedia for young people: Here is an article  about
> Australia:
> _http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student%27s_Reference_Work/Australia_ (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student's_Reference_Work/Australia)
> .
> Some of our texts appear nowhere else on the Internet. These include  poems
> by Francis Ledwidge (_http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Francis_Ledwidge_
> (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Francis_Ledwidge) ) and the Historical
> Library of Diodorus Siculus,  is being developed by Zhaladshar. Soon to come are
> the diaries of Kaiser Wilhelm  II. Also, keep an eye out for our new French
> Literature portal, which was  developed by our friends in French Wikisource.
> You will probably notice the specialized headers on each of these pages,
> which were created by Pathoschilde. They help to create a uniformity among all
> the texts, and make it easier to skip from one chapter to the next.
> This is just some of the news from the English Wikisource. I hope people
> will drop by and suggest ways that can help their pet projects by providing a
> reliable system of internal sources. With all these projects underway, we are
> also looking for volunteers to help transcribe, translate, scan, proof, link,
> and add their favorite texts. All of the projects mentioned above are "in
> progress," and we need all the help we can get. For more information, drop by
> the #wikisource channel on IRC.
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 11/4/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote
>
> > Why is it so necessary to have everything spelled out in such detail?
> > You are making "conflict of interest" an issue that is out of all
> > proportion to its importance.
>
> Hmmm. I remember some very long threads of discussion here, quite recently, about corporate interests. Are you just assuming those will go away? Isn't it more natural to assume that with every milestone Wikipedia passes, in terms of its audience, there is a corresponding increase in the number of those who will come to edit Wikipedia, without having WP's best interests at heart, because they put something else ahead of those? Think of the need to go into what we mean by that as part of the price of success in reaching a mass audience.
>
> Charles

It seems to me that the type of people with whom this is an increasing
problem are not the type of people who are even going to read such a
long and complictated guideline, let alone care about following it.

If your relationship with an article's topic might cause someone else
to question your ability to write neutrally about it, then don't be
bold.  Explain your changes, document your additions, and back down
when challenged.  If you believe there are legal issues involved which
necessitate your edits, then contact OTRS.  And if you yourself
question your ability to write neutrally about a topic, then don't
edit the article at all.

I dunno, that seems to me like a common sense guideline to potential
conflicts of interest when it comes to writing Wikipedia articles.
This doesn't seem like a place where spelling out detailed policies is
useful, because the problem isn't one that deals with many
longstanding editors.  It also doesn't seem to be a place where there
is a strong consensus as to what exactly the policies should be.

Anthony


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>We might be flattering ourselves right now, to think that it matters so much to corporations. Come 2010, we absolutely do not want to be told that we have flacks like termites in the foundations.
>
Who's arguing that it matters so much to corporations.  It will matter
to a small subset of corporations, but most have better (from their
perspective) things to do with their time.  We have very few articles
that can survive four years without an edit.

>WP has experienced exponential growth (I'm a mathematician, I don't the term lightly). This is a rare thing, in the real world. Because things do _not_ scale; the scaling issues cannot be ignored with impunity. The hubbub caused by Danny a little while is a symptom. The relationship WP-corporate world is precisely the sort of thing that can exhibit a tipping point.
>
I am familiar with Wikipedia's exponential growth.  In the Summer of
2002 I remember estimating when Wikipedia would reach 100,000 articles
based on exponential growth, and being reasonably accurate.  I do not
support your apparent view that Wikipedia's exponential growth is
somehow justification for an exponential growth in the corpus of its
policies and guidelines.

Ec


body:
geni wrote:

>On 11/4/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Though I should note, popularity is hardly the only concern of an
>>encyclopedia, hence the coverage of academic topics in more detail
>>than their popularity would imply. I should think it is not an
>>excessively insane view to point out that in terms of "value to the
>>world" (Which is really what we mean by notability, let's face it)
>>pornographic actors rank far, far below many areas we are far more
>>selective about. Even a Pokemon is more exceptional than someone
>>who's claim to fame is mostly that they have had sex.
>>
>>
>Pokemon is setting the bar rather high. Other than perhaps playboy I
>doubt there is much in the field of porn better know than pokemon.
>
>You have ignored my second point. People write about porn. It is after
>all where the word comes from.
>
The one difference between these two topics is that Pok?mon is a fairly
recent phenomenon, and it's easier to confine all that could be
reasonably said about it.  Porn has been around much longer to the point
that some would even consider the Book of Ruth in the Bible to be
pornographic.  This makes it a lot more difficult to determine what porn
is notable.  None of us would exist without sex, and that could have the
effect that naming someone's parents is inherently pornographic. :-)
Even I would admit that simply saying that someone had sex is not
normally notable, but having sex publicly or on film could alter that
parameter.

>>A great guideline, so long as you're willing to ignore all but the
>>most pathological of articles. Unfortunately, that's a bad way to
>>approach the topic.
>>
>>
>Not really. You just follow the standard aproach that they only need
>to be produced when their existance is challanged
>
I'm glad to see you mellowing with age.

>>Unlikely - with several hundred admins, it could well be a very long
>>time before problems promoting new ones move to the realm of explosion.
>>
>>
>There were rather fewer when people started complaining. Things change
>adminship is a bigger deal than it used to be (so is editorship for
>that matter).
>
That's sad.  As flaky as the leaves may seem they owe their life to the
roots.

Ec


from_name: cohesion

subject: [Wikitech-l] ] Idea for new "magic word" for images

body:
On 11/5/06, Sherool  wrote:
> Basicaly some way to spesify an id and class value for an image *from the
> image description page*
>
> Not sure what kind of syntax would be best for this, "traditional" magic
> words don't take parameters so something like __META id ="ifd"
> class="ifd"__ might seem "ugly" or strange,  on the other hand a more
> function-ish appraoch like {{#meta: id="ifd"|class="ifd"}} would not be
> expected to have the effect I'm suggesting. Ideas on this would be most
> welcome ("meta" is probably not the best name either).
>
> Anyway the general idea is this: By whatever means is deemed the best
> syntax it should be possible to spesify an arbitrary id and class value
> (except one that colide with existing "hard coded" values, maybe prefix
> all user spesified values in some way to avoid problems) for an image from
> it's description page. The "thumbnailing code" would then apply this to
> either the div or img tag of the image (depending on wether or not it's
> framed). The admins on any given Wiki are then free to add JavaScript
> functions and CSS classes to interact with the image in just about any way
> they can imagine.

I assume the images have some unique id in the database anyway, so
maybe it would be easier to just use that as the id, unless people
didn't want to expose that for some reason.

It seems a little difficult because when I load an article with a
image pending deletion tagged with, say, a {{DELETE}} magic word,
where is the trigger to change the class for that image coming from?
The parser would need to look at all the image pages every time it
loaded an article checking for these magic words I guess. That might
not be super difficult I don't know.

It does seem like a useful feature though, since so many images get
added back, you start to think people don't realize why they were
removed in the first place. :)


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> I have suggested a new project at:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lookup_directory_wiki . Please have a look.
>
> In short, the wiki has information on any person or organisation on the
> planet. The page explains this concept in more detail.

Wayyyyyyyyy outside Wikimedia's goals and functional area.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] wikistats (to Brion)

body:
Erik Zachte wrote:
> Brion a few weeks ago you told me on IRC wikistats were offline on purpose.
> I told you I never received the mail you sent me about it.
> You were busy and asked me to mail you, which I did to several addresses, no
> answer.
> I'm still puzzled about what necessitated taking wikistats offline and what
> needs to be changed. Can you explain here or on my user talk page?

Ah good, now that I have an address for you I'll resend.

> Also the Tomeraider files that were thrown away have been reuploaded to
> /home/ezachte/tr
> Are there any offline backups made in the colocation? If so could you add
> these files?

Ah thanks, I'll put those back now that we have them again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Steve Summit wrote

> I'm sure this point got raised in the long thread, too, but:
> if declaring an interest excludes you from editing the very
> articles you want to edit, isn't that a sure-fire way of
> guaranteeing that no one declares their interests?

It doesn't do that. Editing with a real COI is strongly deprecated - what other line can we take? People may declare their interest with a user box, and then edit away; very common. There is such a large grey area, in which people say 'I have some interest here, but I'm not so conflicted that I can't edit straight', that it is de facto accepted that declarations of interest do not disqualify.

The real position on the ground is that people with serious COI do not edit well, when put under the pressure of a real edit war/dispute. This is well established, I think. The point of the guideline is to say: "you don't actually know what you are getting into here". Some experienced Wikipedians do know exactly what they are getting into, but still crash and burn in terms of their reputations.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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body:
On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 06:37:34 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
wrote:

>The only way to counter the process-wonk culture at RFA is for a number
>of non-process-wonks to consistently vote "yes" every time any of them
>try to vote "no" for some bullshit reason, after first checking that the
>nominee really isn't someone completely insane.

Not a bad idea :-)

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


body:
Robth wrote

> Academic experts are uniquely qualified to judge the relative notability of
> subjects within their area of expertise.  They are also, in general, probably
> not the people we would want to have judging the overall notability of their
> entire area of expertise.  (I do not think I have ever known an academic
> whose estimation of his or her own field's importance was not substantially
> higher than the outside world's estimation of the same.)

Relevant quote from [[G. H. Hardy]], about a professor's duty to exaggerate his subject's importance, and his importance within it. (Professor here is aimed at a traditional 19thC model.)

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: magiske prosesser

body:
On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 12:37:33 +0100
  Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Virgil Ierubino wrote:
>> I have suggested a new project at:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lookup_directory_wiki .
>>Please have a look.
>>
>> In short, the wiki has information on any person or
>>organisation on the
>> planet. The page explains this concept in more detail.
>
> Wayyyyyyyyy outside Wikimedia's goals and functional
>area.
>

Could you provide us with a quote to elaborate on your
exclamation?

Halvor

--
email to and from this person will be subject to public
availability


body:
On 05/11/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Robth wrote

> > Academic experts are uniquely qualified to judge the relative notability of
> > subjects within their area of expertise.  They are also, in general, probably
> > not the people we would want to have judging the overall notability of their
> > entire area of expertise.  (I do not think I have ever known an academic
> > whose estimation of his or her own field's importance was not substantially
> > higher than the outside world's estimation of the same.)

> Relevant quote from [[G. H. Hardy]], about a professor's duty to exaggerate his subject's importance, and his importance within it. (Professor here is aimed at a traditional 19thC model.)

Certainly. However, the current context is content within a subject
that is already covered to whatever degree - rather than coverage of
the subject at all.

- d.


body:
On 05/11/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

> I thought it would be a good idea to share some news about another  project,
> the English Wikisource, which has been doing some remarkable work in  the past
> few months, thanks to a small group of dedicated editors and  contributors.
> First for some background: Wikisource is much more than a library of old  and
> PD texts. It can, and should, operate in tandem with the other projects, by
> providing the background to the information we offer. For instance, take a

I have a question: what's Wikisource's relations like with that other
well-known source text archive, Project Gutenberg, and its associated
Distributed Proofreaders? And any other source text archives. I must
confess I have absolutely no idea of our relations with them, and it's
the first question that sprang to my mind when I heard of Wikisource.

- d.


from_name: Sherool

body:
Basicaly some way to spesify an id and class value for an image *from the
image description page*

Not sure what kind of syntax would be best for this, "traditional" magic
words don't take parameters so something like __META id ="ifd"
class="ifd"__ might seem "ugly" or strange,  on the other hand a more
function-ish appraoch like {{#meta: id="ifd"|class="ifd"}} would not be
expected to have the effect I'm suggesting. Ideas on this would be most
welcome ("meta" is probably not the best name either).

Anyway the general idea is this: By whatever means is deemed the best
syntax it should be possible to spesify an arbitrary id and class value
(except one that colide with existing "hard coded" values, maybe prefix
all user spesified values in some way to avoid problems) for an image from
it's description page. The "thumbnailing code" would then apply this to
either the div or img tag of the image (depending on wether or not it's
framed). The admins on any given Wiki are then free to add JavaScript
functions and CSS classes to interact with the image in just about any way
they can imagine.

For Wikipedia projects a few obvious uses are:
"Highlighting" images that are marked for deletion, or as missing source
info and so on in various ways. This may be as simple as adding a red
border around the image, or making use of a JavaScript to superimpose a
warning on top of the image or adding something to the image caption, add
a explanatory tooltip or any number of other possibilities that are best
left to each project to descide.

Replacing the visible thumbnail with a warning sign if a fair use image is
used in User: space.

Optional (add some code to your user CSS/JS page) ability to have fair
use, featured and various other kinds of images marked in special ways.

With a bit of effort it might even be used in combination with a template
like {{fair use in}} to have a warning appear on the image if it's used in
any other page than the one(s) mentioned in the tag (take the page name as
the class parameter and have a JavaScript check against it).

I'm sure there are lots of other creative uses I can't think of right now.

I guess this would reqire a new row in the image table to store these
values.

If at all possible this should work across wikis too, so an image marked
for deletion on Commons would expose it's "deletion" class to all projects
that use the image too (leaving it up to them how to "mark" the image
localy).

Any reason something like this would *not* be possible (or desierable).
There might be problems I haven't though about, but I think it would be a
quite usefull feature. If allowing users to set arbitrary values are too
"hard" a handfull of hard coded magic words (like __DELETION__ or
whatever) would still be better than nothing, but the more flexible the
better I would say. Accessability should not be a problem, if someone
doesn't have JavaScript or CSS eneabled the worst that can happen is that
everyting looks just like it does today with no extra "markings" on any
images. Projects just have to be carefull not to use this layout purposes,
just like they already have to be carefull not to rely on fancy CSS to
make articles "work" properly.

If this is not totaly shot down I'm planning to submit a feature request
via bugzilla, just wanted to get a bit of input from you guys first (like
what would be the best syntax, any additional fetures that would be
usefull related to this etc).

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


body:
geni wrote:

>>But our notability standards, being stitched together on a case-by-
>>case basis, are in no real position to engage in this sort of thought.
>>
>>
>Most legal systems are based to a far degree on president. This works
>better than you might expect.
>
At the risk of breaching Wikiquette I think you mean "precedent" rather
than "president". ;-)

I basically agree.  Precedent allows for some flexibility in
distinguishing between cases because often unexpected differences in
circumstances.  Trying to legislate the result of a precedent setting
decision destroys that flexibility, and too easily makes the new rules
apply in unintended places.

Ec


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 2:46 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
> The one difference between these two topics is that Pok?mon is a
> fairly
> recent phenomenon, and it's easier to confine all that could be
> reasonably said about it.  Porn has been around much longer to the
> point
> that some would even consider the Book of Ruth in the Bible to be
> pornographic.  This makes it a lot more difficult to determine what
> porn
> is notable.  None of us would exist without sex, and that could
> have the
> effect that naming someone's parents is inherently pornographic. :-)
> Even I would admit that simply saying that someone had sex is not
> normally notable, but having sex publicly or on film could alter that
> parameter.

But on the other hand, and this is something we ought not be ashamed
of, we are an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias have standards. That's not
to say we should "censor," but, well... encyclopedias value some
topics over others. Nobody would argue that Jacques Derrida is more
known than Pokemon, but Britannica has an article on him, and not one
on Pokemon. The judgment of notability is more than a judgment of
popularity. It's a judgment, ultimately, of worth. Obviously,
Wikipedia is not paper. We can set the bar lower.

I don't think it's an overly controversial thing to point out,
though, that the bar exists, and exists in a way that is a bit
snobbish. It should be easier to get an article as an academic than
as a comic. It should be easier to get an article as a piece of art
or mainstream culture than as a pornographic actor. Because, well,
that's the judgment call respectable encyclopedias make.

But our notability standards, being stitched together on a case-by-
case basis, are in no real position to engage in this sort of thought.

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

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

 >


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug in SpecialUpload.php

body:
On 11/5/06, Mike O <mikeo at operamail.com> wrote:
> SpecialUpload.php has a bug.
>
> If upload_by_url rights are allowed then a person can upload images directly from another site by specifying the URL. However, private function curlCopy( $url, $dest ) is breaks URLs because it performs a strtolower operation, which as you might guess isn't proper since URLs at some sites are case sensitive.
>
> So this:
>
>                 # Maybe remove some pasting blanks :-)
>                 $url = strtolower( trim( $url ) );
>
> Should be changed to this:
>
>                 # Maybe remove some pasting blanks :-)
>                 $url = trim ($url);
>
>
> Mike O

Good catch, thanks.  Fixed in r17450.


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject:
[Foundation-l] Translation subcommittees' open meeting is today
 on	November 5, 22UTC

body:
One thing I would like to add is that you can also access the chat
through various websites without needing chat-software on your computer:

    * http://www.bitshuffle.org/cgiirc/
    * http://java.freenode.net/index.php
    * http://brujula5.brujula.net/cgi-bin/cgi/irc.cgi

Thanks and we hope to see many of you to come online this evening.

Best, Sabine

Aphaia schrieb:
> Hello,
> The first Transcom open meeting is scheduled on today, November 5,
> 2006, 22 UTC at the IRC channel, #wikimedia-translation hosted by
> freenode.
>
.....
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote
>
>
>>I do not
>>support your apparent view that Wikipedia's exponential growth is
>>somehow justification for an exponential growth in the corpus of its
>>policies and guidelines.
>>
>>
>That is not my view. I have scarcely had anything to do with policy/guideline pages, since arriving in 2003. You might note that [[Wikipedia:Spam]], which logically is only a subsection in the 'conflict of interest' area, is by itself a page of perhaps comparable length. The logic is to get the right high-level pages set up, so that the basic principles are put forward in a few places, and detailed material hangs off those. (I have actually also argued for a handbook approach, since it seems to me utopian to think Wikipedia in its current state is not easily comprehensible. I could have wished for more support on that front.)
>
I apologize if my previous comment was somewhat trollish.  If you have
not been dealing with policy pages before this, welcome to the wonderful
world of wiki policy. ;-)   Now you can understand why I mostly avoid it.

I absolutely agree with well-framed high-level policy pages.  There is
also great merit to the handbook approach, though I think we differ in
just how much should be hanging from the chandelier of basic principles
before it gets so weighed down that it crashes to the floor.  I prefer a
strong element of concision in rules.  The essentials of the ten
commandments are simple, and that is important for their acceptance
among Christians.  One of the key values implicit in the US Constitution
is its relative simplicity; it still gives rise to a lot of argument and
debate about its meaning, but would the Europeans have been better off
to accept the constitution that was proposed to them.

The essentials of basic principles are probably already there in the
five pillars.  The other important need is a coherent process for
altering rules that does not allow the system to become a victim of the
whims of whoever happens to be interested in a particular rule at a
particular time.  I have a throretical interest in what happens to
Conflict of Interest, but it has no immediacy in relation to the things
that I am doing now.  It may include much that conflicts with my sense
of justice, but is it a worthwhile allocation of my time?  The rules
need to be broadly acceptable, but there needs to be a mechanism to make
changes when the community feels that it needs to happen.  A small
committee of highly trusted people is probably needed to lead the
process.  Their role would not be to make the decisions themselves, but
to organize and present them.

Ec


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 10:07:42 -0500, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
>wrote:
>
>
>>It seems to me that the type of people with whom this is an increasing
>>problem are not the type of people who are even going to read such a
>>long and complictated guideline, let alone care about following it.
>>
>>
>Sure.  But it's good to have a well-reasoned guideline to point them
>to, and when they ignore it then we can justly point to a consensus
>view which they are going against.
>
But is it really a consensus view when only a small number of
Wikipedians are actively involved, and the rest of us ignore the page
completely?

Ec


body:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:

>>
>
> Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys
> would probably come to a different conclusion.

Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia,
and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very
important point - especially for popular culture articles.

-Phil


body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> Steve Summit wrote
>
>
>> I'm sure this point got raised in the long thread, too, but:
>> if declaring an interest excludes you from editing the very
>> articles you want to edit, isn't that a sure-fire way of
>> guaranteeing that no one declares their interests?
>>
>
> It doesn't do that. Editing with a real COI is strongly deprecated - what other line can we take? People may declare their interest with a user box, and then edit away; very common. There is such a large grey area, in which people say 'I have some interest here, but I'm not so conflicted that I can't edit straight', that it is de facto accepted that declarations of interest do not disqualify.
>
> The real position on the ground is that people with serious COI do not edit well, when put under the pressure of a real edit war/dispute. This is well established, I think. The point of the guideline is to say: "you don't actually know what you are getting into here". Some experienced Wikipedians do know exactly what they are getting into, but still crash and burn in terms of their reputations.
>

I suppose it depends on what you mean by COI---if you mean say merely a
financial conflict of interest then that's tenable, but there are plenty
of others that would seem to disqualify whole slews of editors,
especially experts in the subject.  For example, artificial intelligence
(my area) is a very contentious field, and people within it disagree
strongly about what in the field is notable or worth pursuing, and even
disagree about how to narrate its history.  I think it would be
reasonable to say that anyone who is an active AI researcher has a
conflict of interest when it comes to editing AI-related articles, and
yet our articles wouldn't get very far if all AI researchers had to
recuse themselves!

Something similar comes up with people of a particular nationality
editing articles related to that country, especially when it's involved
in a diplomatic dispute...

-Mark


from_name: Mike O

subject: [Wikitech-l] need help installing images

body:
I managed to get the image archive downloaded. FYI on my previous request for help with the download: The problem with not being able to download the entire image archive was due to the kernel, which needed to be rebuilt.

That said, I can't seem to get the images to appear on the Wiki now. I've untar'd the file in the wiki software directory, so now just to be clear I have an images/ directory and an en/ directory, the latter being the image archive files. I also have a symlink inside images/ that points to en/ just in case I should have untar'd the image archive inside the images/ directory (eg: images/en/)

Regardless, the images do now show up on the wiki. Articles still appear with a link to upload the image instead of showing the image itself, which is present on the system. I've loaded the image.sql and imagelink.sql to the database and that didn't seem to help. Images still do not appear in articles.

This is in MediaWiki 1.8.1, with Sept 06 db dump and Nov 05 image archive.

Any idea how to fix this problem?

Mike O

--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com

Powered by Outblaze


body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:
>
>
>> Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys
>> would probably come to a different conclusion.
>>
>
> Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia,
> and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very
> important point - especially for popular culture articles.
>

I don't agree with that at all---I think we should be precisely a
compendium of subject encyclopedias, albeit woven together in a way that
the general reader can navigate from general to specific articles and
back again in a reasonable manner.

-Mark


body:
Andy, I have the same problem. Did you find a way to solve this?

Mike O

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andy Rabagliati" <andyr at wizzy.com>
> To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Getting pictures to show up in mediawiki
> Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:16:29 +0200
>
>
> Folks,
>
>    In support of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team
>    I am trying to automate the cutting down of the English Wikipedia dump.
>
>    This would be used to create a CD or DVD with content from a chosen
>    list of articles.
>
>    I have documented the steps I take on the page above, and one of my
>    problems is that I cannot get pictures to show up.
>
>    I have tried adding enwiki-20060518-imagelinks.sql.gz to my mediawiki
>    installation, but I think this just provides the reverse - indicating
>    from a picture page which articles link to it ?
>
>    If I upload a picture, it works.
>
>    What I would like is to put all the pictures where the uploaded one
>    would go, and have it all 'magically' work.
>
>    At the moment all pictures show up as redlinks, like
>
> http://localhost/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Lunar-Phase-Diagram.png
>
>    Which XML dump should I add, or what else could I include from the
>    enwiki-20060518-pages-articles.xml.bz2 file to make pictures work ?
>
> Cheers,     Andy!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

>

--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com

Powered by Outblaze


body:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:51 PM, Delirium wrote:

>
> I don't agree with that at all---I think we should be precisely a
> compendium of subject encyclopedias, albeit woven together in a way
> that
> the general reader can navigate from general to specific articles and
> back again in a reasonable manner.

I think there are some major problems with that, not the least of
which being that this mindset is why many of our popular culture
articles are written in an in-universe perspective.

-Phil


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:46 PM, geni wrote:
>
>> Britannica is only one opinion. An encyclopedia of childrens toys
>> would probably come to a different conclusion.
>
> Yes, but we're a general encyclopedia, not a subject encyclopedia,
> and not a compendium of subject encyclopedias. This is a very
> important point - especially for popular culture articles.

I disagree, I see no reason why Wikipedia can't be considered a
compendium of subject encyclopedias. Wikiprojects already treat it that
way in a lot of regards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Highways springs to
mind, I would normally expect to find this sort of thing only in a
specialist collection.

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