from_name: Aphaia

body:
On 12/23/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Gianluigi Gamba <gigamb at tin.it> wrote:
> Although it might be hard to tell from the accusations in this thread:
> They are not blocked automatically on enwiki either.

No they are. Or were hopefully. "Only 3,394"? I cannot believe what I
am hearing now.
--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject:
[Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
	English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)


list: foundation-l

body:
I regret to post my previous mail. You English Wikipedians shall be
cursed of disclimination.

I have told to the Japanese community you lifted up that fool
ethnocentric and discliminative policy. I would like to add some
editors hadn't believed Engilsh Wikipedia did enforce so a
discliminative policy. You made me a liar. Well, it is not a big deal,
but still the fact remains you are racists.

Bye,

> Today it includes a little less explanation and the word avoid was removed.
>
> "Names with non-Latin characters: Unfortunately, most of your fellow
> editors will be unable to read a name written in Cyrillic, Chinese,
> Japanese, Korean, or other scripts. Many of them will also be
> additionally burdened, as such names may be displayed for them only as
> question marks ("??? ??"), squares ("??? ??"), replacement characters
> ("??? ??") or worse, nonsense or mojibake ("?!%?s*"). If your name is
> usually written in a non-Latin script, please consider transliterating
> it to avoid confusion, and allow easier access to your talk page by
> typing your name in the search field or URL bar."
>
>
> If you really can read that as bias.. then I'm afraid we're just going
> to have to disagree.
>
> I guess I'll just have to be branded a "bigot against people named
> mathematical symbols". ;)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
 English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)

body:
Hoi,
http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%E3%83%9E%E3%82%B9
:)
Thanks,
     Gerard

Aphaia schreef:
> Dear Ms Walsh, and other fellow editors
>
> On 12/23/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 12/22/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Aphaia, I am very sorry that you feel this way. But I do not think
>> this post is very fair.
>>
>
> At this point I have dirrerent point from you.
> Also I would like to say now some of you have been show no interest of
> my dignity. I sometimes said being addressed with family name without
> honorific is a serious offence to Japanese, specially married women.
> Some of you prefer to ignore my request and prefer to address me in
> such a way. Because you like it. And you think it sensible, friendly
> and so on.
>
> Having a westernized username was my compromise. Once I used my
> surname as my username and found it was hard to cease such rudenss
> toward me and my lineage. But now I realize such compromise makes
> nothing fruitful and only indulge you Westerners. I have been
> embarassed to be addressing my surname, Herr Erik Moeller and other
> people I think I said you sometimes but you decide to continue
> embarassing with your rudeness.
>
> I find here the similar thing - you may try to be civil and friendly,
> but your civility means to place a block and tell the victims to
> change their username. One user stated he didn't prefer since he used
> it on over forty wikis but you English admins only repeat "change your
> name".  I find here no civility nor frindliness. I find here only
> condecension and arrogance.
>
>
>> Here are a few things I see, on the whole thread.
>>
>> 1. No one is interested in blocking anyone because of beliefs about ethnicity.
>>
>
> No, even when they use their real name, you blocked them. You
> disrespect their ethnicity and force them to .
>
>
>> It is a problem for administrators on any wiki to handle usernames
>> they cannot read or type. Reasonable people can disagree about whether
>> the problem justifies enwiki's current ways of dealing with it. And
>> reasonable people *do* disagree, which is why this thread has gone on
>> for so long and why there is so much argument about it. But it is not
>> about racism.
>>
>> 2. It is currently very difficult for users on any wiki, not just
>> English, to interact with users who do not have a username in the
>> script of that wiki's language.
>>
>> If you cannot read or type someone's username, it is hard to talk to
>> them, hard to tell people apart, hard to search for their
>> contributions, and many other things. In addition to the trouble
>> talking to real users, vandals know that it is difficult, and because
>> of this, they like to use this extra difficulty to cause trouble. And
>> I don't expect users on wikis where the language is not in Latin
>> script to be able to read a Latin script name, either.
>>
>> 3. Whether or not the policy is right, it doesn't excuse being rude to anybody.
>>
>> If anyone has been blocked with an uncivil message, or has not been
>> asked politely about changing their username, that administrator is
>> acting badly. But that is a fault of the person, not of the policy,
>> and that should stop no matter what else happens.
>>
>> 4. Everyone would like a good solution to this.
>>
>> If there were currently a solution that allowed editors to keep their
>> preferred names on every wiki, but allowed the users of every wiki to
>> interact with them without too much difficulty, everyone would be
>> happy. No one here wants to make others upset for no reason.
>>
>> 5. Solving this is difficult, and currently there is no fix that makes
>> everyone entirely happy.
>>
>> There are many attempts to deal with it that make people unhappy, and
>> just about every different attempted fix or work-around makes a
>> *different* group of people unhappy.
>>
>> 6. Making the argument personal is not helping anyone get the
>> solutions they want.
>>
>> There are a lot of people who are coming at this problem in good
>> faith, even if not everyone agrees with what they are doing. There are
>> a lot of people who have decided not to participate in this thread
>> because they do not want to be attacked or flamed. And we lose the
>> input of people who do want to help, but who either now feel like they
>> are not wanted or who do not want to get into an argument in the first
>> place.
>>
>> 7. Taking arguments personally is only going to make you miserable.
>>
>> No one is participating here just because they want to make anyone
>> else feel bad or look foolish. It's not a personal argument, and if
>> you feel like it is personal then perhaps it is time to step back and
>> take a break, go outside and relax and then come back. (If everyone
>> did that, there would not be so many messages to read, either.)
>>
>> *
>>
>> I would love a solution that makes everyone happy. I think there are
>> possibilities for solutions that will make it easier for everyone to
>> be happy. But we do not have them yet, and so it is still a real
>> problem with many different sides to it.
>>
>> I am sorry that you feel that you are being made to look like a fool,
>> or that you believe this is being done to be hurtful. But it is not
>> fair to make remarks such as this, or such as have been made by many
>> others at many other points in the thread, when everyone here is
>> coming at the problem in good faith. Even if you disagree with them.
>>
>> Effe iets anders posted earlier asking everyone to step back and not
>> take things personally, to recognize that reasonable people who do not
>> mean harm can disagree. I agree, and I have written at more length
>> than he has, but wanted to say more completely what I saw. I do not
>> see anyone here who has the intention of harming anyone, and I think
>> the thread would be much better and more productive if we could all
>> assume this to be true.
>>
>> -Kat
>>
>> --
>> Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
>> * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
>> mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
>>
>>
>
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 22/12/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
> [snip]
> > Certain searches of existing content would be useful the most obvious
> > being running a copy of the database against a copy of britianica.
> >
>
> And other databases of copyrighted texts, such as InfoTrac
> (http://www.gale.com/onefile/) or similar, and things like Google Book
> Search.

I wonder how practical it would be to find some way of running a
comparison search of a Wikipedia dump against a Britannica/Encarta/etc
CD? It could be done offline, and at leisure, for catching out past
offenders - I suspect the worst cases are those we don't catch, and
sit ignored and unrewritten for months. I know of at least one case
where we were getting copy-pasted articles from the OxDNB...

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


body:
David Gerard schreef:
> On 23/12/06, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I think we need to find a "middle road," if at all possible. System
>> transliteration seems to be the only such proposal -- if anybody else has
>> got any ideas, now's the time.
>>
>
>
> Which is more useful on a given wiki:
>
> a) System transliteration into the script(s) of that wiki (which will
> apparently lead to tremendous offence to people not even using the
> wiki);
> b) Optionally append a user-ID number to the non-local script name,
> and have this user-ID work for blocks, log-checking, etc. (will
> apparently offend people who want to be "????????" rather than a
> number)
> c) Disallow both the above and require the usernames to be displayed
> in a script unreadable to the native speakers on that wiki (which will
> lead to near-automatic blocking as happens now, because you KNOW the
> vandals will exploit it big time)
>
>
> - d.
Hoi,
Your question negates the issue at hand. It is therefore only describes
a part of the problem. The problem is that you refuse to address the
issue by only talking in terms of English language Wikipedia.

Never mind ..
http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:%D9%85%DB%8C%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AF_%D9%85%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%AD_%D9%85%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%A9_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AF

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Registering www.wikipedia.cat for ca.wikipedia.org

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/12/23, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>:
>
>> Claudi Meneghin wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>> I would like to suggest to register www.wikipedia.cat for
>>>
>> ca.wikipedia.org; however I am not sure that this is the right place. Thnk
>> you.
>>
>> I don't believe that there is such a thing as a ".cat" top level domain.
>>
>>
>
> However, your belief does not truth make. See:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cat
> http://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3A.cat&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:nl:official&client=firefox-a
>
And http://nic.cat/ ...

-- Neil


from_name: Sam Korn

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

body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> When you excuse what should not be excused,

which I don't...

you position yourself where
> you do not want to be. In this threat Anthere made an interesting
> suggestion; she suggested to provide some metrics to mark people as to
> being known good. This was instantly rejected.

Sounds a good idea in principle to me.  I'd like to hear more.

It was suggested that
> people were given a number. This is imho dehumanising and I am dead
> against it.

Even *in addition* to a username?

It was suggested that people can install fonts to improve
> their effectiveness, you call it black mail which is really "helpful".

If that was opaque, it was sarcasm.  Sorry, I do that when I'm getting
annoyed and I apologise.  None the less, it is not a case of "can" but
a case of "must".

> In a previous post I have stated that with "you" I address people who
> think that the arguments used to defend this policy are valid. If you
> do, and you have stated that you do not, imho you do indeed discriminate.

Well, the arguments are valid.  So are the arguments against.  We have
to work out a balance between the two.

> When only one user appears in Thai, you will have to check him out in a
> same way as when a user appears in Latin script. That seems obvious to
> me. With the suggestion of Anthere, you might even know that the person
> is a known good on the th.wikipedia.org by looking at some graphic
> indicators... and consequently believe that as he does no evil there, he
> will do no evil on en.wikipedia.org. This still allows you to check him
> out like you will also check out every now and again what other known
> goods do.

I'm actually prepared to see how this will work.  I'm not certain how
much of an impact SUL will have, so I'm quite happy to wait and see.
But I am concerned about the possible problems this can bring to
communication.

Incidentally, I have made a suggestion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username#Ideas_for_script_policy
and I'd be interested in feedback.

> I did mention the presentation at the Belgrade conference because it
> expressed publicly by a bureaucrat of another Wikipedia project how
> difficult/near impossible it is to get traction in the English language
> Wikipedia. Wikipedia has its prominence because of its value system. By
> presenting barriers to the entry and by not being responsive to POV
> issues raised Wikipedia and what it stands for is undermined. But read
> the presentation .. I could read it, it is in English :)

Unfortunately, there are users on en.wikipedia who are unwilling to
work with users who haven't established themselves on en.wikipedia but
rather on other wikis.  I wish this were not the case, and hope SUL
might help resolve it.  Fingers crossed.

> Again about discrimination, it was you who used this word first. In some
> ways it is not helpful to use a word like this because it does prevent
> people from looking at the arguments.

Apologies for this.  I was intending it in a small way.  You didn't
need much encouragement to continue using the word in a different
context, however.

You accuse me of not reading what
> you say.

Well, not understanding, anyway.  You keep saying that SUL solves all
my problems, which it doesn't, so either you've got a complete failure
of logic or you don't understand my arguments.

I am not so sure
> that you have been reading the arguments that I have been using all
> along. This whole thing has been presented as an attack against the
> "evil" en.wikipedia while it is only but not less so an attack against
> an evil en.wikipedia policy.

No, I understand your arguments completely.  I also agree with them
and, as I have said countless times before, I agree that the current
policy is wrong/misguided.

I think you aren't hearing my arguments because you have a bee in your
bonnet about en.wikipedia.

And it is a complete overreaction to label this policy "evil",
"ethnocentric" or "racist".  They may be bad policy, but those labels
are offensive and unnecessary, as well as being untrue.

> I do not mind that much of the development is driven by big brother
> en.wikipedia. It has produced one of the best environments for web
> content. The support for other languages in MediaWiki is second to none
> (and yes it can be improved upon). Wikipedia is extremely valuable to me
> and I will defend what I perceive as its core values. We agree that the
> current policy is wrong. What is needed is an acceptable alternative.
>  From my perspective what Anthere proposed is the best I have seen so far.

I presume then that you concede that en.wikipedia doesn't have any
significant advantages in fighting vandalism, for example, than other
wikis.

I will join with you in praising the multi-lingual nature of
MediaWiki, which deserves great praise.

What Anthere has suggested is good, but won't work on its own, naturally.

--
Sam


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

body:
On 21/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> he claims user-ID numbers working would be dehumanising.

user-ID numbers... I've noticed people quite often write to OTRS
quoting their "user number". Does anyone know quite what this is,
internally, and what we use it for? I can't even seem to find mine, so
I assume it's something generated at login and then forgotten...

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


from_name: Gary Kirk

body:
Look in Special:Preferences, it is displayed on the first tab. But I
have no idea what, if anything, it is used for.

On 12/23/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > he claims user-ID numbers working would be dehumanising.
>
> user-ID numbers... I've noticed people quite often write to OTRS
> quoting their "user number". Does anyone know quite what this is,
> internally, and what we use it for? I can't even seem to find mine, so
> I assume it's something generated at login and then forgotten...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Sluggish access to Wikipedia

body:
Jim wrote:
> Further on my post, I've recently been getting the following error
> message on almost every post:
>
> Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data.
> Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and
> logging back in.

Clear your cookies and log in again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)


body:
[oops, resend]

On 23/12/06, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Look in Special:Preferences, it is displayed on the first tab. But I
> have no idea what, if anything, it is used for.

Interesting. Well, it shouldn't be hard to make it unique across the
entire project - prepend it with "en-wp-" or "fr-wikt-" or "commons-"
or "ja-ws-", arrange for it to be generally visible somehow, and then
we have a ready-prepared unique "barcode" identifier for people to use
in whatever manner they find appropriate.

I'm not sold such a use is needed, but making those numbers visible to
the user shouldn't be an impossible patch for anyone who feels
inclined, and your infrastructure is there and waiting for you.

(And, even without this modification, we *will* all get unique
cross-project identifiers just as soon as SUL goes live, so...)

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


from_name: Chris Lüer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
BTW, are there any plans for a bibliographic database? Something like
BibTex meets MediaWiki.

If it wasn't such a pain to add references people would do it more
often. First, one has to find the right template. Then one has to
figure out how to use it. And there is no way to find out if someone
else has already typed in the same reference in another article.

	Chris


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crediting images inside the article text

body:
On 12/23/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This should IMHO be the standard. Most books that publish photos "by
> > permission" give the credit directly beneath the photo. We should be
> > no different. And, it would help that goal of encouraging people to
> > free up their photos for us.
>
> Most books don't have a descriptive page dedicated to each image, we
> do.  I don't see why duplicating this information is necessary, it
> ends up cluttering the article proper.
>
By the same article it's not necessary to include the image in the
article, as there's a separate page dedicated to it.

Duplication isn't always a bad thing, especially when the duplication
is a one line summary of the original.  It usually isn't necessary
(exception would be when the license requires it), but it also usually
isn't harmful.  I'd say in most cases it's better - I find myself
clicking on image links a lot just out of curiosity to see how it was
obtained.  Saving these extra clicks would be nice, and the tiny bit
of space it takes to do so would be worth it.  But that's just me,
other reader preferences obviously will vary.

By the way, if we're going to appeal to what others do, online
Britannica has inline credits even though they have a separate image
page.  Online Encarta presents their credit information a click away.
So there's precedent for either.

Anthony


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
On 12/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've done pretty much all of them other than messing with monobook.js
> > and monobook.css
>
> Yep. Know anyone who has used all of them?
>
> Steve

[[User:R. Koot]] ?
--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] when uploading pictures to commons ....

body:
On 12/22/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
>
> >I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons
> >will just have to not be clicked. :)
> >
> >In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't
> >click on the full-size version link.
> >
> Sounds like blaming the victim.

Sometimes the victim is also the one at fault.

Anthony


body:
On 12/23/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/23/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > This case needs referendum on English Wikipedia,
> >
> > There is no pratical way to do that.
>
> (Public) referendum is possible: just make a poll and then announce it
> on Watclist, Sitenotice, Main Page and other relevant pages.

So you agree it is imposible?

Adding notices about policy chnages to any of those places is not
viewed as acceptable on en.
--
geni


body:
On 12/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> > I noticed that some people add credits of photos inside the articles,
> > saying that CC-BY requires attribution.
>
> This should IMHO be the standard. Most books that publish photos "by
> permission" give the credit directly beneath the photo. We should be
> no different. And, it would help that goal of encouraging people to
> free up their photos for us.

Photo provided by can't sleep clown will eat me. You see the ah problem?

--
geni


body:
On 12/23/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Whatever.

That is not a valid counter argument

> If you think that it is OK that you take the whole
> responsibility for consequences for all en.wiki users outside of
> en.wiki -- it's fine for me, too.
>

For the most part what happens outside the various en wikis and
commons is not my concern unless they do something really silly.

--
geni


body:
On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the Netherlands in the second world war, people had to identify
> themselves and always have their "persoonsbewijs" with them. At the end of
> the war this was abolished. The Dutch government imposed itself by requiring
> people to have a number and then to always be able to have some form of
> identity with them. Many people resent this. I resent this. It is said that
> it promotes security while in actual fact it makes government more
> intruisive while it hardly helps .. mind you I have a background in
> security.

With the very greatest respect, Gerard, this is all a long way from
putting a non-secret number after someone's username.  It's not even
as if you couldn't go to a different wiki and use a different number
if you wanted -- you'd only have to make a new account.

> The Wikimedia Foundation allows people to edit anonymously. This means that
> for someone who wants to contribute there is no need to provide any
> credentials. We ask people to create a user because it HELPS to assess if a
> contribution is likely to be vandalism or not.

Well, that's *one* reason...  There are others --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_create_an_account%3F

> The current policy will, when the English language Wikipedia insist in
> keeping it, effectively sabotage the Single User Login.

You are again spouting untruths.  1) There is no reason the English
Wikipedia will insist on keeping the policy; 2) there is no reason why
SUL will be sabotaged because almost everyone thinks SUL is a good
thing _including en.wikipedia users*.

The proposal of
> Anthere is a neat proposal because it effectively allows for metrics about a
> user. This information provides much better information than a number and it
> does not have the big cultural problems associated with it that numbers
> have.

Yes, some kind of user metric system would be useful.  Perhaps each
wiki could have a tag that can be applied to a user to designate them
"trusted" and the software could say "this user is trusted on
en.wikibooks, fr.wikiquote, de.wikinews and th.wikipedia".

> The other thing that I have noticed is that in the proposals it is only the
> people from outside the English language Wikipedia who are forced to do
> things.

Is there evidence for this accusation other than your polemics?

Admins who go overboard in their heavy
> handed zeal of fighting vandalism get a blanket excuse because ``they mean
> well``.

As an en.wikipedia Arbitration Committee member (though not for much
longer) I can tell you that this is absolutely not true.

The suggestion of loading fonts is laughed at because it is seen as
> an imposition.

No, it is seen as an *unnecessarily burdensome imposition* to *demand*
of users.  To expect people to read usernames in languages they don't
understand or even pronounce is also an imposition.

> All in all, my conclusion is very much that, yes people say that the policy
> is wrong, but no they do not want to accept that things will change.

Which is, of course, why there is a current discussion on the subject
of en.wikipedia's username policy.

This
> leads me to conclude that people in the English language Wikipedia see
> themselves as a rule onto themselves and will not really consider the
> arguments of others.

Of course we are.  You've got us at last.

Will you please stop your inflammatory, unpleasant and baseless rhetoric.

--
Sam


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject:
[Foundation-l] To all non latin wikis please start blocking
	latin wiki accounts

body:
On 12/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> You still haven't made it clear how a transliteration module applied
> on en:wp affects a Serbian-speaking userbase at all.

Aphaia said that in the first email.


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken
> <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked
> ones. That would be a
> > great gesture.
>
> I invited you to identify them..  :)
>

I would suggest that any userpages with interwiki
links are a good place to start

Here are some:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E5%BD%92%E5%8E%BB%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%BE%98

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%9B%B7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E3%82%A6%E3%83%83%E3%81%A7%E3%82%84%E3%82%93%E3%81%99%E9%AB%98%E6%A9%8B

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E3%83%84%E3%83%B3%E3%83%85%E3%81%8F%E3%82%93

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E4%BB%A3%E8%A8%80%E4%BA%BA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E5%B0%B8%E7%BD%A9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9D
Blocking admin removed interwiki link because he was
"unable to determine what it is"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3A%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9D&diff=93253905&oldid=93250354

Those are from a category of user pages that get
deleted after one month without edits so it is hardly
comprehensive.  If you could give the link to the list
of block non-latin users I will look for more.

Birgitte SB

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


body:
--- Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> --- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken
> > <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > > How about starting to unblock the unjustly
> blocked
> > ones. That would be a
> > > great gesture.
> >
> > I invited you to identify them..  :)
> >
>
> I would suggest that any userpages with interwiki
> links are a good place to start
>
> Here are some:
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E5%BD%92%E5%8E%BB%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%BE%98
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%9B%B7
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E3%82%A6%E3%83%83%E3%81%A7%E3%82%84%E3%82%93%E3%81%99%E9%AB%98%E6%A9%8B
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E3%83%84%E3%83%B3%E3%83%85%E3%81%8F%E3%82%93
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E4%BB%A3%E8%A8%80%E4%BA%BA
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E5%B0%B8%E7%BD%A9
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9D
> Blocking admin removed interwiki link because he was
> "unable to determine what it is"
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3A%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9D&diff=93253905&oldid=93250354
>
> Those are from a category of user pages that get
> deleted after one month without edits so it is
> hardly
> comprehensive.  If you could give the link to the
> list
> of block non-latin users I will look for more.
>
> Birgitte SB
>
>

Actually thinking about this if the user pages are
really deleted after one month of no talk page edits
it will take someone with administrator rights to go
through them.  Can anyone verify if these user pages
are being deleted or not?

Birgitte SB

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


body:
Whatever. If you think that it is OK that you take the whole
responsibility for consequences for all en.wiki users outside of
en.wiki -- it's fine for me, too.

On 12/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/23/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 12/23/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > This case needs referendum on English Wikipedia,
> > >
> > > There is no pratical way to do that.
> >
> > (Public) referendum is possible: just make a poll and then announce it
> > on Watclist, Sitenotice, Main Page and other relevant pages.
>
>
> So you agree it is imposible?
>
> Adding notices about policy chnages to any of those places is not
> viewed as acceptable on en.
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
I am a person. I have a name. You know me by my nick, GerardM, you may have
deduced that I am known as Gerard Meijssen. You are not likely to know my
full name.

In the Netherlands in the second world war, people had to identify
themselves and always have their "persoonsbewijs" with them. At the end of
the war this was abolished. The Dutch government imposed itself by requiring
people to have a number and then to always be able to have some form of
identity with them. Many people resent this. I resent this. It is said that
it promotes security while in actual fact it makes government more
intruisive while it hardly helps .. mind you I have a background in
security.

The Wikimedia Foundation allows people to edit anonymously. This means that
for someone who wants to contribute there is no need to provide any
credentials. We ask people to create a user because it HELPS to assess if a
contribution is likely to be vandalism or not. The requirement that a user
name uses only characters of one script is sensible. It does not detract
from who someone is. When you impose on people by requiring to accomodate
you in a way that is completely against the grain of culture of these
others. When you do this, when the basis of inclusion is that you know to
find the "edit" button, you ask too much.

The current policy will, when the English language Wikipedia insist in
keeping it, effectively sabotage the Single User Login. The proposal of
Anthere is a neat proposal because it effectively allows for metrics about a
user. This information provides much better information than a number and it
does not have the big cultural problems associated with it that numbers
have.

The other thing that I have noticed is that in the proposals it is only the
people from outside the English language Wikipedia who are forced to do
things. When it is suggested that the en.wikipedia community may have to do
things as well it is flatly rejected. Admins who go overboard in their heavy
handed zeal of fighting vandalism get a blanket excuse because ``they mean
well``. The suggestion of loading fonts is laughed at because it is seen as
an imposition.

All in all, my conclusion is very much that, yes people say that the policy
is wrong, but no they do not want to accept that things will change. This
leads me to conclude that people in the English language Wikipedia see
themselves as a rule onto themselves and will not really consider the
arguments of others.

Any way,
http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:Merry_Christmas

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 12/23/06, Michael Noda <michael.noda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It was suggested that people were given a number. This is imho
> > dehumanising and I am dead against it.
>
> May I ask why you think displaying a number next to usernames is
> dehumanising?  You have stated this several times now, but I'm very
> confused as to why exactly you think this.  I know that, in my life,
> I've had an ID number in many contexts, and never saw it as anything
> more than an aid to indexing and search for whoever issued me the
> number, and never really gave the subject much thought afterwards.  So
> I'm struggling to understand where you're coming from when you react
> so strongly against assigning numbers, and would appreciate it if you
> could help enlighten me.
>
> -Michael Noda
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/23/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > With the very greatest respect, Gerard, this is all a long way from
> > putting a non-secret number after someone's username.  It's not even
> > as if you couldn't go to a different wiki and use a different number
> > if you wanted -- you'd only have to make a new account.
>
>
> You do not get it do you. It is not about the number being secret. I am not
> a number and I do not think it correct that people are equated with a
> number. Reducing people to numbers is evil.

Yes.  Which is why you use *both*.  The two.  Names and numbers for
those who can't read the names.  Perhaps we can even turn the numbers
off for you if they offend you so much.

> > > The current policy will, when the English language Wikipedia insist in
> > > keeping it, effectively sabotage the Single User Login.
> >
> > You are again spouting untruths.  1) There is no reason the English
> > Wikipedia will insist on keeping the policy; 2) there is no reason why
> > SUL will be sabotaged because almost everyone thinks SUL is a good
> > thing _including en.wikipedia users*.
>
> Using words like "spouting" is not really helpful. It shows disrespect.

Apologies.

You
> have not read what I wrote correctly; it says clearly that WHEN it is kept,
> it sabotages SUL. Please read what is written and react to that.

Oh, you mean *if* it is kept.  Your "when" implied to me that you were
certain it would be kept.  Misunderstanding, clearly.

You didn't really address my point, though.

> > > The other thing that I have noticed is that in the proposals it is only
> > the
> > > people from outside the English language Wikipedia who are forced to do
> > > things.
> >
> > Is there evidence for this accusation other than your polemics?
>
> Clearly, the people not from en.wikipedia have to use Latin script. They are
> told to accept numbers, they are told to accept transcriptions /
> transliterations.

Under what assumptions?  The policy that is *now in the process of
being changed*?

> Admins who go overboard in their heavy
> > > handed zeal of fighting vandalism get a blanket excuse because ``they
> > mean
> > > well``.
> >
> > As an en.wikipedia Arbitration Committee member (though not for much
> > longer) I can tell you that this is absolutely not true.
>
> But when people implement what is "universally" considered a broken policy
> then it is perfectly ok because it is in the policy right ? In the thread
> this excuse was used repeatedly.

Well, are you going to punish someone for following the written
instructions?  If policy is completely meaningless, we might as well
give over to anarchy.  I don't know about you over at nl or OmegaWiki,
but on en.wikipedia we try to discuss changes before we make them.

> > No, it is seen as an *unnecessarily burdensome imposition* to *demand*
> > of users.  To expect people to read usernames in languages they don't
> > understand or even pronounce is also an imposition.
>
>
> We disagree here. In order to not see question marks, little blocks, you
> need to install fonts. It is likely that you can not pronounce my name. It
> is a fallacy to think that knowing how to read Latin script makes you able
> to pronounce words in a different language.

No, but I can recognise it.  I may not pronounce your name correctly,
but I can make a reasonable guess that I can remember for the future.

Seeing a name, a word
> originating from another language gives you a handle, by installing fonts
> you get a handle. If people do not do this, it is THEIR problem. It should
> not mean that it is ok for them to roll their problem over onto others.

And of course if we use the Latin script on an English wiki all these
problems go away...

I'm not even going to bother arguing the font question any more, as
you clearly consider blackmail an effective method and I don't.

> > This
> > > leads me to conclude that people in the English language Wikipedia see
> > > themselves as a rule onto themselves and will not really consider the
> > > arguments of others.
> >
> > Of course we are.  You've got us at last.
> >
> > Will you please stop your inflammatory, unpleasant and baseless rhetoric.
>
> You find the arguments unpleasant, it does not mean that they are wrong.

True.  But they are wrong.  Or have you got any evidence to the contrary?

> Calling these arguments inflammatory and baseless means that you do not
> recognise that I put serious effort in making my case.

No, it means I think you're deliberately being offensive.  I'm sure
you're putting plenty of effort in.

It demeans me and in
> effect you thereby deny that I argue in good faith.

I'm finding it very difficult to assume good faith with you, yes.

It is fine when you find
> it unpleasant. This is an unpleasant affair for me too.

I make a point of apologising if I've offended someone.  Can you do the same?

--
Sam


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire

body:
On 12/23/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> There have been several non-latin characters accounts blocked even
> before the user had a chance to write something. I know which evidence
> you need. And denying it won't make the problem disappears.

In fact, there have been many hundeds blocked before making an edit.
But the overwealming majority were cleary made either to be cute or to
cause trouble.

When you say automatic within the context of things that happen on
Wikipedia I usualy think of automatic in the "Capable of operating
without external control or intervention" sense (per Wiktionary).  The
blocking is not happening without control or intervention, as
evidenced by the fact that there are quite a few non-latin names which
are editing and are not blocked.

There have been blocks of accounts using real names with non-latin
characters, but I think that should be avoided in favor of interaction
like this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%8A%D1%80_%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
The stub-sorting project turned thousands of unusable entries in
[[Category:Stub]] into a usable breakdown of stubs by area.

Would a cite-sorting project for {{fact}} templates be feasible? That
way experts in a given subject area will easily be able to look up
facts needing a cite and possibly fill them in.

- d.


body:
Well, I had already made this suggestion previously, but it was in the
context of renaming users, but I'll make it again, as it can also help out
with this monumental mess:

Why don't we write the "home wiki" of a user in the global login database?

Originally, I had suggested it to be a way to stop a rouge bureaucrat in the
Siberian Wikipedia (just picking one off the top of my head) from renaming
my account in the global database, and by default, from renaming my account
in every Wikimedia project. However, by exposing the home wiki of a user,
perhaps in Special:Contributions and after every diff link (perhaps so it
looks like $user ($wiki) (contribs | block)), an English Wikipedia admin can
see whether the user created his account in the Japanese Wikipedia, and ask
a Japanese-speaking admin to tell us whether the user has an objectionable
username or not.

I hope I don't get flamed for suggesting this, but it's something I just
came up with.

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert Scott
Horning
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 10:57 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)

David Gerard wrote:

>On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
>trying to kill each other ...
>
>
>- d.
>
He isn't the only one.  This seems to be much ado about nothing, other
than perhaps some indivudal over-zealous admins.

Here is hoping this thread dies a quick death soon.  Please make that a
Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community!

There are other topics to spend bandwidth on, and this one has a
particularly low S/N

--
Robert Scott Horning

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


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
> Would a cite-sorting project for {{fact}} templates be feasible?

It should be, but is it needed? I saw something about category
intersections coming soon - this kind of thing is exactly what
category intersections are good for.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 23/12/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Would a cite-sorting project for {{fact}} templates be feasible?

> It should be, but is it needed? I saw something about category
> intersections coming soon - this kind of thing is exactly what
> category intersections are good for.

Last I heard, category intersections (where what we now use as
"categories" turn into something that works more like "tags") was
foundering on MySQL being just a bit rubbish for the purpose (tests
showing minutes to execute the test query in PostgreSQL but hours in
MySQL). So I wouldn't count on it any time soon, as all paid developer
efforts are going to Single User Login.

Besides, I'm sure the stub sorters are getting bored ...

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 23/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Besides, I'm sure the stub sorters are getting bored ...

It would help if I had a memory. I proposed the exact same thing to
them in September:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting#Bored_stub_sorter_looking_for_something_new.3F

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 23/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> The stub-sorting project turned thousands of unusable entries in
> [[Category:Stub]] into a usable breakdown of stubs by area.
>
> Would a cite-sorting project for {{fact}} templates be feasible? That
> way experts in a given subject area will easily be able to look up
> facts needing a cite and possibly fill them in.

As long as they still display to the reader as [citation needed], and
we don't end up with little thumbnails or "biochemical citation
needed" in the article text, this sounds fine - just vary the included
categories.

Come to think of it, breaking it down by source area might be more
useful - {{newspaper cite needed}}; {{journal cite needed}}?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 23/12/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > The stub-sorting project turned thousands of unusable entries in
> > [[Category:Stub]] into a usable breakdown of stubs by area.
> > Would a cite-sorting project for {{fact}} templates be feasible? That
> > way experts in a given subject area will easily be able to look up
> > facts needing a cite and possibly fill them in.

> As long as they still display to the reader as [citation needed], and
> we don't end up with little thumbnails or "biochemical citation
> needed" in the article text, this sounds fine - just vary the included
> categories.

Something like that.

> Come to think of it, breaking it down by source area might be more
> useful - {{newspaper cite needed}}; {{journal cite needed}}?

Sounds like an open invitation to the querulous. "You have a source
but I'm going to be arsey about it and say so obnoxiously in the
article text."

I was thinking more broken into the same sort of categories as stub
sorting. What triggered this thought this time around was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupus_vulgaris - there's a "[citation
needed]" there which an expert could probably fill in off the top of
their head, but there's no mechanism by which the expert would be
directed to it.

- d.


body:
On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> There are many ideas like this one that would solve
> the problem but are outside of the design of the
> system.  Perhaps these kind of ideas should sent
> through wikitech-l first before everyone talks about
> them here.  I know the attaching og differnet names
> was not technically possible in SUL back in October
> because I specifically asked after it was brought up
> at the talk page.

Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
trying to kill each other ...

- d.


body:
Hoi,

On 12/23/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In the Netherlands in the second world war, people had to identify
> > themselves and always have their "persoonsbewijs" with them. At the end
> of
> > the war this was abolished. The Dutch government imposed itself by
> requiring
> > people to have a number and then to always be able to have some form of
> > identity with them. Many people resent this. I resent this. It is said
> that
> > it promotes security while in actual fact it makes government more
> > intruisive while it hardly helps .. mind you I have a background in
> > security.
>
> With the very greatest respect, Gerard, this is all a long way from
> putting a non-secret number after someone's username.  It's not even
> as if you couldn't go to a different wiki and use a different number
> if you wanted -- you'd only have to make a new account.

You do not get it do you. It is not about the number being secret. I am not
a number and I do not think it correct that people are equated with a
number. Reducing people to numbers is evil.

> The Wikimedia Foundation allows people to edit anonymously. This means
> that
> > for someone who wants to contribute there is no need to provide any
> > credentials. We ask people to create a user because it HELPS to assess
> if a
> > contribution is likely to be vandalism or not.
>
> Well, that's *one* reason...  There are others --
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_create_an_account%3F
>
> > The current policy will, when the English language Wikipedia insist in
> > keeping it, effectively sabotage the Single User Login.
>
> You are again spouting untruths.  1) There is no reason the English
> Wikipedia will insist on keeping the policy; 2) there is no reason why
> SUL will be sabotaged because almost everyone thinks SUL is a good
> thing _including en.wikipedia users*.

Using words like "spouting" is not really helpful. It shows disrespect. You
have not read what I wrote correctly; it says clearly that WHEN it is kept,
it sabotages SUL. Please read what is written and react to that.

The proposal of
> > Anthere is a neat proposal because it effectively allows for metrics
> about a
> > user. This information provides much better information than a number
> and it
> > does not have the big cultural problems associated with it that numbers
> > have.
>
> Yes, some kind of user metric system would be useful.  Perhaps each
> wiki could have a tag that can be applied to a user to designate them
> "trusted" and the software could say "this user is trusted on
> en.wikibooks, fr.wikiquote, de.wikinews and th.wikipedia".
>
> > The other thing that I have noticed is that in the proposals it is only
> the
> > people from outside the English language Wikipedia who are forced to do
> > things.
>
> Is there evidence for this accusation other than your polemics?

Clearly, the people not from en.wikipedia have to use Latin script. They are
told to accept numbers, they are told to accept transcriptions /
transliterations.

Admins who go overboard in their heavy
> > handed zeal of fighting vandalism get a blanket excuse because ``they
> mean
> > well``.
>
> As an en.wikipedia Arbitration Committee member (though not for much
> longer) I can tell you that this is absolutely not true.

But when people implement what is "universally" considered a broken policy
then it is perfectly ok because it is in the policy right ? In the thread
this excuse was used repeatedly.

The suggestion of loading fonts is laughed at because it is seen as
> > an imposition.
>
> No, it is seen as an *unnecessarily burdensome imposition* to *demand*
> of users.  To expect people to read usernames in languages they don't
> understand or even pronounce is also an imposition.

We disagree here. In order to not see question marks, little blocks, you
need to install fonts. It is likely that you can not pronounce my name. It
is a fallacy to think that knowing how to read Latin script makes you able
to pronounce words in a different language. Seeing a name, a word
originating from another language gives you a handle, by installing fonts
you get a handle. If people do not do this, it is THEIR problem. It should
not mean that it is ok for them to roll their problem over onto others.

> All in all, my conclusion is very much that, yes people say that the
> policy
> > is wrong, but no they do not want to accept that things will change.
>
> Which is, of course, why there is a current discussion on the subject
> of en.wikipedia's username policy.
>
> This
> > leads me to conclude that people in the English language Wikipedia see
> > themselves as a rule onto themselves and will not really consider the
> > arguments of others.
>
> Of course we are.  You've got us at last.
>
> Will you please stop your inflammatory, unpleasant and baseless rhetoric.

You find the arguments unpleasant, it does not mean that they are wrong.
Calling these arguments inflammatory and baseless means that you do not
recognise that I put serious effort in making my case. It demeans me and in
effect you thereby deny that I argue in good faith. It is fine when you find
it unpleasant. This is an unpleasant affair for me too.

http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:Zalig_Kerstfeest

Thanks,
     GerardM

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


body:
On 12/23/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Overall there are fewer then I expected.. but there
> > are not all that
> > many in the blocked list that don't look like
> > vandals... so..
> > ::shrugs::
>
> Please be fair here.  Which of my 20 looked like
> vandals?  How many non-vandals do you need to see to
> acknowledge that people are being blocked just for a
> non-latin username and not vandalism?  How many do you
> need to see that are blocked with no edits to agree
> that automatic blocks are happening to non-trivial
> degree?  There were plently left on my list when I
> stopped at twenty.

I'm not claiming that there aren't valid users who have been blocked.
You showed quite clearly that there are... (although there have been
some vandals there too, some of the 'valid people' are blocked for
vandalism on their home projects! :) )

I was only saying that "There are fewer active users with non-latin
names than I expected" but then balencing it with the fact that "The
overwealming majority of the non-latin blocks are not to good users
being blocked for using their names".  I'm not denying that some
improvement wouldn't be good.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 23/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Come to think of it, breaking it down by source area might be more
> > useful - {{newspaper cite needed}}; {{journal cite needed}}?
>
> Sounds like an open invitation to the querulous. "You have a source
> but I'm going to be arsey about it and say so obnoxiously in the
> article text."

Mmm, true. On the other hand, {{news cite needed}} would probably be a
practical addition to any topic-based system - "In 1998, it was
reported that the company was facing bankruptcy.{{fact}}".

> I was thinking more broken into the same sort of categories as stub
> sorting. What triggered this thought this time around was
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupus_vulgaris - there's a "[citation
> needed]" there which an expert could probably fill in off the top of
> their head, but there's no mechanism by which the expert would be
> directed to it.

Sourced and cited - though here I wonder if {{etymology cite needed}}
would have been more efficient than {{medicine cite needed}} ;-)

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


body:
On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked ones. That would be a
> great gesture.

I invited you to identify them..  :)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation's help to the projects

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

>Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/14/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I don't believe you understand how useful it would be
>>>to just have some one say "That particular case is
>>>unknown.  The most similar case to this is Foobar."
>>>Even if there were a table of questions that people
>>>have asked in the past with yes/no/unknown and no
>>>futher advice would be extremely helpful.  I think it
>>>a false expectation of yours that we are expecting
>>>clearcut answers.  Really we have been mucking through
>>>copyright questions as best we can for some time; we
>>>are all well aware there are often not answers only
>>>arguments.  Just being able to eliminate some
>>>arguments as invalid would be very helpful.
>>>
>>>
>>Aside from the potential issues with the WMF "officially" giving such
>>advice to the communities, Brad (our GC and ED) simply doesn't have
>>the time to do this. Let's brainstorm about how we can get juriwiki-l
>>going, i.e. a functioning, community-driven group of advisors with
>>demonstrable legal expertise.
>>
>>At the moment juriwiki-l is configured so that postings from the
>>outside are moderated and replied to by a group of insiders. Is there
>>any real issue, from a legal point of view, with making it a public
>>mailing list? This is perhaps something Brad can answer.
>>
>>
>In the context of rethinking the various internal, private mailing
>lists, I'm not sure whether it will be considered appropriate to
>continue juriwiki-l in its present form. As Anthere noted, the list is
>not all that active at present. However, it has had sporadic use and a
>variety of sensitive subjects were discussed there with an expectation
>of confidentiality. So I would strongly oppose simply converting it to a
>public list and making the accompanying archives public.
>
>If a public list dedicated to legal issues is thought desirable, it
>should be launched separately. We had wikilegal-l before, but that too
>dwindled into oblivion.
>
I agree with Michael that sorting out the confidentialities of the past
juriwiki list would require a delicacy that may exceed the value of the
results.  Even if an investigation showed that making the information
public would do no harm, I don't think that I for one would gain very
much by ploughing throw an old archive.  If a mailing list is the
appropriate forum for pursuing these matters, it should likely be a new
list.

It remains to be seen whether there should be two such lists, one to
deal with copyright law, and one for other legal questions.  No-one will
dispute the complexity of copyright law and its importance to attaining
wiki goals and objectives.  This branch of the law receives likely as
much attention here as all the rest put together.

I believe that we should be attentive to the law, but I also believe
that nothing is accomplished without pushing the boundaries of the law.
I believe that the law, and especially copyright law, is seldom a matter
of black and white, and that there is a huge mushy middle of unsettled
issues where actions could as easily be judged legal as illegal.

The Foundation should absolutely not put itself in the position where it
will be liable for the misbehaviour of members.  This includes liability
for copyright infringement.  In conflict with this is the goal of not
only using free material, but of making material free.  Under a strict
reading of the law orphan works are not free, but they may nevertheless
be free if there is nobody there to own the copyrights.  Copyright law
was developed by and for those who believed they had rights to protect.
Those who published with no concern for these rights, or who saw only
short term benefits in them view them at most with benign indifference.
Most would be delighted than anyone would be at all interested to
reproduce their early work of that of their ancestors.  Even more of the
work is not worth republishing.  The risk and responsibility for dealing
with this must be assumed at an individual level.

There are at least two reasons for maintaining a restricted mailing
list.  Confidentiality is clearly one that needs no further
explanation.  Another would be to encourage getting things done.  We
can't all do everything.  Too often on mailing lists we hear gripes
about some proposal, but asking the complainer for better alternatives
produces only silence.  Anthere has occasionally and rightly expressed
her frustrations about this.  People want to participate in decisions,
but they can't.  This is not because there are others to prevent their
participation, but because the daily pressures in their own lives act as
a restricting force.  When their personal time table only allows them to
participate in one of two decisions they must choose, and leave others
to deal with the unchosen one. This can be a very difficult choice for
some, and the rest of us cannot be kept waiting while they cling to the
vain hope that someday they will have the time.  It's a serious dilemma
in democratic institutions that want to make the maximum effort to have
everyone represented.  There are others who are very happy to take
advantage of such a loophole.

Can we have a semi-restricted mailing list?  The purpose of the list
would be to find solutions to copyright dilemmas.  (That we are here
discussing it in relation to copyright law would not prevent this
technique from being applied for other lists with different purposes.)
Full membership in the list would be limited in number.  Read-only
membership would be much larger.  If the list reaches its arbitrarily
established membership limit, a new "list2" could be started with
similar restrictions.  List2 members could then move to list1 when there
is a vacancy.  Preset criteria, including prolonged absence, could be
established for dropping people from the list.

Ec


from_name: James Hare

body:
That'd be a hell of a task. There's a lot of them.

On 12/23/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked ones. That would be a
> > great gesture.
>
> I invited you to identify them..  :)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 12/23/06, Katie the Obscure <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Several people have mentioned (in this thread) crediting authors of a
> page on the page itself. Wikia has/had an attribution feature which is
> somewhat similar (see http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Attribution ).
> This incarnation probably wouldn't work for Wikipedia, but if it
> appears useful, perhaps someone can submit a feature request/argue it
> to death in the Village Pump until all our eyes are bleeding.

Two problems:
1) it presents some performance challenges on pages with longer histories
2) It's a terrific vandalism tool which is, I believe, why wikia turned it off.

It also, like page history, does a poor job of fairly representing attribution.


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
What is this all about?

Curious,

Marc Riddell

> From: "X P" <xpwiki at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:10:10 -0800
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] issue with an admin refusing to allow me "right to vanish"
>
> An administrator, CHAIRBOY, has accused me on User:XP of being some banned
> user. I have no interest, having seen the prolonged wars that can develop
> from these things, of participating further in Wikipedia. However, I choose
> to exercise my right to vanish and specifically requested that my talk page
> be blanked, protected, and hidden from non-admins. However, this
> administrator has now twice reverted me on my own talk page, including with
> use of the admin revert tool--which, as far as I know, is a violation.
>
> Why am I not allowed to blank and vacate my own talk page, and have it
> protected afterwards to keep troll comments off of it? This CHAIRBOY
> individual has taken ownership of my talk page.
>
> - XP
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] track changes / svn blame view

body:
On Wed, Dec 20, 2006 at 02:26:04PM -0500, Dave Grogan wrote:
> rendered view
> http://people.virginia.edu/~kjl3d/wiki/rendered.png

That's pretty cool looking; any change you could pull a screenshot
of a page with just a bunch of wikipedia-looking running text?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/22/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> Nit-picks/genuine questions (my musical literacy is almost nil): what
> is "the" key of a piece of music which modulates into many different
> keys and has different key signatures marked within the score? Is it
> a general rule or custom or convention that the first key signature
> which appears in the score is "the" key signature?

I think convention is that the first key signature is "the" one. But
for certain styles, it's certainly possible to have an introduction in
a different key...it would be very simplistic to imply that any lay
person could successfully determine the key of any piece by following
rules listed in Wikipedia.

> Nit-pick number two: how do you tell by looking at the music whether
> it is in C Major or A Minor? That is, can you always unequivocally
> tell the key of a piece of music by glancing at it, or is judgement
> sometimes involved?

To a musical expert, it's usually pretty clear, but there are
exceptions. And don't forget atonal music which is usually written
without a specific key signature (ie, superficially like C major and I
minor). And some music actually does have a "key" but was originally
published with no key, using accidentals instead. You would be wrong
to describe such a piece as being in C major...

So, this was a bad example, but that's probably all.

Steve


body:
On 12/22/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> I noticed that some people add credits of photos inside the articles,
> saying that CC-BY requires attribution.

This should IMHO be the standard. Most books that publish photos "by
permission" give the credit directly beneath the photo. We should be
no different. And, it would help that goal of encouraging people to
free up their photos for us.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
On 12/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've done pretty much all of them other than messing with monobook.js
> and monobook.css

Yep. Know anyone who has used all of them?

Steve


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 12/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> The stub-sorting project turned thousands of unusable entries in
> [[Category:Stub]] into a usable breakdown of stubs by area.

It also led to articles being rather annoyingly tagged with several
stub tags when there is no clear match. It would be nice to get a
professional opinion on how hard it would be to have a scalable
category intersection query feature (i.e. allowing result sets based
on Boolean operators connecting multiple cats) within MediaWiki. Tim?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 23/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard schreef:

> > Which is more useful on a given wiki:
> > a) System transliteration into the script(s) of that wiki (which will
> > apparently lead to tremendous offence to people not even using the
> > wiki);
> > b) Optionally append a user-ID number to the non-local script name,
> > and have this user-ID work for blocks, log-checking, etc. (will
> > apparently offend people who want to be "????????" rather than a
> > number)
> > c) Disallow both the above and require the usernames to be displayed
> > in a script unreadable to the native speakers on that wiki (which will
> > lead to near-automatic blocking as happens now, because you KNOW the
> > vandals will exploit it big time)

> Your question negates the issue at hand. It is therefore only describes
> a part of the problem. The problem is that you refuse to address the
> issue by only talking in terms of English language Wikipedia.

Erm, the effects of your particular plans for SUL affect the largest
and most publicly prominent wiki on Wikimedia. In the above paragraph
you appear to be deliberately ignoring that there will be problems and
that your plans, as outlined in your posts throughout this thread,
will in fact make the problems worse - with publicly visible and
media-unfriendly effect in increased vandalism - rather than going any
way at all to solve them.

Put it this way: ultimately, you have to convince en:wp admins to
administer the wiki they're admins on the way that you want them to.
So far you've (a) signally failed to do so (b) failed to show any
interest in doing so.

You *seem* to be assuming that the Foundation will tell them what to
do and they'll just have to fall into line or something. But it
doesn't work like that.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
On 23/12/06, Chris L?er <chris at zandria.net> wrote:

> If it wasn't such a pain to add references people would do it more
> often. First, one has to find the right template. Then one has to
> figure out how to use it. And there is no way to find out if someone
> else has already typed in the same reference in another article.

I never bother with this myself. I use <ref> tags, but enter the
reference itself as text with maybe a link. I leave formatting,
citation templates etc. to someone who cares.

- d.


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>>This was shown several times to be false.
>
> Where has it been shown that they are being automatically blocked?
>
> Or do we have a misunderstanding about the word automatically perhaps?

There have been several non-latin characters accounts blocked even
before the user had a chance to write something. I know which evidence
you need. And denying it won't make the problem disappears.

Regards,

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Biblioth?que libre
http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cite-sorting project?

body:
Exactly. That's the great benefit the wiki concept gives. You do as
much as you can and want to do, and others do the same. Eventually, it
is done. And so the beat goes on...
At the moment, I see far too many {{fact}} templates in articles. I
can never remember how to do <ref>s, simple as they are, so I usually
just use [http://link] and maybe leave a note on the talk page.

On 12/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23/12/06, Chris L?er <chris at zandria.net> wrote:
>
> > If it wasn't such a pain to add references people would do it more
> > often. First, one has to find the right template. Then one has to
> > figure out how to use it. And there is no way to find out if someone
> > else has already typed in the same reference in another article.
>
>
> I never bother with this myself. I use <ref> tags, but enter the
> reference itself as text with maybe a link. I leave formatting,
> citation templates etc. to someone who cares.
>
>
> - 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
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Aphaia

body:
Dear Ms Walsh, and other fellow editors

On 12/23/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aphaia, I am very sorry that you feel this way. But I do not think
> this post is very fair.

At this point I have dirrerent point from you.
Also I would like to say now some of you have been show no interest of
my dignity. I sometimes said being addressed with family name without
honorific is a serious offence to Japanese, specially married women.
Some of you prefer to ignore my request and prefer to address me in
such a way. Because you like it. And you think it sensible, friendly
and so on.

Having a westernized username was my compromise. Once I used my
surname as my username and found it was hard to cease such rudenss
toward me and my lineage. But now I realize such compromise makes
nothing fruitful and only indulge you Westerners. I have been
embarassed to be addressing my surname, Herr Erik Moeller and other
people I think I said you sometimes but you decide to continue
embarassing with your rudeness.

I find here the similar thing - you may try to be civil and friendly,
but your civility means to place a block and tell the victims to
change their username. One user stated he didn't prefer since he used
it on over forty wikis but you English admins only repeat "change your
name".  I find here no civility nor frindliness. I find here only
condecension and arrogance.

> Here are a few things I see, on the whole thread.
>
> 1. No one is interested in blocking anyone because of beliefs about ethnicity.

No, even when they use their real name, you blocked them. You
disrespect their ethnicity and force them to .

> It is a problem for administrators on any wiki to handle usernames
> they cannot read or type. Reasonable people can disagree about whether
> the problem justifies enwiki's current ways of dealing with it. And
> reasonable people *do* disagree, which is why this thread has gone on
> for so long and why there is so much argument about it. But it is not
> about racism.
>
> 2. It is currently very difficult for users on any wiki, not just
> English, to interact with users who do not have a username in the
> script of that wiki's language.
>
> If you cannot read or type someone's username, it is hard to talk to
> them, hard to tell people apart, hard to search for their
> contributions, and many other things. In addition to the trouble
> talking to real users, vandals know that it is difficult, and because
> of this, they like to use this extra difficulty to cause trouble. And
> I don't expect users on wikis where the language is not in Latin
> script to be able to read a Latin script name, either.
>
> 3. Whether or not the policy is right, it doesn't excuse being rude to anybody.
>
> If anyone has been blocked with an uncivil message, or has not been
> asked politely about changing their username, that administrator is
> acting badly. But that is a fault of the person, not of the policy,
> and that should stop no matter what else happens.
>
> 4. Everyone would like a good solution to this.
>
> If there were currently a solution that allowed editors to keep their
> preferred names on every wiki, but allowed the users of every wiki to
> interact with them without too much difficulty, everyone would be
> happy. No one here wants to make others upset for no reason.
>
> 5. Solving this is difficult, and currently there is no fix that makes
> everyone entirely happy.
>
> There are many attempts to deal with it that make people unhappy, and
> just about every different attempted fix or work-around makes a
> *different* group of people unhappy.
>
> 6. Making the argument personal is not helping anyone get the
> solutions they want.
>
> There are a lot of people who are coming at this problem in good
> faith, even if not everyone agrees with what they are doing. There are
> a lot of people who have decided not to participate in this thread
> because they do not want to be attacked or flamed. And we lose the
> input of people who do want to help, but who either now feel like they
> are not wanted or who do not want to get into an argument in the first
> place.
>
> 7. Taking arguments personally is only going to make you miserable.
>
> No one is participating here just because they want to make anyone
> else feel bad or look foolish. It's not a personal argument, and if
> you feel like it is personal then perhaps it is time to step back and
> take a break, go outside and relax and then come back. (If everyone
> did that, there would not be so many messages to read, either.)
>
> *
>
> I would love a solution that makes everyone happy. I think there are
> possibilities for solutions that will make it easier for everyone to
> be happy. But we do not have them yet, and so it is still a real
> problem with many different sides to it.
>
> I am sorry that you feel that you are being made to look like a fool,
> or that you believe this is being done to be hurtful. But it is not
> fair to make remarks such as this, or such as have been made by many
> others at many other points in the thread, when everyone here is
> coming at the problem in good faith. Even if you disagree with them.
>
> Effe iets anders posted earlier asking everyone to step back and not
> take things personally, to recognize that reasonable people who do not
> mean harm can disagree. I agree, and I have written at more length
> than he has, but wanted to say more completely what I saw. I do not
> see anyone here who has the intention of harming anyone, and I think
> the thread would be much better and more productive if we could all
> assume this to be true.
>
> -Kat
>
> --
> Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
> * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *  * *
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage
> mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
>

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


body:
I think having image credits in the caption/description box looks
messy and cluttered For one, those used in infoboxes will look very
untidy, and some image descriptions (for, say, paintings with long
names) are long enough already. On the other hand, I've seen people
who see images on Wikipedia and other WMF projects and have a vague
notion about it being 'free content', take it to mean free-as-in-beer
and lift it. So maybe it is a good thing...

On 12/23/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/23/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 23/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > This should IMHO be the standard. Most books that publish photos "by
> > > permission" give the credit directly beneath the photo. We should be
> > > no different. And, it would help that goal of encouraging people to
> > > free up their photos for us.
> >
> > Most books don't have a descriptive page dedicated to each image, we
> > do.  I don't see why duplicating this information is necessary, it
> > ends up cluttering the article proper.
> >
> By the same article it's not necessary to include the image in the
> article, as there's a separate page dedicated to it.
>
> Duplication isn't always a bad thing, especially when the duplication
> is a one line summary of the original.  It usually isn't necessary
> (exception would be when the license requires it), but it also usually
> isn't harmful.  I'd say in most cases it's better - I find myself
> clicking on image links a lot just out of curiosity to see how it was
> obtained.  Saving these extra clicks would be nice, and the tiny bit
> of space it takes to do so would be worth it.  But that's just me,
> other reader preferences obviously will vary.
>
> By the way, if we're going to appeal to what others do, online
> Britannica has inline credits even though they have a separate image
> page.  Online Encarta presents their credit information a click away.
> So there's precedent for either.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 185

body:
On 12/22/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Dec 2006, jayjg wrote:
> > > Jay, I don't agree with everything Daniel and Steve have written
> > > about this, but I also find your reply quite problematic.  Surely
> > > the library catalogue is the most reliable and verifiable source
> > > for what is in the library.
> > It's the most reliable source we have for what is in the library at
> > that time. However, we, as searchers of that catalog, are neither a
> > reliable or verifiable source for what is in the catalog.
>
> You could apply the same argument to books.  "We, as searchers of a book, are
> neither a reliable or verifiable source for what is in the book".

Book contents are permanent, and identical results can be easily and
reliably reproduced even decades later. Neither is true regarding
database searches. It's as simple as that.

> > Moreover, if that particular fact is notable or
> > interesting, it is most likely to have already been stated in a book
> > review of some sort.
>
> Oh, come on now.  You're just saying that as a boilerplate response without
> thinking about whether it actually makes sense.  Why is being notable enough
> to be in a book review the same thing as being notable enough for a completely
> different purpose?

What would that completely different purpose be?

Jay.


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Interesting en.wiktionary.org statistics

body:
Zdenek Broz of the dicts.info project has done some interesting
analysis of a recent en.wiktionary.org dump:
http://wiki.webz.cz/wikt.png

This bar chart shows the number of translations within articles that
have "Translations" group headings at all (note that most
en.wiktionary.org pages don't have any). Accordingly, there are only
21031 translations to English, followed by 14341 to French and 13004
to German.

While en.wiktionary.org has nominally 313537 pages, the vast majority
of these are tiny stubs with short definitions, but no translations.

For comparison, OmegaWiki (formerly WiktionaryZ), which is still
pre-alpha software, currently has:

175990 expressions ("pages" in Wiktionary lingo)
11948 DefinedMeanings, i.e. concepts (comparable to the total number
of separate definitions; Wiktionary has much more of these)
117 active languages
10964 English expressions
11277 German expressions
9342 French expressions
etc.

This isn't an entirely fair comparison, since Wiktionary, due to its
architecture, is split into many language databases. One could
potentially derive more translations by parsing and combining data
from the different editions. Of course, the lack of a machine readable
format makes that difficult. Still, it can be said that Wiktionary, as
of now, isn't particularly useful as a _translating_ dictionary. It's
very useful as a _defining_ dictionary, though (arguably a very
similar application to Wikipedia with much shorter texts).

On the other hand, the architecture of OmegaWiki seems to be validated
by its steady growth. I'm fairly happy with our backend, but our
frontend sucks; data entry is still much too cumbersome. This will be
our big challenge for next year -- taking the project to a final,
feature complete release that is user friendly. But I think we're on
the right track.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
Here's an editable version of the same.  If you want to add to this list,
please only include users with main namespace edits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj/usernames

SJ

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006, Birgitte SB wrote:

>
> --- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken
>> <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>>> How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked
>> ones. That would be a
>>> great gesture.
>>
>> I invited you to identify them..  :)
>>
>
> I would suggest that any userpages with interwiki
> links are a good place to start
>
> Here are some:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E5%BD%92%E5%8E%BB%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%BE%98
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E9%9B%B7
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E3%82%A6%E3%83%83%E3%81%A7%E3%82%84%E3%82%93%E3%81%99%E9%AB%98%E6%A9%8B
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E3%83%84%E3%83%B3%E3%83%85%E3%81%8F%E3%82%93
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E4%BB%A3%E8%A8%80%E4%BA%BA
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E5%B0%B8%E7%BD%A9
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9D
> Blocking admin removed interwiki link because he was
> "unable to determine what it is"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3A%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9D&diff=93253905&oldid=93250354
>
> Those are from a category of user pages that get
> deleted after one month without edits so it is hardly
> comprehensive.  If you could give the link to the list
> of block non-latin users I will look for more.
>
> Birgitte SB


from_name: Marco Schuster

body:
Jim schrieb:
> Further on my post, I've recently been getting the following error message on almost every post:
>
>   Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in.
>
>
Check your browser/anti-spyware/firewall/virus scanner program if it has
any form of cookie filtering and disable it.

Regards,
Marco


body:
On Sat, 23 Dec 2006, Birgitte SB wrote:

> I have a modified proposal based on the above.  If we
> could be give a new option a Special:Preferences to
> chose how we wish to have idenities displayed in
> histories, RC, block logs, etc. either by this
> existing number of by selected username.  That way
> those who prefer to see a number they can always read
> can do so and those who dislike equating people with
> numbers do not have to.  Since all the templates used
> in warnings etc use PAGENAME parameters the editor
> will be refered to as his selected name even whether
> the person placing the template can type it or not.
> Signatures will identify people who are actually
> communicating and some  desired policy can be placed
> on the kinds of fonts allowed in signatures.

I would add another useful feature: a way to link to a userpage by hand,
by entering someone's alias*.

SJ

* This could be autogenerated, something like the way [[User:Mario|]]
autocompletes now, but it would require an extra query to a user/alias
dictionary.


body:
On 12/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 23/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > David Gerard schreef:
>
> > > Which is more useful on a given wiki:
> > > a) System transliteration into the script(s) of that wiki (which will
> > > apparently lead to tremendous offence to people not even using the
> > > wiki);
> > > b) Optionally append a user-ID number to the non-local script name,
> > > and have this user-ID work for blocks, log-checking, etc. (will
> > > apparently offend people who want to be "????????" rather than a
> > > number)
> > > c) Disallow both the above and require the usernames to be displayed
> > > in a script unreadable to the native speakers on that wiki (which will
> > > lead to near-automatic blocking as happens now, because you KNOW the
> > > vandals will exploit it big time)
>
> > Your question negates the issue at hand. It is therefore only describes
> > a part of the problem. The problem is that you refuse to address the
> > issue by only talking in terms of English language Wikipedia.
>
>
> Erm, the effects of your particular plans for SUL affect the largest
> and most publicly prominent wiki on Wikimedia. In the above paragraph
> you appear to be deliberately ignoring that there will be problems and
> that your plans, as outlined in your posts throughout this thread,
> will in fact make the problems worse - with publicly visible and
> media-unfriendly effect in increased vandalism - rather than going any
> way at all to solve them.

You misrepresent what I have said .. you make a habit out of that .. What I
have said is that the situation has improved a lot by the introduction of
software that prevents mixed script user names. What I have said is that
with SUL it will be easy to check if someone is a known good of another
project. What I have said is that Anthere's proposal has merit. All things
that you choose to ignore.

You also ignore that the current policy is considered to be discriminatory.
This has been pointed out by others. When you check the article on
discrimination on the English language Wikipedia, you will find the
following:
Language discrimination

People are sometimes subjected to different treatment because their
preferred language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language> is associated
with a particular group, class or category. Commonly, the preferred language
is just another attribute <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute> of
separate ethnic groups <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group>.
This discrimination is compounded by the failure to recognise that some of
the proposals to remedy the situation are also inherently problematic. I
perceive your position: the belief that the end justifies the means.

Put it this way: ultimately, you have to convince en:wp admins to
> administer the wiki they're admins on the way that you want them to.
> So far you've (a) signally failed to do so (b) failed to show any
> interest in doing so.
>
> You *seem* to be assuming that the Foundation will tell them what to
> do and they'll just have to fall into line or something. But it
> doesn't work like that.
>
>
> - d.

>From my perspective, you have failed miserably to convince that the position
you defend is reasonable. The situation as it existed when this policy was
implemented has changed a lot for the better. You have been great at denying
the arguments that I and others put forward.

Given that this policy is discriminatory, it is not unreasonable for the
Wikimedia Foundation itself to consider the issue. As many people have
expressed the need to change this policy, it is not even unreasonable to
expect the English language Wikipedia to change it themselves. I would say
that this would be the preferred option.

Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
On 12/23/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > James Hare wrote:
> >
> > >I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons
> > >will just have to not be clicked. :)
> > >
> > >In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't
> > >click on the full-size version link.
> > >
> > Sounds like blaming the victim.
>
> Sometimes the victim is also the one at fault.

Remember that the problem is *not* the size of the image: I can open
with no problem 10000x10000 pixel images. But a complicated .svg file
can freeze Firefox for a long time even if it is smaller. And the only
information one can gather from the image description page is the
image size, which is useless in this case.

The actual fault is in Firefox's plugin. Neither the user (who
shouldn't be concerned with these kind of things) nor the image author
(which is trying to do the best possible image, and should be praised
for doing so) are to blame. That no browser, to my knowledge, is able
to open complicated .svg files without bringing even good computers to
their knees is unfurtunate, but I see no easy solution.

Alfio


subject: [Foundation-l] Translations fundraising.wikimedia.org

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>Dictionary translations are infamously bad, as anyone who has worked in
>translation or even travelled overseas can tell you. In Israel, my friends and I
>used to love checking out the menus of cheap restaurants for the bad
>translations. Two favorites come to mind:
>
>1. Difficult egg -- hard boiled egg
>2. Grenade juice -- pomegranate juice
>
>>From film subtitles (which I got a lot of money to correct) -- You sun of
>the beach -- You son of a bitch ( I remember this especially because the
>original translator argued furiously that I did not know popular idioms in  English
>because I had lived overseas for too long, while he had an MA in English
>Lit.).
>
Some people feel that we should not be so anti-elitist. :-)

Two movies that I happened to see with French subtitles when they were
current were "Easy Rider" and "Alice's Restaurant" where translations
can get you anything you want. :-)

Ec


body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
>
>transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
>this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
>
>Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
>x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
>to bootstrap this.
>
>Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
>
Probably linguistic nonsense.  Although it serves a very useful purpose
in conveying pronunciations, anly a limited community interested in
linguistics will be familiar with it.  For everybody else (which to be
fair must include the English speakers) it amounts to attaining equality
by putting everything into a common language which all will equally not
understand. :-)

Ec


from_name: David Strauss

body:
Original thread title: "English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy [...]"
Your suggestion: "a Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community"

[[Irony]]

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
>> trying to kill each other ...
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
> He isn't the only one.  This seems to be much ado about nothing, other
> than perhaps some indivudal over-zealous admins.
>
> Here is hoping this thread dies a quick death soon.  Please make that a
> Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community!
>
> There are other topics to spend bandwidth on, and this one has a
> particularly low S/N
>

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body:
Original thread title: "English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy [...]"
Your suggestion: "a Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community"

[[Irony]]

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
>> trying to kill each other ...
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
> He isn't the only one.  This seems to be much ado about nothing, other
> than perhaps some indivudal over-zealous admins.
>
> Here is hoping this thread dies a quick death soon.  Please make that a
> Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community!
>
> There are other topics to spend bandwidth on, and this one has a
> particularly low S/N
>

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body:
Original thread title: "English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy [...]"
Your suggestion: "a Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community"

[[Irony]]

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
>> trying to kill each other ...
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
> He isn't the only one.  This seems to be much ado about nothing, other
> than perhaps some indivudal over-zealous admins.
>
> Here is hoping this thread dies a quick death soon.  Please make that a
> Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community!
>
> There are other topics to spend bandwidth on, and this one has a
> particularly low S/N
>

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body:
Original thread title: "English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy [...]"
Your suggestion: "a Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community"

[[Irony]]

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
>> trying to kill each other ...
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
> He isn't the only one.  This seems to be much ado about nothing, other
> than perhaps some indivudal over-zealous admins.
>
> Here is hoping this thread dies a quick death soon.  Please make that a
> Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community!
>
> There are other topics to spend bandwidth on, and this one has a
> particularly low S/N
>

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