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

body:
> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:12:06 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>> There seems to be a great concern about having verifiable material ?sources1
>> in Wikipedia that can be checked; why not place at least as much importance
>> on the ?sources1 (the editors) of the very material that is included? We
>> want to be able to check the reliability of the substance of the text, but
>> seem to place little importance on being able to check on who entered it in
>> the first place.
>>
> If the material is taken from an authoritative published source, why
> does it matter who typed it in? Is "the leaves are 20-30 cm long" more
> correct if it's personally typed in by the professional botanist, than
> by the high-school student who works from the botanist's book and lists
> it as a source?
>> If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be
>> able to go to an editor1s personal information page and get a sense that
>> they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can
>> contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
>>
> "Get a sense"? So what you're saying is you want WP's reputation to hang
> on *your* intuition-based assessment of the editors' personal details?
> I'm an expert in some areas that I edit and an amateur in others, and as
> an expert it's hugely tempting to write into articles "this is true
> because *I* said so". But then how does someone else check that? I don't
> want to be answering the phone all day, and when I die, or more likely
> sooner, completely forget why I made the statement, what then? The whole
> approach of relying on "who you know" is really sloppy scholarship
> that's unfortunately common today, and I hope that WP will eventually
> come to be seen as exemplifying a stricter standard based on
> publications rather than personalities.
>
> Stan

Stan.

I also 'get a sense' ;-) that you may be taking 'sense' a bit too literally.
:-)

Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia
that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is
its policy 'anyone can edit'.

I get a great deal of satisfaction from contributing to Wikipedia. It is
what's right that makes us good; but it is what's still wrong that keeps us
from being great.

Regards,

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change

body:
On 27/12/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/12/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > On December 28 we will be changing the fundraising sitenotice for 24 hours.
> > The new site notice will be identical to the anonymous donor site notice,
> > except  that it will say.
> >
> > "Today your donation will be matched by Virgin United."
> >
> > Virgin United will be a link to the Virgin United website. There will also
> > be a small Virgin logo in the sitenotice. A sample will be ready for you
> > tomorrow morning (Brion time).
> >
> > Please convey this to the appropriate people.
> >
> > Danny

> I'm having a little trouble finding out who "Virgin United" is.
> Neither Wikipedia nor Google has enlightened me. Is this Richard
> Branson's Virgin? If not, could you give us a link to their website?

Virgin United is a small part of the Virgin group - yes, Branson's
Virgin - it (as far as I can tell) exists to co-ordinate all their
charitable work, matching donors and recipients.

I was going to write an article last night, but I found trying to read
their site an unrewarding experience too ;-)

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


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] new site notice now ready

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

Gary Kirk wrote:
> I don't mean to be picky, and the site notice is right, but it is
> Virgin Unite not United, yeah?

Right.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Stan Shebs

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

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>
> It will be interesting to see what [[Citizendium]] produces. They have
> a small but enthusiastic community of editors - and experts - and
> comparing the best of Wikipedia to the best of Citizendium will in my
> opinion be a valid comparison.
>
IMHO those dudes are heading straight for political infighting on a
scale that WP has never seen. Academics can be some of the lowest and
dirtiest politickers around - one of the reasons I got out of it in
fact. Ironically, WP could get some new contributors that way - when the
"authors" with shorter CVs get stepped on by the "editors" with longer,
uh, CVs, irrespective of technical merit, WP is going to start looking
pretty appealing. Not to mention that CZ is basing their material on WP
articles, so if you want to get something into CZ, writing it into an
unforked WP article will be the easiest route.

Stan


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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
>
> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
> that editor - it really is that simple!
>
Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage
people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So
now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.

Stan


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] How not to discourage technical contributions

body:
On 12/27/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 27, 2006 at 01:11:09PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
> > I know all that. But if the "usual location" is too complex to use, it
> > is discouraging to know that the only (accepted) way to contribute is to
> > learn a lot of stuff you're not really interested in (such as, for
> > example, how to use BugZilla -- in all honesty, its UI is crap -- or
> > even something like diff, a command-line tool with no UI at all).
>
> BZ's UI is crap.
>
> RedHat's version is much less so.
>
> How come those patches never made it back into the mainline?

Apparently Bugzilla 3 is supposed to have a better interface.  I
haven't looked at it, though.


from_name: Parker Peters

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
On 12/27/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Parker Peters wrote:
>
> >On 12/24/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Why do you feel the compulsion to do it
> >>here? Racist is using the word antisemitic and denying the equivalent
> >>use of antimuslim-itic (or what ever term is appropriate). Either get
> >>over calling people names or actually leave like you threaten to.
> >>
> >>
> >Racism is the kind of behavior that Israel and Israelis face on a regular
> >basis, and the fact that we have editors always trying to POV our
> articles
> >related to Israel into propaganda saying Israel is bad, Israel is evil,
> >yadda yadda is nothing new given that there are a decently large portion
> of
> >the world who seem to feel that they have some right to do this.
> >
> Please stop perpetrating the illusion that very, very valid criticism of
> the State of Israel is somehow equivalent to racism.

When I see some valid criticism, I'll not call it racism.

The stuff you're supporting, however, is just racist.

Parker


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
 The site notice for Virgin United is ready. Thank you Brion.

 Please translate accordingly. It is basically the same as our anon donor site notice.

 Have fun.

 Danny

________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Gary Kirk wrote:
> > I don't mean to be picky, and the site notice is right, but it is
> > Virgin Unite not United, yeah?
>
> Right.

Heh - kinda sounds like a footballers club the other way. :)

-- mav

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from_name: Sean Barrett

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

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

Marc Riddell stated for the record:
>
> I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should
> become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
>
> Marc

Let me see if I understand you.  You wonder about what is written in an
article, so you review the editor's talk page to see what he has written
about his qualifications to write what he wrote.

Are you proposing that someone /check up on/ what we claim about ourselves?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Portions of this message were
 sean at epoptic.com | composed using a computer.
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body:
Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the incomming hits?

Even CafePress went down for a bit last year for a bit after we put their link to our merch shop
in the sitenotice.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=cafepress.com
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=www.virginunite.com RANK 686,843

--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>  The site notice for Virgin United is ready. Thank you Brion.
>
>  Please translate accordingly. It is basically the same as our anon donor site notice.
>
>  Have fun.
>
>  Danny
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to
> millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] pda extension ?

body:
On 12/27/06, Plyd <wiki.vincent at amplyd.com> wrote:
> is there a reason why there is no small implementation directly in
> mediawiki to make a wiki accessible since the same adress?
>
> I mean, we have a different page for printing pages, couldn't this be
> done also for pda?

Sure.  Somebody just has to do it.  Preferably someone with access to
a bunch of typical PDAs and Internet-enabled cell phones and so on.

On 12/27/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> You wouldn't want to do it that way; if you did, you'd have to click
> through to it from every page.

Actually, you don't.  The print stylesheet is used whether or not you
click "Printable version".  That's just to appease people who assume
that they'll get what they see when they print.  :)

On 12/27/06, Plyd <wiki.vincent at amplyd.com> wrote:
> Mine reads css but misplace elements on the page , for example, the
> left column is shown at bottom and a margin of this size is kept,
> making the article unreadable, with one word by line. Moreover, lot of
> data like language lists or toolbox, harmless for a classic screen
> transform the page in a monster, loosing the reader in thousands of
> informations.

Okay, that's a good first suggestion.  The left margin for the main
content should be killed.  This can be done by just using @media
handheld rule.  Probably.  Unfortunately, when I tried it with Opera's
small-screen mode, unpleasant things happened.

Technically, your handheld should not be loading the stylesheet.  It's
marked explicitly as screen and projection only.  It's really not
meant for handhelds, by and large.  (Opera in small-screen mode does
seem to load it, but only specific rules.  It guesses that quite well,
though.  My attempts to improve it resulted in disaster, since it
actually did what I said and tried doing the whole thing.)

> Not sure. For example, google, which has a pda special interface,
> detects the browser and switches automatically to a light interface.
> imho, it could be done on a mediawiki page, the software detects the
> browser and shows the right interface.

Unfortunately, that's hard to do and hard to maintain.


from_name: jayjg

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

body:
On 12/27/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> jayjg wrote:
> >
> > No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's
> > pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
>
> The problem with that, of course, is that, given sufficient time and
> sufficiently many people, _anything_ can and will be disputed, including
> the color of the sky on a clear day.
>
> Or, let me quote the start of an actual argument from [[Talk:Elision]]:
>
> "Oh, I deliberately used my version of showing speech because I dispute
> the IPA's. I deny the existence of the schwa, I object to r/R sounds as
> being difthongs, I refute its status of r and R as consonants but as
> vowels, I object to its fictive prescription of whether whichever words
> are aspirated or unaspirated, I object to its using lone or blended
> glyfs for clusters as careless overlooking of the intention of the key
> as showing a one-to-one relationship between sound and glyf, and as no
> part of speech was given to the words in my list. Do you wish to obscure
> my work from accuracy?"
>
> --
> Ilmari Karonen

Right, we can all come up with some extreme example of an absolute
madman editing some page. At some point common sense has to prevail,
if not the "extreme minority" provisions of [[WP:NPOV]]. But, to get
back to the original point, there's no way that a claim that something
is "legal consensus" based on a search of some database you've done
can ever be considered a "simple fact", or even something that has
been "reliably cited". Quote a legal expert or legal tome making that
claim.

Jay.


from_name: leon at vserver152.masterssystems.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Adding custom CSS and Javascript for extensions

body:
Am Mittwoch 27 Dezember 2006 15:21 schrieb Lane, Ryan:
> I'm working on a new extension, and it adds quite a bit of new CSS and
> Javascript. Other than hacking MonoBook.php, is there an easy way for me
> to add stuff into the headers? I can't seem to find any hooks that do
> this...

This is what the SelectCategory extension does:

<code>
$wgHooks['OutputPageParserOutput'][] = 'fnSelectCategoryOutputHook';

## Entry point for the hook for printing the CSS:
function fnSelectCategoryOutputHook( &$m_pageObj, &$m_parserOutput ) {
        global $wgScriptPath;

        # Register CSS file for our select box:
        $m_pageObj->addLink(
                array(
                        'rel'   => 'stylesheet',
                        'type'  => 'text/css',
                        'href'  =>
$wgScriptPath . '/extensions/SelectCategory/SelectCategory.css'
                )
        );

        # Be nice:
        return true;
}
</code>

Not sure if that's the best way, though, since that would cause another http
request per unique user.

-- Leon


body:
--- Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:

> Daniel Mayer schreef:
> > Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the incomming hits?
>
> That is NOP. (Not Our Problem) beside of that; they asked for it.

I would instead be as kind and up front as possible to such a large donor; they expect some sort
of benefit by having their link on all our pages. That benefit disappears if their website crashes
under the load; waking up their website support staff in the middle of the night and causing them
a bit of avoidable embarrassment.

That is, unless all Virgin websites are hosted in the same place and share resources OR we were
very clear to them beforehand of the possible load considerations.

Saying; 'tough, they asked for it' does not seem like the best path to me. And it does become our
problem if we didn't handle this correctly and thus reduce the likihood of them being so generous
in the future.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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from_name: Marc Riddell

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

body:
> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:18:36 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>> Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia
>> that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is
>> its policy 'anyone can edit'.
>>
> Have you thought through what you would change it to, and what would be
> the consequences? If only a chosen list of experts can edit article X,
> what do you do about spelling errors (many experts being atrocious
> spellers), and bad links to articles outside the experts' area? Do
> spelling fixes have to wait for the experts to approve them? How long
> would one have to wait, if the experts were all "too busy"? Would you
> let experts edit articles outside of their areas, even in areas where
> they might know less than a college student? What is an "expert", and an
> "area", anyway? There have been no lack of proposals since WP's
> creation, but so far no scheme has convinced very many people that it
> would be an improvement.

I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit in WP.
My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to
their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I
used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.

Marc

>> I get a great deal of satisfaction from contributing to Wikipedia. It is
>> what's right that makes us good; but it is what's still wrong that keeps us
>> from being great.
>>
> I believe one of the secret strengths of WP is that it doesn't actually
> need every expert to participate. Empirically, many experts that have
> worked here awhile tend to take on "editor-in-chief" roles in their
> respective areas, not necessarily writing every word, but organizing,
> setting standards, and cleaning up after the amateur hordes; 99% of the
> amateur editors are happy and even eager to get expert guidance, and as
> they learn, they contribute with more expertise themselves.
>
> Since WP is now the largest single body of knowledge ever created,
> perhaps this is as good it gets for a project of this magnitude -
> nothing comparable to serve as a yardstick.
>
> Stan

Again, the word 'expert' is your - not mine.

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


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

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the
incomming hits?

Their site went down within 12 minutes of the site notice being updated
to include the link.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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

body:
> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:18:04 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>> I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit in WP.
>> My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to
>> their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I
>> used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.
>>
>>
> OK then, this suggestion is only meaningful if you're talking about a
> "may edit" bit, presumably set by admins upon receipt of - what? Does a
> college sophomore have to send in physical proof of their major? Are
> college freshmen never allowed to edit anything except Pokemon? :-) I
> have no formal credentials in naval history, but my personal library is
> larger and deeper than that of the local university, so I likely have
> more and better citeable sources than a random nonspecialist history
> professor at that university. On the other hand, maybe I have all these
> books, but don't understand them, or as more commonly happens (to other
> people :-) ), I've developed bizarre theories. What about professors who
> develop bizarre theories that they can't get published, so they try to
> push them into WP? Are they credible editors? Their background will
> likely look pretty good.
>
> In practice, what's more important to know is whether editors have
> enough sense to know whether they are relying on sources they have, or
> are adding material with no solid basis in fact. It's a behavioral thing
> that no credential or bio bit helps me with, only past experience on WP.
>
> Stan

Stan,

Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
that editor - it really is that simple!

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


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

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the
> incomming hits?
>
> Their site went down within 12 minutes of the site notice being updated
> to include the link.

The direct link has been replaced with an intermediate page on
wikimediafoundation.org. Hopefully their servers will recover. :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Anthony

body:
I was wondering how long it was going to take for someone to point that out.

On 12/27/06, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't mean to be picky, and the site notice is right, but it is
> Virgin Unite not United, yeah?
>
> On 12/27/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> > >  The site notice for Virgin United is ready. Thank you Brion.
> > >
> > >  Please translate accordingly. It is basically the same as our anon donor
> > site notice.
> >
> > The full prepared English version is available at:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_sitenotice_2006_Q4
> >
> > Please note that the link and logo are to be included by agreement with
> > the donor.
> >
> > This is a one-day thing, so we'll want to take this version live around
> > midnight UTC (London time) and take it back down the next day.
> >
> > - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
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> > 1YRf5PhJhH5/02E6A4TPbuE=
> > =Ioo4
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Gary Kirk
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Plyd

subject: [Wikitech-l] pda extension ?

body:
Hello,

Is there a project for a pda extension of mediawiki? or for small sized screens?

Thanks,
Plyd


from_name: James Hare

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

references:
<C1B826CA.92A%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<4592C725.4020603@epoptic.com>
	<fbad4e140612271305q52d90781i42deee98ebc18ff2@mail.gmail.com>
	<4592E9AC.3090506@earthlink.net>

body:
Though I've heard of experts being scared away by an "insular community."

On 12/27/06, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> >
> > It will be interesting to see what [[Citizendium]] produces. They have
> > a small but enthusiastic community of editors - and experts - and
> > comparing the best of Wikipedia to the best of Citizendium will in my
> > opinion be a valid comparison.
> >
> IMHO those dudes are heading straight for political infighting on a
> scale that WP has never seen. Academics can be some of the lowest and
> dirtiest politickers around - one of the reasons I got out of it in
> fact. Ironically, WP could get some new contributors that way - when the
> "authors" with shorter CVs get stepped on by the "editors" with longer,
> uh, CVs, irrespective of technical merit, WP is going to start looking
> pretty appealing. Not to mention that CZ is basing their material on WP
> articles, so if you want to get something into CZ, writing it into an
> unforked WP article will be the easiest route.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


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

Brion Vibber wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>> Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the
>> incomming hits?
>
>> Their site went down within 12 minutes of the site notice being updated
>> to include the link.
>
> The direct link has been replaced with an intermediate page on
> wikimediafoundation.org. Hopefully their servers will recover. :)

And they have.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] pda extension ?

body:
On 12/27/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Plyd <wiki.vincent at amplyd.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Is there a project for a pda extension of mediawiki? or for small sized screens?
>
> There's a few out there:
>
> http://palmtops.about.com/od/palmtoppicks/tp/wikipedia_pda.htm
>
> This seems fairly well developed, it's for iPods:
>
> http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/index.html

thanks, I've seen these websites (some of them doesn't work anymore)

is there a reason why there is no small implementation directly in
mediawiki to make a wiki accessible since the same adress?

I mean, we have a different page for printing pages, couldn't this be
done also for pda?

Plyd


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

body:
> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
>> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
>> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
>> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
>> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
>> that editor - it really is that simple!
>>
> Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage
> people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So
> now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
>
> Stan

Stan,

I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should
become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] pda extension ?

body:
On 12/27/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 02:55:52AM +1100, Stephen Bain wrote:
> > On 12/28/06, Plyd <wiki.vincent at amplyd.com> wrote:
> > > Is there a project for a pda extension of mediawiki? or for small sized screens?
> >
> > There's a few out there:
> >
> > http://palmtops.about.com/od/palmtoppicks/tp/wikipedia_pda.htm
> >
> > This seems fairly well developed, it's for iPods:
> >
> > http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/index.html
>
> And let me note here, as I so often do, that I read WP on my Blackberry
> quite frequently, and the combination of page layout and CSS (which my
> browser ignores) works quite well on that size screen, with the stock
> Blackberry browser.
>
> So I'm not sure how much extension it can be said actually to need....

Mine reads css but misplace elements on the page , for example, the
left column is shown at bottom and a margin of this size is kept,
making the article unreadable, with one word by line. Moreover, lot of
data like language lists or toolbox, harmless for a classic screen
transform the page in a monster, loosing the reader in thousands of
informations.

I'm thinking about a "light interface", with only inportant
informations, maybe with one or two other linked pages to be able to
do whatever we need, but not in the same page.

On 12/27/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 27, 2006 at 05:10:49PM +0100, Plyd wrote:
> > I mean, we have a different page for printing pages, couldn't this be
> > done also for pda?
>
> You wouldn't want to do it that way; if you did, you'd have to click
> through to it from every page.

Not sure. For example, google, which has a pda special interface,
detects the browser and switches automatically to a light interface.
imho, it could be done on a mediawiki page, the software detects the
browser and shows the right interface.

Plyd


from_name: Gurch

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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be
> able to go to an editor?s personal information page and get a sense that
> they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can
> contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.

Every registered user has a page where they can be contacted with
questions. Mine, for example, can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gurch . Users are also permitted
to set up personal information pages, though these have a wide variety
of uses; mine is more a collection of navigational links for my own use
than information about me. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gurch .
Anonymous users can be contacted with questions in the same way, but
since many of them share IP addresses and/or change IP addresses
frequently, and having added information may not even check the site
again for months, they may never see your question.

If you want to question the substance of a particular article, though,
it's best to use the article's discussion page rather than any
particular user's discussion page. The part of the article that you wish
to comment on may have been put together by dozens of different users,
and singling out one isn't always the best way to get feedback.

-Gurch


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

body:
> From: Gurch <matthew.britton at btinternet.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:15:53 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
>> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
>> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
>> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
>> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
>> that editor - it really is that simple!
>
> Er... am I missing something here? You *can* do the first part of that;
> and if the user chooses to provide personal information, you can also do
> the second. However, no matter how much you may wish to know such
> information, you cannot, and Wikipedia cannot, force every editor to
> provide a full biography and list of qualifications. Disclosure of such
> information is not required to contribute and never will be.
>
> -Gurch

Gurch,

I "can" do that if the person has, in fact, created a User Page. As for the
extent of the information, that should, of course, be left entirely to the
discretion of the User - just something other than (quoting one I came
across) "There, I created one, are you happy!?

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


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

body:
> From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com>
> Organization: Boskonia
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 14:28:47 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Marc Riddell stated for the record:
>>
>> I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should
>> become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
>>
>> Marc
>
> Let me see if I understand you.  You wonder about what is written in an
> article, so you review the editor's talk page to see what he has written
> about his qualifications to write what he wrote.
>
> Are you proposing that someone /check up on/ what we claim about ourselves?

Sean,

No! You are taking it a step too far. I am simply interested in knowing
something about the person that entered information into an Article I am
trying to gain information about.

Marc
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett     | Portions of this message were
> sean at epoptic.com | composed using a computer.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> EE1oHCkmrvjgXnjiid29SdY=
> =+dJB
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
>
>> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>>
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>>> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
>>> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
>>> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
>>> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
>>> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
>>> that editor - it really is that simple!
>>>
>>>
>> Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage
>> people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So
>> now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
>>
>> Stan
>>
>
> Stan,
>
> I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should
> become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
>
OK then, you want to "insist" that they supply information about
themselves - that means you're talking policy that we enforce, not just
a guideline or a general recommendation. How much information? Can a
person be banned because of a user page that doesn't list every degree
earned? If not, then how do you enforce your insistence that they share
their personal details? What if the information is not true? How is
anybody going to tell anyway? There are a lot of "John Smith"s in the
world - you'd need a government ID to reliably determine which ones
actually graduated from MIT in 1982, and I don't think the Foundation
really wants to be in the business of user authentication, not least
because many countries have strict privacy laws that would require a
major rewrite of the wiki software in order to meet the legal requirements.

WP oldtimers really have thought all this through already.

Stan


from_name: Thomas Dalton

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

body:
> You are presenting to 'registered users'. How do you deal with a person who
> edits and has no User Page, or one who has one but it is blank?

If an anon user has added some information without stating a source,
and they don't respond on the IP address's talk page, you should
probably remove the information (or try and find a source for it
yourself somewhere).


from_name: George Herbert

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

body:
On 12/27/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:46:56 -0800
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
> >
> > Marc Riddell wrote:
> >>
> >>> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> >>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >>> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800
> >>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
> >>>
> >>> Marc Riddell wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has
> become:
> >>>> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to
> an
> >>>> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History
> Page and
> >>>> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue.
> Then, if
> >>>> I
> >>>> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something
> about
> >>>> that editor - it really is that simple!
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage
> >>> people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So
> >>> now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
> >>>
> >>> Stan
> >>>
> >>
> >> Stan,
> >>
> >> I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage"
> should
> >> become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
> >>
> > OK then, you want to "insist" that they supply information about
> > themselves - that means you're talking policy that we enforce, not just
> > a guideline or a general recommendation. How much information? Can a
> > person be banned because of a user page that doesn't list every degree
> > earned? If not, then how do you enforce your insistence that they share
> > their personal details? What if the information is not true? How is
> > anybody going to tell anyway? There are a lot of "John Smith"s in the
> > world - you'd need a government ID to reliably determine which ones
> > actually graduated from MIT in 1982, and I don't think the Foundation
> > really wants to be in the business of user authentication, not least
> > because many countries have strict privacy laws that would require a
> > major rewrite of the wiki software in order to meet the legal
> requirements.
> >
> > WP oldtimers really have thought all this through already.
> >
> > Stan
>
> Stan,
>
> Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you
> content
> with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
>
> Marc
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I am not totally content, personally, but I see this as a question of the
type of organization we want to be.

Sure, in an ideal world, everyone's real name, and verifyable credentials,
are hanging out there for review and confirmation.

But it wouldn't be Wikipedia if we forced people to do that, and wouldn't
have nearly as much content.

Nupedia and Citizendum are experiments with other tradeoff optimizations
along these lines.  Nupedia pretty much failed, in the sense of delivering
enough content to be useful.  Citizendum is an open question.  Wikipedia has
grown like mad because it chose to be very open; the question of where truly
optimial "grown like mad" versus "somewhat better content" tradeoffs leave
us is not answered yet.

All of these are volunteer organizations.  Everyone brings to a volunteer
organization who and what they are, and the time that they can contribute.
How many people you will get to volunteer depends on the nature of the
restrictions and percieved benefits.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


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

body:
> From: "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 23:02:16 +0000
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> On 27/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
>> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
>> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
>> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
>> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
>> that editor - it really is that simple!
>
>
> If their userpage is a red link or they're anon, that tells you
> something about them too ;-) As it is, IPs don't get no respect. Which
> is unfortunate, but statistically justifiable.
>
> That said, people *still* don't believe that "edit this page" means
> them too. I try to encourage people to edit, saying we are very
> pleased to have just anyone fix typos, etc., without having to create
> yet another web page login to remember.
>
>
> - d.

David,

I, too, have encouraged persons to contribute to Wikipedia; and I will
continue to do so. I also encourage them to formally join the Community by
creating a User Page and introducing themselves. Nothing invasive; simply
their interests. Anything that says to the reader they are thinking and
sentient.

I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding
out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism.
My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic
bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A
protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And,
ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.

Thanks,

Marc
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7

body:
On 12/27/06, Christopher Hagar <cmhagar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The problem with prodding new pages is if the prod is removed by the
> creator, or anyone else who is more interested in showcasing their awesome
> band or webcomic than in creating an encyclopedia. Prod would be
> essentially
> meaningless if the broadest conception of "controversial" were used;
> almost
> every article was created by someone who wanted it on Wikipedia and
> opposes
> its removal. Changing A7 to prod would mean sending hundreds of additional
> articles to AfD a week, where they will be deleted almost unanimously.
>
> On 12/26/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I see PRODs get removed too often without any reason for the removal
> > being
> > > stated.
> > > That's behavior that should be stomped out somehow. Not in a punitive
> > way,
> > > but we should still get rid of it.
> >
> > The burden of proof is on the person wanting it deleted, not on the
> > person wanting it kept. The entire principle of PROD is that only
> > completely uncontroversial articles should be deleted without
> > discussion - if someone has removed the PROD, for whatever reason, the
> > deletion is controversial, and should be discussed fully.

I see people claiming this, but the fact is that the majority of PROD
nominations go uncontested and result in a deletion.

PROD is working.  So is A7, but PROD seems to be far less controversial...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories

body:
Better yet, get Firefox! I installed Firefox on my new MacBook. I lurv it.

On 12/27/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
> >
> >> From: Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
> >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:00:28 -0600
> >> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories
> >>
> >> Marc Riddell wrote:
> >>> I just tried that with the Category: Activists. There is no
> subcategory name
> >>> only this B *
> >>> [+]
> >>>
> >>> Curious, I copied the above 'B * [+]' to my clipboard directly from
> >>> Wikipedia, and when I pasted it here it included this: 'Bisexual
> rights
> >>> activistsloading' This does not appear when I click on it in the
> >>> encyclopedia.
> >>>
> >>> What could that mean?
> >>>
> >>> Marc
> >> Hmmm.... Do you have custom css for Wikipedia? If not, what browser are
> >> you using? Do you have javascript enabled?
> >>
> >> -Rich
> >
> > Rich,
> >
> > I'm emailing my computer person with your questions now. I'll get back
> to
> > you as soon as he responds with the answers.
> >
>
> Your email client identifies itself as "Outlook Express Macintosh
> Edition" - have you tried Safari? The latest version of Internet
> Explorer for Mac was very, very old...
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 12/27/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I would instead be as kind and up front as possible to such a large donor; they expect some sort
> of benefit by having their link on all our pages. That benefit disappears if their website crashes
> under the load; waking up their website support staff in the middle of the night and causing them
> a bit of avoidable embarrassment.

Of course it's down already. My understanding is that we were very
upfront about the amount of traffic that could be expected.


from_name: Gary Kirk

body:
I don't mean to be picky, and the site notice is right, but it is
Virgin Unite not United, yeah?

On 12/27/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> >  The site notice for Virgin United is ready. Thank you Brion.
> >
> >  Please translate accordingly. It is basically the same as our anon donor
> site notice.
>
> The full prepared English version is available at:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_sitenotice_2006_Q4
>
> Please note that the link and logo are to be included by agreement with
> the donor.
>
> This is a one-day thing, so we'll want to take this version live around
> midnight UTC (London time) and take it back down the next day.
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> 1YRf5PhJhH5/02E6A4TPbuE=
> =Ioo4
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Oleg Alexandrov

body:
It is of course very nice of Virgin Unite to match the donations
received today. I would argue however that having a logo in the
site notice is basically an advertisement for Virgin.

There is nothing wrong per se with advertisements, but it is my
belief that that logo is a bad precedent if Wikipedia's goal is
to be advertisement-free.

Oleg Alexandrov


body:
On 12/27/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
>
> > Daniel Mayer schreef:
> > > Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the incomming hits?
> >
> > That is NOP. (Not Our Problem) beside of that; they asked for it.

[snip]

> Saying; 'tough, they asked for it' does not seem like the best path to me. And it does become our
> problem if we didn't handle this correctly and thus reduce the likihood of them being so generous
> in the future.
>
Besides these valid reasons, let's not forget that Virgin Unite is
indeed a charity organization working among other things to send
health workers to save lives in Sub-Saharan Africa.  I'd say not
killing their servers is a worthy cause in its own right besides just
the fact that it might piss them off.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
On 12/27/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 27/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> > When I see some valid criticism, I'll not call it racism.
> >
> > The stuff you're supporting, however, is just racist.
> >
> > Parker
>
> How about we, say, _feign_ civility and avoid accusing each other of
> racism?
>
> To say that a comparison between Apartheid and Israel is "very, very
> valid criticism of the State of Israel" is not racist. It's accusing
> Israel of being racist. Perhaps, if this claim doesn't have any
> supporting evidence, you could call it nationalist. Nothing more.
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
> _______________________________________

But the problem is, the evidence all points the other way. Attempts to
compare Apartheid with Israel's situation have never been honest, but always
have been nothing more than racist propaganda.

If you're going to make a comparison with Apartheid, you've got a better
comparison looking at Saudi Arabia, where multiple cities require
non-Muslims to drive on different roads than Muslims, and non-Muslims are
barred from multiple areas of many cities, and are subject to different laws
and different punishments for breaking the laws.

The fact that this was brought up when it was is sad, and the fact that I
see editors going on trying to find some method of justifying writings that
are mere propaganda being placed onto wikipedia, is horrifying to me.

Parker


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7

body:
On 27/12/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:

> More to the point, one could argue that the important words in your
> comment are "should be discussed fully", and that anyone demanding that
> an action be discussed first should at least be willing to actually
> discuss it.  Removing a {{prod}} tag without giving a reason could be
> seen as saying "I have an objection, but I'm not going to tell you what
> it is, so I'll just let you spend five days guessing."
> Of course, one should assume good faith (unless there is very strong
> evidence to the contrary), and in particular should try to contact the
> person who removed the tag and ask them to explain _why_ they felt the
> article should not be deleted.  This does not mean we shouldn't also
> strongly encourage editors to provide a reason in the first place.

No, just removing it is supposed to be enough. Don't complicate it.

- d.


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>> I see PRODs get removed too often without any reason for the removal being
>> stated.
>> That's behavior that should be stomped out somehow. Not in a punitive way,
>> but we should still get rid of it.
>
>  The burden of proof is on the person wanting it deleted, not on the
> person wanting it kept. The entire principle of PROD is that only
> completely uncontroversial articles should be deleted without
> discussion - if someone has removed the PROD, for whatever reason, the
> deletion is controversial, and should be discussed fully.

Of course, the fact that someone created the article in the first place
means that its deletion is, in _some_ sense, controversial (excluding
any articles created by mistake, but for those we already have
{{db-author}}).  So interpreting the uncontroversiality requirement that
strictly may not be very productive.

More to the point, one could argue that the important words in your
comment are "should be discussed fully", and that anyone demanding that
an action be discussed first should at least be willing to actually
discuss it.  Removing a {{prod}} tag without giving a reason could be
seen as saying "I have an objection, but I'm not going to tell you what
it is, so I'll just let you spend five days guessing."

Of course, one should assume good faith (unless there is very strong
evidence to the contrary), and in particular should try to contact the
person who removed the tag and ask them to explain _why_ they felt the
article should not be deleted.  This does not mean we shouldn't also
strongly encourage editors to provide a reason in the first place.

--
Ilmari Karonen


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

body:
> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:46:56 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>>> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
>>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800
>>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>>>
>>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>
>>>> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
>>>> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
>>>> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
>>>> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if
>>>> I
>>>> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
>>>> that editor - it really is that simple!
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage
>>> people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So
>>> now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
>>>
>>> Stan
>>>
>>
>> Stan,
>>
>> I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should
>> become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
>>
> OK then, you want to "insist" that they supply information about
> themselves - that means you're talking policy that we enforce, not just
> a guideline or a general recommendation. How much information? Can a
> person be banned because of a user page that doesn't list every degree
> earned? If not, then how do you enforce your insistence that they share
> their personal details? What if the information is not true? How is
> anybody going to tell anyway? There are a lot of "John Smith"s in the
> world - you'd need a government ID to reliably determine which ones
> actually graduated from MIT in 1982, and I don't think the Foundation
> really wants to be in the business of user authentication, not least
> because many countries have strict privacy laws that would require a
> major rewrite of the wiki software in order to meet the legal requirements.
>
> WP oldtimers really have thought all this through already.
>
> Stan

Stan,

Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content
with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
>
>> From: Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:00:28 -0600
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories
>>
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>> I just tried that with the Category: Activists. There is no subcategory name
>>> only this B *
>>> [+]
>>>
>>> Curious, I copied the above 'B * [+]' to my clipboard directly from
>>> Wikipedia, and when I pasted it here it included this: 'Bisexual rights
>>> activistsloading' This does not appear when I click on it in the
>>> encyclopedia.
>>>
>>> What could that mean?
>>>
>>> Marc
>> Hmmm.... Do you have custom css for Wikipedia? If not, what browser are
>> you using? Do you have javascript enabled?
>>
>> -Rich
>
> Rich,
>
> I'm emailing my computer person with your questions now. I'll get back to
> you as soon as he responds with the answers.
>

Your email client identifies itself as "Outlook Express Macintosh
Edition" - have you tried Safari? The latest version of Internet
Explorer for Mac was very, very old...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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

body:
On 27/12/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Marc Riddell stated for the record:

> > Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia
> > that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is
> > its policy 'anyone can edit'.

> A free encyclopedia that only credentialled experts could edit was
> tried: [[Nupedia]].  "Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24
> articles that completed its review process (three articles also existed
> in two versions of different lengths), and 74 more articles were in
> progress."

It will be interesting to see what [[Citizendium]] produces. They have
a small but enthusiastic community of editors - and experts - and
comparing the best of Wikipedia to the best of Citizendium will in my
opinion be a valid comparison.

There's got to be more than one way to do this - even "within"
wikipedia.org, the different language Wikipedias have very different
community rules and feels to them.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories

body:
> From: "James Hare" <messedrocker at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 19:21:52 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories
>
> Better yet, get Firefox! I installed Firefox on my new MacBook. I lurv it.
>
> On 12/27/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>
>>>> From: Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
>>>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>> Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:00:28 -0600
>>>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories
>>>>
>>>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>>> I just tried that with the Category: Activists. There is no
>> subcategory name
>>>>> only this B *
>>>>> [+]
>>>>>
>>>>> Curious, I copied the above 'B * [+]' to my clipboard directly from
>>>>> Wikipedia, and when I pasted it here it included this: 'Bisexual
>> rights
>>>>> activistsloading' This does not appear when I click on it in the
>>>>> encyclopedia.
>>>>>
>>>>> What could that mean?
>>>>>
>>>>> Marc
>>>> Hmmm.... Do you have custom css for Wikipedia? If not, what browser are
>>>> you using? Do you have javascript enabled?
>>>>
>>>> -Rich
>>>
>>> Rich,
>>>
>>> I'm emailing my computer person with your questions now. I'll get back
>> to
>>> you as soon as he responds with the answers.
>>>
>>
>> Your email client identifies itself as "Outlook Express Macintosh
>> Edition" - have you tried Safari? The latest version of Internet
>> Explorer for Mac was very, very old...
>>

I'm planning some major software upgrades in the near future. I plan to look
at a lot of alternatives; I'll make Safari one I try. Thanks for your input.

Marc
>> --
>> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
>> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
>> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
>> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


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

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

Marc Riddell stated for the record:
>
> Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content
> with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
>
> Marc

Absolutely yes.  /I/ get to decide how much to reveal about myself.  If
I were required to provide /any/ personal information, I would have
never have seriously considered joining.

I judge articles by their citations, not by unverifiable claims of
expertise made by the editors.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Portions of this message were
 sean at epoptic.com | composed using a computer.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories

body:
> From: "James Hare" <messedrocker at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:16:41 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories
>
> Macs are fun.

Yep! they are. I go even farther back than that. In the early eighties my
partner and I had two of the few Apple LISA. Still have them in storage.

Marc
>
> On 12/27/06, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>
>>> Update: I'm using 'Internet Explorer' on a Mac; and, yes. Javascript is
>>> enabled. It appears I'm due for some software upgrading. At least I know
>>> what the problem is now, and that it will be a pain in the ass until I
>>> upgrade.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your input.
>>>
>>
>> Marc,
>>
>> I sincerely hope you get things working properly. I don't know much
>> about Mac's, but I do know what a pain computer problems are.
>>
>> Once all is updated, you may find that your Web experience is better
>> than ever. I hope that's the case.
>>
>> -Rich
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Tom Tolnam

subject: [WikiEN-l] Acces to Sub-categories

body:
On 27/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> I'm planning some major software upgrades in the near future. I plan to
> look
> at a lot of alternatives; I'll make Safari one I try. Thanks for your
> input.
>
> Marc
>

While you are looking, I find Camino to be very nice.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] How do "deletionists" find articles to delete?

body:
I understand that new articles get close scrutiny but just how do
deletable articles that have been around for a while come to the
attention to those who regularly nominate articles for deletion?
(especially if the article is otherwise well written)

I ask this because recently I came across a fairly well written
article about a computer term that had a prod tag on it for being an
unsourced neologism. It probably was since all the google hits for it
pointed to mirrors of its WP article but I still decided to replace
the prod with a sources tag to give the original author a chance to
add a source. However, I started to wonder why the person who first
prodded it suspected it was a neologism as it couldn't have been the
first term he ran across on wikipedia that he never heard about. Does
he prod them all?

The same could be asked about notability. Just what makes one suspect
that a particular person/band/school/company/webcomic etc. is not
notable? Please note that I am not saying that such articles should be
kept but there has to be something in an otherwise well written
article to cause someone to investigate the article's eligibility to
be in wikipedia besides "I've never heard if him/it"


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

body:
jayjg wrote:
>
> No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's
> pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.

The problem with that, of course, is that, given sufficient time and
sufficiently many people, _anything_ can and will be disputed, including
the color of the sky on a clear day.

Or, let me quote the start of an actual argument from [[Talk:Elision]]:

"Oh, I deliberately used my version of showing speech because I dispute
the IPA's. I deny the existence of the schwa, I object to r/R sounds as
being difthongs, I refute its status of r and R as consonants but as
vowels, I object to its fictive prescription of whether whichever words
are aspirated or unaspirated, I object to its using lone or blended
glyfs for clusters as careless overlooking of the intention of the key
as showing a one-to-one relationship between sound and glyf, and as no
part of speech was given to the words in my list. Do you wish to obscure
my work from accuracy?"

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: David Ashby

body:
On 28/12/06, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand that new articles get close scrutiny but just how do
> deletable articles that have been around for a while come to the
> attention to those who regularly nominate articles for deletion?
> (especially if the article is otherwise well written)

Personally, in this order:
Stumble across them as I read pages.
IRC chat.
Random button.
Category browsing.

-David


from_name: Stan Shebs

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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> Stan,
>
> Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content
> with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
>
Well sure. You were the one that was complaining. :-) To be less flip
and deftly tie back to original topic, our basic structure is built
around the idea that the identity of editors doesn't matter, because all
we're doing is copying facts and theories from authoritative sources. A
team of high-schoolers working together should eventually produce the
same featured article that a Nobelist could. We still like to have
experts, because the expert could likely write the FA in one sitting
before breakfast, where for the high-schoolers it would be months of
hard work to get to the same place, but that's just a matter of efficiency.

I learn what I really need to know about an editor by reviewing
contribution history and a sampling of diffs. A fertile field for
psychologists in fact, I hypothesize that much about an editor's
personality could be learned from analysis of the edit pattern.

Stan


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

body:
jayjg wrote:
>
> Right, we can all come up with some extreme example of an absolute
> madman editing some page. At some point common sense has to prevail,
> if not the "extreme minority" provisions of [[WP:NPOV]]. But, to get
> back to the original point, there's no way that a claim that something
> is "legal consensus" based on a search of some database you've done
> can ever be considered a "simple fact", or even something that has
> been "reliably cited". Quote a legal expert or legal tome making that
> claim.

Yes, I agree this discussion has diverged quite a bit from the original
topic.  Certainly *I* never tried to make the claim that "I could not
find a contrary opinion in a legal database" could reasonably be taken
to imply a "legal consensus" without engaging in original research.

My point earlier in this thread was that, in my view, not all databases
are equal, and that specifically, at least for some libraries, the claim
that "no book with this ISBN is listed in the catalog" is not only in
itself a meaningful and verifiable fact, but in *some* cases *might*
even be taken as reasonable evidence that the book is not, at least
officially[1], to be found at the library in question.

In the particular message you replied to, my point was simply that any
policy that assumes that "no reasonable person will" can only work in
the long run if there is some way to deal with the eventual appearance
of an unreasonable person.

([1] It is, of course, possible that the book is, in fact, to be found
in the shelves because someone put it there while nobody was looking;
this may seem unlikely, but stranger things have happened, such as
people sneaking paintings into a museum.  Whether that really counts as
it being part of the library's collection, at least until it is
discovered, is of course debatable, as is the (more common) case of
whether a book that has been stolen from the library should be counted.
  In any case, phrasing the citation such that it only makes claims
about the official catalog should render such concerns irrelevant.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
> that editor - it really is that simple!

Er... am I missing something here? You *can* do the first part of that;
and if the user chooses to provide personal information, you can also do
the second. However, no matter how much you may wish to know such
information, you cannot, and Wikipedia cannot, force every editor to
provide a full biography and list of qualifications. Disclosure of such
information is not required to contribute and never will be.

-Gurch


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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should
> become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.

In that case, I say again: This will never happen. Why should I be
required to give my life story to anyone with an Internet connection
just so I can contribute? I'm not even going to get into the problems
some users have had with regard to personal information being leaked
against their wishes.

-Gurch


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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

> Gurch,
>
> I "can" do that if the person has, in fact, created a User Page. As for the
> extent of the information, that should, of course, be left entirely to the
> discretion of the User - just something other than (quoting one I came
> across) "There, I created one, are you happy!?
>
> Marc

If the extent of the information provided really is "entirely at the
user's discretion", then they should be able to opt to provide no
information at all. This is the current situation.

To require anything else would present a barrier to contribution. This
is a bad thing; Wikipedia has always tried to keep such barriers as
unintrusive as possible. This is the whole reason why we allow anonymous
and pseudonymous edits, and request no personal information from anybody
-- because doing so would vastly reduce the number of contributions made
and so the size and quality of the enyclopedia. I am certain that if
such a barrier had been in place from day one Wikipedia would be nothing
compared to what it is now; it may even have been abandoned altogether.

-Gurch


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

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>>> Marc
>> Let me see if I understand you.  You wonder about what is written in an
>> article, so you review the editor's talk page to see what he has written
>> about his qualifications to write what he wrote.
>>
>> Are you proposing that someone /check up on/ what we claim about ourselves?
>
> Sean,
>
> No! You are taking it a step too far. I am simply interested in knowing
> something about the person that entered information into an Article I am
> trying to gain information about.
>
> Marc

Ah, yes, that as well. If there *was* a rule stipulating that all
editors provide personal information, the vast majority would simply
lie. Including me. That's if I ever joined such a project in the first
place, which is unlikely.

-Gurch


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

body:
On 27/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become:
> I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an
> Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and
> see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I
> choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about
> that editor - it really is that simple!

If their userpage is a red link or they're anon, that tells you
something about them too ;-) As it is, IPs don't get no respect. Which
is unfortunate, but statistically justifiable.

That said, people *still* don't believe that "edit this page" means
them too. I try to encourage people to edit, saying we are very
pleased to have just anyone fix typos, etc., without having to create
yet another web page login to remember.

- d.


body:
Danny gave a very good speech about this in the Wikimedia IRC channel. He
said that since we don't do advertising, we are giving up on tens of
millions of dollars a year. Now that we need money, we have Virgin Unite
kind enough to offer some really cool matching. Mentioning them in the
Sitenotice is our way of saying "thank you for being so awesome."

On 12/27/06, Oleg Alexandrov <aoleg at math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> It is of course very nice of Virgin Unite to match the donations
> received today. I would argue however that having a logo in the
> site notice is basically an advertisement for Virgin.
>
> There is nothing wrong per se with advertisements, but it is my
> belief that that logo is a bad precedent if Wikipedia's goal is
> to be advertisement-free.
>
> Oleg Alexandrov
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Walter Vermeir

body:
Daniel Mayer schreef:
> Are we certain that their site can handle being slammbed by all the incomming hits?

That is NOP. (Not Our Problem) beside of that; the asked for it.

The current version of the notice;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_sitenotice_2006_Q4

On EN the background of the notice was changed to transparent instead of
  white. I agree that it looks better.

Also the 2 graphical elements of the WMF-logo and that Virgin Unite does
not look very good where the are placed now.

Would it not look better if the WMF-logo was removed or placed on the
left side and the Virgin logo on the right side?

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


body:
On 27/12/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> That is, unless all Virgin websites are hosted in the same place and share resources OR we were
> very clear to them beforehand of the possible load considerations.
> Saying; 'tough, they asked for it' does not seem like the best path to me. And it does become our
> problem if we didn't handle this correctly and thus reduce the likihood of them being so generous
> in the future.

We'll see if it happens first :-)

Is there room in the site notice to note that Virgin Unite is the
charitable arm of the Virgin Group, rather than just another Virgin
company?

(I suppose that's a complication we can do without thinking about 20
mins before showtime ;-)

- d.


from_name: Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
Um... what's the issue at hand again?

Parker Peters wrote:
> On 12/27/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 27/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> When I see some valid criticism, I'll not call it racism.
>>>
>>> The stuff you're supporting, however, is just racist.
>>>
>>> Parker
>>>
>> How about we, say, _feign_ civility and avoid accusing each other of
>> racism?
>>
>> To say that a comparison between Apartheid and Israel is "very, very
>> valid criticism of the State of Israel" is not racist. It's accusing
>> Israel of being racist. Perhaps, if this claim doesn't have any
>> supporting evidence, you could call it nationalist. Nothing more.
>>
>> --
>> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>> _______________________________________
>>
>
>
> But the problem is, the evidence all points the other way. Attempts to
> compare Apartheid with Israel's situation have never been honest, but always
> have been nothing more than racist propaganda.
>
> If you're going to make a comparison with Apartheid, you've got a better
> comparison looking at Saudi Arabia, where multiple cities require
> non-Muslims to drive on different roads than Muslims, and non-Muslims are
> barred from multiple areas of many cities, and are subject to different laws
> and different punishments for breaking the laws.
>
> The fact that this was brought up when it was is sad, and the fact that I
> see editors going on trying to find some method of justifying writings that
> are mere propaganda being placed onto wikipedia, is horrifying to me.
>
> Parker
> _______________________________________________
> 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: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-28

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.9alpha (r18616).
Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test Thumbnail image caption with a free URL... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A RFC with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A mailto link with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail- we don't render math in the parsertests by default,
so math is not stripped and turns up as escaped <math> tags.... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Image caption containing another image... FAILED!
Running test Bug 3090: External links other than http: in image captions... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Fuzz testing: image with bogus manual thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

Passed 463 of 490 tests (94.49%)... FAILED!


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7

body:
David Mestel wrote:

>>If someone is searching for an article on the subject, they aren't
>>going to think that, are they?
>>
>>
>*bangs head against wall* Stupid David!  Should have thought of that.
>
>To be honest, I think that one of the main reasons is that articles on
>non-notable subjects are usually badly written/unverified...
>
If an article has poor writing style that can be fixed without
deletion.  If the information is unverified would it not be better to
say that outright instead of enterring the dark subjective hole of
notability?

Ec


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
On 27/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> When I see some valid criticism, I'll not call it racism.
>
> The stuff you're supporting, however, is just racist.
>
> Parker

How about we, say, _feign_ civility and avoid accusing each other of racism?

To say that a comparison between Apartheid and Israel is "very, very
valid criticism of the State of Israel" is not racist. It's accusing
Israel of being racist. Perhaps, if this claim doesn't have any
supporting evidence, you could call it nationalist. Nothing more.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


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

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 12/26/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I think the question had more to do with verifying a claim that a
>>particular musical work is in C major.  It would seem a waste of time if
>>every time the description of a piece of music included its key there
>>would need to be a source to establish that as true.
>>
>>If someone claims that a piece of music is in C major I have to accept
>>that without the need to go through a mini-course on music theory.
>>
>>
>Which "someone" do you mean - a Wikipedian? The hard-line view of OR
>which has dominated most of this discussion seems to indicate that a
>source is needed for *everything*. IMHO, totally unworkable, and not
>even desirable. We serve our readers, and ourselves, better by simply
>referring to the work as being in C, then if we feel the need, adding
>a footnote like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the key
>signature, and the final cadence is C major" or whatever.
>
The "someone" would be the editor, but then I'm not a hardliner. :-)

IIRC "cadence" or "beat" has more to do with the time signature than the
musical key. ;-)

The problem with something like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the
key signature" is that it looks so brutally amateurish.  It may help
those who know absolutely nothing about music, and still don't know what
sharps and flats are for.  To those with a more sophisticated
understanding of music it will be silly, and will convince them that we
don't know what we are talking about.  The latter wouldn't expect us to
know music theory, but they could still rely on us for biographies of
composers, and other less theooretical articles.  We still need to
maintain articles on the basic concepts of music, and discrete linkages
to these articles are superior to awkward attempts to describe musical keys.

Ec


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change

body:
I would actually like to say a big thank you to Virgin for doing this
and a big thank you to whomever managed to pull this off. I hope more
companies will follow Virgin's way!

Waerth


subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change


from_name: Gregory Kohs

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Virgin United creates article for Virgin Unite

body:
How is this not a violation of the WP:COI guideline?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virgin_Unite&diff=prev&oldid=96734143

I guess if you donate enough money on December 27th to the Wikimedia
Foundation, you're allowed to create whatever you want about yourself on
Wikipedia.  When I suggested that MyWikiBiz could make per-article donations
to Wikimedia, I was hissed out of the room.

Let the OFFICE spin begin.

--
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 193

body:
zero 0000 wrote:

>>From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
>>
>>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.
>>
>>
>No, these observations mean that it was a GOOD example.  There are
>always issues like this that arise in practical situations.  In this example,
>if the key is obvious (that is, anyone who understands music notation
>would agree on what the key is), then we can write "the key is E-flat".
>If the key is not clear for some reason, then deciding the key becomes
>original research and we need to go looking for a published source
>that says what the key is.
>
This is where you give the NOR rule an extremist interpretation.
Somebody also has to decide whether the key is clear or not.  Neither
can you tell from the simple statement, "the key is E-flat", whether it
was stated on the original composition, or whether it was worked out by
an editor who happens to be musically knowledgeable.

>The boundary between the two cases is
>not precise, but that's life.  Anyway it is "safe" in the sense that if
>one editor writes "the key is E-flat" when it isn't completely obvious,
>someone else will come along and slap a "citation needed" on it
>(preferrably with a note on the talk page).
>
The there is a difference of opinion, and very few of us are likely to
have a musical score in front of us to say one way or the other.  The
score itself is the body of musical fact.  Establishing the key involves
the application of the rules of musical theory to that body of fact.
It's a descriptive operation in a specialized field.

The magazine "Adbusters" takes pride in not having numbered pages.  If I
wanted to cite something from that magazine, and had to number the pages
myself to do this, the logical extension of your argument would be that
my page numbering exercise would be original research.

Ec


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

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 12/27/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's
>>pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
>>
>>
>That's not quite what WP:V says (unfortunately):
>
>   1. Articles should contain only material that has been published by
>reliable sources.
>   2. Editors adding new material should cite a reliable source, or it
>may be challenged or removed by any editor.
>   3. The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the
>editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to
>remove it.
>
>Point 2 is pretty bad - it turns WP:V into a process, rather than a
>state. Were a particularly pedantic editor to show up, an article
>would basically have to cite a source for all "material".
>
Removal by any editor is paticularly harsh.  There is no obligation that
the deleting editor have any clue about what he's doing.  We've been
known to have a few like that.

Ec


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 27/12/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> Apparently Bugzilla 3 is supposed to have a better interface.  I
> haven't looked at it, though.

Yeah, and Perl 6 is going to solve the world's scripting problems, so
we have more time for the delights of Duke Nukem Forever!!1!

I don't know much about the Red Hat patches. Can we steal them from somewhere?

Rob Church


body:
On 28/12/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/12/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Apparently Bugzilla 3 is supposed to have a better interface.  I
> > haven't looked at it, though.

> Yeah, and Perl 6 is going to solve the world's scripting problems, so
> we have more time for the delights of Duke Nukem Forever!!1!

Will it run on AmigaOS 5?

- d.


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

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>Is there any agreement for there being a manner in which to demonstrate to
>the community's consensus satisfaction that a claimed source has been added
>fraudulently and either does not really exist or does not really say what
>the citation claims it does?
>
No.  The burden of proving that a source has been fraudulently added is
on the person making the claim of fraud.  Whether a source that is not
directly quoted says what is claimed is often a matter of interpretation.

>What I seem to have been seeing here is that there's an unreasonable
>tendency to assume that a citation is legitimate.
>
Why is that unreasonable?  Such a presumption (rather than assumption)
is consistent with assuming good faith on the part of the writer.

>I would prefer if there
>were a healthy degree of skepticism associated with citations - any citation
>that does not contain enough information for a reasonable researcher to
>locate the original source, or at least verify the existence of the original
>source, should be challengable in a reasonable manner.
>
If you doubt the citation you can always check it out.  There should
undoubtedly be standards for what a citation includes.  In the unusual
circumstances where you think you have a bogus citation you should start
by asking the contributor about it.

Ec


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

body:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content
> with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?

I am, actually. Mostly they're a very good indicator of what someone
is like *and* how seriously to take their contributions. Red-link user
page is one step above anonymous. Etc.

I could do with a few zillion less userboxes, but even those are
helpful, e.g. someone with 200 userboxes is probably a step or two
below anonymous.

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

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

Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Gatto Nero <gattonero at gmail.com> wrote:
>> There is a huge difference between "thank a donor for what it did" and
>> "put a commercial logo in Wikipedia home-page".
>
> 1) Virgin Unite is the non-profit arm of Virgin. It's a charitable
> organization listed in directories such as GuideStar.

Better not use this excuse, it won't help with the next one. ;)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:

>On 12/26/06, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't know if others would agree, but I'd prefer to link to an
>>article. It would certainly seem less commercial.
>>
>>
>I suspect Virgin might not agree. ;-)
>
>Aside from that, of course, is the practical point that this is
>Wikimedia-wide, not just Wikipedia-wide.  What article would, say,
>Commons link to?  And how about languages that didn't have an article
>on Virgin, or had an utterly inadequate one?
>
If we link to Madonna it would be like a Virgin. :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change


from_name: Luna

body:
Not to fan the flames, but I see [[en:Virgin Unite]] is up at AfD...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Virgin_Unite

-Luna


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 28/12/06, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand that new articles get close scrutiny but just how do
> deletable articles that have been around for a while come to the
> attention to those who regularly nominate articles for deletion?
> (especially if the article is otherwise well written)

A general way for a new article to come to the attention of those
working "in the field" is that a new article tends to mean various
links need set up, so the related articles get edited and it becomes
obvious that way. Or they may notice a redlink has turned blue; same
idea.

(Interestingly, many of the articles we want *least* - very
intentionally promotional ones - are the easiest to find this way, as
people sometimes go a step too far and try to work in references to it
from thousands of pages...)

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


body:
Don't forget the various cleanup categories -- tags like {{wikify}} and
{{notability}} don't lead to immediate deletion, but will eventually draw
the attention of experienced editors who may decide to nominate a given
article for deletion.

When I nom things for deletion, it's usually in the course of my "normal
duties" -- I'll find them cleaning up after vandals, while trying to sort
categories, or clean up articles in general. Things like that.

And there is always [[Special:Random]], but I try to stay away from using
that too often.

-Luna


subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change

body:
David Strauss wrote:

>Virgin United is Virgin's charitable division.
>
IOW a virgin united is no longer a virgin. :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Site notice change