from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Open Publication License compatible to Wiki's GNU Free Documentation License?

body:
Hello everybody!

I also wrote this on Intlwiki-l, but nobody replied. Maybe I'll have
more luck here.

I don't know if this problem has been discussed before:

I wrote to the maintainers of a German Hardware-FAQ, which is
distributed under the Open Publication License, if we could use some of
their definitions. But there are two problems:

1. Is the Open Publication License compatible to the GNU Free
Documentation License which is used by Wikipedia?

2. The Open Publication License says that in the modified version the
original author has to be named and the modifications have to be dated.
I think at the moment this is not the case at Wikipedia.
Maybe it would be an idea to keep the original article on a subpage!?

And maybe there are other problems that I don't think of at the moment.

What do the license experts say about this?

You can see the answer of the FAQ maintainers further down.

Bye,
Kurt

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Simon Paquet <simon at netwarriors.org>
An: <hardware at netwarriors.org>
Cc: Kurt Jansson <kurt at jansson.de>
Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. November 2001 19:27
Betreff: Re: Lizenzfrage zur FAQ

In the distants of time, Kurt Jansson wished to say a word:

CC: Hardware-FAQ-ML

>Vielleicht hat der ein oder andere von Euch schon von dem
>Wikipedia-Projekt geh?rt. Wir versuchen da, ein Lexikon unter der GNU
>Free Documentation License zu schreiben. Das ganze funktioniert mit
>Hilfe eines Wikis, sprich: jeder kann sofort an den Texten mitarbeiten,
>ohne Anmeldung o.?.
>N?heres unter http://de.wikipedia.com/
>
>Wenn ich das richtig verstehe habt Ihr die FAQ unter der Open Public
>Licence ver?ffentlicht.

Unter der Open Publication License 0.8 oder h?her. Derzeit aktuell ist
Version 1.0

>Leider habe ich von Lizenzdingen keinen blassen Schimmer (und ehrlich
>gesagt auch wenig Motivation mich damit auseinander zu setzen). Darum
>die Frage an Euch: Wisst Ihr, ob die beiden Lizenzen kompatibel sind?

Ob sie kompatibel sind kann ich dir auch nicht genau sagen. Ich kann
dazu
nur mal von der Lizenzseite des GNU Projektes zitieren:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#TOCFreeDocumentationLicens
es

|This license can be used as a free documentation license. It is a
|copyleft free documentation license provided the copyright holder
|does not exercise any of the "LICENSE OPTIONS" listed in Section VI
|of the license. But if either of the options is invoked, the license
|becomes non-free.

Keiner der Punkte von Sektion VI ist von uns mit eingebunden worden.

>K?nnen wir problemlos aus der FAQ Definitionen ?bernehmen?

Solange der Hinweis auf uns und die Lizenz erhalten bleibt.

>Ein kleines Problem bleibt: In der Wikipedia gibt es keine "Autoren"
>eines Artikels, da st?ndig jeder an jedem Artikel rumverbessert. K?nnte
>das ein Problem sein? Mu? bei den ?bernommenen Artikeln jeweils einer
>von Euch genannt sein (zumindest so lange, bis er signifikant ver?ndert
>wurde)? Oder seht Ihr das nicht so eng?

Die Open Publication License sagt da folgendes zu (Zitat aus der
inoffiziellen deutschen ?bersetzung):

|ERFORDERNISSE F?R MODIFIZIERTE ARBEITEN
|Alle modifizierten Versionen, die durch diese Lizenz abgedeckt werden,
|einschlie?lich von ?bersetzungen, Anthologien, Zusammenstellungen und
|Teildokumenten, m?ssen die folgenden Erfordernisse erf?llen:
|
|Die modifizierte Version mu? als solche gekennzeichnet werden.
|
|Die Person, die die Modifikationen vornimmt, mu? genannt und die
|Modifikationen m?ssen datiert werden.
|
|Danksagungen der Original-Autors und -Herausgebers - sofern
|vorhanden - m?ssen in ?bereinstimmung mit der normalen akademischen
|Zitierungspraxis erhalten bleiben.
|
|Der Ort des originalen unmodifizierten Dokuments mu? benannt werden.
|
|Die Namen der Original-Autoren d?rfen nicht benutzt werden ohne die
|Erlaubnis des Original-Autors / der Original-Autoren.

Wenn ihr damit leben k?nnt, dann legt los, falls nicht, tut mir das
leid,
aber dann k?nnen wir nichts f?r dich tun.

Ciao
Simon, im Namen des Teams
--
Hardware-Gruppenberater:  http://faq.babylonsounds.com/gruppen.html
Hinweise fuer Einsteiger: http://faq.babylonsounds.com/einsteiger.html
CPU+Mainboard FAQ:        http://faq.babylonsounds.com


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikipedia-l] another copyright issue

body:
Hello wikipeople!

How can we ever be sure, that those people who (often anonymously) write
new articles for wikipedia didn't just copy'n'paste it from another
site?

I think we can't.

Take for example
http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Gopher
http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/rus/42/internet/gopher.html
and chapter 2.6 here:
http://www.fitug.de/bildung/allgem/inetein2.html

Is it all from the same author? Or is the wikipedia article just a
('stolen') copy? Or the copy of a revised (but 'stolen') copy? Or is the
source under the GNU Free Documentation License?

How can we be sure about that?

I think nobody wants that just authors with prooved identities (who are
responsible for their writing) are allowed to contribute to wikipedia.

But are we on the save side if we just close our eyes and wait for
people to come and force us to delete articles that many people have put
much work in, but that are based on their text?

Sorry for my bad English, I'm German. If you don't understand what I'm
talking about I'll try my best to make it clearer.

Bye,
Kurt


from_name: Dave McKee

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: another copyright issue

body:
I feel that some sort of 'Sources' namespace would be a good way of
ensuring the information about the article has proper attributions.
Whether it's personal knowledge (and therefore adding your name as
someone personally knowledgeable about the subject) or lecture notes, a
paraphrasing from a reference or text book or copying wholesale from a
public domain source, it'd be good to know.

Perhaps we could have a third entry box for sources used when
creating/editing an article, which appends to the 'Sources' namespace
for quick entry, whilst still allowing the editing of the Sources should
the whole entry require judicious destruction / major rewriting.

> Hello wikipeople!
>
> How can we ever be sure, that those people who (often anonymously) write
> new articles for wikipedia didn't just copy'n'paste it from another
> site?
>
> I think we can't.
>
> Take for example
> http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Gopher
> http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/rus/42/internet/gopher.html
> and chapter 2.6 here:
> http://www.fitug.de/bildung/allgem/inetein2.html
>
> Is it all from the same author? Or is the wikipedia article just a
> ('stolen') copy? Or the copy of a revised (but 'stolen') copy? Or is the
> source under the GNU Free Documentation License?
>
> How can we be sure about that?
>
> I think nobody wants that just authors with prooved identities (who are
> responsible for their writing) are allowed to contribute to wikipedia.
>
> But are we on the save side if we just close our eyes and wait for
> people to come and force us to delete articles that many people have put
> much work in, but that are based on their text?
>
> Sorry for my bad English, I'm German. If you don't understand what I'm
> talking about I'll try my best to make it clearer.
>
> Bye,
> Kurt
>


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Layout of Wikipedia pages: "Wikipedia" missing

body:
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from_name: Michel Clasquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] new wikipedia

body:
Just to let everybody know that I've made a start on the Afrikaans
wikipedia. AFAIK I'm the only South African wikipedian (if not, howzit
okes), but I'll try to rustle up a little community.

This may be of long-term interest to those working on the Dutch wikipedia
- translating between these two languages is fairly easy.

http://af.wikipedia.com

Sien julle,
clasqm

--
Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC

f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> On the English Wikipedia we play by the "better safe than sorry"
> rule: if an article appears to be a copyright violation, we remove it.

Who are "we"?  A non-formal group of core contributors, or Bomis staff?
Is there a similar "we" for the non-English language Wikipediae?

It appears to me that Bomis actively "runs" the English Wikipedia, and
almost don't care about the other languages.  I think it would help
greatly to assign the role of a responsible editor to some person for
each language, perhaps Kurt Jansson or Stefan Rybo for the German, and
Linus Tolke for the Swedish Wikipedia.  This would make Wikipedia more
like a franchising concept.  The national wikipedias could be run on a
separate site (like wiki.rozeta.com.pl) if the responsible editor
("franchising owner") finds that useful.  Bomis would own the name
Wikipedia and the concept and terms under which it is franchised.

I guess what I am saying is that the national Wikipedias need a Larry,
and that there are people who can take on that role if they know the
role exists.

(No, I am not a candidate for editor of the Swedish Wikipedia.)

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Link?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
>> On the English Wikipedia we play by the "better safe than sorry"
>> rule: if an article appears to be a copyright violation, we remove it.
>
>Who are "we"?  A non-formal group of core contributors, or Bomis staff?
>Is there a similar "we" for the non-English language Wikipediae?

I was refering to the former.

>It appears to me that Bomis actively "runs" the English Wikipedia, and
>almost don't care about the other languages.  I think it would help
>greatly to assign the role of a responsible editor to some person for
>each language, perhaps Kurt Jansson or Stefan Rybo for the German, and
>Linus Tolke for the Swedish Wikipedia.  This would make Wikipedia more
>like a franchising concept.  The national wikipedias could be run on a
>separate site (like wiki.rozeta.com.pl) if the responsible editor
>("franchising owner") finds that useful.  Bomis would own the name
>Wikipedia and the concept and terms under which it is franchised.
>
>I guess what I am saying is that the national Wikipedias need a Larry,
>and that there are people who can take on that role if they know the
>role exists.
>
>(No, I am not a candidate for editor of the Swedish Wikipedia.)

I wouldn't say that Bomis doesn't care about the other wikis, but simply
that the Bomis staff actively working on Wikipedia consists of Jimbo, Tim
and Larry, none of whom speak the required languages. But I do agree that
the international Wikipedias need some sort of formal leadership. Your
suggestion sounds pretty good to me.


from_name: Ian

subject: [Wikipedia-l] CIA World Factbook

body:
Reviving old topic...

On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Michel Clasquin clasqm at mweb.co.za XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:

> > the [[/Government]] pages are the only ones that obsolesce quickly.
> > The rest (People, Communications, Military, Transportation, Economy,
> > History)--barring catastrophes or other newsworthy events that people
> > would really think of adding anyway--are fairly static.  Maybe we
> > could just come up with a script to update the Government each year?
>
> But I spent quite some time wikifying [[South Africa/Government]] and if
> some damn script comes and wipes that out, I'll start an edit war with it!
> <g>
>
> Perhaps each country could have two sections - one for the latest raw CIA
> data and another properly mantained by wikipedians. Of course, then we
> might as well use an external link straight to the CIA site for the first
> one.
>

I think just linking to the CIA page from each country page makes the most
sense. If someone want to make a page about the South African government
they can refer to or copy in stuff from the CIA page if they wish. But I
do not believe that it does anyone much of any good to simply copy the CIA
pages into Wikipedia.

Some of the pages are not even in a paragraphs (like
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/United_States_of_America/Communications).

The idea of giving Wikipedia some database capablities is a good (if not
high priority) one, but the CIA does not need another mirror.

Ian Monroe [[Eean]]
http://mlug.missouri.edu/~eean


from_name: Jimmy Wales

in_reply_to: <200111171757.fAHHvYv31727@levi.aronsson.se>; from lars@aronsson.se on Sat, Nov 17, 2001 at 06:57:34PM +0100

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > On the English Wikipedia we play by the "better safe than sorry"
> > rule: if an article appears to be a copyright violation, we remove it.
>
> Who are "we"?  A non-formal group of core contributors, or Bomis staff?
> Is there a similar "we" for the non-English language Wikipediae?

Speaking (authoritatively, I suppose) for the Bomis staff, I think it
is both.  What I mean is, I have a legal liability for copyright
violations, so I have to do something about it.  However, as far as I
can tell, the "non-formal group of core contributors" agrees with me
on this.

I should point out that not everyone agrees on the moral status of
copyrights, nor on what the law should be.  A few people bristled when
I called it "stealing", and since arguing about _that_ wasn't relevant
to my purposes, I reworded it.  The main thing is just that we should
take pride in generating our own content in a non-controversial way.

> It appears to me that Bomis actively "runs" the English Wikipedia, and
> almost don't care about the other languages.

Oh!  Not true!  I personally care very deeply about the other
languages.  The problem is that all my caring in the world doesn't
help me with the fact that I only speak English.  :-(  (And a little
Japanese, but not even enough to hold a conversation. :-()

I welcome ideas on how we can better support the other wikipedias!

> I think it would help
> greatly to assign the role of a responsible editor to some person for
> each language, perhaps Kurt Jansson or Stefan Rybo for the German, and
> Linus Tolke for the Swedish Wikipedia.  This would make Wikipedia more
> like a franchising concept.  The national wikipedias could be run on a
> separate site (like wiki.rozeta.com.pl) if the responsible editor
> ("franchising owner") finds that useful.  Bomis would own the name
> Wikipedia and the concept and terms under which it is franchised.

At least loosely speaking, I'm all for this.

One thing is certain: the English wikipedia thrives to some extent
because Larry is working on it every day.  But I can't afford to hire
someone to work on all the other languages.  I'm happy to appoint
someone, but (a) I can't pay them, and (b) I'm not sure, given the
open nature of wikipedia, what that appointment would really mean.  I
mean, anyone who wants to take charge of a non-english wikipedia can
do so, without me really having much to say about it. :-)

I do think it isn't a good idea to have separated doman names, because
I'm thinking that inter-linking between the wikipedias will be very
useful.  And I think that keeping all the wikipedias on the same
software is a good thing for a variety of reasons.

> I guess what I am saying is that the national Wikipedias need a Larry,
> and that there are people who can take on that role if they know the
> role exists.
>
> (No, I am not a candidate for editor of the Swedish Wikipedia.)

I have no objection to our designating someone as "in charge", but I'm
not sure how much it would really mean.  Larry does a lot of work, day
in and day out, because I pay him.

--Jimbo


from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
I and a few other people have been thinking lately that, while it
certainly has its quirky charm, the present Wikipedia logo isn't quite
right.  For one thing, it would be a good idea to include the word
"Wikipedia" and possibly also the words "The Free Encyclopedia" as part of
the logo.

Would anyone like to have a go at generating some new logo ideas?  The
challenge is making something that fits the spirit of the project,
includes one or more of the words above, and (!) fits in the upper
right hand corner of the web page!

Of course, this isn't high priority.  We could easily go on living with
the present logo.  A new logo might just be a nice little improvement.

Logo ideas could be posted on http://meta.wikipedia.com and announced from
[[Wikipedia Announcements]].

Larry


from_name: Simon Kissane

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Yearbook Software

body:
Hi everyone,

I have written some software for a Wikipedia Yearbook.
With current Wikipedia software (both UseMod and
Magnus' PHP Wiki) the format of the yearbook pages
must be kept by hand, and if you make a entry under a
year page you must copy it by hand to a historical
anniversaries page. For example, if "X died October 1
1744", if you want it to appear under both [[October
1]] and [[1744]], you must enter it twice, once under
each page.

With my yearbook software, it automatically generates
navigation elements on pages, and you need only enter
an entry once for it to appear under both year and
month-day pages.

If you want to look at it, it is at
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/yearbook/yearbook.phtml
At present it is very alpha. Some stuff broke when
porting it from my home machine to the sourceforge
server (different PHP version broke my use of regular
expressions), which I haven't been able to fix yet. It
has no support yet for keeping a history of revisions,
recent changes or anything like that. If anyone wants
to look at the code, its in the Sourceforge CVS
repository for Wikipedia.

Once I iron some more bugs out and add some more
necessary features, I plan to integrate it with
Magnus' PHP wiki code, so it will live under a "yb:"
namespace. (I'll separate it out somehow so you can
install the PHP wiki without it if you want.)

Anyway, I'd welcome any comments/criticisms on the
idea in general and my implementation of it.

Simon J Kissane

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1


body:
In three sentences, what is this software supposed to do?

Larry

On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Simon Kissane wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I have written some software for a Wikipedia Yearbook.
> With current Wikipedia software (both UseMod and
> Magnus' PHP Wiki) the format of the yearbook pages
> must be kept by hand, and if you make a entry under a
> year page you must copy it by hand to a historical
> anniversaries page. For example, if "X died October 1
> 1744", if you want it to appear under both [[October
> 1]] and [[1744]], you must enter it twice, once under
> each page.
>
> With my yearbook software, it automatically generates
> navigation elements on pages, and you need only enter
> an entry once for it to appear under both year and
> month-day pages.
>
> If you want to look at it, it is at
> http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/yearbook/yearbook.phtml
> At present it is very alpha. Some stuff broke when
> porting it from my home machine to the sourceforge
> server (different PHP version broke my use of regular
> expressions), which I haven't been able to fix yet. It
> has no support yet for keeping a history of revisions,
> recent changes or anything like that. If anyone wants
> to look at the code, its in the Sourceforge CVS
> repository for Wikipedia.
>
> Once I iron some more bugs out and add some more
> necessary features, I plan to integrate it with
> Magnus' PHP wiki code, so it will live under a "yb:"
> namespace. (I'll separate it out somehow so you can
> install the PHP wiki without it if you want.)
>
> Anyway, I'd welcome any comments/criticisms on the
> idea in general and my implementation of it.
>
> Simon J Kissane
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
> http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Robert Bihlmeyer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] CIA World Factbook

body:
"Ian" <rsvr4cqdon001 at sneakemail.com> writes:

> The idea of giving Wikipedia some database capablities is a good (if not
> high priority) one, but the CIA does not need another mirror.

The idea is not to mirror them, but use them as a start for our own
pages. Some of the "facts" (land area, highest elevation) would be
missing in any serious encyclopedic article about a country, but
typing them in from a book would be quite boring.

On the other hand, the factbook offers only a sketch. Expanding on
that is the real goal, and a worthy one at that (in contrast to
copying the dry numbers).

--
Robbe
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body:
--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> In three sentences, what is this software supposed
> to do?
>
> Larry
Puts navigation elements on Year in Review pages
automatically -- e.g. automatically links to next five
and previous five years. Allow you to add someone's
date of birth to a year page (e.g. [[1992]]), and it
automatically appears on the anniversary of their
birth as well (e.g. [[January 15]]).

Unfortunately I know see it doesn't really work on
Sourceforge, although it worked fine at home (they
have newer software than I do). I was probably a
little too premature announcing it here. Oh well...

Simon.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
Wow, there are a bunch of them already on
http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Logo+suggestions

Any more??

A few in there are better than what we've got, maybe--heck, maybe all of
them are!

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How a Giant, Free Encyclopedia Might Transform Learning

body:
How a Giant, Free Encyclopedia Might Transform Learning
http://opensourceschools.org/article.php?story=20011119190058114

Somebody could try to get OpenSourceSchools.org Slashdotted--would be a
good cause.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

in_reply_to: <E166CsN-00043U-00@rammstein.mweb.co.za>; from clasqm@mweb.co.za on Tue, Nov 20, 2001 at 05:32:17PM +0200

body:
I think many in the open source movement are opposed to gifs for some
intellectual property reasons.  I'm pretty ambivalent on the issue,
myself, but I also think we can respect those opinions fairly easily.

--Jimbo

Michel Clasquin wrote:

> On Tuesday 20 November 2001 03:40, you wrote:
> > I and a few other people have been thinking lately that, while it
> > certainly has its quirky charm, the present Wikipedia logo isn't quite
> > right.  For one thing, it would be a good idea to include the word
> > "Wikipedia" and possibly also the words "The Free Encyclopedia" as part
> > of the logo.
> >
> > Would anyone like to have a go at generating some new logo ideas?
>
> How do you feel about animated GIFs?
>
>
> --
> Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
> clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
> This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC
>
> f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
*********************************************************************
*"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its*
* own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but *
* there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be *
*  pursuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can   *
*  certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -Jeff Cooper    *
********************************************************************


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
If it's not too distracting, add it to
http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Logo+suggestions and we'll see :)

Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Michel Clasquin
> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 4:32 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?
>
>
> On Tuesday 20 November 2001 03:40, you wrote:
> > I and a few other people have been thinking lately that, while it
> > certainly has its quirky charm, the present Wikipedia logo isn't quite
> > right.  For one thing, it would be a good idea to include the word
> > "Wikipedia" and possibly also the words "The Free Encyclopedia" as part
> > of the logo.
> >
> > Would anyone like to have a go at generating some new logo ideas?
>
> How do you feel about animated GIFs?
>
>
> --
> Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
> clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
> This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC
>
> f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
On Tuesday 20 November 2001 03:40, you wrote:
> I and a few other people have been thinking lately that, while it
> certainly has its quirky charm, the present Wikipedia logo isn't quite
> right.  For one thing, it would be a good idea to include the word
> "Wikipedia" and possibly also the words "The Free Encyclopedia" as part
> of the logo.
>
> Would anyone like to have a go at generating some new logo ideas?

How do you feel about animated GIFs?

--
Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC

f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn


body:
On Tuesday 20 November 2001 07:49, you wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have written some software for a Wikipedia Yearbook.
>
> With my yearbook software, it automatically generates
> navigation elements on pages, and you need only enter
> an entry once for it to appear under both year and
> month-day pages.

Simon, that sounds like a great idea. Perhaps you'd want to watch
RecentChanges for the most prolific contrinutors to  both [[Historical
Anniversaries]] and [[Year in review]] pages and negotiate a standard look
'n feel with them.

--
Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC

f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
No. There's a special format, MNG (I think), for animations that is
licence-free, but browsers don't seem to support it very well.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Nelson
> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 11:24 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?
>
>
> Do PNGs animate?
>
> On Tuesday 20 November 2001 18:54, you wrote:
> > I think many in the open source movement are opposed to gifs for some
> > intellectual property reasons.  I'm pretty ambivalent on the issue,
> > myself, but I also think we can respect those opinions fairly easily.
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Jeff Nelson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
Do PNGs animate?

On Tuesday 20 November 2001 18:54, you wrote:
> I think many in the open source movement are opposed to gifs for some
> intellectual property reasons.  I'm pretty ambivalent on the issue,
> myself, but I also think we can respect those opinions fairly easily.


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New logo?

body:
>How do you feel about animated GIFs?

I'm too polite to say. Animations attract the eyes and distract from
reading. Reading stuff is arguably one of the more important reasons
people go to Wikipedia, so an animated Wikilogo on every page is a BAD
IDEA. I filter all banner ads out of my web surfing because of
animations.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Turkey Sing-a-Long - from Larry Sanger

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l]  New logo?

body:
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subject: [Wikipedia-l]  New logo?

body:
You know what's even worse than all these things?  These new java popup
ads on Yahoo and a few other sites, which don't just cover part of the
screen, they actually cover up most of the screen.  You can't make out
anything on the page you want to look at until the ad decides to go away
or you manage to disable it by clicking some "turn ad off" button.  This
is evil...

Larry

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> You Wrote:
> >
> >>How do you feel about animated GIFs?
> >
> >I'm too polite to say.
>
> I'm not.  I hate them.  :-)  The only thing I hate on the web more
> than animated gifs is popup windows.  MIDIs aren't even close in
> annoyance, since you can turn the speakers off.  Odd that nearly every
> site I've seen with a MIDI also has an animated GIF.  :-D
>
> KQ0


from_name: David Merrill

subject: [Wikipedia-l]  New logo?

body:
On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 09:55:39AM -0800, Larry Sanger wrote:
> You know what's even worse than all these things?  These new java popup
> ads on Yahoo and a few other sites, which don't just cover part of the
> screen, they actually cover up most of the screen.  You can't make out
> anything on the page you want to look at until the ad decides to go away
> or you manage to disable it by clicking some "turn ad off" button.  This
> is evil...

Most browsers today allow you to turn those popups off, with the
notable exception of IE, of course.

--
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

It's possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me. If
so, it's going quite well I must admit.
	--Bill Gates


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Backlinks

body:
Still catching up, as you can see.  I like nearly all of Claudine's
suggestions here.  Having some (hopefully unobtrusive,
intelligently-placed) "backlinks" in the form of a list of the pages that
link to a given page might indeed be a very useful tool.  Has anyone added
this to the PHP wiki "feature request" page?  If not, do!

Larry

On 6 Nov 2001, Claudine Chionh wrote:

> On Tue, 06 November 2001, lsanger at nupedia.com wrote in response to tbc:
>
> > > The idea of a back-link feature has been tossed around. That
> > > was a feature of Ward's original WikiWiki. It's helpful.
> >
> > Can you tell us more about that?  I am imagining that this means you'd
> > link, say, at the bottom of a page, all the pages that link to the given
> > page?  That could be cool.
>
> I'm not Tim, but I've come across the backlinks concept on a
> number of other wikis.  The ones I'm most familiar with are ZWiki
> <http://zwiki.org/>, which runs on Zope; and UseMod, which we all
> know and love so well.  I'm not sure about the the technical
> implementations, but from the user's point of view, clicking on
> the page title presents a list of all wiki pages that link to
> that page.
>
> I suspect that in UseMod and the original wiki, selecting the page
> title simply runs a search for all pages containing the text of
> the page title.  This works in most wikis because page titles
> are created using bumpy case.  This is *not* the situation in
> Wikipedia.
>
> http://zwiki.org/BackLinks describes how this is done in ZWiki,
> but my python/zope isn't up to scratch so I can't follow the
> code.
>
> If I'd discovered ZWiki a lot earlier I might have suggested it
> for wikipedia, because it has some very useful optional features
> such as hierarchical representations of the wiki structure
> which is calculated by checking backlinks.  This can create
> the impression of subpages without actually implementing
> subpages per se.
>
> Now we have Magnus's software, though, so it might be more
> constructive to concentrate on developments on that front.
>
> Claudine
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo?

body:
Michel Clasquin <clasqm at mweb.co.za> writes:

> > Would anyone like to have a go at generating some new logo ideas?
>
> How do you feel about animated GIFs?

[general GIF issues already raised by Jimbo]

I think animated logos are unprofessional. While advertisements *want*
to distract, logos generally are not made for this purpose.

I am under the impression that we want to let our content stand for
itself, not get pushed to the side by noisy graphics. No big-wig site
I know uses an animated logo. Most constrain that to ads.

Actually, I don't think Wikipedia needs a new logo in the near future
...

BTW, I would also never include a animated link-button on one of my
pages.

--
Robbe
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Personal Pages

body:
No one ever answered this, it seems!

I can understand (sympathize with) Jimbo's proposal (expressed in a few
different places)  that we just completely get rid of personal pages, but
I think they do a lot more good than harm.  As Stephen says, they allow
people to get acquainted, to exchange personal messages, to brag, and to
do other stuff that makes Wikipedia an "online community."

As far as I'm concerned, the personal pages will all be moved from the
main article space to a "user:" or "u:" namespace, which will be a good
thing.  It'll make counting articles more accurate and give us a clearer
distinction between the creators and the subjects of the creation.  :-)
Also, for recordkeeping, it's nice to have a record of who has written
what (on the [[Recent Changes]] page) and this necessitates fully
integrated user namespace.

It's a separate question whether we'll stick with the present
Metawikipedia or move all that stuff to a "discussion:" (or whatever)
namespace, with its own [[Recent Changes]] page.  I wouldn't want to move
it if it didn't have its own [[Recent Changes]] page.

But...we don't have to decide any of this right away.  Magnus has to get
through exams ;-), apparently, and we could stand doing some more testing
of his software, before making the switch to the new software.

Larry

On Sat, 10 Nov 2001, Stephen Gilbert wrote:

> I'm not sure what the status is on personal Wikipedian pages. I know that
> we're moving personal essays to meta.wikipedia.com, but what about the
> pages themselves? Are we keeping them? If so, where will they be located?
>
> Personally, I would like to see them stay on Wikipedia itself, in the user:
> namespace. However, I think the pages should only be used to provide an
> introduction, to exchange messages, and for encyclopedia writing purposes
> (to do lists, contribution lists, etc). Personal essays and the like should
> go on MetaWikipedia. Anything not related to Wikipedia would go elsewhere,
> like a personal Geocities page.
>
> -- Stephen Gilbert
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Logo?

body:
>You know what's even worse than all these things? These new java
>popup ads on Yahoo and a few other sites

Check out www.webwasher.com, good German quality work. Haven't seen an
ad in years.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Logo?

body:
I used it for some time, but it made www.amazon.de disappear (not
amazon.com, though). Works quite well, otherwise.

Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Axel Boldt
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 7:17 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Logo?
>
>
> >You know what's even worse than all these things? These new java
> >popup ads on Yahoo and a few other sites
>
> Check out www.webwasher.com, good German quality work. Haven't seen an
> ad in years.
>
> Axel
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] PHP script search button and InterWiki

body:
Important additions on http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml
(working) and on http://meta.wikipedia.com (as soon as it is updated):
- Search button next to search box, on popular demand...
- Interwiki feature: [[w:foobar]] will now link to
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Foobar, also on popular demand.

(The sourceforge test site might go offline later today, in case I install
the latest tarball.)

Now go back to writing articles. No, I said NOW! ;)

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Happy Thanksgiving!

body:
These are the times when I wish I'd be in the States again, and have some
turkey :)

While most of you are celebrating, I uploaded the November 16 tarball from
wikipedia to the http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml test site.
This will give all of us a realistic impression of how the script behaves
under current conditions. If we really switch over in late December/early
January, this is how it will be!

Please keep in mind:
- The sourceforge server is a little slow. The speed will be better on the
bomis sever.
- The sourceforge server limits the memory for the script. If a command dies
with "allowed memory size exceeded", don't worry, this won't happen on the
bomis server. It even works on my local machine.
- Remember, subpages are deactivated. That also means the "freestyle"
subpage links ("/Subpage") are broken.

Some features might already be helpful for today's work under the
UseModWiki! Just try the "Stub articles" function (on the QuickBar or the
"Special Pages"). Most of these stubs are probably stubs on the current
wikipedia as well!

This was the last major update for about a month. I'll try to fix serious
bugs when you write them on the bugs page, but I probably won't be adjusting
screen colors or the like ;)

Happy Thanksgiving,
Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] confession of a science believing man

body:
Hi Kurt,

This is a perfect topic for intlwiki-l--that's why the list was set up.

I think it would be a good idea to translate parts of the [[neutral point
of view]] article, or to write such an article yourself based on that, auf
Deutsch.  There are many philosophical objections to such a policy, but as
far as I can tell, they are all based on misunderstandings or pointless
semantic quibbling about the policy.  In any case, as a pragmatic matter,
it certainly does make it easier for people of radically different
viewpoints to work together.  It also makes the task of writing an
encyclopedia article *considerably* clearer and more focused than it would
be otherwise.

We haven't yet really discussed what sort of general policies we can
expect non-English Wikipedias to follow.  It's not even *completely*
obvious to me that anybody ought to try to make sure that they follow a
nonbias policy; but, of course, I do think they *should* follow such a
policy, self-consciously.  That is, I distinguish between policies I think
the non-English Wikipedias should self-consciously adopt, and policies
that I think we ought, somehow, actually to try to enforce.  The latter is
likely to be a subset of the former.

I obviously haven't caught up with my recent mail to the point where I can
comment on the suggestion that we find some sort of "editors" for the
non-English Wikipedias...that would be relevant here...

Larry

On Sat, 24 Nov 2001, Kurt Jansson wrote:

> Hello everybody!
>
> I think the German Wikipedia is more and more reaching a point, were
> there are enough people to start discussions about controversial topics.
> I'm thinking especialy about articles with an esoteric/mystic/religious
> theme.
>
> Is there some kind of procedure that has been established in the
> international Wikipedia?
> Do you stop working on the article and start a discussion? Or do you
> fight on an article until you come to a consensus (or enough people have
> given up ;-) )?
>
> I think in scientific articles it is not such a big problem to specify
> the different opinions and state which one is more and which is less
> accepted. But I have my problems to declare that ghosts, clairvoyance,
> etc. do exist/work, or do not, and that both opinions have the same
> possibility. But maybe that's a just lack of my democratic, pluralistic
> engagement and an excess of my scientific believing emotions. (BTW: is
> parascience a science?)
>
> Am I too afraid of fanatic esoterics/christs/etc that are flooding
> wikipedia with totally biased articles and not willing to discuss about
> their opinions?
>
> Bye,
> Kurt
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
On Sat, Nov 24, 2001 at 02:56:51AM +0100, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Hello everybody!
>
> I think the German Wikipedia is more and more reaching a point, were
> there are enough people to start discussions about controversial topics.
> I'm thinking especialy about articles with an esoteric/mystic/religious
> theme.

Cool!

> Is there some kind of procedure that has been established in the
> international Wikipedia?
> Do you stop working on the article and start a discussion? Or do you
> fight on an article until you come to a consensus (or enough people have
> given up ;-) )?

We just plug right along, writing.

> I think in scientific articles it is not such a big problem to specify
> the different opinions and state which one is more and which is less
> accepted. But I have my problems to declare that ghosts, clairvoyance,
> etc. do exist/work, or do not, and that both opinions have the same
> possibility. But maybe that's a just lack of my democratic, pluralistic
> engagement and an excess of my scientific believing emotions. (BTW: is
> parascience a science?)
>
> Am I too afraid of fanatic esoterics/christs/etc that are flooding
> wikipedia with totally biased articles and not willing to discuss about
> their opinions?

My opinion, and of course take it for what it's worth, is that a
certain amount of argument and controversy is inevitable. At first it
bothered me. I wanted to get along with everyone, even the people I
thought were crackpots.

Now I just write what I think is appropriate. I am very careful to try
to stay npov, and in my experience 9 out of 10 others do the same.
When an individual insists on being npov, I have stopped arguing. I
just walk away and let them "win". My opinion is that in the long run,
they will get tired and the npov view will win out. With only one or
two exceptions, that has shown to be true.

--
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

When people understand what Microsoft is up to, they're outraged.
	--Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly & Associates


body:
Hello everybody!

I think the German Wikipedia is more and more reaching a point, were
there are enough people to start discussions about controversial topics.
I'm thinking especialy about articles with an esoteric/mystic/religious
theme.

Is there some kind of procedure that has been established in the
international Wikipedia?
Do you stop working on the article and start a discussion? Or do you
fight on an article until you come to a consensus (or enough people have
given up ;-) )?

I think in scientific articles it is not such a big problem to specify
the different opinions and state which one is more and which is less
accepted. But I have my problems to declare that ghosts, clairvoyance,
etc. do exist/work, or do not, and that both opinions have the same
possibility. But maybe that's a just lack of my democratic, pluralistic
engagement and an excess of my scientific believing emotions. (BTW: is
parascience a science?)

Am I too afraid of fanatic esoterics/christs/etc that are flooding
wikipedia with totally biased articles and not willing to discuss about
their opinions?

Bye,
Kurt


body:
Kurt Jansson schrieb:
> possibility. But maybe that's a just lack of my democratic, pluralistic
> engagement and an excess of my scientific believing emotions. (BTW: is
> parascience a science?)

I remember when we first wrote the presentation of Guglielmo Marconi
(http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi) and I stated that he
was the inventor of radio.  Uh-uh.  Someone else (LDC?) was very eager
to point out that this was only a myth with no truth at all, and that
everybody else in the universe had invented radio before Marconi (ok,
so I might exaggerate just a bit to make my point).  After a long
discussion we wrote that for various reasons, Marconi "is often
credited as the 'father of radio'."  We could all agree on this.

So, the final text in Wikipedia is not just the correct truth, but
also the result of a negotiation process between conflicting minds.
It's an evolution - only the fittest texts will survive.  :-)

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Link?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se


body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Is there some kind of procedure that has been established in the
> international Wikipedia?
> Do you stop working on the article and start a discussion? Or do you
> fight on an article until you come to a consensus (or enough people have
> given up ;-) )?

Does there exist in the German wikipedia the custom of /Talk pages?

I think we generally tend to simultaneously work on the article while
also discussing (on the /Talk page) the changes that are being made.

I think that the most important thing is that all parties have a
commitment to the NPOV.  This doesn't always solve all arguments, but
it does solve most of them.

One of the most effective techniques for avoiding controversy is to
shift the article from "what is true" to "what people say".  It is
controversial, perhaps, to say that ghosts exists, or ghosts do not
exist.  But it is not controversial to say that some people believe in
ghosts, but that the vast majority of scientists point to the lack of
credible scientific proofs as a reason not to believe.

--
*********************************************************************
*"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its*
* own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but *
* there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be *
*  pursuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can   *
*  certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -Jeff Cooper    *
********************************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

body:
On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 03:22:46PM +0100, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author
> [[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in
> personal names.  In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen.
> Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is
> almost never used in Denmark.  This is as common in Denmark as the
> U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English,
> French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans
> Christian.  Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it
> follows the established English convention.
>
> This makes it just like a translation.  The Danish words "sm?rrebr?d",
> "K?benhavn", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English
> "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen".  We are used
> to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also
> personal names are in fact translated.  I find that fascinating.

It is fascinating.

> This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?
> Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document
> a person's name or life?  Shouldn't there be?  I know we discussed
> this in May in [[Biography/Talk]].  I stated that biography is a
> scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence.
> I think I wish that it were a scholarly discipline, and I would like
> to establish biography as a discipline, in fact a subdiscipline of
> creating an encyclopedia.  (This could lead to a discussion of whether
> disciplines are static or how they can be established.)

Biography is definitely a scholarly discipline. Think "Life of
Johnson" by Boswell.

(PD version at http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/)

Also see Parker Honan's excellent "Documenting Authors' Lives" for an
excellent in-depth look at the difficulties involved in that particular
subgenre.

> I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list
> people that are still alive.  Is this a rule or just a coincidence?
> Has the rule been documented?  Where?  If such a work contains entries
> on people who are still alive, does it have to change its title?

Hell if I know. :-)

> Another unwritten rule is that the birth and death years should both
> appear at the top of the article.  Only some older biographic
> dictionaries list the death year at the end of the chronologically
> organized article.
>
> Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write
> biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae?  Is there a
> Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?

I don't know of anything online, but if you find anything let us know.

--
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

body:
I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author
[[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in
personal names.  In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen.
Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is
almost never used in Denmark.  This is as common in Denmark as the
U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English,
French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans
Christian.  Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it
follows the established English convention.

This makes it just like a translation.  The Danish words "sm?rrebr?d",
"K?benhavn", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English
"sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen".  We are used
to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also
personal names are in fact translated.  I find that fascinating.

This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?
Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document
a person's name or life?  Shouldn't there be?  I know we discussed
this in May in [[Biography/Talk]].  I stated that biography is a
scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence.
I think I wish that it were a scholarly discipline, and I would like
to establish biography as a discipline, in fact a subdiscipline of
creating an encyclopedia.  (This could lead to a discussion of whether
disciplines are static or how they can be established.)

I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list
people that are still alive.  Is this a rule or just a coincidence?
Has the rule been documented?  Where?  If such a work contains entries
on people who are still alive, does it have to change its title?

Another unwritten rule is that the birth and death years should both
appear at the top of the article.  Only some older biographic
dictionaries list the death year at the end of the chronologically
organized article.

Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write
biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae?  Is there a
Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?

Any pointers appreciated.

--
  Lars Aronsson
  <lars at aronsson.se>
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se


subject: [Wikipedia-l] production notes

body:
When writing or substantially rewriting an article, I would sometimes
like a space where I could record certain "design decisions" made
during creation of a paragraph. I think this could help future editors
to sensibly continue my work.

What we now have is:

* The version log, which favors short decriptions of the changes, but
  not (perhaps longer) arguments *why* something was changed.

* /Talk can be used for my purpose, but convention has it that it is
  mainly for discussion, i.e. when someone (not knowing my thoughts)
  executes the exactly opposite decision I can bring this up on /Talk.

What I envision is that the edit page not only offered the option for
a one-line log message, but also a multi-line argument section. As
long as the change is diff-able (at least two weeks, hopefully
forever), both should be viewable somehow. The Recent Changes should
list the short What message as it does now.

Example:

Summary of changes: [rewrote the first paragraph]
Why did I change it:
[Many people ignorant about Pascal will probably be confused         ]
[by the terms 'parse' and 'token look ahead'. If necessary, this     ]
[information should come later in the article. I think my simplified ]
[variant is enough, though.                                          ]

I think this will replace some aspect of what /Talk pages are used
for: discussion between various authors. /Talk (or talk:) will
probably still have other uses, though. But the need will be somewhat
lessened.

Advantages over just using /Talk as we do now:

* Some useful /Talk conventions are automatically ensured by the
  software:
  + Reverse date order (often forgotten by newbies and me)
  + Separation of arguments by different people (sometimes it is
    unclear in /Talk pages whether a new paragraph is by the same
    person as the last)
  + Signing of arguments
  + Significantly editing other's comments is faux pas.
* If a change is no longer viewable, its supporting argument is
  automatically deleted. These often stay in /Talk forever.
* The "Be bold in editing" dogma is fostered: I am much more
  comfortable with editing right away rather than debating first when
  I can state my point at the same time.

--
Robbe
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

body:
Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> writes:

> This makes it just like a translation.  The Danish words "sm?rrebr?d",
> "K?benhavn", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English
> "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen".  We are used
> to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also
> personal names are in fact translated.  I find that fascinating.

Actually transliteration is common. Interestingly different language
transliterate the same source differently into the same target
alphabet, it even happens in the same language (witness the Ussama vs.
Ossama discussion).

Regarding H. C., I think we should use the person's preferred as the
article name. Other popular (mis)representations can redirect to that.
So if you're positive that he would have introduced himself with "H.
C. Andersen", go ahead, move, and redirect.

If the preferred spelling is unknown or contains characters not
allowed in page titles, the most popular English rendition is probably
best. The article itself should include the "native" spelling, as
should links (e.g. [[Kurt Goedel|Kurt G?del]]).

> This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?

Regarding Wikipedia, in some policy article. For science in general, I
don't know (the above were my personal opinions).

> Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write
> biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae?  Is there a
> Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?

I'd begin queries at your local university's history department and/or
publishers which publish a lot of biographies. These should at least
have "house rules" if not references to more generally accepted
customs.

--
Robbe
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

in_reply_to:
<87adxakh1u.fsf@orcus.priv.at> (message from Robert Bihlmeyer on
	25 Nov 2001 16:26:37 +0100)

body:
Robert Bihlmeyer schrieb:
> Actually transliteration is common.

Yes, of course. But transliteration follows simple rules on a phoneme
basis.  (BTW, he is called Usama bin Ladin in Swedish.  :-)

> So if you're positive that he would have introduced himself with "H.
> C. Andersen", go ahead, move, and redirect.

No, on the contrary I think it is fine that he is Hans Christian in
English, and I would like to document this opinion so that nobody else
makes this redirect by a thoughtless mistake.

There is a current trend in the English speaking world to be overly
politically correct in the spelling of foreign names.  Not only
Beijing and Kampuchea, but also G?teborg, Hannover, K?ln, and Wien
start to appear in English texts.  This is a pity, because Gothenburg,
Hanover, Cologne, and Vienna are well-established words of the English
language since centuries.  And I find it unlikely that anybody would
write Sverige, Deutschland, or ?sterreich in an English text anyway.

Oops, I just realized that I'm guilty of the [[Hannover]] entry in
Wikipedia, so I'm going to redirect that to [[Hanover]] right now.

--
  Lars Aronsson
  <lars at aronsson.se>
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

body:
On Sunday 25 November 2001 20:29, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> There is a current trend in the English speaking world to be overly
> politically correct in the spelling of foreign names.  Not only
> Beijing and Kampuchea, but also G?teborg, Hannover, K?ln, and Wien
> start to appear in English texts.  This is a pity, because Gothenburg,
> Hanover, Cologne, and Vienna are well-established words of the English
> language since centuries.  And I find it unlikely that anybody would
> write Sverige, Deutschland, or ?sterreich in an English text anyway.

I agree in principle, but Beijing actually is not a good example.  It
reflects the way the place's name is pronounced in the official dialect of
Chinese. Peking OTOH is a pronounciation based on an out-of-the-way
dialect where some missionary first wrote down "Chinese" words in the
Roman alphabet.  It's as if the only Swedish a foreigner could learn was
the way it was pronounced by the Finns, I guess <g>

--
Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa)
clasqm at mweb.co.za/unisa.ac.za   http://www.geocities.com/clasqm
This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC

f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Static Wikipedia (was: attribution policy)

body:
From: "Axel Boldt" <axel at uni-paderborn.de>
> David brought up the idea of publishing some Wikipedia documents as
> part of the Linux Documentation Project. That reminded me of an old
> idea: publish a snapshot of the Wikipedia as a downloadable set of
> static HTML pages that people can use without a net connection, and
> that could also be burned on CD. No wiki.cgi script needed. If someone
> clicks on an edit link or RecentChanges, they are directed to the
> corresponding life Wikipedia page.

That would be fantastic!

> By the way, it would be nice if the wikipedia tarballs could be
> updated, to encourage experimentation like this.

Yes.  I was told a week or two ago that this was soon to be done daily.
I don't know if that's now the case, though...squeaking wheels, keep
a-squeakin'.

Larry


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Biography as a discipline

body:
General agreement with all of you, except for the HC
Andersen bit.  In English, we use Hans Christian, so
that's how people will look him up.  I was under the
impression that trying to write the articles with
"most familiar English-language version of name (when
applicable)" was a consensus-driven wiki norm?   I
think that reading the discussions under nomenclature
and the History Talk would also help you, Lars!
Tschuess -- JHK

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Google and Static pages

body:
From: "Jo?o M?rio Miranda" <jmiranda at explicacoes.com>
> I believe Google is now sending trafic to static wikipedia pages. For
> example, Recent Changes is indexed at Google with the adress:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Recent_Changes
>
> This may be a problem when we change to the script made by Magnus
> Manske. Does the new script creates stactic pages with the same
> URL?

I think someone has already replied to this, but if not, let me just say
that I have expressed my concern about this issue a few different times,
and Jimbo seems to think he'll be able to set some server settings so
that the URLs are exactly the same as they have been.

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

references:
<200111251422.fAPEMk417049@levi.aronsson.se>
	<87adxakh1u.fsf@orcus.priv.at>
	<200111251829.fAPIT2m17767@levi.aronsson.se>

body:
Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> writes:

> Yes, of course. But transliteration follows simple rules on a phoneme
> basis.  (BTW, he is called Usama bin Ladin in Swedish.  :-)

Only problem being that different languages have different
letter-phoneme mappings (Swedish "Ladin" vs. English "Laden"), and
that the "correct" pronounciation may be somewhere between two letters
("Ossama" vs. "Ussama"). Complicating matters is that living languages
all have dialects -- which pronounciation of this man's name is
"correct", the North-Saudi-Arabian, the Persian, the Pashtun(sp?)?

[...]
> No, on the contrary I think it is fine that he is Hans Christian in
> English, and I would like to document this opinion so that nobody else
> makes this redirect by a thoughtless mistake.
>
> There is a current trend in the English speaking world to be overly
> politically correct in the spelling of foreign names.  Not only
> Beijing and Kampuchea, but also G?teborg, Hannover, K?ln, and Wien
> start to appear in English texts.  This is a pity, because Gothenburg,
> Hanover, Cologne, and Vienna are well-established words of the English
> language since centuries.

True. I'd draw the line between cities and persons; i.e. use anglicised
versions for places, "most native" versions for people. But that's
just me of course.

The good thing is that in Wikipedia we can somewhat reconcile both
opinions by having one redirect to the other (as long as there's no
conflict with another entry). So Vienna and Hanover should be
articles, and Wien and Hannover could be redirects. IMO H. C. Andersen
should be the article and Hans Christian Andersen a redirect to it,
but the other way around is fine too.

To prevent people from reversing your decision in the future is
impossible. But you may perhaps convince future editors with a
succinct log message.

--
Robbe
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subject: Printable version (was RE: [Wikipedia-l] Why Wikipedia needs linkbacks)

body:
From: "David Merrill" <david at lupercalia.net>
...
> > This article is from Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.com), the free
> > online encyclopedia. You can find this article at
> > http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
...
> Absolutely. Require that text at the bottom of each page, then?

Something like that.  I'd like to get to that soon.  I think I'd like to
find some plausible way to leave the exact wording open.  The only
disputed issue of any significance, I believe, is whether we will
require a link back to the actual article URL on Wikipedia.  I know
there's been a lot of resistance to that, but it's really important, if
we're going to get a lot of new contributors, that people be able to
find the original article quickly and easily.

> If I
> decide I want to do something slightly different, can I approach you
> with my proposal? I suggest you state in the copyright and GFDL
> implementation text that you can be approached for special situations.
> No general solution is going to work for everyone.

Yes.  Good point.

> Does Bomis hold official copyright on Wikipedia?

Yes, more or less.  I'm not sure what that means.  I'll leave it to
Jimbo to articulate a position on that, which I believe he might already
have done.

> I didn't see it on
> the site.

And that's another problem we need to rectify.  :-(  It's just a matter
of getting it right and getting around to it.

> You really should post a copyright notice on the main page,
> directly, which includes the implementation of the license in it.

That's my understanding too.

> I am concerned that you run into a violation of the *spirit* of the
> GFDL, if not the precise letter, if you require some large or
> intrusive attribution on derivative works that doesn't exist on the
> live Wikipedia pages. In my case especially, since it isn't really a
> `derivative work' but just a downstream packaging of Wikipedia
> content, as it were.

Maybe it would help, in some way, to include the notice on each
Wikipedia page, indeed; that might remove some of the objections people
have.

> Hopefully, given my track record of unpaid volunteer work for the
> Linux Documentation Project, and now some fair amount of unpaid
> volunteer work for the Wikipedia, you know that I'm not a money
> grubber who is trying to take advantage of Wikipedia or Bomis. I want
> to see you get fair attribution. My goals, in large part, are your
> goals. I want you to succeed. However, I also want the maximum
> flexibility in how I attribute you, within reasonable parameters of
> course. Your suggestion here sounds like something I can live with.

Good!

> I've also decided definitely that all Wikipedia content that is
> packaged beside the LDP documents in Linux distributions will contain
> a live linkback to directly edit the page. That could easily bring a
> million Linux users to Wikipedia every month. More if you count the
> local page views. That is a good thing for Wikipedia and for Linux.

No kidding, that would be fantastic.

> Please give me your views or guidelines on how I might approach this
> effort. My goal is to start having Wikipedia content used as part of
> Linux help, but I don't want to move the LDP over wholesale (and it
> would be rude to my authors, even those who GFDL'ed), nor do I want to
> simply leech. I'm just knocking around ideas right now, so if you can
> suggest any I should consider I'd appreciate hearing them.

Well, I'm not sure what else you need other than our recommended
wording, whatever it will be.

> I will be formatting the output differently from Wikipedia, though. I
> will make the output look as similar as I can to the other documents.
> I have to merge man pages, html, and docbook documents, and it is a
> challenge to make the presentation of all those documents seamless
> across format, but that's what I'm trying to do. I want the transition
> to and from Wikipedia pages within the Linux documentation database to
> be similarly seamless. I'll attribute Wikipedia pages, and probably
> put up a logo for graphical browser users.

Sounds groovy.

> I will run the final stylesheets past you once I get to that point.
> Live release in actual Linux distributions is probably six months
> away, so there is no hurry. I promise to be very amenable to following
> your suggestions, as long as you keep in mind that the user experience
> comes first in my page layout philosophy!

Well, it has *never* been our desire to ask anyone to do anything that
would make the user experience less than optimal.  (I happen to think
that clearly-presented information about the source of an article
definitely enhances the user experience--but not, necessarily, in the
form of even a small table banner.)

> Thanks for resolving this issue quickly. It really is fundamental and
> the sooner you resolve it, the better for everyone. Then it becomes a
> non-issue and we can all get back to work where we should be. :-)

Sorry it wasn't sooner!  I should have read this sooner, or I would have
seen that it is really high priority.

Larry

> Regards,
>
> --
> Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
> Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
> Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org
>
> We turn the wheel to welcome her
> Every breath is sacred
> Opening, we welcome her
> Every breath is sacred
> As we walk this ancient path
> Every breath is sacred
> We are stronger than we know
> Every breath is sacred
> -- The Midwife's Song, Calla Unsworth
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

in_reply_to:
<E1685rI-0007FI-00@supermail.mweb.co.za> (message from Michel
	Clasquin on Sun, 25 Nov 2001 22:31:49 +0200)

body:
Michel Clasquin wrote:
> I agree in principle, but Beijing actually is not a good example.  It
> reflects the way the place's name is pronounced in the official dialect of
> Chinese. Peking OTOH is a pronounciation based on an out-of-the-way
> dialect where some missionary first wrote down "Chinese" words in the
> Roman alphabet.  It's as if the only Swedish a foreigner could learn was
> the way it was pronounced by the Finns, I guess <g>

In my mind Peking/Beijing is just as good an example as Cologne/K?ln,
Vienna/Wien, Munich/M?nchen, Germany/Deutschland, or Sweden/Sverige.
These names *are* the first version written down by some missionary.
(In fact, "Finland" is the *Swedish* name for the country that the
Finns call "Suomi".  It was conquered by a Swedish crusade in 1200,
then conquered by Russia in 1809, and became independent in 1917.)

--
  Lars Aronsson
  <lars at aronsson.se>
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metadata report solicited

body:
What we've got to do is solicit (OK, I'm hereby soliciting) a
*report*--not just a mailing list-style rant or collection of opinions,
but an intelligent, long, organized, clearly-written, in-depth
*analysis*, about the issues involved in our maintaining various kinds
of metadata.  This report would (intelligently) answer the following
questions:

What kind of metadata does our license require us to maintain, if any?
What sort of metadata would be particularly useful for us to keep track
of?
What sort of metadata can be maintained *automatically* (and
accurately)?
What are the problems associated with maintaining certain kinds of
metadata by hand?  Is there *any* metadata at all that we should expect
each other to maintain by hand (and which can only be reliably, if at
all, be maintained by hand)?

I vaguely recall we have an expert or two about this sort of thing on
board!

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McKee" <d.n.mckee at durham.ac.uk>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 9:51 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: another copyright issue

> I feel that some sort of 'Sources' namespace would be a good way of
> ensuring the information about the article has proper attributions.
> Whether it's personal knowledge (and therefore adding your name as
> someone personally knowledgeable about the subject) or lecture notes,
a
> paraphrasing from a reference or text book or copying wholesale from a
> public domain source, it'd be good to know.
>
> Perhaps we could have a third entry box for sources used when
> creating/editing an article, which appends to the 'Sources' namespace
> for quick entry, whilst still allowing the editing of the Sources
should
> the whole entry require judicious destruction / major rewriting.
>
> > Hello wikipeople!
> >
> > How can we ever be sure, that those people who (often anonymously)
write
> > new articles for wikipedia didn't just copy'n'paste it from another
> > site?
> >
> > I think we can't.
> >
> > Take for example
> > http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Gopher
> > http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/rus/42/internet/gopher.html
> > and chapter 2.6 here:
> > http://www.fitug.de/bildung/allgem/inetein2.html
> >
> > Is it all from the same author? Or is the wikipedia article just a
> > ('stolen') copy? Or the copy of a revised (but 'stolen') copy? Or is
the
> > source under the GNU Free Documentation License?
> >
> > How can we be sure about that?
> >
> > I think nobody wants that just authors with prooved identities (who
are
> > responsible for their writing) are allowed to contribute to
wikipedia.
> >
> > But are we on the save side if we just close our eyes and wait for
> > people to come and force us to delete articles that many people have
put
> > much work in, but that are based on their text?
> >
> > Sorry for my bad English, I'm German. If you don't understand what
I'm
> > talking about I'll try my best to make it clearer.
> >
> > Bye,
> > Kurt
> >
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
From: "Lars Aronsson" <lars at aronsson.se>
> Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > On the English Wikipedia we play by the "better safe than sorry"
> > rule: if an article appears to be a copyright violation, we remove
it.
>
> Who are "we"?  A non-formal group of core contributors, or Bomis
staff?
> Is there a similar "we" for the non-English language Wikipediae?

"We" in this case has been me as well as a lot of other people who
understand that the presence of copyrighted material in the Wikipedia
database puts the project at some legal risk.  We do our best to remove
obvious violations of copyright while, in uncertain cases, giving people
a chance to explain themselves.

> It appears to me that Bomis actively "runs" the English Wikipedia, and
> almost don't care about the other languages.

Well, this is inaccurate.  We care very much about the other languages.
But, not knowing other languages that I do know (with the possible
exception of German) well enough to participate in the wikis in those
other languages, we have left them to develop on their own.  Recently, I
set up the Intlwiki-L mailing list (cc'd) as a forum where issues shared
by all the Wikipedias could be hashed out.

We've tried (with limited success so far) to accommodate the people
working on a Polish wiki encyclopedia project (they have called
themselves the "Polish Wikipedia"), and they might still move.  (The
last I know about that is that I've tried to send them an e-mail, which
bounced.  :-( )

> I think it would help
> greatly to assign the role of a responsible editor to some person for
> each language, perhaps Kurt Jansson or Stefan Rybo for the German, and
> Linus Tolke for the Swedish Wikipedia.  This would make Wikipedia more
> like a franchising concept.  The national wikipedias could be run on a
> separate site (like wiki.rozeta.com.pl) if the responsible editor
> ("franchising owner") finds that useful.  Bomis would own the name
> Wikipedia and the concept and terms under which it is franchised.
>
> I guess what I am saying is that the national Wikipedias need a Larry,
> and that there are people who can take on that role if they know the
> role exists.
>
> (No, I am not a candidate for editor of the Swedish Wikipedia.)

This is an interesting proposition, and it sounds like a good idea, but
you know, anybody can, by force of intelligence and character, move a
wiki in a positive direction.  I'd agree with what Jimbo had to say
about it: I'm not sure what it would mean to designate someone as
official leader.  We'd have to *give* it some meaning.  In my opinion,
one reason Wikipedia has worked has been the fact that it is associated,
very loosely, with Nupedia, and people know that I am looking at,
evaluating, and actively guiding the project.  Moreover, it's important
that I'm a Ph.D. philosopher who has gained much relevant experience
from organizing Nupedia, as well as other academic projects as a
graduate student.  If there were some person who could be identified as
an active ringleader, and for whom it would *matter* to others that they
were considered the ringleader (i.e., someone whose credentials would
command immediate recognition and prima facie respect), that might be a
good idea.  But we'd still need to know what sort of rights and
responsibilities they have.  It's not even clear what rights and
responsibilities *I* have.  :-)

Maybe what we need to do is, on
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.fcgi?action=browse&id=Non-English_Wikipedi
as ,
as well as on intlwiki-l and Nupedia's interpret-l, add something to the
effect that we strongly encourage particularly well-qualified people to
get to work on the non-English wikis and try to speak as a voice of
reason and authority (both, hopefully :-) ) on the wiki.  Then, perhaps,
we can identify and have a list of any of the de facto "leadership" of
the Wikipedias, and make it official.

What do you think of that, folks?  These are just idle thoughts.  I
haven't really thought a lot about it.  I'm sure others could elaborate
the issues involved!

Larry


body:
Larry Sanger wrote:
> > Does Bomis hold official copyright on Wikipedia?
>
> Yes, more or less.  I'm not sure what that means.  I'll leave it to
> Jimbo to articulate a position on that, which I believe he might already
> have done.

I'm afraid we don't have an official position on that.  :-(

Plausible arguments have been made that the copyright rests with the
original authors, and that Bomis/Wikipedia stands in the position of
redistributor.

Big picture, the primary advantage to this for contributors might be
that Bomis can't _also release_ the content under a proprietary
license.  The owner of content which has been placed under a free
license can't ever "get it back", but can produce a derivative work
which is then distributed under a proprietary license.  This would be
in addition to the existing free version.

I assume that would be undesirable for our contributors, who surely
would be unhappy at such a development.

On the other hand, if the community decided someday that we wish the
content were under a different license, a different *free* license,
for some reason, then we'd have a hard time changing, even to another
free license, because all of the past contributors haven't given us
any right to do that.

The primary *disadvantage* to Bomis NOT owning copyright on the
articles is standing in case of a lawsuit.  I consider one of my jobs
as trustee of the project is to sue the hell out of Microsoft or
whoever if they try to do something unfree with the content.  I'll
have a harder time doing that if I'm not owner of the copyright, and
lots of individual owners might be hard to organize into a coherent
legal strategy.

Another major disadvantage (potentially) to our current "wide open"
situation, is that third parties like Yahoo who want to legitimately
use the content, under an open license, may be concerned that I can't
point to anything or anyone as the definitive copyright owner, unless
it is me.

All this stuff makes my head hurt, I must admit.  I just want to make
a free encyclopedia.

--
*********************************************************************
*"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its*
* own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but *
* there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be *
*  pursuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can   *
*  certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -Jeff Cooper    *
********************************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] production notes

body:
On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 03:57:39PM +0100, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote:
> When writing or substantially rewriting an article, I would sometimes
> like a space where I could record certain "design decisions" made
> during creation of a paragraph. I think this could help future editors
> to sensibly continue my work.

Support for including HTML comments would do what you describe. I
don't know what would be involved in doing that in the software,
though.

--
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

I think a lot.
	--Bill Gates


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Google and Static pages

body:
The current "real" URL http:www.wikipedia.com/wiki/RecentChanges is
internally translated into http://wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Recent_Changes by
the server software. The same thing will happen to the PHP script. Maybe
someone could demonstrate that for the meta.wikipedia?

Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Larry Sanger
> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 9:54 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Google and Static pages
>
>
> From: "Jo?o M?rio Miranda" <jmiranda at explicacoes.com>
> > I believe Google is now sending trafic to static wikipedia pages. For
> > example, Recent Changes is indexed at Google with the adress:
> >
> > http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Recent_Changes
> >
> > This may be a problem when we change to the script made by Magnus
> > Manske. Does the new script creates stactic pages with the same
> > URL?
>
> I think someone has already replied to this, but if not, let me just say
> that I have expressed my concern about this issue a few different times,
> and Jimbo seems to think he'll be able to set some server settings so
> that the URLs are exactly the same as they have been.
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: manningbartlett at emcglobal.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Metadata report solicited

body:
Hmmm... this would be my area of expertise I think...

I'll think about it and draft a initial report by the weekend. I'm kinda tied
up in income-generating activities at present, unfortunately - I'm doing a
remarkably similar (!) report for the Australian Taxation Office at present.

Manning

> What we've got to do is solicit (OK, I'm hereby soliciting) a
> *report*--not just a mailing list-style rant or collection of opinions,
> but an intelligent, long, organized, clearly-written, in-depth
> *analysis*, about the issues involved in our maintaining various kinds
> of metadata.  This report would (intelligently) answer the following
> questions:
>
> What kind of metadata does our license require us to maintain, if any?
> What sort of metadata would be particularly useful for us to keep track
> of?
> What sort of metadata can be maintained *automatically* (and
> accurately)?
> What are the problems associated with maintaining certain kinds of
> metadata by hand?  Is there *any* metadata at all that we should expect
> each other to maintain by hand (and which can only be reliably, if at
> all, be maintained by hand)?
>
> I vaguely recall we have an expert or two about this sort of thing on
> board!
>
> Larry
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dave McKee" <d.n.mckee at durham.ac.uk>
> To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
> Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 9:51 AM
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: another copyright issue
>
>
> > I feel that some sort of 'Sources' namespace would be a good way of
> > ensuring the information about the article has proper attributions.
> > Whether it's personal knowledge (and therefore adding your name as
> > someone personally knowledgeable about the subject) or lecture notes,
> a
> > paraphrasing from a reference or text book or copying wholesale from a
> > public domain source, it'd be good to know.
> >
> > Perhaps we could have a third entry box for sources used when
> > creating/editing an article, which appends to the 'Sources' namespace
> > for quick entry, whilst still allowing the editing of the Sources
> should
> > the whole entry require judicious destruction / major rewriting.
> >
> > > Hello wikipeople!
> > >
> > > How can we ever be sure, that those people who (often anonymously)
> write
> > > new articles for wikipedia didn't just copy'n'paste it from another
> > > site?
> > >
> > > I think we can't.
> > >
> > > Take for example
> > > http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Gopher
> > > http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/rus/42/internet/gopher.html
> > > and chapter 2.6 here:
> > > http://www.fitug.de/bildung/allgem/inetein2.html
> > >
> > > Is it all from the same author? Or is the wikipedia article just a
> > > ('stolen') copy? Or the copy of a revised (but 'stolen') copy? Or is
> the
> > > source under the GNU Free Documentation License?
> > >
> > > How can we be sure about that?
> > >
> > > I think nobody wants that just authors with prooved identities (who
> are
> > > responsible for their writing) are allowed to contribute to
> wikipedia.
> > >
> > > But are we on the save side if we just close our eyes and wait for
> > > people to come and force us to delete articles that many people have
> put
> > > much work in, but that are based on their text?
> > >
> > > Sorry for my bad English, I'm German. If you don't understand what
> I'm
> > > talking about I'll try my best to make it clearer.
> > >
> > > Bye,
> > > Kurt
> > >
> > [Wikipedia-l]
> > To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> > http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
This sounds like it could be very useful, particularly if it has some
features that will make it easier to use than the current (hand-made)
system.  I also guess that some more of us (including myself) should
look more carefully at what format the year and date pages are
following.  I don't know how many of those pages we've made, but it must
be a lot by now...

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Kissane" <sj_kissane at yahoo.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 5:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Yearbook Software

> --- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> > In three sentences, what is this software supposed
> > to do?
> >
> > Larry
> Puts navigation elements on Year in Review pages
> automatically -- e.g. automatically links to next five
> and previous five years. Allow you to add someone's
> date of birth to a year page (e.g. [[1992]]), and it
> automatically appears on the anniversary of their
> birth as well (e.g. [[January 15]]).
>
> Unfortunately I know see it doesn't really work on
> Sourceforge, although it worked fine at home (they
> have newer software than I do). I was probably a
> little too premature announcing it here. Oh well...
>
> Simon.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
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> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

body:
From: "Lars Aronsson" <lars at aronsson.se>
> I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author
> [[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in
> personal names.  In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen.
> Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is
> almost never used in Denmark.  This is as common in Denmark as the
> U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English,
> French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans
> Christian.  Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it
> follows the established English convention.

Yes, I agree with this.

> This makes it just like a translation.  The Danish words "sm?rrebr?d",
> "K?benhavn", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English
> "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen".  We are used
> to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also
> personal names are in fact translated.  I find that fascinating.

Yep!

> This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?

Sure, that would be a useful bit of information to put in biographies:
"In Denmark, he is known as 'H. C. Andersen.'"

> Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document
> a person's name or life?  Shouldn't there be?

I imagine there are books written about it both by historians and by lit
professors.

> I know we discussed
> this in May in [[Biography/Talk]].  I stated that biography is a
> scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence.

Well, if I recall correctly, I was asking for evidence that there was
such a thing as a biography subdiscipline of any other field, or if
there were biography departments at universities.  I've never heard of
either.  Of course, scholars in history, literature, philosophy, and
other fields are constantly writing biographies.

> I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list
> people that are still alive.  Is this a rule or just a coincidence?

I doubt there even is such a coincidence.  In any dictionary of
biography important living people will be listed.

> Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write
> biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae?  Is there a
> Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?

There is a Nupedia page :-) :

http://www.nupedia.com/policy.shtml

Larry


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Which logo?

body:
Hi folks,

I'm going to post this message in three places: here, Wikipedia
Announcements, and the Meta-Wikipedia logo page.

The new Wikipedia logo candidates are listed here:

http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Logo_suggestions

There are a half-dozen or so that I would be perfectly happy with.
There is one possibility that no one has yet generated, viz., the
present logo with the words "Wikipedia" and possibly also "The Free
Encyclopedia" superimposed, somehow.

Send me your opinions either on the "Logo Suggestions" page itself or
privately in e-mail (lsanger at nupedia dot com).  I will use my best
judgment in coming to a decision, and do my best to make the most people
happy.

Larry

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
 Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. ||   lsanger at nupedia.com
 Editor-in-Chief, Nupedia  ||  http://www.nupedia.com
 Ordinary Wikipedian       || http://www.wikipedia.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wedding approaches; I might be AWOL more often than usual

body:
Hi folks,

I'm getting married this Saturday.  I'll be taking Friday, Monday, and
Tuesday off, and today and tomorrow promise to be rather stressful and
busy too.  Moreover, after next Tuesday, my bride and I will be
travelling around quite a bit for one reason or another.  So, as the
title says, I might be AWOL ("absent without leave") more often than
usual.

I must apologize to the Nupedians for failing to tabulate that vote we
took, what, a few months ago now.  If it hasn't been one thing, it's
been another...

Larry


from_name: Eric P. Nichols

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Nupedia-l] Wedding approaches; I might be AWOL more often than usual

body:
	Congratulations!    May your quiver be full!

	God Bless,

	Eric

--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm getting married this Saturday.  I'll be taking
> Friday, Monday, and
> Tuesday off, and today and tomorrow promise to be
> rather stressful and
> busy too.  Moreover, after next Tuesday, my bride
> and I will be
> travelling around quite a bit for one reason or
> another.  So, as the
> title says, I might be AWOL ("absent without leave")
> more often than
> usual.
>
> I must apologize to the Nupedians for failing to
> tabulate that vote we
> took, what, a few months ago now.  If it hasn't been
> one thing, it's
> been another...
>
> Larry
>
> [Nupedia-l] -- a Nupedia.com mailing list
> Help build the largest and finest encyclopedia in
> the world!
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/nupedia-l
>
>

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
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from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Which logo?

body:
> Hi folks,

Hi Larry!

> The new Wikipedia logo candidates are listed here:
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Logo_suggestions
>
> There are a half-dozen or so that I would be perfectly happy with.
> There is one possibility that no one has yet generated, viz., the
> present logo with the words "Wikipedia" and possibly also "The Free
> Encyclopedia" superimposed, somehow.

I think number 24 is very cool!

> I will use my best judgment in coming to a decision, and do my best
> to make the most people happy.

How about an election? (Or pick no. 24 :-) )

Bye,
Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Larry's wedding

body:
And I will be out of town this weekend, too, attending Larry's
wedding.  So will the rest of us, actually.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] favicon.ico

body:
While we're playing with logos, I should not that Wikipedia also needs
a favicon.ico file.

What this is:

When people bookmark wikipedia using Windows IE or Konqueror (KDE,
typically on Linux), their browser requests 'favicon.ico'.  This is
then used as a fancy little symbol in the bookmarks list.

It's neat!

http://www.favicon.com/

Actually, this website has some free ones, but we should (as always!)
check the license, because we'll probably want to redistribute it.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Home page time

in_reply_to: <009f01c178bf$a29a6a80$0189adcb@oemcomputer>; from manning@bartlett.net on Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 09:21:39PM +1100

body:
It occurs to me that there isn't any particular reason why we should
have the date on the home page.  Some people enjoy updating it,
though, so it may do no harm.  :-)

As for the American bias, well, none is intended of course.  I
personally live in USPST, that's how it happened in the first place.
:-) The server time needs to be on USPST for my sanity, however the
recent changes page could default to UTC/GMT I suppose.

---
*********************************************************************
*"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its*
* own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but *
* there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be *
*  pursuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can   *
*  certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -Jeff Cooper    *
********************************************************************


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Home page time

body:
Easy soultion: The PHP script has variables for the date that are updated
each time the page is viewed. I can set it to EST as default, and for
logged-in users, it can show their local time, according to the time
difference they choose.

Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 9:46 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Home page time
>
>
> It occurs to me that there isn't any particular reason why we should
> have the date on the home page.  Some people enjoy updating it,
> though, so it may do no harm.  :-)
>
> As for the American bias, well, none is intended of course.  I
> personally live in USPST, that's how it happened in the first place.
> :-) The server time needs to be on USPST for my sanity, however the
> recent changes page could default to UTC/GMT I suppose.
>
> ---
> *********************************************************************
> *"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its*
> * own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but *
> * there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be *
> *  pursuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can   *
> *  certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -Jeff Cooper    *
> ********************************************************************
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l