from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

subject: [Commons-l] Copyrighted free use

body:
I see that lots of people loads images and give them template
{{Copyrighted free use}}. The funny thing about it is, that in most
cases they are screenshots from TV, movies, movie posters, game
covers, etc. So maybe we should make a large cleanup of images in this
category, couse there can be tons of copyvios...

AJF/WarX

ps. why most copyvios is made by people talking in spanic langugage  ?


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Amazon up Alexa creek

body:
Man, if you can read a book at Amazon, tell me how. I know how to
slowly and painfully "browse" three pages of a book at a time there,
but otherwise it is just a big media store, and whatever you save in
cost you lose in shipping (unless you don't mind getting it for a
month or so). I read more books than the average person, but I don't
use Amazon much on a day-to-day basis.

FF

On 8/18/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> So, ehmm, people are preferring to read wikipedia to, ehmm, actually
> read a book? Well, that's good news. Right? For us atleast, whether
> it's good news for humanity is another question...........
>
> On 8/18/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > For those who watch the Alexa numbers. Seems WP has just overtaken Amazon.com; which recovers the place lost when YouTube passed us.
> >
> > Charles
> >
> > -----------------------------------------
> > Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
> > Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
> > Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] News.com: Teen's warning on the gospel of Wikipedia

body:
"The name Wikipedia comes from the Latin root "pedia," meaning "book
of arcane facts" and the ancient German root "wiki," meaning
"potentially altered by any idiot with Internet access." Actually,
Wikipedia combines the words "encyclopedia" and "wiki," a type of
software that facilitates online editing."

I have to admit, it made me laugh quite a bit.

It's a great article on the whole, I'm very impressed. Probably the
best one I've seen about the site. It manages to be completely
balanced and ultimately favorable without ever sounding either
evangelistic or scaremongering. And it is also very well written,
downright funny at times. Go figure that it would take a college
undergrad to write the first entirely reasonable article on Wikipedia.

FF

On 8/15/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Great news.com commentary piece on WP, humorous and serious at the same time:
>
> http://news.com.com/Teens+warning+on+the+gospel+of+Wikipedia/2010-1038_3-6104446.html?tag=fd_carsl
>
> >From the article:
> "Of course, for students, Wikipedia is the miracle cure for
> procrastination (and there's science to back that up; a recent poll
> showed that nine out of 10 doctors suggested Wikipedia as a cure to
> putting homework off. The other 10 percent were too busy uploading
> spurious entries to participate in the poll)."
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy hypothetical

body:
On 8/20/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >jahiegel wrote:
> >>I cannot abide the suggestion that the community writ
> >>large truly believe, legal/publicity concerns aside, that we ever ought to
> >>concern ourselves with the external consequences of our editing.
> >>
> >>
> >You are in the extreme minority on this issue.  Most of us do care
> >passionately about the ethics of what we are doing, and how it affects
> >people.  Indeed, for most of us, it is part of the very fabric of the
> >reasons we participate.  We are human beings, trying to do something
> >good, not automatons puking out soulless "content".
> >
> >Your position seems to grudgingly admit that we ought not to libel
> >people, since it might cost the project money or put it at risk.  Most
> >of us take a different view: we ought not to libel people because we are
> >good, we are ethical, we are trying to produce something important in
> >the world that matters to the world, and we want to do it the right way.
> >
> You're preaching to the enlightened!  Those of us who believe in this
> probably all did so before we ever heard of Wikipedia, and mostly gained
> it through life experience.  Reading Aristotle's ethics would not change
> this, just as reading Aristotle would by itself not produce an ethical
> person.
>
> Regret it as I may, I have to admit that the vast majority of society
> have a great deal of difficulty coping without rules.  When you want to
> build on ethics it can be painful watching those who can't get it, and
> tempting to take over and give them the rules they want. But doing that
> comes with a price.  The same contrast exists between a person with a
> fifth grade education that builds a successful business empire and an
> MBA that can't seem to rise above middle management.
>
> An ethical person not only avoids putting others at risk, but he accepts
> the personal risk of his own actions.  He knows  enough to take the risk
> of breaking rules for a good cause.
>
> Ec
>
See also the [[Milgram experiment]].  It certainly seems to be the
case that a large portion of society has difficulty making ethical
decisions when rules are lacking.  More specifically, perhaps, when
rules are taken away.

As an obligatory on-topic remark, I agree 100% with what Jimbo has
just said.  Libel laws or none, Wikipedia shouldn't be spreading
unsubstantiated rumors.  Fortunately US libel laws don't seem to
preclude any speech that we should be making in the first place.
Unfortunately, my understanding is that some foreign laws may,
specifically when quoting another party's defamatory statement (with
citation and attribution).

Anthony


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/20/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> By the way, if we really do want to remove potentially defamatory
> statements from all of Wikipedia, and not just the articles, I'd like
> to nominate [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro]]
> for deletion.  The comment made by Muriel is particularly defamatory
> to me.

It's largely a statement of Muriel's opinion of you, and thus not libel.

And no, we do not, I believe, intend in general to remove statements
from arbitration cases, absent serious legal threat.

In fact, asking for it, whether you are serious or simply making a
point, illustrates many of the issues you have had with the Wikipedia
community rather well.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/20/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> An interesting question is what to do when the false rumors are
> well-sourced, but the real truth isn't.  I'd think this was rare
> except that I've seen it happen on quite a few occassions.  I'm sure
> Jimbo can attest to the fact that the media quite often turns complete
> falsehoods into what passes for a reliably sourced statement when it
> comes to living people.  When this happens should we give the person a
> chance to defend themselves?  How can we do this while keeping with
> the standards of verifiability and no original research?

Yes, this comes up fairly frequently; the press often gets things
wildly wrong, especially when a story is just too juicy to fully
fact-check, or through sheer laziness. (this is why a 'reliable
sources' policy is more shaky than people like to admit)

What I've personally considered is that under certain circumstances,
while original research cannot remain in an article, original research
can IMO justify leaving something OUT of an article.  In other words,
I think that if someone can prove, or show to a good level of
certainty, that something is NOT true, no matter how well sourced, it
should be left out - even if that proof is done with non-published
sources.

-Matt


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] editorial judgment and process (was Re: Defamation
 policy hypothetical)

body:
G'day Steve,

> I wish we had editorial judgment. Specifically, I wish we had a way of
> determining which of our editors had good judgment, and empowered them
> to do so.

I was going to suggest that we do.  Those with good editorial judgment
are the ones who don't follow the rules anyway, and so the system sorts
itself out by making those who need the rules most being the only ones
who follow them.  However, I thought about it a bit too much, and that
led to this post.

Bear with me for a moment, we're talking about a matrix in words again.
  There are four possibilities:

1. Those with good judgment who follow the rules
2. Those with good judgment who Ignore All Rules(TM)
3. Those with poor judgment who follow the rules
4. Those with poor judgment who Ignore All Rules(TM)

Now, of these, the process wonks with good judgment tend to become less
wonky as time goes on, promoting the worthwhile aspects of process but
acknowledging that when it leads to an absurdity one should never follow
process to the letter.

Those with good judgment who do what they think is in the best interests
of the encyclopaedia tend to get away with it.  Boo-yah!

Those with poor judgment who ignore the rules get blocked, because the
rules would be all that keeps them from being dickheads.  I don't intend
to cry too much over them.

Finally, we get to those with poor judgment who follow the rules.  These
people are a *problem*.  They don't seem to care about doing the Right
Thing or the Wrong Thing, they don't seem to know what's appropriate
behaviour and what isn't, they don't seem to be capable of saving their
grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without ... you
get the idea.  This is a problem for five reasons:

   a) They get upset at those of us who are willing to make editorial or
      administrative decisions even though we *haven't* received orders
      signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queries, lost, found,
      subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft
      peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.

   b) They can make some really rather shit decisions, because of that
      "process can lead to absurdity" thing mentioned above.

   c) They refuse to accept that there's anything at all silly about
      their behaviour, becuase the rules say such-and-such, and how can
      it be wrong if they're following the rules?  This same point of
      view leads to the famous "instruction creep", as they to make more
      rules, subconsciously trying (I reckon) to provide enough
      guidelines to blindly follow that they can never be held
      responsible for anything.

   d) THEY CORRUPT THE YOUTH!!!!!  In more sensible terms, what I mean is
      that new users tend to assume that Wikipedia, given its size and
      status and their own experience with the Real World(TM), must be a
      bureaucracy.  Process wonks are only too happy to oblige.  I recall
      one anonymous user told he couldn't copyedit an article on a video
      game character without discussing it on the talkpage first!

   e) Which leads me to my biggest complaint: they get the rules *wrong*.
      It's bad enough to insist that we all follow the rules regardless
      of the end result, but when *they don't even know what the rules
      are*, they become a menace.  This is my current hobbyhorse: the
      "Chinese Whispers Effect".  It means that someone with the wrong
      idea about policy but who thinks he knows what he's talking about
      will attempt to impose his view of policy on other editors, who
      will misunderstand and take an even more corrupted view ... and so
      on.

      Examples include: the video game talkpage thing above; someone on
      DRV who attempted to use the definition at [[Rough consensus]]
      (mainspace article!) to argue that my satirical Administrator
      Discretion Zone really did exist (!!!); the fellow who opposed an
      RfA because "there is no excuse, *ever*, for not using the
      {{testN}} templates to warn someone"; the people replacing removed
      {{prod}} tags because the article author isn't allow to remove it
      (or because the reason for removal wasn't considered sufficient);
      the people insisting articles must be speedied because "it fails
      WP:CORP"; and ... well, how long do we want this list to *get*?

The more intelligent actions (not to say there haven't been some
blindingly stupid actions too) of Wikipedians like Lar and to a lesser
extent Aaron Brenneman and Xoloz have convinced me that people who
espouse a "process is important" view can be worth listening to at
times.  Process wonkism is not necessarily the enemy of Clue, but
Cluelessness when combined with wonkism is a bloody menace.

There are some Clueful editors --- see "corrupted youth" --- who merely
hung out with the wrong crowd and are salvageable.  However, there are
others out there who are too ignorant to bear; too arrogant to teach[0];
too bossy to ignore.  What's the answer?

<snip/>

[0] I'm the first to admit I can be an arrogant prick at times, too.
     Arguably, I have taken on such a persona to write this post.  I like
     to think, though, that in comparison with the people who've
     inflicted their stupidity on this community in the guise of
     upholding policy, I've earned it.

--
Mark Gallagher
"You shit-lover!  Off-brusher!  Jaded, bitter joy-crusher!  Failure has
made you so cruel!" (Never get Amanda Palmer angry)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
G'day Anthony,

> On 8/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>Ok, so now we've moved from "I removed the bit where it claimed that
>>John Smith slept with Mrs Robinson" to "I removed this defamatory
>>claim - click here to see what it said".
>>
>>Materially, what's changed?
>
> I'd phrase it as "I removed a possibly defamatory claim because it was
> unsourced [link to diff]".  What's materially changed is that the
> claim is a bit more hidden, and probably more importantly, that the
> claim won't show up in a google search (as diff pages are under the
> robots exclusion).
>
> It's also just cleaner and easier (IMO).  Why copy/paste the claim
> when you can just link to it?

I don't say this to you often, Anthony, but: good show.  I think you've
hit the nail firmly on the head there.

Why *not* just explain what you've done and link to a diff?  Easier for
you, safer for us, for considerate for them.

--
"The theater management hears about our meeting and wants us to get
supplemental insurance that covers lightning-throwing death machines."
(Mike Daisey plans a monologue)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Andreas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Java applets for Wikiversity

body:
Hi,
  I tried to find some info about storing Java applets on the Wikimedia
servers, and was not very successful. Maybe somebody here can help me out.

  From what I understand, applet/jar files are not welcome on the
servers, because there is no valid/convincing use case. However,
thinking about an interactive "lab session" for Wikiversity, and seems
to me a Java applet would be the best fit for what one would look for.
Actually, there are some GPL sourced applets for physics demos out
there, that show the possible usefulness of those for Wikiversity, eg.
look at
http://galileoandeinstein.phys.virginia.edu/more_stuff/Applets/ProjectileMotion/applet.html.

  Anybody want to chime in on this? Maybe there is a better way to
implement an interactive page like that, and I just have not found it, yet.

    Andreas =:-)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Samuel Klein

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Spcommittee-l] Special Projects Committee open
	meeting : Friday, August 26, 2200 UTC

body:
Alas and alack.  It looks as though some people can make the first
date, beyond the spc members who rsvp'ed ahead of time. (and I
don't think that I can do sep 2...)

Can we do both?  The first one couldbe more informal discussion,
partly to get a sense of what might be accomplished a week after.  And
then there will be more of a chance for all the spc members to make it
to one of the two meetings.

I've put Sep 2 and 3 as possible alternate dates on the agenda page.
Those of you who are interested, please note which of these THREE
dates you would be able to make... and put items you care about on the
agenda.

--SJ

On 8/20/06, Florence Devouard <anthere at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> ahum
>
> errr
>
> ouch
>
> I just found out today that I won't be free that evening... and
> the place where I will be as no internet...
>
> /me very very very embarassed.
>
> could we possibly push it one week later ?
>
> anthere
>
> sorry :-(
>
>
> Samuel Klein wrote:
>
> >Correction: that's Saturday August 26, not Friday.   Hope to see you
> >there.  :-)   SJ
> >
> >On 8/20/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Dear all,
> >>
> >>The Special Projects Committee is holding an open meeting this Friday
> >>at 2200 UTC on IRC (channel to be determined).  Please sign up on meta
> >>if you are interested in attending, and add notes to the agenda
> >>whether or not you can be there at that time:
> >>
> >>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Special_projects_committee#Public_meetings
> >>
> >>The meeting is expected to last around two hours.  Note that there is
> >>also a public mailing list, spcommittee-l, that you can subscribe to
> >>discuss projects before and after.
> >>
> >>Best,
> >>  SJ
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >Spcommittee-l mailing list
> >Spcommittee-l at mail.wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/spcommittee-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spcommittee-l mailing list
> Spcommittee-l at mail.wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/spcommittee-l
>


list: wikimedia-l


list: commons-l

from_name: Sherool

subject: [Commons-l] Copyrighted free use

body:
On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 11:28:49 +0200, Artur Fija?kowski
<wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:

> I see that lots of people loads images and give them template
> {{Copyrighted free use}}. The funny thing about it is, that in most
> cases they are screenshots from TV, movies, movie posters, game
> covers, etc. So maybe we should make a large cleanup of images in this
> category, couse there can be tons of copyvios...
>
> AJF/WarX
>
> ps. why most copyvios is made by people talking in spanic langugage  ?

If the status on enwiki is any clue the majority of those will be copyvios
yes... I suspect "free use" has a lot of people confused into thinking
that anyting they did not pay for can use that tag or something. It also
seems like a convenient dumping groupd for "I have permission to use this"
type images, pluss stuff from sites that allow
personal/educational/noncommercial use (I guess they figure if personal
use is allowed then the tag that says free use everywhere is allowed is
"close enough"). Then again I've seen people write "all rights reserved"
in the upload summary and then slap the "no rights reserved" tag on it so
I suspect a lot of people are not even trying to get it right.

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


from_name: Przykuta

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikialbum - new type of Wikibook or new project

body:
Please, look at that test page.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Przykuta/Album:Jasna_G%C3%B3ra

I think about Wikialbum, as a book of our quality images.

Color of backgrond, italic or other problems are open. At commons galleries show images at small boxes, desription is in all languages and usualy it is week desprition.

Commons is useful for as, wikimedians, but it is not the best for users who want to look for galleries of ouer images. We have a lot of week images. To almums we can choise the best or quality images.

So, problem is - new Wikimedia project or new space at Wikibooks or at Commonswiki. I think that better will be new project for Wikialbum. Album or atlas are not book like "How to do"

with regards

przykuta


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
RONALD C LESTER wrote:
<spam>

Listmods?

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
RONALD C LESTER wrote:
<spam>

Listmods?

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
RONALD C LESTER wrote:
<spam>

Listmods?

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
RONALD C LESTER wrote:
<spam>

Listmods?

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

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from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] Copyrighted free use

body:
On 8/20/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps what we need to do is to make some more translations of that
> particular tag, then, as we have with some other tags? If a group of
> non-English speakers are consistently mis-using a tag which is only
> written in English then it would make sense to have someone translate
> it...

I think it's far more likely that an increase of misunderstandings
with spanish speakers is due to the instructions on spanish wikipedia,
more than any lack of translations on commons part .. Their upload
link takes people directly to commons.

The simple fact of the mater is that Joe Sixpack, no matter what
language he speaks, thinks that material he pulled off the web at no
cost is also free for us to use. (see
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-pollmusic0906aug09,0,3450772.story?coll=orl-living-headlines
for a related study).

We must move forward with mandatory copyright education for new
commons users, and of course that will need to be in many languages.
If the projects don't like the extra hump for new users then they can
stop directing their users straight to commons.  The simple fact of
the matter is the incorrectly tagged images are a huge pain to detect
and fix.  Often it is nearly impossible for the job to be done right
without the help of the uploader... On en we are seeing large numbers
of images falsly claimed as GFDL-self, these are hard to detect.. how
many more of these are we getting, on en and commons, that we can't
detect?

By failing to ensure that our content is actually Free Content, we are
failing at our mission.  Ease of use should not override our primary
mission.


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/19/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Perhaps a corrolary is "if the Wikipedia article can significantly
>> influence its subject compared to anything else written about them,
>> should we have it?"
>
> If a Wikipedia article can't influence the public's perception of a
> subject, why bother having it?
>

I'm sorry, I must be hearing things. For a moment I thought you said
"Why do we have this stupid thing called NPOV?"

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> On 8/19/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
>> Steve Bennett wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/19/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
>>>> Do that and I will personally block you.
>>> Are these threats by admins really necessary?
>> It's not a threat, but a promise. :-)
>
>
> Then get to work - I think you have a few hundred admins to block :)
>

You are closer to the truth than you could ever imagine.

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

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from_name: stevertigo

body:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > Notability at the fact level is even harder to determine than
> > notability at the subject level. Ask a republican whether Bush's
> > alleged administrative adventures in the National Guard were
> > "notable". Ask a Democrat the same.

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> But I still might agree with your basic point, that notability at the
> fact level is harder to determine that notability at the subject level.

Or to put it another way: Should there be a WP:FAME policy? Not to be too
much of a smart alec, but this thread is about "defamation" after all. To be
fair, in my criticism I may have been confusing WP:OFFICE, WP:LIBEL, and WP:BIO,
and wound up somehow blending all of these together.

So its good IMHO to see that people here have *finally* been able to re-spin
WP:BIO in terms of NPOV, rather than making all of these references to LAWSUIT
and CUDDLE, which were entirely confusing.

Once again the criticism has helped to clarify the message.

- Stevertigo

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


from_name: James Hare

body:
Look good, but there are already albums on Wikimedia Commons --
http://commons.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington for example of a
gallery. Commons also keep galleries of its featured pictures.

On 8/20/06, Przykuta <przykuta at o2.pl> wrote:
>
> Please, look at that test page.
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Przykuta/Album:Jasna_G%C3%B3ra
>
> I think about Wikialbum, as a book of our quality images.
>
> Color of backgrond, italic or other problems are open. At commons
> galleries show images at small boxes, desription is in all languages and
> usualy it is week desprition.
>
> Commons is useful for as, wikimedians, but it is not the best for users
> who want to look for galleries of ouer images. We have a lot of week images.
> To almums we can choise the best or quality images.
>
> So, problem is - new Wikimedia project or new space at Wikibooks or at
> Commonswiki. I think that better will be new project for Wikialbum. Album or
> atlas are not book like "How to do"
>
> with regards
>
> przykuta
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
--- Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

> Like saying "the material I removed from the article" without saying "the
> claims about marital infidelity with person X that I removed from the
> article".  There are lots of ways to talk around an issue without actually
> saying the defamatory thing.

I dont follow. Could you give us a real example? For instance
how would I refer on the talk page to the claim that Ann Coulter
once gave a venereal disease to Clinton (on Festivus), without
actually referring to it? You can hypothetical examples if you like.

-Stevertigo

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
> > I agree with the idea of treating bios with care, but that does not
> > necessarily necessitate the use of an entirely different methodology
> > than any other wiki page - including censoring talk pages. You may as
> > well start a biowiki that operates under entirely different rules.
>
> BLP at its best (I'm not saying there isn't any instruction creep and
> CWE cruft appearing at the edges) is not about establishing a double
> standard.  It's about making damn sure the standards we should be
> applying to other sections of the encyclopaedia as well are followed on
> the biographies of living persons.
>
> Untrue statements should not be published in our encyclopaedia.  Since
> the project is so big (and we have contributors who are misinformed,
> stupid, or just plain malicious), problems are unavoidable.  By being
> strict about the biographies of living persons, we're trying to crack
> down on problems that can actually hurt people here and now.  True
> statements which happen to raise the ire of an article's subject,
> however, should remain, and insisting on a reliable source for such
> statements simply gives us something to point to next time the article's
> subject comes around to complain.
>
I think it's important to take a grain of salt with this argument.
The fact is that untrue statements pretty much anywhere in Wikipedia
can actually hurt people here and now.  Personally I don't really
think there is much justification for having a different set of rules
for biographies of living people.  What I do think is that they
generally need to be monitored more closely than the average article,
because the subjects tend to be more controversial.

By the way, if we really do want to remove potentially defamatory
statements from all of Wikipedia, and not just the articles, I'd like
to nominate [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro]]
for deletion.  The comment made by Muriel is particularly defamatory
to me.

> For some editors, WP:BLP is the difference between "fuck you, man, you
> can't tell us what to do" and "I'm sorry you feel aggrieved.  Our
> article about you is well-sourced, however, and contains no errors of
> fact as far as we can see.  If you dispute the content of a particular
> statement we've made, please point to a reliable source providing an
> alternate theory and we'll be happy to update the article.  Thank you
> for helping us improve Wikipedia."
>
An interesting question is what to do when the false rumors are
well-sourced, but the real truth isn't.  I'd think this was rare
except that I've seen it happen on quite a few occassions.  I'm sure
Jimbo can attest to the fact that the media quite often turns complete
falsehoods into what passes for a reliably sourced statement when it
comes to living people.  When this happens should we give the person a
chance to defend themselves?  How can we do this while keeping with
the standards of verifiability and no original research?

Anthony


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing

body:
Dear all,

I was trying to find a permalink to a mail (to this list) that I had
in my Inbox from August 2005. After ages of searching, doublechecking,
and much confusion, I'm pretty sure that a substantial chunk of the
archive from that month is missing.

If you go to the 'by date' view for that month
<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/date.html>,
there's a post from Robert Horning sent on the 6th [1], immediately
followed by a post from Walter van Kalken sent on the 14th [2].

So, I'm wondering if anyone else can shed some light on this, or how I
could go about referencing a mail sent between those dates?

Thanks,

Cormac

[1] Subject: "Licensing wikinews"
<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/003839.html>
[2] Subject:"Re:Google Techtalk"
<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/003840.html>


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing

body:
On 20/08/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I was trying to find a permalink to a mail (to this list) that I had
> in my Inbox from August 2005. After ages of searching, doublechecking,
> and much confusion, I'm pretty sure that a substantial chunk of the
> archive from that month is missing.
>
> If you go to the 'by date' view for that month
> <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/date.html>,
> there's a post from Robert Horning sent on the 6th [1], immediately
> followed by a post from Walter van Kalken sent on the 14th [2].
>
> So, I'm wondering if anyone else can shed some light on this, or how I
> could go about referencing a mail sent between those dates?

WikiEN-l is also missing mail from those dates (I had the same problem
as you...). I asked about it in December.

On 29/12/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:

> The mailing list server(s) suffered some sort of catastrophic meltdown
> and the data they contained was lost. The developers had to reinstate
> a week-old backup of the entire mailing list server, including bans
> and subscriptions (on multiple, if not all, lists). This meant that
> users who had unsubscribed during that week started getting list mail
> again and those who had subscribed stopped getting the mail. It was
> very inconvenient.

Not much help, but at least it explains what happened.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing

body:
On 8/20/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/08/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I was trying to find a permalink to a mail (to this list) that I had
> > in my Inbox from August 2005. After ages of searching, doublechecking,
> > and much confusion, I'm pretty sure that a substantial chunk of the
> > archive from that month is missing.
> >
> > If you go to the 'by date' view for that month
> > <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/date.html>,
> > there's a post from Robert Horning sent on the 6th [1], immediately
> > followed by a post from Walter van Kalken sent on the 14th [2].
> >
> > So, I'm wondering if anyone else can shed some light on this, or how I
> > could go about referencing a mail sent between those dates?
>
> WikiEN-l is also missing mail from those dates (I had the same problem
> as you...). I asked about it in December.
>
> On 29/12/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The mailing list server(s) suffered some sort of catastrophic meltdown
> > and the data they contained was lost. The developers had to reinstate
> > a week-old backup of the entire mailing list server, including bans
> > and subscriptions (on multiple, if not all, lists). This meant that
> > users who had unsubscribed during that week started getting list mail
> > again and those who had subscribed stopped getting the mail. It was
> > very inconvenient.
>
> Not much help, but at least it explains what happened.
>

No, but thanks very much for clearing that up, Andrew. So, absolutely
nothing we can do, right?

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing


from_name: Florence Devouard

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Spcommittee-l] Special Projects Committee open
 meeting :	Friday, August 26, 2200 UTC

body:
ahum

errr

ouch

<small>I just found out today that I won't be free that evening... and
the place where I will be as no internet...</small>

/me very very very embarassed.

could we possibly push it one week later ?

anthere

sorry :-(

Samuel Klein wrote:

>Correction: that's Saturday August 26, not Friday.   Hope to see you
>there.  :-)   SJ
>
>On 8/20/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Dear all,
>>
>>The Special Projects Committee is holding an open meeting this Friday
>>at 2200 UTC on IRC (channel to be determined).  Please sign up on meta
>>if you are interested in attending, and add notes to the agenda
>>whether or not you can be there at that time:
>>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Special_projects_committee#Public_meetings
>>
>>The meeting is expected to last around two hours.  Note that there is
>>also a public mailing list, spcommittee-l, that you can subscribe to
>>discuss projects before and after.
>>
>>Best,
>>  SJ
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Spcommittee-l mailing list
>Spcommittee-l at mail.wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/spcommittee-l
>
>
>


body:
Felipe,
  I do not want to dispute your ideas and conclusions about the Java
applet I linked to, since this was not the main point of my question. It
is just an example of what could be done with that kind of technology,
if it is allowed to be used/hosted by the wikimedia servers, which AFAIK
is not approved at the moment.

  So, I'd like to know if that is so, if it can be changed (if yes), or
if there are other technologies out there that would be/are hosted and I
should look at.

  Any takers?
    Andreas =:-)

Felipe Sanches wrote:
> the above example is too simple, although, we can imagine a more
> complex one such as as geometry applet extension wich allows you to
> define the carachteristics of a given geometrical construction and
> then the user can interact with it.
>
> Imagine a geom. construction with some of the lengths and angles
> undetermined (so, denoted by literals). The user (maybe a student at
> wikiversity) could then click and drag vertices in order to see how
> the whole construction conforms to the lenght and angle variations.
> This would provide greater flexibility and understanding than what we
> can get today from geometry books and blackboards (with their static
> images of these geom. constructions).
>
>  Juca
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


body:
You're right, even though we -do- have galleries of featured pictures:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures

links to a whole bunch of them.

On 8/20/06, Przykuta <przykuta at o2.pl> wrote:
>
>
> > Look good, but there are already albums on Wikimedia Commons --
> > http://commons.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington for example of a
> > gallery. Commons also keep galleries of its featured pictures.
> >
> That link dosen't exist
>
> Do you think about it
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Seattle%2C_Washington
>
> These pictures are not featured :) For example:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Electric_bus_in_Seattle.jpg
>
> Przykuta
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> What I've personally considered is that under certain circumstances,
> while original research cannot remain in an article, original research
> can IMO justify leaving something OUT of an article.  In other words,
> I think that if someone can prove, or show to a good level of
> certainty, that something is NOT true, no matter how well sourced, it
> should be left out - even if that proof is done with non-published
> sources.
>

This is precisely the sort of thing our original research policy is
meant to prohibit.  We're here to summarize what has been reported, not
to mount independent investigations to determine "the truth" on our
own.  In physics, for example, we report what is widely written in
physics books and journals, and also significant minority views.  If in
your own unpublished research you've determined that some of this is
incorrect, that's great, but doesn't justify leaving the information out
of a Wikipedia article unless and until you publish your new findings in
a physics journal, at which point we can then cite your view as a
contrary one.

In other words, you should be making your attempts to "prove, or show to
a good level of certainty, that something is NOT true" somewhere other
than Wikipedia, and then we can cite them.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> On 8/18/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> --- Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> there are lots of ways material can be discussed *without*
>>> directly referring to it.
>>>
>> Like what?
>>
>
>
> Like saying "the material I removed from the article" without saying "the
> claims about marital infidelity with person X that I removed from the
> article".  There are lots of ways to talk around an issue without actually
> saying the defamatory thing.
>
But then how is anyone supposed to research it?  If somebody requests
information on "the claim about marital infidelity with person X", I can
search Lexis-Nexis to see if any such claim has been made in the media,
and source it if so.  I can't search on Lexis-Nexis for claims that
aren't specified.

-Mark


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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

body:
On 5/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If people want to deter kids from coming across certain material on the
> > internet, it's their responsibility to install blocking software.
> Wikipedia
> > says is in BIG bold letters it's an encyclopedia. It's common sense for
> > sexual material to be included so I'm against yet another disclaimer.
>
> Point me to another encyclopaedia with photographic images of
> erections or clitorises, and I might agree.
>
>

I have an encyclopaedic reference work on Forensic Medicine from the
1950's which is an interesting glimpse to that eras moral standards.
The pictures about the various appearance of female genitalia which
have experienced various transformative actions including childbirth,
voluntary penetration and involuntary penetration are depicted by
photographs of preparates taken from cadavers, pictures of underage
ethnic minorities (the question I would have there is if there was
informed consent for the photography, although admittedly, the faces
of the children are not shown, so arguably not covered under a strict
privacy concern).

By The By, the lethal dose for nicotine is given, but the entry on
cannabis states that it is completely non-toxic. O Tempora, O Mores.

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

Candidate for Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in the
September 2006 elections.

P. S. Sorry for the late reply; going through a back-log of E-mail.


from_name: Felipe Sanches

body:
maybe a better way of using java applets on mediawiki would be through
extensions. I imagine something like this:

<projectile>
velocity = 50
angle = 70
mass = 10
</projectile>

that would render the animation with the given default values.

Juca


body:
the above example is too simple, although, we can imagine a more
complex one such as as geometry applet extension wich allows you to
define the carachteristics of a given geometrical construction and
then the user can interact with it.

Imagine a geom. construction with some of the lengths and angles
undetermined (so, denoted by literals). The user (maybe a student at
wikiversity) could then click and drag vertices in order to see how
the whole construction conforms to the lenght and angle variations.
This would provide greater flexibility and understanding than what we
can get today from geometry books and blackboards (with their static
images of these geom. constructions).

 Juca


from_name: Nick Hwang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using html forms to edit articles?

body:
Hi all,

I've just started trying to play with MediaWiki's code, and am a little
lost as to where to start with this task. What I'd like is to have a
form in an article that can be filled out by any wiki viewer; following
submission of this form, I want to modify the contents of an article in
a specific way and update the article with the contents of the form.
Can anyone point me in the proper direction for this? Thanks a bunch.


from_name: Dan Li

body:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:MediaWiki_hooks is a useful
reference, though not even close to comprehensive.

If you could provide more details, I could try to be more specific.

Regards,
  - Dan Li

On 8/20/06, Nick Hwang <njhwang at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've just started trying to play with MediaWiki's code, and am a little
> lost as to where to start with this task. What I'd like is to have a
> form in an article that can be filled out by any wiki viewer; following
> submission of this form, I want to modify the contents of an article in
> a specific way and update the article with the contents of the form.
> Can anyone point me in the proper direction for this? Thanks a bunch.


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing

body:
On 8/20/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > No, but thanks very much for clearing that up, Andrew. So, absolutely
> > nothing we can do, right?
>
> No, except asking those of us with huge email accounts who keep
> everything to look for it.
>
> Delphine
> --
> ~notafish

Yep, that includes me. I have the email in question in my inbox - I
was just trying to reference a permalink to it. Cheers!

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing


from_name: saikrishna

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : wiki dump help

body:
Hai,

         I am working on my course project using Wikipedia dump.
         The file I have download was a large xml file (abt 6.2gb).
         I am not able to understand the semantics used in the file.
         Can any one help me ?? R there any links regarding this.

regards,
Saikrishna.

--
Remember Things can be difficult but not impossible


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : wiki dump help


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Refer to the removed diff, as suggested? For claims that are new,
> provide the reference right there.

How does one refer to something that has been... removed?

-s

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


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing

body:
On 8/20/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:

> No, but thanks very much for clearing that up, Andrew. So, absolutely
> nothing we can do, right?

No, except asking those of us with huge email accounts who keep
everything to look for it.

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Archives missing


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
The author of the article seems to forget that while you should take any
source with a grain of salt, online ones in particular. Wikipedia has the
advantage that it is subject to quality control (despite of what the author
says) althought it's nearly impossible to keep an eye out on all entries.
Wikipedia has the advantage of allowing the readers to track down the
sources for any given entry. If there aren't any, you can contact the author
and ask where they got it.

And no, it's not to propagate your views or that of your peers.

I don't think this is a particularly good article in case you didn't
notice...

Mgm


from_name: Jossi Fresco

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to address threats of disruption

body:
In an off-wiki (but public) discussion forum, a group of detractors
of a living person publicly discuss colluding to disrupt Wikipedia in
these terms:

-----

"It seems to me, Jim, that the way for us to deal with Wiki should be
'all or nothing'. "

"XXXX [WP editor 1] is concerned that Wiki should be an honest, well-
sourced information resource.  The world at large already knows Wiki
will never be that - especially experts in any given field who
already have publishing outlets and have no need nor desire to have
their thoughts tinkered and tampered with by an amateur, self-
appointed editorship. "

"Google-searching your chosen area of interest gets you further and
faster.  Wiki is crap, and the bigger it gets, the more irrelevant it
becomes - more blogosphere than reputable encyclopedia. "

"But, pragmatically, it would make sense if every forum member joined
in the editing there, if only to make YYYY [WP editor 2] work for a
living and discredit ZZZZ (Living person) in the process.  Just join
in, a phrase here and there, change or remove things that are false,
add things that are missing, generally raise hell? "

"Alternatively, we could all stay clear and have nothing to do with
this blatent [sic] pro-XXX vanity piece. What we shouldn't do any
more is attempt lengthy XXX-style discussions aimed at achieving
'consensus' among Wiki eds.  (Though full marks to XXX - and XXX and
others, too - for trying)."

"I say just either dive in and edit the fu*cker silly, however you
see fit, hit-and-run style, or leave well alone.  But do it for fun,
if you do it at all.  Wiki is not as important as its editors would
have us believe."

----

The usernames of these people are known. Is there anything to do to
preempt that possible disruption?

-- Jossi


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Commons-l] Rethinking [[COM:DEL]]

body:
"Florian Straub" wrote:
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:47:33 +1000  "Brianna Laugher" wrote:
>> Do you mean *not* keeping the discussion?
>No, i didn't. I meant keeping them at the talk page.

>> Keeping orphan talk pages around would be weird. I don't really like that
>> idea.
>They wouldn't be orphans, since there used withing the daily pages ;)

Easy. Make discussion on the image talk: and if deleted, move to
COM:DEL/deleted/Image
*A template would probably be needed to header the image talk (if you're not
brwosing from COM:DEL)
*How to open a deletion  request when the image talk: is already used?
Probably <noinclude>ing the other content, but it's not too friendly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>> I dont follow. Could you give us a real example? For instance
>> how would I refer on the talk page to the claim that Ann Coulter
>> once gave a venereal disease to Clinton (on Festivus), without
>> actually referring to it? You can hypothetical examples if you like.
>>
>
>
> Refer to the removed diff, as suggested? For claims that are new,
> provide the reference right there.
>

A large part of the strength of Wikipedia is the ability to split work
based on people's strengths, which requires the ability to openly
communicate with other editors.

For example, questions along the following lines posted on talk pages
are a relatively commonplace part of the normal functioning of
Wikipedia: "I remember some sort of scandal involving [politician] in
the mid-1990s that this article doesn't mention at all.  As I recall, he
was accused of hiring a prostitute with government funds.  Does anybody
know of a good source covering that story, or am I misremembering?"

The question can then be followed up with someone who has access to
Lexis-Nexis or some other good way of researching the matter.  The
people who have good research resources and the people who notice
omissions aren't always the same person, so communication between them
makes things work much more nicely.

Of course, that isn't biography-specific: I've made comments on
science-related articles where the article omitted something I had
learned in a class, but for which I couldn't find a good reference (my
class notes not being citeable), and I've followed up on such comments
from other people.  Coming up with a new rule that no negative
information about a person can be even *discussed* without a solid
reference being provided up front would systemically skew articles and
hamper work on biographies, though.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On Aug 18, 2006, at 1:40 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> I'm particularly concerned about the "or its talk page" bit.

What about doing some "transposing" here, and  put ourselves in the
shoes of that living person about which unsourced or poorly sourced
negative material is posted in an article or talk page? Would we
still be having this conversation?

Jimbo's comment about "Most of us do care passionately about the
ethics of what we are doing, and how it affects people" is worthy of
being featured prominently somewhere in our policy pages.

-- Jossi


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>Then we get to the copyright issue, where people say,
>"Sure, it's stealing, but I've looked at it myself and I believe we're
>going to get plenty of warning before anyone tries to sue over it, so
>that makes it legal."  Sometimes I suspect it would be better if the
>"you'll see us in court" genie had never been let out of the bottle.
>
The copyright issue isn't as simple as that.  When I am willing to push
that button I would certainly not agree that it's stealing.  Before I
use the "plenty of warning" argument I will have made damn sure that I
have at least a glimmer of a legal argument.  Determining that something
is copyright or that we should know it's copyright can be very difficult
in many cases, and I prefer to take the benefit of reasonable doubt.

>[2] Have I spelled it correctly yet?
>
No. It's "Sei-" rather than the more intuitive "Sie-"

Ec


from_name: Andreas

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Andreas wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>   I tried to find some info about storing Java applets on the Wikimedia
>> servers, and was not very successful. Maybe somebody here can help me out.
>>
>>   From what I understand, applet/jar files are not welcome on the
>> servers, because there is no valid/convincing use case. However,
>> thinking about an interactive "lab session" for Wikiversity, and seems
>> to me a Java applet would be the best fit for what one would look for.
>>
>
> A few general questions:
>
> * Where would such applets come from?
> * Are there any licensing issues?
> * How would they be distributed and used?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
Here is what I envisaged as the applet authoring process and licensing
for applets used at Wikiversity:

  1) The Java source is authored under a compatible license by
volunteers (eg. GPL) and could start with similarly licensed, already
existing source;
  2) An open and free source code version system is used to store the
source and help with any possible package dependencies, eg something
like SourceForge. This allows for any auditing necessary, and it is an
easy way to make "the code" owned by the whole project;
  3) Volunteers with some trust from the community (similar to admins?)
would create JAR files from "released" versions of the Java code;
  4) The generated files are placed at an appropriate place on the
wikimedia servers, so that simple HTML sections in any wiki on
Wikiversity can integrated the applet inside the course/lesson. No one
else should be able to override those JAR files on the server, than
those "curators";
  5) In the future, (if there are enough volunteers) a simple set of
graphic tools could be provided as a standard JAR, which would make it
easier for beginners to author new labs. This would also help any
auditing somebody wants to do;

Would that make sense?
  Andreas =:-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On Aug 20, 2006, at 9:50 PM, Delirium wrote:

> Some suggestions that we
> leave out "unimportant" but true facts are a little more problematic,
> though, and suggestions that we shouldn't be able to have open
> discussions during the article-writing process are even more
> problematic.

No one is asserting that, Mark.

We can discuss such issues in talk pages by removing content and
using diffs (that are not spidered by Google). All the discussion
needs to be in these cases could be as simple as: "I have removed
your comment as per [[WP:BLP]]. You can see it [http://Diff_URL
here]. Please provide a reliable source that describe this viewpoint.
Thanks."

-- Jossi


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/20/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > By the way, if we really do want to remove potentially defamatory
> > statements from all of Wikipedia, and not just the articles, I'd like
> > to nominate [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro]]
> > for deletion.  The comment made by Muriel is particularly defamatory
> > to me.
>
> It's largely a statement of Muriel's opinion of you, and thus not libel.
>
I'd say calling someone who is not a public figure "disturbed" is
rather likely to be libelous.

> And no, we do not, I believe, intend in general to remove statements
> from arbitration cases, absent serious legal threat.
>
Maybe I should make a serious legal threat...  I'll have to think
about that...  I tend to think that such a threat would only serve to
make matters worse, though.

> In fact, asking for it, whether you are serious or simply making a
> point, illustrates many of the issues you have had with the Wikipedia
> community rather well.
>
Asking for what?  Are you saying that my politely mentioning a
libelous page about me and saying that I'd like for it to be removed
illustrates the issues I've had with the Wikipedia community?  If so,
then I guess it illustrates how much ado about nothing those issues
have been.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Matt Brown wrote:
> > What I've personally considered is that under certain circumstances,
> > while original research cannot remain in an article, original research
> > can IMO justify leaving something OUT of an article.  In other words,
> > I think that if someone can prove, or show to a good level of
> > certainty, that something is NOT true, no matter how well sourced, it
> > should be left out - even if that proof is done with non-published
> > sources.
> >
>
> This is precisely the sort of thing our original research policy is
> meant to prohibit.

I thought the original research policy was meant to prohibit physics cranks.

> We're here to summarize what has been reported, not
> to mount independent investigations to determine "the truth" on our
> own.  In physics, for example, we report what is widely written in
> physics books and journals, and also significant minority views.  If in
> your own unpublished research you've determined that some of this is
> incorrect, that's great, but doesn't justify leaving the information out
> of a Wikipedia article unless and until you publish your new findings in
> a physics journal, at which point we can then cite your view as a
> contrary one.
>
> In other words, you should be making your attempts to "prove, or show to
> a good level of certainty, that something is NOT true" somewhere other
> than Wikipedia, and then we can cite them.
>
> -Mark

When the rules put us in a situation where we are forced to keep
blatantly false information in an article, I'd say it's time to invoke
the "break all rules" rule.  At the very least it's time to bend the
rules as to what counts as an acceptable reliable source.

Anthony


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment,
	wasn't it?

body:
On 8/20/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> (I'm quoting from
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html)
>
> Jimbo wrote once:
> "Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for
> anonymous users in the English Wikipedia."
>
> This was way back in 5 Dec 2005. Has the experiment run long enough?
> What sort of experiment varies the independent variable only one way?

Let's wait a bit before we do that.  I understand there's a study of
the effect that turning off anon creation had, but it's not yet ready
for publication.  I think we should wait to see that study until we
act.

Kelly


subject: [Commons-l] Copyrighted free use

body:
"Artur Fijalkowski" wrote:
>I see that lots of people loads images and give them template
> {{Copyrighted free use}}. The funny thing about it is, that in most
> cases they are screenshots from TV, movies, movie posters, game
> covers, etc. So maybe we should make a large cleanup of images in this
> category, couse there can be tons of copyvios...
>
> AJF/WarX

Yeah, they sometimes get a "you can use this document" from some webs as
"free use", which means _any_ use, which usually is not. Then there're
people putting whatever fits, even when it's a big ? forbidding use.

> ps. why most copyvios is made by people talking in spanic langugage  ?
Maybe because we closed local uploads on the Spanish Wikipedia so now
Spanish copyvios can only be uploaded to commons ;-)

Following Fastfission notice i've made {{Protegida uso libre}} (I copied
from es: name and content). Now, can anyone include {{/lang}} into
Template:Copyrighted free use?


from_name: Przykuta

subject: [Foundation-l]Wikialbum - new type of Wikibook or new project

body:
> Look good, but there are already albums on Wikimedia Commons --
> http://commons.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seattle,_Washington for example of a
> gallery. Commons also keep galleries of its featured pictures.
>
That link dosen't exist

Do you think about it http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Seattle%2C_Washington

These pictures are not featured :) For example:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Electric_bus_in_Seattle.jpg

Przykuta


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Save Draft button

body:
"Daniel Schwen" wrote:
>> As this is a button beneath the edit box it would have to be fully,
>> properly written into the PHP that is MediaWiki - i.e. this function
>> would
>
> This can easily be done in JavaScript and thus be enabled by every user on
> an
> opt-in basis. If there is serious interest in this I could whip something
> up.
> With a bit of extra work/AJAX this could even be extended to SubSection
> saving
> and restoring only.
>
> But the problem I see with this feature is article forking (as others have
> said). Someone wants to overhaul a page and saves it as a draft, in the
> mean
> time other users edit the original article and... desaster :)
> Maybe only activate the feature for new articles by default?

Can't this be achieved by saving article + reverting to good version? This
way if someone wants to improve the article, will find your draft on the
history. They are also available for anyone. Probably easier if we get the
'stable version' of articles.


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Usurpation proposed policy

body:
[[Wikipedia:Usurpation]] is an extension of the user renaming process
I've proposed, to meet the need I saw [[Wikipedia:Changing
username/Requests to usurp|here]] (more than 54 requests, and it isn't
even policy!).  In a nutshell: "If an account has never been used for
anything, let someone else take that account's name."

It has all the appropriate formatting and stuff mentioned in
[[Wikipedia:How to create policy]] and it's been in proposal and
discussion since at least April now (and was batted around long before
I actually wrote the page); the overwhelming majority of the feedback
has been positive. And the comments which have been critical or
opposed generally are such because they believe that the "waiting
period" in which the account to be usurped is notified to be too short
- it should be longer than a month, should be a year/three months/etc.

In other words, I think consensus has for the most part been acheived,
and that the last niggling bit is the exact length of the waiting
period. We need more people to review it and settle on a time period,
then we can send it off to Jimbo or whatever the next step is.

I've also made a request at [[Wikipedia:Requests for
comment/Policies]] for more comments.

Thoughts? Comments? Expressions of effusive enthusiastic ecstatic enthusiasm?

~maru


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>> Matt Brown wrote:
>>
>>> What I've personally considered is that under certain circumstances,
>>> while original research cannot remain in an article, original research
>>> can IMO justify leaving something OUT of an article.  In other words,
>>> I think that if someone can prove, or show to a good level of
>>> certainty, that something is NOT true, no matter how well sourced, it
>>> should be left out - even if that proof is done with non-published
>>> sources.
>>>
>>>
>> This is precisely the sort of thing our original research policy is
>> meant to prohibit.
>>
>
> I thought the original research policy was meant to prohibit physics cranks.
>
>
> [...]
> When the rules put us in a situation where we are forced to keep
> blatantly false information in an article, I'd say it's time to invoke
> the "break all rules" rule.  At the very least it's time to bend the
> rules as to what counts as an acceptable reliable source.
>

And how precisely do you propose to simultaneously take care of both of
these things?  Wikipedia is not in a position to determine truth, only
to report on what others have said.  It's possible that some parts of
physics may be incorrect, and you may be absolutely sure of it, but
Wikipedia isn't the place to publish that research.  I don't think it's
the place to publish novel historical, biographical, mathematical, or
any other research either, regardless of how sure you are that you have
"the truth" that every published source is missing.

-Mark


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 20/08/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Like saying "the material I removed from the article" without saying "the
> > claims about marital infidelity with person X that I removed from the
> > article".  There are lots of ways to talk around an issue without actually
> > saying the defamatory thing.

> I dont follow. Could you give us a real example? For instance
> how would I refer on the talk page to the claim that Ann Coulter
> once gave a venereal disease to Clinton (on Festivus), without
> actually referring to it? You can hypothetical examples if you like.

Refer to the removed diff, as suggested? For claims that are new,
provide the reference right there.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment, wasn't it?

body:
(I'm quoting from
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html)

Jimbo wrote once:
"Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for
anonymous users in the English Wikipedia."

This was way back in 5 Dec 2005. Has the experiment run long enough?
What sort of experiment varies the independent variable only one way?

Let's turn page creation back on for anons. We turned it off, so let's
see what happens when we turn it back on; otherwise we're simply
running on sheer blind inertia and unthinking myopia. Every month
since Dec. 2005 we should have been asking whether the costs have been
worth the benefits.

"1. Annoying anons may simply decide to create accounts and make annoying
nonsense pages anyway.  This will certainly be true in some cases, but
it is an empirical question as to how many."

Quite a few. I haven't seen much of a reduction in PROD or AFD or
speedies ([[User:Dragons flight/Category tracker]] shows that Speedy
has at times reached 349 entries, and it tracks back to late July
2006).

"2.  We will lose good new pages created by anons of good will.  This may
cause the growth of English Wikipedia (in terms of the number of
articles) to slow a little bit.  With 800,000+ articles, and
ever-increasing traffic to the website, this seems to be a worthwhile cost."

PR-wise, turning off page creation wasn't good, to say the least; it
has forced all sorts of ugly hacks to pages and annoyed many many
people (such as persons like me; one cannot even create a simple
redirect when not staging out of one's computer/account).  Take a look
at the monumental failure that is AFC sometime, which turning off page
creation has forced on us. Valid, good articles are being entombed
there.

There's no time like the present. It's summer now, so dedicate
Wikipedians have plenty of time, and the September deluge is not yet
upon us; there are even more Wikipedians than ever, and more articles,
and better tools. How much have the anti-vandal tools (too many to
name now, even excluding bots) proliferated and improved since that
long-ago December?

"But preveneting [sic] anons from creating new pages is a different
matter, and it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it."

Yes, let's. Experiments go both ways, remember...

~maru


from_name: Simetrical

subject:
[Wikitech-l] How bad is a category with 21,
	008 pages for the servers?

body:
On 8/20/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> How bad is a category with 21,008 pages for the servers?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements

IIRC, it's not a problem now that we have category paging, but my
recollection may be faulty.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 8/20/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> > How bad is a category with 21,008 pages for the servers?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements
>
> IIRC, it's not a problem now that we have category paging, but my
> recollection may be faulty.

20k isn't that large.. we have quite a few with a lot more than that...


body:
On 8/20/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> 20k isn't that large.. we have quite a few with a lot more than that...

Now that you mention it, we do, and even a special page to account for
them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Mostlinkedcategories.  The
largest weighs in at over 110,000 pages.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 8/21/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This was way back in 5 Dec 2005. Has the experiment run long enough?
>> What sort of experiment varies the independent variable only one way?
>>
>> Let's turn page creation back on for anons. We turned it off, so let's
>> see what happens when we turn it back on; otherwise we're simply
>> running on sheer blind inertia and unthinking myopia.
>
> We don't need to. We saw what happened in the 4 years before it was turned
> off.

But how can we tell what changed in the year after it was turned off
relative to those four years? Other than purely anecdotal reports, which
are effectively useless for a system the size and complexity of
Wikipedia, what analysis has been done?

> Take a look at the monumental failure that is AFC sometime, which turning
>> off page
>> creation has forced on us. Valid, good articles are being entombed
>> there.
>
> And look at how many nonsense creations are being stopped there too.

The question isn't simply whether nonsense creations have been stopped.
If that was the only goal, then the perfect solution is obvious; disable
new article creation entirely.

We need to see some sort of rigorous statistical analysis of article
creation patterns before and after the anon-disabling, producing
objective results rather than subjective opinions. I've long been
annoyed that this experiment was apparently set off without any plans
for this. It's fortunate (though less than ideal) that Wikipedia's
database retains enough information to still do some analysis after the
fact.

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body:
> You're right, even though we -do- have galleries of featured pictures:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures
>
> links to a whole bunch of them.
>

OK, but they are galleries with tradicional small boxes and with more or less accidental images. I think rather about big Wikialbums with many pages.

Wikialbum:USA
* River of USA
* Cities of USA
** New York
...

It will be album or atlas with good structure - based on category system.

Przykuta

P.S. It is only idea, but it would be good catalyzer for change quality of our pictures, I think.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-21

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Jossi Fresco wrote:
> Jimbo's comment about "Most of us do care passionately about the
> ethics of what we are doing, and how it affects people" is worthy of
> being featured prominently somewhere in our policy pages.

Ethics, as always, is a complex subject.  There are many people that are
potentially affected by Wikipedia.  Jimbo correctly points out that the
subjects of biographical articles are among them.  However also among
them are readers or potential readers of content.  At least some subset
of us participate in Wikipedia out of an ethical concern that
information availability should be levelled.  Therefore some of us are
worried that competing ethical concerns that others place higher will
compromise that one that I at least consider primary.

Of course, some concerns are complementary---information is no good if
it's disinformation, and so strongly promoting a culture of citing
sources serves both ends at the same time.  Some suggestions that we
leave out "unimportant" but true facts are a little more problematic,
though, and suggestions that we shouldn't be able to have open
discussions during the article-writing process are even more problematic.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Jossi Fresco wrote:
>
> On Aug 20, 2006, at 9:50 PM, Delirium wrote:
>
>> Some suggestions that we
>> leave out "unimportant" but true facts are a little more problematic,
>> though, and suggestions that we shouldn't be able to have open
>> discussions during the article-writing process are even more
>> problematic.
>
> No one is asserting that, Mark.
>
> We can discuss such issues in talk pages by removing content and using
> diffs (that are not spidered by Google). All the discussion needs to
> be in these cases could be as simple as: "I have removed your comment
> as per [[WP:BLP]]. You can see it [http://Diff_URL here]. Please
> provide a reliable source that describe this viewpoint. Thanks."

I'm discussing the case where the content wasn't added in the first
place, but is first brought up on the talk page.  For example, I might
recall something about a politicians' scandal that isn't currently in
the article, and ask if anyone who has access to a better research
database can find any references.  People are proposing that I shouldn't
be allowed to post this---even on the talk page---unless I've first dug
up solid references myself, because it's unsourced information that
would be libelous if false.

-Mark


from_name: Ligulem

body:
How bad is a category with 21,008 pages for the servers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements

--Ligulem


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Andreas wrote:
> Hi,
>   I tried to find some info about storing Java applets on the Wikimedia
> servers, and was not very successful. Maybe somebody here can help me out.
>
>   From what I understand, applet/jar files are not welcome on the
> servers, because there is no valid/convincing use case. However,
> thinking about an interactive "lab session" for Wikiversity, and seems
> to me a Java applet would be the best fit for what one would look for.

A few general questions:

* Where would such applets come from?
* Are there any licensing issues?
* How would they be distributed and used?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Suisui

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : wiki dump help

body:
hi

here you are
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:MediaWiki_architecture
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps

- -- --- ---- ----- ------
Suisui
suisui at gmail.com

2006/8/20, saikrishna <saikrishna at students.iiit.net>:
>
> Hai,
>
>          I am working on my course project using Wikipedia dump.
>          The file I have download was a large xml file (abt 6.2gb).
>          I am not able to understand the semantics used in the file.
>          Can any one help me ?? R there any links regarding this.
>
> regards,
> Saikrishna.
>
> --
> Remember Things can be difficult but not impossible
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : wiki dump help


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
G'day Steve,

> In the context of WP:OFFICE, as well as more recently, Jimbo and
> others have written somethings about "hurt feelings," as if it was a
> policy ( WP:CODDLE maybe) which could circumvent even important
> policy ( WP:NPOV maybe). Could you explain this?

We take a generally lax view towards rumour-mongering on Wikipedia.
This is partly due to the CWE[0] (witness, for instance, the users
who've decided that since {{fact}}[1] exists, nothing, however idiotic,
may be removed from an article as untrue); partly due to Wikipedia's
perceived "anything goes" values (something to do, I believe, with
"anyone can edit" and anti-elitism); and partly because Wikipedia is so
damned big that a poor edit (e.g. Siegenthaler[2]) can go for some time
unnoticed, if placed in the wrong spot.

The new(ish) emphasis on the biographies of living persons is there to
acknowledge that, while we should strive for top-notch articles on any
subject, a poor article about a person who is alive today and capable of
being affected by the content of the article is particularly damaging,
and cleaning up such an article should be a higher priority.

Another problem is the famous Wikipedia "Fuck You" Response, wherein a
person with a complaint about the content of their article is told where
to go, not because their complaints are groundless, but because We Shall
Publish What We Like And To Hell With You.  If certain editors need to
be reminded that such a response is immature, offensive, and potentially
dangerous, then I see no problem with doing so.

> I agree with the idea of treating bios with care, but that does not
> necessarily necessitate the use of an entirely different methodology
> than any other wiki page - including censoring talk pages. You may as
> well start a biowiki that operates under entirely different rules.

BLP at its best (I'm not saying there isn't any instruction creep and
CWE cruft appearing at the edges) is not about establishing a double
standard.  It's about making damn sure the standards we should be
applying to other sections of the encyclopaedia as well are followed on
the biographies of living persons.

Untrue statements should not be published in our encyclopaedia.  Since
the project is so big (and we have contributors who are misinformed,
stupid, or just plain malicious), problems are unavoidable.  By being
strict about the biographies of living persons, we're trying to crack
down on problems that can actually hurt people here and now.  True
statements which happen to raise the ire of an article's subject,
however, should remain, and insisting on a reliable source for such
statements simply gives us something to point to next time the article's
subject comes around to complain.

For some editors, WP:BLP is the difference between "fuck you, man, you
can't tell us what to do" and "I'm sorry you feel aggrieved.  Our
article about you is well-sourced, however, and contains no errors of
fact as far as we can see.  If you dispute the content of a particular
statement we've made, please point to a reliable source providing an
alternate theory and we'll be happy to update the article.  Thank you
for helping us improve Wikipedia."

The talk about being sued --- which I know you didn't mention but I
thought I'd throw in here --- is really a red herring.  There are people
out there who will only do the Right Thing if threatened with something
big and heavy.  This saddens me, and I don't doubt it saddens you.  It's
my view that we ought to do the Right Thing because, well, it's the
bloody *Right Thing*, y'know?  Unfortunately, some people --- some
*Wikipedians*, believe it or not --- refuse to do so unless you write it
down in some policy, or (in extreme cases) press the Guilt Button by
telling them they're going to get Wikipedia sued.  No, really!

Of course, this tends to backfire rather often.  Human beings, even the
human beings who take this view of the world, have rather good brains
and are capable of assessing situations for themselves.  What this means
is, some people will ignore stupid shit in an article if they decide
that it won't end in a court action, because after all, the only reason
we're trying to improve the quality of this encyclopaedia is to avoid
getting sued.  Then we get to the copyright issue, where people say,
"Sure, it's stealing, but I've looked at it myself and I believe we're
going to get plenty of warning before anyone tries to sue over it, so
that makes it legal."  Sometimes I suspect it would be better if the
"you'll see us in court" genie had never been let out of the bottle.

[0] Chinese Whispers Effect.  No, I'm not going to shut up about it.

[1] Which creates a superscript "citation needed" marker, for those
     unaware.

[2] Have I spelled it correctly yet?

--
Mark Gallagher
"I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."
(Raymond Chandler, /The Big Sleep/)


body:
On 8/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are several distinct uses of categories:
> a) To allow human readers to browse related articles
> b) To organise articles for future distribution, publishing etc
> c) To assist quality control, such as labelling articles that need cleanup etc
> d) To assow bots to work some kind of magic.

Surprised that you didn't name this one, since it is one of the more
useful human oriented ones (and a primary application for the living
people cat):

e) Produce a filtered recent changes feed
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Category%3ALiving_people)


body:
On 8/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
[snip]
> We need to see some sort of rigorous statistical analysis of article
> creation patterns before and after the anon-disabling, producing
> objective results rather than subjective opinions. I've long been
> annoyed that this experiment was apparently set off without any plans
> for this. It's fortunate (though less than ideal) that Wikipedia's
> database retains enough information to still do some analysis after the
> fact.

Analysis has been done, results will be published.

In any case, I'm curious about what you believe we lost that we could
have had with additional planning?


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Using someone's real name instead of his wikiname

body:
Have you tried asking him to stop?

On 8/21/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> On the Dutch wikipedia there is a user who is constantly using my real
> name in discussions instead of my wikiname. Although my real name is
> widely known, I do not wish that it is used on the wiki in discussions.
> One of the reasons is Google's indexing the other reason is my real name
> is known only by people who have been on the wiki for a long time.
>
> I am using my wiki alternate name for a reason. I feel that this user is
> violating my privacy by constantly using my real name instead of the
> name under which I edit. Is this a violation of our wiki privacy policy?
>
> Waerth
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> And I see someone has added a beautiful and oh so apposite quote to
> [[m:instruction creep]]:
[snip]
>     - Wikis, Grafitti, and Process, Clay Shirky, 2003-08-01

Although I'm very much a part of the anti-process-bound crowd, I must ask:
How many people were in Mr. Shirky's group?

Until it is demonstrated otherwise, it would be wise to assume that
there is a difference between a group of a dozen carefully selected
likeminded folks who are making a living doing something,  and a
project of thousands of constantly changing, self-selecting, unequally
skilled people, who are largely just fooling around on the Internet.

I enjoy process when it quickly helps me figure out how to do
something without reinventing the wheel on my own, and when it helps
my work be more consistent with the rest of the project.  I dislike it
when it's used as a bludgeoning device by the weak minded to produce
an easy attack against someone whos actions taken with deep
understanding and careful consideration.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 21/08/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 20k isn't that large.. we have quite a few with a lot more than that...
>
> Now that you mention it, we do, and even a special page to account for
> them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Mostlinkedcategories.  The
> largest weighs in at over 110,000 pages.

Is that the one with an article for each faux pas of a well-known US
political figure in?

Rob Church


subject: [Commons-l] Copyrighted free use

body:
On 8/21/06, samuli at samulilintula.net <samuli at samulilintula.net> wrote:
> Many people have suggested that those who tag with {{copyrighted free
> use}} have the following misunderstanding: "I got the from a page on the
> internet. I guess you can use it freely."
>
> I believe that the way the tag is really misunderstood is this: "[This
> picture is] copyrighted [, it can used according to] free use".

That confusion shouldn't be happening for the speakers of Spanish who
were singled out at the top of this thread.


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Question on citation policy

body:
Sorry if this is all spelt out on policy pages, but I can't find
it clearly enough.  I'm wondering how self-contained articles
need to be with regard to citations.

Take an example (but please answer on the principle and
not on the example).  Suppose an article has this:
   [[Babe Ruth]] hit 60 home runs in the 1927 season.

Now someone comes along and slaps a "citation required"
tag on it.  Someone else takes off the tag on the grounds
that the WP article on Babe Ruth is linked right there and
has copious citations that covers this fact.

Who is right?  We aren't supposed to use Wikipedia as a
source, but I always took that to mean that Wikipedia is
not an -ultimate- source for anything, not that a wikilink
can never be an adequate way to show where the source
for something can be found.

Zero.

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 8/21/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This was way back in 5 Dec 2005. Has the experiment run long enough?
> What sort of experiment varies the independent variable only one way?
>
> Let's turn page creation back on for anons. We turned it off, so let's
> see what happens when we turn it back on; otherwise we're simply
> running on sheer blind inertia and unthinking myopia.

We don't need to. We saw what happened in the 4 years before it was turned
off.

Take a look at the monumental failure that is AFC sometime, which turning
> off page
> creation has forced on us. Valid, good articles are being entombed
> there.

And look at how many nonsense creations are being stopped there too.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> >> This is precisely the sort of thing our original research policy is
> >> meant to prohibit.
> >>
> >
> > I thought the original research policy was meant to prohibit physics cranks.
> >
> >
> > [...]
> > When the rules put us in a situation where we are forced to keep
> > blatantly false information in an article, I'd say it's time to invoke
> > the "break all rules" rule.  At the very least it's time to bend the
> > rules as to what counts as an acceptable reliable source.
> >
>
> And how precisely do you propose to simultaneously take care of both of
> these things?  Wikipedia is not in a position to determine truth, only
> to report on what others have said.  It's possible that some parts of
> physics may be incorrect, and you may be absolutely sure of it, but
> Wikipedia isn't the place to publish that research.  I don't think it's
> the place to publish novel historical, biographical, mathematical, or
> any other research either, regardless of how sure you are that you have
> "the truth" that every published source is missing.
>
> -Mark
>
I think I'm capable of determining the difference between a
complicated new physics theory that I've just come up with, and which
hasn't been peer reviewed, and a blatant falsity propagated by a
misquote or other misinformation in a newspaper which can be trivially
misproven by the subject of the article.  At the very least I think an
encyclopedia article should note the fact that the subject disputes
the claim.  Perhaps I could interview the person and stick the
interview in Wikinews, would that qualify as a published source
outside of Wikipedia?  Alternatively, the claim shouldn't be there in
the first place.  If neither of those two are legitimate under the
rules, then I'd say it's time to break the rules.

If you don't think you can tell the difference between these two
situations, feel free to always follow the rules.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > I'd phrase it as "I removed a possibly defamatory claim because it was
> > unsourced [link to diff]".  What's materially changed is that the
> > claim is a bit more hidden, and probably more importantly, that the
> > claim won't show up in a google search (as diff pages are under the
> > robots exclusion).
> >
> > It's also just cleaner and easier (IMO).  Why copy/paste the claim
> > when you can just link to it?
>
> If the goal is to get stuff out of google, why don't we just nospider
> the talk pages? Is there any reason to have them spidered?
>
Having talk pages in google has advantages and disadvantages.  The
main advantage is that it makes it easier to search for things on talk
pages, as Wikipedia's search facilities still kind of suck.

I'd be in favor of taking talk pages out of google, but I think it'd
meet from resistance by others.  It could also be argued that putting
parts of Wikipedia under robots.txt constitutes "technical measures to
obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you
make or distribute" and violates the GFDL.

Anthony


from_name: Oleg Alexandrov

subject: [Foundation-l] Board election notice on the English Wikipedia

body:
The board election is coming up real soon, and it is good that people are
notified about that. However, I strongly disagree with the election notice
showing up on all English Wikipedia article pages.

I would believe it would be more appropriate for that notice to show up on
wathclists only, that way any established editor can see it. I think it is just
distracting on all article pages.

Comments?

Oleg Alexandrov