subject: [WikiEN-l] CheckUser

references:
<jtiii25vd3p70k2gu9muiebok6027u29j0@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140610081220w3bb2e8e1uc7a5ac6dacc205d7@mail.gmail.com>
	<oqqii2ti724uaa6que5kpir1l47udpb3cf@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140610081519h70919363h9c8d8c1ee0bc8c84@mail.gmail.com>
	<0pvii2ti6sbbhu5qdh2fficfv14vg9l10q@4ax.com>

body:
On 08/10/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 23:19:22 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> >(<whisper>If you're a known not-batshit person, some checkers will
> >listen to important requests</whisper>)

> I've only had one situation where what I thought was a reasonable
> request was turned down, and that was a user who was pleading
> innocence, and CheckUser would likely have cleared them.  In the end
> the blocking admin and I agreed that an unblock was OK, but it would
> have been quicker and clearer with CheckUser.  As to whether I am
> batshit or not, that rather depends on the phase of the moon...
> The reason for the comment is that a good-faith editor has come to me
> for advice regarding apparent astroturfing by what look very much like
> socks of a non-banned editor.   Remembering back to the Jason Gastrich
> case, we had several socks confirmed by CheckUser and blocked, and
> that formed an important part of the ArbCom case.
> As stated before, I think it is wholly reasonable to require credible
> evidence of a case to be answered.

Oh, certainly. I won't add a new letter to the list myself as I'm not
actually actively checking WP:RFCU (and have no intention of
starting), but if someone who does could answer here (wikien-l) and/or
on WT:RFCU, that would be good.

- d.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why.

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>Except that the username makes it perfectly plain that this is a
>reincarnation.  I leave it to the admins active on that particular
>article to identify who is the puppet master here, but it is more than
>plausible that this is a lock-evading sock of an unrepentant POV
>pusher.  I recently had a very calm and civil discussion with an
>editor who got blocked in similar way, I asked his patience while we
>ran CheckUser and thanked him for it when I had enough evidence to
>unblock.  The blocking admin was content to admit the mistake.  It's
>nice to assume good faith, but sometimes when yet another "brand new
>user" pops up it can be asking a bit much.  Sure, we make mistakes,
>but by far the most common mistake is extending too much benefit of
>the doubt to people who are simply not here to help build a neutral
>encyclopaedia.
>
A mere suspicion or possibility that someone is a sockpuppet should not
be grounds for blocking.  Unless this user is causing problems
completely in his own right, any blocking can wait until you have
checked out the facts.

If the person is completely new how can you possibly know that he is not
here to build an encyclopedia?  It makes for a far more pleasant
environment to err in favour of keeping a borderline case.  It's great
to get rid of some of these problem users, but the effort to root them
out can too easily become an unhealthy obsession.

Ec


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>Would it be unethical for a business to charge $25 or $50 to add a
>requested article entry, along with a bunch of reference source links,
>but not create or edit an article directly?
>
>Are en wikipedia's notability standards appropriate still?  There are
>around 6,000 NYSE and NASDAQ listed US companies; is en-wikipedia
>WP:CORP as it stands still the right filter, or should it be somewhat
>loosened up?  Would roughly 6k companies be inappropriate in 1.5
>million total articles?  Is mere listing on a major stock exchange
>enough notability?
>
Certainly it should be enough.  Many of these companies do get write-ups
in the financial pages of newspapers, but I'm inclined to believe that
only a very small proportion of our editors read the financial pages.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Okay, this has gone far enough.

It is remarkable that people have built all these theories on hypotheses as
to what happened with Fleshlight, without actually knowing the facts. It is
just  ludicrous to think that I succumbed to pressure from a company. To begin
with Mark Gallagher's ad hominem suggestions on that point, I have dealt with
Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM (among other firms) on the phone. I have spoken
with  Congressmen and Senators. I have spoken to their lawyers. I have spoken to
their  PR people. I have spoken to their VPs in charge of advertising. I did
not give in to their cajoling, their threats, or their attempts at  bribes.
To suggest that I did so with Fleshlight is simply ridiculous and  does not
merit any serious attention. Instead I invite you to spend a day in the  office,
or if that is too difficult, ask people who have been to the office and  have
heard me on the phone how I deal with those kinds of people.

The fact is, we are dealing with a problem here. We have companies galore
trying to spam us. OTRS is just a small indicator of this. We have adverting
executives calling to see if what they can do to move their company  to a higher
position on a list, or how much it costs to get them on the  front page. We
are prime advertising. We will soon be the tenth largest website  in the world,
and "anyone can edit." It is not only top notch internet  advertising, but it
is free too. You see, these people dont see the difference  between us and
MySpace. They know that we will push up their Google rankings.  They know that
everyone will look them up on Google and find the Wikipedia  article. And I
repeat, it is free. For the Americans among you, it is like  getting a free
commercial slot in the last two minutes of the Superbowl. And I  repeat, it is
free. And for this prime slot, they want to make sure they look as  good as they
can.

This is not hypothesis. We are dealing with it every day, from people who
threaten to sue us for violating their First Amendment rights to post about
their company to clueless people who think that if we put up a banner to their
online poker site we will all make money. We get it from the big Fortune 500
companies and we get it from the local car rental shop, from the sister of a
guy  who is opening up a new real estate business in Durham North Carolina (I am
not  kidding) to reps of Coca Cola ("The article is biased"). We get it from
Washington thinktanks led by former cabinet members to Flickr-like rip off
sites (they offered us $35 for every photographer we send to them).

As a site where advertising is anathema, we have to make a choice. Do we
allow this? Personally, I am opposed to paid advertising on Wikipedia, but I am
even more opposed to free advertising which we cannot monetize.

As editors, we end up having to make choices. With our goals in sight, How
do we continue being an encyclopedia, and not some advertising forum or
MySpace? What is the difference between an article about Budweiser (which I  believe
we should have even though their beer is foul) and articles on  every
micro-brewery in the state of Wisconsin?

Fleshlight is just an example of one such minor product. Yes, it was
mentioned in the Village Voice. Big deal. My mother was mentioned in the Toronto
Star in the 1970s, but that does not mean we need an article about her. Six
other products were mentioned in the article (which was a survey of male sex
toys, not a piece about Fleshlight per se), but that doesn't mean we have
articles about them (see my earlier email for a survey of the article). One hit  on
Google News does not make something noteworthy, especially if it is not even
an article about the topic per se, but rather just a few lines in an overview
article (if you actually read the article online before citing it, you will
see what I mean).

For all those expressing indignation, I invite you to think about what
should be included in an encyclopedia, even one the size of Wikipedia. Once you
define that, consider what the definition excludes.

Which brings us back to Fleshlight. It was the subject of a subtle edit war
between the company that manufactures it, and a similar company which wanted
to  have an external link on the Fleshlight page. Fleshlight wrote "We are
happy to  let others view our
product, but would like to limit editing  privileges.  This product is seen
as taboo
to many, so they would  just assume destroy our displayed page.  Is there
anyway I
could be  placed as moderator for that single page, just Fleshlight, so
changes  can
still be made when necessary and not having the company product  slandered."
By slandered they mean, showing a rival company. Their rival wrote,  "I am
quite upset. While I understand that everyone can edit pages as they want,  I
find it quite outrageous that I  add and edit information about the  Fleshlight
at _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight)  I am an  affiliate of Fleshlight and got the word about rules at WIKI
that you can't link  via affiliate links, but provide USEFUL links using your
own domains regarding  an WIKI entry." He wanted to add "my updates regarding
facts, like unavailable  colors of the Fleshlight." That was the slander. Add
to this mix a guy who runs  a Fleshlight fansite, which is essentially a porn
site, who wanted sole control  over links as well (i.e., link to his site
only).

Considering all this, I asked if Fleshlight really needs an article of its
own. I consulted with people too. The overwhelming response was that this is
spam and should be nuked. At first I thought it could redirect, but then I
asked  myself the following question--do we really want redirects from every
possible  product out there to generic articles? Ask yourself the same question.
Better  yet, go into a dollar store, look at the display of products and ask if
we want  redirects for all the rip-off brands in Wikipedia.

And I nuked.

Once again, I hope that this whole incident helps to clarify what the
criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia are. At least let it launch that discussion.
But to do that, we have to avoid all the rhetoric and be willing to make real
decisions based on the underlying principles behind what Wikipedia is all
about.

Danny

.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: oscar

subject: [Wikipedia-l] accountnamen met een @ erin gaan verdwijnen

body:
ter informatie: accountnamen met een @ erin kunnen niet meer worden
aangemaakt. voor bestaande acounts is het gedurende een bepaalde tijd nog
mogelijk deze te gebruiken. geadviseerd wordt echter deze zsm te laten
hernoemen door een bureaucraat op de desbetreffende wiki.

groet,
oscar

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 8, 2006 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Translators-l] [Announce-l] Wikizine - number: 45
To: Wikimedia Translators <translators-l at wikimedia.org>
Cc: readers-feedback at wikizine.org

It is not an official notice from the Foundation though, since it
would affect the project globally, I think it is highly recommended to
inform each community. I  invite you interested translators to bring
the news below to your favorite language community.

Cheers,

On 10/8/06, Wikizine <info at wikizine.org> wrote:

> Year: 2006  Week: 41  Number: 45
>
> ******************************************
>
> An independent internal news bulletin
> for the members of the Wikimedia community
>
> //////////////////////////////////////////
>
> === Technical news ===
>
> [username at foobar.com] - New accounts on the WMF-wikis can not longer be
created
> if the username contains the @-symbol. Existing users who have that symbol
in
> there username can still login but only temporary. All these users need to
> request for a username change. Contact a local bureaucrat to do that or
ask a
> steward if your wiki does not have a bureaucrat.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Username_changes
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6849

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vox populi, vox dei *
_______________________________________________
Translators-l mailing list
Translators-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/translators-l


from_name: Pat Gunn

subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation-l summary for 1st week October

body:
I moved my list summaries to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS
and completed the second one, covering this last week's worth
of foundation-l. I suspect y'all won't want me to
post notes every week announcing that, so keep an eye
out there for future postings (unless there's a list
consensus that y'all actually do want me to drop a note
here every time). I would love to hear from people
interested in translating the summaries to other languages.

---
Pat Gunn
mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
http://dachte.org
Politics is more difficult than Physics
	-- Albert Einstein


from_name: Kris & Adrian

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> I have some serious problems with all of this.
>
> The article was created in 2004, and its first version was obviously
> not advertising. It had three AfDs deciding to keep it.
>
> I recognize that the company's demand of editorial control absolutely
> cannot be met. But I am gravely concerned that the Foundation
> Office's response to such a demand is to delete the page outright and
> salt the earth. Whether we keep an article or not should not be based
> on whether the article's subject has been a problem for us. The
> community has repeatedly indicated a desire to keep [[Fleshlight]],
> and the claim that the page was created for promotional purposes is
> demonstrably untrue. For the Office to unilaterally delete it marks
> an unfortunate and dangerous turning point in the relationship
> between the Office and the community.
>
> Best,
> Phil Sandifer
> sandifer at english.ufl.edu
>

I agree.

Will we have to delete Coca Cola etc if they start "demanding" editorial
control?

Could we have some further clarification on this please?

Cheers

Funky Monkey


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
I'm probably just repeating what millions of others have already said,
but can't we simply redirect [[Fleshlight]] to [[artificial vagina]]
and mention it there, if it is indeed notable enough to merit
mentioning? IMHO in general it is better to talk about _types of
products_ rather than specific products in an encyclopedia.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Parker Peters

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/9/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> I'm probably just repeating what millions of others have already said,
> but can't we simply redirect [[Fleshlight]] to [[artificial vagina]]
> and mention it there, if it is indeed notable enough to merit
> mentioning? IMHO in general it is better to talk about _types of
> products_ rather than specific products in an encyclopedia.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik

I second this suggestion, it seems like a good one.

Parker


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 09/10/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

> spam and should be nuked. At first I thought it could redirect, but then I
> asked  myself the following question--do we really want redirects from every
> possible  product out there to generic articles? Ask yourself the same question.

In most cases, I try to put these in, actually ;-) I frequently enter
brand names into Wikipedia to look something up, so a redirect from a
brand name to a type of product would be useful to the reader.

> Better  yet, go into a dollar store, look at the display of products and ask if
> we want  redirects for all the rip-off brands in Wikipedia.

Though that's pushing it ...

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD makes NYT

body:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/weekinreview/08word.html

At least they didn't mention [[Fleshlight]] ...

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: François Patte

subject: [Wikitech-l] tex math does not work

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

Platonides a ?crit :
| You need to install an extension for it if you're trying it on your own
| wiki. If you are talking about a wikimedia project, it's already
installed.
| On your preferences, you should try  "Toujours produire une image PNG"
(at
| least until it works).
| You may be gettting the Tex because your browser doesn't display the
image
| ( \sqrt{2} is the alternative content for the image). Your browser
should be
| configured to display images, even from external sites (if not, you
won't be
| able to see any image, so you would have noticed :P ).
| Check you can see
|
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/e/f/5/ef5590434a387b3c4427e09d5b08baaf.png

I can see the image of the square root of 2.

| Sometimes filters block some images.
|
| And i do see it http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Platonides  :-)

I just see \sqrt{2}

- --
Fran?ois Patte
UFR de math?matiques et informatique
Universit? Ren? Descartes
http://www.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/~patte
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFKe1AdE6C2dhV2JURAnBNAJ9uE6dEwOIUZ1zC4d2jOyIDSrq3jgCeNQOz
GwZg3mmbvZVYbZ/9ExGWHB8=
=Ej9Z
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD makes NYT

body:
On 09/10/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think I'm happy with the deletion of the Chuck Greene entry. Just
> because the Maccabiah Games aren't as prestigious as the Olympics or the
> Commonwealth Games, doesn't mean it's not important. It's a national or
> international sports events. Winning a medal on such an event should at
> least be as notable as being the right flank defender in some obscure
> football club that never won their competition.

Writing a convincingly good entry in its place is probably a good way to go.

(Then it can hit DRV and you can see what pathologically obsessive
process looks like.)

- d.


from_name: Jossi Fresco

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources: problems with [[WP:RS]]

body:
On Sep 18, 2006, at 6:28 AM, zero 0000 wrote:

> So, instead of
> fixing a yes/no classification of sources, let's establish a
> general principle that each article should be based on the
> most reliable sources available FOR THAT TOPIC.

Not really. If there are no reputable sources for a topic, then that
topic may not be suitable for Wikipedia. For example, if the only
source for a subject is a bunch of USENET postings or a couple of
blogs, the subject may not pass the threshold of notability.

-- Jossi


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Insight into users' behaviour

references:
<egaq0d$l7s$1@sea.gmane.org>	<f30e42de0610080633j7c91f7a2y3d2f5e86d61e56ee@mail.gmail.com>
	<egb9bm$2f0$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Stephen Bain wrote:
>> On 10/8/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's an extract of a conversation between myself and a friend which
>>> (hopefully) highlights why good UI design is important to encourage
>>> contributions.
>> There's an "Upload a new version of this file" link right there on the
>> page
>
> I totally knew that someone would reply saying just that. I really don't
> know how I could make myself any more clear. This is NOT about uploading
> files. This is NOT about the presence or absence of any particular link.
> This is about UI design in general, and how its neglection costs
> Wikipedia contributions.

Our upload interface came under some heavy criticism from a usability expert
at Wikimania hacking days. The point was well taken by the dev team, and we
discussed ways to improve it at the time. In particular, we proposed to
implement a wizard-style interface allowing upload to either commons or the
local wiki.

The timeframe for implementing this is probably on the order of months,
assuming it's left to me to implement. I have some other things to do first.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 9 Oct 2006, at 06:02, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> Okay, this has gone far enough.

Perhaps the problem is that the traditional
consensus ideal for articles is hard to
reach where vested interests such as
companies are concerned, unless of course
there are plentiful independent press reports.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process essay is almost essay-shaped now

body:
On Sep 14, 2006, at 9:43 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> Dear smart people,
>
> Please look over
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay and hack
> it to bits.
>
Pretty good, David.... I liked in particular the section on "You
can't legislate against misunderstanding or malice"

My question is, is such a reliance on process and the inherent
bureaucratization a natural evolution of a community of people
wanting to create an encyclopedia based on NPOV, V and NOR? Is that a
reversible/stoppable evolution? Is the current stratification of
users (e.g. "inadvertent committees" or such similar groups; admins,
etc.) unavoidable?

-- Jossi


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Oct 9, 2006, at 1:02 AM, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> Okay, this has gone far enough.
>
> It is remarkable that people have built all these theories on
> hypotheses as
> to what happened with Fleshlight, without actually knowing the
> facts. It is
> just  ludicrous to think that I succumbed to pressure from a company.

Nobody has suggested that you did. Quite the contrary, it appears
that you very deliberately pissed off a company as a way of dealing
with the unreasonable demands they tried to place on the project by
doing the exact opposite of what they asked.
> For all those expressing indignation, I invite you to think about what
> should be included in an encyclopedia, even one the size of
> Wikipedia. Once you
> define that, consider what the definition excludes.
>

Danny, the Office does not and should not be determining inclusion
criteria on its own and imposing them without the consent of the
community. Fleshlight survived AfD three times.  For the Office to
declare "Sorry, community - you're wrong" is a new approach for the
Office, and one I think is a very, very bad one.
>
> Considering all this, I asked if Fleshlight really needs an article
> of its
> own. I consulted with people too. The overwhelming response was
> that this is
> spam and should be nuked.

Which is flatly untrue, looking at the article history. It may have
become spam, but the article was not inherently spam, and had good
versions in its history.
>
> Once again, I hope that this whole incident helps to clarify what the
> criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia are. At least let it launch
> that discussion.
> But to do that, we have to avoid all the rhetoric and be willing to
> make real
> decisions based on the underlying principles behind what Wikipedia
> is all
> about.

One of the underlying principles is deference to the community on
content issues, and to a defined system of appeal upwards from that.
The Office does not historically enjoy a role of roving court of
appeals. In the past, in cases like this, Office members, including
Jimbo, have started AfDs and made it very clear that they are asking
the community to rethink inclusion on this one. The switch from that
to nuking is, I will repeat, a significant turn, and a very bad one.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Oct 9, 2006, at 5:14 AM, David Gerard wrote:

>
> Third-party verifiability of notability is a really simple idea to
> explain to aggrieved former article subjects.

If only this were practically possible with our current sourcing
"guidelines."

-Phil


body:
On 9 Oct 2006, at 07:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Stephen Streater wrote:
>
>> On 8 Oct 2006, at 05:01, Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>> Perhaps that the solution should be to disallow any evidence more
>>> than
>>> six months old except in some predetermined kinds of cases.
>>>
>>>
>> Wouldn't this allow people to never learn?
>> They could just start again every six months.
>>

> Acting badly, going away for six months, and coming back with the same
> silliness probably takes more self-discipline than most of the bad
> ones
> have.

Good point. The only case it might happen
(to conflate two threads) is with a company.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD makes NYT

body:
I don't think I'm happy with the deletion of the Chuck Greene entry. Just
because the Maccabiah Games aren't as prestigious as the Olympics or the
Commonwealth Games, doesn't mean it's not important. It's a national or
international sports events. Winning a medal on such an event should at
least be as notable as being the right flank defender in some obscure
football club that never won their competition.

On 10/9/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/weekinreview/08word.html
>
> At least they didn't mention [[Fleshlight]] ...
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Should anons edit Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy?

body:
--- Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> What's the purpose of letting non-autoconfirmed accounts
> edit
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Semi-protection_policy?
> (other than causing work for others to revert the 97%
> crap and making
> noise on watchlists)
>
> Why can't we simply semi-protect that? (Or do we need yet

Anons should not be editing policy.  As you point out, it
contributes little (nothing that couldn't be done with a
throw-away account) and just wastes admin time.  And may
even lead to the frustration that has been voiced on this
list by admins quitting wiki.  Utterly pointless.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

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


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on the new wikipedias

body:
2006/10/8, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> The ISO-639 have terms of use..

If that is the case, then isn't using it against our policies of only
using open source?

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/10/8, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
>> Hoi,
>> The ISO-639 have terms of use..
>>
>
> If that is the case, then isn't using it against our policies of only
> using open source?
Hoi,
This is like saying: I do not want to use the kilo or the Ampere because
you are not interpret in a way that you see fit. Open Souce is about
SOFTWARE. But ISO-639 are about STANDARDS it is no use if it is not used
as a standard ie as a given.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/7/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I would have to say Danny erred in this case with his ignorant statement
> that it is a "non-notable product".

IMO it sounds like the real problem here is that in this case we've
concentrated the judgment of notability in one person. I've heard of a
Fleshlight, and indeed in some subcultures they are very well known
(probably one of the best specifically known adult toys at the
moment). It wouldn't be Danny's fault for not knowing that, though,
but if he's the one who gets to make that distinction in cases like
this -- that is, it is not open for discussion, review, etc. -- then
perhaps there's a problem.

But whether or not this is notable or not, the fact that 1. its
notability was decided by one person (or at least, that's the
impression I'm getting from this thread) and 2. it seems spurred by an
office complaint which seems absolutely counter to our core content
editing principles (i.e. that companies can have sole control over
their content because it might negatively affect them to have content
they don't have control over) indicates to me, anyway, that there is
and will be a real problem in the future here.

I know that the tension between the idealistic wiki way and the
overly-litigious American legal system is not a new one, but it will
only get worse over time. My fear for the future is Wikipedia losing
all of its iconoclastic edge and becoming yet another step in product
deployment. I suppose at one level it is inevitable -- anything which
becomes too popular in the United States has to become corporate and
become it fast if it is going to survive -- though I find it a little
sad.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD makes NYT

body:
On 09/10/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Holy mother of crap, they mentioned my name in the NYT! Holy crap! And
> for an AfD which I made late at night when I was pissed off.
> Yikes. Big day for me...

I added a note to WT:AFD and WT:BLP on the public visibility of AFDs
and the need to hence avoid the word 'vanity' in AFDs on living bios.
You may want to note your "holy mother of crap!" reaction ;-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 09/10/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> On 9 Oct 2006, at 06:02, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> > Okay, this has gone far enough.

> Perhaps the problem is that the traditional
> consensus ideal for articles is hard to
> reach where vested interests such as
> companies are concerned, unless of course
> there are plentiful independent press reports.

Third-party verifiability of notability is a really simple idea to
explain to aggrieved former article subjects.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Commons delinker for all wikis

references:
<egb05f$61t$1@sea.gmane.org> <4529092D.2010805@gmail.com>
	<egbned$bg9$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Platonides wrote:
> "Gerard Meijssen" wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> It may be that you have requested this somewhere. And it may be that
>> this was at this very mailinglist, but when you want to ask ALL the
>> wikis than it is an effort that is blind sided because there is more to
>> all these wikis than just wikipedia. I am sure that I did not notice
>> anything like this on the wiktionary mailing list.
>>
>> Consequently I do not know how you measure support ..
>>
>> Thanks,
>>    GerardM
>>
>
> Support is measured as the as the votes given on
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions/CommonsDelinker
>
> I wasn't the was which requested it, I simply gave this up here as this is
> the international mailing list, trying to reach as many projects as
> possible. This also appeared on Wikizine 43.
> You are encouraged to copy this into the wiktionary mailing list, and
> wikisource's, and wikinews, wikiuniversity... and also on your local
> language (please translate!) wikials-l, wikiar-l, wikida-l, wikide-l,
> wikien-l, wikieo-l, wikies-l, wikifi-l, wikifr-l, wikihi-l, wikiia-l,
> wikiis-l, wikiit-l, wikija-l, wikimk-l, wikinl-l, wikino-l, wikipl-l,
> wikiru-l, wikisa-l, wikisv-l, wikita-l, wikiskan-l And also on as many
> hundreds of Village pumps as you want.
>
> No matter what is done, there will still be wikis not noticing. So the
> support must be measured from those which spoke at time...
> In fact, there wasn't necessary to inform all the wikis or get ther support.
> This could arrive as do all the software updates. Trunk has updates everyday
> and communities are not asked if they want each revision or not.
>
> If you can improve it, please explain how. I see you message quite obscure:
> "you are doing this wrong" :S
Hoi,
Yes, it has been done wrong because it is thought to be sufficient to
ask things that are relevant to all projects on the Wikipedia-l. It is
absolutely inappropriate. It may be the international mailing list but
it is only the Wikipedia mailing list. It is really nice that you
suggest that I may copy it to other mailing list. I am of the opinion
that this has been done wrong. This is not obscure, this is not
considering that there is more to the Wikimedia Foundation than either
Commons or Wikipedia.
It is really nice that you send a message to all these Wikipedia mailing
list but it is outrageous to suggest that the other projects have to
accept what you propose because they have not been informed.
Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
On 9 Oct 2006, at 10:13, Ligulem wrote:

> What's the purpose of letting non-autoconfirmed accounts edit
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Semi-protection_policy?
> (other than causing work for others to revert the 97% crap and making
> noise on watchlists)
>
> Why can't we simply semi-protect that? (Or do we need yet another
> policy
> for doing so?)
>
> Or is this a wiki-religious thing?
>
> Puzzled,
>
> --Ligulem

An Admin who asks when he doesn't know.
So there is hope after all :-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 9 Oct 2006, at 10:14, David Gerard wrote:

> On 09/10/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>> On 9 Oct 2006, at 06:02, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>>> Okay, this has gone far enough.
>
>> Perhaps the problem is that the traditional
>> consensus ideal for articles is hard to
>> reach where vested interests such as
>> companies are concerned, unless of course
>> there are plentiful independent press reports.
>
>
> Third-party verifiability of notability is a really simple idea to
> explain to aggrieved former article subjects.

As you will have noticed from the
WP:non-notability debates ;-)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] italic in links

body:
On 10/8/06, Fran?ois Patte <francois.patte at math-info.univ-paris5.fr> wrote:
> This is a "half solution": the link is correct but not the title of the
> page it refers to: italics do not appear in the title of the page.

Currently page titles can't contain any formatting, or many special
symbols. This has been discussed on this list before and the general
consensus seemed to be that allowing the capitalisation of the first
letter to be specified, and allowing italics would be improvements.
However, nothing has yet been implemented AFAIK.

Steve


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD makes NYT

body:
Holy mother of crap, they mentioned my name in the NYT! Holy crap! And
for an AfD which I made late at night when I was pissed off.

Yikes. Big day for me...

--Oskar

On 10/9/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/weekinreview/08word.html
>
> At least they didn't mention [[Fleshlight]] ...
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ligulem

body:
What's the purpose of letting non-autoconfirmed accounts edit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Semi-protection_policy?
(other than causing work for others to revert the 97% crap and making
noise on watchlists)

Why can't we simply semi-protect that? (Or do we need yet another policy
for doing so?)

Or is this a wiki-religious thing?

Puzzled,

--Ligulem


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] I Am the Very Model of a Modern Wikipedian

body:
On 10/7/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> I just happened to get the muse for a topical song... enjoy!  (NOTE:
> This is my original work, and I hereby release it under GFDL in case
> anybody wants to make some sort of use of it.)
>
> (To the tune of the [[Major-General's Song]])
>
> .....

Please!  Some of us have co-workers who would look at us funny if we
suddenly started laughing out loud!

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


body:
Generally speaking we only need to protect pages that attract a lot of
vandalism.
What edits are these anons making? Are they trying to alter the policy or
are they trying to fix spelling or something? Only the first issue needs
protection.

Mgm

On 10/9/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> What's the purpose of letting non-autoconfirmed accounts edit
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Semi-protection_policy?
> (other than causing work for others to revert the 97% crap and making
> noise on watchlists)
>
> Why can't we simply semi-protect that? (Or do we need yet another policy
> for doing so?)
>
> Or is this a wiki-religious thing?
>
> Puzzled,
>
> --Ligulem
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Stephen Bain

references:
<egaq0d$l7s$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f30e42de0610080633j7c91f7a2y3d2f5e86d61e56ee@mail.gmail.com>
	<egb9bm$2f0$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 10/9/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Stephen Bain wrote:
> >
> > There's an "Upload a new version of this file" link right there on the
> > page
>
> I totally knew that someone would reply saying just that. I really don't
> know how I could make myself any more clear. This is NOT about uploading
> files. This is NOT about the presence or absence of any particular link.
> This is about UI design in general, and how its neglection costs
> Wikipedia contributions.

Ok. I did go on to say that from a UI perspective, a more logical
place for the link would be the toolbox, where users are already
accustomed to going when they want to upload a file.

As Platonides said I may have misunderstood what you were getting at,
that you were talking about the upload form once the user has followed
the link. Perhaps you could suggest how this could be improved?
Autofilling the form with the current text would seem logical. The
user may need to change the text if they are changing the file so
there's no point removing the fields.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
G'day Dan,

> On 8 Oct 2006 at 22:18, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 15:30:59 -0500, "Richard Holton"
>> <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> So, that leaves open the possibility of someone else creating the
>>>  page?
>>
>> Nope.  Fleshlight demand editorial control.  We can't give them
>> that. The only way we can prevent their "advertising value" from
>> being ruined is by not carrying it.
>
> Since when do we have any obligation to preserve somebody else's
> "advertising value"?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Fleshlight>

Since 1 October 2006, evidently.  I don't know what the Fleshlight
people told Danny, but it must have been bloody good to make him take
such a rash action.  It sounds like they weren't saying "we don't want
an article", but rather "we demand to have a say in what you publish,
and if we can't have that then ... uhh ... we're non-notable ... yeah,
that's it ...".  An alternate reading is they called up and said, "How
come people are able to edit our article?" and Danny said, "YOUR
article?" and pulled the plug, cackling maniacally all the while.
Either way, 'twas a goof.

This is not the first time Danny has done the Wrong Thing, nor the first
time he's used his this-is-my-treat-me-as-a-normal-editor account for
OFFICE actions.  Now, fair enough, nobody can be right all the time, but
a man with as much power on Wikipedia as Danny wields should a) have a
better strike rate, and b) bloody-well admit it when he gets things
Wrong.  At the very least, I think we'd all appreciate being informed of
the reasons why the redirect suggested by Keepsleeping and SPUI is
inappropriate, because ISTM that there's no reason not to redirect the
article, except that Danny hath decreed it shall be deleted, and doesn't
want to encourage alternative solutions if they go against what he's
already decided.

(Gosh, it's much easier to criticise now that I'm no longer contributing
regularly.)

--
Mark Gallagher
"I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts."
  -- Calvin & Hobbes


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising season launch

body:
Hello,

Last update from Michael (this summer) mentionned that we had about 550
k$ in bank.

The technical team mentionned recently there was an urgent need for new
application servers (apache/squids), to address the record traffic the
site has been receiving. A couple of weeks ago, traffic reports
indicated > 18,000 requests per second, far above our routine traffic of
12,000 requests per second earlier this summer.

Consequently, a hardware purchase resolution has been very recently
approved, which will significantly impact our reserves.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Hardware_sept_2006

Michael reported that we purchased $425k of hardware last fiscal year
and will purchase $400k more in just the first half of the current
fiscal year. Rough estimate for this fiscal year hardware is between
$750k-$1M.

In short, it is high time to have our second fundraising of the year :-)

A fundraising committee was set up not a long time ago for such purpose
and will work with Brad for the success of the fundraising. The
translation committee will naturally have to be heavily involved and
coordination about press coverage will be under the responsability of
the comcom.

If you want to be involved, please say so.

Florence
Wikimedia Foundation

--------

As an individual (not board member), I would like to ask if it were
possible that the spin around the fundraising, focuses a bit on the
other projects, perhaps the notion of virtual library, with the
wikicommons and wikisource. We have the recent report of the german
digitization to show up as an example as how we could push things
forward in realm of digital libraries.

Ant


from_name: Nyenyec N

subject: [Wikitech-l] Opening a WP page in a frame

body:
Thanks, this would work, except that the whole point of my application
is to show the users a full image with its corresponding meta
information so that they can check the license info and act
accordingly.

When I open an image page it doesn't display the image which defeats
the whole point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:PriscillaPresleybookcover.jpg&action=render

Interestingly I can link to the image and display it separately, which
puts the "bandwidth theft" argument against frames into question...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/PriscillaPresleybookcover.jpg

Oh, well, we'll just turn this off in HuWiki's JavaScript I guess.

-- nyenyec

On 10/9/06, Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/9/06, Dan Li <dto at dev.java.net> wrote:
> > On 10/8/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > What's the reason for this behavior...
> >
> > http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7431#c1
> >
> > > ...and what's the easiest way to get around it?
> >
> > Not sure. Open a new window or maybe even load the content with XMLHttpRequest?
>
> Try a URL like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=bat&action=render
>
> Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)
>
> > Regards,
> >  - Dan Li


body:
Simetrical wrote:
> On 10/8/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> The ISO-639 have terms of use..
>>
>
> "Terms of use" generally indicates some kind of binding agreement.  It
> would be better to say that the practice is against standards or
> nonconformant or something.
Hoi,
That would be the case when they were not called "terms of use"
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Ligulem wrote:

>What's the purpose of letting non-autoconfirmed accounts edit
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Semi-protection_policy?
>(other than causing work for others to revert the 97% crap and making
>noise on watchlists)
>
>Why can't we simply semi-protect that? (Or do we need yet another policy
>for doing so?)
>
Why shouldn't they be allowed to edit it?  The page is a wiki.

As for the 97% crap, what else do you expect?  It's a policy page.

Ec


body:
Anthere wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Last update from Michael (this summer) mentionned that we had about 550
>k$ in bank.
>
>The technical team mentionned recently there was an urgent need for new
>application servers (apache/squids), to address the record traffic the
>site has been receiving. A couple of weeks ago, traffic reports
>indicated > 18,000 requests per second, far above our routine traffic of
>12,000 requests per second earlier this summer.
>
It would be nice if proper financial reports were made available befor
the start of another round of fundraising.  We owe it to potential
donors to let them know that we believe in fiscal responsibility.

Ec


from_name: Birger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Inputbox extension: creating page on specific location

body:
Hello,

Does anyone know whether it is possible to let the inputbox create a
page on a specific location you have specified in advance?

Example:
Step 1) The user types the text "SecondSubpage" into the inputbox
WHILE he/she is ON the page
"http://www.site.com/wiki/index.php/namespace:page/subpage". The user
pushes the create-button.
Step 2) The page is created, NOT on
http://www.site.com/wiki/index.php/SecondSubpage BUT on
http://www.site.com/wiki/index.php/namespace:page/subpage/SecondSubpage.

Is this possible through the inputboxextension to specify that the
page "SecondSubpage" should be a subpage of "namespace:page/subpage"?

Thanks in advance!
Birger


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to clear the air re SlimVirgin's accusation.

body:
He's nathanrdotcom. Nathandotcom does not exist.

On 10/8/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 8 Oct 2006, at 05:48, Nathan wrote:
> >
>
> > Thanks,
> > Nathan (User:Nathanrdotcom)
> > Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>
> Are you nathandotcom or nathanrdotcom?
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Jimmy Wales

body:
Parker Peters wrote:
> The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days ago, where
> an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to repeatedly
> remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to lock
> the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."

Diffs?


body:
Parker Peters wrote:
> Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on.
>
> Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be
> blocked for being a sockpuppet?
>
> It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?

Doesn't this properly depend on more context than the question provides?

My answer is: sometimes, it depends on the full context of the situation.

Example: a totally blatant vandal is blocked under one name, and comes
back 5 minutes later under an obvious variant of the same name, and does
the same vandalism again, and is blocked again.  And again.  And again.
  And finally under the Nth variant name, instead of starting with the
vandalism, the user makes a user page stating an objective of correcting
the horrible censorship on article X, the very article he has been
vandalizing.  I think blocking this suspected sockpuppet is fine.

Example: Someone shows up and makes a couple of lame but non-vandalism
edits to a page which has been the favorite of a longtime sockpuppeteer.
  I say, in this sort of case, it can be possible to give the benefit of
the doubt to find out if the newcomer is really a sock.

It just depends.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Ray Noorda, Founder of Novell Dies at 82

body:
Mr. Raymond Noorda, founder of Novell and pioneer of the networking
industry, passed away this morning in his home in Orem, Utah surrounded
by his close family.  He was 82.  He was deeply loved by all of us here
in Utah.

Jeff


from_name: Silas Snider

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 09:13:07 -0400, Phil Sandifer
> <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Danny, the Office does not and should not be determining inclusion
> >criteria on its own and imposing them without the consent of the
> >community. Fleshlight survived AfD three times.  For the Office to
> >declare "Sorry, community - you're wrong" is a new approach for the
> >Office, and one I think is a very, very bad one.
>
> Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith.  The
> company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to
> be diluted.  The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
> Danny was very kind to do this, and the project is not measurably
> poorer as a result, it being trivially easy to find the product on the
> internets should one be so inclined.
>

I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on
things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]]
-- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some
much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]

Sincerely,
Silas Snider

[[User:Simonfairfax]]

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silas Snider is a proud member of the Association of Wikipedians Who
Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category
of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad
Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
(AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD) , and the Harmonious
Editing Club of Wikipedia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:30:29 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>A mere suspicion or possibility that someone is a sockpuppet should not
>be grounds for blocking.  Unless this user is causing problems
>completely in his own right, any blocking can wait until you have
>checked out the facts.

And in this case the puppet account was indeed causing problems in its
own right.

I feel it would be more productive to discuss a less clear-cut
example, if one can be cited.  This is an open and shut case, in my
view.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:30:50 +0100, Kris & Adrian
<emailus at btopenworld.com> wrote:

>Will we have to delete Coca Cola etc if they start "demanding" editorial
>control?

Do you see that happening?  Is it not more credible that the smaller
and less genuinely significant a company is, the more significant it
will view Wikipedia as being in the global panoply of its
"advertising" presence?

I honestly don't see Ford or Coca-Cola doing anything other than have
us correct errors of fact.

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


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

references:
<575.7a654fa5.325b31f8@aol.com>
	<9B0D9C32-0780-494E-95E5-EEB93D6B63A2@gmail.com>
	<89gli2drms7tpdj97peel0nqd5dhgr2egg@4ax.com>
	<452AC763.8020304@internationalhouseofbacon.com>

body:
On 10/9/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
> > Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith.  The
> > company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to
> > be diluted.  The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
>
> And that, of course, is a load of hooey.
>
> -Jeff

We deal with people spamming articles all the time, including
companies trying to astroturf, without office involvement or actions
which stretch community consensus past the breaking point.

We have probably a million articles on things fewer people know of
than this one.

If this were a normal admin, I'd haul out the usual "'Be bold' is too
far when a wholebuncha people yell foul at you".

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


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 10/9/06, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
> Not really. If there are no reputable sources for a topic, then that
> topic may not be suitable for Wikipedia. For example, if the only
> source for a subject is a bunch of USENET postings or a couple of
> blogs, the subject may not pass the threshold of notability.

And thus, again, the idea that whole classes of sources can be decided
to be 'reliable' or 'not reliable' across the whole range of subject
matter rears its head again.

I disagree.  Lots of editors disagree.  Because, if you look closely,
the reliability of a source has more to do with who is writing it and
their reputation, how well they are trusted, and the nature of the
subject matter, than defining something simply by what medium it
appeared in.

-Matt


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews language coordinator needed

body:
Hi,

I'd like to delegate the task of coordinating Wikinews language
editions. The task consists of the following:

1) Keep an eye on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition
for language editions which have at least 5 supporters.

2) When that threshold is reached, contact the supporters and ask them
to prepare the necessary translations / page creations at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_language_pre-launch

3) Keep an eye on that page as well for editions which are ready to go.

4) When an edition is ready to go, file a site request at

http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/

For bonus points: A new language edition initially needs to have
uploads enabled until it uploads its own logo, then uploads need to be
disabled until a fair use policy is established that clarifies under
which circumstances users are allowed to upload files.

Wikinews editions also need to be licensed under CC-BY, not GFDL.

Beyond acting on your own, you would also be the first point of
contact for all questions about the process. I'd be happy to go
through it with you once more via Skype or phone.

If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please contact me
privately at erik AT wikimedia DOT org, and I will try to pick the
person a) most qualified and b) most likely to do the work. ;-)

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>> One of the underlying principles is deference to the community on
>> content issues, and to a defined system of appeal upwards from that.
>> The Office does not historically enjoy a role of roving court of
>> appeals. In the past, in cases like this, Office members, including
>> Jimbo, have started AfDs and made it very clear that they are asking
>> the community to rethink inclusion on this one. The switch from that
>> to nuking is, I will repeat, a significant turn, and a very bad one.
>
> Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by
> Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement.

The big difference is that such deletions can be overturned on the basis
of other admins' judgements, and that the basis on which those
judgements are made can be reviewed and debated publically.

In the case of Office actions, on the other hand, the basis on which the
deletion was made is secret and any attempt to overturn it by other
admins would result in Bad Things. So this is inherently a much bigger deal.

> It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints
> about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was
> done...  The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly
> inappropriate can not be supported by fact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fleshlight

> no answer was given to the
> point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have
> an equal claim of notoriety,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBuzz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realdoll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneros
(these were just a result of a quick survey of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sex_toys for articles that
appeared to be on specific companies' products.)

(PS, I'm so glad that this mailing list isn't publically archived and
accessible, so that web searches will never associate my name with that
list of products. What? It _is_, you say...? :)

> nor has our oh so violated community
> bothered to even write  a section on this oh so notable product in the
> article it was later redirected to.

The redirect was just done TODAY. And, since the article's deletion was
done by Office action, it's no wonder that people are hesitant to risk
digging anything out of the deleted article's history (GFDL problems
with attribution to deleted versions aside) or even have the appearance
of doing so.

> I think this thread is just further demonstration that the English
> Wikipedia is no longer a community in any sense beyond a collection of
> people which are nearly located in 'space'...  and the resemblance to
> an actual community appears to becoming more superficial as time
> passes.

Actually, it looks to me more like a community reacting against outside
interference with community affairs. If there was a copyvio or libel,
that's one thing - it's widely accepted that such stuff has to be dealt
with outside of community consensus for legal reasons. But this deletion
appears to have been a result of an individual deciding that the subject
wasn't "notable" enough to have an article, which is a decision reserved
for the _community_ to make (sometimes-flawed though the decision-making
mechanisms may be).

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from_name: Chad Perrin

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Regarding Ogg Theora and its file extension;
	should it be changed on the commons?

body:
On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 06:12:49PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
>
> Obvious conclusion: let the MIME type and file headers say whether
> it's Theora or MPEG4, let the file extension say whether it's audio or
> video.  Otherwise the only way a user can tell whether something is
> audio or video is by opening it, which is annoying.

. . . or by using a specific set of applications that will determine,
and show, that information for you -- which can also be annoying if you
don't happen to like those applications.  I, for instance, am not a huge
fan of GUI file browsers.  I prefer to use terminal emulator windows as
my "file browsers", with command line tools like ls and tree for viewing
directory contents and filesystem hierarchy.

I find your reasoning, re: using the extension for the user (audio vs.
video) and the MIME/headers for the application (Theora/MPEG4/MP3/etc.),
compelling.  There are instances where the user might be interested in
determining the specific encoding type, of course, but separating the
file extensions from .ogg into something like .oga and .ogv at least
wouldn't reduce the accessibility of that information at all.

This does raise a question for me, though: considering that, as far as
I'm aware, there aren't any problems with MPEG4 that are solved by
wrapping it as an Ogg file (to make it Ogg/MPEG4) -- why bother?  It's
kind of off-topic for this discussion, and maybe I'm missing something
important, but I don't see the point in making an MPEG4 file into an
Ogg/MPEG4 file except, perhaps, as some sort of kewler-than-thou
notation.  Is there a technical benefit to this?

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Amazon.com interview candidate: "When C++ is your
hammer, everything starts to look like your thumb."


body:
Jossi Fresco wrote:
> On Sep 18, 2006, at 6:28 AM, zero 0000 wrote:
>
>> So, instead of
>> fixing a yes/no classification of sources, let's establish a
>> general principle that each article should be based on the
>> most reliable sources available FOR THAT TOPIC.
>
> Not really. If there are no reputable sources for a topic, then that
> topic may not be suitable for Wikipedia. For example, if the only
> source for a subject is a bunch of USENET postings or a couple of
> blogs, the subject may not pass the threshold of notability.

[[Spoo]] is a featured article whose references are mostly Comuserve,
GEnie and Usenet forum postings. Those postings turned out to be
reputable sources for information on Spoo, after intense scrutiny by
large numbers of editors. There are even articles that are about
entities that are solely or primarily confined to Usenet itself;
[[Kibology]] for example. It'd be hard to have any sort of article there
at all without basing it on Usenet postings in some way.

I suppose you can put them up for deletion, but I strongly doubt they'll
fail to pass.

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from_name: Parker Peters

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why.

body:
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:14:02 -0400, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days ago,
> where
> >> an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to
> repeatedly
> >> remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to
> lock
> >> the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
>
> >Diffs?
>
> My thoughts exactly.  "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be
> an unambiguous vandalism sock.  I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps
> Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
>

"Unambiguous"? Hardly. Unless you didn't bother to read my reply earlier?

Your definition of "vandalism" seems to be that you disagree with an edit.
That's not a definition of "vandalism" that anyone at Wikipedia is supposed
to follow, and the last person I met who followed that was a definite pov
warrior.

Parker


from_name: Clarence Risher

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Regarding Ogg Theora and its file extension;
 should it be changed on the commons?

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> I know, I've read the spec. But presumably it is fairly rare for Ogg files
> to consist of chained audio and video streams. Most Ogg files can be easily
> categorised as either audio or video. It's not a problem that you can
> construct a file which can't be, and it's not a problem that at present, it
> may be difficult to automatically distinguish between the two.

I disagree.  Almost every ogg file that contains video also contains
audio (the "normal" definition of a "video file" implicitly includes
audio).  But not every, just almost.  I have seen many scientific
publications, videos of experiments and such, with no audio.

> I'm not suggesting that there should be an extension for every permutation.
> I'm just suggesting that for files which are clearly video files, .ogv would
> be an appropriate extension. There are two important applications for .ogg,
> audio and video, is it really so horrible to suggest that one of them might
> deserve its own extension?

You are making arbitrary distinctions.  OGG containing Theora (the video
format of the ogg project) and OGG containing MPEG4 (via xvid, usually)
are just as different, in the same ways, as OGG+Theora and OGG+Vorbis
(or even OGG+MP3 or OGG+FLAC).

>> Proper desktop systems have been doing the right thing for ages now,
>> for example the Gnome file manager doohicky (nautilus) correctly shows
>> a thumbnail and movie strip views on video files, while it shows a
>> music icon on audio files.
>>
>> Even Windows Vista can happily differentiate files with file magic...
>
> Scanning files for stream headers is slow, and you can't expect every
> application to support it. Gnome does, Windows Vista does, but what about
> the directory list module in Lighttpd? What about the unix ls command? What
> about FTP clients, archivers and older desktop systems?

Why would any of those applications need to support it?  File extensions
are archaic, a dying anachronism in today's world of file magic and/or
MIME types.  Let them go.

> What exactly is the disadvantage to using two different file extensions for
> Ogg rather than one?

The disadvantage is that they are arbitrary, and convey almost no useful
information about the actual contents of the file.  And, to bring up an
odd anti-example, would you have us rename a Theora+Vorbis file from
.ogv to .oga just because we deleted the Theora stream?  That would be
like having a dozen extensions for PNG images just to indicate which
chunks are used.

>> Extensions are just too inflexible to match up with reality... Ogg
>> isn't at all the only container to give up on that.. for example, what
>> extension does a PDF of layed out ascii have? A PDF of scanned pages?
>> A PDF of postscript algorithms that computes fractals?
>
> Nonsense, there are three types of ogg: audio, video and weird rubbish that
> nobody cares about. To use a different extension to one of these brings
> instant usability benefits to a large volume of users.

Nonsense, there are at least 5 extremely common types of ogg:
Theora+Vorbis, Theora+AAC, Vorbis, MPEG4+MP3, and (everything else).

And, to make a final inquiry...  What players are you people using that
can play OGG+(Vorbis/MP3/AAC/FLAC) but cant play OGG+(Theora/MPEG4)?  I
have a half dozen media players installed on my machine, including
mplayer, xmms, totem, and xine, and every one of them can play every
media file I have, video, audio, or otherwise.


subject: [Wikitech-l] in search of (partial) Images dump

body:
I am specifically trying to fetch
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/scans/EB1911_tiff/*/*
without wasting the resources to spider wikisource (where the images in
question are linked) to find all the filenames.

I made my original inquiries on IRC and was told that
http://dumps.wikimedia.org/images/special/commons/20051126_upload.tar
may contain the files that I want, but I would rather not waste the time
downloading all 290GB just to find out.  I was told that wikitech was
the right place to ask about such things, so here I am.

Any pointers would be appreciated.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> One of the underlying principles is deference to the community on
> content issues, and to a defined system of appeal upwards from that.
> The Office does not historically enjoy a role of roving court of
> appeals. In the past, in cases like this, Office members, including
> Jimbo, have started AfDs and made it very clear that they are asking
> the community to rethink inclusion on this one. The switch from that
> to nuking is, I will repeat, a significant turn, and a very bad one.

Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by
Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement.  Perhaps I
shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]]
found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to
play out a little bit of performance art.

It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation
of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy
conformance with a lack of deference to the community.

It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints
about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was
done...  The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly
inappropriate can not be supported by fact: no answer was given to the
point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have
an equal claim of notoriety, nor has our oh so violated community
bothered to even write  a section on this oh so notable product in the
article it was later redirected to.

I wouldn't expect everyone to agree with exactly how such situations
should be handled: if it were easy it would be a non-issue. Like most
other things: This is a matter where rational people can disagree
about the exact nature of its resolution.

However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand
together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each
other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of
friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we
*all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free
advertising forum).

I think this thread is just further demonstration that the English
Wikipedia is no longer a community in any sense beyond a collection of
people which are nearly located in 'space'...  and the resemblance to
an actual community appears to becoming more superficial as time
passes.

In recent times English Wikipedia appears more like a ragtag band of
castaways mutually stranded on an island...  where distrust and petty
bickering are at least as common as friendship and cooperation.

Perhaps our mere colocation on the project like the castaways in my
example  makes us, by definition, a community.  But if that is really
the destiny of the English Wikipedia community then it is a failure by
my standards... and I hope such an end would be a failure by all of
your standards as well.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:32:19 -0400, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand
> >> together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each
> >> other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of
> >> friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we
> >> *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free
> >> advertising forum).
>
> >This is one of the finest paragraphs in this entire thread.
>
> Damn right.  On DRV this is turning into a witch-hunt, with the
> spammers being given infinitely more consideration than Danny.  That
> sucks badly.
>
> Guy (JzG)

The spammers are due no consideration.  I am still wondering why they
got the special consideration in the first place, which led to this
happening at all, as opposed to someone tagging it with cleanup or
something.

The issue with Danny is... well, ok.  Nothing personal, but you're the
rouge du jour, Danny.

A lot of admins are not taking due account for the potential that
their actions can be as harmful to the project overall as a random
spammer, vandal, or troll.  Or in some cases, worse.

As I have said before: I love WP:BOLD, but as with swinging ones arms
around in public, your right to swing ends slightly short of the
person next to yours' chin.  If you WP:BOLD something and a vandal or
spammer cries out in agony, you probably did the right thing.  If you
WP:BOLD and a bunch of experienced editors and admins scream, you
likely overstepped.

I see a lot of people complaining about loss of community.  Well, that
swings both ways.  If you stubbornly insist that an off the cuff bold
action was right, in the face of a lot of pushback, you're not giving
the community its due.

Any bold action which results in flames across multiple WP admin
pages, contentious DRV, and several mailing lists WAS A MISTAKE.  It
was too controversial to be safe to do boldly.  It's fine if someone
didn't know that it would be controversial beforehand.  But everyone,
particularly anyone who may appear to be part of "the administration"
(office, arbcom, burecrats, senior admins, etc), needs to be very
sensitive to this.  If you stubbornly defend it rather than pull back
and run it through the consensus, then you've just become the source
of aggrivation of the problem.

More harm has been done to community by stubborn defenses of
unexpectedly contentious bold actions over the last year than any
other single thing.  Vandals have damaged articles more, but they are
generally ineffective at riling up the community (with a few
exceptions).

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


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints
> about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was
> done...  The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly
> inappropriate can not be supported by fact: no answer was given to the
> point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have
> an equal claim of notoriety, nor has our oh so violated community
> bothered to even write  a section on this oh so notable product in the
> article it was later redirected to.

Reverse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pokemon_test ?
PS: we do have articles on other such devices. And, as with Fleshlight,
I think they are just fine. Build your strawman somewhere else.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources: problems with [[WP:RS]]

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> Which is, I presume, why Jossi used the word "may".
>
> As usual the exception proves the rule; the vast majority of things
> verifiable solely from blogs are indeed uttery unsuitable.

But this is orthogonal to the issue of reliable sourcing. Jossi started
by arguing against the "general principle that each article should be
based on the most reliable sources available for that topic." The
notability of the topic _itself_ wasn't originally an issue.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

references:
<575.7a654fa5.325b31f8@aol.com>
	<9B0D9C32-0780-494E-95E5-EEB93D6B63A2@gmail.com>
	<89gli2drms7tpdj97peel0nqd5dhgr2egg@4ax.com>
	<9c97dc780610091451o3d5eefa9l5e44b3af5fb59e33@mail.gmail.com>
	<kbmli2tlsoa2l6rj0pk5731r2vaf5tk4vt@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:51:22 -0700, "Silas Snider" <swsnider at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on
>> things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]]
>> -- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some
>> much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
>
> I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of
> recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus
> the fleshlight.  Organists are notable, wankers are not.

How many celebrated skilled operators of [[Donald Knuth]] are there?
This is kind of a weird criteria for establishing "notability", I don't
think it's widely applicable.

Personally, I have no idea whether Fleshlight is notable or not without
doing further research I probably don't care to perform. But that's what
talk page debates, AfD, RfC and such are for. We have ways of reaching
community consensus on such things.

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body:
On 10/9/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:14:02 -0400, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >> The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days
> > ago, where
> > >> an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to
> > repeatedly
> > >> remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to
> > lock
> > >> the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
> >
> > >Diffs?
> >
> > My thoughts exactly.  "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be
> > an unambiguous vandalism sock.  I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps
> > Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
> >
>
> "Unambiguous"? Hardly. Unless you didn't bother to read my reply earlier?
>
> Your definition of "vandalism" seems to be that you disagree with an edit.
> That's not a definition of "vandalism" that anyone at Wikipedia is supposed
> to follow, and the last person I met who followed that was a definite pov
> warrior.
>
> Parker
>

Re-reading my own comments, this might have been phrased in a less
flammatory manner. If I crossed a line, I apologize.

However, I still take issue with your calling what I believe to be
good-faith and sourced edits vandalism, especially when the same sources are
just fine for another related article on the same topic.

I don't believe we can allow ourselves to fall into the trap of calling any
edit we disagree with "vandalism", or we do the whole project a disservice.

Parker


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

references:
<575.7a654fa5.325b31f8@aol.com>
	<9B0D9C32-0780-494E-95E5-EEB93D6B63A2@gmail.com>
	<89gli2drms7tpdj97peel0nqd5dhgr2egg@4ax.com>
	<452AC763.8020304@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<kjmli25etqanooed9f6i7nuvuabd1p398i@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:04:19 -0400, Jeff Raymond
> <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>>> Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith.  The
>>> company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to
>>> be diluted.  The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
>
>> And that, of course, is a load of hooey.
>
> Your evidence for this example of "assume ill faith" being?

It's based on the premise that we have an obligation to accommodate the
company's concern over the dilution of the advertising value of their
article. We actually have guidelines and policies _against_ that sort of
thing; Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines, Wikipedia:Neutral
point of view.

And by the way, disagreement with your arguments is not automatically an
assumption of bad faith even though in this case it was a bit harshly
worded.

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from_name: John Tex

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight (Johntex)

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
>>I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on
>>things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]]
>>-- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some
>>much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
>
>I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of
>recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus
>the fleshlight.  Organists are notable, wankers are not.

That is an amusing quote, but I don't think it proves anything.  If wankers
are not notable, then perhaps we should delete [[sex toys]] and how about
deleting [[Masturbation]] while we are at it?

Speedy deleting this was not the best way to handle the situation.  If it
was not an office action then it should have gone to AfD.

Likewise, I urge Danny to be more forthcoming about whether something is or
is not an office action.  WP:Office is far too serious a policy to leave
editors guessing about whether it applies or not.

- Johntex


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith.  The
> company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to
> be diluted.  The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.

And that, of course, is a load of hooey.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "What Joe Mauer's doing is sick. He's 23 years old. What's
	he going to do when he gets man muscles?" - Torii Hunter
	on Joe Mauer.


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 10/9/06, Clarence Risher <sparr0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm not suggesting that there should be an extension for every permutation.
> > I'm just suggesting that for files which are clearly video files, .ogv would
> > be an appropriate extension. There are two important applications for .ogg,
> > audio and video, is it really so horrible to suggest that one of them might
> > deserve its own extension?
>
> You are making arbitrary distinctions.  OGG containing Theora (the video
> format of the ogg project) and OGG containing MPEG4 (via xvid, usually)
> are just as different, in the same ways, as OGG+Theora and OGG+Vorbis
> (or even OGG+MP3 or OGG+FLAC).

The end user doesn't care whether the file is Theora or MPEG4.  The
end user cares whether the file is audio or video (for instance, they
might want to listen to it on a non-video-capable iPod, or in the
background while they're doing other things with visual space).  The
end user can see the file extension but not, at least not easily, the
MIME type or file headers.

The application playing the OGG does care whether the file is Theora
or MPEG4.  It doesn't care whether it's audio or video as such; from
its point of view, the distinction *is* fairly arbitrary.  But the
application doesn't care about the file extension, it cares about the
MIME type and file headers.

Obvious conclusion: let the MIME type and file headers say whether
it's Theora or MPEG4, let the file extension say whether it's audio or
video.  Otherwise the only way a user can tell whether something is
audio or video is by opening it, which is annoying.


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation-l summary for 1st week October

body:
I think it is a very good initiative to keep the communities informed
of what's going on. Just a small idea, maybe it would be good to make
the core words in the topics bold, or put the title or just some
keywords in front of it in bold? That way people can even more easily
filter out what they can use.
Maybe the transcom could think about translations or try to contact
people who might be interested? (Maybe even just a selection of the
summary even)

Greetings, Lodewijk

2006/10/9, Pat Gunn <pgunn at dachte.org>:
> I moved my list summaries to
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS
> and completed the second one, covering this last week's worth
> of foundation-l. I suspect y'all won't want me to
> post notes every week announcing that, so keep an eye
> out there for future postings (unless there's a list
> consensus that y'all actually do want me to drop a note
> here every time). I would love to hear from people
> interested in translating the summaries to other languages.
>
> ---
> Pat Gunn
> mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
> http://dachte.org
> Politics is more difficult than Physics
>         -- Albert Einstein
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Jimmy Wales stated for the record:

> AGF, please.  That is not what I said.  Danny has made it very clear in
> the past that he has two accounts.  One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions,
> i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency
> situation (usually but not always legal in nature).  And his normal
> account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
>
> --Jimbo

Jimbo, I don't want to throw any more JP-5 on the fire, but if any other
editor speedy-deleted an article that had survived three AFDs, the
deletion would be immediately reverted with demands that he follow
procedure.  I am a staunch support of AGF (as well as BOLD and OFFICE
and most importantly IAR) so I assume that the clear and present danger
of irreversible damage to the project was so extreme as to prevent any
prior discussion -- but the abruptness of this action does warrant at
the very least a raised eyebrow.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Who do you think you are,
 sean at epoptic.com | telling me to "Question Authority"?
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by
> Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement.  Perhaps I
> shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]]
> found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to
> play out a little bit of performance art.
 >
 > It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation
 > of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy
 > conformance with a lack of deference to the community.

I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with
it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act.
  It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to
WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his
capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising
editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies
of being bold.

It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a call to
the office.

> However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand
> together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each
> other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of
> friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we
> *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free
> advertising forum).

This is one of the finest paragraphs in this entire thread.

--Jimbo


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] italic in links

body:
> Currently page titles can't contain any formatting, or many special
> symbols. This has been discussed on this list before and the general
> consensus seemed to be that allowing the capitalisation of the first
> letter to be specified, and allowing italics would be improvements.
> However, nothing has yet been implemented AFAIK.

There is an option of alternative titles in MediaWiki, but this option
is disabled on Wikimedia sites (IIANM). But some wikis use
CSS+JavaScript workarounds for that, see e.g.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Titolo_errato
a similar trick could be used for italics.

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
It was also posted at foundation-l.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/010271.html

On 09/10/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Platonides wrote:
> > "Gerard Meijssen" wrote:
> >
> >> Hoi,
> >> It may be that you have requested this somewhere. And it may be that
> >> this was at this very mailinglist, but when you want to ask ALL the
> >> wikis than it is an effort that is blind sided because there is more to
> >> all these wikis than just wikipedia. I am sure that I did not notice
> >> anything like this on the wiktionary mailing list.
> >>
> >> Consequently I do not know how you measure support ..
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>    GerardM
> >>
> >
> > Support is measured as the as the votes given on
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions/CommonsDelinker
> >
> > I wasn't the was which requested it, I simply gave this up here as this is
> > the international mailing list, trying to reach as many projects as
> > possible. This also appeared on Wikizine 43.
> > You are encouraged to copy this into the wiktionary mailing list, and
> > wikisource's, and wikinews, wikiuniversity... and also on your local
> > language (please translate!) wikials-l, wikiar-l, wikida-l, wikide-l,
> > wikien-l, wikieo-l, wikies-l, wikifi-l, wikifr-l, wikihi-l, wikiia-l,
> > wikiis-l, wikiit-l, wikija-l, wikimk-l, wikinl-l, wikino-l, wikipl-l,
> > wikiru-l, wikisa-l, wikisv-l, wikita-l, wikiskan-l And also on as many
> > hundreds of Village pumps as you want.
> >
> > No matter what is done, there will still be wikis not noticing. So the
> > support must be measured from those which spoke at time...
> > In fact, there wasn't necessary to inform all the wikis or get ther support.
> > This could arrive as do all the software updates. Trunk has updates everyday
> > and communities are not asked if they want each revision or not.
> >
> > If you can improve it, please explain how. I see you message quite obscure:
> > "you are doing this wrong" :S
> Hoi,
> Yes, it has been done wrong because it is thought to be sufficient to
> ask things that are relevant to all projects on the Wikipedia-l. It is
> absolutely inappropriate. It may be the international mailing list but
> it is only the Wikipedia mailing list. It is really nice that you
> suggest that I may copy it to other mailing list. I am of the opinion
> that this has been done wrong. This is not obscure, this is not
> considering that there is more to the Wikimedia Foundation than either
> Commons or Wikipedia.
> It is really nice that you send a message to all these Wikipedia mailing
> list but it is outrageous to suggest that the other projects have to
> accept what you propose because they have not been informed.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Brad Patrick

body:
Our auditors have been onsite for the past few days and we are
actively under the microscope, as it were.  I cannot say when things
will be done, but it is the number one priority for me right now,
since it is my responsibility.

It has been painful to see criticism about the financial aspects of
things, and feeling the pressure to make such information available
when we are on the verge of being able to offer audited financial
statements to the world for the first time.

Ours is a community where saying "trust me" is not the same as "show
me".  I look forward to being able to demonstrate the financial
picture of the Foundation as soon as possible.

The one thing I can comment on is that the external forces affecting
operations are huge.  The surge in demand we have seen since the
summer requires dramatic response in the hardware area.  We have also
been working very hard for the past 3 months to address our bandwidth
needs and networking operations for the long term.  These are all
mission-critical, complicated, and expensive issues.  They are caused
by our ever-upward demand.  We are presently at greater than 18,000
requests *per second* and climbing.

If our present performance is any indication of future success and
requirements, expect a seven figure fundraiser.  We are one of the top
dozen websites in the world, doubling in demand every 4 months.  In
short, we are growing nearly exponentially.  All I can say is thank
God for Moore's Law.

-Brad

On 10/9/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >Hello,
> >
> >Last update from Michael (this summer) mentionned that we had about 550
> >k$ in bank.
> >
> >The technical team mentionned recently there was an urgent need for new
> >application servers (apache/squids), to address the record traffic the
> >site has been receiving. A couple of weeks ago, traffic reports
> >indicated > 18,000 requests per second, far above our routine traffic of
> >12,000 requests per second earlier this summer.
> >
> It would be nice if proper financial reports were made available befor
> the start of another round of fundraising.  We owe it to potential
> donors to let them know that we believe in fiscal responsibility.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Oct 9, 2006, at 5:10 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>
> Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by
> Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement.  Perhaps I
> shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]]
> found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to
> play out a little bit of performance art.

Since we're apparently dispensing with civility here, get off your
soapbox and engage reality. Any unilateral speedy deletion that went
against three AfDs would be overturned in a heartbeat, and you know
it. Which is as it should be.

> It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation
> of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy
> conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
>
Yes, because it's certainly not like the community has expressed
their opinion on this. Three times.

> It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints
> about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was
> done...  The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly
> inappropriate can not be supported by fact: no answer was given to the
> point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have
> an equal claim of notoriety, nor has our oh so violated community
> bothered to even write  a section on this oh so notable product in the
> article it was later redirected to.
>

Yes. Because clearly the lack of other articles on a topic is
evidence of something. That is, after all, why we've done away with
article creation - since there are no substantial holes in our coverage.

> Perhaps our mere colocation on the project like the castaways in my
> example  makes us, by definition, a community.  But if that is really
> the destiny of the English Wikipedia community then it is a failure by
> my standards... and I hope such an end would be a failure by all of
> your standards as well.

While I agree with you about the deterioration of the en community,
this is a downright stupid issue to try to hijack into this
consideration. Danny crossed a line that's important on a topic that
is far from a clear case (As evidenced by the fact that three AfDs
passed with a vote to keep). That's bad.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Oct 9, 2006, at 6:32 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

>
> I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with
> it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE
> act.
>   It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to
> WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in
> his
> capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising
> editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding
> policies
> of being bold.
>
> It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a
> call to
> the office.

In light of this, I am going to undelete and list the article for a
fourth AfD.

-Phil


from_name: Peter Ansell

body:
On 06/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> > WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks.
> > We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full
> > of ourselves.
>
>
> If you are an admin then I am a notorious troll living in Houston.
>

Honestly, thats just about the biggest admition of guilt you could
have done. The guy is trying to bring up serious issues and you make a
joke of it. If it is because you are named in the email you should put
a bit of thought into dealing with the issue, it wont go away with you
acting like that.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

body:
On 10/9/06, Dan Li <dto at dev.java.net> wrote:
> On 10/8/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What's the reason for this behavior...
>
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7431#c1
>
> > ...and what's the easiest way to get around it?
>
> Not sure. Open a new window or maybe even load the content with XMLHttpRequest?

Try a URL like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=bat&action=render

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Regards,
>  - Dan Li
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> Damn right.  On DRV this is turning into a witch-hunt, with the
> spammers being given infinitely more consideration than Danny.  That
> sucks badly.

To be kind of blunt about it, how much consideration did Danny give the
editors?

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "What Joe Mauer's doing is sick. He's 23 years old. What's
	he going to do when he gets man muscles?" - Torii Hunter
	on Joe Mauer.