from_name: Zoney

body:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:38:23 -0000, James D. Forrester
<james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 22nd November 2004, at 19:34, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
> <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [Snip]
>
> > Similarly, the "twentieth century" begins in 1901 and ends in
> > 2000, unlike the English twentieth century which begins in 1900 and
> > ends in 1999.
>
> Umm. Actually, this is oft a point of confusion; although decades do, indeed
> start in xyz0 and continued until xyz9, centuries, millenia, and longer
> periods of time start from xy01 and continue to x(y+1)00. Hence the
> beginning of this millennium was on the 1st of January 200*1*, although the
> first decade primarily within said millennium had started the year
> beforehand, and the end thereof is to be the 31st of December 3000, not
> 2999.
>
> [Snip]
>
> Yours, confusingly,
> --
> James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
>

Yep, the 1st of January, 2001 was the beginning of the 21st century!
Hence the amusement of the better educated at the big celebrations on
31st December 1999! Not to mention the fact that it's a tad odd anyway
even to mark the true change of millenium. (A rather arbitrary date,
especially considering the re-jigging of our oft-times dubious Western
calendar system!)

However, are the English Wikipedia articles currently set up according
to the correct system, or the incorrect one?

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interwiki links for the Icelandic decade articles.

body:
Zoney wrote:

>Do people not also (confusingly) use "the 1900s" to refer to 1900-1909?
>
>
That's definitely the case, so I'd support a style (either policy, or
informal policy) if using "the [[20th century]]" instead of "the
[[1900s]]" for centuries, and [[1900s]] for the decade (although this
latter usage is moderately confusing).  It's not an issue that has much
in the way of political or social ramifications, so NPOV is only really
a minor point...

-Mark


from_name: Stuart Orford

body:
 --- Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yep, the 1st of January, 2001 was the beginning of
> the 21st century!
> Hence the amusement of the better educated at the
> big celebrations on
> 31st December 1999! Not to mention the fact that
> it's a tad odd anyway
> even to mark the true change of millenium. (A rather
> arbitrary date,
> especially considering the re-jigging of our
> oft-times dubious Western
> calendar system!)
>
> However, are the English Wikipedia articles
> currently set up according
> to the correct system, or the incorrect one?

What is this "correct" and "incorrect"? Either system
is an arbitrary division of time, and it only becomes
important which you prefer when you get to year 0
(because it doesn't exist). In the real world, the
vast majority of people these days celebrate the
change of a decade/century/millennium when the last
digit changes to a zero, and so Wikipedia should
certainly mention that to be the case. NPOV!

However, it probably does make sense to use the
"traditional" rather than the "popular" definitions
for decades etc., as that's the way they would have
been most often referred to historically. There's
certainly no problem linking to the Icelandic articles
either, even if they would be a year out.

-- a clearly very poorly "educated" sjorford

___________________________________________________________
Win a castle for NYE with your mates and Yahoo! Messenger
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gerrit

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Bayesian filtering to find suspicious new pages
	and changes

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> >Gerrit wrote:
> >>The bot I am thinking of would follow Newpages live. It fetches each
> >>page, and checks it against it database. If it's classified as ham, then
> >>continue. If it's classified as unsure, ask the user whether it is
> >>{{delete}}-material: if yes, train as spam and prepend {{delete}} to the
> >>article. If no, train as ham. It could add a comment to the article or a
> >>message to the talk page: <!-- classified by ... as ... with score
> >>...  -->
>
> I was thinking about Bayesian filters too, but as a means of marking
> changes in RC for users to deal with them, not as a bot. As for marking
> diffs, well, my idea would be to mark reductions in article size as
> such, and to run the filter only on added text.

Yes.
I think I could find time to write a prototype next weekend.
So far, I see two ways to track changes live:

    - listen to #enrc.wikipedia (not sure about bot policy...)
    - listen to Zwitter's rcdumper (should be possible)

It would be easier if there was a server:port socket with an rcdumper
writing the rc's of all wiki's to the port, where bots like this one can
listed. It's not really necesarry, though.

yours,
Gerrit.

P.S.
I tested whether my own e-mail bayesian database could serve as a start,
but it could certainly not: [[World War II]] was classified as 99% spam
because of words like oil and finance ;-).

--
Weather in Lulea / Kallax, Sweden 23/11 09:50:
	-20.0?C   wind 2.2 m/s NW (34 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


body:
James D. Forrester wrote:
> On Mon, 22nd November 2004, at 19:34, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
> <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Similarly, the "twentieth century" begins in 1901 and ends in
> > 2000, unlike the English twentieth century which begins in 1900 and
> > ends in 1999.
>
> Umm. Actually, this is oft a point of confusion; although decades do, indeed
> start in xyz0 and continued until xyz9, centuries, millenia, and longer
> periods of time start from xy01 and continue to x(y+1)00. Hence the
> beginning of this millennium was on the 1st of January 200*1*, although the
> first decade primarily within said millennium had started the year
> beforehand, and the end thereof is to be the 31st of December 3000, not
> 2999.

To make it more confusing: in the Dutch meaning of the word, the first
decade of this millenium lasted from January 1, 2001 to January 10, 2001
(inclusive) :-)

nearly-all-Dutch-people-do-it-wrong-ly - y'rs Gerrit

--
Weather in Lulea / Kallax, Sweden 23/11 10:20:
	-20.0?C   wind 1.3 m/s NNW (34 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


body:
Zoney wrote:
> Yep, the 1st of January, 2001 was the beginning of the 21st century!
> Hence the amusement of the better educated at the big celebrations on
> 31st December 1999! Not to mention the fact that it's a tad odd anyway
> even to mark the true change of millenium. (A rather arbitrary date,
> especially considering the re-jigging of our oft-times dubious Western
> calendar system!)

Of course the millenium started in January 2001. However, even knowing
it, one could very well celebrate it. Because what truely excited people
was not being in the third millenium, but that *four* digits changed in
one moment. This is still true and always will be.

> However, are the English Wikipedia articles currently set up according
> to the correct system, or the incorrect one?

Correct.

Gerrit.

--
Weather in Lulea / Kallax, Sweden 23/11 10:50:
	-19.0?C   wind 2.2 m/s NW (34 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


body:
--- Stuart Orford <sjorford at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > What is this "correct" and "incorrect"? Either
> > system
> > is an arbitrary division of time, and it only
> > becomes
> > important which you prefer when you get to year 0
> > (because it doesn't exist). In the real world, the
> > vast majority of people these days celebrate the
> > change of a decade/century/millennium when the
> last
> > digit changes to a zero, and so Wikipedia should
> > certainly mention that to be the case. NPOV!
> >
> > However, it probably does make sense to use the
> > "traditional" rather than the "popular"
> definitions
> > for decades etc., as that's the way they would
> have
> > been most often referred to historically. There's
> > certainly no problem linking to the Icelandic
> > articles
> > either, even if they would be a year out.

--- Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yes, we should document popular math errors too, and
> popular misconceptions about how gravity works! ;)
> Mark

Yes, we should.

-- Stuart

___________________________________________________________
Moving house? Beach bar in Thailand? New Wardrobe? Win ?10k with Yahoo! Mail to make your dream a reality.
Get Yahoo! Mail www.yahoo.co.uk/10k


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Broken mathematical representation at [[Knuth's
	up-arrow notation]]

body:
Hi,

Some of the mathematical representation on [[Knuth's up-arrow notation]]
is broken. There is too much whitespace. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/math/a62fcfaa06f5fa6052ab4b8bf292f7fd.png

I don't know what causes this, but it doesn't look nice.

kind regards,
Gerrit.

--
Weather in Lulea / Kallax, Sweden 23/11 10:50:
	-19.0?C   wind 2.2 m/s NW (34 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


from_name: Dan Keshet

subject: [Wikitech-l] patches, CVS access, et cetera.

body:
Hi,

After a couple of false starts, I've posted a short patch for Bug 144 (related
changes for Categories).  I can also close Bug 923, which I posted (poor use
of strings in recentchangeslinked).  So:

1) [[m:Development policy]] seems to say I should ask for CVS access.  I don't
really want CVS access, but if it was set up for me, I'd check in patches for
144 and 923.  Alternately, somebody with access could check them in.  I
really want 144 closed by 1.4; I got a bunch of excited mail from people
following that bug.

2) The patch for 923 subtly changes the meaning of the string 'rclsub'.  Will
translators know that the string changed?  Is there a policy on allowing
changes to strings close to release?

3) [[m:Development tasks]] seems unloved.  The KDE project has a "junior jobs"
concept where easy problems are prefixed with JJ: in bugzilla.  I would be
interested in a similar project for Mediawiki.  I don't have time to do major
things like database redesign or delta-compression, but if I could take a
couple hours each week checking off simple bugs and free up time for core
developers to work on the big issues I'd be willing to do that.

Peace,

Dan Keshet (English Wikipedia)


from_name: R E Broadley

body:
I was only aware on one type of twentieth century, the one starting 1901
and ending end of 2000. Where did this "English twentieth" century come
from?

James D. Forrester wrote:

>On Mon, 22nd November 2004, at 19:34, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
><avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>[Snip]
>
>
>
>>Similarly, the "twentieth century" begins in 1901 and ends in
>>2000, unlike the English twentieth century which begins in 1900 and
>>ends in 1999.
>>
>>
>
>Umm. Actually, this is oft a point of confusion; although decades do, indeed
>start in xyz0 and continued until xyz9, centuries, millenia, and longer
>periods of time start from xy01 and continue to x(y+1)00. Hence the
>beginning of this millennium was on the 1st of January 200*1*, although the
>first decade primarily within said millennium had started the year
>beforehand, and the end thereof is to be the 31st of December 3000, not
>2999.
>
>[Snip]
>
>Yours, confusingly,
>
>


from_name: Ryan Lane

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Custom Namespaces

body:
Brion Vibber <brion <at> pobox.com> writes:

>
> On Nov 23, 2004, at 3:40 AM, Randy Becker wrote:
> > I've attempted to follow the directions on meta, but they seem to be
> > out of date. The variable mentioned seems to no longer be in the code.
> > Where and how can I add a custom namespace?
>
> You don't say which page had the directions you tried to follow, so I'm
> going to point you to a page which does, in fact, have correct
> directions:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Custom_namespaces
>
> If you'll let us know where the page with incorrect directions is, we
> might be able to fix it. (Or, you can fix the page yourself once you
> know the correct directions.)
>

The directions may be incorrect. I've added to the discussion section showing
how i got it working. My directions may not be the recommended (or correct) way
, but they work.

Ryan Lane
Naval Oceanographic Office
System Technology and Applications Branch


from_name: Mark Richards

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Active discussion of policy (and forming community
	consensus)

body:
This speaks to spelling out clearly before the poll
starts how these kinds of situations will be resolved.
I don't think that you can assume at this stage that
someone who voted for one of the yes options would
approve of a different one, or a change.
Mark

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
> > I'm at my wits' end over how to handle
> [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
> > Deletion]]. Half the oppose votes oppose the
> policy for no reason
> > other than that they prefer a different course of
> action - how am I to
> > address that when it's clear that a majority of
> the community prefers
> > this proposal to the alternative this substantial
> opposition proposes
> > (namely, the expansion of speedy deletion
> criteria)? Others called it
> > instruction creep, which I've tried to address,
> though how this
> > proposal can be viewed as complex is beyond me, A
> minority suggested
> > housing it on the same page as VFD (when a central
> reason behind this
> > is that VFD is overcrowded).
>
> Well, by my count, 73.5% of the votes were for one
> of the "Yes" options
> (114/155), and 26.5% for "No" (41/155).  Is that
> consensus?  I suppose
> that depends on your definition, but a ~3:1
> preference is fairly convincing.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Requst for a wikibot mailing lists

body:
Would it be possible to get a bot mailing list at wikipedia?
wikibot-l at wikimedia.org perhaps, the only such mailing list at the
moment is the pywikipediabot mailing list, however that one is used
for CVS commits and discussions about the code in general.

The list would be used for bot discussion and coordination specific to
wikipedia projects, the posting of warnfiles and so on.

Note that i do not desire to admin or in any way oversee this mailing
list, i'd just like it to exist.

Thanks.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Custom Namespaces

body:
On Nov 23, 2004, at 6:47 AM, Ryan Lane wrote:
> Brion Vibber <brion <at> pobox.com> writes:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Custom_namespaces
>
> The directions may be incorrect.

I followed the directions exactly to confirm that they worked before
replying.

If they didn't work for you, you may be running an outdated version of
MediaWiki (1.3.2 or older) -- if so I'd strongly recommend that you
upgrade to 1.3.8 immediately, as there are potentially exploitable
security holes in the older versions.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Moderation queue

body:
This list hasn't gotten much love lately; I noticed a bunch of messages
from John Dehlin that had been automatically held for moderation due to
the large number of recipients explicitly listed in the To: header
(over 90!)

Apologies for not checking the moderation queue earlier; I've released
the held messages.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
John Lee wrote:

> I'm at my wits' end over how to handle [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
> Deletion]]. Half the oppose votes oppose the policy for no reason
> other than that they prefer a different course of action - how am I to
> address that when it's clear that a majority of the community prefers
> this proposal to the alternative this substantial opposition proposes
> (namely, the expansion of speedy deletion criteria)? Others called it
> instruction creep, which I've tried to address, though how this
> proposal can be viewed as complex is beyond me, A minority suggested
> housing it on the same page as VFD (when a central reason behind this
> is that VFD is overcrowded).

Well, by my count, 73.5% of the votes were for one of the "Yes" options
(114/155), and 26.5% for "No" (41/155).  Is that consensus?  I suppose
that depends on your definition, but a ~3:1 preference is fairly convincing.

-Mark


body:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:51:49 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Mark Richards wrote:
>
> >Yes, we should document popular math errors too, and
> >popular misconceptions about how gravity works! ;)
> >
> Except that these aren't errors.  Dividing time in such ways is
> completely arbitrary either way you do it.  "The 20th century" is
> 1901-2000, and an arbitrary span of 100 years.  "The 1900s" is
> 1900-1999, and an arbitrary span of 100 years.  Neither is particularly
> "correct".  The only thing I could possibly see as incorrect is if you
> were to refer to 1900-1999 as "the 20th century" or to 1901-2000 as "the
> 1900s".
>
> -Mark
>

Do people not also (confusingly) use "the 1900s" to refer to 1900-1909?

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 04:28:30 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Nov 23, 2004, at 4:10 AM, Gerrit wrote:
> > Some of the mathematical representation on [[Knuth's up-arrow
> > notation]]
> > is broken. There is too much whitespace.
>
> Have you tried removing some of the quad-spaces? [...] Presumably this is meant to align things just so, but it creates, well, a bunch of whitespace.

Yes, I think this is just a good example of abusing layout syntax -
your use of ASCII art is to the point. Rather than using a table with
multiple columns, somebody has used a table with 2 rows but 1 column,
and put a lot of spaces in so that the text on the bottom lines up
with a particular part above it. I'm going to try and fix things up
now. [Not that I have any experience with TeX, this just seems to
"make sense"]

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: a a

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikiapedia diff code

body:
hi all I am new and have some questions.  I want to use some of the
tools provided im wikimedia but am a little lost when looking at the
source code.

I really like the diff tool.   I would like to use it on some text
files I have.  Could you suggest a way to run your diff tool and some
plain test files,  not sure what functions to call first

I would like to do this from a unix/linux command line.  I would also
like to keep the highlichting and font colors of the wikipedia but
would like to have a basic format (no navigation, no wallpaper ect)

Any help you could provide would be great!


body:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:10:42 +0100, Gerrit <gerrit at nl.linux.org> wrote:
> Some of the mathematical representation on [[Knuth's up-arrow notation]]
> is broken. There is too much whitespace.

Right, I've fixed most of the formulae to make proper use of \matrix
as a table, rather than just using whitespace to line things up on
each row. Hopefully, this will look good more reliably.

The only one I couldn't make work was the 3-row one just after the
text "...an n-arrow operator expands into a series of (n ? 1)-arrow
operators. Symbolically..." (which doesn't look dodgy, but is just 3
rows full of whitespace). I can't find a way (if there is one) of
spanning multiple columns inside a \matrix{}, or of making the
underbrace extend across text in different "table cells". Still, I
guess if it looks OK for now, it will stay looking OK unless someone
edits it...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> Would it be possible to get a bot mailing list at wikipedia?
> wikibot-l at wikimedia.org perhaps, the only such mailing list at the
> moment is the pywikipediabot mailing list, however that one is used
> for CVS commits and discussions about the code in general.
>
> The list would be used for bot discussion and coordination specific to
> wikipedia projects, the posting of warnfiles and so on.

I second that.

> Note that i do not desire to admin or in any way oversee this mailing
> list, i'd just like it to exist.

I can volunteer to admin the mailing list. It shouldn't take too much
time and I have experience with mailman.

regards,
Gerrit Holl.

--
Weather in Lulea / Kallax, Sweden 23/11 17:20:
	-18.0?C   wind 2.7 m/s NW (34 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikiapedia diff code

body:
Hi a a,

I think perhaps your mail would be better directed at the technical mailinglist.

Mark

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 17:51:53 -0800, a a <mr.computer.geek at gmail.com> wrote:
> hi all I am new and have some questions.  I want to use some of the
> tools provided im wikimedia but am a little lost when looking at the
> source code.
>
> I really like the diff tool.   I would like to use it on some text
> files I have.  Could you suggest a way to run your diff tool and some
> plain test files,  not sure what functions to call first
>
> I would like to do this from a unix/linux command line.  I would also
> like to keep the highlichting and font colors of the wikipedia but
> would like to have a basic format (no navigation, no wallpaper ect)
>
> Any help you could provide would be great!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia

body:
Hi all,

Andre Engels has recently locked the sh.wikipedia database at the
recommendation of Tim Starling, on the grounds that it is "supposed to
be dead".

However, if I recall correctly, there is a story behind the continued
existance (until now) of the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia in the shadow of
the Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian Wikipedias, perhaps something along
the line of there still being people who push for the usage of the
unified form again?

While I realise that much of the content at sh.wikipedia does not
belong there, simple locking of a database is no way to deal with
inappropriate content, rather it should be discussed with the relevant
people who can help fix it in the proper way.

And while Serbo-Croatian may no longer be the official language of a
state, it still exists parallel to Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, and
Montenegrin (this may or may not be an actual language, the whole
question of these 5 different varieties which are, depending on who
you speak to, different languages or different dialects). Bosnian,
Serbian, and Croatian are pushed by Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian
nationalists as well as their respective governments, Montenegrin is
pushed in Montenegro (Crna Gora) by nationalists but a measure to make
Montenegrin rather than Serbian the official language of Montenegro
failed. However, something like 30% of the population writes on the
census that rather than Serbian they speak Montenegrin. Serbo-Croatian
is very controversial, but it is still pushed by some.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikiapedia diff code

body:
ok, sure.

Could you please direct me to that list.

Thank you

Andrew

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:14:14 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi a a,
>
> I think perhaps your mail would be better directed at the technical mailinglist.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 17:51:53 -0800, a a <mr.computer.geek at gmail.com> wrote:
> > hi all I am new and have some questions.  I want to use some of the
> > tools provided im wikimedia but am a little lost when looking at the
> > source code.
> >
> > I really like the diff tool.   I would like to use it on some text
> > files I have.  Could you suggest a way to run your diff tool and some
> > plain test files,  not sure what functions to call first
> >
> > I would like to do this from a unix/linux command line.  I would also
> > like to keep the highlichting and font colors of the wikipedia but
> > would like to have a basic format (no navigation, no wallpaper ect)
> >
> > Any help you could provide would be great!
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Heli Retzek

subject: AW: [Wikitech-l] Hooks and filters

body:
that is really a great and very useful plan !!

> So, I'd like to set up a system of hooks and filters for MediaWiki. We

HeliR


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia mail sending function

body:
When I'm logged in and use the "E-mail this user" link, the resulting
e-mail doesn't seem to contain any information about my originating IP
address.  Hotmail adds a "X-Originating-IP: [123.123.123.123]" header
to any outgoing mail, and I think this would be a good idea for
Wikipedia aswell.

If an IP address is blocked from editing articles, can that address
still be used for sending Wikipedia e-mail?  Can it be used for
registering new users? Is that good or bad?

I can only send Wikipedia e-mail if I'm logged in, but the outgoing
mail has a "From:" header that contains the address I entered in my
personal preferences and that address hasn't been verified, has it?
Is that good or bad?

Theoretically, if my IP is blocked from editing, I think I could sign
up as a new user "Jimbooo" and set my e-mail adress to that of Jimbo
Wales, and start to send insulting Wikipedia e-mails to Wikipedia
users I want to turn against Jimbo.  The recipients would get a
message "From: Jimbooo <...>" with no information about my IP.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Language names

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>We have some language names (ie, for interwiki) that aren't right.
>
>Among them are:
>
>bo (tibetan): bod skad (should be ???????)
>bn (bengali): should be ?????
>or (oriya): Oriya (should be ????)
>xh (xhosa): Xhosa (should be isiXhosa)
>zu (zulu): Zulu (should be isiZulu)
>dv (divehi): should be ??????
>lo (lao): should be ???
>si (sinhala): should be ?????
>ht (haitian creole): should be Kr?yol
>dz (dzongkha): should be ?????
>
>Best,
>Mark
>
>
Mark,
I had a look Lao is according to en:wikipedia ???????. I cannot read the
characters for dv and si, I would appreciate it if you could post it
somewhere where from where it is usable.
ht is called *Haitian Creole* /(Krey?l/ or /Ayisyan) /according to the
en:wikipedia//
Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] en:wiktionary had its 50.000th article

body:
Hoi,
I noticed that en:wiktionary had reached its 50.000th article. I think
it is quit a big milestone, and I do want to congratulate all people who
contributed content to the en:wiktionary with this result. :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language names capitalization

body:
Hi,

I?noticed some inconsistencies between
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hindi and
http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hindi
regarding capitalization of language names.

At least for
* Belorussian
* Basque
* Catalan
* Estonian
* Hungarian
* Icelandic
* Indonesian
* Latvian
* Lithuanian
* Malay
* Moksha
* Norwegian
* Occitan
* Portuguese
* Romanian
* Russian
* Sorbian
* Tatar
* Turkish
* Ukrainian
* Walloon
* Welsh

So the generic question is "which languages captialize their language and
ethnic pronouns?"

Thanks,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] 144.132.89.151 requested a new password for me

body:
To deal with the offensive emails - just killfile 'em.

Theresa

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:01:21 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
<csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
> This appears to a sock puppet of Reithy. He's also been sending me
> offensive email. Out of interest, how do I deal with this?
>
> Ta bu shi da yu
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Padmanabhan V. Karthic

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Fwd:The mess the C++ wikibook is in due to
	disagreement between b:User:Paddu and b:User:Panic2k4

body:
Hi folks,
I sent this message to textbook-l but there has been no response. This
isn't even there in the archives so either this post was removed by
the moderator or no moderator has checked this.

Also there are no November messages in the textbook-l archive, which
makes it look like that mailing list has as low traffic as
[[Wikibooks:Staff lounge]] (the equivalent of Village pump) or lower.
So I've decided to send mail to this list instead. Sorry if this is
not appropriate.

I have been forced to bring to the notice of the wikimedia community
that there is a person (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Panic2k4)
intent of forking a work in wikibooks within wikibooks itself. Not
only is he forking the "article"/"module", he has forked the talk page
as well, which makes it even more difficult to discuss ideas of
improvement with others.

Now he has blatantly stated that since wikibooks is GFDL he can do
what he wants without discussing with others & expects me to do the
same: (http://en.wikibooks.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Panic2k4&oldid=70652
& probably a few later versions of the page).

A more easily readable version of my original post to textbook-l with
working wikilinks is at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#.5B.5BProgramming:C_plus_plus.5D.5D_and_its_fork_.5B.5BProgramming:_C_-.2F-_-.2F-.5D.5D
Sorry, I didn't have enough time to convert the wikilinks into proper
HTTP URLs. Thanks once again for your consideration!


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >Andre Engels has recently locked the sh.wikipedia database at the
> >recommendation of Tim Starling, on the grounds that it is "supposed to
> >be dead".
>
> I only commented on procedure and policy, not on the fact of the matter

> itself. Assessment of the facts was performed by others. As I said
> previously, I'm sick of the continuous discussion of linguistics on
> wikipedia-l and I wish it could be taken offlist. I've never made any
> judgement on the status of Serbo-Croatian and I don't intend to start now.

How about a separate mailinglist for 'small language wikipedia's' and
'new wikipedia-related projects'?

regards,
Gerrit.

Sorry Gerrit, but I strongly disagree.

I understand very well that some people might get annoyed with constant discussions about minority languages, but frankly, isolating small languages would be a very bad idea.

2 years and a half ago, I fought so that wikipedia-l stopped being the english wikipedia mailing list only and become a global mailing list. I fought so that all wikipedias could be on the same foot of equality and that decisions could be discussed together. I wish that we do not go backward and isolate minor projects and minor languages. It is very important that we discuss these topics globally. Minorities also are welcome on wikipedia and they need attention. Not the darkness of an intl-l list again. We do not need more lists. The issue of whether we want wikipedia to become only a list of 20 major languages, or if we want wikipedia to be also a resource in many minor languages, and in that case what we should do for all languages which are currently non active, is a global issue. It needs to be here.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo!


from_name: John Lee

body:
I'm at my wits' end over how to handle [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
Deletion]]. Half the oppose votes oppose the policy for no reason other
than that they prefer a different course of action - how am I to address
that when it's clear that a majority of the community prefers this
proposal to the alternative this substantial opposition proposes
(namely, the expansion of speedy deletion criteria)? Others called it
instruction creep, which I've tried to address, though how this proposal
can be viewed as complex is beyond me, A minority suggested housing it
on the same page as VFD (when a central reason behind this is that VFD
is overcrowded).

Now, I've added a section to the proposal answering these objectors, and
tweaked it here and there to see if I can make it palatable. The
problem? Nobody is coming to discuss. I've advertised this on the
community portal and the pump as well as this mailing list, and a grand
total of one user came to discuss why he voted no - he soon changed his
mind on the proposal after we discussed his reasons for opposition. How
is one to gather consensus for a divisive and controversial policy when
it's impossible to gather discussion at all? Anthony argued that polling
stifles discussion. Well, at least it created one user who came back and
discussed the policy with me. Before, very few users were discussing the
policy.

Am I appealing in this email for those who voted against preliminary
deletion to discuss? Hell, yes. But this is also an appeal to stimulate
discussion about how to avoid post-voting apathy - visit once to vote
and never come back to discuss. The problem is that "hot discussions"
don't appeal much to anyone. It's so much easier to cast a vote and
forget about the issue. But how are we ever going to reform VFD (or any
of our other more enduring institutions) at this rate? We're bogged down
in vast non-consensus because a substantial minority want to have their
cake and eat it too, and the fact that most of them won't discuss the
issue only adds to the burden.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
I agree, however apparently there is some reason (which I do not yet
fully comprehend) that we must be very careful with Wikipedias in
different languages. If you create one, I will be happy to add it to
http://www.bloglines.com/public/inactivewikipedias until it has
perhaps 100 articles which should prevent "squatting" (and I don't see
why squatting is such a huge concern anyways, it's still a very rare
occurance and should probably be treated as pure vandalism unless it's
actually in a real language).

So apparently every single language or dialect has to go before the
board and waste their time...

Anyhow I feel that this case is special as it does not have anything
to do with creating a new Wikipedia, but entails the very real issue
of sh.wikipedia, an already-existing Wikipedia with over 100 articles
(though many are inappropriate) that has been locked which may or may
not be appropriate for it at this time but needs further discussion,
and I feel wikipedia-l is the best place for such a discussion because
that way the international Wikipedia community has the chance to
participate.

Mark

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 01:04:35 +1100, Tim Starling
<t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>
> > 2 years and a half ago, I fought so that wikipedia-l stopped being
> > the english wikipedia mailing list only and become a global mailing
> > list. I fought so that all wikipedias could be on the same foot of
> > equality and that decisions could be discussed together. I wish that
> > we do not go backward and isolate minor projects and minor languages.
> > It is very important that we discuss these topics globally.
> > Minorities also are welcome on wikipedia and they need attention. Not
> > the darkness of an intl-l list again. We do not need more lists. The
> > issue of whether we want wikipedia to become only a list of 20 major
> > languages, or if we want wikipedia to be also a resource in many
> > minor languages, and in that case what we should do for all languages
> > which are currently non active, is a global issue. It needs to be
> > here.
>
> Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress
> whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on
> anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests
> for a decision. All we need is some sort of decent decision-making
> process -- for example a committee or a vote of those concerned. I've
> previously suggested that major dialects as listed by SIL could be
> automatically accepted.
>
> There's tens of thousands of dialects in the world, do we have to have a
> flame war about each one?
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
Without commenting on the actual issue, since I haven't even looked at
it, I wanted to just note that of course he's got a right to fork a
book project *on his own server* by complying with the GNU FDL.  I
encourage such creative reuse of our work.

However, on our servers, we can certainly set social policies against random
book forks on wikibooks -- I'm not the best person to formulate a general policy
about this, but it seems clear to me that a thoughtful approach is needed and
shouldn't be too hard to formulate.

--Jimbo

Padmanabhan V. Karthic wrote:

> Hi folks,
> I sent this message to textbook-l but there has been no response. This
> isn't even there in the archives so either this post was removed by
> the moderator or no moderator has checked this.
>
> Also there are no November messages in the textbook-l archive, which
> makes it look like that mailing list has as low traffic as
> [[Wikibooks:Staff lounge]] (the equivalent of Village pump) or lower.
> So I've decided to send mail to this list instead. Sorry if this is
> not appropriate.
>
> I have been forced to bring to the notice of the wikimedia community
> that there is a person (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Panic2k4)
> intent of forking a work in wikibooks within wikibooks itself. Not
> only is he forking the "article"/"module", he has forked the talk page
> as well, which makes it even more difficult to discuss ideas of
> improvement with others.
>
> Now he has blatantly stated that since wikibooks is GFDL he can do
> what he wants without discussing with others & expects me to do the
> same: (http://en.wikibooks.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Panic2k4&oldid=70652
> & probably a few later versions of the page).
>
> A more easily readable version of my original post to textbook-l with
> working wikilinks is at
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#.5B.5BProgramming:C_plus_plus.5D.5D_and_its_fork_.5B.5BProgramming:_C_-.2F-_-.2F-.5D.5D
> Sorry, I didn't have enough time to convert the wikilinks into proper
> HTTP URLs. Thanks once again for your consideration!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Gerrit wrote:

>Tim Starling wrote:
>
>
>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi all,
>>>
>>>Andre Engels has recently locked the sh.wikipedia database at the
>>>recommendation of Tim Starling, on the grounds that it is "supposed to
>>>be dead".
>>>
>>>
>>I only commented on procedure and policy, not on the fact of the matter
>>itself. Assessment of the facts was performed by others. As I said
>>previously, I'm sick of the continuous discussion of linguistics on
>>wikipedia-l and I wish it could be taken offlist. I've never made any
>>judgement on the status of Serbo-Croatian and I don't intend to start now.
>>
>>
>
>How about a separate mailinglist for 'small language wikipedia's' and
>'new wikipedia-related projects'?
>
I doubt that that would work.  A significant portion of the people who
are likely to work on these are newbies who are may not be familiar with
the list.  Each language that is considered will have a whole new set of
newbies.  Once a particular language wiki is implemented that group will
lose interest in the mailing list because they will be too busy with
their own pedia.

.Ec


body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Anthere wrote:
>
>>  I wish that
>> we do not go backward and isolate minor projects and minor languages.
>> It is very important that we discuss these topics globally.
>> Minorities also are welcome on wikipedia and they need attention. Not
>> the darkness of an intl-l list again. We do not need more lists. The
>> issue of whether we want wikipedia to become only a list of 20 major
>> languages, or if we want wikipedia to be also a resource in many
>> minor languages, and in that case what we should do for all languages
>> which are currently non active, is a global issue. It needs to be
>> here.
>
>
> Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress
> whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on
> anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests
> for a decision. All we need is some sort of decent decision-making
> process -- for example a committee or a vote of those concerned. I've
> previously suggested that major dialects as listed by SIL could be
> automatically accepted.
>
> There's tens of thousands of dialects in the world, do we have to have
> a flame war about each one?

I sympathize with Tim on this.  For anything other than a conlang, all
that should be needed to get a pedia going is one hard-working
individual who is able to work in the language in question.  One hard
worker is worth far more than a dozen individuals who merely support
that pedia without any personal familiarity with the language.  If one
serious individual is there let's give him the chance.  He can be
started with a major language interface of his choice that he can
translate at his leisure.  If that project is getting nowhere, or
appears abandoned it can be harmlessly frozen until someone else comes
along with enough interest.  We all want these projects to succeed, and
that can't happen if a proponent needs to be flame-war tested before he
can start anything.

Ec


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>I agree, however apparently there is some reason (which I do not yet
>fully comprehend) that we must be very careful with Wikipedias in
>different languages.
>
One point that you seemingly fail to comprehend is that by advocating
for all and sundry minor languages you become a part of the problem.
Analogously we can't have a meaningful SETI project until we can filter
out the radio noise from earth.

>If you create one, I will be happy to add it to
>http://www.bloglines.com/public/inactivewikipedias until it has
>perhaps 100 articles which should prevent "squatting" (and I don't see
>why squatting is such a huge concern anyways, it's still a very rare
>occurance and should probably be treated as pure vandalism unless it's
>actually in a real language).
>
>
The problem with squatting has its roots in the fact that most of us
don't understand these languages, and don't monitor events there.  If
there is any silliness going on we have no way of knowing.  It makes
sense to put these languages into cryogenic support if it has been
inactive for an extended period of time.

>So apparently every single language or dialect has to go before the
>board and waste their time...
>
I think that there is very little support for that position.

Ec


from_name: Gerrit

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >Andre Engels has recently locked the sh.wikipedia database at the
> >recommendation of Tim Starling, on the grounds that it is "supposed to
> >be dead".
>
> I only commented on procedure and policy, not on the fact of the matter
> itself. Assessment of the facts was performed by others. As I said
> previously, I'm sick of the continuous discussion of linguistics on
> wikipedia-l and I wish it could be taken offlist. I've never made any
> judgement on the status of Serbo-Croatian and I don't intend to start now.

How about a separate mailinglist for 'small language wikipedia's' and
'new wikipedia-related projects'?

regards,
Gerrit.

--
Weather in Lulea / Kallax, Sweden 24/11 09:20:
	-18.0?C   wind 0.4 m/s SW (34 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

body:
This appears to a sock puppet of Reithy. He's also been sending me
offensive email. Out of interest, how do I deal with this?

Ta bu shi da yu


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 144.132.89.151 requested a new password for me

body:
And what about people resetting my password?

Theresa Knott wrote:
> To deal with the offensive emails - just killfile 'em.
>
> Theresa
>
>
> On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:01:21 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
> <csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
>
>>This appears to a sock puppet of Reithy. He's also been sending me
>>offensive email. Out of interest, how do I deal with this?
>>
>>Ta bu shi da yu
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>


from_name: Tim Starling

references:
<co0j0g$dq7$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1bfe3eb04112316405c46cff@mail.gmail.com>
	<co0lo9$jmu$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
csherlock wrote:
> And what about people resetting my password?
>

It isn't reset, the old password still works, as well as the new one. If
you want the new password to stop working, set your password in your
preferences, it doesn't matter what to.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikipedia-l] protologisms in Wiktionary

body:
The following is my response to a question raised in the Beer Parlour of
the en:wiktionary about how far we go in accepting protologisms or newly
coined words.  I have copied it here because it involves issues that can
be of concern to the broader community.

Wiktionary is frequently Googled, and because of its FDL availability it
is frequently copied into other websites. The result is that allowing
some protologism here has a multiplier effect. By allowing a protologism
we become advocates for it; we are no longer neutral, but begin to
collectively push a POV.

Wikipedia has a "no original research" policy. We need some parallel to
that. The support for a word is far more accessible that the details of
some complicated new theory in physics. With a physics theory the
average reader is soon lost in opaque details, and can quickly give up
in confusion. A word is different in that it's often easy to devise a
coherent definition. The average reader can understand it, and begin to
apply it in his own life. We are in a better position to get away with a
lot of public bullshit.

Strangely enough, I believe that Wiktionary has a far greater potential
than Wikipedia to being influential in the general public. I say this
notwithstanding the fact that it is much smaller, and receives far less
critical scrutiny than Wikipedia. A person who has found "prydxl" in
Wiktionary or any of its copycats could very well begin to use it
despite its bogus origins.

Protologisms are only part of the problem. The debate about "leet" words
come into it; so does the verifiability of any entry. Mix these with an
increasing level of influence, and we have a major ethical dilemma
relating to the function and purpose of any dictionary.

A dictionary chronicles the language in both its past and its present.
Its past needs to be subject to calls for evidence; if a word is
challenged the burden of proof for verifying its legitimacy needs to
fall upon the contributor. Otherwise, the rest of us are left with the
futile task of proving a negative. Evidence for new words is even more
important. It is not enough to say that the word was used in some
unspecified episode of a TV series. What amuses the members of today's
peanut gallery may be completely forgotten by this time next year when
the forces of marketing will have diverted our attention to some new
ephemeral fantasy. Web evidence does no better. It is not good to accept
any word as valid irregardless (sic!) of where you found it.

Ec


from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
On Wed, 2004-24-11 at 08:51 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:

> I agree, however apparently there is some reason (which I do not yet
> fully comprehend) that we must be very careful with Wikipedias in
> different languages.

I think the big thing to understand is that each wiki takes time,
effort, and money to maintain. Each wiki is a security risk, both
technically and legally; an active community can offset this risk as
well or better than fancy technological security measures.

An analogy: leaving the door to your house unlocked when you're having a
backyard barbecue is the right thing to do. There's lots of people
around, and they'll need to get in and out, and there's little risk of
problems. It'd be really inconvenient to have to keep locking and
unlocking it. Leaving the door unlocked when you are the only one home
is probably OK. Leaving your door unlocked when no one is home is asking
for trouble.*

A wiki without an active user community is an unlocked house with no one
home.

You've repeatedly pointed out that you don't want to spend the time,
money, or effort to create and maintain wikis without any active
participants, yet you insist that the Wikimedia Foundation does so. You
haven't really made a case for why, except that these languages exist
and have speakers. I don't think anyone debates those points; I also
don't think that "a language exists" has "there should be a Wikimedia
wiki for it" as a necessary consequent.

Even if the disadvantages are low, the advantages of having empty,
unused wikis don't seem to outweigh them. I find it hard to believe
that, say, gv: is a huge source of pride for Manx speakers. If that was
my native language, I'd think to myself, "Man, nobody really gives two
shakes about us, do they?" And the idea that any unused Wikimedia wiki
is a scholarly resource for the language is absurd. I guess there's a
intellectual exercise in reading the list of ISO 639 codes, seeing which
ones don't already have a Wikipedia, looking up the language, and then
making a request on this list, but... I don't think that gratification
is enough to offset the disadvantages.

> So apparently every single language or dialect has to go before the
> board and waste their time...

I'd say that having a clear set of rules about how and when to start a
Wikimedia wiki would obviate the need for a Board vote on each one.
Like, I dunno, say: having a single person step forward willing to work
on the wiki in the language, and maybe having one edit per 30 or 60
days. That seems like a pretty low threshold to me.

~ESP

* In some cities and countries. In other places, it's perfectly OK to
leave your door unlocked when you're not home.

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
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from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Survey of why wikipedians edit

body:
--- John Collison <john at collison.ie> wrote:

> I am conducting a short survey as part of a project on different
> methods of building online projects. I mentioned this a while back
> on
> wikipedia-l. I would greatly appreciate it if any wikipedians could
>
> fill in the survey and send it back to me. Sorry to be a hassle.
>
> THE SURVEY:
>
> NOTE: This survey only concerns EN wikipedia, do not factor in any
> work
> on other languages in this.
>
> Q1: How long have you been editing wikipedia?
> A: 3 years
>
> Q2: How many hours per week do you spend on wikipedia?
> A: 3
>
> Q3: Do you write professionally?
> A: yes
>
> Q4: What is your current employement?
> A: Programmer Analyst fortune 500 company
>
> Q5: Why do you work on wikipedia for nothing when you could be paid
> to
> write elsewhere?
> A: Because I can make more money programming than writing. I would
also say that it's a sharing thing. The information I get out og
Wikipedia is worth a lot to me, so I consider it payment.
>
> Q6: If people were paid to work on Wikipedia, would you stay or
> would
> you devote your time to something else?
> A: Something else
>
> Q7: Do you think people should be paid to work on wikipedia?
> A: No.
>
> Q8: Do you think developers should be paid?
> A: No.
>
> Q9: Do you think reward schemes and competitions (like Danny's
> contest)
> on a small scale to get people to write more, better etc. should be
>
> used on wikipedia?
> A: Maybe.
>
> Note: You can answer yes to as many of the following questions as
> you
> like.
>
> Q10: Do you work on wikipedia for the enjoyement of seeing your
> work
> online?
> A: No.
>
> Q11: Do you work on wikipedia for the satisfaction that you have
> created something good and it can be used by others?
> A: yes
>
> Q12:Do you work on wikipedia because it you enjoy interacting with
> others?
> A: No.
>
> Q13: Do you edit wikipedia for any reasons other than the ones
> mentioned above also?
> A: Yes.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> John Collison
> (Ludraman)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo


references:
<co0j0g$dq7$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1bfe3eb04112316405c46cff@mail.gmail.com>	<co0lo9$jmu$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<co0n5f$m5l$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> csherlock wrote:
>
>> And what about people resetting my password?
>>
>
> It isn't reset, the old password still works, as well as the new one. If
> you want the new password to stop working, set your password in your
> preferences, it doesn't matter what to.
>
> -- Tim Starling

Thanks Tim :)


from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Utah OpenTexbooks Project (Project Dyson)

body:
John,

I just got the emails that you included to the Wikibooks
mailing list. As the founder of Wikibooks, I would be
excited and honored if you chose to include the site in
your plans.

Karl

--- John Dehlin <john.dehlin at usu.edu> wrote:

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Reithy filtered (was Re: 144.132.89.151 requested a new
 password for me)

body:
csherlock wrote:
> This appears to a sock puppet of Reithy. He's also been sending me
> offensive email. Out of interest, how do I deal with this?

Reithy's ability to send emails or request passwords for people should
now be somewhat limited. Please report any further instances to me so
that we can adjust the filters.

-- Tim Starling


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Andre Engels has recently locked the sh.wikipedia database at the
> recommendation of Tim Starling, on the grounds that it is "supposed to
> be dead".

I only commented on procedure and policy, not on the fact of the matter
itself. Assessment of the facts was performed by others. As I said
previously, I'm sick of the continuous discussion of linguistics on
wikipedia-l and I wish it could be taken offlist. I've never made any
judgement on the status of Serbo-Croatian and I don't intend to start now.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] wikiapedia diff code

body:
It's wikitech-l at wikimedia.org. I'm CCing this discussion there in this
email; hopefully they can assist you.

John Lee
([[en:User:Johnleemk]])

a a wrote:

>ok, sure.
>
>Could you please direct me to that list.
>
>Thank you
>
>Andrew
>
>
>On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:14:14 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hi a a,
>>
>>I think perhaps your mail would be better directed at the technical mailinglist.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 17:51:53 -0800, a a <mr.computer.geek at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>hi all I am new and have some questions.  I want to use some of the
>>>tools provided im wikimedia but am a little lost when looking at the
>>>source code.
>>>
>>>I really like the diff tool.   I would like to use it on some text
>>>files I have.  Could you suggest a way to run your diff tool and some
>>>plain test files,  not sure what functions to call first
>>>
>>>I would like to do this from a unix/linux command line.  I would also
>>>like to keep the highlichting and font colors of the wikipedia but
>>>would like to have a basic format (no navigation, no wallpaper ect)
>>>
>>>Any help you could provide would be great!
>>>
>>>


from_name: a a

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikipedia diff tool

body:
hi all I am new and have some questions.  I want to use some of the
tools provided im wikimedia but am a little lost when looking at the
source code.

I really like the diff tool.   I would like to use it on some text
files I have.  Could you suggest a way to run your diff tool and some
plain test files,  not sure what functions to call first

I would like to do this from a unix/linux command line.  I would also
like to keep the highlichting and font colors of the wikipedia but
would like to have a basic format (no navigation, no wallpaper ect)

Any help you could provide would be great!

PS: I'm not sure I'm on this list so please send any replys directly
to me as wel.

thanx

Andrew


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2BuyGood.com/InfoPedia

body:
The site 2BuyGood.com/InfoPedia
(http://www.2buygood.com/wiki/) is grabbing live
content from the English Wikipedia, but gives no link
back to Wikipedia, no history or authorship
information, no GFDL information, and claims
copyright. The site actually attempts to prevent
copying text from the site by capturing right-clicks.

I'm not clear about the entire implications of
grabbing content live from Wikipedia, but it seems
wrong to me, especially when it is so blatantly GFDL
non-compliant.

While we work on GFDL issues, could a developer block
the live content grabs?

Thanks.

Rich Holton (en.wikipedia:user:rholton)

__________________________________
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Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Duplicate categories

body:
Right now, if I have the same category link appear twice on one page,
there are two category links to the same page.  Are there plans to make
it so that a category appears only once, and perhaps a robot powered by
an admin to eliminate duplicate categories?


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:

> I think the big thing to understand is that each wiki takes time,
> effort, and money to maintain. Each wiki is a security risk, both
> technically and legally; an active community can offset this risk as
> well or better than fancy technological security measures.

I fully agree with Evan here. But I want to add some other points which
are largely neglected so far. Maintaining a wiki is not only about
getting some people to work there, we also need to ensure that local
communities get to know and share the fundamental values and principles
of wikipedia: neutrality, openess, freedom of content.

During the creation of arabic wikipedia I acted as advisor - and I
experienced how many questions arise for intelligent and good-willing
people not involved with wikipedia before (How do I deal with a copyvio?
How to deal with total crap? How to deal with a POV article? What about
naming conventions? Which policies do we need? etc...)

There's a lot of knowledge about wikipedia customs and processes needed
to get a new wiki started. So far we let people find out on their own -
or not.

Yesterday a friend translated a sentence on the main page of the tatar
wikipedia for me: "Tatarlar B?yek! Y???sen T?rki D?nya!" - "Die Tataren
sind gro?! Es lebe die t?rkische Welt!" (in german, since I don't know
how to translate this in english). But the equivalent would be the
french putting "Vive la France" on their main page. All three sysops
there edited the page later, noone removed the sentence.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2BuyGood.com/InfoPedia

body:
On Nov 24, 2004, at 8:02 PM, Rich Holton wrote:
> The site 2BuyGood.com/InfoPedia
> (http://www.2buygood.com/wiki/) is grabbing live
> content from the English Wikipedia, but gives no link
[snip]
> While we work on GFDL issues, could a developer block
> the live content grabs?

Done.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] 2BuyGood.com/InfoPedia

body:
On Nov 24, 2004, at 8:24 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2004, at 8:02 PM, Rich Holton wrote:
>> The site 2BuyGood.com/InfoPedia
>> (http://www.2buygood.com/wiki/) is grabbing live
>> content from the English Wikipedia, but gives no link
> [snip]
>> While we work on GFDL issues, could a developer block
>> the live content grabs?
>
> Done.

I should note that not only were they forwarding every request to our
servers, stripping off all navigation links and identification text,
and stuffing it full of advertising and JavaScript popups, but their
requests to the web server used false referrer and user-agent fields to
hide their tracks. Here are a couple of hits:

66.152.98.14 - - [25/Nov/2004:04:14:19 +0000] "GET
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ HTTP/1.1" 301 564 "en.wikipedia.org"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98; DigExt)"

66.152.98.18 - - [25/Nov/2004:04:14:50 +0000] "GET
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal HTTP/1.1" 301
616 "en.wikipedia.org" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98;
DigExt)"

Instead of using their own site as a referer URL, their digger is using
our hostname ("en.wikipedia.org"). That's not even a valid referrer,
since it should be a URL! And, they're falsely claiming to be Internet
Explorer so it looks like the hits are coming from some human browser.

2buygood.com's front-end address resolves to 66.152.98.201; the hits to
our servers come from several IPs on the same /24 network; I've noticed
from .12 through .20 in the log extracts I saw. I've blocked the whole
subnet at our squid servers, so they're receiving 403 (permission
denied) errors.

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] Ever considered something like Wikiroll?

body:
Hi!

Thinking about Blogrolls I wonder why "Wikirolls" aren't common yet. Here's the
basic principle to include Wikirolls into MediaWiki.

Create new columns in table interwiki:

ALTER TABLE interwiki
  ADD iw_name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  ADD iw_example varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  ADD iw_wikiroll BOOL NOT NULL;

Update Wikis you want to occur in your wikiroll:

UPDATE interwiki SET
  iw_name='MeatBall Wiki',
  iw_example='MeatballWiki',
  iw_wikiroll=1
WHERE iw_prefix='MeatBall';

Add new Wikis you want to occur in your wikiroll:

INSERT INTO interwiki SET
  iw_prefix='my',
  iw_name='My Wiki',
  iw_url='http://www.mywiki.net/index.php/$1',
  iw_example='Welcome',
  iw_wikiroll=1
;

Get a list of your wikiroll to show in your wiki:

SELECT iw_name, iw_prefix, iw_example FROM interwiki WHERE iw_wikiroll=1;

code to transform to wiki table syntax has to be written

Get a list of your wikiroll for OPML output:

SELECT iw_name, iw_url FROM interwiki WHERE iw_wikiroll=1;

code to transform to opml has to be written

Greetings,
  Jakob


from_name: John Collison

body:
I am conducting a short survey as part of a project on different
methods of building online projects. I mentioned this a while back on
wikipedia-l. I would greatly appreciate it if any wikipedians could
fill in the survey and send it back to me. Sorry to be a hassle.

THE SURVEY:

NOTE: This survey only concerns EN wikipedia, do not factor in any work
on other languages in this.

Q1: How long have you been editing wikipedia?
A:

Q2: How many hours per week do you spend on wikipedia?
A:

Q3: Do you write professionally?
A:

Q4: What is your current employement?
A:

Q5: Why do you work on wikipedia for nothing when you could be paid to
write elsewhere?
A:

Q6: If people were paid to work on Wikipedia, would you stay or would
you devote your time to something else?
A:

Q7: Do you think people should be paid to work on wikipedia?
A:

Q8: Do you think developers should be paid?
A:

Q9: Do you think reward schemes and competitions (like Danny's contest)
on a small scale to get people to write more, better etc. should be
used on wikipedia?
A:

Note: You can answer yes to as many of the following questions as you
like.

Q10: Do you work on wikipedia for the enjoyement of seeing your work
online?
A:

Q11: Do you work on wikipedia for the satisfaction that you have
created something good and it can be used by others?
A:

Q12:Do you work on wikipedia because it you enjoy interacting with
others?
A:

Q13: Do you edit wikipedia for any reasons other than the ones
mentioned above also?
A:

Thanks for your time.

John Collison
(Ludraman)


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:54:50 +0000, John Collison <john at collison.ie> wrote:
> I am conducting a short survey as part of a project on different
> methods of building online projects. I mentioned this a while back on
> wikipedia-l. I would greatly appreciate it if any wikipedians could
> fill in the survey and send it back to me. Sorry to be a hassle.
>
> THE SURVEY:
>
> NOTE: This survey only concerns EN wikipedia, do not factor in any work
> on other languages in this.
>
> Q1: How long have you been editing wikipedia?
> A:

~May 2004

>
> Q2: How many hours per week do you spend on wikipedia?
> A:

I havent measured it.

>
> Q3: Do you write professionally?
> A:

No

>
> Q4: What is your current employement?
> A:

None

>
> Q5: Why do you work on wikipedia for nothing when you could be paid to
> write elsewhere?
> A:
>

N/A88

> Q6: If people were paid to work on Wikipedia, would you stay or would
> you devote your time to something else?
> A:

Stay.

> Q7: Do you think people should be paid to work on wikipedia?
> A:
Yes

> Q8: Do you think developers should be paid?
> A:

Yes

> Q9: Do you think reward schemes and competitions (like Danny's contest)
> on a small scale to get people to write more, better etc. should be
> used on wikipedia?
> A:
Didn't know of it, probably yes.
> Note: You can answer yes to as many of the following questions as you
> like.
>
> Q10: Do you work on wikipedia for the enjoyement of seeing your work
> online?
> A:

No

> Q11: Do you work on wikipedia for the satisfaction that you have
> created something good and it can be used by others?
> A:

Yes

> Q12:Do you work on wikipedia because it you enjoy interacting with
> others?
> A:

Yes

> Q13: Do you edit wikipedia for any reasons other than the ones
> mentioned above also?
> A:

Yes

> Thanks for your time.
>
> John Collison
> (Ludraman)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: John Dehlin

body:
Karl,

I am honored to hear from you, and very, every interested in the idea of
collaborating w/ Wikipedia.

Here's my main reaction/thoughts so far.....

When we decided to try the open textbook thing, one of the first places we
looked was Wikipedia.  However, as I've poked around the site for mature,
usable textbooks (like state-adoption quality), I haven't been able to find
any.  Also, it seems overall like the inertia behind wiki-textbooks has sort
of stalled as of late (as evidenced by how long it took my posts to get
through, and how little traffic there is on this alias in general).

I don't mean to be a pessimist at all....and please know that these things I
describe are in no way non-starters for me/us....but I would love to hear
from some of you if my impressions are correct, and if they are, what
explanations you may have as to the slowdown in momentum (this would be most
helpful of all).

Top of mind for me/us is having this project succeed--we feel like the world
needs high quality, low cost textbooks.  Again, I can think of a million
good reasons to go w/ Wikipedia.....I just want to understand a little more,
and ultimately we will want to go with whatever infrastructure/community
will lead us to this end.  We'd love it to be Wikipedia.

John Dehlin
Oslo Outreach Director
http://oslo.usu.edu

On 11/24/04 2:46 PM, "Karl Wick" <karlwick at yahoo.com> wrote:

> John,
>
> I just got the emails that you included to the Wikibooks
> mailing list. As the founder of Wikibooks, I would be
> excited and honored if you chose to include the site in
> your plans.
>
> Karl
>
>
> --- John Dehlin <john.dehlin at usu.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l


from_name: sannse

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
[a reply to the survey]

Don't forget to reply to the sender and not to the list folks.

Ta.

--sannse


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Simplebrain

body:
Please see [[User talk:Simplebrain#Please also respond to request from other editors to collaborate]].  User:Simplebrain is attempting to withdraw his edits from the [[Science of Value]] article, and when I suggested that he cannot do so, [[User:Dr Zen]] advised him to institute legal action.

RickK

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: protologisms in Wiktionary

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> The following is my response to a question raised in the Beer Parlour
> of the en:wiktionary about how far we go in accepting protologisms or
> newly coined words.  I have copied it here because it involves issues
> that can be of concern to the broader community.
>
> Wiktionary is frequently Googled, and because of its FDL availability
> it is frequently copied into other websites. The result is that
> allowing some protologism here has a multiplier effect. By allowing a
> protologism we become advocates for it; we are no longer neutral, but
> begin to collectively push a POV.
>
> Wikipedia has a "no original research" policy. We need some parallel
> to that. The support for a word is far more accessible that the
> details of some complicated new theory in physics. With a physics
> theory the average reader is soon lost in opaque details, and can
> quickly give up in confusion. A word is different in that it's often
> easy to devise a coherent definition. The average reader can
> understand it, and begin to apply it in his own life. We are in a
> better position to get away with a lot of public bullshit.
>
> Strangely enough, I believe that Wiktionary has a far greater
> potential than Wikipedia to being influential in the general public. I
> say this notwithstanding the fact that it is much smaller, and
> receives far less critical scrutiny than Wikipedia. A person who has
> found "prydxl" in Wiktionary or any of its copycats could very well
> begin to use it despite its bogus origins.
>
> Protologisms are only part of the problem. The debate about "leet"
> words come into it; so does the verifiability of any entry. Mix these
> with an increasing level of influence, and we have a major ethical
> dilemma relating to the function and purpose of any dictionary.
>
> A dictionary chronicles the language in both its past and its present.
> Its past needs to be subject to calls for evidence; if a word is
> challenged the burden of proof for verifying its legitimacy needs to
> fall upon the contributor. Otherwise, the rest of us are left with the
> futile task of proving a negative. Evidence for new words is even more
> important. It is not enough to say that the word was used in some
> unspecified episode of a TV series. What amuses the members of today's
> peanut gallery may be completely forgotten by this time next year when
> the forces of marketing will have diverted our attention to some new
> ephemeral fantasy. Web evidence does no better. It is not good to
> accept any word as valid irregardless (sic!) of where you found it.

I don't know where the problem is greater, but this certainly occurs
plenty on Wikipedia as well. Protologisms, or as I would call them
"attempted neologisms", are a regular feature on Votes for Deletion and
go swiftly to their fate. The no-original-research policy would be the
ideal starting point for Wiktionary to use, I would think.

I'm quite surprised at you, Ray, you're almost starting to sound like a
deletionist. (Please, nobody start a flamewar over this - I'm only teasing.)

--Michael Snow


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
"You've repeatedly pointed out that you don't want to spend the time,
money, or effort to create and maintain wikis without any active
participants, yet you insist that the Wikimedia Foundation does so. You
haven't really made a case for why, except that these languages exist
and have speakers. I don't think anyone debates those points; I also
don't think that "a language exists" has "there should be a Wikimedia
wiki for it" as a necessary consequent."

How much money does it cost to create a new Wiki? Technical efforts
aside (and Tim Starling seems entirely willing to give technical
assistance to Wikipedias for living natural languages), there is very
little wrong.

You are exaggerating this very much, and perhaps you should also check
http://bloglines.com/public/inactivewikipedias . Your allegations that
I don't want to spend the time on these things are pure crap because I
already spend time on them - for the last few days I have closely been
monitoring the activity on every single one of these Wikipedias, and I
don't mind it one bit.

If somebody does something bad, I can revert it; if it becomes a
problem I can't handle, I can bring it up with a developer or steward
or whomever it would be appropriate to bring it up with.

As to being upset that nobody cares about your language, from what I
have learned the usual reaction is quite the opposite - in the time I
have been monitoring inactive Wikipedias, I have seen ne.wikipedia
become active, in a good way, and although I am not sure it is
permanent, I think it's good. Also, take for example ka.wikipedia. The
sysops there now, Malafaya and Sopho, found it through a search engine
and when they saw it had 0 content, they decided to remedy that.

And what on earth are you talking about, a "scholarly resource"? When
did I argue that inactive Wikipedias were scholarly resources? The
only time I ever brought up anything of the sort was in regards to the
Gothic Wikipedia (it looks dismal now, but I have after-holidays
commitments from a few people), in which case I did not say "Oh golly
gee, I know this Wikipedia will have two articles and 0 users, but
somehow I think it'd be a scholarly resource anyways", what I said was
basically that, if it accumulated a large number of articles, it would
be a scholarly resource of sorts because it would be such a large
corpus. Note the "large corpus" and "large number of articles".

I think that your views are extremely Draconian and such extreme
measures are not needed at this point, the benifits are not outweighed
by the risks with the current solution.

I think that - and I am serious here - you have a real problem with
minority languages.

Mark

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:26:20 -0500, Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-24-11 at 08:51 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > I agree, however apparently there is some reason (which I do not yet
> > fully comprehend) that we must be very careful with Wikipedias in
> > different languages.
>
> I think the big thing to understand is that each wiki takes time,
> effort, and money to maintain. Each wiki is a security risk, both
> technically and legally; an active community can offset this risk as
> well or better than fancy technological security measures.
>
> An analogy: leaving the door to your house unlocked when you're having a
> backyard barbecue is the right thing to do. There's lots of people
> around, and they'll need to get in and out, and there's little risk of
> problems. It'd be really inconvenient to have to keep locking and
> unlocking it. Leaving the door unlocked when you are the only one home
> is probably OK. Leaving your door unlocked when no one is home is asking
> for trouble.*
>
> A wiki without an active user community is an unlocked house with no one
> home.
>
> You've repeatedly pointed out that you don't want to spend the time,
> money, or effort to create and maintain wikis without any active
> participants, yet you insist that the Wikimedia Foundation does so. You
> haven't really made a case for why, except that these languages exist
> and have speakers. I don't think anyone debates those points; I also
> don't think that "a language exists" has "there should be a Wikimedia
> wiki for it" as a necessary consequent.
>
> Even if the disadvantages are low, the advantages of having empty,
> unused wikis don't seem to outweigh them. I find it hard to believe
> that, say, gv: is a huge source of pride for Manx speakers. If that was
> my native language, I'd think to myself, "Man, nobody really gives two
> shakes about us, do they?" And the idea that any unused Wikimedia wiki
> is a scholarly resource for the language is absurd. I guess there's a
> intellectual exercise in reading the list of ISO 639 codes, seeing which
> ones don't already have a Wikipedia, looking up the language, and then
> making a request on this list, but... I don't think that gratification
> is enough to offset the disadvantages.
>
> > So apparently every single language or dialect has to go before the
> > board and waste their time...
>
> I'd say that having a clear set of rules about how and when to start a
> Wikimedia wiki would obviate the need for a Board vote on each one.
> Like, I dunno, say: having a single person step forward willing to work
> on the wiki in the language, and maybe having one edit per 30 or 60
> days. That seems like a pretty low threshold to me.
>
> ~ESP
>
> * In some cities and countries. In other places, it's perfectly OK to
> leave your door unlocked when you're not home.
>
> --
> Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
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>
>
>
>


body:
But why do we need to change anything when the current system works fine?

Mark

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:58:24 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
>
>
> > Anthere wrote:
> >
> >>  I wish that
> >> we do not go backward and isolate minor projects and minor languages.
> >> It is very important that we discuss these topics globally.
> >> Minorities also are welcome on wikipedia and they need attention. Not
> >> the darkness of an intl-l list again. We do not need more lists. The
> >> issue of whether we want wikipedia to become only a list of 20 major
> >> languages, or if we want wikipedia to be also a resource in many
> >> minor languages, and in that case what we should do for all languages
> >> which are currently non active, is a global issue. It needs to be
> >> here.
> >
> >
> > Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress
> > whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on
> > anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests
> > for a decision. All we need is some sort of decent decision-making
> > process -- for example a committee or a vote of those concerned. I've
> > previously suggested that major dialects as listed by SIL could be
> > automatically accepted.
> >
> > There's tens of thousands of dialects in the world, do we have to have
> > a flame war about each one?
>
> I sympathize with Tim on this.  For anything other than a conlang, all
> that should be needed to get a pedia going is one hard-working
> individual who is able to work in the language in question.  One hard
> worker is worth far more than a dozen individuals who merely support
> that pedia without any personal familiarity with the language.  If one
> serious individual is there let's give him the chance.  He can be
> started with a major language interface of his choice that he can
> translate at his leisure.  If that project is getting nowhere, or
> appears abandoned it can be harmlessly frozen until someone else comes
> along with enough interest.  We all want these projects to succeed, and
> that can't happen if a proponent needs to be flame-war tested before he
> can start anything.
>
> Ec
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
I agree about conlangs, but other than that I think no policy change
is needed. This is not to say the Board agrees with me. But, really,
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Mark

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 00:54:01 +0000, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
> > Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress
> > whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on
> > anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests
> > for a decision.
>
> The Board has not been silent on the issue on new language wikis. In
> the Friulian thread on this mailing list at the end of last month,
> three members of the board were supportive of adopting Wikitravel's
> policy. I've now put the points from one of those emails at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
> so people can discuss the issue on the wiki and form an actual policy
> rather than going round in circles on this mailing list.
>
> If there are any disagreements to that policy, perhaps the
> requirements could be lessened, such as to 2 or 3 participants, who
> must be able to read and write the language, but please discuss that
> on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
>
> I personally don't think any more conlangs should be adopted at all,
> but perhaps that issue is for a different policy, and is my personal
> view, not necessarily that of the board.
>
> Angela.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
> > I think the big thing to understand is that each wiki takes time,
> > effort, and money to maintain. Each wiki is a security risk, both
> > technically and legally; an active community can offset this risk as
> > well or better than fancy technological security measures.
>
> I fully agree with Evan here. But I want to add some other points which
> are largely neglected so far. Maintaining a wiki is not only about
> getting some people to work there, we also need to ensure that local
> communities get to know and share the fundamental values and principles
> of wikipedia: neutrality, openess, freedom of content.
>
> During the creation of arabic wikipedia I acted as advisor - and I
> experienced how many questions arise for intelligent and good-willing
> people not involved with wikipedia before (How do I deal with a copyvio?
> How to deal with total crap? How to deal with a POV article? What about
> naming conventions? Which policies do we need? etc...)
>
> There's a lot of knowledge about wikipedia customs and processes needed
> to get a new wiki started. So far we let people find out on their own -
> or not.
>
> Yesterday a friend translated a sentence on the main page of the tatar
> wikipedia for me: "Tatarlar B?yek! Y???sen T?rki D?nya!" - "Die Tataren
> sind gro?! Es lebe die t?rkische Welt!" (in german, since I don't know
> how to translate this in english). But the equivalent would be the
> french putting "Vive la France" on their main page. All three sysops
> there edited the page later, noone removed the sentence.

All the different Wikipedias have things like this that others would
not find NPOV. This comes from the fact that any given language will
have a different proportion of people with any given point of view
than any other language, and as you may have observed, people often
see reality through POV-coloured glasses, even if they try their best
to be NPOV. For example, given recent disputes involving the Balkan
area on en.wikipedia, I think there is a very good chance that, for
example, the sr.wikipedia equivalents of some of these hotly-disputed
articles (as well as those at any other areal language Wikipedia) may
be tainted with a local POV.

I'm sure people such as Unitifler from the Tatar Wikipedia have known
for quite awhile about NPOV policy, but they did not see what they did
as a problem, just as fr.wikipedia now has holiday themes for diverse
holidays but I still object to it on the grounds that I believe that
any such display is POV (but really, that issue is not important to
me, especially if nobody at fr.wikipedia cares, and also since while I
can read French to a certain degree, my written French is at best the
laughingstock of all French speakers who read it).

The problem here stems from people thinking something is or is not POV
when really there is no absolute standard by which we can definitively
decide for all cases without some degree of judgement on the personal
level. If we really think the previously-noted demographics issue is
such a problem, perhaps we should attempt to foster article
synchronisation between Wikipedias and less fluidity in the changing
of articles, so that if somebody sees something wrong they can make an
objection and it can be discussed first. However, I do not think this
is such a problem as eventually all the sharp corners will be shaved
off in some way or another, at least I believe as much.

So I think there is a good chance that there are a few articles on
de.wikipedia which have community consensus to being NPOV that I
personally would find tainted with POV, or that might raise objections
in some other-language Wikipedia.

Ultimately this stems from having different Wikipedias for different
languages, even from different content for different languages.
However, at present I see no reasonable workable solution, and since
we do not have communities agreeing that an article with the text
"'''Wisians''' are a very mean peoples, from Wisia. They like to lie
and steal and cheat, and they all deserve to die." is NPOV, I don't
think it's big enough that me /must/ take action immediately.

Mark


from_name: Manuel G R

subject: [Wikitech-l] es.wiktionary project name change request

body:
Recently in es.wiktionary we have approved to change the project name
from Wiktionary to Wikcionario.

You can see the voting results in
http://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Votaciones/2004/Nombre_local_del_proyecto

Would be any of you so kind to change the project name and consequently
the project namespace in es.wiktionary to Wikcionario?

Thanks a lot.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Request for hosting and operator for Wikchatbot

body:
The Wikchatbot is a bot for creating logs of a IRC-channel and putting
those on line automatically.

It used to make logs of the channel #nl.wikipedia and #deds (who offers
the hosting for the logs).

It is written and controlled by user Wilinckx of the dutch Wikipedia.
User Wilinckx has left Wikipedia and has taken the bot off line.

He is willing to transfer the bot. Those logs are considered a useful
function and we would like to have them back on line.

The bot is written in perl.

I would like that the bot is hosted and operated by Wikimedia as a
service for the Wikimedia projects who would like to have logs of there
IRC-channels.

I can also ask it to my friends at DeDS.nl for help about this but it
would by more logical that a service for a Wikipedia can be done by
Wikimedia.

I do not know anything about the bot. You can contact Wikinckx about this;
wilinckx AT belgacom DOT net

--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


from_name: Angela

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress
> whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on
> anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests
> for a decision.

The Board has not been silent on the issue on new language wikis. In
the Friulian thread on this mailing list at the end of last month,
three members of the board were supportive of adopting Wikitravel's
policy. I've now put the points from one of those emails at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
so people can discuss the issue on the wiki and form an actual policy
rather than going round in circles on this mailing list.

If there are any disagreements to that policy, perhaps the
requirements could be lessened, such as to 2 or 3 participants, who
must be able to read and write the language, but please discuss that
on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages

I personally don't think any more conlangs should be adopted at all,
but perhaps that issue is for a different policy, and is my personal
view, not necessarily that of the board.

Angela.


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Anthere wrote:
> 2 years and a half ago, I fought so that wikipedia-l stopped being
> the english wikipedia mailing list only and become a global mailing
> list. I fought so that all wikipedias could be on the same foot of
> equality and that decisions could be discussed together. I wish that
> we do not go backward and isolate minor projects and minor languages.
> It is very important that we discuss these topics globally.
> Minorities also are welcome on wikipedia and they need attention. Not
> the darkness of an intl-l list again. We do not need more lists. The
> issue of whether we want wikipedia to become only a list of 20 major
> languages, or if we want wikipedia to be also a resource in many
> minor languages, and in that case what we should do for all languages
> which are currently non active, is a global issue. It needs to be
> here.

Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress
whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on
anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests
for a decision. All we need is some sort of decent decision-making
process -- for example a committee or a vote of those concerned. I've
previously suggested that major dialects as listed by SIL could be
automatically accepted.

There's tens of thousands of dialects in the world, do we have to have a
flame war about each one?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] New lists for small languages and/or new projects
	(Re: Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia)

body:
Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:

> Ray Saintonge ti 2004/11/24 EP 12:30 sia-kong:
>
>> Gerrit wrote:
>
>>> How about a separate mailinglist for 'small language wikipedia's' and
>>> 'new wikipedia-related projects'?
>>
>> I doubt that that would work.  A significant portion of the people
>> who are likely to work on these are newbies who are may not be
>> familiar with the list.
>
> They (we) are not too stupid to learn, are they?

Who said they were.  You would marginalize them on a mailing list of one.

>> Each language that is considered will have a whole new set of newbies.
>
> Great -- they could all learn together.

Right!  Let the blind lead the blind in mutually unintelligible languages.

> My point is NOT that we should have a list for smaller WPs.  It is
> that there's no ground that I am aware of that would indicate a
> different set of behaviors on the part of small-language Wikipedians,
> newbies or not.  Indeed everyone started a newbie, including yourself.
> The way to find out if "those" Wikipedians are interested is to _ask_
> them, not imagine (in a dismissive way) what they might or might not
> do or want, as if they were strawmen or -women.

You can't ask anything of a person who isn't here to be asked.

> And please don't tell people to find their own "free" mailing list.
> They've already been told (by you) to install their own wiki.

I have NEVER told anybody to do that.  That allegation is bullshit.

Ec


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: New lists for small languages and/or new
	projects (Re: Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia)

body:
Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:

> Henry H. Tan-Tenn ti 2004/11/25 ChS 02:59 sia-kong:
>
>> Ray Saintonge ti 2004/11/24 EP 12:30 sia-kong:
>
>
>> And please don't tell people to find their own "free" mailing list.
>> They've already been told (by you) to install their own wiki.
>
>
> Sorry, my apology.  It was not you.  It was Evan (ESP).

Apology accepted.

Ec


from_name: Padmanabhan V. Karthic

body:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:04:29 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

A mail from Jimbo to me (at least with my direct email mentioned in
the to:)!!! Wow!!! I can't believe my eyes!

Err... I wasn't expecting this much attention. I'm beginning to feel
nervous about my activities on wikibooks... Hope I haven't done
anything wrong... Oh benevolent dictator (& others), please forgive
anything that I might have done that is over the top. My trembling
fingers aren't able to type much more. I'd need a week to recover...

Paddu (not in his senses due to intense joy+nervousness)

> Without commenting on the actual issue, since I haven't even looked at
> it, I wanted to just note that of course he's got a right to fork a
> book project *on his own server* by complying with the GNU FDL.  I
> encourage such creative reuse of our work.
>
> However, on our servers, we can certainly set social policies against random
> book forks on wikibooks -- I'm not the best person to formulate a general policy
> about this, but it seems clear to me that a thoughtful approach is needed and
> shouldn't be too hard to formulate.
>
> --Jimbo