from_name: mpoe

body:
Dear Friends:

As a quasi-outsider (and sometime commentator on WP in the press), I was
glad to see the issue of civility and procedure raised here. It's important.
en:wp was a very welcoming place to newbies in the beginning. It's less so
now.

The question of civility is of particular relevance for me, now, as I'm
trying to convince academics to participate in Wikipedia. More specifically,
I'm attempting to set up a Project in which professional Russian historians
(100s of them) regularly add and clean up entries, and have their students
(1000s of them) do the same.  Some of these historians, however, have
already had bad experiences on en:wp. What am I to tell them? I could say
that incivility is a cost of doing business in open projects like Wikipedia.
But I fear they will respond by saying they want nothing to do with such a
business. That's not a good thing.

What to do about incivility and all the pettifogging rules, I'm not sure.
But I'm heartened to see the issue discussed.

Warmest Regards, Marshall Poe

On 10/25/06 8:03 AM, "Rich Holton" <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>> On some projects I still have moderating bits, I hereby ask the stewards
>> to take these bits away as I do not wish to spend to much time anymore
>> on the projects, I might shout a bit from the sideline. The wikimedia
>> projects will always exist, and the original idea was great.
>> Unfortunately Winston Churchill was right .... democracy works in theory
>> only. When the masses take over like on our project, the sum gets
>> lowered to the level of the masses. Which means herd thinking.
>>
>>
> Walter,
>
> When you say "moderating bits", do you mean your administrator status?
> If so, I urge you to withdraw your request. There are, I believe, many
> of us "old-time" admins, who stay away from the politics, use our admin
> powers sparingly, and  perhaps contribute sparingly. While we may be in
> the minority, there may come a time when our presence will be important
> to the project again.
>
> In the meantime, keep your admin privileges. They have not (yet) decided
> that the privileges can be removed due to lack of use.
>
> -Rich Holton
> (Rholton on en.wikipedia)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Chris Picone

subject: [WikiEN-l] CC-BY-SA suitable for Wikipedia?

body:
Ok, so if I print out a set of articles, I just add to each image (or
in the back somewhere) that Image X is licensed under the CC-BY-SA
license, right? got it.

On 10/24/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/25/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, if I'm printing Wikipedia, I have to print it under the GFDL,
> > right? So I can't use the image. Besides, couldn't some crazy lawyer
> > in the future consider the article used by an image "derivative work"?
>
> There is no problem in printing a page with bout CC-BY-SA and GFDL on
> it. Aslong as you follow both licenses when you redistibute it. The
> images and text just have different licenses, that's all. If you
> follow them, you'll be fine.
>
> And no, when you include a picture of an image in an article, you are
> not making a derivative work of it. You are redistributing it. That's
> it.
>
> --Oskar
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] slow diffs

body:
Thanks Tim.

Is there any documentation for wikidiff2 other than the readme file?
I'm having issues compiling (wikidiff2.i:13: Syntax error in input.)
and am not sure how to configure it - what settings do I change to
enable it?

Thanks,
Travis

On 10/19/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Travis Derouin wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > We've had some complaints off and on about diffs taking a long time.
> > This happens at random times, doesn't happen often and clears itself
> > up after awhile. When this happens,  the load on the Apache servers
> > seem low and the database seems ok.
> >
> > We did seem to have this problem if users had the Google toolbar
> > installed a few months ago, but it appears that the problem is back
> > and unrelated.
> >
> > I wonder if the job queue has anything to do with it, sometimes it
> > get's up to over 10,000 on us, but usually is at 0. I haven't been
> > able to check what it's at when users experience this problem.
> >
> > Does anyone have any ideas on how to debug, or what the possible
> > causes might be? We're still running 1.6.7.
>
> The PHP difference engine is slow, especially where lots of distinct
> changes were made. Processing time can easily run into the minutes. It
> could be that the complaints arise from such diffs, and that it appears
> to be random because when you view the diff again, it is cached and thus
> fast.
>
> The solution to this is to install the C++ extension "wikidiff2", which
> is fast for any input text.
>
> The other possibility is that diffs are slow for reasons not directly
> related to diffing. Display of diff pages requires loading the revision
> text, which is uncached in 1.6.7, and also rendering the whole page to
> HTML for display underneath the diff, which can take several seconds.
> However, if this were the problem, you would expect other operations
> such as page saves to suffer as well.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] please remove my moderating bits

body:
A valid point.  It is only natural for sane editors to avoid swimming in
piranha infested waters.  This has the unfortunate effect of creating
circumstances  in which idiots can breed like <s>rabids</s> rabbits.
Ec

James Hare wrote:

>Walter, all I can say is, this situation isn't going to get better by you
>going away. You need to fight for the good cause and get the idiots (I'm not
>mentioning names because I don't know any) to go away.
>
>On 10/25/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I have been thinking it over and decided to face reality. I have lost
>>all my believe in the wikimediaprojects. So much even that I am now
>>adding content to places outside of the wikimediaprojects instead of
>>having to deal with all the 100000000000000's of procedures and rules
>>being implemented by people who do not even know how to write an article.
>><snip>
>>
>>


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Steve

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wish List

body:
Its accuracy is downsward sloping, typically. =)

-S

On 10/25/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
>
>    "Historical reference material" is going to go out of date?
>
> SKL
>
> David Goodman wrote:
> > They won't stay authoritative very long, unless we were to finance
> further
> > editions as as well.
> >
> > On 10/24/06, sigmaman <sigmaman at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Mr Wales wanted it, so I am going to give him mine...
> >>
> >> For me, I see two main areas where the money could be spent:
> >>
> >> 1- Text books copyright buyouts. Primarily historical reference
> material.
> >>
> >> 2- Commisioning original photographic and illustrative content for
> >> Wikipedia
> >> (under the SA or GFDL, of course).
> >>
> >> Let's face, $100 million can buy a lot of stuff. Certain established
> text
> >> books being licensed under a SA license would do a world of good.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gooooooogle

body:
On 10/25/06, jf_wikipedia at mac.com <jf_wikipedia at mac.com> wrote:

>
> On Oct 24, 2006, at 10:11 AM, Steve Block wrote:
>
> > I would support only having article and portal space indexed, not even
> > having talk pages indexed.
>
> I would support that as well.
>
> -- Jossi

Then how would you search project and talk space effectively for specific
piece of text?

Mgm


from_name: oscar

body:
On 10/25/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
<snip>

On some projects I still have moderating bits, I hereby ask the stewards
> to take these bits away as I do not wish to spend to much time anymore
> on the projects, I might shout a bit from the sideline.

dear waerth,

{{done}} - lemme know if i forgot something?)
looking forward to hearing from you again at some time, be it shouting from
the sideline to the wikimedians, irl in bangkok (since it's the way from
europe to taipeh) or on tv perhaps, or talking on skype?
keep heart and i do hope your actor's career will further develop as well as
it has so far i gather.

all the best and greetings,
oscar


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

body:
Hi,

I would like to state that due to the political status of Taiwan, it's not
proper to say "Taiwan from the PRC". Please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan for more
information.

Thanks and regards,
H.T.
>From Taiwan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Damian Finol
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 1:27 AM
> To: effeietsanders at gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Some question about Wikimedia Hong Kong
>
> Greetings,
>
> I see it more like, if a group of people feel socially,
> culturally, politically or for some other reason, different
> from other people in their "country" they could create a chapter.
>
> For example:
> Hong Kong and Taiwan from the PRC (maybe Macau too).
> Puerto Rico from the USA
> French Guiana from France
> And maybe (not wanting to start a war here :P) Quebec from Canada.
>
> Just examples of my perception.
>
> Regards,
> Damian
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

___________________________________________________
 ??????? ? ????????????????
 http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


subject: [Foundation-l] Some question about Wikimedia Hong Kong


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 10/25/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ok, so if I print out a set of articles, I just add to each image (or
> in the back somewhere) that Image X is licensed under the CC-BY-SA
> license, right? got it.
>
> On 10/24/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/25/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Well, if I'm printing Wikipedia, I have to print it under the GFDL,
> > > right? So I can't use the image. Besides, couldn't some crazy lawyer
> > > in the future consider the article used by an image "derivative work"?
> >
> > There is no problem in printing a page with bout CC-BY-SA and GFDL on
> > it. Aslong as you follow both licenses when you redistibute it. The
> > images and text just have different licenses, that's all. If you
> > follow them, you'll be fine.
> >
> > And no, when you include a picture of an image in an article, you are
> > not making a derivative work of it. You are redistributing it. That's
> > it.
> >
> > --Oskar
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

For CC-BY-SA, you have to both tag or list its license info and the author
info (BY), and whatever you're producing can't restrict further
redistribution (if you're making a book, you can sell the book, but you
can't keep people from scanning or copying the images and then
redistributing them again).

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia-l] Password reminder limits

body:
On 10/25/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> As promised [1], password reminder limits are now effective on all
> Wikimedia
> projects. There is a limit of one password reminder per user per 24-hour
> period, and 5 password reminders per IP per hour.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> [1]
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-October/039494.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

Just occurred to me... how many presumed-valid password reminder requests do
we get from each AOL proxy server each hour, on the average?  Has anyone
checked?

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletionist graft

references:
<429f4f500610231956v5b8a307fy5e38c1f4e4b174d3@mail.gmail.com>
	<hmorj2damvi0s8a9410mlccss4ds22q4kb@4ax.com>
	<38a7bf7c0610241351s6a4a2225g3368ba5ad4e0f907@mail.gmail.com>
	<p92tj2hsnec2vb19vlqkpi4hopnndrfiho@4ax.com>
	<4E06E2ED-FD36-49A4-9E82-8086C8E653F3@mac.com>

body:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:07:47 +0100, Stephen Streater
<sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:

>> And now back to rehearsing Mr. Beethoven's fiendish Missa Solemnis.
>Is there a concert coming up?

Saturday, Johanneskirche Dusseldorf.  Not that it's scary much.

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


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict of interest: an essay

body:
Plenty of recent tough discussion and editing over at [[Wikipedia:Conflict of interest]]. The page is now properly organised, with the remnants as its past as the 'vanity editing' guideline being dealt with piecemeal.

I think the guidelines on COI are going to become very prominent, looking ahead. I have started an essay: it's at

[[User:Charles Matthews/Conflict of interest]].

Please use the Talk page there to add comment.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
geni wrote:
> On 10/24/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> It is quite possible the opposite position: they will probably
>> speak in english (that is the "lingua franca" of India).
>
> Amoung certian groups. Less so in others.
>
>> They speak in english or in german. In Europe you can easily find
>> persons who speak three languages without problems.
>
> I'm aparently in europe.
>

You don't use the Euro, you're not part of Europe.

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

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body:
geni wrote:
> On 10/24/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> It is quite possible the opposite position: they will probably
>> speak in english (that is the "lingua franca" of India).
>
> Amoung certian groups. Less so in others.
>
>> They speak in english or in german. In Europe you can easily find
>> persons who speak three languages without problems.
>
> I'm aparently in europe.
>

You don't use the Euro, you're not part of Europe.

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

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body:
geni wrote:
> On 10/24/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> It is quite possible the opposite position: they will probably
>> speak in english (that is the "lingua franca" of India).
>
> Amoung certian groups. Less so in others.
>
>> They speak in english or in german. In Europe you can easily find
>> persons who speak three languages without problems.
>
> I'm aparently in europe.
>

You don't use the Euro, you're not part of Europe.

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

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body:
geni wrote:
> On 10/24/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> It is quite possible the opposite position: they will probably
>> speak in english (that is the "lingua franca" of India).
>
> Amoung certian groups. Less so in others.
>
>> They speak in english or in german. In Europe you can easily find
>> persons who speak three languages without problems.
>
> I'm aparently in europe.
>

You don't use the Euro, you're not part of Europe.

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

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from_name: Delirium

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> On 10/25/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, if I'm printing Wikipedia, I have to print it under the GFDL,
>> right? So I can't use the image. Besides, couldn't some crazy lawyer
>> in the future consider the article used by an image "derivative work"?
>>
>
> There is no problem in printing a page with bout CC-BY-SA and GFDL on
> it. Aslong as you follow both licenses when you redistibute it. The
> images and text just have different licenses, that's all. If you
> follow them, you'll be fine.
>
> And no, when you include a picture of an image in an article, you are
> not making a derivative work of it. You are redistributing it. That's
> it.
>

Yeah, this has been debated on and off, and the consensus (but shaky
consensus) is what you say.

An argument can be made that illustrating a text with images is
producing a new work that is derived from both the text and images,
rather than merely aggregating them, but it's unclear whether that would
hold up in court.  In particular, Wikipedia usually "just" displays
images---we don't "illustrate" our articles in the integrated sense that
a children's book does.

-Mark


from_name: geni

body:
On 10/25/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> En:wp has a policy as of this year
> not to allow usernames with non-latin character sets. I have no idea
> where that came from, but it is a shame.

I don't follow username policy but it is likely to do with issues
related to certain cyrillic characters (ie they look like latin
characters).

--
geni


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/10/25, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com>:

> I agree that projects should look more towards cooperation with others
> -- other languages and other types of projects.  You are right that
> lack of cooperation is a problem.  En:wp has a policy as of this year
> not to allow usernames with non-latin character sets. I have no idea
> where that came from, but it is a shame.
>

This feels like an awfully bad decision, in particular once single login has
been created. I would like to strongly ask the English Wikipedia to
reconsider this decision when single login comes out, if not before.

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


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
geni wrote:
> On 10/25/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> En:wp has a policy as of this year
>> not to allow usernames with non-latin character sets. I have no idea
>> where that came from, but it is a shame.
>>
>
>
> I don't follow username policy but it is likely to do with issues
> related to certain cyrillic characters (ie they look like latin
> characters).
>
>
That problem's now fixed.

The visual resemblances of Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters are
taken into account by the software when comparing new usernames against
already-registered usernames.

In addition, mixing script systems within a single username is now
forbidden.

However, the remaining problem, which is that most Latin-script readers
can't easily discern the differences between names in radically
different writing systems (and indeed, in many cases, that such names
cannot be displayed at all in their browsers) is still a major issue,
and one that will need addressing when single-sign-in is fully implemented.

One possibility is the automatic transliteration of names when used in
wikis whose "home script" is different; another is allowing users to
create their own disambiguating pseudonyms for use on wikis with
different default writing systems, so that their names might, for
example, be represented as "???? (Xiao Zhou)", where "????" stands for
Unicoded Chinese characters which are not readable by most westerners.

Any such disambiguating pseudonyms would, of course, also need to be
unique within the same namespace as ordinary usernames.

-- Neil


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gooooooogle

body:
On 10/25/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/25/06, jf_wikipedia at mac.com <jf_wikipedia at mac.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Oct 24, 2006, at 10:11 AM, Steve Block wrote:
> >
> > > I would support only having article and portal space indexed, not even
> > > having talk pages indexed.
> >
> > I would support that as well.
> >
> > -- Jossi
>
> Then how would you search project and talk space effectively for specific
> piece of text?

If they vamped up MediaWiki's internal search engine that could serve
as a way of crawling the whole site without broadcasting our dirty
laundry to the outside world.

It's very easy to make entire namespaces un-Googled (check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt). We've already made AFD votes
un-Googleable (since nobody likes having "not notable" come up when
you put their name into Google). If we could rely on Wiki's own search
engine for internal things it would make it pretty safe to turn off
Google indexing for talk pages.

I think project namespace should remain Google-able, though -- there
are some which are quite core to what Wikipedia is and it would be
quite strange not to be able to find them via Google. But the contents
of talk pages of all sorts I don't think need to be aired to the whim
of Googling. They don't necessarily contain useful information at all
-- usually they are full of squabbles about what constitutes useful
information, which while interesting to the sociologist is not
necessarily the best face to put forward.

FF


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletionist graft

body:
On 10/25/06, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Tsk tsk, may I remind you of [[WP:NOWC]].
>
> (That's "No original word coinage", for the uninitiated)

You know I actually queried that into wikipedia to see what it was
before I had finished reading your two-sentence post. "WP:NOWC, I
haven't heard of that one..."

:)


subject: [Wikitech-l] slow diffs

body:
Upgrading swig seemed to get me by the first part. Which version of
GCC did you use? I'm getting compilation errors as well:

g++ -O3 `php-config --includes` -shared -fPIC -o php_wikidiff2.so
wikidiff2.cpp wikidiff2_wrap.cpp
DiffEngine.h: In member function `void _DiffEngine<T>::diff(const
   std::vector<T, std::allocator<_CharT> >&, const std::vector<T,
   std::allocator<_CharT> >&, Diff<T>&) [with T = std::string]':
DiffEngine.h:560:   instantiated from `Diff<T>::Diff(const
std::vector<T, std::allocator<_CharT> >&, const std::vector<T,
std::allocator<_CharT> >&) [with T = std::string]'
wikidiff2.cpp:15:   instantiated from here
DiffEngine.h:196: error: `assert' undeclared (first use this function)
DiffEngine.h:196: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once for
   each function it appears in.)
DiffEngine.h: In member function `void _DiffEngine<T>::diff(const
   std::vector<T, std::allocator<_CharT> >&, const std::vector<T,

Thanks.

On 10/25/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Travis Derouin wrote:
> > Thanks Tim.
> >
> > Is there any documentation for wikidiff2 other than the readme file?
>
> I doubt it.
>
> > I'm having issues compiling (wikidiff2.i:13: Syntax error in input.)
>
> We seem to be using swig version 1.3.21, you might want to try something
> similar.
>
> > and am not sure how to configure it - what settings do I change to
> > enable it?
>
> "make install" will install the shared library into the PHP extensions
> directory. Then in LocalSettings.php, put:
>
> $wgExternalDiffEngine = 'wikidiff2';
>
> That will tell MW to use wikidiff2, and if necessary, to do a dl() to load
> the extension on demand. Apparently dl() is deprecated these days, so to be
> completely pure and true you might want to avoid it by putting:
>
> extension=php_wikidiff2.so
>
> in php.ini.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 10/25/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> However, the remaining problem, which is that most Latin-script readers
> can't easily discern the differences between names in radically
> different writing systems (and indeed, in many cases, that such names
> cannot be displayed at all in their browsers) is still a major issue,
> and one that will need addressing when single-sign-in is fully implemented.
>

People could always just click the name and check the contributions
and the like (hey I'm dyslexic I have to do that anyway).

--
geni


from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wish List

body:
and textbooks are not reference material. Most libraries discard them
when the next edition comes out (or keep one edition back). Libraries with
immense amounts of storage space  put one copy in
storage & throw out the others.

(Nor should old textbooks be cited on WP except for historical interest).
"In the 80s, this book was universally used & is therefore of significance
in the development of ..."

On 10/25/06, Steve <subsume at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Its accuracy is downsward sloping, typically. =)
>
> -S
>
> On 10/25/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
> >
> >    "Historical reference material" is going to go out of date?
> >
> > SKL
> >
> > David Goodman wrote:
> > > They won't stay authoritative very long, unless we were to finance
> > further
> > > editions as as well.
> > >
> > > On 10/24/06, sigmaman <sigmaman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Mr Wales wanted it, so I am going to give him mine...
> > >>
> > >> For me, I see two main areas where the money could be spent:
> > >>
> > >> 1- Text books copyright buyouts. Primarily historical reference
> > material.
> > >>
> > >> 2- Commisioning original photographic and illustrative content for
> > >> Wikipedia
> > >> (under the SA or GFDL, of course).
> > >>
> > >> Let's face, $100 million can buy a lot of stuff. Certain established
> > text
> > >> books being licensed under a SA license would do a world of good.
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> 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
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
I have been thinking it over and decided to face reality. I have lost
all my believe in the wikimediaprojects. So much even that I am now
adding content to places outside of the wikimediaprojects instead of
having to deal with all the 100000000000000's of procedures and rules
being implemented by people who do not even know how to write an article.

The projects have been taken over by a group of people, mostly
teenagers, whom apparently have lost all sight of realism and have taken
other people's work hostage, without creating one bit of content
themselves. Who feel that adding templates, writing rules and policing
(the process) is more important than what we set out to do. Also there
is a very very very strong western bias in the projects. Ideas and
processes are launched which might work perfectly in a western world
(like the rules for verification) but which fall flat on their face when
applied to non-western items. When someone actually rises this point on
the lists (me) it is ignored.

Also Jimbo's statement that en: wikipedia has covered most subjects
disappoints me. This might be true for subjects on developed countries.
But the projects are heavily lacking in the same sort of content with
regards to the developing world. While every lake in the US probably has
an article. Most Asian / African / South American countries have barely
got articles describing these kind of features. And if someone does
write an article about it, it gets deleted as non-encyclopedic. Also
wikipedia's become very nationalistic like the nl: wikipedia where a
fairly large group feels non-Dutch and non-Belgian topics should not be
covered in the Dutch language edition! And they actually wrote rules to
enforce this.

The amount of people who only care about their own backyard (the west)
and wanna delete everything they do not understand has grown to big.
Also other idiocism like on nl: wikipedia where procedure is 100x more
important than the smooth running of the project, resulting in an
everyone can insult everyone situation and no-one get's actually blocked
is taking to much time and stress.

Jimbo invented the wheel with the wikimedia projects. Unfortunately the
wheel never evolved, nor will it in the current climate. Every form of
progress of the projects in something meaningfull and working gets
blocked or grinded in bureaucracy by a group of people who want to be
the boss.

Meanwhile on the boardlevel politicians rule who only give a shit about
themselves and about political games. I have seen many of these games
played out over the years. Also the projects diversify to much and to
much new niches where new small groups start that take their particular
niche hostage (commons being a prime example) are started. Instead of
looking at how things can co-operate people start their own new kingdoms
and fiefdoms (like wikitionaryz, which is GerardM's fiefdom) into things
that are not our core imho. We are about creating content, not spreading
it, let other people do that job.

On some projects I still have moderating bits, I hereby ask the stewards
to take these bits away as I do not wish to spend to much time anymore
on the projects, I might shout a bit from the sideline. The wikimedia
projects will always exist, and the original idea was great.
Unfortunately Winston Churchill was right .... democracy works in theory
only. When the masses take over like on our project, the sum gets
lowered to the level of the masses. Which means herd thinking.

Waerth


subject: [Wikipedia-l] please remove my moderating bits


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 10/25/06, Kevin T <ktsquare at gmail.com> wrote:
> >From my understanding, the founding of a local chapter shall be based more
> on the need of local members than relying solely on lingual or political
> status of a place. Local chapters enable the local members with a legal
> status in getting sponsors, communication with organization.

<chair of the chapters committee speaking>
I think that is a fair and sound summary fo what I was trying to say.
There will be some core rules for the creation of chapters, the fact
that they're not just "a bunch of people who get together on every
Sunday" but rather an "organisation that has a legal status and with
which the Wikimedia Foundation can have an agreement with" is
definitely one of them. But Sam was also right in saying that this has
to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

We are very far from having had to deal with all the possible
configurations that are going to be presented to us. We have to start
somewhere. And this is where we start. Chapters must have a legal
basis.

So to answer Ilario's question, if a Hong Kong chapter makes sense
today, it might not make sense anymore in 40 odd years. in which case,
we will reevaluate.

</end official position>

<beginning personal opinion>
On a more personal point of view, I believe that anchoring chapters
with different rationales than that of projects (ie. jurisdiction
based rather than language based) improves the cross communication
between communities who should be striving towards he same goal, and
not stop at their differences. Far from saying we should reunite X and
Y, I believe that it makes sense that there is one Belgian chapter to
start with, or one Canadian chapter to start with and that we then see
the implications of having a French-speaking and an English speaking
Canadian chapter or a Dutch-speaking Belgian Chapter and a
French-speaking Belgian chapter", to take obvious and probably
reductive examples.

Another core rules of chapters is that they should strive to achieve
the same goals as the Wikimedia Foundation, goals which, in my
opinion, transcend the borders of political or language differences.
Any chapter should have at heart goals which, while naturally biased
by the background they come from, strive to support the wikimedia
projects in their entirety, whether French, Chinese, Bambara,
Wikisource or Wiktionary.

If we're going to be a truly international organisation, I believe
this is where we should start.

Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject: [Wikitech-l] Javascript

body:
On 10/25/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/24/06, Liz Kim <lizkim270 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > question overview:
> > Where/How could I add new javascript files into wiki?
> > I would like to add dynamic functions as a part of the header which will be
> > static on all pages.
> >
> > details:
> > I have gone in and changed the content under skins/.
> > "Sidebar" now exist as a horizontal navigation bar.
> > What I would like to do is to include a set of javascript funcions and call
> > it from Monobook.php
> > (I have just edited the default Monobook.php file) when outputing the items.
> >
> > I have tried it on a separte test php file where it echos: "<script
> > type='text/javascript' src='menu.js'>"
> > It works fine on this test run. When added to Monobook.php, it stops
> > working.
> >
> > I have also tried to delete all content form Monobook.php to nothing but
> > just the javascript include and hard-code definition of the sidebar items &
> > its dropdown menu
> > (pretty much the same as the test run php file from above) but the
> > javascript capability is still
> > lost.  I have checked paths of these files and am sure that it works outside
> > of wiki...
> >
> > Any inputs would be greatly appreciated!
> >
> > Thank you
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> Just modify the page MediaWiki:Monobook.js in-wiki.

Keep in mind that there is one Monobook.js per interface
language. So if you have users using any language besides
the default one they will not have access to your JS unless
you put the same functions in every  version of Monobook.js
that is being used.

The other pages are accessed in this way (Spanish and
German examples given):

MediaWiki:Monobook.js/es
MediaWiki:Monobook.js/de

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

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

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: Rotem Liss

subject: [Wikitech-l] Javascript

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

Simetrical wrote:
> On 10/25/06, Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Keep in mind that there is one Monobook.js per interface
>> language. So if you have users using any language besides
>> the default one they will not have access to your JS unless
>> you put the same functions in every  version of Monobook.js
>> that is being used.
>
> I'm fairly sure this is no longer true: Monobook.js is called via
> wfMsgForContent, and so uses the content language and not the
> user-selected language.
>

Checking in enwiki with "uselang=fr", I indeed get the regular
MediaWiki:Monobook.js, although "MediaWiki:Monobook.js/fr" is not exist.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFP263qahN/0dU8mcRAgqzAJ9NaV43faQPazl1qSHDXNHx58n9aACgiGFX
1DCNBdWNEtrlMhqmzSxcSM4=
=4Yfj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wish List

body:
David Goodman wrote:

>and textbooks are not reference material. Most libraries discard them
>when the next edition comes out (or keep one edition back). Libraries with
>immense amounts of storage space  put one copy in
>storage & throw out the others.
>
>(Nor should old textbooks be cited on WP except for historical interest).
>"In the 80s, this book was universally used & is therefore of significance
>in the development of ..."
>
This last bit is not realistic.  While it is still preferable to cite
the most recent edition, the fact is that people cite the edition that
is available to them.  We cannot require people to go out and buy the
most recent edition before contributing.  It's up to subsequent editors
to update the information if they have something more recent.

Ec


from_name: Aphaia

body:
Waerth,
I am sorry to see you in trouble. I would like you to remind people
tend to hesitate to express their reaction for several reasons.
Complexity of problems, feeling as outsiders (in the view of mentioned
issues) and so on. And as SJ pointed out, even if you have received
not so many responces as you would have expected, your postings to
foundation-l hasn't been completely ignored.

On 10/25/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that projects should look more towards cooperation with others
> -- other languages and other types of projects.  You are right that
> lack of cooperation is a problem.

Sure, I would like to add it could happen even if all involved parties
are on a good faith. One can be ethnocentric and still on a good
faith; good faith based on unproper idea can cause disasterous end,
that is a moral of history. And we won't always know what our deeds
fruit.

> En:wp has a policy as of this year
> not to allow usernames with non-latin character sets. I have no idea
> where that came from, but it is a shame.

It could be forseeable though, my complaint about its cultural
centricism and disrespect for non Western culture that was simply
rejected because they allowed us non Westerners still to edit on that
project, so it was not discriminative. I think I heard similar
statements once somewhere else in documents in the age of colonialism,
and it is for me enough to decide to leave it.

Also, I am very shocked no one didn't alert us about that when we were
going to reject vote eligiblity to the people who were blocked
indefinitely from somewhere else. There were, in fact, people who
shouldn't be treated as such, since their guilty of banning was only
they used their usernames in their own scripts. Fortunately or
unfortunately I haven't seen votes from such people as Election
Official; so now I fear if we Election Officials sent a wrong sign for
those people who had accepted such sanctions and didn't oppose.

On the other hand, English Wikipedians seem not to feel guilty to
block trusted people of Wikimedia project only in the reason they
didn't prefer their usernames. That is a surprise for me and I would
like to say there are fearing SUL would bring them their current
policy to apply all the project.  As past Election Official, I stress
the coming change should encourage "one user, one account" policy - or
the next Election cannot be feasable. Even in this year, hand counting
was a stressful nightmare. And the English Wikipedia policy would be
an obstacle to ensure such a policy unless it will be changed.

I expect English Wikipedians change their mind and become aware
Wikipedia project consists in diversity, and also I expect such kind
of ethnocentrism is only a phenomenon on English Wikipedia and not on
other English projects.

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l]  please remove my moderating bits

body:
Waerth,
I am sorry to see you in trouble. I would like you to remind people
tend to hesitate to express their reaction for several reasons.
Complexity of problems, feeling as outsiders (in the view of mentioned
issues) and so on. And as SJ pointed out, even if you have received
not so many responces as you would have expected, your postings to
foundation-l hasn't been completely ignored.

On 10/25/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that projects should look more towards cooperation with others
> -- other languages and other types of projects.  You are right that
> lack of cooperation is a problem.

Sure, I would like to add it could happen even if all involved parties
are on a good faith. One can be ethnocentric and still on a good
faith; good faith based on unproper idea can cause disasterous end,
that is a moral of history. And we won't always know what our deeds
fruit.

> En:wp has a policy as of this year
> not to allow usernames with non-latin character sets. I have no idea
> where that came from, but it is a shame.

It could be forseeable though, my complaint about its cultural
centricism and disrespect for non Western culture that was simply
rejected because they allowed us non Westerners still to edit on that
project, so it was not discriminative. I think I heard similar
statements once somewhere else in documents in the age of colonialism,
and it is for me enough to decide to leave it.

Also, I am very shocked no one didn't alert us about that when we were
going to reject vote eligiblity to the people who were blocked
indefinitely from somewhere else. There were, in fact, people who
shouldn't be treated as such, since their guilty of banning was only
they used their usernames in their own scripts. Fortunately or
unfortunately I haven't seen votes from such people as Election
Official; so now I fear if we Election Officials sent a wrong sign for
those people who had accepted such sanctions and didn't oppose.

On the other hand, English Wikipedians seem not to feel guilty to
block trusted people of Wikimedia project only in the reason they
didn't prefer their usernames. That is a surprise for me and I would
like to say there are fearing SUL would bring them their current
policy to apply all the project.  As past Election Official, I stress
the coming change should encourage "one user, one account" policy - or
the next Election cannot be feasable. Even in this year, hand counting
was a stressful nightmare. And the English Wikipedia policy would be
an obstacle to ensure such a policy unless it will be changed.

I expect English Wikipedians change their mind and become aware
Wikipedia project consists in diversity, and also I expect such kind
of ethnocentrism is only a phenomenon on English Wikipedia and not on
other English projects.

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] please remove my moderating bits


subject: [Foundation-l] Other mailing lists to summarise

body:
On 10/24/06, Pat Gunn <pgunn at dachte.org> wrote:
> I can't speak for the volunteers willingness to take on
> more translation, but I suspect that foundation-l is the
> most important list, for community relations, to translate
> anyhow (and that translated versions are actually more important
> than the English edition because they improve trust between the
> other-language communities and the English-dominated foundation
> folk).

Totally agreed. And full of my appreciation, I am not sure if I
expressed it explicitly.
Also I would like to praise translators who are working on summaries.

One questionl: would you like to list it on [[m:Traslation
requests#Requests from local projects]]? In my opinion, any community
efforts to enforce multilingualism are welcome there (hence this part
would have no need of overseeing, even if some coordination may be
welcome) and LSS translation is definitely one of such.
Click to submit your request ->
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Translation_requests/fromlocalreqs&action=edit

Or we are better to rename it as "requests from community"?

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


list: commons-l

from_name: Anthony Kelly

subject: [Commons-l] subscribe

body:
subscibe
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from_name: The Uninvited Co., Inc

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reverting without reading - another example

body:
Since there still seem to be people on this list who believe that
inappropriate reversions are a sufficiently rare event to be unworthy
of notice, I draw your attention here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Administrative_Appeals_Tribunal&diff=82373162&oldid=82365667

Now, admittedly this is not as egregious a case as the one I cited
earlier as an example.  However, it appears to me that the admin
involved reverted simply on the basis that (a) it was a deletion of a
large block of text (b) performed by an IP (c) without an edit summary.

Even a quick skim should reveal that the deleted text is an irredeemable
editorial rant written by someone with an axe to grind.

Greg Maxwell has made the point earlier that if, as a community, we want
to revert any large block deletions by IPs without edit summaries, we
would be better served to modify one of the many existing bots to do so
rather than encourage people to do it.  And I believe that Greg and I
are in agreement that such blind reversions are a bad thing, regardless
of whether they are performed by people or bots.  People should be
expected to read, particularly so in an era when we have so many
anti-vandalism bots operating.

And yes, we now have an OTRS ticket on this.

The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware Corporation)


from_name: ikiroid

subject: [WikiEN-l] School of Hard Knocks, or, what I learnt from my RfA

body:
I find that I still have a lot of ability even though I'm not an admin. ANI,
AIV, db-whatever seem to work pretty well in having admins do work for
editors. And I can use non-admin rollback thanks to my monobook, so I guess
life is pretty good. I applied to Adminship awhile back, failed, oh well.
Life goes on. It's an encyclopedia anyway, not an MMORPG. We don't seem to
have a desperate need for more admins, or a huge problem with many corrupt
ones, so I can't see why the system will change very much.

Ikiroid


from_name: David Still

body:
On 25/10/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find this sometimes myself, depending on the topic.  It's not so
> much that process is bad, but for every ten bits of process there
> should be one  bit devoted solely to being nice to others and helping
> them work out better ways to express themselves, rather than slapping
> people down or admonishing them to follow guidelines.

Absolutely true.

I'm constantly saddened by the way Wikipedians in general tend to
focus on procedure above all else, often sacrificing basic civility
and tact in its favour. A good example would be WP:RFAF (failed admin
candidacies), in which a depressingly large number of unlikely
nominations for adminship - usually from people who simply have less
than a thousand or so edits - result in pile-on opposition, with only
a few users offering moral support and guidance.

It is, frankly, depressing - and not just because it results in so
many violations of WP:BITE. I don't believe the problem can be solved,
not even by altering process, because it stems from a basic failure to
empathise with other users: it happens in every online community I've
ever been a part of, and I can see no reason why it would cease in the
foreseeable future. It is, as far as I can tell, an ugly fact of life.

-David

On 10/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/10/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/25/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I have to agree with a lot of what you have said.
> > >
> > > I still use en.wp as a reference (sometimes), but I rarely edit it. My
> > > reason now isn't the same as the one I used to have (busy with other
> > > language wikis), but rather, simply that I find the climate to be too
> > > hostile and too toxic for me to make any real editing progress.
> >
> > I find this sometimes myself, depending on the topic.  It's not so
> > much that process is bad, but for every ten bits of process there
> > should be one  bit devoted solely to being nice to others and helping
> > them work out better ways to express themselves, rather than slapping
> > people down or admonishing them to follow guidelines.
>
> Indeed.
>
> > > The good admins are getting discouraged and leaving one by one, and
> > > the bad admins are continuing in their horribleness.
> >
> > I'm not sure about this; it always seems this way.  But some good and
> > subtle ones are discouraged; and many who are intolerant of criticism
> > and certain they have the only solutions remain.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > > en.wp has even gotten to the point where to be a member of certain
> > > sites critical of Wikipedia is somehow bad, and to be a *sysop* at
> > > them is even a sort of bannable offense (notably Hivemind, Wikitruth,
> > > ED).
> >
> > Is it a bannable offense?  There should be a special award for people
> > who are effectively critical of Wikipedia.
>
> Well, after ED posted an article about User:MONGO which he thoroughly
> disliked, he started his campaign against it. Wikitruth and other
> similar projects have long been viewed as not good because they were
> mostly started by banned users.
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--

Chicks dig undertakers, right?


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 10/25/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> RfA is a bureaucratic nightmare, and I think that the default position
> should be that admin rights are granted to applicants unless good
> evidence is provided that they should not - if a user is prone to
> vandalism or trolling, or is too new, then it shouldn't be too hard to
> produce evidence.

IMO, it was easier getting elected to the arbcom than passing RFA is these days.

-Matt


from_name: Jon Noring

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Dream a little... --> The entire corpus of
	pre-1942 commercial sound recordings

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I would like to gather from the community some examples of works you
> would like to see made free, works that we are not doing a good job of
> generating free replacements for, works that could in theory be
> purchased and freed.
>
> Dream big.  Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase
> copyrights to be made available under a free license.  What would you
> like to see purchased and released under a free license? ...
>
> I was recently asked this question by someone who is potentially in a
> position to make this happen, and he wanted to know what we need, what
> we dream of, that we can't accomplish on our own, or that we would
> expect to take a long time to accomplish on our own.

Although this is not associated with text in any manner, I strongly
recommend that the rights and metal parts for all the pre-1942 sound
recordings now held by Sony BMG (which includes just about everything
recorded in the U.S. before 1942, including the Columbia/ARC and RCA
Victor catalogs) be purchased and "freed". I don't know the exact
number of recordings, but this collection definitely comprises over a
million "sides."

Although I'm not certain Sony BMG would entertain an offer, there is
some reason to believe they might, especially if linked in with some
potential tax write-offs and the positive publicity that this would
give Sony BMG.

For background information on the unusual copyright status of early
U.S. sound recordings (which is surprising!), and whether or not Sony
BMG might even be interested, refer to the article I wrote about the
topic of freeing the older sound recordings:

   http://www.projectgramophone.org/TeleRead-Article-01Nov2003.html

(Especially refer to the section entitled: "A Note To The Major Media
Companies: Why Not Donate Your Older Sound Recording Catalogues?")

Note that this is serious. I have close ties to Brewster Kahle at the
Internet Archive (we've explored how to get many of the older
recordings digitized and placed online and have even talked about
acquiring a large collection of 78 rpm records), plus I have close
connections with the Association for Recorded Sound Collections:

   http://www.arsc-audio.org/

I'll be happy to discuss this further with the person in the position
to potentially make the purchase.

Jon Noring


from_name: jam at croftj.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] (no subject)

body:
GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> For some of the newly created wikipedias there are reasons why I would not
> create them as languages in WiktionaryZ in this manner
> They are:
>
> http://roa-tara.wikipedia.org/		Tarantino
> http://cbk-zam.wikipedia.org/		Zamboanga Chavacano
> http://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/	Classical Chinese
> http://cu.wikipedia.org/		Old Church Slavonic
> http://ru-sib.wikipedia.org/		Siberian/Nort Russian
>
>
>    - Tarantino is supposed to use the roa code. This code does not
>    signify anything but that it is a Romance language. The code does
specify
>    what is included in the code and Tarantino is not one of them.
>    - In ISO-639-3 cbk is the code for Chavacano. Zamboangue??o is an
>    alternative name..
>    - For Classical Chinese there is no specificity as what is meant by
>    this. This is also easy to explain as the zh (zho) code itself is
>    depreciated in the ISO-639-3 because there are some 10 languages that
are
>    included in this code.
>    - I might include the Old Church Slavonic as chu. It is used as
>    liturgical language of various Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic
churches. It
>    is considered extinct.
>    - The ru-sib is a created language. It is a bad idea to create a code
>    as if it is a dialect of the Russian language when it is not.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM

Gerard,

Chavacano/Chabacano has different varieties or dialects including
Zamboangue??o, the dialect with the largest number of speakers. Although
cbk is the ISO code, we decided to go with cbk-zam to distiguish Chavacano
de Zamboanga from the Cavite??o, Ternate??o and other varieties which are
almost extinct. cbk alone is ambiguous. Zamboangue??o, the alternative name
is also ambiguous because it can mean both the residents of Zamboanga City,
Philippines and the dialect of this creole language. Therefore, cbk-zam is
fit to be the non-standardized ISO for Chavacano de Zamboanga wikipedia
(http://cbk-zam.wikipedia.org)

Muchisimas Gracias.

Weekeejames

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dan Savage & Wikipedia

body:
An old WP controversy made it into Dan Savage's nationally-syndicated sex
column this week:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=93682

now, how to cite it?

-- phoebe
brassratgirl at gmail dot com


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] slow diffs

body:
Travis Derouin wrote:
> Thanks Tim.
>
> Is there any documentation for wikidiff2 other than the readme file?

I doubt it.

> I'm having issues compiling (wikidiff2.i:13: Syntax error in input.)

We seem to be using swig version 1.3.21, you might want to try something
similar.

> and am not sure how to configure it - what settings do I change to
> enable it?

"make install" will install the shared library into the PHP extensions
directory. Then in LocalSettings.php, put:

$wgExternalDiffEngine = 'wikidiff2';

That will tell MW to use wikidiff2, and if necessary, to do a dl() to load
the extension on demand. Apparently dl() is deprecated these days, so to be
completely pure and true you might want to avoid it by putting:

extension=php_wikidiff2.so

in php.ini.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Picture of the Day criteria.

body:
Please see http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2006-October/000784.html
.

Brianna

On 25/10/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Does a Picture of the Day have to be a Featured Picture first?
>
> [[User:Digon3]] seems to think so... did I miss something?
>
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:LoopZilla
>
> aka
>
> Gordo
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wish List

body:
We can  expect our editors to use libraries.  (And if you
can't or don't want to work that way, there's an immense amount to write on
WP.  There's
a great many topics--academic topics even--that can best be written with
available
Internet sources. )

Is your goal to produce a WP useful for 2006, or 1996?  It would be very
interesting to
deliberately invent an encyclopedia appropriate for some specific earlier
historical period,
but many of the users may be more interested in the present.

On 10/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> David Goodman wrote:
>
> >and textbooks are not reference material. Most libraries discard them
> >when the next edition comes out (or keep one edition back). Libraries
> with
> >immense amounts of storage space  put one copy in
> >storage & throw out the others.
> >
> >(Nor should old textbooks be cited on WP except for historical interest).
> >"In the 80s, this book was universally used & is therefore of
> significance
> >in the development of ..."
> >
> This last bit is not realistic.  While it is still preferable to cite
> the most recent edition, the fact is that people cite the edition that
> is available to them.  We cannot require people to go out and buy the
> most recent edition before contributing.  It's up to subsequent editors
> to update the information if they have something more recent.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
luke brandt wrote:

>I have mentioned this a couple of times, but as yet no one seems interested.
>The idea is to coordinate Wikipedia policy over different languages as much
>as possible, so it becomes easier to amalgamate, to the benefit of all, with
>just translation needed. Then issues of formatting, layout, image policy etc
>etc should already have been sorted. Comments?
>
Only that it's an incredibly bad idea.  Articles in English, for
example, are the product of many people coming to a consensus about a
subject to arrive at NPOV.  Articles on the same subject will have gone
through similar processes with a different group of editors, but may
have very well come to a different NPOV.  Your suggestion would require
that all languages arrive at the same NPOV.  I would prefer not opening
that can of worms.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wish List

body:
David Goodman wrote:

>We can  expect our editors to use libraries.  (And if you
>can't or don't want to work that way, there's an immense amount to write on
>WP.  There's
>a great many topics--academic topics even--that can best be written with
>available Internet sources. )
>
Really?  If I have in my personal library, a book that is not the most
recent edition, I am _not_ going to go to the library everytime just to
check if they have a more recent edition., and it would be thoroughly
unreasonable to expect me to do that.  Obsolescence in a topic or a
textbook is not going to develop on any kind of uniform basis, nor will
the texts of different publishers develop these ideas at the same rate.
Your expectation of editors is unrealistic and demeaning.

>Is your goal to produce a WP useful for 2006, or 1996?  It would be very
>interesting to
>deliberately invent an encyclopedia appropriate for some specific earlier
>historical period,
>but many of the users may be more interested in the present.
>
Without the past there would be no present, and even less an
understanding of the present..  The encyclopedia is not just a snapshot
of 2006, but of everything that led to that moment.  Your suggestion of
a separate encyclopedia for some earlier time makes no sense.

Ec

>On 10/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>David Goodman wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>and textbooks are not reference material. Most libraries discard them
>>>when the next edition comes out (or keep one edition back). Libraries with
>>>
>>>
>>>immense amounts of storage space  put one copy in
>>>storage & throw out the others.
>>>
>>>(Nor should old textbooks be cited on WP except for historical interest).
>>>"In the 80s, this book was universally used & is therefore of significance
>>>
>>>
>>>in the development of ..."
>>>
>>>
>>This last bit is not realistic.  While it is still preferable to cite
>>the most recent edition, the fact is that people cite the edition that
>>is available to them.  We cannot require people to go out and buy the
>>most recent edition before contributing.  It's up to subsequent editors
>>to update the information if they have something more recent.
>>


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Dream a little... --> The entire corpus
 of	pre-1942 commercial sound recordings

body:
Jon Noring wrote:

> Although this is not associated with text in any manner, I strongly
>
>recommend that the rights and metal parts for all the pre-1942 sound
>recordings now held by Sony BMG (which includes just about everything
>recorded in the U.S. before 1942, including the Columbia/ARC and RCA
>Victor catalogs) be purchased and "freed". I don't know the exact
>number of recordings, but this collection definitely comprises over a
>million "sides."
>
>Although I'm not certain Sony BMG would entertain an offer, there is
>some reason to believe they might, especially if linked in with some
>potential tax write-offs and the positive publicity that this would
>give Sony BMG.
>
That seems na?ve.  Although the profit that the recording companies may
garner from any one recording are likely to be small.  Their investment
in the collection as a whole would be substantial, and I do not see them
going into that fit of altruism that would inspire them to give up
capital rights in the material.  Keeping the works in vaults until the
United States has passed a database protection law would be more in
keeping  with their profit motives.

For much of the stuff that they hold, copyrights may very well have
expired, but if they have the unique copy of one of these works, they
still have the right of possession, and will milk it for what it's worth
to them.

Suppose too that they opened it all up in a feverish moment of
generosity.  Big as we are, we still do not have the manpower to process
much of it

>For background information on the unusual copyright status of early
>U.S. sound recordings (which is surprising!), and whether or not Sony
>BMG might even be interested, refer to the article I wrote about the
>topic of freeing the older sound recordings:
>
>   http://www.projectgramophone.org/TeleRead-Article-01Nov2003.html
>
>(Especially refer to the section entitled: "A Note To The Major Media
>Companies: Why Not Donate Your Older Sound Recording Catalogues?")
>
I read your article, but I think you exagerate the legal points.
Copyright is a federal matter, and I don't see any state copyright laws
withstanding a constitutional challenge.  The burden of proving
perpetual royalty rights on a very old recording falls on whoever is
alleging that such a contract exists.  If nobody can find the old
contract the effect would be the same as if it had never existed.  They
are not indeterminable.

Ec


from_name: Arwel Parry

body:
I just want to say that I pretty much agree with everything John says
(except that I /do/ use my admin powers to block vandals quite
frequently, and do rollback reverts several times a day (my watchlist
has quite a lot of football team/player pages, which attract a lot of
vandalism)). I'm another admin who's been grubbing away for over three
years without getting an RfC or even many complaints on my own talk
page.

RfA is a bureaucratic nightmare, and I think that the default position
should be that admin rights are granted to applicants unless good
evidence is provided that they should not - if a user is prone to
vandalism or trolling, or is too new, then it shouldn't be too hard to
produce evidence.

Arwel Parry

In message
<d398c8810610231812k44aee93es37da7cbff7ff8f7f at mail.gmail.com>, John
Kenney <jlkenney-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>Greetings all,
>
>I'm not a member of the mailing list, because whenever I look at it I
>usually find something that drives me completely insane, but I do
>occasionally browse it, and this thread has angered me enough to come out of
>hiding.  Both the general state of RfA, which I instinctively avoid but
>which is a monstrously horrific place; and the character of Geni's replies
>have made me hopping mad.
>
>So first thing's first, I am one of the numerous "paper admins" towards whom
>Geni is so condescending.  I almost never block anyone, I don't frequent the
>administrators' noticeboard very often, I rarely protect or unprotect
>pages.  Here's what I use my admin powers for:
>
>I occasionally do rollback reverts.  I delete pages when I move redirects.
>I recently fixed a cut and paste move that I doubt is on many people's
>watchlists (it had survived as is for months).  I will occasionally look at
>deleted edits, and it's definitely useful to know when a page has been
>speedy deleted in a location that has a clearly notable subject.  I move
>pages around a fair amount - I would become really, really annoyed if I
>didn't have that power.
>
>So, I don't use admin powers very much, and when I do, it's for mostly
>uncontroversial things.  I don't think I've ever faced much in the way of
>complaints about my use of admin powers.  I've certainly never gone to
>arbitration, and I can't think of any instances where I've been RfCed or
>anything like that.  I was made an admin some three years ago.  I'm fairly
>certain that if I resigned my adminship and requested adminship anew, on the
>basis of my use of admin powers, I would not be regranted them.
>
>Point is this - what harm does it do if there's a lot of administrators like
>me?  It seems like the current RfA process is essentially designed to
>prevent people from getting adminship unless they promise that they're going
>to use their Admin powers a lot to "fight vandalism," and jump through a
>bunch of hoops.  But isn't it good to have reasonably reliable, restrained
>(in terms of admin powers) people who can do simple things like delete
>redirects to clear way for moves?
>
>Beyond that, how on earth does answering 50 to 60 random questions proposed
>by a bunch of tiresome busybodies help anybody judge who will be a good
>admin?  Obviously, the project is gigantic now, and people can't be expected
>to be familiar with every editor.  Glancing at the current RfA, Elonka was
>the only user currently up who I'd ever heard of before.  But the thing that
>should come out of this is that people should only vote when they actually
>have personal familiarity with the particular editor.  Quantitative
>judgments based on things like number of edits in different domains, and
>ass-kissing answers to a bunch of questions, provide just about no useful
>information on whether somebody is a good, not insane, editor.  All that
>should really be required to be an administrator is that you're relatively
>reliable and not insane.  Once you have demonstrated to a sufficient number
>of people *who have actually worked on articles with you* that you are
>reasonably reliable and not insane, you should get to be an admin.  People
>who have never encountered you before should abstain.  This is, so far as I
>remember, what generally happened back in those lovely days when I was
>chosen as an admin, and when I used to actually read RfA.  I would vote if
>somebody I knew was up, and not vote if I'd never come across the person
>before.  Now it seems as though everybody voting is basically a RfA junkey,
>who spends a great deal of their wikipedia time getting people to jump
>through hoops for their amusement.  What possible good is being achieved by
>this?
>
>The whole system is a horrifying bureaucratic nightmare.  And, no, this is
>not what one has to look forward if one is an admin.  I avoid bureaucratic
>nightmares as much as I possibly can, which is "a great deal."  Whenever I
>get involved in a bureaucratic nightmare, it is because I choose to do so.
>And yet, I'm fairly sure my being an admin is at least of some small use to
>wikipedia.  Why shouldn't people be allowed to be an admin if a) they want
>to; b) they are not crazy; and c) they have been around long enough to show
>a decent number of people they aren't crazy?  Adminship is still officially
>"no big deal," but it is clearly "no big deal" in some sense where the "no
>big deal" is attained through a nightmarish bureaucratic process.  How can
>anybody defend this ridiculousness?
>
>Best to all,
>
>John

--
Arwel Parry


from_name: oscar

subject: [Foundation-l] Report from Frankfurt – October 2006

body:
==Report from Frankfurt ? October 2006==

<center>''Imagine a giant with a golden head, a brass chest, iron legs and
feet of clay; to develop this into a sustainably developing living
organization while preserving the essence of its life, such is our
mission.''

(paraphrase and wink by the author of these lines are both released under
GNU/FDL)

 How to get all the people invited to the retreat in Frankfurt from October
20-22 2006 together, 21 wikimedians, comsisting of the full current
Wikimedia Foundation board, the Foundation officers, representatives from
the Chapters, plus one external invitee, how to get them to debate
constructively all the major challenges currently faced by Wikimedia in the
daytime, conversations which inevitably continue in the evening at and after
dinner and as usual deep into the night, and yet also how to have them all
awake and sharp again at 9am more or less punctually every next day ? and
all that for three consecutive days? It was done. It happened. And I was
personally very happy with the shared enthusiasm and devotion I encountered
as well as with our excellent facilitator, without whom things would have
certainly run far less smoothly and efficiently as they in fact did ("we
should seriously consider appointing facilitators on-wiki for fundamental
debates" i thought).

well, we were supposed to do some real hard work, and we managed to do it
together.

At the closing day, when it was discussed that some kind of report
("comprehensive, yet not too long") should be made to inform the community
about what the ''cabal had been doing this time'', my partner elise was of
course not around to prevent me from volunteering (she did of course
complain just now when i started to write these lines), so it's me who
happens to be the one to have written these lines ;-)

==Expectations and Vision==

On the very first day a list of expectations and desired outcomes was
sketched together, which comprised:

*Build trust

*Stronger organization (giant with clay feet)

*Directions for organizations and chapters

*Practical outcomes

*Clear understanding governance as supports mission and fundraising support

*Help the group moving towards sustainability

*Role of Wikimedia Foundation, support projects

*Know each other better

*Shared understanding and agreement

*Honesty that leads to peace

*Have some fun

I daresay, all of these were effected in some way or another; if there were
some difficult moments as well, we also had a lot of fun working together.

Nevertheless, even when working hard, much time was consumed by getting
attuned to the topics and sometimes to each other as well, so let me here
express the often heard plea for a next follow-up meeting: a next step,
building on this first one. In my humble opinion a crucial next step as
well, because apart from bringing more detail in a practical sense, it will
also allow for much more in-depth discussions on many topics and concepts we
work with, yet often seem to lack the time for real investigation together
all too often.

==Strategies and Objectives==

In search of defining clearer strategies and objectives, among the important
themes we immediately agreed to focus upon were:

*Sustainable organizational structure for Wikimedia, Foundation and Chapters
(make a disctinction between Wikimedia as a movement and the Wikimedia
Foundation)

*Leadership in spreading free culture

*Global perspective, international involvement

*New standard-setting

*Legal clarity

*Multi-projects

Other themes were decided to be discussed at a later stage, "first things
first" was mandatory, we couldn't do-it-all in one weekend.. Among these
topics was a "Knowledge" versus "Content" discussion, which though very
important is just not as urgent as many other topics.

Pretty soon it became clear there was an essential agreement about a great
many things, some of which soon led to the new wordings of our vision and
mission statements, that the board is currently working out in detail.

Many organizational models were drawn and discussed, finally their number
was brought back to a handful, containing all essential bodies present and
desired. In all models there appeared an "advisory board" as well as at
least one ''blob'' named "council", one model even had three such ''blobs'',
in other words: ''to be continued''...

==Priorities==

With the help of a ''SWOT'' analysis model (analysis through assesment of
Strengths versus Weaknesses, and Opportunities versus Threats, and combining
the four pairs of these), strategic objectives were defined in all areas
concerning "our business", we came up with 7 categories: ''organizational,
operations, finances and fundraising, program development, public relations
and messaging, technology, and legal''.

::::<small>Did you ever try a complex voting system with wikimedians IRL? I
can tell you this is fun, not just the voting, but also, just like on-wiki,
observing people voting. IRL there is more to see however, because each
person bodily participates. In our case, there were the seven categories
mentioned above, each with two or more topics attached below: there were 33
of such topics in total. Each person was given 3x3=9 votes to prioritize
these topics as tasks-to-do, either within 3, 12 or 24 months. "Having a
longer coffee-break" because you voted soon was not appreciated to be an
incentive ;-)</small>

I will spare you all the details and instead give a summarized list of the
urgent to-do topics agreed upon (mind you, since they imply ''action'', all
these begin with a ''verb''), in alphabetical order:

*Clarify and redefine each committees' scope, role, authority and
obligations

*Clarify requirements for chapters

*Clarify role and function of each of the private mailing lists

*Create events committee

*Create relationships with educational partners

*Design a road-map for Wikimedia technology

*Develop regional conferences and programs

*Expand the board

*Improve analyses of projects and users

*Lobby governmental educational groups

*Manage customer/donor communication and relations

*Start (re-)organization and where necessary staffing

*Structure and organize PR

*Update Bylaws

==Implementation==

Since the meeting clearly agreed upon the strategic objectives and their
priorities, but had as such no authority to implement them officially, all
of these were at the end of the meeting "given into the hands of the board",
and I can tell you the people present are as anxious as you to see stuff
starting to be implemented one by one.

==Conclusion==

Anxious for the further implementation of the hard work we did together, as
well as for the follow-up so many hope will take place, I am confident that
the first step of solidifying the "giant's feet of clay" into some more
sustainable substance was in fact taken properly. Yet it is a first step and
many more must follow on the same path, which will step by step involve many
more people than the 21 at Frankfurt last weekend. Our main goals remain
unchallenged, although the exact wording may vary slightly, so we need your
help as well throughout the next stages of reorganization and expansion.

May I challenge you to envision boldly what we can accomplish together, just
as we were asked to do at the offset of the retreat? Can you imagine, within
12 months: "30 Chapters founded" - "500 Servers operational" - "An office
per continent" - "100,000 Articles reached in 10 European-language projects"
- "Wikimedia becoming the new standard for knowledge" - etcetera etcetera
etcetera... Can you imagine...[[edit]]...?

Let's make it happen.

oscar


from_name: Delirium

body:
The Uninvited Co., Inc wrote:
> Greg Maxwell has made the point earlier that if, as a community, we want
> to revert any large block deletions by IPs without edit summaries, we
> would be better served to modify one of the many existing bots to do so
> rather than encourage people to do it.  And I believe that Greg and I
> are in agreement that such blind reversions are a bad thing, regardless
> of whether they are performed by people or bots.  People should be
> expected to read, particularly so in an era when we have so many
> anti-vandalism bots operating.
>

While it's certainly nice for people to read all edits, on the flip
side, people should be expected to post at least a few words in the edit
summary, especially for significant changes.  Something like "deleting
rant" would be sufficient.  Making large changes without so much as a
single word in comment (in either the edit summary or talk page) is
rather discourteous.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l]Report from Frankfurt – October 2006

body:
i forgot to put the links in, but here is the article:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Report_from_Frankfurt_-_October_2006 (it has
a discussion page ;-)

grtz,
oscar

On 10/26/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ==Report from Frankfurt ? October 2006==
>
> <center>''Imagine a giant with a golden head, a brass chest, iron legs and
> feet of clay; to develop this into a sustainably developing living
> organization while preserving the essence of its life, such is our
> mission.''
>
> (paraphrase and wink by the author of these lines are both released under
> GNU/FDL)
>
>
>  How to get all the people invited to the retreat in Frankfurt from
> October 20-22 2006 together, 21 wikimedians, comsisting of the full current
> Wikimedia Foundation board, the Foundation officers, representatives from
> the Chapters, plus one external invitee, how to get them to debate
> constructively all the major challenges currently faced by Wikimedia in the
> daytime, conversations which inevitably continue in the evening at and after
> dinner and as usual deep into the night, and yet also how to have them all
> awake and sharp again at 9am more or less punctually every next day ? and
> all that for three consecutive days? It was done. It happened. And I was
> personally very happy with the shared enthusiasm and devotion I encountered
> as well as with our excellent facilitator, without whom things would have
> certainly run far less smoothly and efficiently as they in fact did ("we
> should seriously consider appointing facilitators on-wiki for fundamental
> debates" i thought).
>
> well, we were supposed to do some real hard work, and we managed to do it
> together.
>
> At the closing day, when it was discussed that some kind of report
> ("comprehensive, yet not too long") should be made to inform the community
> about what the ''cabal had been doing this time'', my partner elise was of
> course not around to prevent me from volunteering (she did of course
> complain just now when i started to write these lines), so it's me who
> happens to be the one to have written these lines ;-)
>
> ==Expectations and Vision==
>
> On the very first day a list of expectations and desired outcomes was
> sketched together, which comprised:
>
> *Build trust
>
> *Stronger organization (giant with clay feet)
>
> *Directions for organizations and chapters
>
> *Practical outcomes
>
> *Clear understanding governance as supports mission and fundraising
> support
>
> *Help the group moving towards sustainability
>
> *Role of Wikimedia Foundation, support projects
>
> *Know each other better
>
> *Shared understanding and agreement
>
> *Honesty that leads to peace
>
> *Have some fun
>
> I daresay, all of these were effected in some way or another; if there
> were some difficult moments as well, we also had a lot of fun working
> together.
>
> Nevertheless, even when working hard, much time was consumed by getting
> attuned to the topics and sometimes to each other as well, so let me here
> express the often heard plea for a next follow-up meeting: a next step,
> building on this first one. In my humble opinion a crucial next step as
> well, because apart from bringing more detail in a practical sense, it will
> also allow for much more in-depth discussions on many topics and concepts we
> work with, yet often seem to lack the time for real investigation together
> all too often.
>
> ==Strategies and Objectives==
>
> In search of defining clearer strategies and objectives, among the
> important themes we immediately agreed to focus upon were:
>
> *Sustainable organizational structure for Wikimedia, Foundation and
> Chapters (make a disctinction between Wikimedia as a movement and the
> Wikimedia Foundation)
>
> *Leadership in spreading free culture
>
> *Global perspective, international involvement
>
> *New standard-setting
>
> *Legal clarity
>
> *Multi-projects
>
> Other themes were decided to be discussed at a later stage, "first things
> first" was mandatory, we couldn't do-it-all in one weekend.. Among these
> topics was a "Knowledge" versus "Content" discussion, which though very
> important is just not as urgent as many other topics.
>
> Pretty soon it became clear there was an essential agreement about a great
> many things, some of which soon led to the new wordings of our vision and
> mission statements, that the board is currently working out in detail.
>
> Many organizational models were drawn and discussed, finally their number
> was brought back to a handful, containing all essential bodies present and
> desired. In all models there appeared an "advisory board" as well as at
> least one ''blob'' named "council", one model even had three such ''blobs'',
> in other words: ''to be continued''...
>
> ==Priorities==
>
> With the help of a ''SWOT'' analysis model (analysis through assesment of
> Strengths versus Weaknesses, and Opportunities versus Threats, and combining
> the four pairs of these), strategic objectives were defined in all areas
> concerning "our business", we came up with 7 categories: ''organizational,
> operations, finances and fundraising, program development, public relations
> and messaging, technology, and legal''.
>
> ::::<small>Did you ever try a complex voting system with wikimedians IRL?
> I can tell you this is fun, not just the voting, but also, just like
> on-wiki, observing people voting. IRL there is more to see however, because
> each person bodily participates. In our case, there were the seven
> categories mentioned above, each with two or more topics attached below:
> there were 33 of such topics in total. Each person was given 3x3=9 votes to
> prioritize these topics as tasks-to-do, either within 3, 12 or 24 months.
> "Having a longer coffee-break" because you voted soon was not appreciated to
> be an incentive ;-)</small>
>
> I will spare you all the details and instead give a summarized list of the
> urgent to-do topics agreed upon (mind you, since they imply ''action'', all
> these begin with a ''verb''), in alphabetical order:
>
> *Clarify and redefine each committees' scope, role, authority and
> obligations
>
> *Clarify requirements for chapters
>
> *Clarify role and function of each of the private mailing lists
>
> *Create events committee
>
> *Create relationships with educational partners
>
> *Design a road-map for Wikimedia technology
>
> *Develop regional conferences and programs
>
> *Expand the board
>
> *Improve analyses of projects and users
>
> *Lobby governmental educational groups
>
> *Manage customer/donor communication and relations
>
> *Start (re-)organization and where necessary staffing
>
> *Structure and organize PR
>
> *Update Bylaws
>
> ==Implementation==
>
> Since the meeting clearly agreed upon the strategic objectives and their
> priorities, but had as such no authority to implement them officially, all
> of these were at the end of the meeting "given into the hands of the board",
> and I can tell you the people present are as anxious as you to see stuff
> starting to be implemented one by one.
>
> ==Conclusion==
>
> Anxious for the further implementation of the hard work we did together,
> as well as for the follow-up so many hope will take place, I am confident
> that the first step of solidifying the "giant's feet of clay" into some more
> sustainable substance was in fact taken properly. Yet it is a first step and
> many more must follow on the same path, which will step by step involve many
> more people than the 21 at Frankfurt last weekend. Our main goals remain
> unchallenged, although the exact wording may vary slightly, so we need your
> help as well throughout the next stages of reorganization and expansion.
>
> May I challenge you to envision boldly what we can accomplish together,
> just as we were asked to do at the offset of the retreat? Can you imagine,
> within 12 months: "30 Chapters founded" - "500 Servers operational" - "An
> office per continent" - "100,000 Articles reached in 10 European-language
> projects" - "Wikimedia becoming the new standard for knowledge" - etcetera
> etcetera etcetera... Can you imagine...[[edit]]...?
>
> Let's make it happen.
>
> oscar
>


from_name: geni

body:
On 10/26/06, ikiroid <ikiroid at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find that I still have a lot of ability even though I'm not an admin. ANI,
> AIV, db-whatever seem to work pretty well in having admins do work for
> editors. And I can use non-admin rollback thanks to my monobook, so I guess
> life is pretty good. I applied to Adminship awhile back, failed, oh well.
> Life goes on. It's an encyclopedia anyway, not an MMORPG. We don't seem to
> have a desperate need for more admins, or a huge problem with many corrupt
> ones, so I can't see why the system will change very much.

Backlog on CAT:CSD is as of this moment 122 articles. We need more
active admins.

--
geni


body:
On 10/26/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> ==Report from Frankfurt ? October 2006==
>
> <center>''Imagine a giant with a golden head, a brass chest, iron legs and
> feet of clay; to develop this into a sustainably developing living
> organization while preserving the essence of its life, such is our
> mission.''
>
> (paraphrase and wink by the author of these lines are both released under
> GNU/FDL)

Careful you will have the conspiracy theorists onto you ( see
[[Bohemian_Grove#Cremation_of_Care]])

>  ("we
> should seriously consider appointing facilitators on-wiki for fundamental
> debates" i thought).
>

I think you may have found a job worse than arbcom member

> At the closing day, when it was discussed that some kind of report
> ("comprehensive, yet not too long") should be made to inform the community
> about what the ''cabal had been doing this time'',

A good idea although less exciting than then the normal manner.

> ==Strategies and Objectives==
>
> In search of defining clearer strategies and objectives, among the important
> themes we immediately agreed to focus upon were:
>
> *Sustainable organizational structure for Wikimedia, Foundation and Chapters
> (make a disctinction between Wikimedia as a movement and the Wikimedia
> Foundation)

I find the idea of Wikimedia as a movement to be deeply disturbing. As
a facilitator of for various movements yes. As a movement in of itself
ah I normally see that kind of thinking being promoted by pyramid
sceams

> May I challenge you to envision boldly what we can accomplish together, just
> as we were asked to do at the offset of the retreat? Can you imagine, within
> 12 months: "30 Chapters founded" - "500 Servers operational" -

Yes.

>"An office per continent"

No (a. antartica and b sounds a like a particlarly gastly form of outsourceing).

> - "100,000 Articles reached in 10 European-language projects"

Swedish, English, German, Polish, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese,
Italian, spanish, russian.

So yes

--
geni


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Password reminder limits

body:
As promised [1], password reminder limits are now effective on all Wikimedia
projects. There is a limit of one password reminder per user per 24-hour
period, and 5 password reminders per IP per hour.

-- Tim Starling

[1] http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-October/039494.html


from_name: luke brandt

subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
I have mentioned this a couple of times, but as yet no one seems interested.
The idea is to coordinate Wikipedia policy over different languages as much
as possible, so it becomes easier to amalgamate, to the benefit of all, with
just translation needed. Then issues of formatting, layout, image policy etc
etc should already have been sorted. Comments?

luke


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


from_name: MHart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search

body:
> Is there a way to incorp wiki search + google search??
> thank you

I wrote this integration: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google_Search-2

There's also this one: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google_Search

- MHart


from_name: Anders Wegge Jakobsen

subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
"luke brandt" <shojokid at gmail.com> writes:

> I have mentioned this a couple of times, but as yet no one seems interested.
> The idea is to coordinate Wikipedia policy over different languages as much
> as possible, so it becomes easier to amalgamate, to the benefit of all, with
> just translation needed. Then issues of formatting, layout, image policy etc
> etc should already have been sorted. Comments?

 That's a sure way of speeding up the number of local forks.
Personally I'll fork dawiki *long* time before we approach the level
of policy-ness that enwiki is currently experiencing.

 My advice: Don't even think the thought.

--
// Wegge


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


from_name: jayjg

body:
On 10/26/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/25/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > RfA is a bureaucratic nightmare, and I think that the default position
> > should be that admin rights are granted to applicants unless good
> > evidence is provided that they should not - if a user is prone to
> > vandalism or trolling, or is too new, then it shouldn't be too hard to
> > produce evidence.
>
> IMO, it was easier getting elected to the arbcom than passing RFA is these days.
>

And yet we still seem to be creating 5 or so new admins per week.

Jay.


from_name: Sebastian Moleski

subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?

body:
On 10/26/06, luke brandt <shojokid at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have mentioned this a couple of times, but as yet no one seems
> interested.
> The idea is to coordinate Wikipedia policy over different languages as
> much
> as possible, so it becomes easier to amalgamate, to the benefit of all,
> with
> just translation needed. Then issues of formatting, layout, image policy
> etc
> etc should already have been sorted. Comments?

I have thought this before and realized that the benefits such would bring
nowhere near outweigh the cost in terms of length of discussion, time spent,
people dishearted, misunderstandings created, and just pure effort wasted.
Languages aren't interchangeable, they're are attached to cultures who tend
to sustain their own perspective on many things. Trying to navigate all
these differences and actually create consensus about what should be policy
would be an utter nightmare no one will want to do for a significant period
of time - especially not volunteers.

sm


subject: [Foundation-l] World Wikipedia project?


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 10/26/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I don't expect them to "know all our rules and policies", but I *do*
> expect them to read the text "edit summary" (conveniently placed right
> next to the "save" button) and deduce that that's where they should
> place a summary of their edit.

Perhaps you should read up on human perception.  There have been
numerous studies showing that people just don't see things that aren't
part of the task at hand, no matter how obvious they are.

The only parts of the user interface that the average new editor sees
are the big edit field and the "save page" button.  All the rest of it
is quite literally invisible, and there is nothing we can do to change
that: any text we add will be similarly invisible.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: effe iets anders

body:
<snip>
> > - "100,000 Articles reached in 10 European-language projects"
>
> Swedish, English, German, Polish, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese,
> Italian, spanish, russian.
>
> So yes
>
</snip>

wow, twice Italian. You're not Italian, right? ;-)


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia rankings astonishing

body:
Brad Patrick wrote:

>Please take a minute to have a look at this and read the methodology document that accompanies it.
>
>In any event, this kind of metric, 154M unique visitors in September, demonstrates we are one of the top web sites on the planet.
>
>/me pats the community on the back!
>
>-Brad
>
>
Definitely more accurate than Alexa ...

Jeff

>
>=======================================================================
>Press Release
>
>Media Alert: comScore Releases Worldwide Ranking of Top Web Properties
>
>RESTON, Va., October 26, 2006 ? comScore Networks, a leader in
>measuring the digital age, today reported the latest worldwide ranking
>of top Web properties, ranked by unique visitors.  Of note were the
>gains experienced by Wikipedia Sites and Youtube.com during September.
>Both sites were up 12 percent versus August.
>
>Top Global Web Properties
>Total Unique Visitors (000),age 15+ *
>September 2006
>Total Worldwide - Home and Work Locations
>Source: comScore World Metrix
>
>
>Web Properties
>Total Unique Visitors (000) Sept-06
>
>
>Worldwide Total (Age 15+) 726,749
>Microsoft Sites 505,479
>Yahoo! Sites 480,641
>Google Sites 467,498
>eBay 237,327
>Time Warner Network 217,843
>Wikipedia Sites 154,848
>Amazon Sites 133,518
>Fox Interactive Media 117,789
>Ask Network 112,768
>Adobe Sites 95,196
>Apple Computer, Inc. 94,909
>Lycos, Inc. 91,126
>CNET Networks 84,259
>YouTube.com 81,019
>
>Monster Worldwide 60,162
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] broadening the scope of hooks

body:
I've been poking around looking at hooks and ways to tie in new
features into Mediawiki via extensions, and it seems like unless a
hook happens to be defined where you want it, you have to either add
the hook yourself, or instruct the user of your extension to modify
their code and call your extension directly.

Both seem sort of messy. Are there any plans to broaden the range of
hooks other than by just adding more instances of hooks? What about
doing something like tying in hooks to wfProfileIn and wfProfileOut,
so hooks could be called before / after all functions are executed? A
more involved change would be also to pass the $this and the return
value into the hook when calling wfProfileIn and wfProfileOut.

Any ideas?

Travis