subject: [Foundation-l] [GFW] Https for Chinese Wikipedia is also blocked

body:
Based on my test: "secure.wikimedia.org" now is URL level keyword.

If "secure.wikimedia.org" appear on URL, then connection was reset.

test method:
http://yahoo.com/?secure.wikimedia.org (in China)

http://baidu.com/?secure.wikimedia.org (in China external)

2006/11/9, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com>:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: mingli yuan <mingli.yuan at gmail.com>
> Date: 2006-11-9 ??1:33
> Subject: [GFW] Https for Chinese Wikipedia is also blocked
> To: greatfirewall at googlegroups.com
>
>
> Some user reported that https for Chinese Wikipedia is also blocked.
> http://www.douban.com/group/topic/1276600/
>
>
> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> For more exploration on GFW, please visit http://del.icio.us/tag/gfw
>
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Great Firewall" group.
> To post to this group, send email to greatfirewall at googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> greatfirewall-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/greatfirewall
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>
>
>
> --
> Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
> My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
> CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
> Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
> cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/
>
> [[zh:User:Shizhao]]
>

--
Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/

[[zh:User:Shizhao]]


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: shi zhao


list: foundation-l

from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

body:
Perhaps the person who has a lot of money to donate wants to help the WMF to
get even more money than if he had just donated it anonymously. Products
tend to be greater than sums, so if there's a way for us to multiply instead
of add, then we get more money. You're wrong that money isn't important-
with more money, we could afford more servers and be more reliable and
faster.

On 11/9/06, lars <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>
> James Forrester wrote:
>
> > One particularly powerful way in which we can increase funds is
> > to see if we can get "matching donation" - that is for every x
> > units, so-and-so promises to donate y, up to a limit.
>
> > [...] I think that a line (in the site notice), saying something
> > like "Foo have pledged to match up to US$200,000 in our
> > [[current fund-raising drive]]" instead of the current text
> > ("Your [[continued donations]] keep Wikipedia running!") would
>
> First Jimbo's $100 million and now this.  I must warn against
> spending too much time thinking about money.  If you like money,
> do business.  Money is not what brought me here.  Money is an idea
> that infests your brain, and after a while you start to think that
> you cannot do anything if you don't have money.  That is a trap.
> Wikipedia is and should be a monument to how much good can in fact
> be done with almost no money.
>
> I do not agree that matching donations increase funds.  If someone
> has $200 thousand to spend, let them donate it without waiting for
> a match.  Their donation is added to everybody else's.  That's
> simple addition, not a multiplication.
>
> So, why would anybody want to do a matching donation rather than
> just silently submit what they have?  To get their name and
> logotype displayed?  If they want this kind of display, tell them
> to buy advertising from companies that sell advertising space.
> If they want to help Wikipedia, the way to do so is to donate.
> There are lots of people who silently donate.  Why should WMF give
> special treatment to people who want to make this process more
> complicated?  If silent donors don't get this special treatment,
> why should they continue to be silent?
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea


list: wikien-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:COI violation

body:
There is no conflict of interest in me correcting a factual inaccuracy
in the location of Wikia's main office, and the edit has nothing to
with NPOV.

Angela.


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sourcing "popular culture" items

body:
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote

>On the one hand, I believe it is
> _quite possible_ to write good, well-sourced, encyclopedic articles
> on popular culture.

True.

>On the other hand, I believe that such articles
> should be held to exactly the same standards as any other Wikipedia
> article, including deletion of material that cannot be sourced after
> sources have been requested and the requests have been outstanding
> for a reasonable length of time.

Low priority, for me, except in cases of defamation. But it also depends on other things. [[Bob Dylan]] should have everything nailed down with sources. The latest boy band - not so clear.

Deletion of material as unsourced is not anyway my kind of thing. 'Old school' Wikipedians probably want to make a serious effort to source dangling facts, before cutting them out. Or at least replace them with something that checks out.

Charles

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a Foundation preferred license?

body:
On 11/9/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> It depends how you define free. One problem with PD is that it doesn't
> guarantee the work will remain free, whereas a [[share-alike]] license
> will.

To be perfectly accurate, the original work will remain freely
licensed in both cases. Copyleft/share-alike applies to derivatives.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Setting the preference "Justify paragraphs" to on
 by default

body:
Simetrical wrote:
> On 11/8/06, Rotem Liss <rotemliss_net at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> I propose to set the preference "Justify paragraphs" to on by default (for
>> anonymous and new users - of course current users won't be affected, as usual),
>> because it looks more professional on my opinion.
>>
>> Any objections?
>
> Yes.  Justification on the Internet generally sucks, because there's
> no hyphenation.  A ragged right border looks better than lines near
> long words having way too much whitespace, which is why few sites use
> justification.
>

Plus, you need to set some sort of threshold; a line which only has a
few words on it ends up
looking        very         spaced        out,        like       this.

--
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: Toni Pignataro

subject: [Wikitech-l] Suchfunktion

body:
Hallo Liste,

befasse mich seit kurzem erst mit dem Mediawiki.
Habe das mediawiki Local auf einen Kubuntu Rechner laufen und als DBMS
verwende ich MySQL.

1. Ich w?rde gerne wissen welche Dateien(php Dateien) bzw. Funktionen
an der Mediawiki Suchfunktion beteiligt sind?
2. Gibt es ein Mediawiki Tutorial ?oder hat mir jemand eine
Literaturempfehlung wo der grunds?tzliche Aufbau des Mediawiki erl?utert
wird.

Danke schon mal f?r evtl. Hilfe.

Toni P.


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
> On Nov 9, 2006, at 7:38 AM, Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
>
>> I recently, on a whim, picked up a copy of a magazine called "Filmfax
>> Plus: The Magazine of Unusual Film, Television, and Retro Pop
>> Culture." I was quite struck by the depth, detail, and maturity of
>> writing in this rather schlocky-looking periodical....

>> This underlines my belief that there are plenty of good, verifiable
>> sources for popular culture material.
>>
>> This cuts both ways, of course. On the one hand, I believe it is
>> _quite possible_ to write good, well-sourced, encyclopedic articles
>> on popular culture. On the other hand, I believe that such articles
>> should be held to exactly the same standards as any other Wikipedia
>> article, including deletion of material that cannot be sourced after
>> sources have been requested and the requests have been outstanding
>> for a reasonable length of time.
>
> If we wait for the Oxford book of Popular Culture, it will be a
> very long wait indeed.

Perhaps, but we can read "The Oxford Book of English Detective
Stories" (ISBN 0192803751), "The Young Oxford Book of Nasty
Endings" (ISBN 0192781588), and "The Oxford Book of Science Fiction
Stories" (ISBN 0192803816) while we're waiting.


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
> > Since when did we care about gender on wikipedia?
>
> Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
> around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.

Granted, we are sometimes -- but only sometimes -- aware of another editor's
gender on Wikipedia, but does it make a big difference? Do I know (say)
[[User:SpLoT]]'s gender? Should I care? If I did, would it make much difference
to how I would interact with that person? For me, the answer is "no".
Admittedly I don't edit articles like [[feminism]], but my experience is that
Wikipedia is a place where gender is relatively unimportant. Maybe your
experience is different.

But to respond to your original point, I just can't see that there exists
special and distinct male and female perspectives that would make much
difference in ArbComm matters. Surely we just want sensible, wiki-savvy,
plain-old *people*? I'm open to persuasion otherwise.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Try the all-new Yahoo! Mail. "The New Version is radically easier to use" ? The Wall Street Journal
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Spam Tool extension

body:
Hi,

I've written an extension that allows users to add links to the Spam
Blacklist straight from a diff page without manually editing the
blacklist article. The basic goal is to streamline the process of
reverting spam, since usually there are three actions that all need to
be done when spam occurs: a) rollback b) add to the blacklist and c)
block the IP. Another

Unfortunately, it can't be demo'ed, since it can only be used by users
who have rights to edit the Blacklist page on the wiki, but I did
create an entry for the extension here:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SpamDiffTool_Extension

In future versions, I'd like to add the ability to also block and
rollback while adding to spam on the fly. Unfortunately the way that
the IPBlockForm and Block classes are written is that one would have
to duplicate the code for the error checking if they want to make a
new Block object to block an IP. Ideally, all of the error and rights
checking should be in the Block class, so that extensions can reuse
this code, without duplicating the code unnecessarily.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments about the extension, I'd
like to hear them.

Thanks,
Travis


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 09/11/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Do I know (say) [[User:SpLoT]]'s gender?

This is where people using their real names[1] instead of inscrutable
handles comes in very useful. Of course, nobody would want a world
where every Wikipedia contributor wrote under their real name...
heaven forbid! [2]

> Should I care?

Almost certainly not.

> Surely we just want sensible, wiki-savvy, plain-old *people*?

Hear, hear.

[1] Cf. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?RealName
[2] </sarcasm>. Although I just came across this proposal, which I really like:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-April/021916.html

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

body:
On 11/9/06, lars <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> James Forrester wrote:
>
> > One particularly powerful way in which we can increase funds is
> > to see if we can get "matching donation" - that is for every x
> > units, so-and-so promises to donate y, up to a limit.
>
> > [...] I think that a line (in the site notice), saying something
> > like "Foo have pledged to match up to US$200,000 in our
> > [[current fund-raising drive]]" instead of the current text
> > ("Your [[continued donations]] keep Wikipedia running!") would
>
> First Jimbo's $100 million and now this.  I must warn against
> spending too much time thinking about money.  If you like money,
> do business.  Money is not what brought me here.  Money is an idea
> that infests your brain, and after a while you start to think that
> you cannot do anything if you don't have money.  That is a trap.
> Wikipedia is and should be a monument to how much good can in fact
> be done with almost no money.
>
This a good point, and one the board should think long and hard about.
 I was somewhat disturbed by the fact that "money" received the
largest value under "opportunities" during the SWOT exercise.

That said, I think there is a lot that could be done by the
foundation, if only the foundation had more money.  There are a lot of
improvements that need to be made to the software, for instance, and
they're not getting done under the current programmer budget.  I think
it's important to remember that these goals are what are important,
and money is merely a means to reach them (or reach them faster).

I also think these goals should be spelled out *before* the money is
accepted, and that an organization shouldn't take in a lot more in
donations than is necessary to reach those goals.  I used to think
that a non-profit should run itself like any other business in that
they should try to collect as much money as possible, but upon further
reflection and reading a number of excellent articles on the subject I
think you're right that the two need to be run very differently.
Non-profits should try to minimise their revenue, not maximise it.

> I do not agree that matching donations increase funds.  If someone
> has $200 thousand to spend, let them donate it without waiting for
> a match.  Their donation is added to everybody else's.  That's
> simple addition, not a multiplication.
>
If properly handled people might be motivated to donate more if they
know their donation is going to be matched.  Putting a time deadline
on things can be a real motivator.  Of course, with maximum matches
that are easily reached in the time alloted, it can just as easily be
a de-motivator ("why donate now, they already reached the goal/maximum
match").

> So, why would anybody want to do a matching donation rather than
> just silently submit what they have?  To get their name and
> logotype displayed?  If they want this kind of display, tell them
> to buy advertising from companies that sell advertising space.

But...then Wikimedia doesn't get to spend that money...

> If they want to help Wikipedia, the way to do so is to donate.
> There are lots of people who silently donate.  Why should WMF give
> special treatment to people who want to make this process more
> complicated?  If silent donors don't get this special treatment,
> why should they continue to be silent?

Why should Wikimedia be concerned over whether or not someone is
silent?  I don't have a problem acknowledging *every* contribution.
If every donor wants acknowledgement, then we should give it to them.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Suchfunktion

body:
Translation of Toni Pignataro's posting:

Hi List,

I have been playing around with MediaWiki lately. I am running it
locally on a Kubuntu machine, and am using MySQL for the DBMS.

1. I would like to know which files (PHP files) or functions are
involved in the MediaWiki search function?
2. Is there a MediaWiki tutorial, or can someone recommend any
literature on the basic structure of MediaWiki?

Thanks in advance for any help.
Toni P.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 09/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Lower priority than defamation, to be sure.  But I think this is a large
> and growing problem.
> Here is a typical example:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeli_Mateo

This is why I've been saying for ages that pop culture articles are
the other side of WP:BLP - the fans turn them into hagiographies.

- d.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
geni wrote:

> On 11/9/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
>> around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
>>
>> --Michael Snow
>
> Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,

Come now, that's silly, and I'm not sure what "problem" you're talking
about. I have no issues with singular "they" when talking about a person
whose gender is unknown or abstract ("a contributor should preview their
edits"). I've used it myself on many occasions. But I'm not going to
write something like, "Angela Beesley resigned their seat on the Board
of Trustees. They endorsed Erik M?ller as their replacement." Wilful
ignorance is just stupid.

I wrote to encourage more members of an under-represented group to run
in an election. I did not suggest that we should have quotas or set
aside any positions for that group, or that voters should prefer any
individual candidate on the basis of group membership. Despite that,
considering some of the reaction to my message, it would be very natural
for people in the group to sense an unfriendly attitude toward them, and
thus to withdraw and make the under-representation even worse. Is it any
wonder that some people think we have problems with groupthink and
systemic bias?

--Michael Snow


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 11/9/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
> around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
>
> --Michael Snow

Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,
--
geni


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Sexual harassment in Wikipedia

body:
Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:

>I'm not entirely sure that a random user of an online site qualifies as an
>employee of any site, so I don't think that *workplace* sexual harassment
>laws have anything to do with this case. After all the commotion lately with
>MySpace, it seems quite real that these situations do have some sort of
>legal backing under some sort of sexual harassment statute, although IANAL.
>In many of these cases, it is just safer to report the case, and if the
>police asks for anything, just provide them access to the Apache and Recent
>Changes logs.
>
Providing this data should only be done in response to a court order.
Mere police investigation is not enough.  There are many more situations
where a person has legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous.  This
might seem like very obvious circumstances for providing information,
but there are other activities where we diverge significantly about the
legality of the activity, and it is not our place to start making
judgements about legality.  Civil rights and free speech are important,
and if it means having to tolerate occasional idiotic speech that's a
very small price to pay.

Ec


body:
On 11/9/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> > Low priority, for me, except in cases of defamation. But it also
> > depends on other things. [[Bob Dylan]] should have everything nailed
> > down with sources. The latest boy band - not so clear.
>
> Lower priority than defamation, to be sure.  But I think this is a large
> and growing problem.
>
> Here is a typical example:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeli_Mateo
>
> This is someone who *lost* on Philippine Idol, the Philippines version
> of "Pop Idol" or "American Idol".  The entire bio has no references, the
> photo is almost certainly a copyvio (I would delete it now, but I want
> people to take a quick look at it first).  "Greenarcher" claims to have
> created it, but unless he is the official photographer for the show,
> this seems quite unlikely.
>
> The text is very much non-NPOV, and I have not yet done a check, but if
> I had to guess, it is a straight ripoff from another website.
>

Not bad. The text was introduced by an IP and taken from here:

http://starmometer.com/2006/09/20/jellica-jelli-marie-mateo-philippine-idol-top-12/

Green archer's text was probably original.

> This is a classic example of fancruft of the worst sort.  There is
> virtually no chance that this article will ever improve, unless Ms.
> Mateo becomes actually famous.  (This could happen!  And if it did, we
> could have a good article about her.)
>

You sure they don't have gosip mags in the Philippines? Could be
asking the people from tl.wikipedia. They appear to be doing quite
well  (has anyone checked if there any previous encyclopedias in the
Filipino language?)

> As it stands, I don't think there is much that can be done about this
> article other than deletion.
>

Merge and redirect would be one course of action now the copyvios have
been vaporised.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
Matt R wrote:

>--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Since when did we care about gender on wikipedia?
>>>
>>>
>>Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
>>around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
>>
>>
>Granted, we are sometimes -- but only sometimes -- aware of another editor's
>gender on Wikipedia, but does it make a big difference? Do I know (say)
>[[User:SpLoT]]'s gender? Should I care? If I did, would it make much difference
>to how I would interact with that person? For me, the answer is "no".
>Admittedly I don't edit articles like [[feminism]], but my experience is that
>Wikipedia is a place where gender is relatively unimportant. Maybe your
>experience is different.
>
>But to respond to your original point, I just can't see that there exists
>special and distinct male and female perspectives that would make much
>difference in ArbComm matters. Surely we just want sensible, wiki-savvy,
>plain-old *people*? I'm open to persuasion otherwise.
>
>
In terms of their individual qualifications, I agree that we mostly just
want sensible people regardless of gender. My concern is for the
composition of the overall pool, and getting a broad selection of
well-qualified candidates. There are many different perspectives that
would be valuable, but with respect to gender, a very easy one comes to
mind. The Arbitration Committee has periodically dealt with cases of
harassment, and doubtless such cases will unfortunately recur. We have
had instances where women on Wikipedia have been systematically harassed
on account of their gender, and women generally have a particular
appreciation of that concern; I doubt anybody could effectively harass
men on Wikipedia based on their being male.

I would add that fundamentally, few of us have the perspective of being
in a permanent minority, as opposed to the shifting "political"
minorities over a given point of debate. In terms of the overall editor
population (for the English Wikipedia), we primarily have just two
groups that qualify as sizable and recognizable minorities that interact
with a prevailing majority group. These two are women and non-native
English-speakers. Their input is valuable, and potentially helpful in
working with smaller or less identifiable minorities (some of whom are
even more under-represented). It should be cultivated instead of
trending toward tyranny of the majority.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
Hi Theodoranian,

Your community should determine whether to block it, but I can tell
you that in en: it would immediately be blocked without any
controversy. And it happens with much less obviously "inflammatory"
names than that one.

Here is the template used in en:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:UsernameBlock

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On 11/9/06, THD <theodoranian at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Everyone,
>
> Yesterday, one guy registered an offensive username, "Rape XXX" (XXX is a
> female wikipedian's name in real life, but I want to kept the victim
> anonymous here) in Chinese Wikipedia, and this guy left a message on the
> female's user talk page: "You are in my sexual fantasy. Are you a virgin?" I
> was furious about this guy's action and sexual harassment speech. I have
> blocked this id forever, and I also suggested the female user to report to
> police office. I want to know is there any policy on this issue? In this
> kind of situation, will the Foundation cooperate with different countries'
> police authority, and reveal the user log record to the authority?
>
> Thanks.
>
> THD
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 11/9/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> > The vast majority of these topics I think would be better suited for a
> > merge. As for Ms. Mateo, for example, I don't see why it wouldn't be
> > more appropriate to say whatever there is to say about her in the
> > Phillipine Idol article.
>
> Because, for instance, if I'm searching for Mateo, I'm not looking for
> information on Phillippine Idol.  I'm looking for information on her.
>

So you have a [[Contestants on Phillipine Idol]] article. In the same
way we have [[List of Doctor Who supporting characters]].~~~~

--
geni


body:
I'm going to copy the article here, just so we're all on the same page
in case it was deleted or edited or something:

----
'''Jellica Marie Mateo''' (Born April 10, 1983) also known as
'''"Jeli"''', is a [[Philippine Idol]] Finalist for the show's first
season.

She is a lounge singer by profession doing part-time modeling and
hosting as side jobs after her schooling in [[University of Asia and
the Pacific]].

Some of her musical influences include [[Ray Charles]], [[Diana
Krall]], and [[Michael Bolton]] among others.
----

Reading this and reading your analysis it seems to me that you are
talking about a completely different article.

On 11/9/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Jeff Raymond wrote:
> > Because a verifiable stub isn't worth it?
>
> I did not say that.  The point is, it is NOT verifiable.

It all seems verifiable to me, save perhaps for a clarification that
*she says* that her musical influences include...

Now there aren't any sources listed, and that's certainly a problem,
but it doesn't seem an insurmountable one assuming the information is
in fact true.

> It is likely a
> copyvio,

This part makes me think that the version I'm looking has been
altered.  Because there is no image in the version I see (not even a
link to a deleted one), and the text is all pretty much factual and
non-copyrightable.  But the version I see is from 16:01, 27 September
2006, which leads me to believe it is the original version.

Icidently, the first two paragraphs of [[Philippine Idol]] are likely
plagiarized from http://www.philippineidol.org/about.html (I say
likely, because possibly they plagiarized from Wikipedia).

> and the amount of information known about this woman from
> reliable third party sources is about as close to zero as you can get.
>
You could certainly get a lot closer to zero.  But admittedly the
amount of information is likely to be small.

Not that I think that in itself is a reason for deletion.  I don't
have a problem with short articles.

> It was written by someone who appears to have a serious problem with
> respect to uploading copyvio images and claiming he took them.  I see no
> reason to trust anything about the article at all.
>
Googling her name brings up a few blogs which seem to present similar
information.  So that's a reason to trust some of it.

> In the meantime, we have an article that is most likely a copyvio, and
> in any event contains a number of totally unverifiable sources.

The version I see doesn't have any sources at all.

> And any
> movement to do something about this sort of nonsense is met with the
> view that people are out to censor pop culture or something like that.
>
{{citequote}}

Who has that view?  It seems like a minority view at best.

Anthony


from_name: Violet/Riga

subject: [WikiEN-l] mental_floss Fixipedia Day

body:
Hi all,

Some of you may be aware of the excellent US trivia magazine and blog
"mental_floss" (www.mentalfloss.com).  I was recently contacted by them
regarding the idea of a "Fixipedia Day".  The idea is for their readers to
edit a Wikipedia article and correct a mistake/omission/whatever and
document it.  I see this as similar to External Peer Reviews conducted by
magazines such as Nature but with the emphasis on actually contributing
rather than critiquing.

I have volunteered to help out with an on-wiki project page for this and
have offered my advice on the situation.  I believe that this could be an
interesting idea that could attract some excellent contributors to the
project as well as publicise the goals of Wikipedia.  They are currently
discussing the idea and thinking of how best to implement, announce, and
publicise the day.

So what are peoples opinions of this?  Any suggestions?  Is it a good idea
even?

Regards,

~~~~ Violet/Riga


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:  Dispute Resolution

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com>
Date: Nov 9, 2006 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dispute Resolution
To: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>

On 11/9/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I think I was in error. This is a spill over from legal conventions
> that is probably inappropriate on Wikipedia
>
> Fred
>
>

Sample of the disallowed Mediation evidence::

"16 September 2005  01:42

"In a subhead entitled ==Nobs has once again misrepresented sources in
his espionage paragraphs== Cberlet charges nobs with
"misrepresentation", "inaccurate", "biased", and "false"; Cberlet
extracts, " 'The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network';
That statement is not qualified as 'According to Elizabeth Bentley',
or 'Elizabeth Bentley has alleged', etc."; says " this is a
misrepresentation. " [5]

30 September  12:46

Cberlet files Summary of Dispute; says "Magdoff was listed by the FBI
as in the Perlo Group." [6]

"I have great difficulting figuring out what the dispute is about,
other than I'm a bad guy and he doesn't like me. At Significance of
Venona he openly states he wishes to challenge Haynes & Klehr, yet
offers nothing to challenge them with. If his goal, as stated, is to
"craft text" to "serve as a model" "across Wikipedia" for Venona
related disputes, one would presume sourcing would be the place to
start. If he wishes to challenge Haynes & Klehr, to establish that
their classifications were either (a) sometimes correct (b) sometimes
in doubt, and (c) sometimes incorrect, one would think the Workshop
Summary of Dispute would be the place to start, yet it appears he's
shifted his argument again.

I am ready to move to Talk:Significance of Venona now; and again, if
we agree to carry on mediation there, I would ask that Cberlet not
begin editing in other articles which are subject to this mediation.
Further, if he were to do so again, I would consider it a breach of an
agreement, editing in bad faith, and an abuse of the process. Thank
you. Let's proceeed. nobs 19:21, 4 October 2005"

Flcelloguy states, "I have deleted this mediation page and all the
subpages until the resolution of the Arbitration case involving both
parties... and will restore them once the ArbCom case concludes.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Cberlet_and_Nobs01]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...rlet_and_Nobs01[/url]

It has been almost one full year and the pages have not been restored.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: rty yui

subject: [Wikipedia-l] bel.wikipedia.org Request

body:
Request for wikipedia in Modern Normative Belarusian (proposed as "Belarusian (Orthography Revison of 1959) language (which is official in Republic of Belarus) has been in "Request for new language" since July of 2006.
Since that time it collected more than 100 (108) voices for support and 35 voices for oppose.
Since August of 2006 there is Test wikipedia in Normative Modern Belarusian language ( http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/be ) which now has more than 2500(!) articles in it.
Recently the request collect enough voices (3/4) for support (including 15(!) native speakers - actually there were more fluent speakers as many comments are written in modern belarusian language to get moved to "Approved requests".
  Can we, please, get a wikipedia now?
  We requested domain bel.wikipedia.org as it's official ISO 639-2,3 code for modern belarusian language, and because be.wikipedia.org is taken by alternative belarusian language (unofficial s.c. "neo-tarashkevich" belarusian language that differs much from Normative Modern Belarusian language).
  Or, maybe, our team should contact a developer to get a wikipedia?
  Thank you forward!

 Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote

> In the meantime, we have an article that is most likely a copyvio, and
> in any event contains a number of totally unverifiable sources.  And any
> movement to do something about this sort of nonsense is met with the
> view that people are out to censor pop culture or something like that.

The further layer of distaste comes from the feeling that proper 'verification' is probably a matter of taking hype as gospel. Rock stars are advised not to take their press releases seriously, as a sanity check. The same for us, I hope.

What is the 'wiki way', here, though? It is certainly not a question of sudden moves. We have always had a way of 'bearing down' on bad material. Probably we do need to look closely, at the specific issue: what is a _reliable source_ here? It has become axiomatic that no reliable sources means no coverage.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> Phil Sandifer wrote
>
>
>> 2) Does this cause problems with systemic bias, whereby American,
>> Canadian, and British popular culture will all be far easier to write
>> about than other countries due to the prevalence of English-language
>> fandoms that generate sources?
>>
>
> Well, that's probably right, in its own terms. It is really at the opposite end of my own systemic bias concerns. It might also be much harder to source comments about large settlements in Central Africa, compared to one-horse towns in Western Europe.
>
There's more than people might think though. Not only does the
Historical Dictionary series for African countries have lots of directly
usable material, but the authors routinely apologize for having "only" a
thousand entries in a volume's bibliography. I don't think anybody
should be moaning about lack of sources until every one of those
thousand entries (per country!) is cited in at least one WP article.

Stan


body:
Phil Sandifer wrote

> 2) Does this cause problems with systemic bias, whereby American,
> Canadian, and British popular culture will all be far easier to write
> about than other countries due to the prevalence of English-language
> fandoms that generate sources?

Well, that's probably right, in its own terms. It is really at the opposite end of my own systemic bias concerns. It might also be much harder to source comments about large settlements in Central Africa, compared to one-horse towns in Western Europe.

Charles

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] mental_floss Fixipedia Day

body:
As long as we keep an eye out for urban legends creeping in, that's a great
idea.
We can't have too many people actually writing good articles and fixing
things.
Be sure to tell them to source facts so we don't need people to track links
and books down to verify unverified stuff. There's enough of that already
and if you tell them to source things from the get go, we might not need to
do any cleanup after their edits which would be an extra plus.

Mgm

On 11/9/06, Violet/Riga <violetriga at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Some of you may be aware of the excellent US trivia magazine and blog
> "mental_floss" (www.mentalfloss.com).  I was recently contacted by them
> regarding the idea of a "Fixipedia Day".  The idea is for their readers to
> edit a Wikipedia article and correct a mistake/omission/whatever and
> document it.  I see this as similar to External Peer Reviews conducted by
> magazines such as Nature but with the emphasis on actually contributing
> rather than critiquing.
>
> I have volunteered to help out with an on-wiki project page for this and
> have offered my advice on the situation.  I believe that this could be an
> interesting idea that could attract some excellent contributors to the
> project as well as publicise the goals of Wikipedia.  They are currently
> discussing the idea and thinking of how best to implement, announce, and
> publicise the day.
>
> So what are peoples opinions of this?  Any suggestions?  Is it a good idea
> even?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> ~~~~ Violet/Riga
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:
>
>> I'm not entirely sure that a random user of an online site qualifies as an
>> employee of any site, so I don't think that *workplace* sexual harassment
>> laws have anything to do with this case. After all the commotion lately with
>> MySpace, it seems quite real that these situations do have some sort of
>> legal backing under some sort of sexual harassment statute, although IANAL.
>> In many of these cases, it is just safer to report the case, and if the
>> police asks for anything, just provide them access to the Apache and Recent
>> Changes logs.
>>
> Providing this data should only be done in response to a court order.
> Mere police investigation is not enough.  There are many more situations
> where a person has legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous.  This
> might seem like very obvious circumstances for providing information,
> but there are other activities where we diverge significantly about the
> legality of the activity, and it is not our place to start making
> judgements about legality.  Civil rights and free speech are important,
> and if it means having to tolerate occasional idiotic speech that's a
> very small price to pay.

In some cases I would agree, but when there is a clear threat of
physical violence (rape), that's a simple boundary line for me.

Two examples: (1) a vandal posts "Principal Skinner is a poopy head", we
do not notify the school or authorities, because it is just a stupid
childish comment and who cares.  (2) a vandal posts a physical threat of
violence against Principal Skinner... we forward it to the school and/or
appropriate authorities, and cough up the ip address if we have it and
there is a police request.

Is the second also just a stupid childish comment?  Yes, in many cases,
but I am personally not comfortable making that judgment.  Tolerating
the occassional idiotic speech really is a small price to pay, as you
say.  Tolerating threats of violence is just a bad idea.

--Jimbo


body:
geni wrote:
>> This is a classic example of fancruft of the worst sort.  There is
>> virtually no chance that this article will ever improve, unless Ms.
>> Mateo becomes actually famous.  (This could happen!  And if it did, we
>> could have a good article about her.)
>>
>
> You sure they don't have gosip mags in the Philippines?

I am sure they do, but even for most of the losing contestants on
American Idol, there is basically no information about them after their
15 minutes of minor minor minor fame is over.  For the winners, yes,
there is often a lot of ongoing press coverage as their careers take off
or flop.  For some of the losers clever or stupid enough to do something
outrageous to get more press coverage, there is also ongoing press coverage.

But for most of them, well, this was a great time in life for them, but
there is not likely to be any verifiable news in the future, and what we
have today is not sufficient for a standalone article that we can't
police against vandalism and nonsense, etc.

I agree with the solution in cases like this of merging and in *some*
cases, a standalone stub... but stubbing makes more sense only when we
expect that a good article could be written.

--Jimbo


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/9/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
[snip]
> legality of the activity, and it is not our place to start making
> judgements about legality.  Civil rights and free speech are important,
> and if it means having to tolerate occasional idiotic speech that's a
> very small price to pay.

We're past due for another line in WP:NOT:

Wikipedia is not an anonymity service.

Generally we work to increase the privacy of editors because it is the
ethical thing to do and it furthers our interests.
When someone attacks our users with frightening threats of violence or
otherwise behaves in ways which are obviously harmful and malicious we
should disclose their information as appropriate for the protection of
our users and the betterment of our community... and this is for the
same reasons as the above: it is the ethical thing to do and it
furthers our interests.

We are under no obligation to provide protection to people who wish to
cause harm to others.

Although a certain degree of "thick skin" is required for us to avoid
wasting time on every idiotic troll, this would appear to go far
beyond the line.

Fortunately the ideas I've outlined above are already well served by
our stated privacy policy.


from_name: Francis Tyers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] bel.wikipedia.org Request

body:
The 'Modern Normative Belarusian' Wikipedia (as written by the majority
of Belarusians) should be at be.wikipedia.org. The minority revision
should be at an alternate domain or merged.

Fran

On Thu, 2006-11-09 at 21:42 +0000, rty yui wrote:
> Request for wikipedia in Modern Normative Belarusian (proposed as "Belarusian (Orthography Revison of 1959) language (which is official in Republic of Belarus) has been in "Request for new language" since July of 2006.
> Since that time it collected more than 100 (108) voices for support and 35 voices for oppose.
> Since August of 2006 there is Test wikipedia in Normative Modern Belarusian language ( http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/be ) which now has more than 2500(!) articles in it.
> Recently the request collect enough voices (3/4) for support (including 15(!) native speakers - actually there were more fluent speakers as many comments are written in modern belarusian language to get moved to "Approved requests".
>   Can we, please, get a wikipedia now?
>   We requested domain bel.wikipedia.org as it's official ISO 639-2,3 code for modern belarusian language, and because be.wikipedia.org is taken by alternative belarusian language (unofficial s.c. "neo-tarashkevich" belarusian language that differs much from Normative Modern Belarusian language).
>   Or, maybe, our team should contact a developer to get a wikipedia?
>   Thank you forward!
>
>  Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-11-10

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

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

Passed 423 of 439 tests (96.36%) FAILED!


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Jeff Raymond wrote:
>
>
>>Because a verifiable stub isn't worth it?
>>
>>
>I did not say that.  The point is, it is NOT verifiable.  It is likely a
>copyvio, and the amount of information known about this woman from
>reliable third party sources is about as close to zero as you can get.
>
>It was written by someone who appears to have a serious problem with
>respect to uploading copyvio images and claiming he took them.  I see no
>reason to trust anything about the article at all.
>
>In the meantime, we have an article that is most likely a copyvio, and
>in any event contains a number of totally unverifiable sources.  And any
>movement to do something about this sort of nonsense is met with the
>view that people are out to censor pop culture or something like that.
>
This is an overreaction.  While there may be some basis for suspecting
that the image may be a copyvio, saying that about the text of the
article is a bit of a stretch.  There is not much information in the
article to start with.  It is a stub, but that is more an argument for
the proposed merge than outright deletion.  How can you say that
something is "likely a copyvio"?  Either it's prima facie a copyvio or
it's not.  Either you have compared it with some original text, or you
haven't.  Wouldn't it be better to verify a claim that someone is acting
illegally before making it.  If we are going to criticize such
unsubstantiated claims when they are made about the subject of an
article, shouldn't the same standard apply to claims about our fellow
contributors.

I would not presume to say whether the information is verifiable or
not.  I do not understand Tagalog, and I do not regularly keep tabs on
what is being said in Philippine publications..  Do you?

And what really is the standard for pop culture notability?  There is
an  extensive article for the 9th place finisher from the most recent
''American Idol''.  This was the first season of ''Philippine Idol''.
Why wouldn't it's 9th place finisher merit the same treatment, including
the way that publicity shots are accepted?  This project isn't just
about what goes on in those countries that have a high proportion of
Wikipedians.  It isn't just about the sophisticated standards that have
developed over a long period of time in our key countries.  It's also
about educating editors in other countries, and you don't accomplish
that with automated messages about the evils of copyvios.  These
techniques that one would associate with Gringo imperialism do nothing
to draw newbies into our fraternity.

I don't see User:The Green Archer as having with a serious problem.  In
the spirit of "Don't bite the newbies" someone writing him a personal
message or taking this "lad" under wing would have accomplished more in
educating a new editor.  Simply welcoming with an automated message that
shows newcomers the way to "Help" and "FAQ" pages is our equivalent to
an automated telephone message telling us to "Press 1 if ..., Press 2 if
..., Press 3 if... , ..."

Ec


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image thumbnail (re)generation etc

references:
<d20d84ea0611072035s391f6080l95c30bec89e30521@mail.gmail.com>
	<eirtip$o1l$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d20d84ea0611080001u73f449calb12ded55a4b5e698@mail.gmail.com>
	<eisuj0$brn$1@sea.gmane.org> <eitj7f$830$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<eiu45d$nno$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 09/11/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> If there is no image, MW assumes there is no cache, which previously (before
> the error page caching problem) was a fair assumption. So thumb.php does not
> purge the cache when it is generating a new image. You have to generate the
> new thumbnail with thumb.php, then run action=purge, which will clear the
> caches for the thumbnail files which now exist, then generate the thumbnail
> again by viewing the page.

OK, so how exactly do we purge thumbnails other than the one for the
image page? If we put the offending thumbs on the talk page, for
example, and run action=purge on the talk page, does it have the
desired effect?

Could we please have more information about any limits set by the
software that might cause thumbnail generation to fail? From
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2888  there are comments
about a "runtime memory limit", "12.5 Mpixel hard limit for PNG
images", problems with "PNGs and progressive JPGs". Of course, I would
prefer that thumbnails don't fail, but while they do, the next best is
to have specific advice to give users to solve this problem. They tend
to get rather agitated when they upload files and they don't appear to
be there.

Also, here are some more failed thumbnails:

Fails to produce thumb for image page:
(2493x1615, 899 KB) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Breuil_01.jpg
(3072x2304, 1522 KB) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:FordFiesta6.jpg
(2920x2336, 1962 KB)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Crocodylus_acutus_09.jpg

uploaders put up compressed versions in order to generate thumbs:
originally 997?2217 (885,844 bytes)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Testicular_artery_%28bull%29.jpg
originally 500?630 (761,148 bytes)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Serbia_mountain_ranges.png

Apparently this page has some info about recent failed thumbs, from German WP:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Jom/fehlende_Bilder

thanks,
Brianna


from_name: florencedevouard

subject: [Foundation-l] Board retreat outcome

body:
Dear all,

Now is the time to be a little bit more specific.

----------------
REORGANISATION OF BOARD ACTIVITY

On a very short term basis, (re ?)-organise the board activity (meeting,
agenda, reporting, interaction with other bodies) to ensure the board
makes its *best* to fullfil its mission according to our commun vision.
This includes setting up regular informal meeting times for the board
and the ED (executive director, Brad), setting up irl board meetings,
clear agenda, reports from ED to board, etc...

Brad is now sending to the board a weekly report on executive activity.
This report is followed by an irc meeting every wenesday ("ED meeting").
This meeting is still very much a mixture of ED report and Board
meeting, but I expect that over time, it should be primarily executive.
Board members will not be expected to attend every week, but only
according to their availability and (their interest in) the agenda. It
may be that once things are running more smoothly, such meetings will be
every 2 weeks.
Examples of issues discussed yesterday is "property & casualty insurance
review", "update on matching donation requests", "freenode donation
implementation", "WIPO fees", etc...
I hope these meetings will help ensure no issue is forgotten or none is
left pending for an unacceptable time.

Aside from these executive meetings, I will try to keep a pace of one
board meeting per month, where the focus will be on discussing strategic
issues, making high-level decisions, directing the ED to implement these
decisions and generally monitoring the general directions and pace of
executive. All board members will be expected to attend such meetings
and the agenda will be defined well in advance.
The next meeting of the sort should occur in Florida, end of november or
beginning of december. Issues to be discussed include
* deciding the procedure for the board expansion
* populate the advisory board
* vote on new bylaws
* approve budget etc
* finalize annual report etc...

To keep up with board decisions, I invite you to remember that link:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions

In the past year, most board decisions have been explicitely written
down on resolutions. Since Brad was hired, it has not been clarified
though, which decisions were under the authority of the board and which
under the authority of the executive director. I expect this will be
pinned down in the next few weeks.

---------------
BOARD RETREAT 2006: BOARD ACTIONS AND OUTCOME

To know the basics about the board retreat, I invite you to read again
Oscar report:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Report_from_Frankfurt_-_October_2006
SWOT analysis: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SWOT

During the retreat, the participants made many suggestions. The outcome
was analysed and the actions to be done by the board, versus the actions
to be done by individuals or committees were separated.

You may find the board actions and outcome here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Retreat_2006_Board_actions_and_outcomes

To comment a little bit more on the various actions.
1) Executive Director search.
Brad was hired on a temporary basis, to relieve Jimbo from executive
duties and to start the process of growing from a family organisation to
a more professional organisation. Part of his mission is to help us find
an executive director, who we wish to have already worked for a
non-profit, and preferably at the international level. The search
committee existence and role has been approved on the 8th of nov.
First review of the process will be at the next big board meeting.
The general outcome of this action is to have a brand new ED by end of
spring beginning of summer 2007 at latest.

2) Board expansion strategy
This was already discussed a lot, but the issue we meet is whether
expansion should be done rather with appointment, rather with direct
elections or rather with indirect elections. An issue to discuss before
december is the "wikimediacouncil".

3) Fixing up bylaws
This is meant to fix many inconsistencies, many of them having appeared
due to our growth. We need sustainable bylaws.
Along with bylaws, we have discussed modifications of the mission of the
Foundation during the retreat (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission).
Erik will engage the community on this one.

4) Advisory board
I'll simply remind my call for suggestion:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-November/011353.html

Do not hesitate to ask questions on all those. Trolling will not be
considered.

-------
INDIVIDUAL AND COMMITTEES ACTIONS AND OUTCOME

Brad made us a summary of such outcomes:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Retreat_2006_Strategic_plan

All these outcomes fall under the following categories

1. Organizational
2. Finances
3. Public relations and messaging
4. Technology
5. Legal
6. Operations
7. Program development

I'll comment very little on these. Do not hesitate to comment or ask
more details (we may not always answer, but will try).

There are only two issues on which I will comment because they are very
near my heart.

First, chapters.
During the board retreat, a lot of the discussion turned around the
difference between Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia.
Wikimedia is seen as a larger group, including the Foundation and the
chapters.
In the new mission statement, the Foundation acknowledges the existence
of the chapters. This is the first step in acknowledging that what we
want to do is to build a network, a worldwide net of influence,
promotion, support of the projects. Between the Foundation and the
chapters, there can be, they must be, a mutual benefit. A mutual benefit
for the projects and for knowledge dissemination. All structures are
self reinforcing one another. And between the Foundation and the
chapters, there must be rights and duties on both sides.
For example, a chapter may help the Foundation with a server donation,
but mostly, it can help promotion of project, organisation of events,
political "lobbying", educational contacts, and distribution of content
at a local level, which the Foundation can not so easily take care off.
We are working very hard right now ("we" is mostly chapcom and some
chapter members) to define rules and guidelines to  recognise an
association is a chapter, to define rights and obligations of all
parties, trademark uses etc... There are still many difficulties on the
road (such as financial sharing), but the first big step has been done.
The step of making us a whole.

My second point is on program development. This is long term thinking.
And usually, it is not urgent, so tends to be forgotten in the perpetual
rush to fix what is urgent (buy new servers, pay the hosting bill, renew
a domain name, cool down a complain, do a checkuser for the police,
chase a worm etc....). Time goes by, and many things that could get
done, are not done. There is a lot of interest from several editors
right now. I am happy we took steps to focus a bit on program
development. Many projects could see the day, DVDs of content, academic
conferences, audio versions, accessibility, outreach etc...  Much to do

Anyway, this was a very long email. I wish that you read carefully all
documents. Realise as well that a whole subcommunity is developing
around Wikimedia issues. If you wish to be part of it, you have a
chance, provided that you are serious and show you can be trusted.


subject: [Foundation-l] Board retreat outcome


from_name: Puppy

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Wikipedia e-mail REQUEST FOR REMOVAL OF AUTO BLOCK
 PLACED BY ZimZalaBim]

body:
I was checking my emails before starting on a very busy day - I don't
have time to puzzle this out but hopefully someone (or several someones)
on this list will - thanks in advance.

-kc-
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Wikipedia e-mail REQUEST FOR REMOVAL OF AUTO BLOCK PLACED BY
ZimZalaBim
Date: 	Thu, 9 Nov 2006 19:24:07 GMT
From: 	Bimzalazim <bimzalazim at yahoo.com>
To: 	KillerChihuahua <puppy at killerchihuahua.com>

REQUEST OF bimzalazim to remove the block placed by ZimZalaBim on his Computer IP 65.88.88.155 on 8 November, 2006

ZimZalaBim blocked the said computer right after bimzalazim edited the Wikipedia listing on INTERNET-Adservers to indicate that Zedo is a deadly adware that does not serve the ads in the way adservers do which they place the ads on the webpages with the permission of their publishers and drive their revenues from the clicks made by the vistors to the wepages. The publishers of the webpages get paid for the clicks made on the ads. On the other hand Zedo unleashes the ads on the webpages through persistant popups on the computers and not on the webpages and its targets are the owners of the computers and zedo expects to make revenues through clicks made on Pop up ads by the owners of the computers. Zedo instals its popup delivery software on the computer without the permission of the owners of the computers.

I have provided the proof that Zedo is a software by the way of search engine listings under the keywords "zedo", "Powered By Zedo", "Zedo - Adware", "Adware Zedo". "Remove- Zedo". I've provided only 19 listings. But there are hundreds upon upon hundreds of thousands of pages of search Engine Listings.

Zedo is shamelessly braging about its wijipedia relationship by having hundreds of thousands of listings of the type listing number 19 below. "Wikipedia-Zedo", "Zedo-Wikipedia" . Wikipedia is promoting itself as a free encyclopedia. But ZimZalaBim is shamelessly promoting the business of Zedo by blocking independent editors like me who want Wikipedia to become a source of knowledge and facts that people will look up to.

Please look at the evidence I have provided to show that ZimZalaBim has maliciously blocked my computer IP Address 65.88.88.155 and I beg you to remove the block immediately. There is no reason for the block on the computer fakir005 also placed by ZimZalaBim and it is a shame to call every editor a sockpuppet of fakir005 or of bimzalazim if they edit Wikipedia to reflect that Zedo is not an Adserver but an Adware.

Thank You very much and May God reward you for removing the dastardly act by Wikipedia Adminstrator who obviously is a  a Sockpuppet of ZEDO.

bimzalazim - Computer IP 65.88.88.155 - block placed 8 November, 2006 - Request for Unblocking dated November 9, 2006 at 13.47

1. zedo popups - MajorGeeks Support Forums
MajorGeeks.com support forum ... in your archives on how to remove zedo but I couldn't find any specific instructions. ... zedo popups. Did you remove/uninstall ...
forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=92930 -

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www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/barbara_schwarz_files/ff2.html

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www.tomcoyote.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/lofiversion/t57135.html

8.Pop-ups "Powered by Zedo, 888.com, & others" messing up my computer - Free Antivirus Forum
Pop-ups "Powered by Zedo, 888.com, & others" messing up my computer ... Posted 2/28/2006 7:02 PM (GMT +2) ... O10 - Hijacked Internet access by New.Net ...
www.bullguard.com/forum/12/Pop-ups-quotPowered-by-Zedo-88_28626.html -

9. Powered by ZEDO popup problem - That Computer Guy's Help Forum
Powered by ZEDO popup problem. Options. roland. Jan 28 2006, 04:53 AM. Post ... weeks by an annoying pop-up windows, sometimes blank with "Powered by ZEDO" in ...
forums.thatcomputerguy.us/index.php?showtopic=17379

10. Powered by VBZooM
????? ?????? ?? zedo. ????? ???????. ???. ??????. ???. ?????. 1 ... ????????. ???????. ??? ?????? ????? zedo. ??? ??????. ????????. ??????. ??????. ??????? ...
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2 Pages 1 2 > Zedo, pokker and Football tickets adware. Options. Louk. Sep 17 2005, 01:46 PM. Post #1 ... short : ...Powered by zedo or poker associated, ...
forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=56762

13. SunbeltBLOG: Adware community cackles with glee
Claria purchased advertising through Zedo.com, which through a lengthy chain of ... up after an install of ContextPlus adware (which, incidentally, was installed ...
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14. Technology & Marketing Law Blog: Adware Witchhunt Gone Awry
Step 1: Claria pays ad network Zedo.com. Step 2: Zedo.com pays 02320.com ... LA Times on Adware Advertisers--Including 1800 Contacts? ...
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15. SpywareNuker database on Zedo - detect and remove Zedo
Some of the Zedo related items from the SpywareNuker software database. ... Removal of adware component might affect the related ad-supported software. ...
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Wikipedia: Zedo

16. Remove Zedo, Delete Zedo, Removing Tools for Zedo
Zedo Description: Tracking Cookie: Any cookie that is shared among two ... Zedo Manual Removal: N/A. More Removal Instructions for Emerging Adware Spyware ...
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... Antivirus + Firewall 2007. BPS Adware and Spyware Remover. X-Cleaner ... How to Detect and Remove n-NASE Adware. How to Detect and Remove Spector Keylogger ...
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help2go.com/Tutorials/.../Zedo_Cookie_:_How_to_remove_it.html

19. Wikipedia: Zedo
ZEDO is an Internet ad serving company that has been ... ZEDO maintains that it is a software used by reputable companies and is not spyware or adware. ...
Quick Links: Advertising stubs - Internet companies of the United States
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zedo


list: commons-l

from_name: Anthony

subject: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

body:
On 11/10/06, bawolff <bawolff+wn at gmail.com> wrote:
> They get a
> deletion notice on their commons talk page - which is quite useless,
> as they're not coming back there for at least a year,  if they ever
> come back. However if a message was left at their home wiki, the image
> would be saved.  However its totally unrealistic for CM's to track
> them down against everything listed at [[special:sitematrix]]. perhaps
> a bot is needed or something like that, but I think it would go a long
> way to having more contributors trust commons.
>
Turning on email notification when you get a message on your talk page
would be a good solution in the mean time.  In fact, for some people
(like myself) who don't check their Wikipedia talk page that much
either, it might even be a better solution.

I believe this email notification has already been coded up.  What
would be the problems with turning it on?  Can someone be specific
here and answer exactly why it hasn't been turned on?  How many
additional servers would be needed to support it?

It seems like a big enough problem that it's worth solving.

Anthony


from_name: bawolff

body:
Here's some of my thoughts, as someone who you would call a  contributor:

Contributors who make a mistake: Often time someone comes from some
random wiki (most likely wikipedia en) and uploads an image. They make
a mistake - no source, no license, unclear licensing terms etc. The
image is perfectly usable by commons, but no one knows it. They get a
deletion notice on their commons talk page - which is quite useless,
as they're not coming back there for at least a year,  if they ever
come back. However if a message was left at their home wiki, the image
would be saved.  However its totally unrealistic for CM's to track
them down against everything listed at [[special:sitematrix]]. perhaps
a bot is needed or something like that, but I think it would go a long
way to having more contributors trust commons.

Default search: yes, something, anything/random monkeys picking
results. Improvement is vastly needed in this area. Any thoughts on a
keyword based system based on semantic mediawiki? (assuming I read the
page on semantic mediawiki right). That way, I think you could do much
better searching - I think you could do combo searches with it - all
yellow things + alll bird things = all yellow birds.

Failing that, maybe some DPL - like search (special page - choose DPL
criteria, it makes list). however I'm no programmer, I really don't
know what I'm talking about in that area, thoose are just some things
that came to mind.

Easy categorization for random uploaders:
How about an javascript/ajax version of common sense that comes up
when your editing or uploading an image? If its esentially 0-clicks
away to fining proper categories, I think a lot more people would
categorize.

[[user:Bawolff]]/[[commons:user:Bawolff]]/[[wikinews:user:bawolff]]/[[w:user:Bawolff]]
On 11/10/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> While thinking about categories/galleries again lately (it really
> never goes away), I came up with some broad definitions of the types
> of users that the Commons serves, how they have different needs and
> responsibilities, and how we can maybe use this kind of thinking to
> identify  priorities for future directions.
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Principles
> If anyone feels up for some high-level thinking, I welcome comments,
> additions or criticism here or on the talk page. In particular, are
> there other types of users that are useful to define, who are they and
> why? Is any of my reasoning illogical? Are there other conclusions
> I've missed?
>
> cheers,
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
geni wrote:

>On 11/9/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
>>around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
>>
>>--Michael Snow
>>
>>
>Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,
>
>
So you're pushing bad grammar.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sourcing popular culture items

body:
jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
> The fact that we can say "nn-bio" on someone who was on a well-known
> television show is scary to me.
>
Yeah, I know what you mean, I'm practically trembling with fear. I've
been on *several* well-known television shows, and nobody thinks I'm
notable either! (Admittedly, the shows were news programs getting the
reactions of passersby :-) but hey, why should that be an obstacle! I
WAS ON TV! ZOMG!!)

Reminds me of the classic quote - "In the future, everyone will have an
WP article for 15 minutes, then it goes to AfD."

Stan


from_name: lars

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

body:
Anthony wrote:

> This a good point, and one the board should think long and hard about.
> I was somewhat disturbed by the fact that "money" received the
> largest value under "opportunities" during the SWOT exercise.

Please don't over-interpret the report from that SWOT exercise.
Money was not given "the largest value", it was the term mentioned
by most of the participants.  That only means it is the least
original idea, one that everybody can think of.  Really original
ideas, such as "Wikipedia can change the way humans breath oxygen"
would only be mentioned by very few participants, and could be
completely wrong, or could be completely revolutionary.  The most
interesting and important aspects are probably somewhere at the
middle of this scale, between radical and trivial.

> That said, I think there is a lot that could be done by the
> foundation, if only the foundation had more money.

No, I don't agree.  This is the trap I'm warning against.  You are
about to fall into it.  Rather than paying more programmers, we
should think of ways that more programmers can be stimulated to
contribute for free.  Today that can be quite difficult, because
only very few have access to the centralized running server.  Two
important methods are already in place: Anybody can download a
database dump and analyze it on their own computers and develop
new services such as those running on the German Toolserver.  And
since Mediawiki is free software, many develop their own plugins
for special functions.  These are examples of distributed software
development that don't require money to run through the WMF.
Instead of collecting more money, we should think about how we can
achieve even more without involving money.

Also the Knams proxy in Amsterdam is paid for by an external
organization (Kennisnet), and that saves the WMF a lot of money.
Why not ask for similar proxies inside the USA, rather than
collecting more money to buy more servers.

> But...then Wikimedia doesn't get to spend that money...

There is a lot of money in the world that the WMF doesn't spend.
I just had breakfast for money that I spent, without passing
through the WMF.

> Why should Wikimedia be concerned over whether or not someone is
> silent?  I don't have a problem acknowledging *every* contribution.
> If every donor wants acknowledgement, then we should give it to them.

Of course.  What I'm against is that special treatment should be
given to people who want to make things more complicated.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea


from_name: Yury Tarasievich

subject: [Wikipedia-l] bel.wikipedia.org Request

body:
On 10/11/06, Francis Tyers <spectre at ivixor.net> wrote:
...
That's all very good, but is the Board actually looking over the
request of the Languages Subcommittee? I understand it was submitted
already?

-regards


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Nov 9, 2006, at 11:36 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

>
> I am sure they do, but even for most of the losing contestants on
> American Idol, there is basically no information about them after
> their
> 15 minutes of minor minor minor fame is over.  For the winners, yes,
> there is often a lot of ongoing press coverage as their careers
> take off
> or flop.  For some of the losers clever or stupid enough to do
> something
> outrageous to get more press coverage, there is also ongoing press
> coverage.

Not that I think this is a good idea necessarily, but...

Intro Paragraph

==Biography==

Phrased in terms of "The show presented Mr. Wales as a..."

==Audition Process==

Mr. Wales auditioned with "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the
Roof," to the delight of judges X and Y. Z, on the other hand...

==In the competition==

Discussion of what they sang, quotes to the media coverage of the
show at the time as well as the judges comments giving a sense of the
judgment of how it was, were they in the bottom three, etc.

==Elimination==

Self-evident. Don't forget to mention if he cried!

==After Idol==

Any information on their post-Idol careers, drawn from varieties of
"Where are They Nows," later media features, etc.

That's a non-stub article that would be drawn entirely from
verifiable sources, and could be done on pretty much any American
Idol contestant. To someone who knows where to look, I'm sure it
could be done for Filipino Idol.

Now, I think it's a stupid article to write. I look at someone who
writes that and wonder why they can't go fix some of the articles
that make Wikipedia into a bit of a joke on serious academic topics.
But, you know, I have no inherent problem with the article. It's just
not one of the first million I'd write.

I mean, there are topics that can never be destubbed in popular
culture - red shirts in Star Trek, a lot of individual episodes
(Which can have synopses, but often nothing else), etc. And there are
topics that are utter and irredeemable trainwrecks - anything having
to do with continuity or cannon. (Star Trek, Star Wars, and Babylon 5
are the three exceptions that I can think of to this. And adding to
the aggravation is that these NEVER die in AfD) But this isn't one of
them. And I think understanding what articles we really can't source
or really shouldn't write is a key step in fixing popular culture.

-Phil


body:
Kat Walsh wrote:

>On 11/9/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The question then becomes how we can help editors who want to write
>>good articles on these topics (and there are many) without letting
>>articles like this one run amok. The answer has, it seems to me,
>>manifestly shown itself NOT to be draconian sourcing policy that
>>defies the common sense of anyone familiar with the topic and
>>aggressive deletion.
>>
>>
>The vast majority of these topics I think would be better suited for a
>merge. As for Ms. Mateo, for example, I don't see why it wouldn't be
>more appropriate to say whatever there is to say about her in the
>Phillipine Idol article. (Should it get too large, Phillippine Idol
>contestants or something similar.) If nothing else it brings it to a
>wider audience of those who are interested in the show, and so may
>have seen her in her only really notable act, rather than those
>interested only in her specifically -- probably a much smaller group.
>It also gives the information context to start from, which is useful
>for minor topics and even more beneficial for fictional subjects.
>
I have no objection to merging the stubbish material in the article
about Ms. Mateo; it even appears that some of the other competitors for
Philippine Idol have already been merged.  When there is enough material
on these contestants their articles can be split off again as has been
the case with American Idol or Canadian Idol.  (I haven't looked at
what's happening with the other national versions.)  This discussion has
ranged into far more involving notions of copyvios, verifiability and
notability.  Can we apply the same strict standards to a Philippino
writing about an issue of strictly Philippine interest as we would to an
American, Canadian, Briton or Australian writing about his own country?
Do we have a critical mass of editors from that country to fill in the
holes, or to check facts, or to resolve possible copyvios?  Those of us
who edit from advanced industrial countries didn't arrive at these rules
overnight, and we did so in a context where intellectual resources are
plentiful.

When judging contributions we need to do so in the context of the
affected country with the recognition that contributors from that
country need to evolve their skills just as those of us in the developed
countries have had to.  This may imply less rigid sourcing rules for
editors from some countries.

Ec


body:
On Nov 10, 2006, at 3:58 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>
> This is an overreaction.  While there may be some basis for suspecting
> that the image may be a copyvio, saying that about the text of the
> article is a bit of a stretch.  There is not much information in the
> article to start with.  It is a stub, but that is more an argument for
> the proposed merge than outright deletion.  How can you say that
> something is "likely a copyvio"?  Either it's prima facie a copyvio or
> it's not.

First of all, let me note that the current version is not the version
that had the copyvio problems.

Second of all, and I can promise you that this is an experience that
anybody who has ever taught a writing course can verify, when it
comes to identifying plagiarism, you know first, and then you go back
and find proof. There are various things about plagiarized writing
that just stick out. In the case of the Jeli Mateo article, in its
old version, here are the two that I look at and go "Ah, plagiarism"

"A towering beauty at 5?8, Jeli never fails to make heads turn."

Clearly a POV paragraph, but more to the point, it seems out of
context. The writer of that sentence has some sort of perspective
that is not the same as Wikipedia's. The sentence assumes some sort
of proximity to Mateo such that the observation of heads turning is
possible.

"What does she want to prove in Idol? That she?s beauty, brains and
talent all in one package."

The present tense here throws. Yes, the sentence was added the day
before her elimination, but even still, the tone of the sentence
sounds like it's intended for an ephemeral context. The "beauty,
brains and talent all in one package" line is also clearly a
promotional slogan.

These are more than enough to label it "probable" copyvio, and
frankly, even if the paragraph weren't a POV puff piece, I'd remove
the paragraph on probable cause even if I couldn't Google the phrases.

-Phil


references:
<d20d84ea0611072035s391f6080l95c30bec89e30521@mail.gmail.com>
	<eirtip$o1l$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d20d84ea0611080001u73f449calb12ded55a4b5e698@mail.gmail.com>
	<eisuj0$brn$1@sea.gmane.org> <eitj7f$830$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<eiu45d$nno$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d20d84ea0611090606y4bf92cc4y90751ed016107729@mail.gmail.com>
	<ej1i0i$fa6$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 11/10/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The limits are:
> * 12.5 Mpixel for the source image, for raster images other than JPEGs (e.g.
> PNGs)
> * 100MB memory limit (ulimit -v)
> * 100MB maximum created file size (ulimit -f)
> * 180 seconds of CPU time (ulimit -t)

It should be noted that in normal case jpegs are scaled incrementally
and use very little memory. This only happens if you are very careful
with the convert commandline, so "at home" testing may not be
indicative of Mediawiki results.


body:
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax at gmail.com
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 02:22:43 +1030
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Sourcing "popular culture" items

Anthony wrote:
> > I'm going to copy the article here, just so we're all on the same page
> > in case it was deleted or edited or something:
> >
> > ----
> > '''Jellica Marie Mateo''' (Born April 10, 1983) also known as
> > '''"Jeli"''', is a [[Philippine Idol]] Finalist for the show's first
> > season.
>
> {{nn-bio}}, in the English speaking world anyway. What speakers of
> Filipino think of her is entirely up to them, and should have nothing to
> do with what we think of her. Unless they can come up with something
> better than "Aww she so cute"...

The fact that we can say "nn-bio" on someone who was on a well-known
television show is scary to me.

-Jeff

--
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

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


from_name: Dan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
ZOMG TEH SINGULAR THEY! END OF DA WORLD! NOONE SHALL SURVIVE!

On 11/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> geni wrote:
>
> >On 11/9/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
> >>around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
> >>
> >>--Michael Snow
> >>
> >>
> >Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,
> >
> >
> So you're pushing bad grammar.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On Nov 10, 2006, at 10:59 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>>
>> Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,
>>
>>
> So you're pushing bad grammar.

Actually, if you scroll up, you'll find the post where I noted that
the Chicago Manual of Style is relatively OK with this solution.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:

>On Nov 9, 2006, at 1:32 PM, geni wrote:
>
>
>>On 11/9/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
>>>around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
>>>
>>>--Michael Snow
>>>
>>>
>>Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,
>>
>>
>And, before anyone complains, it's tacitly endorsed by the Chicago
>Manual of Style!
>
>It notes that "it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers
>to use the generic masculine pronoun," whereas objectors to the
>singular they are merely referred to as "a great many readers,"
>clearly implying that such objections are unreasonable.
>
Oxford Style Manual:  "Though common in speech it is still substandard
usage, and should be avoided in formal writing: Necessity may in time
establish 'they' as an accepted non-gender-specific singular pronoun in
English, but this has yet to happen."

Your proclamation that opponents of the singular 'they' are unreasonable
is nothing more than blatant sophistry.  To be sure the word
'reasonable' does not appear in 5.204 when the author of that passage
speaks of those who "resort to nontraditional gimmicks" or who "use
'they' as a kind of singular pronoun."  What conclusion should I draw
from the use of "kind of"?  Maybe the author uses the word "reasonable"
to emphasize that writers on that side of the divide are still
reasonable people despite their aberrant grammar.

I use and will continue to use the generic masculine, and will object
when someone insists on imposing sub-standard grammar for the sake of
political correctness.  I find the use of a generic feminine equally
acceptable.  I don't really object to phrases like "he or she" but they
can become awkward in some contexts.  A usage like "s/he" has the
artificial flavour of a condom over one's pen.

Good writers will avoid imposing one form or the other, and look for
alternatives.  Had you read further in paragraph 5.204 you would have
seen, "What is wanted, in short, is a kind of invisible gender
neutrality.  There are many ways to achieve such language, but it takes
though and often some hard work"

Ec


body:
On Nov 10, 2006, at 10:52 AM, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>
> {{nn-bio}}, in the English speaking world anyway. What speakers of
> Filipino think of her is entirely up to them, and should have
> nothing to
> do with what we think of her. Unless they can come up with something
> better than "Aww she so cute"...

Thank you for so eloquently demonstrating the problems with using
notability as a catch-all.

-Phil


from_name: christoph.huesler at css.ch

subject: [Wikitech-l] Antwort:  Suchfunktion

body:
wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org schrieb am 09.11.2006 15:34:25:

> Hallo Liste,
>
> befasse mich seit kurzem erst mit dem Mediawiki.
> Habe das mediawiki Local auf einen Kubuntu Rechner laufen und als DBMS
> verwende ich MySQL.
>
> 1. Ich w?rde gerne wissen welche Dateien(php Dateien) bzw. Funktionen
> an der Mediawiki Suchfunktion beteiligt sind?

includes/Search*.php

> 2. Gibt es ein Mediawiki Tutorial  oder hat mir jemand eine
> Literaturempfehlung wo der grunds?tzliche Aufbau des Mediawiki erl?utert

> wird.

Bisher habe ich nichts gefunden (aber auch nicht wirklich danach gesucht).
----
I haven't encountered anything like that yet (but I haven't really
searched for it, to be honest)

>
> Danke schon mal f?r evtl. Hilfe.
>
> Toni P.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On Nov 10, 2006, at 11:49 AM, Stan Shebs wrote:

> jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
>> The fact that we can say "nn-bio" on someone who was on a well-known
>> television show is scary to me.
>>
> Yeah, I know what you mean, I'm practically trembling with fear. I've
> been on *several* well-known television shows, and nobody thinks I'm
> notable either! (Admittedly, the shows were news programs getting the
> reactions of passersby :-) but hey, why should that be an obstacle! I
> WAS ON TV! ZOMG!!)
>
> Reminds me of the classic quote - "In the future, everyone will
> have an
> WP article for 15 minutes, then it goes to AfD."

I suspect, though I may be putting words in Jeff's mouth, that
"someone who was a star of a well-known television show" is closer to
what he meant to say.

-Phil


body:
On 11/10/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2006, at 3:58 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > This is an overreaction.  While there may be some basis for suspecting
> > that the image may be a copyvio, saying that about the text of the
> > article is a bit of a stretch.  There is not much information in the
> > article to start with.  It is a stub, but that is more an argument for
> > the proposed merge than outright deletion.  How can you say that
> > something is "likely a copyvio"?  Either it's prima facie a copyvio or
> > it's not.
>
> First of all, let me note that the current version is not the version
> that had the copyvio problems.
>
What about the version dated "27 September 2006"?  As Jimbo's email is
from November 7th presumably that was the version he was talking
about.  Is that the version that existed on that date, or is there
some new power to change other people's edits (not just delete them)?

Anthony


body:
On 11/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > I'm going to copy the article here, just so we're all on the same page
> > in case it was deleted or edited or something:
> >
> > ----
> > '''Jellica Marie Mateo''' (Born April 10, 1983) also known as
> > '''"Jeli"''', is a [[Philippine Idol]] Finalist for the show's first
> > season.
> >
> > She is a lounge singer by profession doing part-time modeling and
> > hosting as side jobs after her schooling in [[University of Asia and
> > the Pacific]].
> >
> > Some of her musical influences include [[Ray Charles]], [[Diana
> > Krall]], and [[Michael Bolton]] among others.
> > ----
> >
> > Reading this and reading your analysis it seems to me that you are
> > talking about a completely different article.
> >
>
> {{nn-bio}}, in the English speaking world anyway. What speakers of
> Filipino think of her is entirely up to them, and should have nothing to
> do with what we think of her. Unless they can come up with something
> better than "Aww she so cute"...
>
{{hangon}} What we think of her should have nothing to do with whether
or not we have an article on her.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

body:
On 11/10/06, lars <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>
> > This a good point, and one the board should think long and hard about.
> > I was somewhat disturbed by the fact that "money" received the
> > largest value under "opportunities" during the SWOT exercise.
>
> Please don't over-interpret the report from that SWOT exercise.
> Money was not given "the largest value", it was the term mentioned
> by most of the participants.

You know, I went through several iterations of that sentence before
settling on "the largest value".  But your explanation is simpler.  It
was the term mentioned by most of the participants (twice as many as
the next most popular term).  That's still saying a lot, and it still
disturbs me.

> That only means it is the least
> original idea, one that everybody can think of.
>
My feelings are that it shouldn't be an opportunity listed by anyone,
let alone 18 people (I don't feel like looking up the number, but I
think it was 18, if I'm wrong substitute the actual number).

> > That said, I think there is a lot that could be done by the
> > foundation, if only the foundation had more money.
>
> No, I don't agree.  This is the trap I'm warning against.  You are
> about to fall into it.  Rather than paying more programmers, we
> should think of ways that more programmers can be stimulated to
> contribute for free.
>
IMO that in itself would require spending money.  I stand by my belief
that money would make some things possible, and would make a lot of
other things get done faster.  There are millions of us, myself
included, who could contribute more to Wikimedia if only someone would
pay the doctor bills, the rent, and the food costs for myself and my
family.  Give me $10,000 and I'll write single sign-on and anything
else I can complete in the next 6 months.  Don't give me $10,000, and
sorry, I have a family to provide for that comes first.  (And don't
take this as a demand from me, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be the one
hired to do this sort of thing, I'm just using myself as an example.)
Of course I'm open to suggestions as to how to accomplish these things
without spending any money.

> Also the Knams proxy in Amsterdam is paid for by an external
> organization (Kennisnet), and that saves the WMF a lot of money.
> Why not ask for similar proxies inside the USA, rather than
> collecting more money to buy more servers.
>
When it comes to bandwidth and servers I agree that's a place we
should be working on one day spending $0.

> > But...then Wikimedia doesn't get to spend that money...
>
> There is a lot of money in the world that the WMF doesn't spend.
> I just had breakfast for money that I spent, without passing
> through the WMF.
>
> > Why should Wikimedia be concerned over whether or not someone is
> > silent?  I don't have a problem acknowledging *every* contribution.
> > If every donor wants acknowledgement, then we should give it to them.
>
> Of course.  What I'm against is that special treatment should be
> given to people who want to make things more complicated.
>
Acknowledging every contribution (except for contributions from people
who actively oppose being acknowledged) would resolve the issue of
special treatment.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea


from_name: Liz Kim

subject: [Wikitech-l] safari problem

body:
I am having problems with Safari.

In my localsettings, $wgUrlProtocols has been set to
'http:|http:\/\/|https:\/\/|ftp:\/\/|irc:\/\/|gopher:\/\/|mailto:'.
In order to get relative external links to work. (for example:
[http:../../mypage/ MyHTML Page])

I just discovered that this does not work on safari...
It works just fine on firefox, camino, ie, netscape...
I am using MediaWiki 1.6.7
I cannot upgrade versions because the system does not meet certain
requirements.
Is there a way to fix this problem?

Thank you!11


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I'm not entirely sure that a random user of an online site qualifies as an
>>>employee of any site, so I don't think that *workplace* sexual harassment
>>>laws have anything to do with this case. After all the commotion lately with
>>>MySpace, it seems quite real that these situations do have some sort of
>>>legal backing under some sort of sexual harassment statute, although IANAL.
>>>In many of these cases, it is just safer to report the case, and if the
>>>police asks for anything, just provide them access to the Apache and Recent
>>>Changes logs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Providing this data should only be done in response to a court order.
>>Mere police investigation is not enough.  There are many more situations
>>where a person has legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous.  This
>>might seem like very obvious circumstances for providing information,
>>but there are other activities where we diverge significantly about the
>>legality of the activity, and it is not our place to start making
>>judgements about legality.  Civil rights and free speech are important,
>>and if it means having to tolerate occasional idiotic speech that's a
>>very small price to pay.
>>
>>
>In some cases I would agree, but when there is a clear threat of
>physical violence (rape), that's a simple boundary line for me.
>
There's a difference too between sexual harassment and threats of
violence.  Telling a female Wikipedian, "A bitch like you belongs in the
kitchen, not on ArbCom," may be fairly interpreted as sexual harassment,
but it does not carry a threat of violence.  We can deal with that idiot
through our own internal processes.  Credible threats of violence do
raise the issue to a higher level.  We were certainly right to act when
the kid in Connecticut was threatening suicide.

At the other end of the scale Canadian courts have consistently refused
to force the release of such information when the recording industry was
saying that they needed to know who was sharing music files.  We can
delete what we suspect to be copyvios, but it would be over-the-top to
tell the copyright owner about it every time it happened unless he had
demanded that action in the first place

>Two examples: (1) a vandal posts "Principal Skinner is a poopy head", we
>do not notify the school or authorities, because it is just a stupid
>childish comment and who cares.  (2) a vandal posts a physical threat of
>violence against Principal Skinner... we forward it to the school and/or
>appropriate authorities, and cough up the ip address if we have it and
>there is a police request.
>
In this example we also want to make sure we aren't sending them on a
fool's errand in an imaginary Springfield. ;-)

>Is the second also just a stupid childish comment?  Yes, in many cases,
>but I am personally not comfortable making that judgment.  Tolerating
>the occassional idiotic speech really is a small price to pay, as you
>say.  Tolerating threats of violence is just a bad idea.
>
Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is
capable of exercising it.  We have a lot of people who can too easily
jump to conclusions.

Ec