body:
"Stellingwarfs" is, iirc, the native name for the language.
"Stellingwarves" is a typo.

Mark

On 28/06/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Well if this is the case why not split it up on "dialect" rather than
> >country? We can have a Pommersch Wikipedia, an Oostfries Wikipedia, a
> >Stellingwarves Wikipedia, a Gruningens Wikipedia...
> >
> >Since there are actually differences from dialect to dialect, instead
> >of a sudden change when you cross from Germany to the Netherlands or
> >viceversa, it would be ignoring the problem of dialect differences to
> >split it up based on countries.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >
> Hoi,
> I have been wondering but why call it Stellingwarves it is
> Stellingwerfs. Even the ISO-639-3 code says so.
> Thanks,
>     Gerard
>
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Guaka

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Test wikipedia policy

body:
> I really like the idea of test wiki's. I think it should become an
> obligatory step in the process of creating a wiki. One should prove a
> wiki can be active.

It shouldn't be obligatory for _all_ languages. Languages with many
speakers simply should be there. Even if the wiki is not active now. It
makes it easier for people to get started. If I first had to do a test
wiki for Bambara and Fulfulde, or if it had taken 4 months to set up
these Wikipedias, there would still be nothing on ff.wp and bm.wp.

Fulfulde is spoken by millions of people. Though I don't think there are
many speakers who can be expected to start adding and editing when it's
more complicated than the normal process.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Klaus-Eduard Runnel

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language counts

body:
On 6/27/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> Yes there is a way to find the number of articles in a given language
> and the number of languages on a wiktionary, check out the 271 languages
> on the nl.wikipedia http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categorie:taal.

Actually, the category page tells that "Er zijn 200 woorden in deze rubriek"
("There are 200 articles in this category"), when the number is greater than
200. A fellow wiktionarian just pointed it out to me this morning. Seems to
be an old bug. I'll check the buglist later today...

Klaus


list: wikien-l

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Could we have the old Special:Blockip interface back,
	please?

body: There isn't enough fine control on that dropdown list.


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems

body:
Nothing good can come from enouraging editors to use socks and proxies to
evade blocks.  Where this has happened in the past I've found that
escalating blocks on all offending sources tires the miscreant out.


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

body:
Habj wrote:

"Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain,
healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is
alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like
best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer
is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal
health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity
quack."

By my definition quack medicine is a remedy falsely presented as
having curative powers. In this sense the overwhelming majority
of "alternative medicine" is quackery. Homeopaths, for example,
sell people water and tell them that it will cure their illness.

If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine
and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the
quackery category?

Regards,
Haukur ?orgeirsson


from_name: geni

body:
On 6/28/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> There isn't enough fine control on that dropdown list.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

probably best reported on buigzilla but I agree it sucks big time
--
geni


list: foundation-l

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] License that cannot be used in advertisements

body:
Hoi,
In the Netherlands a new princess has been born. She is the second
daughter of prins Willem-Alexander our crown prince. Today the little
girl was named Alexia Juliana Marcella Laurentien and registered at
our "burgerlijke stand".

There are plenty of lovely pictures of this event. The only
restriction is in the use of the photos. The pictures can be used for
practically any use except for the fact that they may not be used in
advertisements. So, it is not allowed to advertise for baby-formula
and show a picture of little princess Alexia.

The pictures can be used in a commercial context, educational and
informative is explicitly OK it is just advertisements that are
disallowed.

My question: is this a restriction that we can make when we use
material like this on our Wikimedia projects ..

By law it is not allowed anyway to use pictures of members of the
royal family in advertisements. So it is explicitly stating what all
the people from the Netherlands should already know.. (it is assumed
that everyone knows the law .. :)  )

Thanks,
     GerardM


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 28/06/05, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:

> The reason I wanted to clarify this is because I know I'm going to be
> *personally* attacked because of this if its not crystal clear in our
> version. :(

Perhaps just ensure that it is clear in the final hu.policy that, when
you say "user", you mean "the user John Smith" not "the username
johnsmith"? It may be that this allows ambiguities - people trying to
argue that socks shouldn't be blocked because they interpret "user" as
being "username" not "person"...

And best of luck keeping the peace!

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


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject:
[Foundation-l] meta-discussion for new project proposals (was
	Proposal for new project: Faith Wiki)

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> I think it is time to have a serious meta-discussion regarding what it
> going to take in order for the Wikimedia Foundation to accept a whole
> new project, and what guidelines should be in place, as well as a
> roadmap for what would have to be accomplished in order for such a
> project to move from a "gee, this would be a cool idea" to "here is the
> server space, let's roll!"

[snipped good suggestions]

Sorry to say this, but in my opinion we shouldn't accept any new
projects at all for the next two years but instead work on improving the
existing ones. There's enough work to do and even the time we discuss
new projects would be better invested in discussing and solving our
current problems.

greetings,
elian


body:
> Your definition, I'd say, is unusual. As far as I can see, quackery
> really have two meanings. One is stated in the beginning of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery
> It is a disputed article needing improvement, but it starts
>
> "Quackery is the practice of producing fraudulent medicine"
>
> and thus, if someone believes in what they are doing they are not
> quacks.
>
> ...
>
> If you can show good reasons to believe that homeopathy is a
> deliberate fraud, that it is illegal in at least a few countries, _or_
> a definition of the word "quackery" from a good source where the main
> meaning of the word supports you then please go ahead.

I got my definition of quack medicine from Webster's.

By your definition medicine that doesn't work is only
quackery if the practitioner is intentionally deceiving
the subject. I'm sure most homeopaths act more or less
in good faith. But I don't see any particular reason to
doubt that this is also the case for practitioners of the
stuff currently in the quackery category.

Our medical disclaimer notwithstanding I believe Wikipedia
should do its darndest to provide people with accurate
information on medical subjects. This includes making a
clear distinction between quackery/alternative medicine
and useful medical care.

I think the alternative medicine and quackery categories
should be merged because I don't believe that the difference
between them can be defined in a workable way. If there is
strong resistance to merging the alt. med. category into
the quackery category then I suggest merging the quackery
category into the alt. med. category.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [WikiEN-l] bug in the new software upgrade? edit collisions

body:
On 28/06/05, actionforum at comcast.net <actionforum at comcast.net> wrote:
> There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others
> edit to talk pages.  Since it has happened in different page communities,
> and I have even deleted the comments of others unwittingly without
> being notified of edit conflicts.  I suspect a bug in the new software.
> Is anyone else seeing this?

I've been noticing a very high occurence of "hit save, have Preview
page returned" problems today; in one case I "saved" almost ten times
before it actually saved the change - this happened before, on an
occasional basis, and IIRC is a known bug. On a busy talk page, this
may well explain the problem.

(Indeed, I've just had it happen to me on WP:HD; I re-added my
previous comment afterwards)

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: john kaczmarowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMedia Error

body:
I recently installed WikiMedia code base on a Windows system and it has
been running quite well for the past 2-3 months.

Today, I modified (for about the 10th time) the DefaultSettings.php file
in the Includes directory so that I could upload a .exe file (yes,
trouble, but this is in a relatively secure environment).  Anyway, the
exe was a flash demo that I was attaching to a wiki page.

The upload was over 5MB (I've successfully uploaded as much as a MB or
2, but not more).

When the upload was completed, I started to get a LOT of problems with
the wiki, to wit:

1. Any page not cached in memory returns blank (not edit mode, just
blank).  Specifically:

2. Any special page request (edit, discuss, history) returns blank,
specifically

3. I do not have direct access to the wiki server to do a reboot (its in
my house, and I'm in another state).

Any ideas on how to jump-start my wiki?

kacz


from_name: Habj

body:
On 6/28/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
>
> I think rejecting this particular useful category
> on grounds of the NPOV-policy is a bit too much.

In what way is it useful? That has not yet been explained to me.

> As for the "alternative medicine" category then I
> suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work"
> or some such would be more accurate. I for one would
> actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative"
> has some undeserved positive connotations and implies
> that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual
> medicine.

I encourage everyone who take part in this debate, to study the
category tree in and around the category "Pseudoscience". Actually,
there is one Category "Quackery" and another one called "Alternative
medicine". Quackery is a sub-category to Alternative medicine, but
while Quackery is also a sub-category to Pseudoscience Alternative
medicine is a sub-category to Medicine.

Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain,
healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is
alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like
best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer
is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal
health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity
quack.

As I said before, I see the Pseudoscience category as a "scrap bin"
for those who don't want to take the time to distinguish one thing
from the other.

/Habj


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Elisabeth:
> Sorry to say this, but in my opinion we shouldn't accept any new
> projects at all for the next two years but instead work on improving the
> existing ones. There's enough work to do and even the time we discuss
> new projects would be better invested in discussing and solving our
> current problems.
>

A blanket injunction against new projects may express popular
sentiments, but is unhelpful. However, I would certainly agree that
technical evaluation needs to take higher precedence for future
projects, and where key technical requirements are not met, new projects
should not be launched. Furthermore, in our own allocation of funds to
development work, we should strongly prioritize existing projects,
unless we receive a grant specifically to develop a new one. This,
combined with the requirement that new projects shouldn't be too narrow
in scope (Wikispecies is an unfortunate exception in this regard) should
be sufficient safeguards against mindless expansion. Artificial barriers
are not needed.

It's also important to note that ever since Wikispecies, we have become
*much* more conservative with launching new projects. I find it highly
unlikely that the majority of the community would support a poorly
planned and insufficiently implemented project at this point.
Nevertheless, open discussion of even the wackiest ideas should be
tolerated. After all, Wikipedia started out as a wacky idea.

Erik


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

body:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 01:50:15AM +1000, David Gerard wrote:
> There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the
> label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science
> but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course
> when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being
> applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no
> reason to indulge this.

Some folks seem to treat the labels "pseudoscience" and "quackery" as if
they always implied deliberate deceit on the part of the practitioners
-- that is, by labeling homeopathy (for instance) as pseudoscientific,
we would be alleging that homeopaths are each guilty of fraud.

I don't think that's necessarily going on, though.

It seems to me that "pseudoscience" really has to do with inquiry and
skepticism -- or rather, a lack of them:  that is, with credulity; with
readiness to believe, and to insist that others should believe -- in the
absence of sufficient evidence ... and eventually, despite the evidence.

If fraud is malicious deception, then pseudoscience is -- perhaps; I
know I'm going out on a limb here -- negligent deception:  telling
people something wrong *not* because you're setting out to mislead them
for your personal benefit, but because you don't want to check very
carefully.

Something interesting about followers of pseudoscience is that they tend
to jump on any single study which suggests confirmation of their belief.
Any experiment which looks favorable for _one_ element of the claimed
belief-system is taken as confirmation of the _whole_ belief-system.
(Kind of like the Duhem-Quine thesis run in reverse.)

Experiment is used to reassure the believer, rather than to elucidate or
explore the mechanisms or reasons behind the claimed phenomena:

	"This study said that sick people who are prayed over, heal
	faster.  This proves that Jesus Christ -- as conceived of in my
	own sect -- exists, loves us, and answers prayers!"

Another line commonly associated with this kind of argument is, "Why do
you care _how_ it works?  If it works, that's good enough!"  This is,
for instance, presented against claims that a remedy's apparent
effectiveness is due to the placebo effect, or due to some physical
cause rather than a supposed occult cause.  Again there is the lack of
inquiry -- an apparent desirable result is taken at face value; those
who seek to answer the "how" and "why" questions are dismissed as
nitpickers or as looking for an excuse not to believe.

(There's a standard response here, "But scientists don't know how
aspirin works either, and nobody thinks that's pseudoscience."  Perhaps
that was once the case, but it was demonstrated in 1971 that aspirin
works by neutralizing an enzyme that participates in the production of
chemicals that signal pain.  Science bothers to ask the "how" and "why"
questions, and eventually answers them -- it doesn't say "it works;
that's good enough.")

Another curious aspect of the behavior of followers of pseudoscience is
the one-sided nature of their rivalry with the relevant science.  They
often see themselves as engaged in a dialogue or debate with scientists,
whereas scientists do not usually see themselves as engaged in a debate
with pseudoscience.

Creationism probably furnishes the best examples here -- I've often read
creationist responses to discoveries in genetics or paleontology, along
the following lines:

	"Look, it's those atheistical scientists trying to prove
	evolution again.  Aren't they hopeless?  Why do they fight so
	hard against God?"

Geneticists and paleontologists do not see themselves as engaged in
"proving evolution" or "fighting against God".  Creationists seem to
believe that that they and evolutionary scientists must be parallel or
similar in their behavior -- that since creationists spend so much time
and energy "disproving evolution" and "fighting against Satanic atheism"
that their opponents *must*, logically, spend equal time and energy
"proving evolution" and "fighting against God".

(Likewise, it sure seems that Scientologists spend a lot more effort
hatin' on psychiatry than psychiatrists spend hatin' on Scientology --
but it's Scientology doctrine that psychiatrists are "Suppressive
People" engaged in a conspiracy to suppress Scientology.)

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)

body:
>From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
>Well if this is the case why not split it up on "dialect" rather than
>country? We can have a Pommersch Wikipedia, an Oostfries Wikipedia, a
>Stellingwarves Wikipedia, a Gruningens Wikipedia...
>
>Since there are actually differences from dialect to dialect, instead
>of a sudden change when you cross from Germany to the Netherlands or
>viceversa, it would be ignoring the problem of dialect differences to
>split it up based on countries.
>
>Mark
>
That will cause more separate pedias than is desirable. Then you will have
to split the nds:-wikipedia in several pieces. They will certainly grew very
slowly.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Direct antwoord op je vragen: gebruik MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia (was Re: Re: Why do
	wehavethem??)

body:
>From: Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
>
>Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
> >
> >
> >> From: "Phil Boswell" <phil.boswell at gmail.com>
> >> So why not have one "Middle-Earth languages" wikipedia, which can
>accept
> >> articles written in any or all of the above?
> >>
> > Well, Quenya and Sindarin are as far apart as Latin and French, or
> > almost so. We can't use them on one Wikipedia. Just create Quenya first,
> > if we are to create Tolkien pedias at all.
> >
> > Wouter
> >
>
>There is also a script problem - worse than choosing between Cyrillic
>and Latin alphabets :)
>
And similar to the problem on tlh:

W.

_________________________________________________________________
Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

body:
-------------- Original message --------------

> >From: actionforum at comcast.net
> >
> >There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others edit to
> >talk pages. Since it has
> >happened in different page communities, and I have even deleted the
> >comments of others
> >unwittingly without being notified of edit conflicts. I suspect a bug in
> >the new software. Is anyone
> >else seeing this?
> > -- thanx, Silverback
>
> This was moderately common even before the upgrade.
I never had it happen before the upgrade, and never deleted other edits myself.  I had edit conflicts occur more often before the upgrade, this seems to be happening when edit conflicts should be occurring.   I can recall only one edit conflict occuring since the upgrade, and given what was going on, on these talk pages, more should have been happening.
Perhaps, I just had a coincidental multiple occurrance of rare behavior that was present before the upgrade.
             -- Silverback


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in

body:
On 28/06/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I'm finding that I can't stay logged in on the new version; I log in
> successfully, but as soon as I go to an article, I'm logged out again.  Is
> anyone else experiencing this?

This has happened intermittently for quite a while, but there seems to
have been an upsurge recently - though I note it seems to have begun
happening again before the new version changed over, so I don't know
if it was related.

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should [[Category:Alternative medicine]] and
 [[Category:Quackery]] be merged?

body:
> OK, I could very well be wrong. May I ask, is it the only meaning of
> the word mentioned, or the main one? Someone else who has a good book
> to check? Words often have several meanings... the word is often used
> as an insult, carrying negative connotations. On that I hope we can
> agree.

Certainly. And the word "quackery" is negative
because the phenomenon it describes is negative
like, say, "vandalism".

> It looks to me that you actuallly
> want to use it for this very purpose - to warn the readers i.e. you
> decide what people should be warned of. Maybe I want to warn people
> for religion - can I create [[Category:Unscientific supernatural
> beliefs]] and put [[Christianity]] in it?

Fine by me. And wouldn't most Christians
agree that their religion is a collection
of unscientific supernatural beliefs?

> During the course in oncology, our teachers told us that many of their
> patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds.
> They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people
> gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better
> prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of
> time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is
> hope...

Sure, how about [[Category:Comforting lies]]?

>and I still can not see that you have explained
>wherein the usefulness of this particular category lies.

What's the usefulness of any category? It's mostly
an aid to browsing, I suppose. You're reading about
one thing and maybe you'd like to read about other
similar things.

You're right that the category shouldn't be a primary
warning label. The article itself should make clear the
efficacy of its subject (or lack thereof). On the other
hand I'm arguing that upholding a distinction between
quackery and alternative medicine in the category system
is misleading.

Regards,
Haukur

P.S. I hope I'm not getting too worked up about this.
I haven't actually edited much in the quackery field
in the past, I mostly work on Norse mythology. In that
field I frequently see categories used to claim something
not actually supported by the article.


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] downloading the whole site

body:
A technical question: is there a way to download all of the current
Wikibooks content at once? I'd like to be able to take advantage of
the moments of access to high-speed Internet and burn everything to a
disk, and then work on new material over the course of the week on my
computer that seldom has Internet access. It would increase the amount
of contributions I could make to the site ... I think there is a way
to do this with Wikipedia, can we do it with Wikibooks?

Thanks,
Karl

BTW I'm going to work on some interview questions for Mark H at FHSST.


from_name: Pavol Cupka

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Announcement - Wikipedia SQL Query Tool
	www.wikisign.org

body:
Would you be so kind and add sk.wikipedia, please?

--
Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org/User:Palica
Nezabudni si vzia? svoje Wikam?ny. / Don't forget to take your
Wikamins today. - Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org - slobodn? encyklop?dia, ktor? m??e ka?d?
upravova? - AJ TY


body:
> This was what was more or less thrashed out on [[Talk:Alternative
> medicine]] - that "alternative medicine" may or may not be rubbish, but is
> sincere; but quackery includes knowing deception. FWIW.

I don't see how this is a workable distinction.
It's not the treatments that are sincere or not
- it's their practitioners. I'm sure there are
lots of sincere homeopaths - but who's to say
that there aren't a few who know that the remedies
don't work (better than any placebo) but sell
them anyway?

Likewise, how do you know that [[Jomanda]] wasn't
sincere and acting in good faith? And how can you
know that practitioners of [[Chelation therapy]]
aren't sincere? Both are currently in the quackery
category.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Sj

subject: [Foundation-l] meta-discussion for new project proposals

body:
Hello Robert,

Responding to your last commetn first:

> Most groups are desparate for fresh blood and new ideas, and by killing
> that avenue completely, it will have an overall chilling effect on the rest
> of all Wikimedia projects.  The current success of Wikipedia and other
> related projects is attracting many new people, and there should not be
> an elite attitude that somehow these new "recruits" are somehow less
> valuable.  That some of their energies could be redirected, perhaps, but
> don't stop the process completely.

This is exactly right.  Most of the new project ideas actually can be
fitted neatly into existing projects; but this is rarely obvious to
the newer community members who have not considered all of the facets
of those projects.

Erik  Moeller wrote:
> >> Please be advised that I have posted a proposal for a new project.
> >> The proposed name is Faith Wiki. The address is
> >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Faith_Wiki
> >
> > What is the justification for a new project?

We tend to be so combative when new projects are suggested!  New
projects do not need to *justify* themselves as much as they need to
clarify what they would be about.  It is rare that a new project idea
has no encyclopedic or free-knowledge merit at all; as a community we
should make an extra effort to find that merit and encourage it.

Most projects could be fitted into the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject]] mold;
but first those who understand the workings of Wikipedia need to
understand what is in the proposer's mind.

On 6/28/05, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> I think it is time to have a serious meta-discussion regarding what it
> going to take in order for the Wikimedia Foundation to accept a whole
> new project, and what guidelines should be in place

This is already slightly off-target.  Long before asking the
Foundation whether it would like to accept or bless a new project,
project proposers should be responded to by members of the existing
projects.  Active users should identify how and if the proposal can be
made a subproject of an existing project.  This requires no input by
Foundation officials.

That said, there is no question that the new project proposals page is
getting swamped.
When someone submits a new proposal, s/he is usually very motivated to
respond to questions and jump through hoops.  We should clarify what
an informative way to present and specify a new project is.

> 1) Project description template filled out, including:
> ** More detailed project propsal made on a separate article on meta
> ** Sample "front page" of what the project would look like
> ** Licensing issues in the disucssion, particularly if not GFDL
> ** Technical requirements, including changes to software

NB: usually these changes are nice, but not necessary prerequisites.

> ** Funding sources to help with basic startup costs, or who might be
>
> 2) Sponsorship of proposal by MediaWiki users.

You mean Wikimedia  :-)

> ** A "threshhold" value be established before projects can move beyond
> ** Advertisement of the proposal, on this list as well as in other forums
> ** Respond to comments regarding proposal
>
> 3) Review by "proposal committee".  This is a new step, but I am
> suggesting that a group of "veteran" Wikimedia (from all projects) users

This is basically a great idea; though it need not be veterans, just
users who care about new project development; and it need not be a
formal committee with elections and terms, just an interest group of
people who actively care for incoming proposals.

> **Suggest to the project proposer ways to help improve the proposal
> **It would also be the job of this group to cull out and remove
> languishing proposals on a the new proposal page, subject to general
> **Establishing a new "accepted project" page to (hopefully) get wider
> review by the Wikimedia community of projects that have passed the new
> ** The proposal committee would be doing some of the advertising at this
> point, including front-page meta links to the new proposal, and formal
> ** It should be possible for a proposal to die at this stage as well,
> although a good proposal with popular support should survive this stage.

I don't think *any* proposal should end in 'death'; as the process
moves forward, more and more of the proposer's ideas should make their
way into other projects.

/Perhaps/ a FaithWiki will eventually be recognized as a necessary
separate project; but first the suggester might contribute to the
Religion wikiportal on En
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Religion
Then he might create a WikiProject for "Religious History" on EN:WP.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject#Religion
Finally, if Sean Tuvey and others want to compose a collection of
essays offering overviews of existing faiths and religions, they could
produce a Wikireader (on WP) or a Wikibook on the subject, densely
hyperlinked to encyclopedia articles.

> 4) Formal presentation to the Wikimedia board.  While board members can
> 5) The project has been accepted and is a peer to existing MediaWiki
> projects.  Server space is found and content is being added to the new

The board doesn't need to be involved unless there is somehow a need
for a separate domain name, which is rarely the case even for good
project ideas.; and 'new server space' is rarely an issue.

This thread should be moved to a suitable page on Meta, and elaborated on.

SJ


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Simple English Wikipedia - Requesting a rethink

body:
It is my position, and it always has been, that any language should
have one Wikipedia, and one Wikipedia only.

Simple English is not a separate language from English.

I think that simple: should be closed, and what little unique content
there is should be moved to en:.

If there really is a need for "simple" language use, there is always
the possibility of using NLP software to intelligently convert
articles from normal English to Ogden's Basic English; the same could
also be done for other languages (cf proposed Einfach, also people
have discussed French and Spanish Simple Wikipedias).

Also a problem with simple: is that it serves to promote delinquency.
If you're banned from en:, well, just go edit on simple:. The
community is smaller and you can get away with a lot more. It also
seems to be true with vandals -- banned from en:, head to simple:.

Sure, there is some measure of delinquent behaviour leeching from en:
to all other Wikipedias (I have noted a couple cases with de: and
fr:), but in these cases there is the deterrent that for most of these
people, they will have to deal with a foreign language.

With simple: there is no such obstacle.

Also, there is no agreement about what exactly Simple English is. Is
it Ogden's Basic English? Or what...?

Mark

On 28/06/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> The subject of Simple English Wikipedia has came to the mailing list before,
> but after reading talk pages there and seeing the dormancy of Recent Changes
> (bar a few persistent users, and the odd anon editor) I feel it is time to
> suggest a rethink, or at least look into the direction of Simple English
> Wikipedia.
>
> Simple English Wikipedia currently has 4,157 articles, the vast majority of
> which fail to extend further than three sentences in length. There are a few
> administrators, Netoholic being the most active of them. There is a small
> user base, but unlike some language Wikipedias where this results in a small
> and persistent community, the small user base at Simple English often have
> their priorities understandably set on the main English Wikipedia.
>
> The SE Wikipedia currently has a lack of focus, and a lack of direction.
> Indeed, it claims to cater for multiple groups of people, which simply isn't
> working:
>
> "It is focused on readers who tend to be quite different people with
> different needs: students, children, and translators."
>
> The description there, taken from
> http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_English_Wikipedia, is too
> ambiguous to encourage any regular contributors to the Wikipedia. Whereas
> with the main Wikipedias there is a ultimate cause of creator 'the sum of
> all human knowledge', Simple English doesn't have a goal, as its not aiming
> for anything specifically.
>
> The aims of students, children and translators, to me, is wrong on all
> counts. I've read a few articles on Simple English, and the variation and
> way of writing is at times so belittiling that I wonder why such a project
> exists. This quote from the talk page sums it up perfectly:
>
> "One thing that bothers me about this whole thing is that people act like
> this is supposed to writted towards children, talking down to them and such,
> when in fact Wikipedia Jr. is there to handle that - this should be aimed at
> just reposting English articles in a simplified and standardized version of
> English, as opposed to the "baby talk" many of the articles are crammed
> with.
> Simple: A problem I have with this website is that there is a website like
> it that is already here - Wikipedia Junior. I think that this website should
> be for people from another country who are learning English, not small
> children. This website talks to its people badly."
>
> Simple English Wikipedia is, in reality, never going to be used by babies or
> small children - Infact, unleashing such persons onto Wikipedia is dangerous
> (as proven by our Recent Changes list :p ). Wikijunior, which is in
> development, caters for the young market and has a focus to not talk down to
> people. When I read Simple English trying to explain racism, I felt like it
> was dumbing me down. Anyone capable of using Wikipedia normally can use
> normal Wikipedia, whilst Simple English is not going to be used by 4 or 5
> year olds. Children is a bad thing to aim at. Aiming at translators is
> similiarly odd, because a translator wouldn't be a translator if their
> English wasn't fluent.
> Simple English Wikipedia needs to, in my opinion, have a huge rethink. It
> should be aimed at persons wanting to practice their English by reading it,
> and should be an aid for those learning it as a foreign language. Simple
> English should read simply, but not so simply that it puts down the reader.
> People contribute to Wikipedias for a reason, and for a goal - Simple
> English has no goal, so theres no clear reason for editors to contribute to
> it. A look at recent changes shows that.
>
> Without a rethink and a real discussion into the direction, policies and
> descriptions of Simple English Wikipedia, it had mayswell be deleted. Simple
> English was the second Wikipedia I visited, after main English, and I
> believe it will be the same for many others. It doesn't reflect well on
> Wikimedia Foundation to have a Wikipedia in such a bad state, and in the
> English language - Quality over quantity isn't necessarily always true, but
> in the case of having Wikimedia Foundation projects and Wikipedias, it is.
> Simple is way too out there to stay as it is; a rethink is needed.
>
> Yours,
> David Hedley
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia turns a few heads in Bhutan, China

body:
On 6/28/05, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Meanwhile the Chinese government is developing a editable encyclopedia
> of  Chinese history, including all extant documents from before 1911.
> According to Xinhuanet, "Volunteers may register at www.china-can.com
> to become an intern editor, assistant editor or editor."

As Fuzheado (after Magnus) alread noted: the process is something like
the old nupedia process.  I wonder how that will scale ...  " it may
take up to a century," they say.  Let's hope we are all still around
to see it finished.

http://www.danwei.org/archives/001877.html

--
+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] sk.wikipedia reaches 10.000

body:
Hi all,

the Slovak Wikipedia reached 10.000th article milestone. The
hardworking contributor was [[sk:User:Maros]] with article
[[sk:?elezo]]. Congratulations :-)

--
Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org/User:Palica
Nezabudni si vzia? svoje Wikam?ny. / Don't forget to take your
Wikamins today. - Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org - slobodn? encyklop?dia, ktor? m??e ka?d?
upravova? - AJ TY


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems with finding native Seeltersk speakers

body:
Since we have so many 15-year-olds already on other Wikipedias, what's
wrong with recruiting teens to work on a Seeltersk Wikipedia?

Mark

On 28/06/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Trying to set up a Wikipedia in Seeltersk, I e-mailed Pyt Kramer, who is an
> important authority on this language, and has good contacts with many native
> speakers. He already promised his collaborations on the project. Now I
> explained him in my e-mail that the community wants native speaker support,
> but that would be problematic. Most native speakers are to be found among
> elderly people, who are relatively unfamiliar with the internet and have
> learned no English. There is only one potential contributor, who - luckily -
> was also willing to work on it. The second category of native speakers
> consists of children, who are not yet supposed to collaborate. The number of
> native speakers between 15 and 60 is really very low.
>
> But among those, we can recruit some willing contributors: the parents
> raising their children in Seeltersk. They are real Seelters, and in their
> daily life they speak the language every day. That makes them as good as
> native speakers.
>
> Therefor I would like to ask: is it possible, with a language which is being
> revived, to grant requests like these when language revivers rather than
> native speakers are showing their interest?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
> http://messenger.msn.nl/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


body:
>From: Pavol Cupka <pavol.cupka at gmail.com>

>Hi all,
>
>the Slovak Wikipedia reached 10.000th article milestone. The
>hardworking contributor was [[sk:User:Maros]] with article
>[[sk:?elezo]]. Congratulations :-)
>
You also congratulations Pavol! And along with you all Slovak subscribers of
this list! Join the party with de:! ;-)

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Nieuw: Download nu MSN Messenger 7.0 http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Delirium

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the
>label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science
>but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course
>when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being
>applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no
>reason to indulge this.
>
>
I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one
side in a dispute.  Should we, for example, have a
[[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his
wacked-out ideas on nutrition?  (Of course, he could also get
[[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.)  This sort of
derisive labelling I find troubling, even if it's derisive labelling
that's widely accepted.  The term "Alternative medicine", by constrast,
doesn't carry nearly as much ideological baggage, because it can be read
as either good or bad depending on your perspective, so more accurately
simply labels a category of stuff without judging it.

-Mark


body:
Your definition, I'd say, is unusual. As far as I can see, quackery
really have two meanings. One is stated in the beginning of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery
It is a disputed article needing improvement, but it starts

"Quackery is the practice of producing fraudulent medicine"

and thus, if someone believes in what they are doing they are not
quacks. The second definition is a legal one. I do not know to what
extent the laws differ here in different countries but in Sweden it is
forbidden to treat children, cancer patients and a few other types of
patients with alternative methods. If you do that, you are doing
quackery. I think - but i am not sure - that treating people and
pretending to have a medical exam that you do not have, also is
quackery according to Swedish law.

If you can show good reasons to believe that homeopathy is a
deliberate fraud, that it is illegal in at least a few countries, _or_
a definition of the word "quackery" from a good source where the main
meaning of the word supports you then please go ahead. English is not
my native language, and sometimes the meanings of words is not exactly
the same in different languages. Be prepared for debate though, as you
probably are trying to change what the category is used for.
Currently, this is all the articles in the category Quackery:
Quackery, Chalybeate, Chelation therapy, Electrical quackery, HGH
quackery, Jomanda, Magnet therapy, Oberon (device), Pinhole glasses,
Quackwatch, Radioactive quackery, Snake oil, Violet wand.

/Habj

On 6/28/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> Habj wrote:
>
> "Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain,
> healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is
> alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like
> best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer
> is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal
> health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity
> quack."
>
> By my definition quack medicine is a remedy falsely presented as
> having curative powers. In this sense the overwhelming majority
> of "alternative medicine" is quackery. Homeopaths, for example,
> sell people water and tell them that it will cure their illness.
>
> If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine
> and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the
> quackery category?
>
> Regards,
> Haukur ?orgeirsson
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Filzstift

body:
But sk.wikipedia is already avaiable...?
(at http://www.wikisign.org/query.php you can select "sk")

Filzstift

2005/6/28, Pavol Cupka <pavol.cupka at gmail.com>:
> Would you be so kind and add sk.wikipedia, please?
>
> --
> Palica
> http://sk.wikipedia.org/User:Palica
> Nezabudni si vzia? svoje Wikam?ny. / Don't forget to take your
> Wikamins today. - Palica
> http://sk.wikipedia.org - slobodn? encyklop?dia, ktor? m??e ka?d?
> upravova? - AJ TY
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>

--
www.wikisign.org - SQL-Abfragen durchf?hren


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hi,

Le Tuesday 28 June 2005 14:52, Elisabeth Bauer a ?crit :
> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> > I think it is time to have a serious meta-discussion regarding what it
> > going to take in order for the Wikimedia Foundation to accept a whole
> > new project, and what guidelines should be in place, as well as a
> > roadmap for what would have to be accomplished in order for such a
> > project to move from a "gee, this would be a cool idea" to "here is the
> > server space, let's roll!"
>
> [snipped good suggestions]
>
> Sorry to say this, but in my opinion we shouldn't accept any new
> projects at all for the next two years but instead work on improving the
> existing ones. There's enough work to do and even the time we discuss
> new projects would be better invested in discussing and solving our
> current problems.

I?agree 100%?with this.
I think we have enough problems to solve for the time being.
IMO we should make it clear that no new projects will be accepted for at least
a year. I have the feeling that we are running forward instead of trying to
solve existing problems.

> greetings,
> elian

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


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>There's lots of pseudoscience that isn't alternative medicine. That a group
>claims a given label is demeaning doesn't mean it doesn't and shouldn't
>apply.
>
>
But it *clearly* is demeaning---it's not a neutral, descriptive label
such as "alternative medicine" that is simply a category of stuff with
no value judgment about it.  "Pseudoscience" is not a label anyone would
use for any reason except to attack a particular theory.  It's actually
quite common in scientific circles to hear it lobbed as a pejorative,
usually qualified with something like "so-and-so's work is verging on
pseudoscience".  It's certainly not appropriate as a neutral description
in any context along the lines of "this theory is [[pseudoscience]]",
which is what the category label is, in effect (although a claim like
"this theory is considered [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] by the
mainstream scientific community" is of course fine, if true).

-Mark


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>>I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one
>>side in a dispute.  Should we, for example, have a
>>[[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his
>>wacked-out ideas on nutrition?  (Of course, he could also get
>>[[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.)
>>
>>
>
>
>Has this or anything as stupid aS this actually happened? i.e., not
>hypothetically.
>
>
I'm not sure, but I fail to see any meaningful distinction between a
possibly hypothetical [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] and the
[[Category:Pseudoscience]].  If it's acceptable to label theories
considered pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community with
[[Category:Pseudoscience]], why isn't it acceptable to label the people
who came up with those theories [[Category:Pseudoscientists]]?

-Mark


body:
On 6/28/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:

> I got my definition of quack medicine from Webster's.

OK, I could very well be wrong. May I ask, is it the only meaning of
the word mentioned, or the main one? Someone else who has a good book
to check? Words often have several meanings... the word is often used
as an insult, carrying negative connotations. On that I hope we can
agree.

During the course in oncology, our teachers told us that many of their
patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds.
They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people
gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better
prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of
time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is
hope...

> Our medical disclaimer notwithstanding I believe Wikipedia
> should do its darndest to provide people with accurate
> information on medical subjects. This includes making a
> clear distinction between quackery/alternative medicine
> and useful medical care.

Then is the question if categorisation should be used for this
purpose, or not - as Fastfission pointed out from the very start of
the discussion. You said yourself

> Agreed. If someone reads an article on, say,
> homeopathy and only realizes when she sees the
> categories at the bottom that the thing doesn't
> work then there's something wrong with the article

and I still can not see that you have explained wherein the usefulness
of this particular category lies.It looks to me that you actuallly
want to use it for this very purpose - to warn the readers i.e. you
decide what people should be warned of. Maybe I want to warn people
for religion - can I create [[Category:Unscientific supernatural
beliefs]] and put [[Christianity]] in it? Or should the method be that
we decide whether or not the article is NPOV, and if not label it with
the {{NPOV}}-tag?

/Habj


from_name: Nicolay A. Vasiliev

subject: [Wikitech-l] Records number in main table

body:
Hello there!

Could you be so kindly to say: how many records contains the cur table
in the last dump?

Thanks in advance

Nicolay


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia

body:
On 6/28/05, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:

> I don't think there should be any Wikipedia in any of the Tolkien languages.
> Tolkien is a wonderful author, but Wikipedia is not here to host this kind of
> languages. But maybe in Wikicities ?

http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Lambengolmor

The Lambengolmor Wikicity is a wiki for content in or about Tolkien's
Middle-Earth languages. Two people edited there on 7 March and nothing
has happened on the wiki since then, so it would seem that people are
more interested in discussing these languages on meta than actually
creating content in them.

Angela.


from_name: Gdr

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pywikipedia bot : iso --> utf-8

body:
MacGyverMagic wrote:
> Since the upgrade yesterday, my python bot code is no longer working
> and halts with the following error:

You need to edit families/wikipedia_family.py and on lines 106?110 move
all wikipedias from latin1 to latin1old. Hopefully the pywikipedia
developers will fix this and make a new release soon.


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l]
	AVAR: http://cvs.defau.lt/phase3/includes/SpecialWatchlist.php?rev=1.56&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup

body:
Re: SpecialWatchlist.php

I would like to suggest as soon as possible to revert the both changes
of Avar and to return to the version Nr. 1.56 of SpecialWatchlist.php,
which worked perfectly, even when the list was twice so long as before.

Reasoning::
=========
I also thought last year, when I developed Enotif, that dividing the
"number of watched pages" and not showing talk pages on magic special
watchlist  was a solution - but it isn't. (comment code is still in the
CVS some line above Avar's recent patch).

Please allow me to explain.

Within Enotif EVERY SINGLE page (article, talk and so on) ist treated
separately. This is documented,see also [1]

This has the big advantage, that users can now separately watch (or
unwatch) article and/or talk pages --> clicking onto "watch" always adds
BOTH pages to the watchlist, but using special watchlist, one or  the
other can be removed now.

For this reason, simply not showing talk pages and dviding the number by
2 is _not_ a good solution. Therefore I asked the developer to return
for a while to version 1.56 of SpecialWatchlist.php until a better
solution (e.g. a two-column watchlist view) is implemented.

Tom

[1] http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=581


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Since the upgrade yesterday, my python bot code is no longer working
and halts with the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\login.py", line 164, in
-toplevel-
    main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\login.py", line 150, in main
    if not allowedbot(username, ensite):
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\login.py", line 59, in
allowedbot
    text = pl.get()
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 357, in
get
    self._contents, self._isWatched = getEditPage(self.site(),
self.urlname(), read_only = read_only, get_redirect = get_redirect,
throttle = throttle)
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 1536, in
getEditPage
    text = getUrl(site, path)
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 1496, in
getUrl
    site.checkCharset(charset)
  File "D:\Programmas
Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 2303, in
checkCharset
    raise ValueError("code2encodings has wrong charset for %s. It
should be %s, but is %s"%(repr(self),charset, self.encoding()))
ValueError: code2encodings has wrong charset for wikipedia:en. It
should be utf-8, but is iso-8859-1

I know this is probably too technical for most of the people on this
list, but could some experienced bot owner help me back on track?

--Mgm


subject: [Textbook-l] downloading the whole site

body:
Yes, I think that's it, thank you!
Karl

On 6/28/05, Koos Jol <j.j.jol at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi Karl,
>
> Maybe you can try http://download.wikimedia.org/#wikibooks
> That are the databasedumps from all Wikibooks.
> Hope this is what your looking for.
>
> Koos Jol
>    On the wiki known as User:Firefox or User:Koos Jol on some projects.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karl Wick" <karlwick at gmail.com>
> To: "text" <textbook-l at wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:09 PM
> Subject: [Textbook-l] downloading the whole site
>
>
> A technical question: is there a way to download all of the current
> Wikibooks content at once? I'd like to be able to take advantage of
> the moments of access to high-speed Internet and burn everything to a
> disk, and then work on new material over the course of the week on my
> computer that seldom has Internet access. It would increase the amount
> of contributions I could make to the site ... I think there is a way
> to do this with Wikipedia, can we do it with Wikibooks?
>
> Thanks,
> Karl
>
> BTW I'm going to work on some interview questions for Mark H at FHSST.
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia

body:
Angela wrote:

>On 6/28/05, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think there should be any Wikipedia in any of the Tolkien languages.
>>Tolkien is a wonderful author, but Wikipedia is not here to host this kind of
>>languages. But maybe in Wikicities ?
>>
>>
>http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Lambengolmor
>
>The Lambengolmor Wikicity is a wiki for content in or about Tolkien's
>Middle-Earth languages. Two people edited there on 7 March and nothing
>has happened on the wiki since then, so it would seem that people are
>more interested in discussing these languages on meta than actually
>creating content in them.
>
>
This seems like a familiar pattern!

Ec


body:
Well if it is bad to split it up, why split it up at all?

And if we do split it up, why use an arbitrary border like the
national border between the Netherlands and Germany??

If Ron is indeed right that nds.wiki is written in Missingsch this
could be the heart of the problem. Missingsch will obviously be
difficult for people in the Netherlands to comprehend, and technically
Missingsch isn't even Low Saxon.

I think everybody will agree that we should always try to avoid
splitting a Wikipedia whenever we can. You say that there are enough
people that the new Wikipedia won't grow too slowly, but still it is a
division of what could, with a little work, be a single united
Wikipedia.

Mark

On 28/06/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
> >Well if this is the case why not split it up on "dialect" rather than
> >country? We can have a Pommersch Wikipedia, an Oostfries Wikipedia, a
> >Stellingwarves Wikipedia, a Gruningens Wikipedia...
> >
> >Since there are actually differences from dialect to dialect, instead
> >of a sudden change when you cross from Germany to the Netherlands or
> >viceversa, it would be ignoring the problem of dialect differences to
> >split it up based on countries.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> That will cause more separate pedias than is desirable. Then you will have
> to split the nds:-wikipedia in several pieces. They will certainly grew very
> slowly.
>
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Direct antwoord op je vragen: gebruik MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

body:
Laura K Fisher wrote:

> On Jun 28, 2005, at 9:43 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and
>> placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the
>> last assets of the victim and their family.
>>
>> Fred
>
> That's the best way to put the distinction I've heard.
>
> I strongly disagree with a merge and think that Quackery should be a
> subcat of Medicine instead of Alternative medicine.  One can dupe
> patients with unnecessary traditional-type therapies as much as one
> can with alternative ones.

You could even get the scientologists to support that. :-)

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] little bug on li:

body:
Hi all, and certainly those of you with technical gifts,

Since yesterday, we recieve most of the interface text in older versions.
That means that we constantly read Dutch and English words and phrases,
along with some wrong, now-corrected, Limburgic ones. First, we thought it
was a co-effect of the software mainenance they anounced on en:, but since
it seems to endure, I would like to see this solved. I am pretty sure that
this is not intentional man's work, since we could not find anything in the
recent changes.

Thanks in advance,

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Webmessenger overal en altijd beschikbaar http://webmessenger.msn.com/


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language counts

body:
Klaus-Eduard Runnel wrote:

>On 6/27/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hoi,
>>Yes there is a way to find the number of articles in a given language
>>and the number of languages on a wiktionary, check out the 271 languages
>>on the nl.wikipedia http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categorie:taal.
>>
>>
>
>
>Actually, the category page tells that "Er zijn 200 woorden in deze rubriek"
>("There are 200 articles in this category"), when the number is greater than
>200. A fellow wiktionarian just pointed it out to me this morning. Seems to
>be an old bug. I'll check the buglist later today...
>
>Klaus
>
>
Hoi,
This is not a bug but a "feature". This was installed to make the query
of how many articles there are less expensive to run. You get 200
articles but also the option to see the next 200 articles. It is the
best that is available at the moment. If the 1.5 software is more
efficient, it may be possible to give us the number .. that is for the
developers to decide.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language counts

body:
Andrew Dunbar wrote:

>The two ways to do it are:
>1) Parse the database. This is very difficult due to a myriad of article formats
>and a very large number of articles in which the format is just broken. I did
>however develop a parser just good enough to count articles and translations
>by language for the non-broken examples. Sadly the hard drive on which the
>code lived was destroyed in a grey-out or power surge.
>
>2) Use of templates. On Wiktionary there is quite a bit of "anarchy" or
>"democracy" at present so it's very difficult to introduce new features and
>also to have such features used for their proposed purpose without being
>extended. Also people losing interest in their new ideas, and the fact that
>there are *so many* articles their to go back through and classify after
>agreeing on a way to do so.
>
>I think the best way would be to a) come to an agreement of how to make
>a language-tracking template. b) Create a new parser that can find
>language headings in their various variant forms. c) Use the data created
>by the parser with a bot to tag all the existing articles. d) Make the new
>tags compulsory.
>
>
Hoi,
When there is a decision that a particular template is to be used, it is
possible to use a bot to replace one pattern that indicates that a word
is in a language with this template. Many templates can be changes in
succession that will help us to implement the chosen template. I do
suggest that the use of the templates already in use on many of the
wiktionaries makes sense as it will help foster cooperation between the
different Wiktionaries as it helps us to share content. Important to
note is, that the content of these templates is a matter of choise for
the individual Wiktionary as long as the definition is shared by all.. I
will be happy to help in implementing one fixed set of templates on the
English wiktionary. When the known patterns have been replaced by the
selected templates, it will be possible to create a list with articles
that do not have the new templates. These have to be changed manually in
order to identify them as words in a particular language.

Thanks,
GerardM

>Actually a better way again might be possible with input from the devs
>once Wiktionary is big enough for them to take notice (: Perhaps the
>new Styles support coming might also bring along something that helps
>us on en.wiktionary ?
>
>Hippietrail
>
>On 6/28/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hoi,
>>Yes there is a way to find the number of articles in a given language
>>and the number of languages on a wiktionary, check out the 271 languages
>>on the nl.wikipedia http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categorie:taal. You
>>will also find that all words that are categorised have a number. All
>>articles are categorised. :) The way it is implemented is thanks to a
>>great suggestion from an en.wiktionarian. It was however not possible to
>>implement this on the English wiktionary because some deemed it
>>un-lexicological.
>>
>>It is done by using templates when a language is indicated. eg {{-en-}}
>>for an English language word.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>GerardM
>>
>>James R. Johnson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Is there any way to add some tag to the wiktionary so that we can get a
>>>count of the number of different languages we have on a wiktionary, and the
>>>number of words in each?  For example:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On EN:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>This wiktionary has:
>>>
>>>English:    50,345 words
>>>
>>>German:   4,211 words
>>>
>>>Japanese: 123 words
>>>
>>>Spanish:  422 words
>>>
>>>?..
>>>
>>>??.
>>>And so on.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Is that somehow possible by adding a language tag, say [[lang:en]] and have
>>>the tags identified per wiktionary, so that en shows up as Ingl?s on
>>>Spanish, Englisch on German, etc.?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>James
>>>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia

body:
>I would also be happy to rid Wiktionary of this sort of thing.  The
>supporters of these languages seem to have only questionable contact with
>reality.  Tolkien was a learn?d man whose philological studies helped to
>make his stories more vibrant, but sometimes people need to be reminded tha
>"Lord of the Rings" was a work of _fiction_.  The languages developed there
>are also works of fiction with no credibility in the real world, and no
>basis for development beyond the context of Tolkien's books.  That being
>said, any attempt at building an encyclopedia in these languages must
>falter when it needs to develop vocabulary for concepts that are alien to
>Middle Earth.
>
>It is fitting that Wikipedia have an article giving an outline of these
>languages, and that Wikibooks might even give an outline of the grammar.
>Apart from that can we at least try to find some separation between the
>real and fantasy world?
>
>Ec
Please, please, please, don't get personal!
W.

_________________________________________________________________
Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List

body:
On 28/06/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Whether the Britannica list is worthless for our purposes is debatable.
> When I started I would look at our software generated most wanted list
> to see if anything there interested me, and I started a number of
> articles that way.

I've done this a couple of times, as well. Or digging up odd lists and
filling redlinks; I wrote an article on Lorenzo de Medici Sweat simply
becuase he had such a lovely name.

> I can see the EB list being used that way,
> especially by newbies.  The list just shows what we don't have; it does
> not suggest that the potential contributor seek out the Britannica
> article.  If instead it inspires someone to research an otherwise
> obscure historical personage, then we all benefit.

The "obscure historical personage" is one of the key things for us; I
think we're past the stage that we run the risk of failing to include
a field of academic interest through not knowing about it (Having a
bad article through no expert knowledge is another matter). But a lot
of those personages will be in the 1911 Encyclopedia, or the various
other old encyclopedias we have lists for - I just went to look at the
project page, and was happily surprised to see that Britannica is just
one of a set of similar projects being undertaken as comparisons.

Hmm. The original Oxford /Dictionary of National Biography/ was
originally printed in 1909. It'd be an excellent source for things
like this; I wonder if an index is available? I note that the
Australian and Canadian equivalents have had lists set up.

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


from_name: Alphax

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia (was Re: Re: Why do we
	havethem??)

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
>
>> From: "Phil Boswell" <phil.boswell at gmail.com>
>> So why not have one "Middle-Earth languages" wikipedia, which can accept
>> articles written in any or all of the above?
>>
> Well, Quenya and Sindarin are as far apart as Latin and French, or
> almost so. We can't use them on one Wikipedia. Just create Quenya first,
> if we are to create Tolkien pedias at all.
>
> Wouter
>

There is also a script problem - worse than choosing between Cyrillic
and Latin alphabets :)

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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subject:
[Wikitech-l] categorylinks_table mysql ERROR 1071 at line 12:
	Specified key was too long

body:
FC4 now ships with mysql 4.1

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/#sn-overview

--
Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org/User:Palica
Nezabudni si vzia? svoje Wikam?ny. / Don't forget to take your
Wikamins today. - Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org - slobodn? encyklop?dia, ktor? m??e ka?d?
upravova? - AJ TY


from_name: Klaus-Eduard Runnel

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language counts

body:
On 6/28/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Klaus-Eduard Runnel wrote:
>
> >On 6/27/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hoi,
> >>Yes there is a way to find the number of articles in a given language
> >>and the number of languages on a wiktionary, check out the 271 languages
> >>on the nl.wikipedia http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categorie:taal.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >Actually, the category page tells that "Er zijn 200 woorden in deze
> rubriek"
> >("There are 200 articles in this category"), when the number is greater
> than
> >200. A fellow wiktionarian just pointed it out to me this morning. Seems
> to
> >be an old bug. I'll check the buglist later today...
>
>
> >Klaus
> >
> >
> Hoi,
> This is not a bug but a "feature". This was installed to make the query
> of how many articles there are less expensive to run. You get 200
> articles but also the option to see the next 200 articles. It is the
> best that is available at the moment. If the 1.5 software is more
> efficient, it may be possible to give us the number .. that is for the
> developers to decide.

I'd say that a misleading message is a bug. At least that's what they tell
you at the software testing lectures. At least that's what they taught me :)

A message like "There are 200 articles in this category" is clearly
misleading when there's actually some 4000 articles in the category. It's
really hard to find out the number of articles in the category following all
those "next 200" links. My database skills may be a bit rusty, but it is
quite suprising to hear that a query to find out the number of entries to a
category is so expensive that one should avoid it. Maybe you can point me to
a discussion on that matter? I might want to get enlightened :)

Klaus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Well if this is the case why not split it up on "dialect" rather than
>country? We can have a Pommersch Wikipedia, an Oostfries Wikipedia, a
>Stellingwarves Wikipedia, a Gruningens Wikipedia...
>
>Since there are actually differences from dialect to dialect, instead
>of a sudden change when you cross from Germany to the Netherlands or
>viceversa, it would be ignoring the problem of dialect differences to
>split it up based on countries.
>
>Mark
>
>
Hoi,
I have been wondering but why call it Stellingwarves it is
Stellingwerfs. Even the ISO-639-3 code says so.
Thanks,
    Gerard


subject: [Wikitech-l] en.wikipedia.org open for business

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Woo, that was fun!
>
> Good news: We've got our BiggestWiki upgraded, in less time than I
> feared (under 24 hours!) and the servers still live. The scripts have
> gotten some additional stress-testing from problems that didn't show up
> on the dozens of wikis we upgraded yesterday (but of course we're real
> glad we fixed the problems revelaed on _them_ first!)
>
> I'll write up some more notes in a bit.
>
> It's all downhill from here, folks.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Hoi,
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lang_zal_hij_leven.ogg
Thanks Brion and all the other hard working developers :)
    Gerard


subject: [Foundation-l] License that cannot be used in advertisements

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> GerardM wrote:
>
>> There are plenty of lovely pictures of this event. The only
>> restriction is in the use of the photos. The pictures can be used for
>> practically any use except for the fact that they may not be used in
>> advertisements. So, it is not allowed to advertise for baby-formula
>> and show a picture of little princess Alexia.
>>
> Strictly speaking that restriction would be contrary to GFDL.
>
>> The pictures can be used in a commercial context, educational and
>> informative is explicitly OK it is just advertisements that are
>> disallowed.
>>
>> My question: is this a restriction that we can make when we use
>> material like this on our Wikimedia projects ..
>>
> I doubt it.  Tracing and evaluating these usages, and determining what
> is advertizing is probably more than anyone wants to do.  Allowing our
> material to be used in any context saves a lot of problems.

I am sure the RVD or "Rijks Voorlichtings Dienst" will do that for us.
It is just for us to state the required limitations.

>
>> By law it is not allowed anyway to use pictures of members of the
>> royal family in advertisements. So it is explicitly stating what all
>> the people from the Netherlands should already know.. (it is assumed
>> that everyone knows the law .. :)  )
>>
> Is this a matter of copyright or of the law about the Royal Family?
> What would be the status of an unofficial picture taken through a
> papparazo's telephoto lens if he chose to realease that picture under
> GFDL?
>
> Ec

It is against the law in the first place to use pictures of the Royal
Family in an advertisement. A papparazo makes his foto's for the
"gossip" press. That is not using it for advertisements. As far as I
know you are not allowed to use pictures of people without their release
anyway. The release of these pictures is however explicit about what it
can be used for.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] In the interests of transparency

body:
In the interests of transparency in mailing list admin actions, I have
placed two recent contributors to the list (DANIEL RAY and Henry
Kissinger) on moderation (i.e. their messages require list admin
approval) because their messages to the mailing list appear to be
gibberish. If anyone feels this is unwarranted, please contact me or
one of the other mailing list administrators.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Confirmation in bug in ugrade.

body:
There is a message on the edit screens which acknowledges the bug.  Here is the quote:

   Expect edit conflicts.
   Due to a bug on the new software, edit conflicts will overwrite other people's    changes, even if you do not save on the edit conflicts screen, and even if you were editing a different section. As a courtesy, take a look at the edit history after saving and fix any accidental text deletion or duplication.

This is pretty serious.  They should roll back to the previous version. -- Silverback


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

> >> If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine
> >> and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the
> >> quackery category?
>
> > I would.
>
> > Me too. That's a really hard-to-defend
> > category except for proven frauds.
>
> I may well be mistaken. I'm not a native English
> speaker and often miss fine distinctions in meaning.

Haukur, I think you are missing an important distinction here between
the 2 English words.

On the one hand, "Pseudo-science" embraces more than just fakery that
is being passed off as medicine. Other examples of subjects that I
think would be fairly categorized as pseudo-science would include
Ley lines, the teleological theory of cultural evolution, the theories
of Immanuel Velekovsky, & as someone mentioned upthread ghosts. I
guess you could say that it is any hypothesis that cannot be proven
experimentally, but the least controversial examples are the ones
that _have_ been disproven -- yet still have their true believers.

On the other hand, "quackery" is more properly applied to medicine
that either does not work, or is harmful. One can graduate from a
mainstream, accredited medical school, receive a medical degree, &
even be board-certified -- & yet still be a quack. This is the case
of a local physician here in Oregon, whose infamy is of more than
local interest, since he is wanted in Australia for numerous counts
of malpractice.

[snip]
>
> I still think that "Alternative medicine" is misleading,
> has undeserved positive connotations and does not represent
> a NPOV.
>
I'm not entirely sure I know what to say in response to that. We
all have erroneous preconceptions, many of which are invisible to
ourselves until the moment comes & we see the mistake. Other times,
only one individual is correct & the majority is wrong, & we only
learn the truth much, much later.

But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative
medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we
accept the term & move on to other things? I see that we have 5
candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation who are all well qualified,
but we can only elect two: isn't that problem worth at least as
many posts as this one?

Geoff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia turns a few heads in Bhutan, China

body:
On 28/06/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> These Dzongkha-speaking heads... any chance that they'll do anything
> on the Dzongkha Wikipedia?

Some of them seem to; there's been a brief flurry of editing for the
first time in a month...

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


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback

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

Hi all,

I didn't realise that MediaWiki 1.5 was so close to being introduced,
otherwise I wouldn't have come up with my previous proposal, mentoring
for admins, quite so quickly as I did!

As unfortunately my proposal is not too popular, I have come up with a
new one titled "Requests for rollback", taking advantage of the
"privilege separation" available in MediaWiki 1.5.

In a few words, it's a system like RfA but just granting rollback rather
than all admin powers

This proposal is described as how I imagine it would be implemented at:
 --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Requests_for_rollback

My reasoning behind creating this proposal is principally due to the
following:

    * Useful for those who do not wish to be nominated on WP:RFA, either
because they do not desire admin powers or because they would not be
confident with them.
    * More people being able to quickly deal with vandalism is by no
means a bad thing.
    * It devolves power to the community.

I accept that some might say that is an unnecessary addition to
Wikipedia, duplicating requests for adminship, but I believe that people
who want to contribute to Wikipedia but do not wish to become
full-fledged admins will benefit from the times when rollback can be used.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this.

Chris

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> Roll back to the previous version! That's some pretty powerful
> medicine there - it took twenty-odd hours to roll forward...
>
> There's a lot of bugs currently listed at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MW_1.5_bugs (which I've just
> discovered); there seems to be a good bit of patching going on. I
> suspect it'll be fixed relatively soon, and a buggy live wiki is
> better than a frozen one.

That would be good news.  Given the expense of a rollback,
we can probably live with this if there a prospects of a fix
within a week.

However, is there a way to make the message on the edit
page FLASH, even though it was highlighted, it took me
many edits to finally notice it.  You get out of the habit
of looking at the boilerplate.  I bet others are not noticing
it either.
                     -- thanx, silverback


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

body:
I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I
don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user
does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they
probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block
vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do'
responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further
hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics.

Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of
adminship. A Requests for Rollback feature would be unnecessary.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Jenkinson" <chris at starglade.org>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 9:28 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi all,
>
> I didn't realise that MediaWiki 1.5 was so close to being introduced,
> otherwise I wouldn't have come up with my previous proposal, mentoring
> for admins, quite so quickly as I did!
>
> As unfortunately my proposal is not too popular, I have come up with a
> new one titled "Requests for rollback", taking advantage of the
> "privilege separation" available in MediaWiki 1.5.
>
> In a few words, it's a system like RfA but just granting rollback rather
> than all admin powers
>
> This proposal is described as how I imagine it would be implemented at:
>  --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Requests_for_rollback
>
> My reasoning behind creating this proposal is principally due to the
> following:
>
>     * Useful for those who do not wish to be nominated on WP:RFA, either
> because they do not desire admin powers or because they would not be
> confident with them.
>     * More people being able to quickly deal with vandalism is by no
> means a bad thing.
>     * It devolves power to the community.
>
> I accept that some might say that is an unnecessary addition to
> Wikipedia, duplicating requests for adminship, but I believe that people
> who want to contribute to Wikipedia but do not wish to become
> full-fledged admins will benefit from the times when rollback can be used.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this.
>
> Chris
>
> - --
> Chris Jenkinson
> chris at starglade.org
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> S0KvMu3kfhdTh6bTO/cB3B4=
> =rVph
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 28/06/05, actionforum at comcast.net <actionforum at comcast.net> wrote:
> There is a message on the edit screens which acknowledges the bug.  Here is the quote:
>
>   Expect edit conflicts.
> Due to a bug on the new software, edit conflicts will overwrite other
> people's changes, even if you do not save on the edit conflicts screen,
> and even if you were editing a different section. As a courtesy, take a
> look at the edit history after saving and fix any accidental text deletion
> or duplication.
>
> This is pretty serious.  They should roll back to the previous version. -- Silverback

Roll back to the previous version! That's some pretty powerful
medicine there - it took twenty-odd hours to roll forward...

There's a lot of bugs currently listed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MW_1.5_bugs (which I've just
discovered); there seems to be a good bit of patching going on. I
suspect it'll be fixed relatively soon, and a buggy live wiki is
better than a frozen one.

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


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

body:
I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why
not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference
and you don't like any of them, I can understand.

Mark

On 28/06/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you haven't heard, the board member elections are official on.
> I'd like to encourage everyone who is eligible to participate, but I'd
> also like to encourage you do like I did and cast a blank ballot.
>
> Because we use approval voting, a blank ballot is the same as voting
> for everyone and the same as not voting for all. But it is also
> different because it shows your interest in the process, without
> either approving of or disapproving of any particular candidate. Since
> there already votes there is no risk of us going without a board,
> which is good. :)
>
> I have posted why I choose to vote blank and why I think you should do
> the same on my userpage, and I welcome comments.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/vote_blank
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and quackery

body:
> I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one
> side in a dispute.  Should we, for example, have a
> [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his
> wacked-out ideas on nutrition?  (Of course, he could also get
> [[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.)  This sort of
> derisive labelling I find troubling, even if it's derisive labelling
> that's widely accepted.  The term "Alternative medicine", by constrast,
> doesn't carry nearly as much ideological baggage, because it can be read
> as either good or bad depending on your perspective, so more accurately
> simply labels a category of stuff without judging it.

I would not object to classifying Pauling's ideas on
nutrition (vast amounts of vitamin C etc.) as pseudo-science.
The label is no more derisive than the topics under discussion
deserve. We call vandalism vandalism. We don't call it
"alternative editing". We call the trolls trolls. We don't
call them "complementary editors". The labels are only
derisive insofar as they are accurate. Such is the case
with pseudoscience and quackery.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Christophe Millet

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language counts

body:
2005/6/27, James R. Johnson <modean52 at comcast.net>:
> Is there any way to add some tag to the wiktionary so that we can get a
> count of the number of different languages we have on a wiktionary, and the
> number of words in each?

On fr, we are using templates like
{{-lang-}} equivalent to ==Langage== (and adding a category automatically also)

Then, parsing the dump, we are able to obtain exactly what you are
looking for, see :
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Kipmaster/Stats

It seems to me that the English wiktionary is not as "templatified"
as the French one (I don't know about the other wiktionaries),
so it would need some more work, but a bot could help.

Kipmaster.


from_name: Koos Jol

subject: [Textbook-l] downloading the whole site

body:
Hi Karl,

Maybe you can try http://download.wikimedia.org/#wikibooks
That are the databasedumps from all Wikibooks.
Hope this is what your looking for.

Koos Jol
    On the wiki known as User:Firefox or User:Koos Jol on some projects.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Wick" <karlwick at gmail.com>
To: "text" <textbook-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:09 PM
Subject: [Textbook-l] downloading the whole site

A technical question: is there a way to download all of the current
Wikibooks content at once? I'd like to be able to take advantage of
the moments of access to high-speed Internet and burn everything to a
disk, and then work on new material over the course of the week on my
computer that seldom has Internet access. It would increase the amount
of contributions I could make to the site ... I think there is a way
to do this with Wikipedia, can we do it with Wikibooks?

Thanks,
Karl

BTW I'm going to work on some interview questions for Mark H at FHSST.
_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

body:
Hi all,

Trying to set up a Wikipedia in Seeltersk, I e-mailed Pyt Kramer, who is an
important authority on this language, and has good contacts with many native
speakers. He already promised his collaborations on the project. Now I
explained him in my e-mail that the community wants native speaker support,
but that would be problematic. Most native speakers are to be found among
elderly people, who are relatively unfamiliar with the internet and have
learned no English. There is only one potential contributor, who - luckily -
was also willing to work on it. The second category of native speakers
consists of children, who are not yet supposed to collaborate. The number of
native speakers between 15 and 60 is really very low.

But among those, we can recruit some willing contributors: the parents
raising their children in Seeltersk. They are real Seelters, and in their
daily life they speak the language every day. That makes them as good as
native speakers.

Therefor I would like to ask: is it possible, with a language which is being
revived, to grant requests like these when language revivers rather than
native speakers are showing their interest?

Thanks,

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Requests for adminship reform

body:
On 6/28/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a specific place where this kind of thing is recorded so that the
> interested (and the curious and the plain nosy :-) can familiarise
> themselves with the history of the situation?
>
> I hear a lot of references to occurrences like this, but if you happen to be
> away at the time (or like me have no access outside of work hours) it can be
> difficult to catch up with what has (or has not) happened, which can make it
> in turn difficult to make a rational decision should one be called for.
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]

There is an archive of completed arbitration cases at
[[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests]]. The cases
involving the two users who lost their adminship through arbitration
are in there. There were two others before the arbitration committee
was created that would come under our jurisdiction now, but as they
were done through other means, all that remains are a few mailing list
posts.

-- ambi


subject:
[WikiEN-l] My case for classifying homeopathy as pseudoscience and
	quackery

body:
> "Alternative medicine" is excellent as an NPOV category without
> introducing a needlessly pejorative term like "quack".  "Not proven to
> work" within the rules of mainstream science is already implicit in the
> term "alternative".  The concepts "not proven to work" and "proven not
> to work" are very different, and quackery would have more kinship with
> the latter.

It's very hard to prove something doesn't ever
work under any conditions. On the other hand
most popular "alternative medicine" stuff
*has* been put to scientific tests and *failed*.
When tested in properly controlled double blind
scientific studies (such as any new medicine is
subjected to) homeopathy has failed. More than once.

Homeopaths alternatively point to poorly conducted
studies that seemed to show some efficacy and, more
usually, anecdotal evidence. Sometimes they like to
imply that their craft has never been tested
scientifically and that scientific validation
is just around the corner. Needless to say, that
is not the case.

This is, I think, what many people think of when
they hear about "alternative medicine" - something
new that hasn't been properly tested but just might
work. That's the impression the quacks like to give
(often in good faith, no doubt) but it's wrong.
Most of this has been tested and failed long ago.
That's why it's accurate to call it quackery and
somewhat misleading to call it alternative medicine.

> "Falsely presented" is a point that would need to be proven.  Do you
> have evidence that homeopathic medicines are not curative, or that they
> are just water?

Certainly. The homeopaths don't even really deny
the fact. Their idea is that the pure water they
sell has some magical properties. They don't usually
deny that chemically it's pure water.

James Randi (http://www.randi.org) offers his million
dollar price to anyone who has a method for distinguishing
between homeopathic water and normal water.

> That may very well be the case, but I would not be
> prepared to jump to that conclusion. Making definitive statements about
> these practices requires more than parroting the opinions of their
> opponents.

I may be a parrot but I'm
a fairly well informed one :)

> I can just as easily see that "quack medicine" has
> undeserved negative connotations, while "alternative" adequately warns
> the user to proceed at his own risk.  The credibility of the various
> practices that come under this heading is wildly variable, and some may
> indeed qualify as quackery, but certainly not all.

The overwhelming majority of what quacks (and other
well-meaning people) like to call alternative medicine
is quackery. Sometimes the term is defined so broadly
as to include massage. This is a further attempt to
confuse the issue since massage has very little in
common with, for example, homeopathy.

To sum up the case against homeopathy:

1. Theory developed in the infancy of modern medicine.
2. No plausible mechanism by which it could work.
3. Proper scientific studies fail to show any efficacy.
4. No-one has come up with a method to distinguish between
normal water and homeopathic water.
5. It's sold for profit to many people around the world,
some of them sick and desperate.

What more could you possibly want in order to
classify something as quackery?

> The degree of doubt that there might be about homeopathy does indeed
> belong in the article on the topic.

Our article on [[Holocaust denial]] is in the
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]. That term sounds
pretty derisive to me. Does the "degree of
doubt that there might be" on the occurrence
of the Holocaust deserve a prominent place
and a sympathetic representation in any articles
related to it?

(I'm sorry for breaking Godwin's law. I honestly
tried to come up with another well known example
of pseudohistory. I tried the Apollo hoax theory
but for some reason the relevant article isn't
in the pseudohistory category. Nothing in that
category is as well known as [[Holocaust denial]].

To be absolutely clear I'm not suggesting that
any member of this list is a Holocaust denier
or that the Holocaust is somehow comparable to
homeopathy or other types of quackery.)

My opinion is that [[Homeopathy]] belongs both
in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] and in [[Category:Quackery]].
If there is a consensus that it doesn't I will
of course defer to it.

I'm willing to discuss other members of the
alternative medicine category on their individual
merits for classification as quackery.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
On 6/28/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I know that when I want to
> start a new article I don't look the topic up in Britannica first. So
> I think the list is probably worthless for our purposes anyway.

Fred, you've missed the entire purpose of having the list on
Wikipedia. I suggest you go read [[Wikipedia:WikiProject missing
encyclopedia articles]], which is well-advertised and clearly sets out
the purpose of the list and the project to clear it out.

-- ambi


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

body:
If you haven't heard, the board member elections are official on.
I'd like to encourage everyone who is eligible to participate, but I'd
also like to encourage you do like I did and cast a blank ballot.

Because we use approval voting, a blank ballot is the same as voting
for everyone and the same as not voting for all. But it is also
different because it shows your interest in the process, without
either approving of or disapproving of any particular candidate. Since
there already votes there is no risk of us going without a board,
which is good. :)

I have posted why I choose to vote blank and why I think you should do
the same on my userpage, and I welcome comments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/vote_blank


subject:
[Foundation-l] meta-discussion for new project proposals (was
	Proposal for new project: Faith Wiki)

body:
On 6/28/05, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> Sorry to say this, but in my opinion we shouldn't accept any new
> projects at all for the next two years but instead work on improving the
> existing ones. There's enough work to do and even the time we discuss
> new projects would be better invested in discussing and solving our
> current problems.
>
> greetings,
> elian

There are *many* people who disagree with this, and I think it's
somewhat rude to shoot down so bluntly what is a perfectly reasonable
new suggestion - cleaning up the messy process and improving the
prospects of a new project actually being successful. If we'd had this
in the first place, several of our current projects might be markedly
more successful.

-- ambi