from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Request for creation of Nedersaksisch;
	Low Saxon (NL) and Romani; Vlax Romany

body:
Hi,

First of all Node, I've explained everything to you already, I'm not
going to explain it again. Second.. there is no wikipedia with the
name "Nedersaksisch" the name used is "Platd??tsch" which is in fact
not the same as "Nedersaksisch", platt is spoken in Germany ONLY. You
could change the name to Nedersaksisch van et Keuninkryk van
Nederlaand but this is very long and unnecessary since the term
"neddersass'sch" is practically not used in Germany.

Node mentions Wikipedias have not been divided because of orthography,
I garanty you as Veluws speakers, which is quite similar to Sallands,
Drents and Stellingwerfs I cannot understand the German variaty of the
"one language", sure you pick up some words or you understand it
because you've learned German at school but that's why people fall
back to the Dutch wikipedia they don't want to use a wikipedia they
don't understand 80% of because it's in Low Saxon spoken in Germany,
if you see the organisations in the Netherlands which promote the
language, they only promote the variaty which is spoken in the
Netherlands.

It has no use discussing this now, we have had similar discussions,
but you keep repeating yourself, you state things which are incorrect
and ask questions which we've answered ages ago, besides this is a
wikitech-l mailing list requesting creation of both wikipedias.

Vlax Romany... off course who is gonna blame them? Why should you
waste time on a test-wikipedia when someone might just block the whole
project, rather wait 'till it's created!

Servien

2005/11/16, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > Mark,
> > I think you do not know the situation on the ground or you misrepresent
> > this situation in a magnificent way. The nds wikipedia has been
> > high-jacked by a majority who insist on a particular orthography who is
> > German oriented. An orthography that is foreign to the nds as spoken in
>
> No -- it was hijacked by Heiko Evermann. He has recently become
> inactive. REcently, most articles posted in Dutch spelling have been
> allowed to remain unchanged.
>
> http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noord-Veluws
> http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrees_spraak
>
> > the Netherlands. Your assertion that there should be only one nds is
> > fine but the majority who does nds does differently. The factoid that
> > the Dutch dialects are considered to be part of the "Hamburg dialect"
> > has nothing to do with the orthography used.
>
> Wikipedias in the past have not been divided by orthography.
>
> > There are two solutions to this; either there is no compulsory
> > orthography on the nds.wikipedia or a second wikipedia is allowed. I do
>
> . . .
>
> Servien seems to think otherwise. He insists that his language is
> different, not just spelling, but otherwise. Experts on LS that I
> consulted told me this is not true.
>
> > think that it is not up to you to be in judgement on the creation of new
> > Wikipedias. You behave like if it is your right, the fact that you have
>
> When did I say this should be delayed because I voted against it? I
> think it should not be created because Servien never answered many of
> the questions that were asked, there is still significant opposition
> to the proposal, and he has shown an anti-wiki attitude on the
> test-wp. I also think it should be delayed because the situation has
> changed (namely, Dutch-spelt articles have been allowed to stay now).
>
> > a lot of bookish knowledge does not count for much. With the skills that
>
> Oh?
>
> > you have, it would be better if you helped fledgling projects in the way
> > that grows the Neapolitan wikipedia. It has already some 3700 articles.
>
> Well, then, why waste your time writing e-mails? Why don't you go help
> fledgling projects? Since, I don't spend any time doing that,
> obviously.
>
> > works where and why. It does not suit you to be negative. Certainly not
> > when you have your facts wrong.
>
> Which facts do I have wrong? I have been told this over and over by
> Servien. He has offered nothing I don't already know.
>
> > And do not trash talk other people. If you want to have people think
> > that you mean well, you should at least assume their good faith.
>
> Google "talking trash", and you'll see that I'm not talking trash.
> After all that I have been through with Servien, I don't think it's
> possible anymore to assume good faith.
>
> Even when the total vote was 16-4, he kept moving it to the Approved
> requests page.
>
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
>
> I always thought it was funny that you ended even the rudest and most
> blunt e-mails with such a polite phrase.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] Incubator Wiki for New Wikimedia Projects (was
	Vote to create Wikiversity Vote)

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 11/15/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>>There are companies out there that can do phone books much better than
>>>we ever could.
>>>
>>>
>>I'd prefer *any* free phone book to the proprietary ones out there
>>now, so I don't think it'd be hard to do better than the commercial
>>companies.  Yes, the copyright on this information is legally shaky,
>>but EULAs and DRM usually fills those gaps.
>>
>>
>BTW, I was thinking more of "yellow pages" than "white pages" here.
>The copyright on "yellow pages" is much stronger legally.
>
The copyright issue might not be such a big problem.  It's the
mind-numbing tedium of writing a phone book that turns me off.  But then
if we have enough minds that are numb enough, maybe they should go for
it. :-)

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>>  As for the guidelines being
>> decided on meta rather than Wikibooks, I don't see why that really
>> matters, but at the same time it probably wouldn't be hard to convince
>> people to move the discussions.
>>
>>> From my understanding Wikibooks doesn't have all that big of an active
>>
>> community in the first place, sans Wikijunior.  If that's true maybe
>> that's part of the problem.
>
> I have asked for the discussions to be moved to Wikibooks and was
> shouted down as being out of order and the discussions continued
> anyway on Meta.  Notices of votes about Wikijunior were on the Meta
> Goings-on instead of the Wikibooks staff lounge.  This is a problem.

Absolutely!  This can undermine a community.  It seems to me that there
could be room for accomodation if it weren't for these misplaced
discussions, and, even worse, votes.

> As far as Wikibooks not having that active of a community, I think you
> need to go back to Wikibooks and check again.  There are daily changes
> on the Staff Lounge, and some rather involved arguments that go on
> with the VfD page as well.  Wikijunior is hardly that large of a part
> of Wikibook and is only one little corner of the whole thing there as
> well. That is precisely the problem in some ways and one of the
> arguments to move Wikijunior to Wikibooks:  That it was percieved that
> Wikibooks was a dead project and nobody was around to bother and look
> at what was being done.

I don't know if that's the case.  When this came up a year or so ago my
support was based on the simple fact that they sought to produce books.

> We are averaging about two to three new admins per month now, and some
> significant cleanup of previous deadwood is also happening.  I don't
> know how else to decribe an active project besides this.  I mention
> the growth in the number of new admins in part because it also shows
> general user growth as well, of which there have been plenty.
>
> Wikibooks can exists and grow without Wikijunior.  It doesn't need it,
> and is only a very small portion of the items for recent changes on
> Wikibooks.  I'll admit that Wikibooks isn't as active as Wikipedia,
> but en.wikibooks is a larger community than most of the language
> domains for Wikipedia.  Some very interesting and very
> non-controversial things are happening on Wikibooks that are very
> positive, and some very interesting Wikibooks are developing that are
> worthy of note even now.  That there is room for improvement, I don't
> deny either.

Looks like it's developping as it should.

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Puzzlet Chung

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Main Page under a namespace

body:
Korean Wikipedia is seeking for new name for the Main Page, for
ambiguity of the term we've chosen. Some support to put it under a
namespace like Wikipedia: or Portal:(which hasn't been created yet),
but I haven't seen any other Wikipedia had done it before. Is it OK to
put Main Page under a namespace?


list: wikien-l

from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: FW: Billboard chart data licensing

body:
On 11/16/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> That seems sensible to me. In the articles, they are facts about an artists
> career. We might also want to put this information on the WP:MUSIC page so
> as to develop a policy.
>
> You could claim that they are US chart hits and leave it at that although
> that raises verifiabuility problems. For old charts, you could possibly look
> at using Cashbox charts as an alternative. Top 40 charts has a US chart
> listing as well for more modern times. see (http://top40-charts.com/)
>
> The other problem is what happens in other countries if their charts do the
> same using Billboard as a precedent.
>

IANAL and all that, but as long as we are not replicating chunks of
the chart verbatim, merely stating that so-and-so song reached X
position on the chart, then there won't be any problems. We're not
possibly infringing any copyrights by simply stating what they ranked
the song as. However, if we had an article which listed the top forty
for a particular week, or something, that would not be ok.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] change text type in database from blob to text

body:
Vladimir Tsichevski wrote:
> I wonder why all fields in the MySQL  database which hold text are
> implemented as binary data (blobs, mediumblobs etc.). MediaWiki expects
> to read/write them in utf8.

They may contain compressed data or other binary data.

> It may be Ok for MediaWiki, but it is VERY inconvenient when it comes to
> accessing the data from other tools.

Fix your broken tools.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
On 11/16/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote
>
> >All excellent suggestions, but keep in mind that nominating something
> for deletion is already a strenuous process for a lot of people. We
> have to make sure it's still manageable to do so for a newbie.
>
> I'd like to see a form to fill in for that.  Radio buttons, check boxes, all
> that.  No too many compulsory fields.
>
> So that anyone can cope with making a nomination, because it is clear _how
> to submit_ a page to AfD.  But such that those who have a clear idea that
> page X is vanity can quickly submit it: just by doing radio button 'I'm
> logged in', copying the page name into a box, pull-down menu to click on
> 'Vanity page', put tag on the page itself, you're done.
>
> Charles
That'd make things easier, but we should watch out for
oversimplification. People would still need to explain WHY they think
it's vanity.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
On 11/16/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "David Gerard" wrote
>
> >I would say that we do not have to make it manageable for a newbie. If
> they're that much of a newbie they have no business putting forward
> things to be deleted.
>
> Certainly one of the current problems with AfD is what to make of users who
> have been on WP for all of, say, 48 hours, and reckon that they have an eye
> for articles they think should not be in the encyclopedia.
>
> I would, however, prefer that the method be user-friendly.  It should just
> test a little whether someone has a clue.  See other posts of mine.
>
> Charles
>
There's enough newbies who find deleteable articles with no idea what
to do about it. If we don't allow them to AFD it, we should offer them
an alternative to bring it to our attention. Maybe I should've said
user-friendly, though.

--Mgm


body:
On 11/16/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> In US law it probably is ok to copy the whole thing verbatim, as
> compilations of facts (eg telephone directories) are not protected
> by copyright law. Charts might be different (we all know there is
> some creativity in their compilation...)

According to this page:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/about_us/bbmethodology.jsp
the Hot 100 (for example) is compiled using formulas combining sales
data and airplay data. I think that makes it more than a compilation
of facts.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Status of article rating feature?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> That's because the maps are marked "ALPHA QUALITY - NOT FINAL
>> PRODUCTION VERSIONS" and are written in pencil. Never mind they're in
>> the top-40 maps in the world - the project has peaked way too early.
>>
>> Damn we need the rating feature. What's holding it up right now? List
>> please, referring to current version of code. (I know the servers are
>> creaking ...)
>>
>
> Keep in mind that the cute little survey thing doesn't have anything to
> do with a system for marking particular page revisions as 'public-ready'
> or 'approved' in any useful way.
>
> That's an entirely unrelated and separate issue (and one the project
> actually needs), which Special:Validate (which might, hypothetically,
> produce 'interesting data' of some sort to some one) does nothing to
> help directly.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>

I disagree. I think it is a mistake to dismiss the article rating system
_a priori_ as not being useful in the effort to create Wikipedia 1.0.
This certainly is not the opinion of many participants on this list.

In my opinion, a Nupedia-style review procedure for every single article
clearly can't  possibly scale to rate almost a million articles in any
reasonable timescale -- the painfully slow featured article process, or
the conflict-ridden AfD process are good examples of the limitations of
formal article-rating systems.

However, collective labelling systems certainly can work; look at the
category system, for example, which is almost magically self-organizing,
or Google, which uses simple link graph adjacency to do much of its work.

An article rating system can sort the possible wheat from the obvious
chaff, with a formal review system then being applied to those articles
where there is either a significant spread of article ratings, or where
an editor or external source has explicitly asserted significant
inaccuracy, insufficiency or bias in an article (and category tagging
could certainly be a useful way to indicate this).

By doing this, the formal review process can be applied in the places
it's most needed.

If there are performance problems with writing and reading the database,
why not during the initial blind rating period simply write the ratings
using syslog over UDP, and allow (possibly anonymized) versions of these
flat-text logfiles to be downloaded by whoever is interested in
analyzing the results? Comma-separated variable files with one line per
entry would do just fine, and the occasional loss of a rating due to
packet loss would matter very little, providing that it is uncorrelated
with the contents of the ratings.

This would require very little extra server load, and minimal rewriting
of the ratings code, and could be made more scalable very quickly, by --
for example -- running multiple logging processes on multiple servers,
and sending them the ratings results at random.

I'm sure that a great many interested parties would be more than glad to
data-mine the results for us. As David Gerard has remarked, most of the
obvious objections to ratings schemes, such as trolling or rating
advocacy campaigns by article supporters or opponents, can be addressed
quite easily with quite simple statistical analysis techniques (for
example, see the analysis techniques used to mine the Seti at Home data
after it's been number-crunched).

Incidentally, a very similar technique could be used to analyze server
traffic; just syslog an entry (to a different log, of course) for one in
every 100, or one in every 1000, server hits.

-- Neil


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Status of article rating feature?


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
My suggestion is just to ignore them, the guardian has, is, and most
likely be anti Wikipedia though for the life of me I don't know why
they're so anti-us.

-Jtkiefer


from_name: Branislav Jovanović

subject: [Wikitech-l] sr.wiki has been waiting for months!

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> Please open a bug in bugzilla for this and attach the files (and
> unified diffs where appropriate) to it.

Done. Bug #3993
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3993

--
Brane Jovanovic


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Announcement of Wikizine

body:
***************************************
 __    __ _ _    _     _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
\ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
 \  /\  /| |   <| |/ /| | | | |  __/
  \/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|

Year: 2005  Week:46   Special edition

***************************************

An internal news bulletin for the
members of the Wikimedia community.

///////////////////////////////////////

== Announcement of Wikizine  ==

I am pleased to announce the creation of Wikizine. A new internal news
bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community.

Wikizine is an weekly publication that will list the news of the Wikimedia
projects of the previous week. It will not be like Quatro that has full
articles. That is not the concept. The ideal Wikizine is short. Every news
listing contains of an one line summary and an url to some place where you
can find more information.

To subscribe go to;
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l

== Why ==

I, [[w:nl:gebruiker:Walter]], have found for many years that Wikipedia,
now Wikimedia, has a very serious internall communication problem. There
is to much information and it is highly fragmented between many wiki
pages, mailing lists and other places. Even if you try to read everything
you do not know all wikimedia news.

I have done proposals in the past to attempt to counter this problem but
nothing came from that. Also other attempts like "going-ons" and "Quatro"
do not seem to be a great success.

So I have decided to try to do it myself. Wikizine is an attempt in that
direction. Of it will be an success will be depend for an large part of
the readers and the feedback. I will try to discover all the news that
there is about Wikimedia and report the most relevant news of in Wikizine.
But I will fail to discover all the news. Wikizine needs to receive
reports of things that are going on somewhere in a strange, far away wiki.
Especially from the projects and languages from who you never hear.

== Who should read Wikizine? ==

Everybody who likes to do so may read it off course. But the target
audience is definitely; stewards, ambassadors, bureaucrats and sysops,
members of the board of one of the wikimedia foundations.

It is for the people who are doing the Wiki-management. The focus will be
on the technical aspect. News about changes in the way the wikisotware
works, new functions. Things that are broken.  Other Wikimedia news will
also be included but the focus is technical news that has an impact for
the users and readers of the wiki.

The idea and hope is that some of those readers will report back
interesting news from there project and translate/communicate the news in
Wikizine to there own community.

Wikizine is distributed by the mailinglist Announce-l. This list is only
for the postings of Wikizine, not for discussion. So it is very low
traffic. Normally once a week.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l

Please inform your local community about Wikizine and report news to
Wikizine.

wikizine at wikipedia.be

///////////////////////////////////////
Editor: [[w:nl:gebruiker:Walter]]
///////////////////////////////////////

Disclaimer: this message is not an
official publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine makes no guarantee of validity.


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Announcement of Wikizine


subject: [WikiEN-l] Announcement of Wikizine


subject: [Foundation-l] Announcement of Wikizine


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Announcement of Wikizine


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Announcement of Wikizine


subject: [WikiEN-l] the GNAA thing

body:
On 11/16/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Craig Schiller wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Timecop/The_war_on_blogs
> >
> > I can't *seriously* be the only person on all of Wikipedia who has a
> > major problem with the idea of letting the GNAA (yes, really, *that*
> > GNAA) unilaterally decide whether Wikipedia can or can't have articles
> > about blogs, can I?
> >
> > Craig, who sure as hell hopes not

We can have articles on pretty much anything as long as we're
selective about it and blogs are no different in that regard.

--Mgm


from_name: Craig Schiller

subject: [WikiEN-l] the GNAA thing

body:
Okay, clearly I need to be more specific.

Am I the only one who's bothered that there's a concerted disruption
campaign going on by a self-admitted bunch of trolls to remove blog
articles, *not* on the grounds of whether they're notable or not, but
on "blogs must be deleted on principle just for being blogs" grounds?

Am I the only one who's bothered that now that I've taken to flagging
GNAA sockpuppets on some of them, the GNAA sockpuppets are in turn
flagging *real* votes as sockpuppets?

Am I the only one who's bothered that the whole thing impairs the
possibility of determining what the real consensus of legitimate users
*is*?

Am I the only one who actually finds the idea of letting the GNAA
disrupt Wikipedia for fun to be a *fundamentally* problematic thing
*regardless* of the merits or lack thereof of the articles?

I'm not saying we should keep all blog articles; I'm saying that
what's going on isn't providing a legitimate consensus on the
notability or non-notability of any of the blogs under debate. There's
even one AFD on their hit list which has been voted on *exclusively*
by GNAA socks; not a single legitimate user has even said a *word*.
What if it's then closed by an admin who doesn't know what's going on?
Will that somehow be considered a genuine consensus on the article's
non-notability?

The only consensus it's establishing that Wikipedia permits trolls to
*dictate* Wikipedia content -- and I find it *exceedingly* hard to
believe that I'm the only person who thinks that's not a consensus we
should be encouraging.

Craig


subject: [WikiEN-l] the GNAA thing

body:
Craig Schiller wrote:

>Okay, clearly I need to be more specific.
>
>Am I the only one who's bothered that there's a concerted disruption
>campaign going on by a self-admitted bunch of trolls to remove blog
>articles, *not* on the grounds of whether they're notable or not, but
>on "blogs must be deleted on principle just for being blogs" grounds?
>
>Am I the only one who's bothered that now that I've taken to flagging
>GNAA sockpuppets on some of them, the GNAA sockpuppets are in turn
>flagging *real* votes as sockpuppets?
>
>Am I the only one who's bothered that the whole thing impairs the
>possibility of determining what the real consensus of legitimate users
>*is*?
>
>Am I the only one who actually finds the idea of letting the GNAA
>disrupt Wikipedia for fun to be a *fundamentally* problematic thing
>*regardless* of the merits or lack thereof of the articles?
>
>I'm not saying we should keep all blog articles; I'm saying that
>what's going on isn't providing a legitimate consensus on the
>notability or non-notability of any of the blogs under debate. There's
>even one AFD on their hit list which has been voted on *exclusively*
>by GNAA socks; not a single legitimate user has even said a *word*.
>What if it's then closed by an admin who doesn't know what's going on?
>Will that somehow be considered a genuine consensus on the article's
>non-notability?
>
>The only consensus it's establishing that Wikipedia permits trolls to
>*dictate* Wikipedia content -- and I find it *exceedingly* hard to
>believe that I'm the only person who thinks that's not a consensus we
>should be encouraging.
>
>Craig
>
>
Yes, this is a very disturbing trend, however since the GNAA don't wear
bullseyes on their IP's and edit from all sorts of places all around the
world I have no idea how we could possibly stop this, I'm open to any
ideas though.  My suggestion for this is to make a note on any relevant
AFD that you suspect GNAA activity and if it's specific votes then note
which votes you suspect and keep an eye out to make sure your note isn't
deleted and the closing admin should hopefully take that into account
and/or investigate further when closing the afd.

-Jtkiefer


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
JAYJG wrote:
>From: "charles matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>

>>Certainly one of the current problems with AfD is what to make of users who
>>have been on WP for all of, say, 48 hours, and reckon that they have an eye
>>for articles they think should not be in the encyclopedia.

>And one the main problems AfD is meant to address is how to handle the
>articles created by users who have been on WP for all of 10 minutes and
>reckon that they have an eye for articles they think *should* be in the
>encyclopedia.

You've phrased those symmetrically, but they're not symmetrical in any
way. The way you've written this, it reads as though you *want* a
clueless deletion process *because* there are clueless article
creators. I would suggest that the cluelessness adds rather than
cancelling out.

(And that the cluelessness in the deletion process causes massive bad
faith and community forks, c.f. the lengthy discussions on this matter
over the past couple of days you haven't addresssed.)

I submit that the deletion process is in no way ticking along just
fine and is causing serious damage to the community. Please read the
last day of posts my me on the topic.

- d.


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
"Zordsdavini iz Litvy" <zordsdavini at gmail.com>
wrote in message news:3dab1f080511102344s25ab96dbr at mail.gmail.com...
> this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba
> But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice

Take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macron#Dot_and_Macron_for_Samogitian

Does that look OK?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
 "JAY JG" wrote

> >From: "charles matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
>>
>>Certainly one of the current problems with AfD is what to make of users
>>who have been on WP for all of, say, 48 hours, and reckon that they have
>>an eye for articles they think should not be in the encyclopedia.
>
> And one the main problems AfD is meant to address is how to handle the
> articles created by users who have been on WP for all of 10 minutes and
> reckon that they have an eye for articles they think *should* be in the
> encyclopedia.

I don't give the symmetry much credence.  It's good if bad articles are
caught quickly, and deleted if they _really_ can't be cleaned up and
salvaged.  But it is unlikely that substandard articles, by their mere
existence, will cause the offence that attempts to delete articles on valid
but 'obscure' topics can.  The potential damage to the community of erring
is asymmetric here.

Charles


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
On 16/11/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote
>
> >All excellent suggestions, but keep in mind that nominating something
> >for deletion is already a strenuous process for a lot of people. We
> >have to make sure it's still manageable to do so for a newbie.
>
> I would say that we do not have to make it manageable for a newbie. If
> they're that much of a newbie they have no business putting forward
> things to be deleted. If you feel otherwise, then why?

According to Kate's Tool, my first edit was at 2004-10-30 20:41:47. At
2004-10-31 03:15:18 - all of six hours later - I tagged a page for
VfD, and then another one that evening. (I think I'd gone to play with
random pages and found something needing deleted)

I doubt this sort of thing is that unusual...

On the other hand, I managed it fine, so presumably adding to VfD was
a bit less confusing then.

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was
	Howdidthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
"geni" <geniice at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f80608430511150858r79fb5248h36cc3b5fe9f09344 at mail.gmail.com...
[snip]
> If popular culture/Trivia are so important why does [[Hurricane
> Katrina]] (to chose a random example) not include either word?

Possibly because no-one has found anything either funny or trivial which is
actually relevant to a weather phenomenon that caused so much havoc.

You might as well ask why there's no trivia section in [[Necrotizing
fasciitis]]...simply put, there's nothing at all trivial about it, and I
suspect any attempt to add such would be removed in short order as
vandalism.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Billboard charts

body:
Brandon Cordy wrote:

>Actually, I kept talking to the Billboard rep, and he says he's willing to
>work out a cashless deal if we can send them traffic (which, as far as I
>know, we already do through the external links). We may not have to delete
>anything at all.
>
>
Don't forget that GFDL means that printed versions must be
allowed, as well as derived versions of WP on sites that don't
"send them traffic". Free licenses are not usually compatible
with explicit quid pro quo arrangements.

Stan


subject: [Wikitech-l] Help with wiktionary

body:
Sergey Samoylov wrote:
> Hi there...
>
> I've just downloaded wiktionary dump. And wikimedia 4.12.
> There is a problem that wiki code is redirected url with lower-case first
> character in search phrase to upper-case first character.
>
> For examle if I type
> http://localhost/wiki412/index.php/true it's redirected to
> http://localhost/wiki412/index.php/True
>
> So I cannot reach the first url with world "true". What should I do for fix
> it.

$wgCapitalLinks = false;

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 11/15/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The process to create a new project is far too difficult.  An
>>>incubator wiki would facilitate that process.  The fact that
>>>Wikicities is already doing something which you feel has overlap (but
>>>then later say wouldn't have any overlap), is really irrelevant.
>>>
>>>
>>The process should be that difficult.  The impetus for new projects
>>seems to be more often a reflection of people's inability or
>>unwillingness to look for compromise solutions;  it has very little to
>>do with an objective need for another project.
>>
>>
>I think it's more than that.  There are a lot of people who want
>Wikipedia to look more like a finished product than a perpetual work
>in progress.  Daniel P. B. Smith is one of the most outspoken in this
>regard, but there are many others who also feel this way.  If we're
>going to reach a compromise, it has to take these points into
>consideration.
>
I don't like to characterize specific people in this general context.
In broad terms I think that Wikipedia owes its success to being a work
in progress.  Wikipedia used to have a rule: "Always leave something for
someone else to do."  I don't know if it's still there.  It would be
wrong to interpret that as meaning that you should leave something that
you know out of an article. It is enough to say that you don't have to
go overboard to get every last fact about your subject; let someone else
have the fun and go on to what you are good at.  Wikipedia will never be
perfect, or at least I hope it never will be.  And if you do want your
work to be perfect then don't expect it of anybody else.

>There needs to be a place where we can experiment with new ideas more
>freely.  You could argue that that should be in Wikipedia itself, but
>if so then there'd need to be a more static version in place first.
>Creating a new test project *is* a compromise.  It's saying "this idea
>isn't completely developed yet to where there is a consensus for
>including it in the main project, but we're not going to throw it away
>just because of that."
>
It's going to be a combination.  If the matter is encyclopedic by nature
the experimentation should be in Wikipedia, but the experiment should
not be shot down before it even has a chance.  Ditto for the sister
projects.  If a proposal has characteristics significantly different
from those of any sister project, only then should an entirely new
project be considered.

>>Until Wikipedia came along on-line genealogy was already
>>perhaps the best self-organized amateur research area on the net.
>>
>>
>Again this is largely proprietary and filled with barriers to the
>information being free.  I can't think of any other major site which
>allows for even the basics of what a wiki could offer.  There may be
>some minor sites out there doing this, but Wikimedia could do a much
>better job.
>
To get a grasp of what's being done in genealogy go to
http://www.cyndislist.com/ .  Most of these sites are run by amateurs,
but there are certainly some big ones that are in the business to make
money ... but then Wikipedia has mirror sites trying to make a buck
without contributing anything to the world's knowledge.  I don't know of
any genealogical sites built on a wiki principle, but that's not
essential.  The on-line genealogy community includes a disproportionate
number of seniors who learned their limited computer skills from their
grandchildren.  It's like no other major on-line community.

>>We have had our own 9-11 Wiki, but that has not exactly been a memorial
>>success.
>>
>>
>I think this is largely because it's not a very expandable project.
>The number of dead people in the world is much greater than the number
>of people who died in the September 11th tragedy, and the former is
>growing every moment.
>
Sure it's expandable.  We don't easily run out of tragedies.  It would
need to be renamed and repackaged with a broader mandate.  It doesn't
grow because its mandate is too narrow.

>Anyway, some of these projects will fail, and others will succeed.
>There is only so much volunteer time to go around, after all.  But I
>don't think it's really possible to figure out which ones are which
>without going ahead and trying it.  Perhaps most importantly, the harm
>is negligible.  A project which doesn't succeed isn't going to use up
>very many resources, after all.
>
There will be a point with some projects when you will see that it's
going nowhere, and so it is time to delete it.  What criteria do you use
to determine that point?

Ec


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
On 11/16/05, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> I disagree. I think it is a mistake to dismiss the article rating system
> _a priori_ as not being useful in the effort to create Wikipedia 1.0.
> This certainly is not the opinion of many participants on this list.

I second this. I would also like to stress that, while the current
validation feature may not be optimal, switching it on would allow us
to learn lessons and improve it. At the very least, assessed strenghts
and weaknesses can be useful in designing the next validation feature
- you know, the real one that will lead to 1.0 :-)

Alfio


from_name: Brown, Darin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
[[John Lauritsen]] was recently nominated for speedy deletion by some
ignorant moron. SPEEDY deletion. Absolutely unbelievable. How many more
cases do we have to show??

darin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 28, Issue 114

body:
On 11/16/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, I am very concerned about the attacks on blogs on Wikipedia given that
> the blogs under attack are clearly notable having received coverage in the
> mainstream media and with high levels
>
> I am working on updating WP:WEB to cover blogs. Hopefully, I will have draft
> criteria in place. Like it or not, blogs are becoming increasingly important
> in the media and we should ensure that we have decent coverage. If it is
> inspired by a two-bit organisation like GNAA that makes it even worse.
>
> I would welcome your input on the criteria and the information about the
> specific articles they have nominated. Members of the push would also be
> welcome.

Their hit list is directly available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Timecop/The_war_on_blogs. Redirects
also exist at WP:BLOGS and WP:BUTFUQ to give this the appearance of a
Wikipedia-sanctioned project.

Besides Timecop himself, the other sockpuppets I've identified so far are:
Femmina, JacksonBrown, impi.za, incognito, skrewler, Adamn, TedBerg,
Depakote, G0sp-hell and anon IPs 65.34.232.136, 86.2.56.178, and
70.240.91.19. Every one of these has virtually no edit history
whatsoever (or a history consisting of a handful edits at most) prior
to the launch of the blogwar. Some of their user pages even link
directly back to Timecop's blogwar master page; others actually try to
reassure us that they're not sockpuppets (which I might find touching,
except for the fact that their edit history is entirely consistent
with the sockpuppet thing.) This doesn't necessarily mean there aren't
others as well; these are just who I've identified so far.

There *are* some cases where I would personally also vote to delete if
there were actually a legitimate process going on, so I'm *not* just
targeting people who disagree with me...but as things currently stand,
casting a vote even when I happen to agree with the trolls would
simply be feeding them.

Craig


from_name: Sam Korn

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was How
	didthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
On 11/16/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Many times, the trivia belongs elsewhere - not deleted.  Though often
> some rigorous editing will get such a section reading much better.

Quite.  The point is that trivia sections in themselves (rather than
the facts they contain) are fairly worthless.

Sam


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
"J?v? Sull?v" <juvasul at ut.ee> wrote in message
news:VR4YWTEAFC42FA1ZMK72D8NI64QMGEKF.437b571d at SUVALINE...
> 16.11.2005 17:26:53, "Phil Boswell"
> <phil.boswell at gmail.com> kirot':
>
>>"Zordsdavini iz Litvy"
>><zordsdavini at gmail.com>
>>wrote in message
>>news:3dab1f080511102344s25ab96dbr at mail.gmail.com...
>>> this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like:
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba
>>> But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice
>>
>>Take a look at
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macron#Dot_and_Macron_for_Samogitian
>>
>>Does that look OK?
> Depends on browser. It looks quite OK in Opera (macron of the cap E is
> still a bit too
> low), but it doesn't appear correctly in Internet Explorer nor Avant
> Browser.

Depends heavily on what fonts you have installed.

I performed the operation using IE, so it's not a matter of "IE can't hack
it".

On a happy note, I have no non-free fonts installed on this machine, so it's
not impossible for anyone with access to the font-installation subsystem to
replicate my situation.

I strongly suspect that "Code2000" is responsible for my viewing pleasure in
this instance...Google for it to find your best download source.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: J S

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upgrade steps from 1.4.10 to 1.5.x

body:
Hi,

    Does anyone have the steps to upgrade from mediwiki 1.4.10 to
1.5.x. Details would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
~John


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Totally unscientific investigation...

body:
On 11/16/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Disclaimer: I acknowledge that there are *some* valuable teenage
> contributors to Wikipedia.
>
> *dons asbestos pants*
>
> We should kick all the kids off and block all schools indefinately.
> They're one of our greatest sources of vandalism and they are STUPID
> ANNOYING LITTLE KIDS. Who gives a stuff what they think. If they want to
> write "kiddipedia" let them, but this is a SERIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Disclaimer: I am a (valuable?) teenage contributor to Wikipedia.

I understand your point about vandals, but a far greater problem for
Wikipedia is trolling.  Very few trolls are teenagers.

We are a net good!

Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Totally unscientific investigation...

body:
On 11/16/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's been said before and I'll say it again. Just because it's
> verifiable doesn't mean it deserves an entry.
>
> Anyone visiting my website would be able to write a very verifiable
> article about it, but the fact remains that it receives very little
> visitors and simply doesn't warrant an entry in an encyclopedia.

But if it is independantly verifiable, which is the criterion I always
apply, then if likely *does* deserve an entry, or at least is entitled
to one.

Sam


body:
On 11/16/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> With all due respect, most teenagers don't have a clue. (Not many adults
> do either, but rangeblocking AOL will partially solve that problem.)

I find clueless users a lot easier to deal with than malicious ones.

I'm not sure this conversation is really a worthwhile use of my time...

Sam


from_name: Vladimir Tsichevski

body:
Hi,

I wonder why all fields in the MySQL  database which hold text are
implemented as binary data (blobs, mediumblobs etc.). MediaWiki expects
to read/write them in utf8.

It may be Ok for MediaWiki, but it is VERY inconvenient when it comes to
accessing the data from other tools.

I've managed to recreate my db just by replacing all `blob' occurences
by `text'. My wiki operates still the same, by now I can read Russian
text in db with any tool.

Regards,

Vladimir


from_name: candy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Help needed in page rendering

body:
hi all,

Can somebody help me with the folowing :

In wikipedia when we view the page of an article, it displays the
content of the page  and not the metadata such as author(s),page
timestamps etc. A part of these metadata is visible in the history
section where it displays all the page revisions. I want to change the
rendering of the page such that we have a new tab (say metadata) where
all the metadata information regarding that page is displayed.

I would like to know the procedure of how this can be done. I am using
mediawiki1.5 and have already tried hacking through the code. I have a
vague idea but its not very clear and concrete. Your advise,instruction
or help will be highly appreciated.

Thanking you,
C


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[Foundation-l] Incubator Wiki for New Wikimedia Projects (was
	Vote to create Wikiversity Vote)

body:
On 11/16/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >BTW, I was thinking more of "yellow pages" than "white pages" here.
> >The copyright on "yellow pages" is much stronger legally.
> >
> The copyright issue might not be such a big problem.  It's the
> mind-numbing tedium of writing a phone book that turns me off.  But then
> if we have enough minds that are numb enough, maybe they should go for
> it. :-)
>
> Ec

I dunno, maybe.  Depends how much of the task could be automated to
some extent, I guess.  Maybe wikis are bad for this type of problem, I
know one sure way to find out, though.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Brandon Cordy wrote:

>(we should probably move this discussion back to the mail list, but...)
>
>"A lesson to me?" I don't really care either way whether or not Wikipedia
>lists Billboard information; the legality of the issue was something that
>peopel felt should be inquired about (the question has been o nthe table for
>quite some time), and so it was. It's better to research something than to
>turn a blind eye to what very well could be an unallowable use of
>propriatery information.
>
The fact remains that information is not copyrightable; only its
presentation is.

If you copied the entire chart as presented by them that likely would be
a copyvio; reworking that information in your own way is likely acceptable.

"Unallowable use of proprietary information" suggests that you have
privileged access to that information and are somehow making public
something that should be confidential.

Research from a source which has vested interests is not reliable.

Ec


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Billboard charts

body:
On 11/16/05, Brandon Cordy <b.touch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, I kept talking to the Billboard rep, and he says he's willing to
> work out a cashless deal if we can send them traffic (which, as far as I
> know, we already do through the external links). We may not have to delete
> anything at all.

Such a license would be unacceptable to Wikipedia.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Of Pokemon and baseball

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>Incidentally, today's rather demoralising AfD: [[Wikipedia:Articles
>for deletion/Surviving veterans of the First World War]]. Nominated on
>_Sunday the 13th of November_. Oh, the timing.
>
As a dark aside to that one needs to admit that the contents will
diminish over time until there is no-one left to list in the article. :-)

Ec


from_name: Jüvä Sullõv

body:
Depends on browser. It looks quite OK in Opera (macron of the cap E is still a bit too
low), but it doesn't appear correctly in Internet Explorer nor Avant Browser.

V?rok

16.11.2005 17:26:53, "Phil Boswell" <phil.boswell at gmail.com> kirot':

>"Zordsdavini iz Litvy" <zordsdavini at gmail.com>
>wrote in message news:3dab1f080511102344s25ab96dbr at mail.gmail.com...
>> this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba
>> But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice
>
>Take a look at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macron#Dot_and_Macron_for_Samogitian
>
>Does that look OK?
>--
>Phil
>[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Brandon Cordy

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Billboard charts

body:
Actually, I kept talking to the Billboard rep, and he says he's willing to
work out a cashless deal if we can send them traffic (which, as far as I
know, we already do through the external links). We may not have to delete
anything at all.

On 11/16/05, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> I think that this is exactly right, and also implies that we may want to
> be
> proactive about other long lists of data or magazine rankings that we are
> keeping on Wikipedia at the moment. I believe there is some conversation
> at
> the Village Pump about the larger magazine-published list concern.
>
> Jkelly
>
> Quoting Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>:
>
> > Not sure how far they can take this. Surely we can say "X reached
> > number 4 in the Billboard Hot 100 in November, 2002". Some of those
> > lovingly crafted chronological tabulations are going to have to go.
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Keith Old

body:
Folks,
 Please see a Google news alert on recent stories featuring Wikipedia. The
Mail and Guardian article from South Africa relating to articles relevant to
that country is particularly interesting.
 The original article is here (
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=255920&area=/insight/insight__national/)
Our rugby articles were rated 10 out of 10 while our Media in South Africa
article performed poorly rating 2 out of 10.
   Regards.
 *Keith Old
*
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply at google.com>
Date: Nov 16, 2005 6:11 PM
Subject: Google Alert - Wikipedia
To: keithold at gmail.com

 Google Alert for: *Wikipedia*

*Wikipedia* springs into action after M&G Online
article<http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=256607&area=/insight/insight__national/>
Mail & Guardian Online - Johannesburg,South Africa
Wikipedians have taken to heart the Mail & Guardian Online's recent article
"Can you trust *Wikipedia*?" (November 10), which evaluated the quality of
entries on *...*

Wiki news: Of the people by the
people<http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5953168.html>
ZDNet - USA
*...* Wikis began in various forms, but it was the online encyclopedia known
as *Wikipedia* that propelled the concept into the popular consciousness. *
...*

 ------------------------------
 This as-it-happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.

Remove <http://www.google.com/alerts/remove?s=9a4f2425fa5d9963&hl=en> this
alert.
Create <http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en> another alert.
Manage <http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?hl=en> your alerts.


from_name: M. Creidieki Crouch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
> [[John Lauritsen]] was recently nominated for speedy deletion by some
> ignorant moron. SPEEDY deletion. Absolutely unbelievable. How many more
> cases do we have to show??

I assume you're making an argument against the "no claim of
notability" speedy criterion?  The current article doesn't state
notability; it mentions only profession.  Being an activist or
journalist aren't notable enough to merit automatic inclusion.  So
[[John Lauritsen]] seems to qualify.

-- Creidieki


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:
>
> On 16 Nov 2005, at 03:21, Stephen Bain wrote:
>
>> On 11/16/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> In US law it probably is ok to copy the whole thing verbatim, as
>>> compilations of facts (eg telephone directories) are not protected
>>> by copyright law. Charts might be different (we all know there is
>>> some creativity in their compilation...)
>>
>>
>> According to this page:
>> http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/about_us/bbmethodology.jsp
>> the Hot 100 (for example) is compiled using formulas combining sales
>> data and airplay data. I think that makes it more than a compilation
>> of facts.
>
>
> I suspect a weighted average of facts is still a fact. It is hard for
> them to argue as it is supposed to be an unbiased estimate of audience.
> What they might argue in court is a different matter.
>

The determination of weighting factors is a creative input and therefore
copyrightable...

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

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new project mailing lists

body:
On 11/14/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Would it be useful to separate discussion of new projects (incl.
> languages) to a separate mailing list?  It's currently taking a

I would like that.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that
proliferation of mailing lists is a positive thing, when done the
right way... but that we do not currently do it the right way.

One model which has been successful for other large online communities
is to spin off smaller topical lists when an active topic arises
(especially when the same set of people are always responding to
threads on that topic), with some simple structure that passes
summaries back to a parent list.

Example : the list carries out initial discussing, produces summaries
of fixed-time topics, and periodically summarizes ongoing threads.
Someone is responsible for passing summaries onto a parent list, and
for bringing discussions back to the parent list when they are more
relevant there -- e.g., when ther eis some discussion being made that
the whole community should take part in..

> disproportionate amount of general mailing list traffic (particularly
> wikipedia-l and foundation-l), so discussion of improving existing
> Wikipedias tends to get lost in the mess.  It's also a frequently

Right.  It would be useful to have a new- and minority-languages list.
 The people who chime in on those

> Of course, there is a danger that only a self-selecting and
> non-representative group would subscribe to such a mailing list, but

There is already that dnager -- only a self-selecting group bothers to
read the relevant threads, and sometimes people delete even important
new-language announceemnts or ideas because the occasional floods of
debate make them trigger happy.

> (I don't pretend this is an ideal solution either, especially since it
> adds to the proliferation of mailing lists, but the benefits seem to me

Starting discussions on a small, focused mailing lists can be
efficient; especially when there is at the same time too much traffic
on large lists (a common reason for unsubscribing), and too little
serious discussion of important topics (another common reason for
unsubscribing).

SJ


body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> "Alphax (Wikipedia email)"
> <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:43798F2F.50707 at gmail.com...
>
>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>><snip>
>>
>>>Unless we're adopting an extremely exclusionist approach to Wikipedia
>>>entries, such articles don't really belong on AfD at all.  They seem
>>>to be a symptom of simple laziness on the part of the nominators.
>>
>>Yeah, it's all these damn kids who think that if they've never heard of
>>something, it can't be important, but OH NOES! DON"T DELETE MY HIGH
>>SCHOOL! :-P
>
>
> I'm having difficulty discerning whether you're being ironic here, but
> yes...that is basically what is happening.
>

Disclaimer: I acknowledge that there are *some* valuable teenage
contributors to Wikipedia.

*dons asbestos pants*

We should kick all the kids off and block all schools indefinately.
They're one of our greatest sources of vandalism and they are STUPID
ANNOYING LITTLE KIDS. Who gives a stuff what they think. If they want to
write "kiddipedia" let them, but this is a SERIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Oh yes, we can delete all the Pokecruft and Pottercruft while we're at it.

> Articles are being nominated purely on the basis of "nn = I never heard of
> it" and heaven help the poor sod who attempts to interrupt the process
> because the nominator might not have checked carefully enough.

Any nomination of something for deletion by someone who isn't a subject
expert should be an automatic speedy keep on the basis that they don't
know what the hell they're on about.

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

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unusual Wikimedia logos

body:
Quite a few images claim to be official logos or designs used by the
Wikimedia foundation or by one of its projects.  I find that statement
hard to believe when applied to the following images.  Does anyone
care, or am I overly worried about what we allow to claim to be our
trademarks?

2001australia subaru 1 1152.jpg
Analemma in the sky.jpg
Arche.jpg
Beardpapaline.jpg
Boygirl.gif
CVU2.PNG
Epiphanywebbrowser.png
Filippino lippi.jpg
Fotopoulos.png
Grande arche de la defense no Hypercube.jpg
Miho2.PNG
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 front page screenshot.png
MozillaFirefox.png
Ncu skyline.jpg
Photo weeping angel two maxi.jpg
Solar-gradient.jpg

--
 Sean Barrett     | A positive attitude may not solve all
 sean at epoptic.org | your problems, but it will annoy enough
                  | people to make it worth the effort.


from_name: Mig

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: {{CURRENTSECOND}}

body:
You're rigth. This time (on another PC) it did work. Why is there such a big
difference? On the first pc it showed all the time 3 or 4, 5 or 6 and 3 or 4.
It seemed a bit weird like that.
So how do I install this, and where? I'm a complete noob on this...

Mig


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/16/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Possibly because no-one has found anything either funny or trivial which is
> actually relevant to a weather phenomenon that caused so much havoc.
>

> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>

Considering the 9/11 jokes and the diana jokes I'm sure lots of people
have found things funny about it.

--
geni


from_name: Scott Spence

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Using page property fields in Wiki Pages or templates,
	e.g. the page title - is this possible?

body:
Dear Wiki masters,

I am trying to make every page on my Wiki site link to a corresponding page
title on another Wiki (I have interwiki links set-up fine). Ideally I'd like
to use something like this in a template to link to the corresponding page
in the OtherWiki that has the same page title:

[[OtherWiki:{{{Page_Title}}}]]

This would (in my ideal world) then use the title of the page that the
template was called from to link to the interwiki using that page's title.

Is this possible? If not using template how about in the page itself?

Forgive me if this is obvious - I am just new at wiki configurations, and my
research so far has turned up very little.

Best wishes,

Scott

---
Scott.Spence at crazycolour.com
CC Consulting Ltd
Telephone:    0845 006 0826 (UK)
Messages/Fax: 0845 280 2048 (UK)
http://www.crazycolour.com/p2 - PRINCE2 Courses
http://www.crazycolour.com/itil - ITIL Courses
http://www.crazycolour.com/msp - Managing Successful Programmes Courses
http://www.crazycolour.com/store - Best Practice & Crazy Colour Store


from_name: charles matthews

body:
"Jtkiefer" wrote

> My suggestion is just to ignore them, the guardian has, is, and most
> likely be anti Wikipedia though for the life of me I don't know why
> they're so anti-us.

Aren't.  It takes Wikipedian blinkers to imagine the Guardian is hostile.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] the GNAA thing

body:
On 11/16/05, Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
> Yes, this is a very disturbing trend, however since the GNAA don't wear
> bullseyes on their IP's and edit from all sorts of places all around the
> world I have no idea how we could possibly stop this, I'm open to any
> ideas though.  My suggestion for this is to make a note on any relevant
> AFD that you suspect GNAA activity and if it's specific votes then note
> which votes you suspect and keep an eye out to make sure your note isn't
> deleted and the closing admin should hopefully take that into account
> and/or investigate further when closing the afd.
>
> -Jtkiefer

They are dissrupting wikipedia. The solution appears obvious.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [HelpDesk-l] permission

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>On 11/12/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think most of our fair use claims rely on C., that we're a
>>non-profit encyclopedia.  They rely primarily on the fact that we are an
>>encyclopedia, and using them for informational purposes.  I think a
>>for-profit encyclopedia could also make use of most of them for the same
>>reasons---for example, Britannica is probably well within their fair-use
>>rights to illustrate their encyclopedia article on "Super Mario World"
>>with a screenshot from the game.
>>
>>The major difficulty would come if people tried to reuse the content in
>>some form that made it no longer primarily  informational/educational;
>>if they simply distributed Wikipedia articles as is for profit, there's
>>unlikely to be an issue.
>>
>>
>Well, I was under the impression that restricting downstream use to
>informational/educational use was too restrictive for Wikipedia's
>goals, so I'm not sure your argument changes anything in the end.
>
>Even in a weaker interpretation, the argument still seems to imply
>that this policy places part of our project explicitly in a legal
>position which benefits non-for-profit and educational use in a
>disproportionate manner than it would for-profit and commercial use.
>I'm not sure whether this is compatible or not with Jimbo's feelings
>on re-use restrictions, though I imagine it likely comes down to how
>disproportionate one interprets this difference to be. I don't think
>there's any strong argument to say that such a difference does not
>exist, though -- it is just a question of how much the difference is.
>
>
This is all still only one of the four factors in fair use.  If we use a
fair use image our obligation to the downstream user is to let him know
that we are invoking fair use.  That forwarns him of possible problems.
A for-profit downstream user has a responsibility to do his own due
dilligence.  It would be completely irresponsible for him to say in
court that he used because Wikipedia said it was fair use.  We are not
in a position to indemnify every downstream user that copies material
from Wikipedia.  There are too many potential variables..  If someone
successfully sues a downstream re-user for something that he took from
our site it may simply be because the copyright owner never saw it on
our site. It may be that we recgnized and fied the problem when the
owner informed us, while our downstream user decided that this was the
time to be stubborn about it.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Am Mittwoch, den 16.11.2005, 14:34 +0000 schrieb Neil Harris:
> In my opinion, a Nupedia-style review procedure for every single article
> clearly can't  possibly scale to rate almost a million articles in any
> reasonable timescale -- the painfully slow featured article process, or
> the conflict-ridden AfD process are good examples of the limitations of
> formal article-rating systems.

Just in case, I have started an extension for an "import-only wiki",
where peer reviewers can import a specific version of an article from
Wikipedia, but *not* edit is (so it doesn't become a fork).

"extensions" module, "staticwiki.php". Not finished by far, not even
working currently. Could be soon, though.

Magnus


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] fundraiser idea box

body:
While I was cleaning up the feedback page for the Wikimedia site, I
isolated issues which are not directly bug fix up or translations
issues, but rather suggestions from various editors about fundraising.

I put these suggestions here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_idea_box

I thought that since we'll have a fundraiser soon, it might be the right
moment to suggest people to put there their ideas... or any suggestions
born from the last fundraiser.

Please do.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraiser idea box


subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
On 11/16/05, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>  And if the first suggestion above (24 hour wait before voting)
> were to be implemented, then users could simply tag an article {afd},
> much like they would tag it {db}, and the complicated part could be
> finished off by an admin at the end of the 24 hours.

Because we all know that admins are short of things to do.

--
geni


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
On 11/16/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because we all know that admins are short of things to do.

Compared to closing AfDs, that's no work at all.

Sam


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 28, Issue 115

body:
> On 11/17/05, Brown, Darin <Darin.Brown at enmu.edu> wrote:
>> [[John Lauritsen]] was recently nominated for speedy deletion by some
>> ignorant moron. SPEEDY deletion. Absolutely unbelievable. How many
>> more
>> cases do we have to show??
>>
>> darin

> From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> Yes, the speedy was probably by someone who wasn't well informed. You
> can avoid it by adding sources and expanding the entry so it's no
> longer a 2-sentence stub.

Cases of what? Cases of pages that weren't deleted?

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote
>
>
>>All excellent suggestions, but keep in mind that nominating something
>>for deletion is already a strenuous process for a lot of people. We
>>have to make sure it's still manageable to do so for a newbie.
>
>
>
> I would say that we do not have to make it manageable for a newbie. If
> they're that much of a newbie they have no business putting forward
> things to be deleted. If you feel otherwise, then why?
>

I second this suggestion. In addition, make enabling of it linked to the
enabling of the "move page" featured; those who were around when the
latter became restricted should more or less understand what this implies.

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

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikisource Copyright

body:
Ray Santionage wrote:

>>I've recently been in a discussion on the Wikisource website and I
>>would like some definitive answers about the licence that the text of
>>Wikisource is under and also about the policy with respect to fair use
>>on Wikisource. I've posted this question here as there is no dedicated
>>Wikisource mailing list that I can find.
>>

>In law there is seldom a definitive answer.  If you are looking for a
>simple solution it's not going to happen.  If somebody gives you one it
>is no solution.  Applying GFDL depends on whether that application is
>necessary.  Public domain, fair use and licenses are applied
>cumulatively, and not in a mutually exclusive fashion.  When someone
>puts a copyright notice on a web page or a book it really only means
>copyright to the extent that it is copyrightable; it clearly does not
>mean that everything on that page or book is copyright.  It may very
>well be that the only thing copyright about a page is its general layout
>and format, and that would be reason enough to add a copyright notice.
>The public domain or fair use nature of material is not modified by the
>application of a GFDL statement.  Being in the public domain obviates
>fair use claims.

I'm not asking for a definitive answer under law of the implications
that the licence that Wikisource is under entails. I'm asking for a
definitive answer about what licence the text of Wikisource is under.
The text of the Wikipedia is under the GFDL, there is no question of
that. There is a question as to whether Wikisource text must be GFDL,
GFDL-compatible or public domain, ie the same conditions as apply to
text posted to the Wikipedia, or whether those restrictions are not in
place. It is a straightforward question and if there is not a
straightforward answer we have a serious problem with Wikisource's
copyright situation.

>When considering the copyrightability of UN resolutions, or all UN
>documents for that matter, what law do you apply?  Is there a UN
>Copyright Act?  In the absence of such a law can any UN document be
>copyright?

In the United States I apply the US Code for the copyrightability of
UN documents. To quote from Title 17 Chapter 1 Section 104(b)(4), "the
work is first published by the United Nations or any of its
specialized agencies, or by the Organization of American States; or".
Therefore works of UN origin certainly can be copyrighted under US
law.

>>The British Act of Parliament is under Crown
>>copyright as it was passed in 2004. There is a waiver on copyright of
>>British statutes allowing them to be reproduced pretty freely, but it
>>does have conditions that are incompatible with the GFDL. On
>>Wikisource the rather dubious claim is also made that foreign statutes
>>and court decisions are not subject to copyright at all in the United
>>States.
>
>Why dubious?  Uncopyrightable in the interests of public policy is not a
>dubious claim

It is dubious because neither statute law nor case law support the
contention that foreign statutes and court decisions are automatically
public domain in the United States. Statute law, ie the US Code Title
17 Chapter 1 Section 105 is the relevant here for federal works,
"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work
of the United States Government, but the United States Government is
not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it
by assignment, bequest, or otherwise." Case law supports the
contention that state and local laws and court decisions are also in
the public domain. However, the arguements that apply that case law to
local and state laws and decisions, ie those about having public
access to the laws of the land, do not apply to foreign statutes and
decisions. Consequently to claim that such laws and decisions are
automatically public domain in the United States is unwise I would
say. There is no US law to apply to foreign statutes in this case
other than the ordinary rules of copyright law.

Your answer to my question about the licence for Wikisource implies
that it is subject to the GFDL for copyrighted works posted there in
the same way that the Wikipedia is. What is relevant in the particular
circumstances is that if copyrighted works must be covered by the GFDL
then copyrighted works that have licences incompatible with the GFDL
cannot be published on Wikisource. That means that British statutes
from 1955 and later cannot be published and UN resolutions cannot be
published as both are copyrighted works with licences that are
incompatible with the GFDL.

As for fair use, I have posted in the Scriptorium and the response has
disappointed me to say the least. The responses that I have received
have been contrary to the policy of Wikisource as set out at
[[Wikisource: Copyright]] and they indicate to me that the people
concerned do not have a deep understanding of copyright law, or if
they do they choose to ignore those bits of copyright law that they do
not like. The argument for fair use applying to entire documents in
incredibly weak, and no account seems to be take of that fact.

David Newton


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikisource Copyright


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
On 11/16/05, Brown, Darin <Darin.Brown at enmu.edu> wrote:
> [[John Lauritsen]] was recently nominated for speedy deletion by some
> ignorant moron. SPEEDY deletion. Absolutely unbelievable. How many more
> cases do we have to show??

Unless you say what you are trying to prove, probably quite a few.

Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Billboard charts

body:
On 11/16/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/16/05, Brandon Cordy <b.touch at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually, I kept talking to the Billboard rep, and he says he's willing to
> > work out a cashless deal if we can send them traffic (which, as far as I
> > know, we already do through the external links). We may not have to delete
> > anything at all.
>
> Such a license would be unacceptable to Wikipedia.

What if it were simply an agreement that Billboard would not sue so
long as they were cited as a source?  That isn't a content licence,
just an agreement to cite sources.

Which we do anyway.

This seems like more of Billboard's way of saving face than what could
be considered a licence agreement.

Naturally, as normal, IANAL.  Thank goodness.

Sam


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: "How to get a girl"

body:
> While not commenting on the merit of the "how to get a girl"
> Wikibook, I'd just
> like to say, as a co-founder of Wikibooks, that I never intended
> Wikibooks to
> only have what would classically be seen as textbooks (although
> that was the
> focus).
>
> Manuals, self-help guides, and even longer format reference books
> that are so
> popular in bookstores (such as a 200+ page biography about
> Napoleon) should,
> IMO, also be welcome. I also don't see how having those type of
> works on
> Wikibooks is in any way inconsistent with the foundation's goals.
>

The problem is that among the Wikibooks community there seems to be a
lot of consensus in keeping only the academic textbooks and moving
everything else to Wikicities: a book on Star Trek would probably be
deleted as someone will say it is better suited to Memory Alpha, or a
game guide on Gameinfo.  A lot of folks in the Wikibooks community
also like to adopt a version of Google's AdSense policies in trying
to make the 'books more like the 'cities.  This is one of the reasons
why I've left the Wikibooks community (the other is the lack of
something that combines wiki-editability with a relational database
paradigm).

Also to be noticed is how community consensus is very difficult on
Wikibooks: after all, why are we discussing what is and what is not
appropriate on Wikibooks.  The Wikibooks community has tried many
ways to keep everything in order: [[WB:NP]], [[WB:CCO]], among others
- it's just that none of them are flying (then again, there was a
time when WB had no active admins, either...).

On the subject of [[WB:NP]], not a lot are agreeing to it because of
limitations in the MediaWiki software itself: NP uses a hierarchy to
organize book structure, but that leads to long pages and long links,
and in many cases links are only within a book.  Furthermore, a lot
of users currently object to template and category naming
conventions, as well as "book shortcut" names (say, C for
[[Cookbook]]).  Also, how a book is defined has come into dispute:
some call [[Programming]] a book and [[Programming:C plus plus]] a
chapter in a book, while others say [[Programming:C plus plus]] is a
book and [[Programming]] a bookshelf (the debacle in which I was
involved led contributors to [[Programming:Ada]] move the entire book
to [[Ada programming]].

Then there's the debacle on what goes where - the material in
[[Biography of Nikola Tesla]] was moved to WB as WP editors feel it
didn't belong there, while it was deleted and undeleted over whether
a biography was considered to be instructional material (or at least,
belonging to WP rather than WB).

In short, Wikibooks has a really big problem of being vaguely
defined, or defined in such a way that there are many interpretations
of what to include in Wikibooks.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee members granted checkuser
	tool

body:
Anthere wrote:

> So, here I am. I am 37 years old. I am a volunteer just like you. I
> have two kids. I lost a baby in spring. I will have a fourth kid,
> hopefully early 2006. I am losing my job this week. And I am glad to
> be participating to Wikipedia (even if sometimes, it is a burden...).
> It is a good life overall :-)

I can only answer this with a quote:

> Tous les ?v?nements sont encha?n?s dans le meilleur des mondes
> possibles ; car enfin, si vous n'aviez pas ?t? chass? d'un beau
> ch?teau ? grands coups de pied dans le derri?re pour l'amour de Mlle
> Cun?gonde, si vous n'aviez pas ?t? mis ? l'Inquisition, si vous
> n'aviez pas couru l'Am?rique ? pied, si vous n'aviez pas donn? un bon
> coup d'?p?e au baron, si vous n'aviez pas perdu tous vos moutons du
> bon pays d'Eldorado, vous ne mangeriez pas ici des c?drats confits et
> des pistaches. -- Cela est bien dit, r?pondit Candide, mais il faut
> cultiver notre jardin.

Ec


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
Yes, the speedy was probably by someone who wasn't well informed. You
can avoid it by adding sources and expanding the entry so it's no
longer a 2-sentence stub.

On 11/17/05, Brown, Darin <Darin.Brown at enmu.edu> wrote:
> [[John Lauritsen]] was recently nominated for speedy deletion by some
> ignorant moron. SPEEDY deletion. Absolutely unbelievable. How many more
> cases do we have to show??
>
> darin
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] the GNAA thing

body:
Craig Schiller wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Timecop/The_war_on_blogs
>
> I can't *seriously* be the only person on all of Wikipedia who has a
> major problem with the idea of letting the GNAA (yes, really, *that*
> GNAA) unilaterally decide whether Wikipedia can or can't have articles
> about blogs, can I?
>
> Craig, who sure as hell hopes not
>

As per usual with the GNAA:

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

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

>I rather pay someone who is willing to be accountable and who we can
>therefore expect to be responsible.
>
Thank you for your generous offer.

Ec


body:
Carbonite wrote:

>On 11/14/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese
>>government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to
>>prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular
>>those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at
>>the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life
>>in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not
>>receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I
>>think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is
>>not a very good approach of the tool.
>>
>>
>If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should
>immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose
>their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website,
>they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of
>course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support
>removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However,
>ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves
>at risk.
>
That sounds like you don't think that people should stand up for what
they believe.

Ec


body:
Jack Lynch wrote:

>Assumably from advertised applications, like any other paid position?
>
>As far as the past, I would have preferred if Larry Sanger had stayed
>on, and in general that wikipedia had kept up w paid staffing. I saw
>from the recent budget that this idea is being returned to. Thats a
>good thing. Successful charities have paid staff.
>
>Jack (Sam Spade)
>
>On 11/13/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 11/13/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship.
>>>Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just
>>>time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
>>>
>>>Jack (Sam Spade)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where
>>are you going to get these expert admins from?
>>
>>
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid
staff.    I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working
for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.

Ec


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Billboard charts

body:
On 16 Nov 2005, at 23:56, Sam Korn wrote:

> On 11/16/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/16/05, Brandon Cordy <b.touch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Actually, I kept talking to the Billboard rep, and he says he's
>>> willing to
>>> work out a cashless deal if we can send them traffic (which, as
>>> far as I
>>> know, we already do through the external links). We may not have
>>> to delete
>>> anything at all.
>>
>> Such a license would be unacceptable to Wikipedia.
>
> What if it were simply an agreement that Billboard would not sue so
> long as they were cited as a source?  That isn't a content licence,
> just an agreement to cite sources.
>
> Which we do anyway.
>
> This seems like more of Billboard's way of saving face than what could
> be considered a licence agreement.

Someone could just delete the citation though.

Also who would sign off on it on wikimedias side?

It depends on the wording. If we agree to link Billboard to an article
we write on Billboard it might be ok. I would be interested to know what
they might accept, but I cant think of much we would really accept.
Other
than them saying that they dont really own it. Would rather delete
stuff.

Justinc


from_name: Jillian Waldman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: {{CURRENTSECOND}}

body:
Copy the text from the extension
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Algorithm/RandomSelection) into a
file called RandomSelection.php in docroot/extensions. (Depending on
your wiki version, you might need the older version of the extension
-- I did.)  Then add the line

require_once( "extensions/RandomSelection.php" );

to your LocalSettings.php and everything should just work. Use the
same markup as the examples given earlier in this thread to use the
random selection function.

I've just used this to enable random quotes to be shown at the top of
my Special:Recentchanges, which was a silly cosmetic feature I missed
from MoinMoin. Yay.

Jillian

On 11/16/05, Mig <Migdejong at hotmail.com> wrote:
> You're rigth. This time (on another PC) it did work. Why is there such a big
> difference? On the first pc it showed all the time 3 or 4, 5 or 6 and 3 or 4.
> It seemed a bit weird like that.
> So how do I install this, and where? I'm a complete noob on this...
>
> Mig
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD

body:
Ok I admit I listed an article for AfD.

[[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles E. H. Lucy]]

I think this might be the second time I have ever done this.

Music is not my think, but the article was created by the subject.

The other article he made [[Lucy tuning]] got fixed into a half
way decent article. I came across it because he decided his grandfather
needed to be linked into other articles.

I cannot understand the arguments. There is something referred to
as "userfied" which appears to be some agreement that if a user puts
something on their user page it is verifiable or something. I cant
work out what the people are saying. Inclined to vote for keep
myself even though I nominated it as vanity (which I think it is).

Anyone want to really run it through WP:MUSIC?

Justinc


from_name: Sergey Samoylov

subject: [Wikitech-l] Help with wiktionary

body:
Hi there...

I've just downloaded wiktionary dump. And wikimedia 4.12.
There is a problem that wiki code is redirected url with lower-case first
character in search phrase to upper-case first character.

For examle if I type
http://localhost/wiki412/index.php/true it's redirected to
http://localhost/wiki412/index.php/True

So I cannot reach the first url with world "true". What should I do for fix
it.

Thank you
Sergey


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
> G'day Mgm,
>
>> That'd make things easier, but we should watch out for
>> oversimplification. People would still need to explain WHY they think
>> it's vanity.
>
>
> Indeed.  There's a very real risk something like this could bring in the
>  "automated script" idea through the back door.
>
>   Please click on your reason for AfDing this article:
>    * NN
>    * Vanity
>    * Never heard of him
>    * Only 900 Google hits
>    * Article needs to be wikified
>    * Offensive to children
>    * My article on a Pok?mon fanfic's minor character was deleted this
>      morning
>    * PMS
>    * Entire article content is "He won the nobel prize!"
>

But they're all perfectly valid reasons for deleting! :-P

>
> WE'RE IN THE WORLD CUP FINALS!
>

HELL YEAH! IT'S AUSSIE TIME!

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD

body:
On 11/17/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> I cannot understand the arguments. There is something referred to
> as "userfied" which appears to be some agreement that if a user puts
> something on their user page it is verifiable or something. I cant
> work out what the people are saying. Inclined to vote for keep
> myself even though I nominated it as vanity (which I think it is).

userfied means moved to user namespace. We tend not to worry too much
what is there.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD suggestions

body:
G'day Mgm,

> That'd make things easier, but we should watch out for
> oversimplification. People would still need to explain WHY they think
> it's vanity.

Indeed.  There's a very real risk something like this could bring in the
  "automated script" idea through the back door.

   Please click on your reason for AfDing this article:
    * NN
    * Vanity
    * Never heard of him
    * Only 900 Google hits
    * Article needs to be wikified
    * Offensive to children
    * My article on a Pok?mon fanfic's minor character was deleted this
      morning
    * PMS
    * Entire article content is "He won the nobel prize!"

WE'RE IN THE WORLD CUP FINALS!

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.3/171 - Release Date: 15/11/2005


subject: [WikiEN-l] AfD

body:
On 17 Nov 2005, at 01:49, geni wrote:

> On 11/17/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>> I cannot understand the arguments. There is something referred to
>> as "userfied" which appears to be some agreement that if a user puts
>> something on their user page it is verifiable or something. I cant
>> work out what the people are saying. Inclined to vote for keep
>> myself even though I nominated it as vanity (which I think it is).
>
> userfied means moved to user namespace. We tend not to worry too much
> what is there.

Oh well in that case I misunderstood it. The article is still in
article space. I still dont understand what the comment about
userfied means then. Can some people write some stuff on the afd
that I can actually understand? Apart from the one reasonable comment
that it was borderline WP:MUSIC which was great.


body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 11/16/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Disclaimer: I acknowledge that there are *some* valuable teenage
>>contributors to Wikipedia.
>>
>>*dons asbestos pants*
>>
>>We should kick all the kids off and block all schools indefinately.
>>They're one of our greatest sources of vandalism and they are STUPID
>>ANNOYING LITTLE KIDS. Who gives a stuff what they think. If they want to
>>write "kiddipedia" let them, but this is a SERIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA.
>
>
> Disclaimer: I am a (valuable?) teenage contributor to Wikipedia.
>
> I understand your point about vandals, but a far greater problem for
> Wikipedia is trolling.  Very few trolls are teenagers.
>
> We are a net good!
>

With all due respect, most teenagers don't have a clue. (Not many adults
do either, but rangeblocking AOL will partially solve that problem.)

Oh yes, I forgot to mention: helpdesk-l gives a wonderful breakdown of
the sorts of people who are visiting our site, and (potentially) who is
mirroring us.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Unusual Wikimedia logos

body:
On 17 Nov 2005, at 03:05, Sean Barrett wrote:

> Quite a few images claim to be official logos or designs used by the
> Wikimedia foundation or by one of its projects.  I find that statement
> hard to believe when applied to the following images.  Does anyone
> care, or am I overly worried about what we allow to claim to be our
> trademarks?
>
> 2001australia subaru 1 1152.jpg
> Analemma in the sky.jpg
> Arche.jpg
> Beardpapaline.jpg
> Boygirl.gif
> CVU2.PNG
> Epiphanywebbrowser.png
> Filippino lippi.jpg
> Fotopoulos.png
> Grande arche de la defense no Hypercube.jpg
> Miho2.PNG
> Mozilla Firefox 1.0 front page screenshot.png
> MozillaFirefox.png
> Ncu skyline.jpg
> Photo weeping angel two maxi.jpg
> Solar-gradient.jpg

Yes, have fixed a few. Will look at the rest later.

Some are mistakes. Some people tag as anything to stop
images being deleted. Some are very unclear.

WP so slow that I cant really tell with some.

Justinc


from_name: Tom Cadden

subject: [WikiEN-l] People editing their own Wikipedia articles.

body:
I just thought of a real example. According to websites the world over the Prince of Wales's name is Charles Windsor. In reality, as his own office confirmed when it was being checked for Wikipedia, it is actually Charles Mountbatten-Windsor. We are one of the few correct sources of information on the net about it.

 Every so often someone comes along and does one of those damned google searches (god but those things 'prove' such crap!) and changes the article to say he is Charles Windsor. Before those of us who constantly correct it find the change, Charles himself or William (both of whom surf the net) find the mistake. Would WP allow them to correct the error?

 BTW Wikipedia HAS been read in Buckingham Palace, as I found when checking with BP about something for an article here. I mentioned us but before I even got a chance to say who what we were, the person I was speaking to came back 'oh yes. The big online encyclop?dia. It is really quite good. We've seen it here.'

 BTW the Queen is an avid net surfer. Who knows? She may be one of our anonymous Wikipedians. Maybe she is on this list for all we know. (If she is, Hi Ma'am!) lol

 Thom

Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote: On 11/15/05, Tom Cadden  wrote:
> But what if an article contains a widely believed 'fact' that actually is bullshit.
>
>  eg,
>
>  Michael was born in Toronto in 1956 and moved to Atlanta in 1961.
>
> But Michael finds the article and knows that he was born in Ottawa but his family moved to Toronto some months after his birth. Plenty of internet sites say Toronto but he knows for a fact that it is wrong. Can he correct that, or does he need to produce his birth certificate to correct an error about himself? lol

I suggest we say "unless there is some reason why we think he is
misleading us, believe him".  Unsourced accuracy actually is better
than sourced inaccuracy.  It's just that the wrong one conforms to
policy...

Sam
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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Editing you own article is not forbidden but is strongly discouraged.
There is no problem with Charles or William correcting an error of
this nature anonymously. A problem could arise if they begin
intensive editing in order to remove negative information or add
positive information. As the article is watched there is little
danger of plainly false negative information remaining anyway. In
more ordinary situations, as no one may be watching the article false
negative information may linger for a very long time and the
temptation will arise to remove it themselves or try by complaining
to get it removed. If basically the only published material about a
person is some negative incident they are in a bad fix. Other facts
about them are not sourced or notable.

One usual problem of autobiographical articles is not present here.
Charles is notable so the vanity page problem doesn't arise. Their
problem is quite different. If they are caught editing their pages
especially with respect to point of view they will look bad, not
dignified, and dignity is their prime asset.

Fred

On Nov 16, 2005, at 10:53 PM, Tom Cadden wrote:

> I just thought of a real example. According to websites the world
> over the Prince of Wales's name is Charles Windsor. In reality, as
> his own office confirmed when it was being checked for Wikipedia,
> it is actually Charles Mountbatten-Windsor. We are one of the few
> correct sources of information on the net about it.
>
>  Every so often someone comes along and does one of those damned
> google searches (god but those things 'prove' such crap!) and
> changes the article to say he is Charles Windsor. Before those of
> us who constantly correct it find the change, Charles himself or
> William (both of whom surf the net) find the mistake. Would WP
> allow them to correct the error?
>
>  BTW Wikipedia HAS been read in Buckingham Palace, as I found when
> checking with BP about something for an article here. I mentioned
> us but before I even got a chance to say who what we were, the
> person I was speaking to came back 'oh yes. The big online
> encyclop?dia. It is really quite good. We've seen it here.'
>
>  BTW the Queen is an avid net surfer. Who knows? She may be one of
> our anonymous Wikipedians. Maybe she is on this list for all we
> know. (If she is, Hi Ma'am!) lol
>
>  Thom