subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> ? but in any
> event all of the people commenting, including me, I think we all agree
> that it should be left up to those local communities to figure out what
> makes the most sense for them.

I believe this is documented (somewhere) as Wikimedia policy, but even
if not, it's the undisputed consensus of those involved with such
decisions.  It's certainly not for us to object if the Serbs get
together with the Croat community and decide to form a broader
organization, or if individual Bosnians simply want to join the
Serbian chapter (which they can, even now).

> In other cases, we will have chapters which cover only parts of some
> nations.  For example, a 'U.S. local chapter' makes no sense because the
> US is much much too big and diverse for that to be sensible.  I can
> easily imagine an "eastern seaboard" chapter, a "california" chapter,
> etc.  How to draw those lines, and why, well.... too early to speculate
> since no one has really tried to form one yet. :)

I could personally see, at least initially, something along the lines
of the Writers Guild of America?but as you say, so far it's only been
discussed in passing.  I've long had this plan to get interested
parties together at Wikimania for some preliminary talk, but I've been
preoccupied with other chapters and organizing the conference itself,
to say nothing of my day job, so it's remained something of a secret
plan.

Now that I've mentioned it, I suppose I actually have to do something about it.

Austin


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Austin Hair

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
>> No, we locked some troll pages very early on.  Speedy deleted a ton, as
>> well.  And blocked ip numbers regularly.  All of those are editing
>> restrictions.
>>
>
> How early on?

I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days.  Speedy
deleted stuff, too.  We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
course, it was just deletion.  As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
remember well.  We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.

--Jimbo


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection policy

body:
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > Nicholas Carr's criticism, while hyperbolic, is more right than wrong.
>
> Actually, I think it is completely wrong.  It completely misapprehends
> what is being discussed here.
>
> > Hiding information from users is not good.
>
> Right, but no one is proposing to hide information, merely to present
> the most useful information at the most useful time.  The template
> plastered at the top of the article has been a convenient approach
> because we were able to do it ourselves, without asking Brion to change
> anything.
>
> What we want to do is to be as welcoming of diverse participation as
> possible, while at the same time controlling for vandalism.  As we learn
> and think, we find better ways to do this.
>
> First, we forever had article protection and bans.  These are valuable
> tools, but we don't like article protection because it keeps people from
> editing *at all*.  And because it keeps people from editing *at all* we
> have to be very very sparing with the use.
>
> So, we thought about it long and hard, had a big discussion and a vote,
> and decided to *soften* article protection.  With semi-protection.  This
> has, in general, been a great success.  It is a softer tool, so it can
> be used a bit more broadly.  More people can edit more articles more
> often, and less drive by vandalism results.  So far, so good.
>
> Now, we are thinking again: how can we extend this?  How can we be more
> welcoming to editing?
>
> Well, one thing we know is that the big scary message at the top of
> articles discourages people from participation.  It makes it seem like
> we have locked articles when we have not locked articles.
>
> So the idea is to make the user interface better, to give people the
> information they need and want, when they need and want it, rather than
> thrusting on them something that they find confusing and misleading.
>
> Hence, the proposal: don't do the notification with a template, change
> the UI so that people are more encouraged to join the project and start
> editing...
>
> As with the softening of protection -> semi-protection, the concept here
> is to encourage more people to edit, while controlling for problems when
> they need to be controlled.
>
> Calling this sort of thoughtful tweak to policy "the death of Wikipedia"
> is more than hyberbolic, it is just factually wrong.

Your language is strikingly emotional.

You describe the actions you support as:
"thoughtful"
"tweak"
"softening"
"need and want"
"more welcoming"
"soften"
"softer"
"bit more"
"great success"
"better ways"
"thought long and hard"
"most useful"

The alternatives and alternative viewpoints are presented as:
"factually wrong"
"confusing and misleading"
"plastered"
"big scary"
 "discourages"

It would be interesting to try to edit down your argument into something
that was not so transparently biased. I'm not sure what would be left. But
it would be a start for having an honest discussion about this, rather than
an exercise in emotional pleading.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia

body:
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> >> No, we locked some troll pages very early on.  Speedy deleted a ton, as
> >> well.  And blocked ip numbers regularly.  All of those are editing
> >> restrictions.
> >>
> >
> > How early on?
>
> I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days.  Speedy
> deleted stuff, too.  We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
> course, it was just deletion.  As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
> remember well.  We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.

Deleting vandalism is very different from locking pages from editing.

Maybe it's inappropriate to make such strong claims about features always
being used --in an attack on someone else -- if you don't actually remember.


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
On 5/25/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > ? but in any
> > event all of the people commenting, including me, I think we all agree
> > that it should be left up to those local communities to figure out what
> > makes the most sense for them.
>
> I believe this is documented (somewhere) as Wikimedia policy, but even
> if not, it's the undisputed consensus of those involved with such
> decisions.  It's certainly not for us to object if the Serbs get
> together with the Croat community and decide to form a broader
> organization, or if individual Bosnians simply want to join the
> Serbian chapter (which they can, even now).

Just in case this wasn't clear (and I was just told it wasn't), I
still think the whole thing is an insanely bad idea, for reasons I
cover elsewhere in this thread.  I'll continue to do everything I can
to personally discourage it, but as a matter of policy it's not our
place to make demands either way.

Austin


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Elliott F. Cable

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geo meta tags on wiki pages

body:
Because it's not that useful, not a part of an original plan and
implemented by a third party, and not well implemented at that.
*Maybe* when it matures a bit, and a definite need can be established.

On May 25, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Plyd wrote:
> May I ask why?
>
> Plyd
>
> On 5/26/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Plyd wrote:
>>> Is there a schedule for the use of semantic mediawiki in wikipedia?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Prasad J

subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
> I don't mind giving him a small hint: start with a request to change
> user name to something less blatantly inflammatory.
>
Again, he can't do that while he is blocked,can he? Please let's not
get into the Islamophobia arguement again. Saladin might be a common
Arabic name for all you know.


from_name: Pecher

subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
Saladin is not a common Arabic name, not even an Arabic name at all, but a Latin transcription of Salah ad-Din, so this defense does not apply.

Pecher
-----Original Message-----
From: "Prasad J" <prasad59 at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:40:25 +0530
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

> > I don't mind giving him a small hint: start with a request to change
> > user name to something less blatantly inflammatory.
> >
> Again, he can't do that while he is blocked,can he? Please let's not
> get into the Islamophobia arguement again. Saladin might be a common
> Arabic name for all you know.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>In other cases, we will have chapters which cover only parts of some
>nations.  For example, a 'U.S. local chapter' makes no sense because the
>US is much much too big and diverse for that to be sensible.  I can
>easily imagine an "eastern seaboard" chapter, a "california" chapter,
>etc.  How to draw those lines, and why, well.... too early to speculate
>since no one has really tried to form one yet. :)
>
>
The U.S. is also somewhat unique in that it doesn't have a need for a
separate "Wikimedia U.S." to fill legal beaurocratic roles, because the
global Wikimedia Foundation is already headquartered in the U.S. and
subject to U.S. law, so can fill any of those roles itself (tax-exempt
donations, applying for U.S. grants, etc.).

I suppose for consistency's sake we could have the same setup in the
U.S., but from a pragmatic perspective it seems that as long as U.S.
Wikimedians trust the Wikimedia Foundation to handle the accounts and
legal aspects, the same effect could be accomplished just by having
non-incorporated/informal associations of U.S. Wikimedians do everything
a local foundation would normally do except for the legal aspects,
thereby avoiding legal and beaurocratic duplication.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Finne Boonen

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
On 5/25/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
> Yes, but Luxembourg, Swiss, Belgium, Monaco are so small that a coordination
> among  different chapters with the same language could be helpful.

Do explain why Dutch and French are suddenly the same language, or
Italian and Dutch?

Finne/henna

>
> Ilario
>
> >
> >But France, Luxembourg, Swiss, Belgium, Monaco are independant
> >countries. With different laws. Different tax considerations.
> >
> >And different chapters.
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Plyd wrote:
> Is there a schedule for the use of semantic mediawiki in wikipedia?

No.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
On 5/24/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/24/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > What would be neat,
> > however, would be the existence of a supra-national organization that could coordinate the
> > activities of different national chapters in the same region. Wikimedia Europa, for example,
> > and/or even smaller coordinating bodies such as Wikimedia Balkans.
>
> That was my first thought, too, but I don't think this direction is
> necessarily right. First of all, you end up with another legal body
> with another to-be-(s)elected group of representatives: more
> bureaucracy. More importantly, cooperations between chapters are
> likely going to be an "ad hoc" thing:
> - "Let's have an Eastern Europe meeting."
> - "Let's cooperate between DE and AT for a media campaign."
> - "Let's start a metadata project for digitized documents in Croatian
> and Serbian."
> - "Let's approach a Commonwealth organization for a grant."
>
> They can be derived from languages, regions, political associations,
> history, personal contacts, etc. Unless you want "meta-organizations"
> that model all these potential points of contact between chapters, I
> think what is really needed is simply efficient cross-chapter
> communication. In cases where you would want to say "Organized by
> Wikimedia Europe", you can instead say "Organized by the Wikimedia
> chapters of Europe". Where you need a single central organization to
> receive money, you can use the WMF.
>
> Is there a real need for anything else?

There might be at some point a need for a common european chapter if
we deal with eu institutions, but that would prolly be more a lobby
organisation

Finne/henna

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Isn't it getting to be time...

body:
On 5/25/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/ongoing/index.php/2006/

Excellent. I didn't realize there was so much coming in, even without
an active fundraiser. I agree with Ant (if that is what she meant)
that the "personal appeal" should probably show up for anonymous users
on all wikis. It would be even nicer if that message would change
regularly. I think it is important that people see that real progress
is made towards these ambitious goals (e.g. the OEPC project to put
Wikipedia on the "One Laptop Per Child").

As for another fundraiser, bring it on! :-)

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Notebook = Wiki ?

body:
On 5/25/06, Ben Francis <lists at hippygeek.co.uk> wrote:
> I mention this here because I've often thought that editing should
> happen on the same page as viewing on wikis. That doesn't mean to say
> that such an interface would be suitable for all uses of MediaWiki, but
> for some of the projects I've used MediaWiki for it would be perfect.

I think it'll still be quite a while until we have functionality like
that in MW, but this is a project you may want to look at:
http://openrecord.org/

They're developing a structured data wiki with an AJAXy UI. You can
see the basic idea demonstrated here:
http://openrecord.org/screencast.html

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> But the idea to move the HQ because of "top talent" sounds rather
> silly for an organization that was formed around several websites.
> There are plenty of companies which are entirely decentralized these
> days, not to mention that highly talented, intelligent, educated and
> passionate people can be found everywhere in the world. Even in
> Washington D.C.

Indeed. Who actually would go to this main office, and what would they do there?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> But the idea to move the HQ because of "top talent" sounds rather
> silly for an organization that was formed around several websites.
> There are plenty of companies which are entirely decentralized these
> days, not to mention that highly talented, intelligent, educated and
> passionate people can be found everywhere in the world. Even in
> Washington D.C.

Indeed. Who actually would go to this main office, and what would they do there?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> But the idea to move the HQ because of "top talent" sounds rather
> silly for an organization that was formed around several websites.
> There are plenty of companies which are entirely decentralized these
> days, not to mention that highly talented, intelligent, educated and
> passionate people can be found everywhere in the world. Even in
> Washington D.C.

Indeed. Who actually would go to this main office, and what would they do there?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> But the idea to move the HQ because of "top talent" sounds rather
> silly for an organization that was formed around several websites.
> There are plenty of companies which are entirely decentralized these
> days, not to mention that highly talented, intelligent, educated and
> passionate people can be found everywhere in the world. Even in
> Washington D.C.

Indeed. Who actually would go to this main office, and what would they do there?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] for slimline and the reference to harold shipman

body:
On 5/24/06, abu hamza <abuhamza1970 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> It was then removed repeatedly.

Which should tell you something. When multiple editors end up
reverting you about 8 times, you should probably stop trying to
re-insert the information and instead discuss it on the talk page,
seeking consensus.

> Thankfully there is NO WIKIPEDIA policy that states this is grounds for an
> indefinate ban???
>
> The issue here was not my obsession with putting it back in, but someones
> obsession with taking it out.

Um, actually the former is really what is an issue here. It was not
one person who kept removing it, but many. The issue here IS your
attempt to insert something which only you seemed to support, and as
such it is up to you to seek consensus to add it, not the other way
around.

There is plenty of precedent for banning people who continue to
attempt to insert POV into articles against the will of other editors.
The time to debate the content-aspect of the issue was before you keep
re-inserting it. At this point, as a behavior issue, it is pretty
clear to me that you were in the wrong.

FF


body:
Plyd wrote:
> May I ask why?

Why would there be?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] In which Snowspinner pwns WR.

body:
On 5/23/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >This is the way that news reports on police-investigated internet
> > fiction go, because that's a better story then the other way round.
> Everyone
> > likes to see an egghead brought down, especially in Florida.
>
> Not in England they don't.  We take civil liberties surprisingly
> seriously here. I strongly suspect America is the same.

Ha ha ha ha.

If you want, I'd be happy to point you to various Wikipedia entries on
recent topics.


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia

body:
On 5/25/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com>

>
> So far as I remember, during the UseModWiki days there were no restrictions
> on editing for a good while. Only after extended debate did Larry lock the
> front page.
>
> I believe it is false to claim that restrictions on editing have always been
> used.

In those days you had to send an email to someone (I forget who) with
an image attached to add an image to a page. That's a restriction
isn't it?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
You have GOT to be kidding me.

On 5/21/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> I was doing some research on ArbCom admonitions against personal attacks,
> and I came across a photograph on a user page where the subject of the
> photograph states that he is the creator.
>
> I refer to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PICT4101.JPG] which was
> clearly not taken by the subject, nor by using a tripod or other support
> such as a wall.
>
> In contrast, another photograph of the same user released under an
> identical
> license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PICT2085.JPG) is clearly taken
> by the subject by holding the camera at arm's length.
>
> While I applaud the photographer for his long record of contributions to
> WP,
> I must wonder about the ethics of claiming the work of another as his own,
> even if he is the subject of a photograph taken on his own camera.
>
> I suspect that a great many photographs of editors on WP would fall into
> the
> same category.
>
> In fact I raise the point because the photograph on my user page was
> removed
> under the same circumstances and if something is good for the goose, it
> should be equally as good for the gander(s).
>
> Pete, keen photographer
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] welch and consensus

body:
On 5/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Again, he can't do that while he is blocked,can he? Please let's not
> > get into the Islamophobia arguement again. Saladin might be a common
> > Arabic name for all you know.
>
>
>
> Offensive names are offensive names. Whether you actually intended them that
> way isn't relevant.

Hang on a minute. Why is Saladin an offensive username?

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>>> No, we locked some troll pages very early on.  Speedy deleted a ton, as
>>>> well.  And blocked ip numbers regularly.  All of those are editing
>>>> restrictions.
>>>>
>>> How early on?
>> I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days.  Speedy
>> deleted stuff, too.  We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
>> course, it was just deletion.  As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
>> remember well.  We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.
>
>
> Deleting vandalism is very different from locking pages from editing.
>
> Maybe it's inappropriate to make such strong claims about features always
> being used --in an attack on someone else -- if you don't actually remember.

Well, the features were always used.  You asked how early on, and that I
do not remember exactly.  Within the first month, though.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
On 5/25/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/25/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Again, he can't do that while he is blocked,can he? Please let's not
> > > get into the Islamophobia arguement again. Saladin might be a common
> > > Arabic name for all you know.
> >
> >
> >
> > Offensive names are offensive names. Whether you actually intended them that
> > way isn't relevant.
>
>
> Hang on a minute. Why is Saladin an offensive username?
>
> Theresa

Because he won and the west mostly got over it.

--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia (was: Proposal: limited extension
	of semi-protection policy)

body:
On 5/25/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/05/the_death_of_wi.php
> >
> > It is worth noting that Nicholas Carr has taken note of this thread to
> > announce the death of Wikipedia.  Apparently, 154 articles
> > semi-protected out of 1,151,768 is the end of open editing.

I just posted a comment. As it was the first thing i posted is was
being held in a moderation queue so that he can review it to make sure
i am not a troll i suppose.

Of course his blog is not wikipedia, and he has never made a claim
that anyone can comment but it made me smile anyway.

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
On 5/25/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 5/25/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Again, he can't do that while he is blocked,can he? Please let's not
> > > > get into the Islamophobia arguement again. Saladin might be a common
> > > > Arabic name for all you know.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Offensive names are offensive names. Whether you actually intended them that
> > > way isn't relevant.
> >
> >
> > Hang on a minute. Why is Saladin an offensive username?
> >
> > Theresa
>
> Because he won and the west mostly got over it.

Darn written communication - I can never tell if people ar joking or
not.  I assume you were but just in case you were not - would
alexander be considered offensive?
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> 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: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Do you mean about Belgium? Because a chapter is nation-based and not language-based,
as you can see in Wikimedia CH (German, French, Italian, Romansh and Alemmanisch
former Wikipedians in same chapter).

Ilario

>-- Messaggio originale --
>Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:16:01 +0200
>From: "Finne Boonen" <finne at cassia.be>
>To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro
>Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>
>
>On 5/25/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> Yes, but Luxembourg, Swiss, Belgium, Monaco are so small that a coordination
>> among  different chapters with the same language could be helpful.
>
>Do explain why Dutch and French are suddenly the same language, or
>Italian and Dutch?
>
>Finne/henna
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

references:
<e52qja$7qm$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4427D02900143550@mssdzhb.msg.bluewin.ch>
	<91ca6cdf0605250616v6e3166b9y8fab2beb244b0d63@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 5/25/06, Finne Boonen <finne at cassia.be> wrote:

> > Yes, but Luxembourg, Swiss, Belgium, Monaco are so small that a coordination
> > among  different chapters with the same language could be helpful.
>
> Do explain why Dutch and French are suddenly the same language, or
> Italian and Dutch?

I believe you misunderstood Florence here.

"different chapters *with* the same language" never meant that the
chapters have *only* one language." What she meant is that some
different chapters already/will/can have languages in common, not that
the Belgian or the Swiss *should* be French-speaking only.

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection

body:
geni wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>> But, she has a stalker.
>>
>> The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.
>>
>> Do we cite those?
>
> Depends. Who is the stalker? Who reported on the stalking?

Precisely my point.  It is an editorial judgment.  We can't say "just
because it is true and verifiable we should post it in wikipedia".

--Jimbo


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> But, she has a stalker.
>>
>> The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.
>
> After posting them to his blog, he adds them to Wikipedia. That, at
> least, seems to be the usual way in which we receive these
> "criticisms", which makes it rather easy to justify removing them. I
> have yet to see the case where the _community_, after looking into a
> matter, has erred on the side of inclusion of bad, incoherent
> material.

Agreed.  As I said, judging things like this is something that we are
quite good at, as a community.

The point of my example was to show that there is no simple binary
answer to questions like that.  Each case requires judgment of
thoughtful editors.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> I can NOT emphasize this enough.
>
> There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
> random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
> tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
> aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
> information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
> living persons.
>
> I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project
> just for being lousy writers.  (This is not a policy statement, just a
> statement of attitude and frustration.)

Heh. What is the source of your ever-increasing frustration?


from_name: Nick Jenkins

body:
He has a got a point. It could be nice to be able to include that
stuff in the META headers, by having the geolinks templates ( such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Coordinates_templates ) include
some wikitext like "{{GEOHEADER|long=151.21459|lat=-33.87531}}", where
"GEOHEADER" was a magic wiki word, that did a "-01234567890." sanity
check on the args (like RFC, ISBN, and PMID), and if it checked out
included the appropriate headers.

However, some devil's advocate questions come to mind:
* How used are these headers, really? Is it a niche thing?
* If it's niche thing currently, then why? Is the reason because it's
useless / a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem, or is it a niche thing
because nobody has put up a large corpus of useful data that uses it
yet?
* Are there standards that cover this stuff? Have those standards been
ratified / broadly agreed up / standardized / progressed beyond draft
status / reached consensus by some independent group / body /
organisation?
* Which of the format or formats are we talking about? For example,
from http://webtips.dan.info/titles.html , I see there are things like
this:

<META name="geo.position" content="26.367559;-80.12172">
<META name="geo.region" content="US-FL">
<META name="geo.placename" content="Boca Raton, FL">
<META name="ICBM" content="26.367559, -80.12172">

( see http://geotags.com/geo/geotags2.html and
http://geourl.org/add.html ; seems also to be some info about Flickr
tags on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoTagging about using yet
another method)
* Would it be just "ICBM" we're taking about, or just "geo.position",
or both? Because they seem to be doing exactly the same thing.
* What about "geo.region", and "geo.placename"?

All the best,
Nick.

> This code only tells MediaWiki to embed the contents of
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Mapit-AUS-suburbscale> into the
> article. Right now, no template is able to modify anything within the
> <head> tag, which is where any <meta> tag would reside. It might be
> possible to use sitewide JavaScript to do it, but then that wouldn't be
> useful for search engines.
>
> Neil Phillips wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > An increasing number of wiki pages use the
> >
> > {{Mapit-AUS-suburbscale|long=151.21459|lat=-33.87531}}
> >
> > Type notation to indicate the page relates to a specific location.
> >
> > Where would I go to request that this information is also embedded into a
> > meta tag for the page e.g.
> > <meta name="ICBM" content="-33.87531,151.21459" />
> >
> > So capable browsers/search engines can use this information more
> > semantically ?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Neil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia

body:
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >> The Cunctator wrote:
> >>>> No, we locked some troll pages very early on.  Speedy deleted a ton,
> as
> >>>> well.  And blocked ip numbers regularly.  All of those are editing
> >>>> restrictions.
> >>>>
> >>> How early on?
> >> I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days.  Speedy
> >> deleted stuff, too.  We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
> >> course, it was just deletion.  As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
> >> remember well.  We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.
> >
> >
> > Deleting vandalism is very different from locking pages from editing.
> >
> > Maybe it's inappropriate to make such strong claims about features
> always
> > being used --in an attack on someone else -- if you don't actually
> remember.
>
> Well, the features were always used.  You asked how early on, and that I
> do not remember exactly.  Within the first month, though.

Eh. I remember how explosively a big deal it was to lock the front page, and
I don't remember locking being used before that. Maybe my memory's faulty,
but I get the feeling I'm witnessing some minor rewriting (or let's just say
"changing the emphasis") of history here.


body:
On 5/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/05/the_death_of_wi.php
>
> It is worth noting that Nicholas Carr has taken note of this thread to
> announce the death of Wikipedia.  Apparently, 154 articles
> semi-protected out of 1,151,768 is the end of open editing.

Not that your argument through statistics is in any way meaningful.
154 /1,151,768 is more than 100 ppm; 100 ppm of carbon monoxide, mercury,
arsenic, sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde,
benzene, ammonia, etc. would kill you dead. Or at least give you any number
of horrible cancers.

Water is fluoridated to 1 ppm.

Motorcycles cause 0.22 deaths per million vehicle miles. New Zealand has 100
maternal deaths per million births. Drugs kill about 100 per million people
in US urban areas.

In other words, that 154 articles are semiprotected out of a population of
1.2 million could be insignificant, great, or terrible.

But on its own it's just a factoid, not a counterargument.


from_name: Jean-Denis Vauguet

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Robin Shannon a ?crit :
> On 26/05/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> Do you mean about Belgium? Because a chapter is nation-based and not
>> language-based,
>> as you can see in Wikimedia CH (German, French, Italian, Romansh and
>> Alemmanisch
>> former Wikipedians in same chapter).
>>
>> Ilario
>>
>
> Well since our projects are language and not country based it surely
> makes some sense to base our bureaucracy on a language basis no?

A pragmatic issue is that associations/foundations follow national laws,
not international guidelines as in P2P or distributed project. The same
prevails for local parterniship and so on.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Robin Shannon a ?crit :
> On 26/05/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> Do you mean about Belgium? Because a chapter is nation-based and not
>> language-based,
>> as you can see in Wikimedia CH (German, French, Italian, Romansh and
>> Alemmanisch
>> former Wikipedians in same chapter).
>>
>> Ilario
>>
>
> Well since our projects are language and not country based it surely
> makes some sense to base our bureaucracy on a language basis no?

A pragmatic issue is that associations/foundations follow national laws,
not international guidelines as in P2P or distributed project. The same
prevails for local parterniship and so on.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Robin Shannon a ?crit :
> On 26/05/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> Do you mean about Belgium? Because a chapter is nation-based and not
>> language-based,
>> as you can see in Wikimedia CH (German, French, Italian, Romansh and
>> Alemmanisch
>> former Wikipedians in same chapter).
>>
>> Ilario
>>
>
> Well since our projects are language and not country based it surely
> makes some sense to base our bureaucracy on a language basis no?

A pragmatic issue is that associations/foundations follow national laws,
not international guidelines as in P2P or distributed project. The same
prevails for local parterniship and so on.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Robin Shannon a ?crit :
> On 26/05/06, valdelli at bluemail.ch <valdelli at bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> Do you mean about Belgium? Because a chapter is nation-based and not
>> language-based,
>> as you can see in Wikimedia CH (German, French, Italian, Romansh and
>> Alemmanisch
>> former Wikipedians in same chapter).
>>
>> Ilario
>>
>
> Well since our projects are language and not country based it surely
> makes some sense to base our bureaucracy on a language basis no?

A pragmatic issue is that associations/foundations follow national laws,
not international guidelines as in P2P or distributed project. The same
prevails for local parterniship and so on.

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from_name: Angela

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Sep 11 memorial, systemic bias, lunacy in Wikipedians,
	and other fine topics (was Re: jaygy and indefinate ban)

body:
On 5/22/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

> It may have escaped your notice, but the "9/11 Memorial Wiki" is not a
> part of Wikipedia (IIRC it's on Wikicities, but ICBW).

That wiki is not, and never was, part of Wikia (formerly Wikicities).
It's a Wikimedia project with a Wikipedia URL, and the vote on meta at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/9/11_wiki_move_proposal shows there was
never any support (including from me) of it being moved to Wikicities.

Angela


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
On Thu, 2006-05-25 at 22:27 +0530, Prasad J wrote:
> Saladin was a Muslim and he was fighting the Christians during the
> Crusades. Most Wikipedians are Christians so they are obviously going
> to be against anyone who calls himself Saladin. But would you react
> the same way if I chose the pseudonym "Richard the Lionheart"? Please
> don't start becoming Islamophobic-it sucks.

"Most wikipedians are Christians"? This falls far short of our standards
of citation. I suspect its not true.

I dont think anyone should name themselves after other people.
Personally I edit under my real name (slightly abbreviated) and
I think that or an arbitrary handle for people who wish to remain
anonymous is fine. Using someone elses name is not, whether they
are dead or alive.

Justinc


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Erik Zachte wrote:
> Erik Moeller:
>
>> "We also need to take into account laws that might be relevant to our
>>
> website operations.
>
>> This is esp. true, unfortunately, in developing countries.
>> There may also be critical variations across US states."
>>
>
> This would indeed be a complicating factor, if the web server would fall
> under the jurisdiction of the country that hosts the main office. Not sure
> if that would necessarily be the case. Maybe depends on which country we
> choose?
>

That could be avoided by not really having a "main office" in the
traditional sense, but just offices where and when (and if) they're
needed.  St. Petersburg could remain the place of incorporation of the
Foundation and its official mailing address, while actual physical
offices can be opened as needed.  If there's a lot of work in Africa
necessitating some local physical presence, we could have a Nairobi
office, and it could be much bigger than the St. Petersburg office.
What's designated "main office" is more a legal formality; there's no
need for us to have one giant office in which everything takes place and
designate it "Wikimedia World Headquarters".

(Incidentally, that's how globalized "real companies" are increasingly
running things; the giant centralized main headquarters is no longer in
vogue.)

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
--- Michael Davis <mdavis at wikia.com> wrote:
> I'm not aware of any plans that call for massive hiring in a central
> office.  Most office hiring will be for routine administrative/clerical
> functions which will be much cheaper outside of a major metropolitan
> areas.  Flights from St. Petersburg to NYC or DC are $200 round trip and
> are easy day trips.  International flights are more difficult but that
> hasn't slowed down Jimbo.  Given that the Foundations pays $400 per
> month for office space, it's a whole lot cheaper to fly back and forth a
> few time a month than lease office space in Manhattan.
>
> Our strength is that we are a virtual organization and that isn't going
> to change.

Nobody is advocating having an office in Manhattan. That would be insanely expensive. But having
one in suburb of Washington D.C. would be both cost effective and put us within a metro ride of
hundreds of potential contacts; both representatives from various nations and many other
like-minded organizations. Having our top paid staff there would even be more effective.

There are real limits to the amount that can get done via email, IRC, and telephones. For example,
we were able to do more work in the January face-to-face meeting than we did in the previous six
months. Face-to-face communication simply has a much higher bandwith (as does having direct
physical access to records). Increasing the opportunity for that by physical proximity to the
people we want and need to be in contact with, can only reap great benefits.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


body:
--- Michael Davis <mdavis at wikia.com> wrote:
> Fundraising is far more a public relations/communications function than
> finance or tech.  All finance needs to do is say how much money we need;
> tech can assist in the implementation but the success or failure of a
> fundraiser depends on how effective we are communicating with the
> donors.  I'd recommend fundraising be a function of the communications
> committee with significant help from other group within the foundation.

I disagree. Fundraising requires a combination of tech, communication, and finance functions. It
does not really fit in any one role.

-- mav

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from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] Thai project status

in_reply_to:
<4471EB8F.6070405@telus.net>;
	from saintonge@telus.net on Mon, May 22, 2006 at 09:49:19AM -0700

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 09:49:19AM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> This sounds like you are trying to promote a new cabal. :-)

OMG, Cabal! :-)

Actually, having heard what Waerth told me, and assuming good faith,
it might be useful if some key people do actually get a brief
briefing on Waerths current Thailand activities soon, if possible.

5 minutes never hurt anyone, after all.

After that, they can then decide for themselves.

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

--
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5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72


subject: [Foundation-l] Thai project status


body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Nod, a good option as well.
>
> ... only point... Mav is not a member of the comcom. Is that a problem ?

I object for this reason: A great many people who would help with fundraising have little to no
concern about the other functions the communication committee does. The only role I see the comcom
playing in fundraising is creating a press release to announce the start and another press release
to announce the end.

What communication goes on in-between has more to do with financial reporting (daily reports,
which requires access to our financial records ; not something the comcom is set-up for). Comcom
should play a role, but so should finance and tech. My point is that no one pre-thought of
committee is a good fit to handle fundraising. Thus the need for a separate body.

--mav

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Max Völkel

body:
Hello Neil and all,

> An increasing number of wiki pages use the

> {{Mapit-AUS-suburbscale|long=151.21459|lat=-33.87531}}

> Type notation to indicate the page relates to a specific location.

> Where would I go to request that this information is also embedded into a
> meta tag for the page e.g.
> <meta name="ICBM" content="-33.87531,151.21459" />

> So capable browsers/search engines can use this information more
> semantically ?
One  option would be to use the "Semantic MediaWiki" [1] extension and
simply  annotate the template. Then each page has a link in its header
to an RDF file containingthe information.

A sample of such an annotated page is at
http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php?title=Bundeena%2C_New_South_Wales

- it looks exactly as always (but has a header link to RDF). The trick is in the tempate:
http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php/Template:Geolinks-AUS-suburbscale

and the result is this RDF:
<!-- exported page data -->
        <smw:Thing rdf:about="&thing;Bundeena-2C_New_South_Wales">
                <rdfs:label>Bundeena, New South Wales</rdfs:label>
                <smw:hasArticle rdf:resource="&wikiurl;Bundeena%2C_New_South_Wales"/>
                <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="&wikiurl;Special:ExportRDF/Bundeena%2C_New_South_Wales"/>
                <attribute:Longitude rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal">151.15406</attribute:Longitude>
                <attribute:Latitute rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal">-34.08806</attribute:Latitute>
        </smw:Thing>

Does this help?

[1] http://wiki.ontoworld.org

Kind regards,

  Max V?lkel
--
Dipl.-Inform. Max V?lkel, Universit?t Karlsruhe / FZI
            nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org
voelkel at fzi.de   +49 721 9654-854   www.xam.de

First Workshop on Semantic Wikis: http://semwiki.org


body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Let's simply create a fundraising committee. If some one wants to
> dissolve it later, or attached it to another already existing
> committee... fine.

That is exactly what I want. You convinced me months ago that fundraising is not really a good fit
under finance, communications, or tech. IMO, it really should be its own thing, since it requires
a bit of all three.

> Can you draft for us a resolution with
> * the creation of a fund raising committee
> * description of the goal
> * a team
> * a delegation for this fundraising
>
> I'll post it on the board wiki and we'll see if the board acts (votes...)

Deal. :)

-- mav

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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Usernames (was: Re: welch and consensus)

body:
On 5/25/06, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk> wrote:

> We do need to be a bit careful about this, I think, or we do run the
> risk of thoughtlessly impose Anglo-US values on an international project.

Hmm, there must be examples of names that aren't particularly offensive in
"Anglo-US" culture but that are overseas?

> For instance, the username policy forbids using the 'names of religious
> figures', but in many parts of the world it's common for people to be
> named after such figures: off the top of my head, I know several
> Spaniards called Jes?s.

And Mohammed as well. Establish a list of acceptable exceptions?

> 'Offensive names are offensive names' is either categorically untrue or
> essentially empty of meaning. (Either it means that there is some
> absolute standard for what is offensive, which there isn't, or it means
> that any name that could be found offensive by anyone, anywhere in the
> world should not be permitted, which, given the apparent ability of
> people to get worked up about nothing, would probably lead to all of us
> getting socked with indefinite username bans).

See whether anyone gets worked up about the name within the first two weeks,
if not, it's ok?

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
--- Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> Okay, so even if this was the case, would the foundation be wanting to
> rent or buy?  Buying would obviously be more cost-effective, but how
> much would the foundation be willing to spend on a new office?
> Doesn't most of the current budget go towards server upkeep/purchase,
> etc.?  Do we happen to have a tens of thousand of US dollars just
> laying around?  If meetups are more effective, why not just schedule
> more regular meet ups?  Meet in a library or some other suitable
> meeting area.  I came into this convo a little late, forgive my
> noobishness.

A couple more thousand per month would have a very minimal impact on a multi-million dollar per
year budget. There is a significant opportunity cost of having to set up meetings way in advance
because all the key people need to fly into one place vs simply having key people already on the
ground where we know contacts are already located.

What key non-Wikimedia contacts are in St Pete? None outside the tourist industry and Scientology
AFAIK. What key non-Wikimedia contacts are in D.C. and NYC? Representatives from just about every
nation on earth along with hundreds of like-minded organizations that share different parts of our
goals. If we had an office near D.C. or NYC, then meeting with any one of those key contacts could
be done casually, often, and without much notice beforehand.

Strengthening ties like that is a great opportunity. Are we going to throw that away by pretending
that email and IRC with the occasional real world meeting have anything near the bandwidth of
frequent face-to-face communication?

-- mav

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
--- Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Washington is (and more importantly is thought of as) an *American*
> not international administrative centre. It would send a bad message
> to the rest of the world if we moved there.

That is symbolism over substance and thus not a valid argument in my book. Besides, D.C. itself is
too expensive, the office would be in a suburb (preferably reasonably close to a Metro station).

-- mav

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Mav wrote:

quote

"...But, IMO, we should seriously consider a better place for the Wikimedia
main office before hiring lots of people. St Pete is fine as a tourist
destination and maybe even as a satellite office of the foundation given
that two board members and Danny live there, but the host city of the main
office of an international organization? Sorry, but no.

Washington D.C. or NYC are places where almost every nation of world sends
their ambassadors and where a multitude of other international
organizations, which we really should be working closely with, are based.
Talent pool is another consideration; many more people with the relevant
experience we need already live in those cities."

---

As on several earlier occasions I disagree with Mav on how Wikimedia money
would be best spent. Washington D.C. or NYC are very expensive cities.
Besides, those are cities with heavily political connotations. Of course
there is no such thing as a political neutral location. Maybe St Petersburg
USA comes close, not sure ;)

We might show the world that we still do things differently, not per se, but
when there is a good reason for it. We might do something substantial for
the underdeveloped world by placing our head office in e.g. Africa or India.
Wikimedia involvement in many underdeveloped countries is still largely
lagging behind. We might reach out and make a powerful gesture of good faith
in the potential of those parts of the world.

To name just one example: Nairobi would be a capable host city. Even the UN
has a head office there. Running an office in Africa or India would be much
cheaper. In a web-connected world travel times and costs are no longer very
strong arguments against this.

Erik Zachte


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
On 5/25/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> Darn written communication - I can never tell if people ar joking or
> not.  I assume you were but just in case you were not - would
> alexander be considered offensive?

Acutaly I missread what you wrote and included a not. However an
editor named Megas Alexandros who insisted on editing the
Greek-macedonia section could be a problem.

--
geni


body:
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> But, she has a stalker.
>
> The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.
>
> Do we cite those?

Depends. Who is the stalker? Who reported on the stalking?

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> The U.S. is also somewhat unique in that it doesn't have a need for a
> separate "Wikimedia U.S." to fill legal beaurocratic roles, because the
> global Wikimedia Foundation is already headquartered in the U.S. and
> subject to U.S. law, so can fill any of those roles itself (tax-exempt
> donations, applying for U.S. grants, etc.).

I see the role of the foundation to be outward looking/global and the role of a U.S. chapter to be
focused on establishing connections within the U.S. and providing a club framework. A club in a
particular area, for example, would organize meet-ups whereby members would collect photos and
information from particular areas and for particular events. They would also be points of contact
between Wikimedia and local academic, civic, and non-profit persons and groups.

Wikimedia U.S. would also be a membership organization whereas membership in the parent
organization is hampered by the fact that it only legally exists in one nation.

> I suppose for consistency's sake we could have the same setup in the
> U.S., but from a pragmatic perspective it seems that as long as U.S.
> Wikimedians trust the Wikimedia Foundation to handle the accounts and
> legal aspects, the same effect could be accomplished just by having
> non-incorporated/informal associations of U.S. Wikimedians do everything
> a local foundation would normally do except for the legal aspects,
> thereby avoiding legal and beaurocratic duplication.

There are many areas where the two organizations will not overlap. Making sure to minimize any
unnecessary duplication will be a significant challenge *and* opportunity (each organization can
then focus on their respective strengths). The little bit of duplicated overhead will not pose a
problem once the Wikimedia Foundation hires a proper Executive Director and a couple other
directors to run things (thus giving volunteers like me more time to devote to forming a U.S.
chapter).

-- mav

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subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Michael Davis

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
I'm not aware of any plans that call for massive hiring in a central
office.  Most office hiring will be for routine administrative/clerical
functions which will be much cheaper outside of a major metropolitan
areas.  Flights from St. Petersburg to NYC or DC are $200 round trip and
are easy day trips.  International flights are more difficult but that
hasn't slowed down Jimbo.  Given that the Foundations pays $400 per
month for office space, it's a whole lot cheaper to fly back and forth a
few time a month than lease office space in Manhattan.

Our strength is that we are a virtual organization and that isn't going
to change.

Michael

Erik Zachte wrote:
> Mav wrote:
>
> quote
>
> "...But, IMO, we should seriously consider a better place for the Wikimedia
> main office before hiring lots of people. St Pete is fine as a tourist
> destination and maybe even as a satellite office of the foundation given
> that two board members and Danny live there, but the host city of the main
> office of an international organization? Sorry, but no.
>
> Washington D.C. or NYC are places where almost every nation of world sends
> their ambassadors and where a multitude of other international
> organizations, which we really should be working closely with, are based.
> Talent pool is another consideration; many more people with the relevant
> experience we need already live in those cities."
>
> ---
>
> As on several earlier occasions I disagree with Mav on how Wikimedia money
> would be best spent. Washington D.C. or NYC are very expensive cities.
> Besides, those are cities with heavily political connotations. Of course
> there is no such thing as a political neutral location. Maybe St Petersburg
> USA comes close, not sure ;)
>
> We might show the world that we still do things differently, not per se, but
> when there is a good reason for it. We might do something substantial for
> the underdeveloped world by placing our head office in e.g. Africa or India.
> Wikimedia involvement in many underdeveloped countries is still largely
> lagging behind. We might reach out and make a powerful gesture of good faith
> in the potential of those parts of the world.
>
> To name just one example: Nairobi would be a capable host city. Even the UN
> has a head office there. Running an office in Africa or India would be much
> cheaper. In a web-connected world travel times and costs are no longer very
> strong arguments against this.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


body:
Fundraising is far more a public relations/communications function than
finance or tech.  All finance needs to do is say how much money we need;
tech can assist in the implementation but the success or failure of a
fundraiser depends on how effective we are communicating with the
donors.  I'd recommend fundraising be a function of the communications
committee with significant help from other group within the foundation.

Michael

Anthere wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>> --- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>
>
>>> So, I'd say we would definitely benefit from a fundraising. It is not
>>> *urgent* but we need to anticipate before it becomes urgent.
>>>
>> I told the board before that I will not run another fundraiser without the help from a duly
>> created fundraising committee. Nobody from the board has proposed the creation of such a committee
>> yet and I won't waste my time (as I did with trying to help staff the finance committee) until the
>> board acts.
>>
>
> Now, now...shhhh
>
> Right, we never succeeded to create a decent financial committee.
> This said, I am not convinced the fundraising should be part of the
> financial committee (it involves as well technical needs, communication
> issues etc...) and I would suggest that we should not get stuck on such
> bureaucratic details.
>
> Let's simply create a fundraising committee. If some one wants to
> dissolve it later, or attached it to another already existing
> committee... fine.
>
> Can you draft for us a resolution with
> * the creation of a fundraising committee
> * description of the goal
> * a team
> * a delegation for this fundraising
>
> I'll post it on the board wiki and we'll see if the board acts (votes...)
>
> (make it several resolutions if you feel necessary)
>
>
>
>> We also really should pass a budget for the rest of the year before we have a fundraiser. I'm
>> going to send the spending forecast you aleady have to the officers and committees this weekend.
>> Hopefully, it won't take long to turn that into a proposed budget for the board to vote one.
>>
>> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>>
>> __________________________________________________
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>> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>> http://mail.yahoo.com
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 25, 2006, at 9:44 PM, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>> Please just delete this obvious example of merica-centric bias. It is
>> an insult to the many other people across the world who have died in
>> terror attacks for you to make such a big deal about one incident,
>> just because it happened in America.
>>
>
> How many other single terrorist attacks were captured on live
> television
> and resulted in the deaths of almost 3000 people?

C'mon, Alphax, you know better than this. "You have been trolled. You
have lost. Have a nice day." Sound familiar?

I've been sending these messages off-list for days and it hasn't
helped. So I'm taking it on-list. Don't feed the trolls.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Michael Davis wrote:
> I'm not aware of any plans that call for massive hiring in a central
> office.  Most office hiring will be for routine administrative/clerical
> functions which will be much cheaper outside of a major metropolitan
> areas.  Flights from St. Petersburg to NYC or DC are $200 round trip and
> are easy day trips.  International flights are more difficult but that
> hasn't slowed down Jimbo.  Given that the Foundations pays $400 per
> month for office space, it's a whole lot cheaper to fly back and forth a
> few time a month than lease office space in Manhattan.
>
> Our strength is that we are a virtual organization and that isn't going
> to change.

Fully seconded.  One of our strengths is extremely low costs implying
strong independence and no fears about our financial future.  Adding a
lot of staff and the rent and salary costs associated with an office in
an expensive city does not appear to me very compelling, to say the least.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


body:
Anthere wrote:
> Nod, a good option as well.
>
> ... only point... Mav is not a member of the comcom. Is that a problem ?

I think he would be a welcome addition, if he is willing.

--Jimbo


from_name: Selina .

subject: [WikiEN-l] ( First post ) RE: "In which Snowspinner pwns WR."

body:
> Funny that fiction about stalking someone raises alarm bells on WR, given that they welcome amorrow and similar editors.
> I suspect Snowspinner could collect a lot of valuable advice on what it's like to be a creepy psychopath from some of WR's more respected contributors.

Tolerate =\= respected. ;)
http://wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=1386&st=20#entry7870
http://wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=1298#entry7257
http://wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=1298#entry7218
I'm not sure how you got that conclusion, but posting a lot does not
equal "respected" either :) You can't really attack the site for
allowing a few wackos to post, there's plenty of crazies (from all
kind of POVs, religions and ideologies) on Wikipedia too.
If you're wondering why I haven't banned him, I seriously thought
about it but I don't think it would achieve much. If he wasn't ranting
on there he'd probably be sending creepy emails or something anyway,
banning him from WR wouldn't actually achieve much, certainly ain't
gonna change his behavior.

One thing a lot of Wikipedia users seem to do is group everyone at WR
as though they're one person with some single goal or whatever.
Totally untrue. For all the nuts there are reasonable conversations
too, General Discussion is usually pretty clean

Anyway, as it's my first post I just thought I'd say hi. :) I am, of
course, WR user #1 ( http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser=1 )
otherwise known as Mistress Selina Kyle :) I expect loads will
probably want to flame me and all but whatever, I know a lot tend to
ignore NPA when it suits them. ;) (if you don't think that applies
here, read this: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ,
I did - hint, it's at the very bottom)

-Selina ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=41845454
/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=47363392
(an archive as you can see by going to current version of talk, just
not a proper archive ~shrug~ I didn't do it, not my fault it's a
weirdly done "archive"))
(p.s. "Bob" wasn't me, first I heard about it was on WR)


body:
Who is stalking who? Sorry I missed the start of the convo

If you're talking about Amorrow again, I can get rid of that crap, but I
just don't think it would have any change on his behaviour - maybe a verbal
restraining order or something could be a good move.

-Selina

On 25/05/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> geni wrote:
> > On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >> But, she has a stalker.
> >>
> >> The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.
> >>
> >> Do we cite those?
> >
> > Depends. Who is the stalker? Who reported on the stalking?
>
> Precisely my point.  It is an editorial judgment.  We can't say "just
> because it is true and verifiable we should post it in wikipedia".
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Erik Moeller

body:
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> But, she has a stalker.
>
> The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.

After posting them to his blog, he adds them to Wikipedia. That, at
least, seems to be the usual way in which we receive these
"criticisms", which makes it rather easy to justify removing them. I
have yet to see the case where the _community_, after looking into a
matter, has erred on the side of inclusion of bad, incoherent
material. It sometimes happens that small groups build a consensus to
accept certain material, but once it receives community attention, I
think our processes generally work fine.

Semi-protection together with listing a page in a well-watched
category is a perfectly fine method for dealing with problem articles
and, as has been stated many times, much preferable to the hard
protection which we would likely be using instead for the same purpose
if semi-protection didn't exist. It's a community method which is open
to all serious existing contributors, and reasonably open to new ones
(they just have to wait a few days).

The only thing we need to be cautious about is silent creep of
permanently semi-protected pages, not out of maliciousness, but simply
because people forget to unprotect, esp. after the label is removed.
Maintenance categories and the like can hopefully take care of that,
though.

Erik


from_name: Prasad J

subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
Saladin was a Muslim and he was fighting the Christians during the
Crusades. Most Wikipedians are Christians so they are obviously going
to be against anyone who calls himself Saladin. But would you react
the same way if I chose the pseudonym "Richard the Lionheart"? Please
don't start becoming Islamophobic-it sucks.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 24/05/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Do you really think libel about some obscure living person is worse
> than, say, incorrect information in [[suicide]], [[cocaine]], or
> [[Basque country]], so much so that it's worth taking special measures
> for the category of living people that aren't taken for any other
> category of article?

...and, indeed, you can say Bill Gates eats the babies of his staff
just as libellously in [[Microsoft]] as you can in [[Bill Gates]].

(Um, not that he does. Hello to the Microsoft lawyer with a very odd
search string)

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


from_name: Molu

body:
  Message: 2
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:15:32 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <4475F444.90806 at wikia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I think we should be thoughtful about our responsibilities and exercise
good editorial judgment in all cases. This is not a violation of NPOV,
it is what NPOV is all about.

Reporting unsourced allegations with a bogus "some say..." or "critics
have said..." when the only such critics are random hate sites on the
Internet (for example) is hardly neutral, in that it creates the
impression of a controversy where none exists.

Let me give a more detailed hypothetical to explain what I mean.

Some minor celebrity, a television star, has a relatively
uncontroversial public persona. Just the usual, starred in this
television show which was in the top 50 television shows in the US from
1997-2001, appeared in 3 television movies, etc. She is not super
famous, so the total number of traditional verifiable sources about her
is rather small.

But, she has a stalker.

The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.

Do we cite those? Here I would come down with Mark Gallagher, quite
firmly. It may be true that thus-and-such blogger has said whatever,
but so what? Taking what would otherwise be a bland 5 paragraph bio,
and turning it into a mouthpiece for a stalker is not neutral.

Not every truth belongs in Wikipedia.

Because there are no rationalistic or simplistic rules for what counts
as information we ought to be providing to the public, editorial
judgment is necessary. That's what Wikipedia is really good at.

Molu wrote:
> I submit that this is a terrible standard for WIkipedia to aim for,
> and the day Wikipedia starts doing that is the day Wikipedia as we
> know it has died a horrible death. When the government of PRC censors
> content critical of them, they say those content were banned because
> they are "not in the public interest".
>
> IMO, none of the two criterias you mention are good criterias for
> inclusion in WIkipedia. Wikipedia does not report the Truth?, only
> the NPOV. As for public interest, let the public decide what is in
> their interest, wikipedia is not the appointed moral guardian of the
> society (and in case Jimbo received that appointment letter I hope he
> has burned it).
>
> Molu
>
> On Wed, 24 May 2006 13:40:28 +1000 Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
>> I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for
>> (even if we don't need to). If something is not true *and* in the
>> public interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone,
>> in particular living people. That's not a legal decision, it's an
>> editorial (and, if you like, moral) one. We should be displaying
>> more discretion than simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in". Wikipedia
>> is not an indiscriminate collection of facts.
>
>
>> -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my
>> head!" - Danger Mouse
>
> --------------------------------- Ring'em or ping'em. Make
> PC-to-phone calls as low as 1?/min with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.
> _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:18:14 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <4475F4E6.9030805 at wikia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Matt Brown wrote:
> We could screw it up one of two ways. One is like Usenet's endless
> September. The influx of new people could swamp the culture of the
> place, drive off long-time contributors, and lower standards until
> nothing useful was being done anymore.
>
> The other would be to react to popularity by over-reacting, pulling up
> the drawbridge and shutting ourselves off from the world at large.
> Becoming less welcoming, less friendly, more elitist.
>
> IMO, we have to be very careful not to do things that send us too far
> in one direction or other.

:) Yes, I agree absolutely. It has always been a balancing act, and
always will be.

--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:20:27 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <4475F56B.7000402 at wikia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The Cunctator wrote:
>> No, we locked some troll pages very early on. Speedy deleted a ton, as
>> well. And blocked ip numbers regularly. All of those are editing
>> restrictions.
>>
>
> How early on?

I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days. Speedy
deleted stuff, too. We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
course, it was just deletion. As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
remember well. We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.

--Jimbo

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:21:01 -0400
From: "The Cunctator"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
policy
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > Nicholas Carr's criticism, while hyperbolic, is more right than wrong.
>
> Actually, I think it is completely wrong. It completely misapprehends
> what is being discussed here.
>
> > Hiding information from users is not good.
>
> Right, but no one is proposing to hide information, merely to present
> the most useful information at the most useful time. The template
> plastered at the top of the article has been a convenient approach
> because we were able to do it ourselves, without asking Brion to change
> anything.
>
> What we want to do is to be as welcoming of diverse participation as
> possible, while at the same time controlling for vandalism. As we learn
> and think, we find better ways to do this.
>
> First, we forever had article protection and bans. These are valuable
> tools, but we don't like article protection because it keeps people from
> editing *at all*. And because it keeps people from editing *at all* we
> have to be very very sparing with the use.
>
> So, we thought about it long and hard, had a big discussion and a vote,
> and decided to *soften* article protection. With semi-protection. This
> has, in general, been a great success. It is a softer tool, so it can
> be used a bit more broadly. More people can edit more articles more
> often, and less drive by vandalism results. So far, so good.
>
> Now, we are thinking again: how can we extend this? How can we be more
> welcoming to editing?
>
> Well, one thing we know is that the big scary message at the top of
> articles discourages people from participation. It makes it seem like
> we have locked articles when we have not locked articles.
>
> So the idea is to make the user interface better, to give people the
> information they need and want, when they need and want it, rather than
> thrusting on them something that they find confusing and misleading.
>
> Hence, the proposal: don't do the notification with a template, change
> the UI so that people are more encouraged to join the project and start
> editing...
>
> As with the softening of protection -> semi-protection, the concept here
> is to encourage more people to edit, while controlling for problems when
> they need to be controlled.
>
> Calling this sort of thoughtful tweak to policy "the death of Wikipedia"
> is more than hyberbolic, it is just factually wrong.

Your language is strikingly emotional.

You describe the actions you support as:
"thoughtful"
"tweak"
"softening"
"need and want"
"more welcoming"
"soften"
"softer"
"bit more"
"great success"
"better ways"
"thought long and hard"
"most useful"

The alternatives and alternative viewpoints are presented as:
"factually wrong"
"confusing and misleading"
"plastered"
"big scary"
"discourages"

It would be interesting to try to edit down your argument into something
that was not so transparently biased. I'm not sure what would be left. But
it would be a start for having an honest discussion about this, rather than
an exercise in emotional pleading.

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:24:40 -0400
From: "The Cunctator"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> >> No, we locked some troll pages very early on. Speedy deleted a ton, as
> >> well. And blocked ip numbers regularly. All of those are editing
> >> restrictions.
> >>
> >
> > How early on?
>
> I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days. Speedy
> deleted stuff, too. We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
> course, it was just deletion. As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
> remember well. We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.

Deleting vandalism is very different from locking pages from editing.

Maybe it's inappropriate to make such strong claims about features always
being used --in an attack on someone else -- if you don't actually remember.

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 20:36:33 +0200
From: "Steve Bennett"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Usernames (was: Re: welch and consensus)
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 5/25/06, Nick Boalch wrote:

> We do need to be a bit careful about this, I think, or we do run the
> risk of thoughtlessly impose Anglo-US values on an international project.

Hmm, there must be examples of names that aren't particularly offensive in
"Anglo-US" culture but that are overseas?

> For instance, the username policy forbids using the 'names of religious
> figures', but in many parts of the world it's common for people to be
> named after such figures: off the top of my head, I know several
> Spaniards called Jes?s.

And Mohammed as well. Establish a list of acceptable exceptions?

> 'Offensive names are offensive names' is either categorically untrue or
> essentially empty of meaning. (Either it means that there is some
> absolute standard for what is offensive, which there isn't, or it means
> that any name that could be found offensive by anyone, anywhere in the
> world should not be permitted, which, given the apparent ability of
> people to get worked up about nothing, would probably lead to all of us
> getting socked with indefinite username bans).

See whether anyone gets worked up about the name within the first two weeks,
if not, it's ok?

Steve

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 13:21:02 -0600
From: Fred Bauder
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia
To: English Wikipedia
Cc: Fred Bauder
Message-ID: <22442BB2-CECF-4438-982B-862DF1722BFE at ctelco.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

True, but much preferable to endless wack a mole.

Fred

On May 25, 2006, at 8:56 AM, The Cunctator wrote:

> Redvers and Jimbo made the claim that "Restrictions on editing -
> specifically the ability to prevent an article from being edited -
> have
> always existed and have always been used. Semi-protection actually
> *increased* the number of people able to edit, by doing away with
> the need
> to completely lock many articles."
>
> So far as I remember, during the UseModWiki days there were no
> restrictions
> on editing for a good while. Only after extended debate did Larry
> lock the
> front page.
>
> I believe it is false to claim that restrictions on editing have
> always been
> used.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:36:03 -0400
From: Fastfission
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] for slimline and the reference to harold
shipman
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:
<98dd099a0605251236x764c2a03vbb153010f99d3461 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 5/24/06, abu hamza wrote:
> It was then removed repeatedly.

Which should tell you something. When multiple editors end up
reverting you about 8 times, you should probably stop trying to
re-insert the information and instead discuss it on the talk page,
seeking consensus.

> Thankfully there is NO WIKIPEDIA policy that states this is grounds for an
> indefinate ban???
>
> The issue here was not my obsession with putting it back in, but someones
> obsession with taking it out.

Um, actually the former is really what is an issue here. It was not
one person who kept removing it, but many. The issue here IS your
attempt to insert something which only you seemed to support, and as
such it is up to you to seek consensus to add it, not the other way
around.

There is plenty of precedent for banning people who continue to
attempt to insert POV into articles against the will of other editors.
The time to debate the content-aspect of the issue was before you keep
re-inserting it. At this point, as a behavior issue, it is pretty
clear to me that you were in the wrong.

FF

------------------------------

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body:
I'm afraid we must agree to disagree.

  Molu

    On Thu, 25 May 2006 14:15:32 -0400 Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I think we should be thoughtful about our responsibilities and exercise
>good editorial judgment in all cases. This is not a violation of NPOV,
>it is what NPOV is all about.

>Reporting unsourced allegations with a bogus "some say..." or "critics
>have said..." when the only such critics are random hate sites on the
>Internet (for example) is hardly neutral, in that it creates the
>impression of a controversy where none exists.
  <snip>

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from_name: Death Phoenix

body:
On 5/25/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Semi-protection together with listing a page in a well-watched
> category is a perfectly fine method for dealing with problem articles
> and, as has been stated many times, much preferable to the hard
> protection which we would likely be using instead for the same purpose
> if semi-protection didn't exist. It's a community method which is open
> to all serious existing contributors, and reasonably open to new ones
> (they just have to wait a few days).
>
> The only thing we need to be cautious about is silent creep of
> permanently semi-protected pages, not out of maliciousness, but simply
> because people forget to unprotect, esp. after the label is removed.
> Maintenance categories and the like can hopefully take care of that,
> though.
>

Since we don't want to add potentially confusing messages to the user, but
want to have a template that would give us a tool to link semi-protected
articles in a category, how about placing a semi-protection notice in the
Talk page instead of the main article page?


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
On 5/25/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There are real limits to the amount that can get done via email, IRC, and telephones. For example,
> we were able to do more work in the January face-to-face meeting than we did in the previous six
> months. Face-to-face communication simply has a much higher bandwith (as does having direct
> physical access to records). Increasing the opportunity for that by physical proximity to the
> people we want and need to be in contact with, can only reap great benefits.
>
> -- mav

Okay, so even if this was the case, would the foundation be wanting to
rent or buy?  Buying would obviously be more cost-effective, but how
much would the foundation be willing to spend on a new office?
Doesn't most of the current budget go towards server upkeep/purchase,
etc.?  Do we happen to have a tens of thousand of US dollars just
laying around?  If meetups are more effective, why not just schedule
more regular meet ups?  Meet in a library or some other suitable
meeting area.  I came into this convo a little late, forgive my
noobishness.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sep 11 memorial, systemic bias, lunacy in

body:
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 2,00,000.

  Molu
  On Fri, 26 May 2006 14:14:31 +0930 "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" wrote:

>G'day Prasad,
>> Please just delete this obvious example of merica-centric bias. It is
>> an insult to the many other people across the world who have died in
>> terror attacks for you to make such a big deal about one incident,
>> just because it happened in America.
>>

>How many other single terrorist attacks were captured on live television
>and resulted in the deaths of almost 3000 people?

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from_name: Plyd

body:
Is there a schedule for the use of semantic mediawiki in wikipedia?

Plyd

On 5/25/06, Max V?lkel <voelkel at fzi.de> wrote:
> Hello Neil and all,
>
> > An increasing number of wiki pages use the
>
> > {{Mapit-AUS-suburbscale|long=151.21459|lat=-33.87531}}
>
> > Type notation to indicate the page relates to a specific location.
>
> > Where would I go to request that this information is also embedded into a
> > meta tag for the page e.g.
> > <meta name="ICBM" content="-33.87531,151.21459" />
>
> > So capable browsers/search engines can use this information more
> > semantically ?
> One  option would be to use the "Semantic MediaWiki" [1] extension and
> simply  annotate the template. Then each page has a link in its header
> to an RDF file containingthe information.
>
> A sample of such an annotated page is at
> http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php?title=Bundeena%2C_New_South_Wales
>
> - it looks exactly as always (but has a header link to RDF). The trick is in the tempate:
> http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php/Template:Geolinks-AUS-suburbscale
>
> and the result is this RDF:
> <!-- exported page data -->
>         <smw:Thing rdf:about="&thing;Bundeena-2C_New_South_Wales">
>                 <rdfs:label>Bundeena, New South Wales</rdfs:label>
>                 <smw:hasArticle rdf:resource="&wikiurl;Bundeena%2C_New_South_Wales"/>
>                 <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="&wikiurl;Special:ExportRDF/Bundeena%2C_New_South_Wales"/>
>                 <attribute:Longitude rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal">151.15406</attribute:Longitude>
>                 <attribute:Latitute rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal">-34.08806</attribute:Latitute>
>         </smw:Thing>
>
> Does this help?
>
> [1] http://wiki.ontoworld.org
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>   Max V?lkel
> --
> Dipl.-Inform. Max V?lkel, Universit?t Karlsruhe / FZI
>             nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org
> voelkel at fzi.de   +49 721 9654-854   www.xam.de
>
> First Workshop on Semantic Wikis: http://semwiki.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-26

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 313 of 322 tests (97.2%) FAILED!


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
On 5/25/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Not the suburbs of D.C. and to some extent parts of the NYC outside of Manhattan. The point, is to
> be in a place where we can most easily establish connections with other nations and like-minded
> organizations. Cost of rent is nothing compared to the synergies that would develop my being where
> all the action is. Not to mention being a job market where we can find top talent.

NYC makes sense to a certain degree because of the internationality
(UN, UNICEF), though of course relevant conferences and meetings are
held in many different locations around the world. Geneva or Brussels
would also work for the same reasons, and for some which do not apply
to NYC. Personally I don't mind the US HQ because it keeps most of the
legal trouble an ocean away from us EUians.

We also need to take into account laws that might be relevant to our
website operations. This is esp. true, unfortunately, in developing
countries.  There may also be critical variations across US states.

But the idea to move the HQ because of "top talent" sounds rather
silly for an organization that was formed around several websites.
There are plenty of companies which are entirely decentralized these
days, not to mention that highly talented, intelligent, educated and
passionate people can be found everywhere in the world. Even in
Washington D.C.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Isn't it getting to be time... (correction)

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Donations through PayPal are roughly between 25 to 35 000 dollars per
>>week. It might be interesting to generalize the idea of putting the
>>permanent donation link at the top of pages.
>
>
> Errrr, per week? If it's per week, we can go and sleep a little more
> soundly. If I remember weel, it is per month rather.

Gaaaaa.

Michael sent the exact numbers

Donations
J : 372,317.44
F : 38,430.26
M : 34,106.87
A : 40,790.72

May is higher because we got a special donation (<small><small> you
know, the 70 000 one </small></small>)


body:
May I ask why?

Plyd

On 5/26/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Plyd wrote:
> > Is there a schedule for the use of semantic mediawiki in wikipedia?
>
> No.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


body:
On 26/05/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day Angela,
>
> > On 5/22/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au>
> wrote:
> >
> >> It may have escaped your notice, but the "9/11 Memorial Wiki" is not a
> >> part of Wikipedia (IIRC it's on Wikicities, but ICBW).
> >
> > That wiki is not, and never was, part of Wikia (formerly Wikicities).
> > It's a Wikimedia project with a Wikipedia URL, and the vote on meta at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/9/11_wiki_move_proposal shows there was
> > never any support (including from me) of it being moved to Wikicities.
>
> Yeah, as Prasad pointed out, that was a case of shooting the ol' mouth
> off without checking if the facts backed me up first (fear not, I don't
> do this while writing *articles* ...).  Whoops.
>
> While the Wikimedia Foundation is, of course, free to host what it
> likes, I don't think something like this belongs at wiki*pedia*.org.
>
>
>

Liberalism gone crazy, there's nothing wrong with a memorial to 9/11...

Bear in mind this is an Australian advocating it's deletion, not an
American.

-Selina


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>>So, I'd say we would definitely benefit from a fundraising. It is not
>>*urgent* but we need to anticipate before it becomes urgent.
>
>
> I told the board before that I will not run another fundraiser without the help from a duly
> created fundraising committee. Nobody from the board has proposed the creation of such a committee
> yet and I won't waste my time (as I did with trying to help staff the finance committee) until the
> board acts.

Now, now...shhhh

Right, we never succeeded to create a decent financial committee.
This said, I am not convinced the fundraising should be part of the
financial committee (it involves as well technical needs, communication
issues etc...) and I would suggest that we should not get stuck on such
bureaucratic details.

Let's simply create a fundraising committee. If some one wants to
dissolve it later, or attached it to another already existing
committee... fine.

Can you draft for us a resolution with
* the creation of a fundraising committee
* description of the goal
* a team
* a delegation for this fundraising

I'll post it on the board wiki and we'll see if the board acts (votes...)

(make it several resolutions if you feel necessary)

> We also really should pass a budget for the rest of the year before we have a fundraiser. I'm
> going to send the spending forecast you aleady have to the officers and committees this weekend.
> Hopefully, it won't take long to turn that into a proposed budget for the board to vote one.
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
> __________________________________________________
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