from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Static content Wikipedia/Wikimedia

body:
Eric Astor wrote:
> On this note, would it be possible to get a public pointer to the full
> skins, modifications, and so forth used in creating the latest static dumps
> (as at http://static.wikipedia.org)? Several projects I know of (including
> the OEPC project I'm working on) are looking for ways to create good static
> exports, and the November dumps come out looking excellent.

All the scripts used are public, they're at

http://static.wikipedia.org/scripts/

This is my actual working directory for constructing the November dumps, I
decided that I didn't need to shut it away. The main entry point is
do4thread. All patches and modifications were committed to CVS.

The skin used is at skins/disabled/HTMLDump.php, you need to move it to
skins/HTMLDump.php for it to work.

In a second post, Eric Astor wrote:
> Not quite... I've done a dump, and the format comes out differently - not
> really appropriate for a static dump, since among other things, the Search
> button is present but fails.

The JavaScript referenced by this skin is in skins/htmldump/, including
lookup.js for the "go" button. It's not really a search button, since I
haven't gotten around to writing a fully-fledged search engine in JavaScript
just yet. It doesn't handle misses particularly gracefully.

Brion Vibber wrote:
> I would be happy to assign a server for conversion duties. Originally srv31
> (which hosts static.wikimedia.org) mostly did this; though it's been kind of
> taken over for additional things they can be moved.

srv31 would probably best, if it's got the hard drive space. dumpHTML is
CPU-intensive, so it would be best if we could move other CPU-intensive
tasks off it.

Actually what would really be nice is a server on VLAN 1. I wanted that last
year but didn't get it. Instead we have srv31 serving webpages via squid,
and downloads via NFS and benet. It would probably be better to do both
directly.

-- Tim Starling


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock-en-l

body:
On 6/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > > Why not go ahead and do the next logical step: Tell people to post
> > > their unblock requests to [[WP:ANI]], where they will be subsequently
> > > permbanned for "evading" their block and "disruption", and get their
> > > user page vandalized by an admin as a follow-up.
>
> > If you're blocked, you're not allowed to edit the wiki. I don't see
> > how this is a difficult concept.
>
> Well, you're allowed to edit your talk page (at least, at first). Is
> the AN/I page a grey area?

Nope.  If you're blocked, you're not allowed to edit it.  You can
always e-mail one of the 1000 admins (or, indeed, one of the 100,000
or more Wikipedia editors) and ask him or her to put something up
there.

Jay.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Offline submissions?how to address the limited range
	of participa

body:
On 6/28/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Theresa Knott wrote:
>
> >On 6/26/06, abu hamza <abuhamza1970 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>If you go to the muslim guild on wikipedia
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Islam:The_Muslim_Guild
> >>and you look at all the entrents, everyone is currently under threat of an
> >>indefinate ban or idefinately banned. I think the idea of having a greater
> >>participation is lip service.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >That would be terrible if it were true. However a quick glance down
> >this list of 27 active members makes me suspect that you are over
> >exaggerating here. Do you have any evidence to back such a claim up?
> >
> >
> >
> It's also worth noting that members of "The Muslim Guild" are only a
> self-selecting subset of Muslim Wikipedians.  I'd imagine if we had a
> self-selecting Christian group dedicated to "making sure the Christian
> viewpoint is represented in Wikipedia articles" (let's call them "The
> Jesus Brigade"), they would be banned more often than the average
> Christian Wikipedian is.
>
> -Mark

>From what I can tell, *none* of the 58 members of this guild are
currently under an indefinite ban, or under the threat of an
indefinite ban.

Jay.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Andy Rabagliati

body:
On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Tim Starling wrote:

> Eric Astor wrote:
> > On this note, would it be possible to get a public pointer to the full
> > skins, modifications, and so forth used in creating the latest static dumps
> > (as at http://static.wikipedia.org)? Several projects I know of (including
> > the OEPC project I'm working on) are looking for ways to create good static
> > exports, and the November dumps come out looking excellent.
>
> All the scripts used are public, they're at
>
> http://static.wikipedia.org/scripts/

Thanks!

> This is my actual working directory for constructing the November dumps, I
> decided that I didn't need to shut it away. The main entry point is
> do4thread. All patches and modifications were committed to CVS.
>
> The skin used is at skins/disabled/HTMLDump.php, you need to move it to
> skins/HTMLDump.php for it to work.

I cannot reach this - it comes up empty. Is it being interpreted instead?

I cannot even get the HTMLDump.php.broken file.

> In a second post, Eric Astor wrote:
> > Not quite... I've done a dump, and the format comes out differently - not
> > really appropriate for a static dump, since among other things, the Search
> > button is present but fails.
>
> The JavaScript referenced by this skin is in skins/htmldump/, including
> lookup.js for the "go" button. It's not really a search button, since I
> haven't gotten around to writing a fully-fledged search engine in JavaScript
> just yet. It doesn't handle misses particularly gracefully.

Thanks.

Cheers,   Andy!


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Request for cooperation from the tech people

body:
On 28/06/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> This list, the server admin log and the diffs of the release notes are
> the main sources of information. It is not always easy to understand
> what some rather short technical-cryptic description means but in
> general most changes can be discovered that way.

I maintain a sort of change log as a sub page of my En Wikipedia user
page, for the Signpost. It's biased towards English Wikipedia users
but might be of some use.

> Request; can the technical staff make and maintain a page where
> important planed changes are announced? Changes who have an impact for
> the user experiences for visitors, users or sysops. And for some large
> projects, like the universal login, every x weeks an update about how
> it is going with it.

Where important planned changes that are going to affect most users
directly are made, these will almost certainly be announced to this
list.

Periodic updates might also be forthcoming in some cases. To take the
example of single sign-on; I am 90% certain there will be an
announcement from Brion when the code's complete, tested, and when
we're ready to start the migration/conflict process.

> Sending information directly to the internal news media is also good
> of course, especially when it is urgent or really important so that is
> not overlooked. But just putting it on a pages is more convenient I
> suppose.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Internal_news_media

I thought it was the "ComCom"'s job to handle internal communications,
and our job to get on with running the damn web sites?

Rob Church


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimarkup request: -- to em-dash

body:
On 6/28/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, it does...sorry if my phrasing might have misled.
>
> [[namespace:title (disambig)|]] will be transformed to [[namespace:title
> (disambig)|title]] at page-save time.
>
> There are some strange edge-cases however:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Boswell/Sandbox/Sandbox_%28with_brackets%29
>
> I don't know when it happened, but the "Show Changes" button will now show
> this happening...there was a time early on when it didn't (it also now shows
> {{subst:...}} working also).

Fascinating, I had no idea it worked like that. That "with brackets"
case is really freaky.

For spectators: if you type [[|foo]], for some reason the software
replaces it with [[foo (with brackets)|foo]]. I would love to hear the
reason for that!

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] No big deal?

body:
On 6/28/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have 2x-4x as many edits as everyone currently on the RFA, and I've been
> here a year longer.  How am I not an admin? =(

Has anyone nominated you? Do you meet all the requirements? Would you
be a good one?

Steve


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is "spam?"

body:
What's spam got to do with it?
What's spam but a second-hand promotion?
What's spam got to do with it?
Who needs an inbox when an inbox can get flooded?

-S

--- Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:

> What is spam
> Baby don't hurt me
> Or the wiki
> no more
>
> What is spam
> Yeah
> Oh I don't know why I am banned
> I give you my spam across wiki-land
> So what is right and what is wrong
> gimme a sign
>
> What is spam
> Baby don't hurt me...
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
On 6/28/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> For the avoidance of confusion, this only happens if the link is in an
> article whose title ends with "...(in brackets)".
>
> In other words, if you are editing an article whose title ends with a
> parenthesised word or phrase, any links which begin with a pipe character
> will be expanded to include that word or phrase, together with parentheses,
> in the **title** part of the link.
>
> Freaky indeed, and it took a couple of tries before I believed what I was
> seeing.

Ah, I see.

So at page "foo (boo)", if you create link [[|moo]] it replaces it
with [[moo (boo)|moo]]. Useful indeed!

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] No big deal?

body:
On 6/28/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> Heh, I was mostly joking, but no, no one has ever nominated me, I just came
> up with those figures while I was discussing RFA requirements with some
> friends on IRC.  I was looking through them and I'm like "Wow, I could
> totally run for admin!" =D Eh, I'm not going to brag about being a great
> candidate for admin on the mailing list, seems a bit tacky.

You're unlikely to become an admin without going through the RfA process.

Steve


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Require confirmed email address to upload images?

body:
One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
contact them.

A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact
the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what
the correct information is.

I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
because you haven't been checking your talk page.

This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact
the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint
photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get
in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year
ago is not likely to check a talk page.

I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.

Suggestions/thoughts/objections?

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


from_name: Brad Patrick

body:
I completely agree.  Anonymity is not equal to the right to be uncontactable
everafter.

On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
> often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
> only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
> talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
> contact them.
>
> A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact
> the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what
> the correct information is.
>
> I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
> address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
> contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
> able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
> because you haven't been checking your talk page.
>
> This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact
> the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint
> photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get
> in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year
> ago is not likely to check a talk page.
>
> I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.
>
> Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
>
> -Kat
>
> --
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
> mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
> The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
> -- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


body:
On 28/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Periodic updates might also be forthcoming in some cases. To take the
> > example of single sign-on; I am 90% certain there will be an
> > announcement from Brion when the code's complete, tested, and when
> > we're ready to start the migration/conflict process.
>
> Out of curiosity, do any of the developers run blogs or even update
> .plan files about what they're up to?

Brion has a development blog at http://leuksman.com somewhere with
periodic updates; it's tracking his work on dbzip2 right now. I don't
know of others, although anyone who asks me what I'm coding while on
IRC usually gets some sort of answer.

Rob Church


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] suck it wiki

body:
> >
> > No, in that case we would have spammed you with 500 advertisements for
> > penis enlargement products :)
>
> Well then how do you know I wouldn't want them?  Maybe someone's magic
> wand has lost a little of it's Phoenix feather power.  A friend...
> it's a friend...

I don't get this joke?

Theresa


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 6/28/06, Oliver Coddington <olivercoddington at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suppose it does open up the question of having to have an e-mail address
> to just simply register an account, as opposed to just having to have one to
> upload images. Especially when there was a debate going on about reusing
> accounts which have been inactive, if one had to register with a valid
> e-mail address then a warning e-mail could be sent out to inactive accounts,
> for example. Of course that does go against the nature of Wikipedia
> slightly, in some people's views. However, it is something worth considering
> as the rate of new users keeps on increasing.

Of course, were we to do this more people would simply edit without an
account. You already are not able to upload without an account.  But I
think the more important consideration is this, how often do we need
to email a few-edit account... vary rarely, perhaps only once to tell
them that their account is expiring.  Drive by image uploaders, on the
other hand, provide incomplete copyright information in a majority of
cases.

It's not reasonable to expect new users even uploading ones to be
experts at our requirements, even when we make a strong effort to
inform people prior to upload.  As such I support this feature.


body:
Explain how an unregistered "drive by" editor should be afforded more
respect than someone who participates, maintains a talk page, and has an
email available.  I don't understand your cultural perspective that places a
higher degree of importance on this than the other way around.

On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
>
> On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
>
> A very strong objection from me.
>
> The Wikipedia is gradually getting less and less open
> and it's really becoming annoying.
> Already too many common actions require a registration.
> On English Wikipedia one cannot even create an article without a
> registration
> (as if registration meant anything),
> what in my opinion is a huge blow to our former openness.
>
> But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ?
> This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single
> contributor while gaining absolutely nothing.
>
> We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users
> have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles,
> uploading pictures, moving articles, everything.
> Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: Ben McIlwain

body:
On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
> address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
> contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
> able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
> because you haven't been checking your talk page.
<snip>
> Suggestions/thoughts/objections?

Let's do it.  Sounds like a great idea.  Copyvios are a big problem in
that it can put Wikipedia in legal trouble, and most of the copyvio
images are uploaded by new or inexperienced users who think that just
because something is already online they can upload it to another site
online.  This will help cut down on those problems and will really
take a load off the back of the poor people who tirelessly deal with
bad copyvio images.


body:
On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:

> But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ?
> This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single
> contributor while gaining absolutely nothing.
>
> We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users
> have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles,
> uploading pictures, moving articles, everything.
> Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal.

Gaining nothing? It hurts users for us not to be able to contact them.
Text usually stays, as a fact in an article can be found and supported
by a source even if it is not the same source the writer used. But an
image? If we cannot find the original and do not know where it came
from, it must be deleted. That's a pretty big loss, I think, both for
Wikimedia not being able to use it and for the original contributor
who sees the effort they spent to upload and place it gone to waste.

This isn't intended to stop vandalism, though it may slow it; any
vandal can register an account with an email address also. It is
intended to help good-faith users who want to contribute media. We
need to be strict about enforcing proper tagging and licensing of
images; we cannot budge on that. But it is a sad loss to delete things
simply because they didn't understand the procedure and we don't know
how to reach them.

Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and
does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive.

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock-en-l

body:
On 6/27/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Is this official? Should I update the wikien-l page to tell people
> > *not* to email for unblock requests?
>
> Why not go ahead and do the next logical step: Tell people to post
> their unblock requests to [[WP:ANI]], where they will be subsequently
> permbanned for "evading" their block and "disruption", and get their
> user page vandalized by an admin as a follow-up.
>
> Am I trolling? No. This is what actually happened.
> _______________________________________________

Yes you are.


from_name: fireislandparadise

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR policy proposal: No "Gotcha" rule

body:
On 6/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, fireislandparadise <fireislandparadise at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The purpose of 3RR is not to give admins the sense of power by maximizing
> > their opportunities to block but to prevent or stop edit wars. We should be
> > trying to reduce the number of blocks, not increase them. If a mandatory
> > warning results in ending edit wars without a block why not do it?
>
> A non-mandatory (but strongly encouraged) warning has that effect. A
> mandatory warning would create situations where a user who has edit
> warred can't be blocked because no warning was given.
>
> Steve

The edit war would (or should) be ended by the warning given at that
point, otherwise the offender would be blocked. We're getting a bit
chicken and egg here. The purpose of the 3RR rules is not punitive but
preventative. If the edit war has already ended there's no need for
the block anyway. If it hasn't ended then the warning should end it
even if it's made late.


body:
On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
[snip]
> On English Wikipedia one cannot even create an article without a registration
> (as if registration meant anything),
> what in my opinion is a huge blow to our former openness.

In one breath you claim that registration is insignificant and in the
next you claim that it destroys our openness. Can both claims actually
be true?

In any case, the registration for creation has been an experiment,
when the change was made no one was confident at how effective it
would be... since then we've gained some experience. I can say from my
measurements is that it appears that while inhibiting non-registered
user article creation has somewhat decreased the instantaneous rate of
inappropriate article creation, but it has simultaneously made our
review process less effective (new users look a lot like established
users on recent changes, especially after someone has moved their
vanity article to user namspace).  I am unable to say with certainty
without further analysis if this change has been a net detriment, but
I would be surprised if it was a net gain.

But this is what experiments are for... we are in uncharted waters for
some of our activities.

In contrast, inhibiting uploads from non-confirmed email users would
be far less of an experiment. We have a clear and articulatable need
for the email contact for uploaders today, and we already use it in
the rare cases where they have a confirmed email address.

I suppose that if you'd rather that we continue to simply delete the
uploads of folks whom don't understand that they need to tell us that
they own the picture... Then I can see why you would oppose this.  But
that doesn't seem like a very open system to me.

To me an open system is one where people can actually make a real
contribution, not just a pointless upload which will be deleted in a
week.

> But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ?
> This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single
> contributor while gaining absolutely nothing.

We would gain some hope of contacting the thousands of uploaders who
right now leave us with no other choice but to delete their
submissions.  I see this as a gain.

> We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users
> have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles,
> uploading pictures, moving articles, everything.
> Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal.

This isn't suggested as a method for stopping vandals...  It is
suggested as a method for helping people who simply don't know better
and need our help to contribute.

I'm curious, do you know how many image are deleted on enwiki per month?


body:
On 6/28/06, Oliver Coddington <olivercoddington at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> The question ultimately is how far are we willing to allow Wikipedia to
> become less 'free' and whether we think any measure that does reduce the
> 'freedom' on Wikipedia is worth it?

The words free and freedom are really not what you want. Even their
conventional meaning is poorly matched, and these words are so
overloaded in our community.

I'd call what you're referring to the practice of promiscuous
participation without organized review, though perhaps someone has a
more succinct way of putting it.

Because we are so often confronted with hard problems which are, at
least in part, related to that model, there is often talk about
measures that move away from that model. But all we've ever really had
is talk.  Even things like inhibiting new articles from the
unregistered users does not materially limit promiscuous
participation, unless we wish to define the requirement of hitting
'edit this page' and 'submit' as material limits on participation.


body:
On 6/28/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> Periodic updates might also be forthcoming in some cases. To take the
> example of single sign-on; I am 90% certain there will be an
> announcement from Brion when the code's complete, tested, and when
> we're ready to start the migration/conflict process.

Out of curiosity, do any of the developers run blogs or even update
.plan files about what they're up to?

Steve


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock-en-l

body:
On 6/28/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
> > jayjg wrote:
> > > On 6/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> On 6/28/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > >>>> Why not go ahead and do the next logical step: Tell people to post
> > >>>> their unblock requests to [[WP:ANI]], where they will be subsequently
> > >>>> permbanned for "evading" their block and "disruption", and get their
> > >>>> user page vandalized by an admin as a follow-up.
> > >>> If you're blocked, you're not allowed to edit the wiki. I don't see
> > >>> how this is a difficult concept.
> > >> Well, you're allowed to edit your talk page (at least, at first). Is
> > >> the AN/I page a grey area?
> > >
> > > Nope.  If you're blocked, you're not allowed to edit it.  You can
> > > always e-mail one of the 1000 admins (or, indeed, one of the 100,000
> > > or more Wikipedia editors) and ask him or her to put something up
> > > there.
> > >
> >
> > I wouldn't recommend to ask any other Wikipedia editor,
> > as it might get him/her in trouble ("proxy", "meatpuppet").
>
> No they wouldn't.

I think they are just Token Threats, Theresa Knott.  One big eternal
broken bad-faith record.  --LV


body:
On 28/06/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 28, 2006 at 03:25:15PM +0100, Rob Church wrote:
> > Brion has a development blog at http://leuksman.com somewhere with
> > periodic updates; it's tracking his work on dbzip2 right now. I don't
> > know of others, although anyone who asks me what I'm coding while on
> > IRC usually gets some sort of answer.
>
> Sure, but the odds that will continue are probably inversely
> proportional to how many times a day it happens, right?  :-)

Well, I don't intend to start a blog.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] suck it wiki

body:
On 6/28/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Nolan mccollum <nolanmccollumhotmail.com at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > thats right i said suck it wiki your full of crap.
> >
>
> Uh oh. List admins went to sleep?

There's a difference between going to sleep and assuming good faith.
Remember, we don't screen everyone's posts before they go to the list.
Anyway, he's moderated now.

Incidentally, did anyone get a "you suck <username>" message from him,
or am I lucky?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] suck it wiki

body:
On 6/28/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe they just wanted to let the rest of us get just a glimpse of
> some of the joy they deal with. ;-)  --LV

No, in that case we would have spammed you with 500 advertisements for
penis enlargement products :)

Steve


body:
On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Gaining nothing? [...]
> > Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and
> > does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive.
>
> The cost is anything but small and from the experience with licencing
> issues on Wikipedia I've had so far I'd guess the gain is purely theoretical.
>
> * It is a privacy problem
>
> * It is a serious loss of openness
>
> * Many people won't be uploading images if it requires email registration

They SHOULDN'T be uploading images if they won't even give us their
email, because then we have no way of verifying their image upload
tags whatsoever.  Many images are released as GFDL-self, PD-self,
whatever, and without even an email address to verify any of that how
can the system possibly work?

>
> * Even if people do register, it won't be possible to contact most of them:
> ** Most normal people who would get such an email, wouldn't understand
> what the heck is this all licencing thing about or simply wouldn't
> care. About the only people who get the licencing are Wikipedians and
> Open Source geeks. And they do not need compulsory email confirmation.
> ** People tend to automatically delete all emails from people they
> don't know as spam. So even if the email gets through it's likely to
> get ignored.** Many people have special email addresses for all the
> registrations that they never actually read
> *** Like I never do compulsory registrations using anything else than spambob
> ** People are switching email addresses all the time. Half-life of
> valid email address is very short.

None of the "concerns" you just brought up are valid.


body:
On 6/28/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
> > often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
> > only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
> > talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
> > contact them.
>
> I would support this measure for wikis which permit fair use (such as
> en.wp), and oppose it for Commons. As [[en:Wikipedia:Fair use]]
> explains, tracking down the sources of fair use uploads is good
> practice -- it strengthens our own position, and makes it easier for
> third parties to decide whether fair use applies to them. Having
> e-mail addresses on file would help with that.

Interesting. Oppose it for Commons? If anything images that are
*claimed* fair use are easier to manage, I think... we already know it
is copyrighted to someone else, and if it's being used under fair use
it ought to be a notable image and therefore reasonably easy to
find/source.

It's the ones that look like they might be self-created but we can't
verify that are more of a headache, I think. We want to assume good
faith, yes, but there are so many that are actually bogus.

> Given that there's currently not central user database, having to
> confirm an e-mail address again for Commons strikes me as an
> unnecessary barrier to entry, particularly since our practice is
> generally to simply delete files without a clear source.

I've seen plenty of dubious images on commons I would really like to
have been able to get a good answer about.

So it's two email addresses that would need to be confirmed... until
single user login is implemented. (This is really coming, right?
Right?) I don't see that as an unreasonable barrier. As for
"unnecessary" -- well, the project hasn't fallen apart thus far
without, but there are a lot of unnecessary things that are still a
win.

> On Commons,
> I'd rather wish for special processes to educate new users about the
> meaning of "free content" (see the discussion on commons-l about a
> licensing tutorial as a mandatory sign-up step).

I like that idea too. :-)

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Use of images (again)

body:
Hi!

> I would strongly encourage /not/ doing that... in fact I would
> strongly encourage going the other way and disallowing fair use and if
> possible, gaining community support to turn off local uploads (only
> use Commons images).
I'd support that for a number of reasons:
1) less administration (most of us are small communities and even without
images we have more than enough trouble)
2) a wider image bank
3) a larger image reuse
4) no fuss with copyright laws for local admins

But... my aim is to attract as much traffic and active users as I can. Now,
the main problema I see with using commons are:
1) you need to open an account on it, if you want the interface to start
with your language. I.e: you must be able to cope with an english interface.
2) there is no way for a local edition to use commons as an "included"
service (that is, one page as another, inside the edition).
3) file categorisation is 100% :en. (let alone file description)
4) file descriptions should have a sort of "fallback language", so that once
they are uploaded on a language any number of tranlations maybe added
without loosing the original version. Failure to do so would really mean the
risk of me publishing an image from Thailand in an article on a chinese
emperor (how on earth can I read that?) and the chinese publishing a
Rotterdam pic in an article about the Alps.
5) commons interface is quite out of wiki standards, and the localisations
distributed by Betawiki do not seem to cover the whole UI, part of which
remains in english anyway.

Point 5) is quite irrilevant for me as an individual, but *not* for an
average user. Pls note that small language editions mostly cope with very
low alfabetisation levels (less than 2% for pms). Our average user has
trouble enough in learning how to properly read and write his own language,
if we add up unnecessary tech-related steps we will simply frighten them
all.

Besides, I have all my trouble in explaining users how to use wiki pms, I
doubt that I will end up in reducing my workload, if I have to teach them
how to use commons, too.

Now, talking about "how real all this can be": I guess solving 1) and 2)
would take a lot of work, 5) is probably only a matter of building a better
integration of commons into the betawiki environment, so it could possibly
be solved without much waste of resources.

As per 3).... People @ nap.wiki are experimenting with templates for instant
multilingual translations for calendars. It could be a way to solve the
classification problem and to give commons that much wider accessibility it
really needs to become what it aims (and needs) to be.  Point 4) is a riddle
buried into an enigma, AFAIK. Providing the server space to store such
descriptions would not be a big fuss, but who on earth is going to make the
translations? 8-)

IMHO not just pms, but *all* local uploads should be switched off, if these
problems could be succesfully adressed. And it would really free a lot of
resources.

> I also find the notion of passing all responsibility onto the uploader
> pretty bogus.
The legal responsibility is *not* passed over to the user by wmf, it's
passed over because this is what law says. Unless you can have a generally
accepted convention transfer the whole legal responsibility to wmf (and I
agree that no matter how drunk wmf lawyers might be, they'll never sign such
a decision), you must respect the laws of the country in which you perform
the upload action, *no way* out of it.

You guys can check as much as you want, but if the country I am in does not
agree with your criteria I am going to deal with the local cops anyway. No
matter what our/mine/your definition of Open Content is, because the only
definition that counts is that given by Law, which is *always* local. Let's
face it. Commons is a great solution to build a shared file bank (and it's
already very good for many editions as it is), but it cannot be a global
copyright police, lawyer or whatever. Neither can it serve as an Open
Content Certification Center (because this would mean that wmf maybe liable
because of a decision made by anyone of you). I know it's unpleasant, but
that's how life is. Anyway, even just a central repository is far from being
useless.

Pms.wiki has very little files on its own. 98% of it are copied from foreign
(mainly en) wikis when we import articles, for the simple reason that they
appear to be local en files, instead of being from Commons. Now, we do
believe that offering an image gallery from commons would end up in making a
better edition. Will you help us in solving the 5 named accessibility
problems?

The only contact I got from commons was a communication saying (more or
less) "Hey guys, shut your stuff down and switch it all to commons". I asked
the guy (more or less) the same questions I am asking you now. At the time I
still was very new to the whole thing and I got the wrong impression that
this alreadly was a global shift towards a unique common repository.
Anyway...

I was asked to translate my questions in italian because he had trouble in
using english (see what I mean? Not the whole planet has an EN-3, even among
the admins). I translated them and... never got back any answer. It's a
couple of months now. As you certainly understand, opening a new edition
with a small user base means so much trouble that I simply forgot about it,
until now. I guess he did exactly the same.

Hopefully you won't forget about me :) It's an important issue, but it must
be carefully addressed.
B?rto


body:
On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:

> The cost is anything but small and from the experience with licencing
> issues on Wikipedia I've had so far I'd guess the gain is purely theoretical.

My experiences suggest otherwise. It is frustrating to try to contact
a user who has not provided an address and who is no longer actively
editing.

> * It is a privacy problem

How? You don't have to use your primary email address, or one that
identifies you; there are plenty of anonymous mail services.

> * It is a serious loss of openness

I disagree; it's a small hurdle, and does not place any additional
restrictions on who can participate (if you can edit Wikipedia, you
can register a free email account).

> * Many people won't be uploading images if it requires email registration
> ** Many people do not even have an email address.
> ** Or they have one, but won't give it for fear of spam.
> ** Or they won't register, because in bad cases it takes like 30
> minutes to get the confirmation procedure completed (email is slow!)
> ** Or the confirmation email gets lost on one of the spam filters.
> ** and so on.
>
> * Even if people do register, it won't be possible to contact most of them:
> ** Most normal people who would get such an email, wouldn't understand
> what the heck is this all licencing thing about or simply wouldn't
> care. About the only people who get the licencing are Wikipedians and
> Open Source geeks. And they do not need compulsory email confirmation.

I'm not talking about requiring for all edits (and I don't agree with
doing so, nor do I agree with the experiment on en: about restricting
article creation to logged-in users). Only for those who wish to
upload images.

And the point of being able to contact them is for people who *do* get
the licensing to be able to ask. The uploader doesn't have to care,
but it is necessary that they agree to the terms, or we cannot use
their media. If we can't verify that, then we can't use what they've
done, and so in effect they are blocked from participating anyway.

> ** People tend to automatically delete all emails from people they
> don't know as spam. So even if the email gets through it's likely to
> get ignored.
** Many people have special email addresses for all the
> registrations that they never actually read
> *** Like I never do compulsory registrations using anything else than spambob
> ** People are switching email addresses all the time. Half-life of
> valid email address is very short.

Then those people will not benefit, but this is not everyone. How many
people who do check their email will we reach who would not have seen
a talk page? Not everyone who is not a hopeless Wikiholic checks talk
pages every day, but most people check email pretty regularly.

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


body:
I would be interested to know on what data you rest your conclusions.
GMaxwell will back up his statements about the nature of the problem with
actual numbers (won't you Greg?)  =)

As to Tomasz' statements, I am equally interested in hearing what data, if
any, could be marshalled support your broad assertions.  They don't strike
me as valid, though I could be proven wrong.  I have doubts that will be the
case.

Erik's point is well taken; the deletionists have the better argument as far
as Commons goes, so I lean in his direction on that point.  I do know that
there is still a lot of garbage in Commons nevertheless.

I still don't see, especially in the case of single login, how providing an
email address is a net loss for those who upload images.  Nobody has
answered why the balance should tilt in favor of single-uploaders rather
than established users.

On 6/28/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Kat Walsh wrote:
> > On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ?
> >> This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single
> >> contributor while gaining absolutely nothing.
> >>
> >> We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users
> >> have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles,
> >> uploading pictures, moving articles, everything.
> >> Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal.
> >>
> >
> > Gaining nothing? It hurts users for us not to be able to contact them.
> > Text usually stays, as a fact in an article can be found and supported
> > by a source even if it is not the same source the writer used. But an
> > image? If we cannot find the original and do not know where it came
> > from, it must be deleted. That's a pretty big loss, I think, both for
> > Wikimedia not being able to use it and for the original contributor
> > who sees the effort they spent to upload and place it gone to waste.
> >
> > This isn't intended to stop vandalism, though it may slow it; any
> > vandal can register an account with an email address also. It is
> > intended to help good-faith users who want to contribute media. We
> > need to be strict about enforcing proper tagging and licensing of
> > images; we cannot budge on that. But it is a sad loss to delete things
> > simply because they didn't understand the procedure and we don't know
> > how to reach them.
> >
> > Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and
> > does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive.
> >
> > -Kat
> Hoi,
> People who contribute a picture once are not vandals. It is ridiculous
> to suggest this
>
> The rules of the "game" have increasingly become more restrictive and
> pictures that used to be acceptable are no longer considered acceptable.
> I have in the past uploaded uploaded pictures with permission. I had
> added a message about the original author at the time. Then came thumbs
> and these messages went, some time later people decided to check
> permissions could not find them and deleted stuff. I found it out after
> I signed on to that project after some time. Because of the elegance in
> which people the Commons "community" decide that it is their way or the
> high way, I became in many ways less interested.
>
> People insist that it is not feasible to discuss changes to Commons
> policies with the projects in advance and, that it is sufficient to
> restrict this discussion to intimi.. This seems to me reminiscent to one
> of those tribes that ultimately moved into Africa in AD400 or thereabouts.
>
> I also dispute that our problem becomes bigger. I am convinced that the
> problem is like a bell-curve, as the absolute number of pictures goes
> up, the percentage of what you consider "problematic" pictures stays the
> same however the number of material that you still want to check
> increases. When you confuse this with a growing problem you easily
> forget the number of files that have been checked. Because people are
> working hard on this in a best effort way and as we are quite ready to
> remove material that is in violation of our copyright rules the problem
> is not what is depicted.
>
> By talking about it as if there is a crisis, you make it a crisis; it
> seems as if we are at war.. I am not convinced AT ALL.
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Use of images (again)

body:
Hi,

the answer to many of these questions is:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Instant_Commons

As to admins from small wikipedias: our problem is the fact that we are
so small - being admin here and there we would not be able to care about
contents anymore.

Ciao, Sabine

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


body:
On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Andy Rabagliati wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Tim Starling wrote:
>
> > The skin used is at skins/disabled/HTMLDump.php, you need to move it to
> > skins/HTMLDump.php for it to work.
>
> I cannot reach this - it comes up empty. Is it being interpreted instead?

Sorry - found it in the mediawiki source tree.

Cheers,   Andy!


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Interwiki/transwiki imports mostly working now

body:
On 6/28/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commonshelper.php
>
> Or
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/pushforcommons.php
> for a more organized effort.
>
> Magnus

You should really modify the default edit summaries on those to link
back to the tools.  Otherwise they won't ever be very widely used.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] SPEEDYING images Re:  Jimbo's rule, copyright,
	old images with permission only

body:
On 6/22/06, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:46:12 +0200, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Revisiting
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html
> > and checking the long long long list of images at [[Category:Images
> > used with permission]] there are many of them kept becuase they were
> > uploaded before such date.
> >
> > It's been more than a year since the ruling, I believe older images
> > weren't removed in order to let uploaders tag them properly, find
> > replacements, or so they could be processed at the old Vfd.
> >
> > Quoting Jimbo
> >
> > "It is very unfortunate that such images are still being uploaded _new_
> > when we have not be happy about them for a long time.  It is not fair to
> > contributors who are working on such things, since we have no intention
> > to keep them in the long run."
> >
> > Well, if in the long run they have to go, it could start now. So, I
> > was wondering why aren't they being processed yet.  I'm thinking of
> > nominating batches of them at IFD every certain time. On the other
> > hand, however [[WP:IFD]] is clogged, so I was a bit hesitant about
> > doing so without more feedback.
> >
> > Thus I created [[User:Drini/OldCopyrightedImgs]] which has a small
> > sample for the first bacth and shows how I would be nominating them. I
> > tried to sample different kind of images (uploaded by the webmaster's
> > site, by random users, by respected old users, without source,
> > orphaned images, etc) so we can get an idea what we're dealign with.
> >
> > Still, IFD is overloaded, so maybe better alternatives can come up?
> > Maybe a IFD-like for this kind of images?
> >
> > Jimbo, what's your current view about such things?
>
> I don't see how anyone could object, either they come up with a fair use
> rationale or secure a permission to release the image under a free license
> or it gets deleted, simgple as that, as you say there have been plenty of
> time to fix this. Ok a lot of people don't know that these kind of
> licenses are no longer allowed, but they will know once they get the IFD
> notice on theyr talk page, and images can be undeleted now too, so there
> is rely no excuse to delay this any further, if people are uneable to come
> up with a compelling reason to keep an image within the IFD wait period
> they can simply request the images be undeleted though Deletion review at
> a later time if the copyright holder agree to release it under a free
> license after all. Nothing like a pending deletion to make people spring
> into action.
>
> Just be sure it's done "by the book", notifying uploaders and adding
> {{ifdc}} to captions where the image is used and so forth to boost
> awarenes about why they are beeing deleted. IMHO making as many people as
> possible understand why this kind of licenses are not acceptable are more
> important than getting them all hastily deleted, "by permission" and "non
> commercial" images are still a fairly big problem, people just don't use
> those tags anymore becase they are not listed (they tend to pick "no
> rights reserved" instead for some reason). I actualy think {{permission}}
> and {{noncommercial}} should be added to MediaWiki:Licenses (at least
> after all the old ones have been cleared out), that way we can easily
> track them down and delete them rather than digging them out of some other
> random license tag the uploader choose because he didn't find a good fit
> (same deal as "don't know" and "some website"). But I digress.
>
> --
> [[:en:User:Sherool]]
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Well, my point is, why aren't these being speedied like the new ones?
If giving time for finding replacements was the issue, plenty of time
has been given, (yet precisely since they were kept, noone is
bothering to find free replacements). Jimbo says those won't stay
forever, but unless they start being gone, noone will get the free
stuff.

So, is anyone willing to support speedying these images?
** at least in the case of the ORPHANED noncommercial/withpermission
before the date** ?


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimania discussions

body:
G'day SJ,

> Register today at wm06reg.wikimedia.org -- only $70 until July 9th for 3 days
> of in-depth community discussion, presentations, autographs from and to Jimbo,
> and fun.

$70 plus God-knows-how-much for accomodation, travel, booze ... Jimbo
will have to do without my autograph this time 'round.

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


body:
On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would be interested to know on what data you rest your conclusions.
> GMaxwell will back up his statements about the nature of the problem with
> actual numbers (won't you Greg?)  =)

Sure,

I think the most compelling bit of backup is the anecdotal one which
every person who has deleted images on Enwiki can tell you:  we are
unable to get answers to basic questions for many images and must
delete them.  Does anyone here who's done a substantial amount of
image patrolling on enwiki disagree?  It's easy to produce examples,
just look for at orphanbot's deleted edits.

However, I like numbers... they can mislead but they can also be food
for thought. Keep in mind we don't current recommend that anyone use
the email this user to contact inactive uploaders simply because few
of the images which are eligible for deletion have a confirmed user.

There were 57,472 images uploaded to enwiki in march.
*21,000 come from uploaders with confirmed emails.
*36,472 come from uploaders without confirmed emails

There were 30,981 total images deleted on enwiki in march.
*5,149 were uploaded by users who had confirmed emails.
*25,832 were uploaded by users who did not have confirmed emails.

I wanted to give stats on what percentage of deleted images came from
users who had recent editing activity, but query is too expensive to
answer off hand.

I think the policy makes sense based both on my experience and based
on the numbers.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] SPEEDYING images Re: Jimbo's rule, copyright,
	old images with permission only

body:
On 6/28/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/22/06, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> > On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:46:12 +0200, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Revisiting
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html
> > > and checking the long long long list of images at [[Category:Images
> > > used with permission]] there are many of them kept becuase they were
> > > uploaded before such date.
> > >
> > > It's been more than a year since the ruling, I believe older images
> > > weren't removed in order to let uploaders tag them properly, find
> > > replacements, or so they could be processed at the old Vfd.
> > >
> > > Quoting Jimbo
> > >
> > > "It is very unfortunate that such images are still being uploaded _new_
> > > when we have not be happy about them for a long time.  It is not fair to
> > > contributors who are working on such things, since we have no intention
> > > to keep them in the long run."
> > >
> > > Well, if in the long run they have to go, it could start now. So, I
> > > was wondering why aren't they being processed yet.  I'm thinking of
> > > nominating batches of them at IFD every certain time. On the other
> > > hand, however [[WP:IFD]] is clogged, so I was a bit hesitant about
> > > doing so without more feedback.
> > >
> > > Thus I created [[User:Drini/OldCopyrightedImgs]] which has a small
> > > sample for the first bacth and shows how I would be nominating them. I
> > > tried to sample different kind of images (uploaded by the webmaster's
> > > site, by random users, by respected old users, without source,
> > > orphaned images, etc) so we can get an idea what we're dealign with.
> > >
> > > Still, IFD is overloaded, so maybe better alternatives can come up?
> > > Maybe a IFD-like for this kind of images?
> > >
> > > Jimbo, what's your current view about such things?
> >
> > I don't see how anyone could object, either they come up with a fair use
> > rationale or secure a permission to release the image under a free license
> > or it gets deleted, simgple as that, as you say there have been plenty of
> > time to fix this. Ok a lot of people don't know that these kind of
> > licenses are no longer allowed, but they will know once they get the IFD
> > notice on theyr talk page, and images can be undeleted now too, so there
> > is rely no excuse to delay this any further, if people are uneable to come
> > up with a compelling reason to keep an image within the IFD wait period
> > they can simply request the images be undeleted though Deletion review at
> > a later time if the copyright holder agree to release it under a free
> > license after all. Nothing like a pending deletion to make people spring
> > into action.
> >
> > Just be sure it's done "by the book", notifying uploaders and adding
> > {{ifdc}} to captions where the image is used and so forth to boost
> > awarenes about why they are beeing deleted. IMHO making as many people as
> > possible understand why this kind of licenses are not acceptable are more
> > important than getting them all hastily deleted, "by permission" and "non
> > commercial" images are still a fairly big problem, people just don't use
> > those tags anymore becase they are not listed (they tend to pick "no
> > rights reserved" instead for some reason). I actualy think {{permission}}
> > and {{noncommercial}} should be added to MediaWiki:Licenses (at least
> > after all the old ones have been cleared out), that way we can easily
> > track them down and delete them rather than digging them out of some other
> > random license tag the uploader choose because he didn't find a good fit
> > (same deal as "don't know" and "some website"). But I digress.
> >
> > --
> > [[:en:User:Sherool]]
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> Well, my point is, why aren't these being speedied like the new ones?
> If giving time for finding replacements was the issue, plenty of time
> has been given, (yet precisely since they were kept, noone is
> bothering to find free replacements). Jimbo says those won't stay
> forever, but unless they start being gone, noone will get the free
> stuff.
>
> So, is anyone willing to support speedying these images?
> ** at least in the case of the ORPHANED noncommercial/withpermission
> before the date** ?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

How about a "proposed deletion" like system (as in {{prod}}) ?
--User:Drini


body:
On 6/28/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> A proposal is discussed that suggest that something "needs" to be done.
> This need is not substantiated but it is assumed to be there. The idea
> of a bell-curve is an argument that Jimmy used in one of his
> presentations to point out to alarmists that there is a perceived crisis
> but not much of an actual crisis. However, given the volume of pictures
> that end up on Commons, I can understand and sympathise with the people
> who deal with this to some extend.

So unless we can prove there is a crisis we can change nothing?

I can't speak for the others in this thread, I don't believe there is
a crisis here, at least not any that this move will solve.

I believe that change reduce the amount of, likely low quality,
submissions we must delete. I don't cry over the loss of these today,
rather I believe this move is simply and clearly correct. I also look
forward to an increased opportunity to interact with our submitters
and hopefully encourage them to submit more.

The objections I've heard thus far seem to be some vague worries about
decreasing openness, concerns that we will substantially decrease
uploading by requiring one more step,  and Gerard's concern which
appears to be the belief that we're motivated to make this change by
some form of panic.

I can only respond by saying that this change will not inhibit anyone
but the unwilling from uploading it's an extra step but not a
prohibition, that the numbers (in my prior post) suggest to me that
any decrease in uploads could very well be offset by a decline in
deletions, and that I'm not panicked.


body:
On 6/28/06, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> The case is that if someone is 'trusted' it's likely he will be an admin.

In theory.  In practice, there are a lot of people who are trustworthy
enough to get rollback, Special:Patrol rights, the right to edit some
extra pages (i.e., add a third possible level of protection), and
similar tweaks, but who wouldn't necessarily be trusted to have the
effectively permanent right to, e.g., block people indefinitely.  An
intermediate group would be especially valuable on enwiki, where
admins have to step really grossly out of line to be accountable for
their actions (some wikis have a reconfirmation scheme that makes
admins more accountable to the general populace of the wiki, for good
or for bad).


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> On 6/28/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> However, I like numbers... they can mislead but they can also be food
>> for thought. Keep in mind we don't current recommend that anyone use
>> the email this user to contact inactive uploaders simply because few
>> of the images which are eligible for deletion have a confirmed user.
>>
>> There were 57,472 images uploaded to enwiki in march.
>> *21,000 come from uploaders with confirmed emails.
>> *36,472 come from uploaders without confirmed emails
>>
>> There were 30,981 total images deleted on enwiki in march.
>> *5,149 were uploaded by users who had confirmed emails.
>> *25,832 were uploaded by users who did not have confirmed emails.
>>
>> I think the policy makes sense based both on my experience and based
>> on the numbers.
>
> So about 40% of useful contributions come from users without confirmed
> emails, and we would be throwing them away ?

That's only if you assume that all of these users, who previously
haven't been required to have a confirmed email, would obstinately
refuse to do so once it becomes a requirement for uploading images.
Common sense, and actual experience with the experiment to halt article
creation by unregistered users on the English Wikipedia, suggests that a
great many of those wanting to accomplish a specific task will take the
steps necessary to be allowed to do it.

It might be interesting to have a survey of image uploaders and find out
how many either don't have an email address they can use, or would
refuse to provide it for this purpose. Then we'd have a better idea of
what your 40% number really boils down to. But such a survey would be
most practical for us to conduct...via email.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Use of images (again)

body:
Hi again!

> (Universal login: we at Commons await it more than anyone else,
> possibly. ;)) As for English login, not quite. We have managed to
> internationalise the login as much as possible: see
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin .

Yes, I've used it myself. The main problem is that most users who are afraid
of english will never get to see, because they will simply not click on the
*login* link. Anyway, if we can setup a proper instruction page on local
bases (that is, on pms) we can bridge this. The same would apply to
interliki links. If one can mantain a usable UI on *any* edition he will not
fear trying even the most exotic language... and this really is a quick way
to locate additional pics to use in a given context.

> ) that it is now possible to have "Optional language selector for user
> login/registration forms". So I certainly hope Commons will be the
> first place to implement that.
I see it on all editions (more precisely: IT, EN, META, COMMONS) even now...
so probably we talk about different selectors. My common:user works in pms
lang, so do my it:user, en:user, meta:user, etc. What worries me is that a
user needs to undergo a first page in a foreign language, in order to do
this. If we could just send the user language as a link parameter we could
probably solve the problem...

> > 2) there is no way for a local edition to use commons as an "included"
> > service (that is, one page as another, inside the edition).
I mean having your upload page instead of mine. Which means all the links in
the page drive the user back into pms, while only upload functions and image
galleries relate to your server from everywhere in pms. Having exported fake
pages is okay, too. The thing I do not wnat to happen is an unexperienced
user to get lost somewhere beween two servers. What I want is having commons
"seamiglessly" integrated in local editions. People should not even know
that they are changing servers, unles they are interested in the tech
details and go reading the docs. Most users do not give a damn about it, all
they want is their pic to be uploaded for them to use it in an article, not
a conference on distributed systems management.

> > 3) file categorisation is 100% :en. (let alone file description)
> Yes, this is true. Technical limitation until category RDRs are
> properly implemented.
Yes... I just tried to create a Category:{{Foo}} but there is no way to
include a template in the title. It's a pity, because it's actually all it
would take to get rid of the problem...

> File descriptions are NOT required to be in
> English at all.
Yes, but I really wonder what can a japanese user get from a pms file
description.

> > 4) file descriptions should have a sort of "fallback language", so that
once
> Not sure what you mean by this. We encourage people to translate the
> descriptions on image pages.
I mean something like there is on Betawiki for translators to manage UI
messages. You get the original version, and you can add your own in your
language. For commons I'd also have a box for a third language. This way
bilingual speakers may be able to work and place their description(s) in the
proper lang-code(s), for it to be shown to a native speaker when it comes
the time. This way you always get the original description, an additional
:en version (if present), and your version (again, if present). Most of the
users' digital pics describing places that have a related wiki edition are
not going to be english. We can really collect a lot of views from all over
the planet, if we can manage to make it accessible to users. But we also
must think of how to make this usable...

There is no way to provide that many translators for minor languages, but
then again... most local editions will have their main interest focused on
local places and features, and they will produce the pics for themselves.
Having categories translated will do the rest.

>(Check-Usage is a tool that
> tells you where a Commons image is being used in all of Wikimedia.
> Like global "what links here".)
Yes, check usage is handy... another very good point for using commons.

> > 5) commons interface is quite out of wiki standards, and the
localisations
> > distributed by Betawiki do not seem to cover the whole UI, part of which
> > remains in english anyway.
>
> Hm, I am not sure about the technical points with Languages.php and
> all that. We have changed our navigation menu which most language
> files can't cope with, I know...
The answer could be having an extension file (smt like CommonsPms.php)
managed by Betawiki. Most translators go there anyway, all the proper
check-stuff is in place, so it could simply become a part of the
distribution set. It would also help in getting new languages immediately in
touch with commons. If you are "born using commons", then you do not need to
consider it a problem. But as things are now it often simply becomes just
"one more pain in the a**". And it eventually falls down to the bottom of
admins' priority list. Which is exactly what happened with us @ pms.

> I will just say we really encourage
> translators and are very responsive to updating translations. I
> personally promise that if you put translations on my talk page, I
> will update them within 24 hours of reading my talk page.
It's okay, Next week I'll start the translation. Even if we cannot have
perfection right tomorrow, there is no reason not to get the whole thing
ready in advance.

> If you are interested, and maybe you are since your English is great,
> we can work together and over the next week update the language(s) you
> speak so they're all up to date. I agree that having the interface
> translated is important. (and policy pages, and warnings :) but most
> important of all is to have admins who can act as a bridge.)
LOL yes... The worst problem with wikipedia is the total absence of a clear
way to understand how to do what and what is to be used for what. In the end
it always becomes a pure matter of personal relations...

> Using Commons means less work, but it certainly doesn't mean NO work.
> It is necessary that some admins from that Wikipedia/language take on
> extra responsibility and become Commons admins.
Hmmm... well... I guess I have a candidate for this :) Not me, if I want to
remain alive :)))  But I'll get you a competent pms speaker. Promised. :)

> So some people do have to
> step up, because throwing your users in the deep end with no Commons
> contact will not work at all.
That was my worry, exactly.

> We have a page
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_page_maintenance
> which has a rough heirarchy of which pages should be translated first.

> I looked up Piedmontese since I freely admit my ignorance of it. I see
> it is spoken in Italy. I was wondering what kind of attitude
> Piedmontese speakers have towards Italian speakers?
In a 3 million people user base you'll find a zillion different attitudes,
depending on political opinions, soccer results, the weather, the attitude
towards pms that a given ita speaker has... the relational result is totally
unpredictable, as it ranges in scope from flame wars to pure love.  I manage
this stuff each every day @ pms, but I tell you, I'd be better off in
predicting what's going to be the weather in Iceland during 2010 :) It
cannot really be used as a decision criteria.

> Is it true that
> most Piedmontese users can also read/understand Italian?
80% of them yes.  A remaining 19% lives in Argentina since ages already and
would be better off with ES. Us, that is the 1% high tech expat community,
will probably be better off with EN, but one must consider that (as it is
also the case for SCN and many other european minority languages) this
particular 1% often counts as a full 70%, when it comes to counting a wiki's
user base. At least at the beginning of the project.

>ie....are Italian help files and messages sufficient for Piedmontese
speakers?
No. In every day life it almost always gets substituted by ITA in Piedmont,
and if we cannot keep an homogenous linguistic environment for our users we
really risk turning all our efforts to failure. We need people to have a
place for them to use the language for all kind of needs, if we want them to
develop that proficiency that is necessary to write a good pms wiki. It's a
pity, because it actually means that I get an additional load of
translations work on my "to-do" list, but unfortunately that's the way it
is...

> from an Italian one? Please don't take offence if the answer is "100%
> essential". There's only one way to find out these things....
No offence at all :) We deal with marketing and chances for a wiki to be
succesful. As far as languages are concerned I am totally result-oriented,
politics and emotions mean absolutely nothing to me. You give me data, I
give you data, and we both use them to find a solution that  will generate
more contributions and a wider user base for all. That's it. :)

Mmmm... I can't seem to guess your nick on common... you can leave me mail
on http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussioni_utente:B?rto_'d_S?ra so we can
define a practical action plan for the merger... :) We got some 80 pics so
far, If we manage to transfer them now it will be easier than making it once
they already grew up to 800.

B?rto


body:
Those are some really compelling figures and therefore arguments.  (And I
don't disagree about the yeoman's service done by those who edit on uploaded
images).

Surely nobody is prepared to argue that where we are talking about an image
stream measured in dozens of thousands, the yield is so pathetic, and the
immediate reduction in problem uploads can (theoretically) be cut by a
[[insert adjective here]] amount, we ought not consider the change?  5 out
of 6 deletes comes from a non-email-enabled user?  Geez...

My position is geared to support the community.  Here it seems a substantial
amount of editing time and effort can be refactored favorably to
(a) reduce bad image upload / copyvio
(b) increase communication (mere ability to communicate!) with presumably
new contributors (WP:Newbie)
(c) encourage, not eliminate, their work, just by helping with the right way
to contribute image content
(d) stem the tide of wasted human effort in dealing with this problem (bots
too)
(e) emphasize positive contributions
(f)  decrease whining and scare tactics
(g) big morale boost to image patrollers =)

Sounds like a bit fat net positive to me.

On 6/28/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I would be interested to know on what data you rest your conclusions.
> > GMaxwell will back up his statements about the nature of the problem
> with
> > actual numbers (won't you Greg?)  =)
>
> Sure,
>
> I think the most compelling bit of backup is the anecdotal one which
> every person who has deleted images on Enwiki can tell you:  we are
> unable to get answers to basic questions for many images and must
> delete them.  Does anyone here who's done a substantial amount of
> image patrolling on enwiki disagree?  It's easy to produce examples,
> just look for at orphanbot's deleted edits.
>
> However, I like numbers... they can mislead but they can also be food
> for thought. Keep in mind we don't current recommend that anyone use
> the email this user to contact inactive uploaders simply because few
> of the images which are eligible for deletion have a confirmed user.
>
> There were 57,472 images uploaded to enwiki in march.
> *21,000 come from uploaders with confirmed emails.
> *36,472 come from uploaders without confirmed emails
>
> There were 30,981 total images deleted on enwiki in march.
> *5,149 were uploaded by users who had confirmed emails.
> *25,832 were uploaded by users who did not have confirmed emails.
>
> I wanted to give stats on what percentage of deleted images came from
> users who had recent editing activity, but query is too expensive to
> answer off hand.
>
> I think the policy makes sense based both on my experience and based
> on the numbers.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


list: textbook-l

from_name: John Goes

subject:
[Textbook-l] wikiversity and private universities with multiple
	models

body:
Hello All,

I'm a new to wikiversity, although I have been using wikipedia for quite
some time now.  I actually stumbled on the wikiversity site today as I
independently thought of an idea for an "internet university" and have been
doing research on the idea, only to find that there have been efforts to do
something similar for some time.

I feel like I'm jumping into the middle of a discussion that I haven't heard
much of, so please forgive me for my ignorance of most things that have been
suggested and tossed about before.

I get the sense that the idea for Wikiversity is rather vague and nebulous
at the moment, with many conflicting ideas of where it should go and how it
should evolve, especially vis-a-vis accreditation.

The vision of a free wikiversity for everyone to attend, a respectable and
revolutionary new way to learn and receive high degrees, while very
egalitarian, seems like a very difficult task precisely because the idea is
so centralized.  Every university, whether explicit or implict, has its own
values and "opinions" on what constitutes a good education.  Any one
organization is never going to be able to please everyone and fit everyone,
even if nested in the internet.

The approach I had originally considered was in reaction to MITs
revolutionary decision to share their curriculum, lectures, ect with the
public, effectively allowing one an MIT education if one applied oneself.

The founding of wikiversity is clearly in response to a sense among many of
the vast potential of a new model of learning.  Rather than arguing about
the exact form of wikiversity, I think there is great potential for private
setups, whether they be non for profit or otherwise, which can utilize
resources such as wiki and MIT.

My own idea is based on the system of Reed College.  At Reed students
prepare in their first three years, through classes, for the writing of
their thesis, which is a requirement for graduation.  For the entire senior
year they write the thesis with the help and supervision of one or more
professors.  A successful online university based on such a system might
require academic supervisors, a virtual classroom in which to discuss the
course material, and teachers, primarily present to assist the student when
the student requests help, also serving an evaluative purpose.

I see no reason why a student with a well written and perhaps important
thesis should have a problem getting a degree; although the practical
problems of this demand a creative solution.

This is one idea and I'm sure there are many other possible formats, as
there are many kinds of learners with their own goals and methods.  I think
wikiversity would be most effective if it was able to operate in conjunction
with this and other private efforts.

Respectfully,
John Goes


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock-en-l

body:
On 6/28/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, you're allowed to edit your talk page (at least, at first). Is
> > the AN/I page a grey area?
>
> Nope.  If you're blocked, you're not allowed to edit it.  You can
> always e-mail one of the 1000 admins (or, indeed, one of the 100,000
> or more Wikipedia editors) and ask him or her to put something up
> there.
>
Wouldn't getting someone else to edit for you constitute evading a
block?  What if it's your roomate?  Your 5 year old child?

Anthony


body:
On 6/28/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, my point is, why aren't these being speedied like the new ones?
> If giving time for finding replacements was the issue, plenty of time
> has been given, (yet precisely since they were kept, noone is
> bothering to find free replacements).

Is there somewhere I can get a list of the images I've uploaded which
don't fall under the current tagging rules?

Is there even a place where I can get a list of the images I've uploaded?

Anthony


body:
On 6/28/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 6/28/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Well, my point is, why aren't these being speedied like the new ones?
> > > If giving time for finding replacements was the issue, plenty of time
> > > has been given, (yet precisely since they were kept, noone is
> > > bothering to find free replacements).
> >
> > Is there somewhere I can get a list of the images I've uploaded which
> > don't fall under the current tagging rules?
> >
> > Is there even a place where I can get a list of the images I've uploaded?
> >
> > Anthony
>
> Isn't that what the upload log is for?
>
> ~maru
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Yes your upload log is a nice place to start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=upload&user=YourWikiUsername

also [[Category:Images used with permission]] and
[[Category:Non-commercial use only images]] are interesting palces to
drop by


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Use of images (again)

body:
Hi!
>I've registered and edited on several Wikipedias where I don't speak the
>language; I've managed to work everything out based on the the location
>and URLs of the links.
We all can do it... personally I'll probably never need anything else that
en:wiki+commons+meta. The problem is a full user base, not people having an
EN-e plus a good practice in using wikies and comps and pending a number of
hours a day inside a wiki... I'm not staying up all night to serve just 30
people. I want people who are not net-junkies to be able to use it, too. :)
If we cannot manage to present occasional users with easy tools we loose
traffic. Not a big deal for ES.wiki, as they got billions of possible users,
but really something to be avoided in our situation.

>Maybe the local links to Commons could have "?uselang=" at the end of
>the URLs?
Yes! http://commons.wikimedia.org/?uselang=fr works. Is it an acceptable
practice? By the way... this thing alone would have interwiki links mantain
a stable interface, if put on the main soft engine... I do not really think
that it would cost much work...

>http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Upload
This is not what I want, but it's better than nothing. The good thing would
be a dedicated page there, that would upload images to commons, as the old
one did. Any time you ask a user to click once more you loose traffic.
Things must be as simple as possible.

B?rto


subject: [WikiEN-l] Nofollow

body:
For some reason I've got it in my head that nofollow is set for talk
pages and user pages. But is this actually true? We treat talk pages
as lower quality than article pages, but does google do the same? If I
see linkspam on a talk page do I need to remove it or is it OK to
leave it there.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Atkins_Nutritional_Approach#Spam_Clean-up
for what prompted my train of thought.

Theresa

--

http://theresaknott.googlepages.com/home
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Theresa_knott


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 6/28/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, my point is, why aren't these being speedied like the new ones?
> > If giving time for finding replacements was the issue, plenty of time
> > has been given, (yet precisely since they were kept, noone is
> > bothering to find free replacements).
>
> Is there somewhere I can get a list of the images I've uploaded which
> don't fall under the current tagging rules?
>
> Is there even a place where I can get a list of the images I've uploaded?
>
> Anthony

Isn't that what the upload log is for?

~maru


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
> often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
> only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
> talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
> contact them.
>
> A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact
> the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what
> the correct information is.
>
> I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
> address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
> contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
> able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
> because you haven't been checking your talk page.
>
> This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact
> the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint
> photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get
> in totuch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year
> ago is not likely to check a talk page.
>
> I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.
>
> Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
>
> -Kat

In light of Greg's statistical evidence (83% of images deleted in
recent months were uploaded by individuals without confirmed email
addresses), I am in full concurrence with the idea of making this a
requirement.

Openness is a means to an end, and in this case I think we are too open.

Kelly


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Use of images (again)

body:
Hi!

>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&uselang=pms
Okay, this will do the trick. Now we need to find a way to modify the local
upload/url into a link to commons.

>I am
>talking about a drop-down box for anonymous users to go through the
>signup process. At the moment no one has this, it is a new feature.
That;a good thing , too :)

>Yes, indeed... it is possible to make the upload page link to Commons,
>but they will of course be taken to Commons. And until we have
>universal login, they will have to sign up again.
This is going to happen only the first time for frequent users, if they
check the box to mantain the login active. Anyway, it will be*much* better
when it won't happen at all.

>19/20 do not use
>categories, so I don't expect pms-users to be any different. :)
LOL I'll be *very* happy when they will at least learn how to use their own
grammar and write locatives, datives and articles in such a way that one can
read them... I guess categories will be really the last of their worries,
for the time being. Yet, in time they will learn, if we can manage to
translate the titles.

>When it comes to interacting with other users, unless a PMS admin
>takes on a lot of translation, they will probably have to use some
>English or something else. I encourage all Commons users to use Babel
>boxes.
We live in a multilinguistic environment, so personal relations are their
own business. So far it's not many of them using personal pages at all.
Piedmontese people tend to be shy :))

See you in private
B?rto


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 28/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > I would mostly be
> > > interested in moving images from the various Wikipedias to Commons.
> >
> > Images aren't supported yet, sorry. :(
> >
> > But that could be added; I've got some related support in the OAI thingy which
> > could be adapted.
>
> Ah, pity. Also, what's OAI?

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/OAI/

Take a look and make an educated guess.

Rob Church


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/28/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > I would mostly be
> > interested in moving images from the various Wikipedias to Commons.
>
> Images aren't supported yet, sorry. :(
>
> But that could be added; I've got some related support in the OAI thingy which
> could be adapted.

Ah, pity. Also, what's OAI?

I just sort of envisaged a "is this image fair use? No? [[Move it to
Commons]]!" kind of  link appearing on images in the various
Wikipedias. It doesn't seem like something that should be inherently
restricted, either, since the action can be carried out manually by
anyone...

Steve


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nofollow

body:
On 6/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/28/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For some reason I've got it in my head that nofollow is set for talk
> > pages and user pages. But is this actually true? We treat talk pages
> > as lower quality than article pages, but does google do the same? If I
> > see linkspam on a talk page do I need to remove it or is it OK to
> > leave it there.
>
> I have just checked that this is definitely true for article talk pages.

How did you check it. Is it written up somewhere because i couldn't
find anything on it.

Theresa


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

body:
And it'd cut down on most of the fair-use with no rationale and images like
that. (of course, there may be some serial offenders even after that)

On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I completely agree.  Anonymity is not equal to the right to be
> uncontactable
> everafter.
>
> On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
> > often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
> > only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
> > talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
> > contact them.
> >
> > A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact
> > the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what
> > the correct information is.
> >
> > I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
> > address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
> > contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
> > able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
> > because you haven't been checking your talk page.
> >
> > This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact
> > the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint
> > photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get
> > in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year
> > ago is not likely to check a talk page.
> >
> > I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.
> >
> > Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
> >
> > -Kat
> >
> > --
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
> > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
> > The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
> > -- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Brad Patrick
> General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> bradp.wmf at gmail.com
> 727-231-0101
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock-en-l

body:
On 6/28/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > Why not go ahead and do the next logical step: Tell people to post
> > their unblock requests to [[WP:ANI]], where they will be subsequently
> > permbanned for "evading" their block and "disruption", and get their
> > user page vandalized by an admin as a follow-up.

> If you're blocked, you're not allowed to edit the wiki. I don't see
> how this is a difficult concept.

Well, you're allowed to edit your talk page (at least, at first). Is
the AN/I page a grey area?

Steve


from_name: Francis Tyers

body:
Great idea.

Fran

On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 20:21 +0100, Will "Sceptre" Noble wrote:
> And it'd cut down on most of the fair-use with no rationale and images like
> that. (of course, there may be some serial offenders even after that)
>
> On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I completely agree.  Anonymity is not equal to the right to be
> > uncontactable
> > everafter.
> >
> > On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
> > > often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
> > > only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
> > > talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
> > > contact them.
> > >
> > > A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact
> > > the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what
> > > the correct information is.
> > >
> > > I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
> > > address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
> > > contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
> > > able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
> > > because you haven't been checking your talk page.
> > >
> > > This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact
> > > the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint
> > > photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get
> > > in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year
> > > ago is not likely to check a talk page.
> > >
> > > I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.
> > >
> > > Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
> > >
> > > -Kat
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
> > > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
> > > The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
> > > -- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Brad Patrick
> > General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > bradp.wmf at gmail.com
> > 727-231-0101
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>


from_name: Oliver Coddington

body:
I suppose it does open up the question of having to have an e-mail address
to just simply register an account, as opposed to just having to have one to
upload images. Especially when there was a debate going on about reusing
accounts which have been inactive, if one had to register with a valid
e-mail address then a warning e-mail could be sent out to inactive accounts,
for example. Of course that does go against the nature of Wikipedia
slightly, in some people's views. However, it is something worth considering
as the rate of new users keeps on increasing.

Oliver

On 6/28/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
>
> And it'd cut down on most of the fair-use with no rationale and images
> like
> that. (of course, there may be some serial offenders even after that)
>
> On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I completely agree.  Anonymity is not equal to the right to be
> > uncontactable
> > everafter.
> >
> > On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we
> > > often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe
> > > only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their
> > > talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to
> > > contact them.
> > >
> > > A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact
> > > the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what
> > > the correct information is.
> > >
> > > I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email
> > > address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for
> > > contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be
> > > able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just
> > > because you haven't been checking your talk page.
> > >
> > > This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact
> > > the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint
> > > photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get
> > > in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year
> > > ago is not likely to check a talk page.
> > >
> > > I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.
> > >
> > > Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
> > >
> > > -Kat
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
> > > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
> > > The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
> > > -- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Brad Patrick
> > General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
> > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> > bradp.wmf at gmail.com
> > 727-231-0101
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -Sceptre
> http://tintower.co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>