from_name: geni

body:
On 10/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I think you come the closest to an explanation of why people want
> their companies in Wikipedia when you talk about offering "some
> modicum of respectability".  People want their companies in Wikipedia
> because it's relatively hard to get a company in Wikipedia.
>

Not so. Firstly a free link is always worth while. Secondly links from
wikipedia will take traffic to your website. Reading SEO forums can be
somewhat worrying.

--
geni


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement


list: foundation-l

from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/30/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Does it matter?  Can we just end the thread
> without
> > pinning the blame on anyone.  It is not just this
> one
> > thread, I had just noticed the en.WP conversations
> on
> > a major increase lately.
>
> Rather than dismissing the discussion why not tell
> those of us less
> connected with the other language wikis how this
> problem has been
> completely solved [1] on those subprojects.
>
>
> (1) I must assume that this is totally solved
> everywhere except enwiki
> for you to be claiming that this thread is an
> offtopic enwiki only
> matter.
>

The discussion of a specific aspect of en,WP's speedy
deletion policy should not happen at foundation-l.
Communities make their own policies.  If someone wants
compare and contrast policies from diferent
communities here that is fine.  Or even discuss more
generally how problems are handled.  But that is *not*
what was happening and the thread was well-developed.
However if no else objects to developing en.WP
policies I will say no more about it.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


list: wikien-l

from_name: David Mestel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement

body:
Maybe we need some kind of speedy deletion process for organisations
which are not notable, but which do assert notability.  Of course,
there would need to be safeguards - perhaps allow any established
editor (>500 edits for the sake of argument) to remove the tag or have
the article undeleted without discussion, like a prod undeletion.
This would mean that we could remove many more articles about nn
organisations and people without having to go through a five-day AfD,
but anything which was notable enough for at least one established
editor to support it would still get the benefit of full AfD process
and discussion.

On 29/09/06, Brad Patrick <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Dear Community:
>
> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> Wikipedia is overwhelming.  At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing edits
> which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but self-aggrandizing
> authors, to scream bloody murder.  This is as it should be.  However, I
> am issuing a call to arms to the community to act in a much more
> draconian fashion in response to corporate self-editing and vanity page
> creation.  This is simply out of hand, and we need your help.
>
> We are the #14 website in the world.  We are a big target.  If we are to
> remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense cannot be
> tolerated.  This means the administrators and new page patrol need to be
> clear when they see new usernames and page creation which are blatantly
> commercial - shoot on sight.  There should be no question that someone
> who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and has exactly 2 Google hits
> - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.  Ban users who promulgate
> such garbage for a significant period of time.  They need to be
> encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate their article, thereby
> raising the level of damage and wasted time they incur.
>
> Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go.  I am
> here to tell you it is not enough.  We are losing the battle for
> encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> for their own memes.  This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> energy.  We must put a stop to this now.
>
> Thank you for your help.
>
> -Brad Patrick
> User:BradPatrick
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>

--
David


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
I'm pretty certain it's a hoax - there's no mention of it in the CIA
world factbook entry for Lebanon, and a Google search gives no
relevant hits.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/le.html
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Porchesia+-wikipedia&hl=en&lr=&rls=GEUA,GEUA:2005-47,GEUA:en&as_qdr=all&start=10&sa=N

On 01/10/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> I have posted this to foundation, but for those who do not know--
>
> Today I deleted the article [[Porchesia]], which was created on November  23,
> 2005, i.e., 10 months ago. The article described an island off the coast of
> Lebanon with a population of over 300,000. The languages are Arabic, Greek,
> and  English.
>
> I will gladly restore the article when someone finds me one source  verifying
> the facts of this article. You might start by finding Porchesia on a  map.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
David


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
Please excuse me, Gerad, for paroding your response to
my conncerns a few weeks ago below.

/parody

Most of the new page patrolers are volunteers. There
is certainly too much work in
the first place. It is a stellar performance what so
few people do with so
little investment.

Their first priority is to watch out for libel,
combine this with
the growth that we experience this is a big job. There
are several big jobs
that have been postponed time and again for many many
months (OK I don't know en.WP well enough to know what
these jobs are but surely these patrolers have to-do
list they haven't been able to get to).

When you find yourself another editor to patrol new
pages for you, it does not mean that
they will catch everything; the only thing achieved is
that you are
closer to getting it all. This is not to say that the
patrolling is busted,
it is that your expectations are not compatible with
reality.

/end parody

/sarcasm
Perhaps you should just adjust your expectations to
the reality of wiki and realize evetually this stuff
will be found (or maybe it won't)  But just be patient
and realize people are doing their best and they will
eventually get to the articles you are concerned with.
/end sarcasm

I honestly don't know the answer to your problem
Danny.  I do wonder whether you tried addressing this
on the wikipedia-l list and came here only after
getting an unsatifactory respose there.  But you
should know better than to come to this list for
*solutions*.  And so should I for that matter.

But what I really want to say is this.  I think these
people in the larger Wikimedia community, whose help
you want coming up with creative solutions.  I think
these people will be caring a great deal more to help
you with en.WP's problem when they start recieving
help with their own problems.  Here is a very
incompetet list of questions/problems which did not
recieve the help looked for here.

*Wikibooks: How do develop policy to disallow
"unethical manual"  (i.e. How to commit a crime)

*Wikibooks: (and many others)  Information on
trademarks and how to correctly reprint Wikimedia
material because of trademarks.

*Wikibooks: Is Wikimedia a publisher per the GFDL?

*ru.WP: What does the WMF require/recommend a bare
minumum for Verifiability policy?

*general: when will we have new steward eletions?

*Wikiversity: NPOV & academic freedom for research

*hu.WP: The Foudation's position on non-free images

*nl.WP: MAny internal fights they seem to have
problems handling

*general: Foundation position on logo derivatives

All these things and many more were brought up on this
list by someone looking for help.  No clear solutions
was arrrived at on this list.  I hope the problems
were solved off-list in the original projects that
asked them.  There are more people at en.WP itself
capable of solving "Porchesia" than there are on this
list.  You should be talking to the people who
actually do new pages patrol and asking them what they
need to do a better job.

Birgitte SB

--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to
> take exception here.
> Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten
> months. It was caught quite by
> accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This
> raises an important issue,
> relevant to all major languages and projects--what
> are we doing to ensure the
> veracity of the information we provide. This is
> especially relevant, given the
> other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised.
> If we can have a fake
> island  with 300,000 imaginary people get through
> for ten months, we can
> certainly have  a fake company get through for 10
> months. This company can even get
> people to  read up on them and take their money. And
> if you look the company up,
> it is on  Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror.
> This is a serious
> problem. Wikipedia  provides credibility.
>
> There are two problems with this. Both are, in my
> mind,  serious ethical
> issues.
>
> 1. Given our size and reputation, we are in the
> process of transforming  from
> a medium that reports fact to a medium that can,
> potentially, create fact.
> Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that
> (for people who don't know the
>  reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at
> Wikimania). In the particular case
> of  Porchesia, someone has just argued on the
> mailing list that it should be
> kept  because it is now an internet meme. The fact
> that it has been on
> Wikipedia for  ten months ensures that
>
(_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_
>
>
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html)
> ).  This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what
> we
> report? Where do we draw the  line between reporting
> information and creating
> information? I believe that this  issue is
> sufficiently serious to warrant
> discussion among all Wikimedia  participants, not
> just the people on WP:EN.
>
> 2. The second issue is more sinister. Several months
> ago we received a call
> in the office from a major police agency. Someone
> created a false identity
> and used it to extract money from unsuspecting
> victims. When people  questioned
> how important he was, they were told, "Just look me
> up on Wikipedia."  Were
> the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are
> the people who answer  tragic
> emails telling them that their long lost but
> fabulously wealthy  relatives
> were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people
> continue to answer  those
> emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the
> man was likely  arrested, but
> the problem remains. Given our position and the
> respect we  receive, Wikipedia
> in all languages is an open target for spammers and
> con  artists. I believe
> that this is also an issue that should be addressed
> by the  larger community, and
> not just limited to WP:EN.
>
> There is a tension between accuracy and openness.
> Citizendium and
> Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension.
> If, however, we are to  maintain
> both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We
> must come up with  creative
> solutions. And that is something that involves more
> than just the  English
> Wikipedia.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> David Mestel wrote:
> > a Google search gives no relevant hits.
>
> <gbathr cynagrq svezyl va purrx>
>
> There are *lots* of google hits.  The island, existent or not,
> is clearly a significant Internet meme.  As such, Wikipedia
> needs to have an article on it, documenting the origin and
> spread of the meme, and accurately listing the relevant
> fictitious parameters which the island would have if it did
> exist.  Danny should not have summarily deleted the article --
> an orderly process of wikimprovement could have recast the
> article into the proper form without the present gap, during
> which readers who encounter the meme and turn to Wikipedia for
> enlightenment will come up empty-handed.  The article should
> be restored as soon as possible.

Well, if you exclude wikipedia-based content, there are under a dozen unique
google hits, most of which seem to refer to some Italian porno movie.

If this is a "significant internet meme" it is so only because it's been on
Wikipedia for 10 months.

-Rich
[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Requests for comments: Board Election 2006

body:
Hello all,
thank you for helping Results translation. Today I post our (possible)
last notice as Election Official 2006 for the community.

You Wikimedia editors are now invited to submit your comments about
this Election on meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comments/Board_Election_2006

Thanks for all your input, either positive or negative, in advance
Cheers,
--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vox populi, vox dei *


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
David Mestel wrote:
> a Google search gives no relevant hits.

<gbathr cynagrq svezyl va purrx>

There are *lots* of google hits.  The island, existent or not,
is clearly a significant Internet meme.  As such, Wikipedia
needs to have an article on it, documenting the origin and
spread of the meme, and accurately listing the relevant
fictitious parameters which the island would have if it did
exist.  Danny should not have summarily deleted the article --
an orderly process of wikimprovement could have recast the
article into the proper form without the present gap, during
which readers who encounter the meme and turn to Wikipedia for
enlightenment will come up empty-handed.  The article should
be restored as soon as possible.

-- sc "inclusionist" s

</gbathr cynagrq svezyl va purrx>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] dwdiff - word by word diffs

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/21/1913234
>
> Interesting. Any use for wikitext diffs, you think?

We've already got one. It's quite cool and fast. Maybe we should hawk
ours to them rather than the other way around.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting article on Alexa

body:
On 1 Oct 2006, at 08:50, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> Well, obviously it shouldn't be used as the sole way of making a
> decision,
> but if it has a high Alexa rank, it means a lot of people who use
> that Alexa
> toolbar visit the site. That should give some indication. Also, if
> none of
> them visit a certain site that says something as well.

In my cases it indicates that the UK Broadcasters
don't allow installation of the Alexa toolbar,
and that Alexa doesn't count iframe hits. As with
all these things, there will always be cases where
the raw figures are misleading.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Six criteria for Wikipedia inclusion

body:
On 10/1/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/10/1, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>:
>
> > One criterion that I explicitly do not include is how popular
> > something is.  In fact, I think the less popular something is the
> > *more* useful it is to include information about it in Wikipedia.
>
> I disagree. Is it more useful to have information on a random band
> from the local scene than to have it on the Beatles? Is it more useful
> to have the soccer results of the second team of the 14- and 15-year
> old youth team of FC Smallville than those of AC Milan? Is it more
> useful to have information on me (having 'published' a PhD thesis)
> than on George Orwell?
>
Yes, I think it is.  In case you don't understand my point, it is that
information on these less popular things is harder to find.
Information on the Beatles, AC Milan, or George Orwell, even organized
into a nice neat article, is a dime a dozen.  Most of that information
isn't free, so Wikipedia isn't solely duplicating efforts, but where
Wikipedia really shines is when I search for some obscure thing of
mostly local interest and find that there's already a detailed
encyclopedia article about it.

Note that this isn't to say that Wikipedia *should* have an article on
any of the more obscure halves of your questions.

Anthony


body:
On 9/30/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > I think you come the closest to an explanation of why people want
> > their companies in Wikipedia when you talk about offering "some
> > modicum of respectability".  People want their companies in Wikipedia
> > because it's relatively hard to get a company in Wikipedia.
> >
>
> Not so. Firstly a free link is always worth while. Secondly links from
> wikipedia will take traffic to your website. Reading SEO forums can be
> somewhat worrying.
>
Firstly, writing an article about your company and putting it into
Wikipedia, then calling Brad and complaining about the fact that it
was deleted, is by no means free.  Secondly, links from Wikipedia only
take traffic to your website if someone a) goes to that article, and
b) follows the link.

Finally, why is this thread on foundation-l?  This is a
project/community issue, not a foundation one.

Anthony


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here.
Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by
accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue,
relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the
veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the
other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake
island  with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can
certainly have  a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get
people to  read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up,
it is on  Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious
problem. Wikipedia  provides credibility.

There are two problems with this. Both are, in my mind,  serious ethical
issues.

1. Given our size and reputation, we are in the process of transforming  from
a medium that reports fact to a medium that can, potentially, create fact.
Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that (for people who don't know the
 reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at Wikimania). In the particular case
of  Porchesia, someone has just argued on the mailing list that it should be
kept  because it is now an internet meme. The fact that it has been on
Wikipedia for  ten months ensures that
(_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html) ).  This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what we
report? Where do we draw the  line between reporting information and creating
information? I believe that this  issue is sufficiently serious to warrant
discussion among all Wikimedia  participants, not just the people on WP:EN.

2. The second issue is more sinister. Several months ago we received a call
in the office from a major police agency. Someone created a false identity
and used it to extract money from unsuspecting victims. When people  questioned
how important he was, they were told, "Just look me up on Wikipedia."  Were
the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are the people who answer  tragic
emails telling them that their long lost but fabulously wealthy  relatives
were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people continue to answer  those
emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the man was likely  arrested, but
the problem remains. Given our position and the respect we  receive, Wikipedia
in all languages is an open target for spammers and con  artists. I believe
that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the  larger community, and
not just limited to WP:EN.

There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and
Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to  maintain
both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with  creative
solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the  English
Wikipedia.

Danny


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


list: commons-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Commons-l] [Wikitech-l] Ogg Theora is too hard to play. We
 needYouTube-style Flash streaming video.

body:
There's already code in branch from one of our Summer of Code projects for this,
using the Java player from Fluendo and optionally also a Firefox extension / IE
plugin based on the VLC player.

If you'd like to help Michael continue work on this, great.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Ogg Theora is too hard to play. We
 needYouTube-style Flash streaming video.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:53:02 -0400, Brad Patrick
<bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:

>The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
>Wikipedia is overwhelming.

I hear you.  Perhaps that long discussed speedy criterion for
"advertisements masquerading as articles" should be introduced.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting article on Alexa

body:
Well, obviously it shouldn't be used as the sole way of making a decision,
but if it has a high Alexa rank, it means a lot of people who use that Alexa
toolbar visit the site. That should give some indication. Also, if none of
them visit a certain site that says something as well.

Google is often useless as well, because of it's sensitivity to being
googlebombed and abused in other ways.

One shouldn't use any single indicator alone to make a decision.

Mgm

On 10/1/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day David,
>
> > Given the number of people who seem to use Alexa 'rankings' as the basis
> > of an Afd decision on website articles, I thought you guys might be
> > interested in this article:
> >
> > http://www.johnchow.com/index.php/why-alexa-is-worthless/
> >
> > It has been clear for a long time that Alexa 'rankings' are utter crap,
> > as they are based not on website visitors and links (as Google or Yahoo
> > rankings are) but on the activities of those infected with Alexa's
> > spyware-esque toolbar.
>
> Pray allow me to be the first to drop the facade of maturity and cry
> out: "Well, DUH!"
>
> Alexa is now, always has been, and almost certainly will be in the
> future, utterly useless ... their rankings *and* their stupid little
> toolbar.  Anyone silly enough to take the rankings at face value needs
> to be whacked with a Cluebat.
>
>
> --
> Mark Gallagher
> "I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts."
> -- Calvin & Hobbes
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
David Gerard wrote:
>>"David Mestel" wrote
>>> I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
>>> it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
>>> and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly
>>> biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't
>>> explained.
>
> You are in fact completely wrong and dangerously wrong.

Careful, David, you don't want to turn into a robot, yourself,
in your anti-process crusade!

"Codify it in policy" might be a little strong here, but certainly,
if Brad's call to arms on corporate vanity isn't matched by some
reasonably explicit corresponding language in our notability and
deletion guidelines, it should be.  (In particular, someone
mentioned CSD A7, or something, and while I'm not one to memorize
CSD numbers, that sounds about right.)

> Take care not to try to turn Wikipedia into something which, if it was,
> would never have become interesting enough for you to have heard about
> it in the first place.

Nice.  Where'd that come from? :-)


subject: [Foundation-l] List Summary Service

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 01/10/06, Pat Gunn <pgunn at dachte.org> wrote:
>
> > I've started to summarise this list for people who
> don't want
> > to slog through the whole thing (and to make it
> easy for translators
> > to easily make foundation-l transparent to
> non-English speakers).
> > To get the swing of it, I summarised all of
> September in my first
> > go -- please see
> >
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Improv/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2006_9_2430_wo
>
>
> Good one!
>
> (And that reminds me that I did in fact email
> juriwiki-l on the Soviet
> PD question and, true to its reputation, juriwiki-l
> proved to be a
> black hole for questions. Hooray. What was its
> purpose again?)
>
> Use full names where you can, so Gerard and Gerard
> don't get mixed up.
>
>
> > 1) Is it a good idea at all?
>
>
> This is a FANTASTIC idea. Think of software
> development lists - people
> read Kernel Traffic and Wine Weekly News when they
> wouldn't bother
> with the lists.
>
>
> > 4) Is it better that I host this on meta,
> someplace else on a WKF wiki,
> >         or on one of my servers? If I do host it
> on a WMF wiki, where
> >         should it land?
>
>
> Meta sounds good. Somewhere linked from mailing
> lists pages, with a
> category of list summaries.
>
> I should mention also: it's an ongoing issue on the
> Foundation
> committee lists to get someone willing to summarise
> them. How much
> work was this for you?
>
>
> - d.

I second David's enthusiasm.  This is wonderful.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] List Summary Service


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Oct 1, 2006, at 4:50 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:53:02 -0400, Brad Patrick
> <bpatrick at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
>> Wikipedia is overwhelming.
>
> I hear you.  Perhaps that long discussed speedy criterion for
> "advertisements masquerading as articles" should be introduced.

Oh God, please no.

You have no idea what that would become in the hands of some of our
admins.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Seth Finkelstein in the Technology Guardian

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> ...it is in fact a grey area and requires ... human editorial
> judgement. Which is why Wikipedia is written by humans instead
> of assembled from some sort of data dump.

Indeed.  But when we forget that, we end up with Wikipedians
reiterating a robot mantra of, "You're borderline notable,
and that's good enough for us, so deal with it", which Seth
poignantly paraphrases as "You've achieved a few things over
the years, and as a reward, here's your very own troll magnet
to  monitor and defend for the rest of your life."  (See
[[Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Seth_Finkelstein]].)


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/1/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here.
> Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by
> accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue,
> relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the
> veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the
> other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake
> island  with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can
> certainly have  a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get
> people to  read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up,
> it is on  Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious
> problem. Wikipedia  provides credibility.

[snip]

> Given our position and the respect we  receive, Wikipedia
> in all languages is an open target for spammers and con  artists. I believe
> that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the  larger community, and
> not just limited to WP:EN.
>
The thing is, there is no larger community.  The foundation consists
essentially of the board, with a few hundred people giving advice and
voting on a minority of the board membership.  Management and
membership of the foundation is almost completely separate from
management and membership of en.wp or any of the other projects.  The
membership of the projects, it seems, wants to keep it this way.  I
get the sense that we don't, for the most part, want the foundation
coming in and micromanaging things.

> There is a tension between accuracy and openness.

Are you sure about this?  I thought the whole point of Wikipedia was
that accuracy and openness were *not* in conflict.  I thought I
remembered Jimmy Wales bragging about how Wikipedia kept getting more
open - does that mean it was also getting less accurate?

If there really is a tension between accuracy and openness, then it's
quite clear which side we want to be on.  Openness, after all, is
merely a means to an end.  With that in mind, in what ways do you
suggest making the Wikimedia projects less open?

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
In a message dated 10/1/2006 10:09:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
wikilegal at inbox.org writes:

If there  really is a tension between accuracy and openness, then it's
quite clear  which side we want to be on.  Openness, after all, is
merely a means  to an end.  With that in mind, in what ways do you
suggest making the  Wikimedia projects less open?

To quote you in your response to Brad. "Please don't
misrepresent my  position."

Danny


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 10/1/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> It's become fairly clear that, once even a tiny number of Wikipedians
> decide that you must have an article, it is all-but-entirely impossible
> to get it removed or even cleaned up by working within the system.  Very
> nearly the only way to proceed is by legal threats and OFFICE protection.
>
> I would welcome a counter-example.

Well, without wanting to preempt the outcome of DRV, Gregory Lauder-Frost.

Although I do agree with you generally, it's an unfortunate situation
but, I think, inevitable when there is a lack of any standards or
principles to be applied in cases of borderline notability (which
underlies most of these cases).

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
>On Oct 1, 2006, at 4:50 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>> I hear you.  Perhaps that long discussed speedy criterion for
>> "advertisements masquerading as articles" should be introduced.
>
> Oh God, please no.
> You have no idea what that would become in the hands of some of our
> admins.

Is there anything we can do about *that* problem?  If we can't
at least document our norms for fear of the documentation being
misused, that sounds like a precarious situation.

(In particular, if an argument for not writing down a policy is
that people are supposed to be flexible but reasonable and, most
of the time, do the same sorts of thing that the hypothetical
written-down policy would stipulate, but if the additional fear
is that, once the policy got written down, it would be misused
by unreasonable people, what does that say about their behavior
in the absence of the written-down policy?)


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

body:
At 22:20 +1000 25/9/06, Angela wrote:
>  > It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.
>
>No it wasn't and I wish people didn't have this misconception.
>
>All of the bids were considered against a range of criteria, not only
>location. Amongst many other factors, Taipei offered the venue and
>accommodation on a single site, and their organizing team had prior
>experience from running the Chinese Wikimania this year. It's unfair
>to them to suggest they only won because they're in Asia.
>
>If Asia was a sure winner from the start, we wouldn't have needed a
>meeting lasting more than 4 hours on Saturday to determine which city
>would be successful. A few people seem to think that the others were
>rejected purely for being in Europe, but that was not the case, and we
>would have said from the start if we were only accepting bids from
>other continents so as not to waste people's time.
>
>Angela.

I apologize for any suggestion that the Taipei team won on anything but merit.

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


body:
At 14:22 +0200 25/9/06, Gatto Nero wrote:
>2006/9/25, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com>:
>>
>>
>>  It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.
>>
>>  We look forward to Wikimania 2007 and hope that Wikimania will swing
>>  back to Europe in 2008!
>>
>>  Gordo
>
>Then why did they open a WorldWide Contest?
>They knew they were going to choose a city in Asia, then why
>shortlisting 3 city out of Asia (and only one in it)?
>That's ridicolous.
>If "turnation" was that important, they would have told in a very
>clear way by the begin: "We are gonna choose Asia, cities from Asia
>can make a bid. Others not".
>
>Gatto Nero
>(that's what I talk about when I use the verb "be fooled")

OK. My mistake. I guess I was aware of a the discussions being about
rotating the venues.

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
David Mestel wrote:
> I'm pretty certain it's a hoax - there's no mention of it in the CIA
> world factbook entry for Lebanon, and a Google search gives no
> relevant hits.
>
> https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/le.html
> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Porchesia+-wikipedia&hl=en&lr=&rls=GEUA,GEUA:2005-47,GEUA:en&as_qdr=all&start=10&sa=N
>
> On 01/10/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I have posted this to foundation, but for those who do not know--
>>
>> Today I deleted the article [[Porchesia]], which was created on November  23,
>> 2005, i.e., 10 months ago. The article described an island off the coast of
>> Lebanon with a population of over 300,000. The languages are Arabic, Greek,
>> and  English.
>>
>> I will gladly restore the article when someone finds me one source  verifying
>> the facts of this article. You might start by finding Porchesia on a  map.
>>
>> Danny
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
>
>
It's also not in the NGA GEOnet Names Server
<http://www.nga.mil/gns/html/index.html> dataset.

-- Neil


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote

>Perhaps that long discussed speedy criterion for
> "advertisements masquerading as articles" should be introduced.

Oh. Where it says above the edit box that ''Promotional articles about yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles created as part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in accordance with our deletion policies'', I kind of assumed we meant it. And that blatant puffs would be speedied by admins. Don't tell me that this has always been ex-process. Gasp!

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/1/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> In a message dated 10/1/2006 10:09:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> wikilegal at inbox.org writes:
>
> If there  really is a tension between accuracy and openness, then it's
> quite clear  which side we want to be on.  Openness, after all, is
> merely a means  to an end.  With that in mind, in what ways do you
> suggest making the  Wikimedia projects less open?
>
>
>
> To quote you in your response to Brad. "Please don't
> misrepresent my  position."
>
> Danny
>
Feel free to explain how I misrepresented your position.  Do you feel
that the quote "There is a tension between accuracy and openness." is
taken out of context?  Do you feel that openness is more than just a
means to an end?

If you'd instead like to retract your statement that "There is a
tension between accuracy and openness.", that's fine too.  It
certainly doesn't seem to fit in with your employer's position.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: geni

body:
On 10/1/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
>
> >Perhaps that long discussed speedy criterion for
> > "advertisements masquerading as articles" should be introduced.
>
> Oh. Where it says above the edit box that ''Promotional articles about yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles created as part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in accordance with our deletion policies'', I kind of assumed we meant it. And that blatant puffs would be speedied by admins. Don't tell me that this has always been ex-process. Gasp!
>
> Charles
>

Pretty much. Why do you think that [[Template:Db-advert]] was droped?
Doesn't stop people from trying to tag stuff for speeedy with the
reason being "advert" though.

--
geni


from_name: David Mestel

body:
Well, our deletion policies also cover AfD.  I think that the first
thing we should do is extend CSD A7 to explicitly cover corporations.

On 01/10/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
>
> >Perhaps that long discussed speedy criterion for
> > "advertisements masquerading as articles" should be introduced.
>
> Oh. Where it says above the edit box that ''Promotional articles about yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles created as part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in accordance with our deletion policies'', I kind of assumed we meant it. And that blatant puffs would be speedied by admins. Don't tell me that this has always been ex-process. Gasp!
>
> Charles
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
> Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
> Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
David


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
WikiMedia isn't only WikiPedia. I'm on wikibreak in anothers wikis and now
edit only in Wikisource. I can't find any problem with encyclopedic articles
because my home wiki is intended to host only primary sources.

English Wikipedia have your on mailing list and wikipedia-l is intended to
be a mailing list for global issues on Wikipedia projects. The
question of credibility
is relevant to all Wikimedia projects, but attempts in talk about
encyclopedia credibility is not relevant to all Wikimedia projects.

[[:m:User:555]]

On 10/1/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here.
> Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught
> quite by
> accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important
> issue,
> relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure
> the
> veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given
> the
> other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake
> island  with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can
> certainly have  a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can
> even get
> people to  read up on them and take their money. And if you look the
> company up,
> it is on  Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious
> problem. Wikipedia  provides credibility.
>
> There are two problems with this. Both are, in my mind,  serious ethical
> issues.
>
> 1. Given our size and reputation, we are in the process of
> transforming  from
> a medium that reports fact to a medium that can, potentially, create fact.
> Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that (for people who don't
> know the
> reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at Wikimania). In the particular
> case
> of  Porchesia, someone has just argued on the mailing list that it should
> be
> kept  because it is now an internet meme. The fact that it has been on
> Wikipedia for  ten months ensures that
> (_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_
> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html)
> ).  This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what we
> report? Where do we draw the  line between reporting information and
> creating
> information? I believe that this  issue is sufficiently serious to warrant
> discussion among all Wikimedia  participants, not just the people on
> WP:EN.
>
> 2. The second issue is more sinister. Several months ago we received a
> call
> in the office from a major police agency. Someone created a false identity
> and used it to extract money from unsuspecting victims. When
> people  questioned
> how important he was, they were told, "Just look me up on
> Wikipedia."  Were
> the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are the people who
> answer  tragic
> emails telling them that their long lost but fabulously wealthy  relatives
> were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people continue to
> answer  those
> emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the man was
> likely  arrested, but
> the problem remains. Given our position and the respect we  receive,
> Wikipedia
> in all languages is an open target for spammers and con  artists. I
> believe
> that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the  larger
> community, and
> not just limited to WP:EN.
>
> There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and
> Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are
> to  maintain
> both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up
> with  creative
> solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the  English
> Wikipedia.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


body:
"David Mestel" wrote

> Well, our deletion policies also cover AfD.  I think that the first
> thing we should do is extend CSD A7 to explicitly cover corporations.

I was implying that there has always been the implied discretion for admins to shoot on sight certain types of pages. If you want this in wonkish, those tagging for speedies should stay within the guidelines, but other things can be deleted by sure-footed admins.

Charles

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body:
On 10/1/06, David Mestel <david.mestel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, our deletion policies also cover AfD.  I think that the first
> thing we should do is extend CSD A7 to explicitly cover corporations.
>

A corporation is a legal person so they are already covered. the
Problem is that even the most incompetant PR person is going to
include some aparent claim of noteability.

--
geni


body:
I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly
biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't
explained.

On 01/10/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "David Mestel" wrote
>
> > Well, our deletion policies also cover AfD.  I think that the first
> > thing we should do is extend CSD A7 to explicitly cover corporations.
>
> I was implying that there has always been the implied discretion for admins to shoot on sight certain types of pages. If you want this in wonkish, those tagging for speedies should stay within the guidelines, but other things can be deleted by sure-footed admins.
>
> Charles
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
> Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
> Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
David


body:
"David Mestel" wrote

> I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
> it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
> and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly
> biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't
> explained.

Well, as for explanation, when deleting a page one is supposed to fill in a Reason box, and something like 'promotional material' is a quite adequate explanation.

But your reply shows that (per David Gerard, and others of course), we have dialogues here in two languages. Let's for the purposes of argument call them Wonkish and Arbish.

In Wonkish, 'discretion' stands for certain grey and disreputable areas of policy, where what should happen is not yet properly regulated. In Arbish, however, and I speak here as an Arb with the publicly stated aim of keeping admins' discretion something meaningful, you have always to look behind applications of policy to see intention, and the application to the mission statement we have of writing the encyclopedia.

In other words, discretion in Arbish is read as saying that pro-active admins are the first, second and probably third lines of defence of the project. It is much better to have them out there doing their best, and taking away the mop-and-bucket from a very few, than doing up the constraints ever tighter, because it is felt that this pre-empts misuse of admin powers.

This debate, of course, will run and run.

Charles

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body:
Well, yes, and what I'm suggesting that we loosen the rules so that
what used to be discretion outside the rules can now be within the
rules, not that we stop admins deleting promotional material.  In
general, I think that policy should describe, as well as proscribe,
the way things are done.

On 01/10/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "David Mestel" wrote
>
> > I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
> > it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
> > and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly
> > biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't
> > explained.
>
> Well, as for explanation, when deleting a page one is supposed to fill in a Reason box, and something like 'promotional material' is a quite adequate explanation.
>
> But your reply shows that (per David Gerard, and others of course), we have dialogues here in two languages. Let's for the purposes of argument call them Wonkish and Arbish.
>
> In Wonkish, 'discretion' stands for certain grey and disreputable areas of policy, where what should happen is not yet properly regulated. In Arbish, however, and I speak here as an Arb with the publicly stated aim of keeping admins' discretion something meaningful, you have always to look behind applications of policy to see intention, and the application to the mission statement we have of writing the encyclopedia.
>
> In other words, discretion in Arbish is read as saying that pro-active admins are the first, second and probably third lines of defence of the project. It is much better to have them out there doing their best, and taking away the mop-and-bucket from a very few, than doing up the constraints ever tighter, because it is felt that this pre-empts misuse of admin powers.
>
> This debate, of course, will run and run.
>
> Charles
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
> Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
> Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
David


subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing database dumps

body:
Mark Clements wrote:
> If the following statements are all true, then there is no ambiguity.  If
> any of them are false then that ambiguity remains:
>
> 1) The main namespace can never have a prefix (ns title is always empty)

Yes.

> 2) All other namespaces _must_ have a prefix

Yes.

> 3) A namespace title cannot contain a colon

No.

> If they are all true then your assumption above is valid, otherwise it is
> not and you will parse some edge-case titles incorrectly.

No.

Generally, parsing full-text titles to (namespace, title) requires knowing two
things:
a) The set of all defined namespace prefixes
b) The set of all defined interwiki prefixes

For parsing page titles from a dump, you only care about the namespaces -- which
are provided in the dump -- since no pages there can have an interwiki title.

And of course, you only care about the namespaces *if you do* care about the
namespaces, which you very often may not.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On 10/1/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/10/06, David Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > 'Vanity articles. An article about a real person or corporation which
> > appears to have been written by the subject, by one of its employees, or
> > by a third party hired by the subject to write the article, regardless
> > of the notability or otherwise of the subject.'
>
>
> Looks relatively robust against the sincere variety of rules lawyer (I
> could be wrong) and seems to follow sensibly from the basic content
> policies.
>
The problem I would say is that it's really easy to confuse an article
written by a third party for one written by the subject.

I've submitted a number of articles on freeware, for instance, and had
them deleted as "vanity".  I also know of a case where an article on a
professor which was copied straight out of the Vanity Fair Magazine
was listed on VfD as "vanity", and it received a significant majority
of votes for deletion as "obvious vanity" at the time I went to
Borders and noticed the plagiarism.

It seems to me that it's far to difficult to recognize which articles
"have been written by the subject, by one of its employees, or by a
third party hired by the subject to write the article" without having
a large number of false positives or a large number of missed
negatives.

I think it makes much more sense to let people remove those parts of
articles they feel are not written from a neutral point of view, or
are not verifiable.  If it turns out there is nothing left, well, then
an article might be a candidate for unilateral removal.

Anthony


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
Good catch

On 10/1/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> I have posted this to foundation, but for those who do not know--
>
> Today I deleted the article [[Porchesia]], which was created on November  23,
> 2005, i.e., 10 months ago. The article described an island off the coast of
> Lebanon with a population of over 300,000. The languages are Arabic, Greek,
> and  English.
>
> I will gladly restore the article when someone finds me one source  verifying
> the facts of this article. You might start by finding Porchesia on a  map.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] New Wikipedias created

body:
2006/9/30, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org>:
> http://wuu.wikipedia.org/               Wu
> http://mzn.wikipedia.org/               Mazandarani
> http://new.wikipedia.org/               Newar / Nepal Bhasa
> http://lbe.wikipedia.org/               Lak
> http://eml.wikipedia.org/               Emilian-Romagnol / Sammarinese
> http://bxr.wikipedia.org/               Buryat (Russia)
> http://hsb.wikipedia.org/               Upper Sorbian
> http://nov.wikipedia.org/               Novial
> http://pag.wikipedia.org/               Pangasinan
> http://bar.wikipedia.org/               Bavarian
> http://bpy.wikipedia.org/               Bishnupriya Manipuri
> http://diq.wikipedia.org/               Zazaki
> http://zea.wikipedia.org/               Zealandic
> http://roa-tara.wikipedia.org/          Tarantino
> http://cbk-zam.wikipedia.org/           Zamboanga Chavacano
> http://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/      Classical Chinese
> http://cu.wikipedia.org/                Old Church Slavonic
> http://ru-sib.wikipedia.org/            Siberian/Nort Russian
> http://glk.wikipedia.org/               Gilaki
> http://cdo.wikipedia.org/               Min Dong

For my bots I would like to know:

What is the name of those languages in the languages themselves,
transliterated into Latin script.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Filip Maljkovic

subject: [Wikitech-l] New Wikipedias created

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/9/30, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org>:
>
>> http://wuu.wikipedia.org/               Wu
>> http://mzn.wikipedia.org/               Mazandarani
>> http://new.wikipedia.org/               Newar / Nepal Bhasa
>> http://lbe.wikipedia.org/               Lak
>> http://eml.wikipedia.org/               Emilian-Romagnol / Sammarinese
>> http://bxr.wikipedia.org/               Buryat (Russia)
>> http://hsb.wikipedia.org/               Upper Sorbian
>> http://nov.wikipedia.org/               Novial
>> http://pag.wikipedia.org/               Pangasinan
>> http://bar.wikipedia.org/               Bavarian
>> http://bpy.wikipedia.org/               Bishnupriya Manipuri
>> http://diq.wikipedia.org/               Zazaki
>> http://zea.wikipedia.org/               Zealandic
>> http://roa-tara.wikipedia.org/          Tarantino
>> http://cbk-zam.wikipedia.org/           Zamboanga Chavacano
>> http://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/      Classical Chinese
>> http://cu.wikipedia.org/                Old Church Slavonic
>> http://ru-sib.wikipedia.org/            Siberian/Nort Russian
>> http://glk.wikipedia.org/               Gilaki
>> http://cdo.wikipedia.org/               Min Dong
>>
>
> For my bots I would like to know:
>
> What is the name of those languages in the languages themselves,
> transliterated into Latin script.
You can find most of them here:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/languages/Names.php?r1=16710&r2=16709&pathrev=16710

For non-latin, I don't know :)

Filip


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>
> In any case, I think this is interesting at a global
> level because the
> Wiki's at greatest risk of collecting garbage are
> often the ones with
> the least activity.
>
> After seeing that one of the Wikipedias had its main
> page changed to
> say "Welcome to the Runescape trading forum", I
> wondered if it would
> be useful to setup a bot to check recent changes on
> all the smaller
> wikis for insertions of English text. .. With the
> hope that the worst
> of the junk on small wikis would be in inappropriate
> languages.
>
> It would be really nice if we had a single
> recentchanges page that
> aggregated all the low activity wikis.

I think this is a great idea.  Is it possible to set
up several RC bots (in different wiki's) to work in a
single RC channel?  If this could be done with the
bots displaying a snippet of any added text, it should
be easy to recognize any english which does not
belong.

Birgitte SB

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: Pat Gunn

subject: [Foundation-l] List Summary Service

body:
Hey all,
I've started to summarise this list for people who don't want
to slog through the whole thing (and to make it easy for translators
to easily make foundation-l transparent to non-English speakers).
To get the swing of it, I summarised all of September in my first
go -- please see

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Improv/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2006_9_2430_wo

If I've misrepresented you, please let me know -- I ask that you
do not directly edit it. I'm asking for comments on the following -
I anticipate settling down to doing this weekly.

1) Is it a good idea at all?
2) Is it formatted in a readable way? Should I format it differently?
3) Should I go into more or less detail on the longer discussions than
	I presently do?
4) Is it better that I host this on meta, someplace else on a WKF wiki,
	or on one of my servers? If I do host it on a WMF wiki, where
	should it land?
5) What would it take to get some translators interested?

Take care.

---
Pat Gunn
mod: csna, bmcm, bmco, cooa, cona, clpd, coom
http://dachte.org
Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals
	-- Ammon Hennacy


subject: [Foundation-l] List Summary Service


from_name: Fastfission

subject:
[Commons-l] Ogg Theora is too hard to play. We need
	YouTube-style Flash streaming video.

body:
On 9/28/06, Jason Spiro <jasonspiro2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> MediaWiki should convert all our videos to low-rez Flash Video format
> for streaming previewing as soon as the .ogg original is uploaded.
> This way, more people will be able to view our videos, so we'll get
> more uploads.
>
> Agree or disagree?

100% agree. I still haven't figured out how to get OGG files to play
correctly on any of my computers, and I'm more computer savvy than
most. I look forward to the day when OGG is a well-supported and
easy-to-play format but until then, I don't think playing a little
lowest-common-denominator is a bad thing when it comes to tech things,
with the always-available option of linking up with the full file for
those who really want to monkey with it.

FF


subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Wikimedia promotion committee

body:
On 10/1/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> I'd like to announce here the creation of the Wikimedia promotion
> committee. It is a new subcommittee of the Communications committee
> which deals with the production of promotion material for Wikimedia and
> its projects and establishing guidelines to ensure that promotion
> material follows some quality standards.
>

Subcommittee? Guidelines? You know anyone who propsed this at project
level would find themselves with several thousand links to
[[m:Instruction creep]]

> == Visual identity guidelines ==
>
> The committee works on developing visual identity guidelines for the
> projects. In the absence of project specific guidelines, the guidelines
> for the Wikimedia logo are valid:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines
>
> If you design promotion stuff for your project, please follow them as
> closely as possible (or we'll come and hunt you at night ;-)
>

Well I would but in the interests of not breaking copyright law I
think the "do not use foundation or project logos" route is somewhat
safer.

> == Production of promotion material ==
>
> It's obvious that two people can't do all the necessary design work for
> all the projects in the different languages. Currently, we focus on
> creating a basic set of necessary things:
> * Brochure (threefold, DIN A4), see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Leaflet

Can you fid the person who included the phrase "Our editors range in
age from seven to
seventy" and tell them that the projects are quite able to shoot
themselves in the foot without foundation help? Or do you really want
to advertise the posibility that we have 7 year olds editing something
as solidly adult in content as wikipedia?

> == Logos ==
>
> The promotion subcom will act as intermediate institution between
> community and board in the process of choosing new project logos. It
> will check if community chosen project logos fullfill the necessary
> requirements (format specification, copyright situation etc., see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Logos) to become official project logos
> and submit them with a recommendation to the board for approval.
>

[[m:Instruction creep]]

--
geni


body:
On 9/29/06, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that the right way is to teach people how use free tools and
> force them to use it, then force everybody to use properiaty software,
> couse it's easier for windows users...

While I'm sure you have the best of intentions, when given the option
between "not using free tools" and "being forced to use it" most
people will opt for the former. Enforcing a de-facto "only computer
geeks are welcome" sort of rule is not going to really help the
long-term interest of our projects.

I really love MediaWiki's support of SVG -- you can upload and
download an open format, but it always renders it to be viewed in any
old browser. I think we should take this as something of a model --
the goal should be to combine maximum usability with maximum freedom,
and as has been pointed out these are not and should not be
incompatible. We shouldn't have to "force anyone" to learn anything to
use our resources, if freedom is really a goal.

FF


from_name: Robth

subject: [WikiEN-l] Call for volunteers for OTRS permissions queue

body:
On 10/1/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>Anything not processed within a
> few days just gets difficult, because the procedure for dealing with
> copyvios tends to be "nuke it after 5/7 days". I'm finding tickets that
> are almost 2 months old and the article/image has been deleted already.

As a short-term partial fix for this, I just added a line to
Template:Nothanks-web
asking people to note on the article's talk page if they send an email to
OTRS.  If they do that, we'll shuffle the article over into the "poster
claims permission" pile, which buys it another few weeks of existence.

--
Robth
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)


from_name: Joe Anderson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting article on Alexa

body:
Alexa is mainly used by those with spyware installed, though I use the
SearchStatus extension for Firefox, which provides the Alexa rank and sends
data to Alexa.

I have no objection to this, as I don't mind making my site look more
popular! On that point, Alexa can be forged by site owners asking their
members to install Alexa to raise their ranking.

On 10/1/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> I have Alexa installed :P
>
> On 10/1/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 1 Oct 2006, at 08:50, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> >
> > > Well, obviously it shouldn't be used as the sole way of making a
> > > decision,
> > > but if it has a high Alexa rank, it means a lot of people who use
> > > that Alexa
> > > toolbar visit the site. That should give some indication. Also, if
> > > none of
> > > them visit a certain site that says something as well.
> >
> > In my cases it indicates that the UK Broadcasters
> > don't allow installation of the Alexa toolbar,
> > and that Alexa doesn't count iframe hits. As with
> > all these things, there will always be cases where
> > the raw figures are misleading.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Joe Anderson
>
> [[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
I really hate articles that try to pin down what should be done particularly
because others then have to comply with what is proposed. For many of the
arguments equally valid arguments can be brought that polarise the situation
even more..

A good example is this "a decent size".  Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. This
means that it does not have to tell it all, it has to give a decent basis on
the subject. There are however many articles that are truly long and it can
be argued that they are no longer encyclopaedic it their outlook. The
en:Gandhi article is one such. I would argue that your "decent sized" is no
longer what you would call an encyclopaedic sized article. Making this
article shorter could in turn create "problems" because some points of view
might no longer find a place in the article.

Another problem with "decent size" is that about some things there is not
that much to say. Removing them from wikipedia is fine, if the notion of
"bringing all the knowledge" is for what the Wikimedia Foundation intends to
do and is not what Wikipedia is about. Decent sized would mean enough
information is provided in my book and it would not be quantative in the way
you use it.

You assume that we have to comply with "the law" and consequently that there
are things we cannot have articles about. I would like you to substantiate
that. When things are publicly known, we may not use material because all
kinds of IP restrictions but I doubt that we can not inform about it. When
we do not want to report about people, it is a choise a choise that is as
much about the peron involved being a public figure thant anything else.
Remember in Wikipedia we create an encyclopaedia and the next moron shooting
ducks in a school may be something for Wikinews but in the larger scheme of
things it is a non-event.

Your idea about what makes something encyclopaedic is indeed fuzzy. You
start by excluding several categories of information and end your position
paper with "I think the less popular something is the *more* useful it is to
include information about it in Wikipedia". You cannot have it both ways. I
would say that when something is sufficiently relevant it may be included.
Starwars is very much fictional and it is very much relevant to our culture.
In the same way I am happy to see that "the roman de la rose" has it's well
deserved article. This was in it's day more popular than the bible (1).

What is also "fuzzy" for me is what "human dignity" is about. Many people
have done things that are extremely undignified and are of a relevance that
inclusion in Wikipedia is the right thing to do..

Concluding, I take your pov as a discussion paper, and there is enough meat
to chew on.

Thanks,
    GerardM

(1) Herfstij der Middeleeuwen - Johan Huizinga

On 10/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 9/30/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 9/30/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > In fact maybe we can beat them to the punch.  Create a verifiable
> > > > neutral article about them *before* they get around to it.
> > > >
> > >
> > > True to your belief everything should be in Wikipedia, Anthony.  I
> disagree.
> > >
> > In a perfect world "everything" should be in Wikipedia, I suppose, but
> > I don't believe we live in such a perfect world.  Please don't
> > misrepresent my position.
> >
> I thought I'd expand a little bit on what my position is.  I can think
> of six criteria off the top of my head for Wikipedia articles.  They
> must be:
>
> 1) based on verifiable sources - anything which can not be written
> about using verifiable sources shouldn't be in Wikipedia - this
> criterion includes the concept of "no original research" - this is a
> big part of what I mean by "in a perfect world...", as in a perfect
> world we'd be able to verify anything.
> 2) NPOV - if an article is not written from a neutral point of view it
> should generally be rewritten - however, in some cases perhaps it
> makes more sense to simply remove the article - this criterion
> includes the concept of barring autobiographies.
> 3) encyclopedic - this is perhaps the fuzziest criterion, but it would
> exclude things like essays, lists of quotes, articles about words,
> fiction, etc.
> 4) legal - due to various laws, including but not limited to privacy
> laws and so called "intellectual property" laws, there are some things
> we can't legally have free articles about
> 5) of a decent size - articles which are too short and will likely
> never be expanded should generally be merged with other articles and
> redirected.
> 6) in line with human dignity - this would prohibit disclosure of
> certain types of private information, even in cases where it's
> probably legal under US law to include the information - I also think
> we should give the benefit of the doubt in borderline cases to people
> who ask that private information, especially biographies, not be
> included - however, I only think we should take this so far, and in
> the case of legally disclosable and already widely available public
> information I think the NPOV principle overrides any concerns about
> disclosing negative information.
>
> One criterion that I explicitly do not include is how popular
> something is.  In fact, I think the less popular something is the
> *more* useful it is to include information about it in Wikipedia.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
I'd like to announce here the creation of the Wikimedia promotion
committee. It is a new subcommittee of the Communications committee
which deals with the production of promotion material for Wikimedia and
its projects and establishing guidelines to ensure that promotion
material follows some quality standards.

== Membership ==

The subcom is currently composed of Arne Klempert and me. Some
background: Arne has worked as media designer for some years and he has
created much of the printed material for Wikimedia Deutschland. I'm a
typesetter's daughter, interested and educated in typography since
childhood and worked as a journalist for some years where I also got
some insights into professional layout.

The procedure for becoming a member of the committee is simple: submit
good work ;-) If you have a skilled hand for design and like creating
needed promotion stuff, we're happy to welcome you as new member.

Of course you don't have to be a member to create promotion stuff - if
you do on a regular basis, we're very happy to hear from you, review
work together and help.

== Visual identity guidelines ==

The committee works on developing visual identity guidelines for the
projects. In the absence of project specific guidelines, the guidelines
for the Wikimedia logo are valid:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines

If you design promotion stuff for your project, please follow them as
closely as possible (or we'll come and hunt you at night ;-)

== Production of promotion material ==

It's obvious that two people can't do all the necessary design work for
all the projects in the different languages. Currently, we focus on
creating a basic set of necessary things:
* Brochure (threefold, DIN A4), see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Leaflet
* Cheatsheet (DIN A long), see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cheatsheet
* Information kit for journalists, sponsors and business contacts (DIN A4)

The first steps towards an achieved corporate identity are currently
done on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Leaflet/cover (title page of
brochures for wikimedia and all projects), please voice your opinion on
the talk page about the drafts and/or submit own proposals.

== Logos ==

The promotion subcom will act as intermediate institution between
community and board in the process of choosing new project logos. It
will check if community chosen project logos fullfill the necessary
requirements (format specification, copyright situation etc., see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Logos) to become official project logos
and submit them with a recommendation to the board for approval.

== Contact ==

You can contact as on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Promotion, on
IRC in #wikimedia-cc (akl and elian) or by email to elian at djini.de and
arne.klempert at wikimedia.de

If you are interested in the activities of the promcom, please get in
touch with us.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
>
> This solves the concern that admins would use the 'shoot on sight'
> as an
> excuse to delete good articles which they thought were 'non-
> notable'. My
>  A9 draft makes it clear that an article has to be a VANITY article to
> qualify - and that its notability is not the issue. Thoughts anyone?

One major problem - to my mind, an article written by the subject
that is notable, sourced, etc ought not be deleted.

The problem word here is "appears," which is going to get ignored as
people go on lengthy hunts to make the connections so that they can
show an apparent commercial motive and thus whack the article.

This apparentness needs to be firmly situated in the article text
itself. That is to say, "An article about a real person or
corporation that reads as though it was written by the subject..."

This situates the problem firmly as a content problem, which is key
in content policies.

-Phil


from_name: Platonides

subject:
[Commons-l] Ogg Theora is too hard to play. We
	needYouTube-style Flash streaming video.

body:
"Ilya Haykinson" wrote:
One does not need to pay "patent fees" -- whatever those are -- to Adobe for
using Flash.  Just like people some people can create PDF files and read
those (open office can create PDF files, for example) without paying
royalties to Adobe, same can happen with Flash.

-ilya

Yes, i remember to see some programs creating very basic flash... we should
research the programs and patent status.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
David Mestel wrote:
> I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
> it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
> and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly
> biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't
> explained.

This is an eloquent expression of ongoing problems with process creep.
Not everything needs to be codified in a strict policy involving a 5 day
voting procedure.

One thing to remember is that deletions can be undone.  Deleting an
article is really no big deal.

As far as not biting the newbies, well, of course I agree.  A kind and
loving template which says "Thanks so much for your submission to
Wikipedia, but it was deleted.  Before submitting again, please read
<this>, <that>, and <the other> policy, and if you have questions,
please raise them at <an appropriate page>."

--Jimbo


body:
This should be required reading.  Charles is a voice of great experience
and wisdom.

charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> "David Mestel" wrote
>
>> I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
>> it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
>>  and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of
>> inadvertantly biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons
>> which aren't explained.
>
> Well, as for explanation, when deleting a page one is supposed to
> fill in a Reason box, and something like 'promotional material' is a
> quite adequate explanation.
>
> But your reply shows that (per David Gerard, and others of course),
> we have dialogues here in two languages. Let's for the purposes of
> argument call them Wonkish and Arbish.
>
> In Wonkish, 'discretion' stands for certain grey and disreputable
> areas of policy, where what should happen is not yet properly
> regulated. In Arbish, however, and I speak here as an Arb with the
> publicly stated aim of keeping admins' discretion something
> meaningful, you have always to look behind applications of policy to
> see intention, and the application to the mission statement we have
> of writing the encyclopedia.
>
> In other words, discretion in Arbish is read as saying that
> pro-active admins are the first, second and probably third lines of
> defence of the project. It is much better to have them out there
> doing their best, and taking away the mop-and-bucket from a very few,
> than doing up the constraints ever tighter, because it is felt that
> this pre-empts misuse of admin powers.
>
> This debate, of course, will run and run.
>
> Charles
>
> ----------------------------------------- Email sent from
> www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit
> www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
>
> _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list
>  WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>  http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Wikitech-l] New Wikipedias created

body:
> http://ru-sib.wikipedia.org/            Siberian/Nort Russian

Article about Siberian language was deleted from English Wikipedia as
original research (nosource, the language was created in 2005).

So it's nonsense!

--
Aleksander Sigachov
http://meta.wikimedia.orf/wiki/user:ajvol


subject:
[Commons-l] Ogg Theora is too hard to play. WeneedYouTube-style
	Flash streaming video.

body:
So at last it is here? Congratulations!

However...
*It doesn't work for me (start & stop buttons do nothing).
*I can't find how the applet gets the file to play. I guess the above
problem has to do with the applet may need to get passed the file location
on jorbis.player.play.0 instead of
http://tools.wikimedia.de/media/wikipedia//d/d4/
*The link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_help. is not very useful, it
redirects to [[Wikipedia:Media_help]] where there's no reference to it.
Neither from [[Wikipedia:Media]]
*The page (/~gmaxwell/jorbis/JOrbisPlayer.php as per Minh Nguyen msg) shows
too Beta. Not like a finished and usable tool (well, it seems it isn't).

Thanks fo the reference. Java is quite the same as the Flash solutions.


body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:
> Brad's support for Torino during the selection period, and Jimbo's recent
> comment here are, to my mind, very out of place and could easily suggest
> to many that there is pressure being brought on them.

Allow me to clarify that I did not vote in this years selection process,
and have no intention of voting in next years.  My comment about Torino
was based on two things: the closeness of the competition this year, and
my own love of visiting Italy in the summer, which I don't get to do
very often.  It was intended as a personal remark only... to cheer up
the Italians. :)

--Jimbo


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I don't think that it helps the transparency of the process when someone
> like Jimbo begins by supporting a bid before the bidding has seriously
> started.  It's the kind of prejudicial comment that tells everyone else
> to give up before they even try.  It casts doubt on whether he believes
> that the community has enough maturity to make good choices.

Hmm, I seem to have been very misunderstood.  I said "It isn't up to me,
nor should it be" (or words to that effect, you'd have to look it up).
I really meant that.

The committee did a great job this year, and next year's committee will
do a great job too.

I know that my opinions are often viewed as carrying a lot of weight,
and for that I sincerely apologize.  I just like Italy. :)  It was just
a personal comment.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing database dumps

body:
> That's a pretty good solution, although one of the issues is that the
> title
> includes the namespace, which needs to be removed to get the actual page
> title. I feel that the <page> section should be complete in and of itself,
> without requiring the header section mapping namespace names to ids.
> Without
> knowing the mappings (ns to ns-title) that are present in the header, you
> cannot interpret the title unambiguosly, for example <title ns="0">Star
> Trek: The Next Generation</title> relies on the parser knowing that ns-0
> is
> not called 'Star Trek' in order to be interpreted properly.
>
> How about <title ns="12" ns-title="Help">Contents</title>?
>
> - Mark Clements (HappyDog)

I think you could assume that any non-zero namespace has prefix so you'd
only need to split on the first ':' if it has a namespace number != 0 (this
assumes we will never setup a namespace with ':' in it).

BTW: why are you having so much trouble with this?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 9/30/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Does it matter?  Can we just end the thread without
>> pinning the blame on anyone.  It is not just this one
>> thread, I had just noticed the en.WP conversations on
>> a major increase lately.
>>
>
> Rather than dismissing the discussion why not tell those of us less
> connected with the other language wikis how this problem has been
> completely solved [1] on those subprojects.
>
>
> (1) I must assume that this is totally solved everywhere except enwiki
> for you to be claiming that this thread is an offtopic enwiki only
> matter.
Hoi,
For this to be relevant, there are two other mailing list that are more
oportune: the en-wikipedia-l and the wikipedia-l. This list is the
foundation list and the subject matter is hardly relevant for those who
do not want to get swamped here with things that are too project specific.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting article on Alexa

body:
G'day David,

> Given the number of people who seem to use Alexa 'rankings' as the basis
> of an Afd decision on website articles, I thought you guys might be
> interested in this article:
>
> http://www.johnchow.com/index.php/why-alexa-is-worthless/
>
> It has been clear for a long time that Alexa 'rankings' are utter crap,
> as they are based not on website visitors and links (as Google or Yahoo
> rankings are) but on the activities of those infected with Alexa's
> spyware-esque toolbar.

Pray allow me to be the first to drop the facade of maturity and cry
out: "Well, DUH!"

Alexa is now, always has been, and almost certainly will be in the
future, utterly useless ... their rankings *and* their stupid little
toolbar.  Anyone silly enough to take the rankings at face value needs
to be whacked with a Cluebat.

--
Mark Gallagher
"I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts."
  -- Calvin & Hobbes


subject: [Wikitech-l] Textbook style

body:
Maybe simply hidding the sidebar would do it. Someone on this list developed
a way to hide it, for presentations.
I don't like your frame design. Especially the bottom one. What about making
it a menu of the top one?

I see you lose the navigation references of the page. Are the previous/next
chapter their equivalent?


subject: [Wikitech-l] new dumps ?

body:
Nick:
> .. that way anyone that needs multiple files can hold off downloading them
> until all the "dump_run" fields match up, so as to more
> easily avoid problems of mixing files from different dumps. (It's true
> that this field can currently be pulled from the directory in
> the <url> field, but if a different field is used then the url can point
> just about anywhere, such as potentially using different
> hostnames for different dumps, or changing directory structure.)

Not for the /latest What about making the -latest- files an http redirect to
the real ones instead of symlinks? You can grab -latest-file swith the
correct names, you know the date... The only possible problem i see are
broken utilities to download the wiki which doesn't properly handle the full
http. However, as there is no system which uses them, i don't think it to be
very used.

About the meaning of 'latest', we could split in latestfile / latestcomplete
with both senses.


from_name: Roderik de Langen

subject: [Wikitech-l] problem with recent changes

body:
Hi

I have a problem with my recent changes. It's not being updated after
changes have been made. It does help to run one of the maintanca
scripts, but I think it should be happening on the fly when posts are made.
I'm running mediawiki 1.6.8

Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Roderik


body:
2006/10/1, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>:

> One criterion that I explicitly do not include is how popular
> something is.  In fact, I think the less popular something is the
> *more* useful it is to include information about it in Wikipedia.

I disagree. Is it more useful to have information on a random band
from the local scene than to have it on the Beatles? Is it more useful
to have the soccer results of the second team of the 14- and 15-year
old youth team of FC Smallville than those of AC Milan? Is it more
useful to have information on me (having 'published' a PhD thesis)
than on George Orwell?

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 01/10/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "David Mestel" wrote

> > I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term -
> > it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent
> > and in the open.  Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly
> > biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't
> > explained.

You are in fact completely wrong and dangerously wrong.

Humans are not robots. The more rules, the harder it is for people to
follow them. So they won't.

Human judgement is flawed, imperfect and subject to bias and abuse. So
some people attempt to write reliable procedures for all actions and
eliminate grey areas, in the interests of fairness and efficiency. But
the rules are not complete, coherent or consistent, and precedent
isn't binding in any case. (Really - check [[Wikipedia:Consensus can
change]]. You'd be a fool to ignore it, but it's not at all binding.)

That Wikipedia is inconsistent, and permits things it does not
condone, is a feature. Take care not to try to turn Wikipedia into
something which, if it was, would never have become interesting enough
for you to have heard about it in the first place. (See also [[The
Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs]].)

> In Wonkish, 'discretion' stands for certain grey and disreputable areas of policy, where what should happen is not yet properly regulated. In Arbish, however, and I speak here as an Arb with the publicly stated aim of keeping admins' discretion something meaningful, you have always to look behind applications of policy to see intention, and the application to the mission statement we have of writing the encyclopedia.
> In other words, discretion in Arbish is read as saying that pro-active admins are the first, second and probably third lines of defence of the project. It is much better to have them out there doing their best, and taking away the mop-and-bucket from a very few, than doing up the constraints ever tighter, because it is felt that this pre-empts misuse of admin powers.

I think I'll be quoting that as a voice from on high.

- d.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on the new wikipedias

body:
>    - Tarantino is supposed to use the roa code. This code does not
>    signify anything but that it is a Romance language. The code does specify
>    what is included in the code and Tarantino is not one of them.

What code, then, would you propose?

>    - In ISO-639-3 cbk is the code for Chavacano. Zamboangue?o is an
>    alternative name..

No, there are several different varieties of Chavacano. Zamboangue?o
is the most widely-spoken among them, in the city of Zamboanga. This
is mentioned in the proposal.

>    - For Classical Chinese there is no specificity as what is meant by
>    this. This is also easy to explain as the zh (zho) code itself is
>    depreciated in the ISO-639-3 because there are some 10 languages that are
>    included in this code.

Again, what code would you recommend instead, and why didn't you
mention it at the proposal stage?

>    - I might include the Old Church Slavonic as chu. It is used as
>    liturgical language of various Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches. It
>    is considered extinct.

Not sure what's wrong with cu. Yes, it is an "old" code, but it is
shorter and easier to type.

>    - The ru-sib is a created language. It is a bad idea to create a code
>    as if it is a dialect of the Russian language when it is not.

Not according to requester, it's not. Title of Wikipedia is North Russian WP.

Mark


body:
On 01/10/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

> Although I do agree with you generally, it's an unfortunate situation
> but, I think, inevitable when there is a lack of any standards or
> principles to be applied in cases of borderline notability (which
> underlies most of these cases).

I suggest that the reason any attempts to create such standards become
merely another place for irresolvable argument is that any standard
that doesn't follow fairly elegantly from the basic content rules
(NPOV, NOR, V) won't be accepted by editors who weren't in on the
vote, and who have a convincing exception to the rule right there to
hand. Because it is in fact a grey area and requires ... human
editorial judgement. Which is why Wikipedia is written by humans
instead of assembled from some sort of data dump.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
This is not a problem. The existing pgkbot IRC monitoring framework already
allows each bot to report to multiple channels simultaneously, so a bot
could report to its "home" channel, as well as to a centralized channel, if
needs warrant. This data is already being broadcast on Wikimedia's IRC
server, so there isn't anything to modify server-side. All that you need is
poke a few users on IRC to change their bots' settings.

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Birgitte SB
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 12:11 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>
> In any case, I think this is interesting at a global
> level because the
> Wiki's at greatest risk of collecting garbage are
> often the ones with
> the least activity.
>
> After seeing that one of the Wikipedias had its main
> page changed to
> say "Welcome to the Runescape trading forum", I
> wondered if it would
> be useful to setup a bot to check recent changes on
> all the smaller
> wikis for insertions of English text. .. With the
> hope that the worst
> of the junk on small wikis would be in inappropriate
> languages.
>
> It would be really nice if we had a single
> recentchanges page that
> aggregated all the low activity wikis.

I think this is a great idea.  Is it possible to set
up several RC bots (in different wiki's) to work in a
single RC channel?  If this could be done with the
bots displaying a snippet of any added text, it should
be easy to recognize any english which does not
belong.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process wonkery

references:
<s7lah2pihqs0vqiecpaifbaphj43urt5a5@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140609230946g1506a024g26e2447a3c584abb@mail.gmail.com>
	<47683e960609241202h58eebc8fua913fdc8802ae10c@mail.gmail.com>
	<ef754g$jmb$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<fbad4e140609252350s7644b094hff6edc5ab124865f@mail.gmail.com>
	<451B9BCC.5020400@wikia.com>
	<38a7bf7c0609281122k32a08d25yebdae4fbfd3c29bf@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 9/28/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
(re Finger Lakes Christian School)
> This is all verifyable with the New York State board of education.  I had
> all the links up a few days ago and will go back and find them again
> sometime in the next few days, and reference the article.

For what it's worth, see the Schools section of [[Seneca Falls (town),
New York]], for the referenced subsections on the public school
district and its four schools, the Finger Lakes Christian School, and
the larger St John Bosco Catholic School.

There's more material in the Finger Lakes Christian School entry than
the others, but they all could use inserting additional flavor details
as appropriate.  I figure this is a good start.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing database dumps

references:
<efo9g3$tee$1@sea.gmane.org> <efotj6$mh7$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4520090D.2010400@pobox.com>

body:
On Sun, Oct 01, 2006 at 11:29:33AM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Mark Clements wrote:
> > If the following statements are all true, then there is no ambiguity.  If
> > any of them are false then that ambiguity remains:
> >
> > 1) The main namespace can never have a prefix (ns title is always empty)
>
> Yes.
>
> > 2) All other namespaces _must_ have a prefix
>
> Yes.
>
> > 3) A namespace title cannot contain a colon
>
> No.

Is there *any reason at all* that this stricture cannot be imposed
post-hoc (IE: now)?

It would seem to make lots of things lots of easier, with almost no
real-world impact.

We have lots of wikis in lots of languages.  Are there *ANY* namespaces
in any language with an ASCII colon as a valid character in their name?

Can we think of any other reason not to impose such a stricture?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/1/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> For this to be relevant, there are two other mailing list that are more
> oportune: the en-wikipedia-l and the wikipedia-l. This list is the
> foundation list and the subject matter is hardly relevant for those who
> do not want to get swamped here with things that are too project specific.

I think it is odd that you don't think that another example of a
Wikimedia wiki distributing a hoax unchecked for months is
uninteresting.

Yes, the enwiki speedy deletion aspects of the thread were offtopic,
but it's rare that we have a thread which runs without offtopic
interjections.

In any case, I think this is interesting at a global level because the
Wiki's at greatest risk of collecting garbage are often the ones with
the least activity.

After seeing that one of the Wikipedias had its main page changed to
say "Welcome to the Runescape trading forum", I wondered if it would
be useful to setup a bot to check recent changes on all the smaller
wikis for insertions of English text. .. With the hope that the worst
of the junk on small wikis would be in inappropriate languages.

It would be really nice if we had a single recentchanges page that
aggregated all the low activity wikis.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing database dumps

body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 01, 2006 at 11:29:33AM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Mark Clements wrote:
>>> If the following statements are all true, then there is no ambiguity.  If
>>> any of them are false then that ambiguity remains:
>>>
>>> 1) The main namespace can never have a prefix (ns title is always empty)
>> Yes.
>>
>>> 2) All other namespaces _must_ have a prefix
>> Yes.
>>
>>> 3) A namespace title cannot contain a colon
>> No.
>
> Is there *any reason at all* that this stricture cannot be imposed
> post-hoc (IE: now)?

Er, actually that should be "yes". At least, it would probably break a lot if
you tried to do that. I misread the question.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On 01/10/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:

> Careful, David, you don't want to turn into a robot, yourself,
> in your anti-process crusade!

Anti-crap-process! Aargh! DOES NOT COMPUTE. DESTROY THE HUMANS.

> > Take care not to try to turn Wikipedia into something which, if it was,
> > would never have become interesting enough for you to have heard about
> > it in the first place.

> Nice.  Where'd that come from? :-)

Some guy added it to this page ...

- d.