references:
<d845ti$3kp$1@sea.gmane.org>	<42A5C14C.8010109@yahoo.it>	<1b2348920506070851550cb7f0@mail.gmail.com>	<8806029.ryyi7DnoOv@rose.local>
	<d87aaa$lc6$1@sea.gmane.org> <1998498.pOYLVcZVgO@rose.local>
	<d8urlk$qru$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:

> Kate Turner wrote:
>> Timwi wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:

>>>Correct answer would have been: "I'll set up a page on meta for this."

>> it's a wiki.  don't whine about it, do it yourself.

> How do I do that without any access to the actual downtime message?

create a page on meta and say "here is a page on meta with translations".
(preferably, say this somewhere where someone with CVS access will see it.)

kate.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: User groups changed again

body:
Dori wrote:
>
> I think it'd probably be better to get rid of the strings and use
> levels instead. Level 0 (reader), level 10 (editor), level 20 (page
> mover), level 30 (can protect pages) level 40 (can block) etc.

In addition to what Brion already said, I think this is a very bad idea,
as it carries a lot of inherent assumptions. The above example carries
the assumptions that:

* everyone who can move pages should also be able to edit them
* everyone who can protect pages should also be able to move them
* everyone who can block users should also be able to protect pages

None of these assumptions necessarily need to be made. Brion's system is
way better because it accommodates any combination of privileges, and I
don't see why you think it's more complex just because it uses strings.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: bugzilla votes

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> The developer can still say "I am a volunteer and I will do bug X in
> stead".

Is there a page on MediaZilla that lists bugs sorted by the number of
votes? If that was made more prominent, I'm pretty sure that
highly-voted-for bugs will receive more attention.

Timwi


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ronald Chmara

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article
	on	LISA

body:
On Jun 17, 2005, at 10:46 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> Oooh... snap...
> Ray got served!!!
> Mark
>
> On 17/06/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> As a result of our exploring opportunities for Ultimate Wiktionary,
>>>> I
>>>> was pointed to LISA the Localisation Industry Standards Association.
>>>> I downloaded some information and was asked afterwards for some
>>>> information. This in turn led to the question if I was willing to
>>>> write an article about Wikimedia and localisation. So I did. It can
>>>> be found here: http://www.lisa.org/globalizationinsider/
>>> The following is what he says there
>>>>     Using this imperfect system of templates has taught us that 80%
>>>> of
>>>>     the lexicological content can be expressed using templates.
>>> What evidence is there of this? Sure, we can get closer to that when
>>> translations are viewed as mechanical acts and we can ignore all
>>> subtleties of language. In reality such an attitude only goves a lot
>>> of pap.
>> The evidence can be found in the practice of the it: or nl: and other
>> wiktionaries. Please explain  "goves a lot of pap".
>>

"snap", "goves a lot of pap", "got served"... I love how truly
self-referential this debate is. :-)

-Bop
--
Ronin Professional Consulting LLC
4245 NE Alberta Ct.
Portland, OR 97218
678-522-1322/503-282-1370


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

body:
Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy...

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 6/15/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050613 12:17]:
>
> >  That is to say, the current practice of holding votes
> > willy-nilly if you can get away with it
>
>
> That is a stunningly accurate description of how it actually seems to occur
> on en:, yes.
>
>
> > needs to be stopped, and a
> > proper framework should be developed instead that is compatible with our
> > highest ideals.
>
>
> I'm not quite sure how. Requiring all straw polls to be registered?
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Offline wikipedia (was: WCCE and Wikipedia etc.)

body:
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Guaka wrote:

> > On another note, we ( http://www.slug.org.za/ ) installed Linux Thin
> > Client labs in ten schools today, which included a March snapshot of
> > en wikipedia (including pictures).
> >
> > This was mostly possible because the 15 Gig required (pictures) could be
> > carried to the school on a hard drive (the server pre-installation).
>
> That's nice. Is that 15 GB the entire Commons? Or just the pix from the
> English Wikipdia?

It is pictures from en wikipedia.

http://download.wikimedia.org/images/ (or a version thereof at the time)
used to have the picture dump.

I have been too busy recently to chase up a more recent dump. And I need
to figure out the 'commons' thing for my downloads.

However, the 1.5 mediawiki release, and attendant database changes, mean
that I am waiting for the dust to settle before spending time getting a
new snapshot.

The old one (March) is so great anyway (for folks that do not even have
internet) that I am hanging with that for a while.

I tart it up (for schools that dial up overnight) with todays wikipedia
front page, edited to link to their snapshot.

An example can be seen at http://esangweni.shacknet.nu/ - a school that
has a wireless (24hour) connection.

Cheers,   Andy!

--
http://wizzy.org.za/


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on
	LISA

body:
James R. Johnson wrote:
> Can we test the Ultimate Wiktionary in a language before moving to it
> completely?  Say, put it up in a test format on meta?

If the project ever actually makes it as far as having some software, of
course it would be publicly tested first. So far as I know no code has
been written, and any work that's been done has been designing how it
might function.

This isn't something that's going to spring up and take over Wiktionary
next week.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Yeah -- Why on earth is Mr Meijssen (that ij is a single letter, mind
you, in het nederlands) asking Ray what "gove ... pap" is? Shouldn't
it be in the oh-so-ultimate Ultimate Wiktionary?
[[ultimatewiktionary:gove]] [[ultimatewiktionary:pap]]
[[ultimatewiktionary:Gove a lot of pap]]...

Mark

On 17/06/05, Ronald Chmara <ron at opus1.com> wrote:
> On Jun 17, 2005, at 10:46 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Oooh... snap...
> > Ray got served!!!
> > Mark
> >
> > On 17/06/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>>> Hoi,
> >>>> As a result of our exploring opportunities for Ultimate Wiktionary,
> >>>> I
> >>>> was pointed to LISA the Localisation Industry Standards Association.
> >>>> I downloaded some information and was asked afterwards for some
> >>>> information. This in turn led to the question if I was willing to
> >>>> write an article about Wikimedia and localisation. So I did. It can
> >>>> be found here: http://www.lisa.org/globalizationinsider/
> >>> The following is what he says there
> >>>>     Using this imperfect system of templates has taught us that 80%
> >>>> of
> >>>>     the lexicological content can be expressed using templates.
> >>> What evidence is there of this? Sure, we can get closer to that when
> >>> translations are viewed as mechanical acts and we can ignore all
> >>> subtleties of language. In reality such an attitude only goves a lot
> >>> of pap.
> >> The evidence can be found in the practice of the it: or nl: and other
> >> wiktionaries. Please explain  "goves a lot of pap".
> >>
>
> "snap", "goves a lot of pap", "got served"... I love how truly
> self-referential this debate is. :-)
>
> -Bop
> --
> Ronin Professional Consulting LLC
> 4245 NE Alberta Ct.
> Portland, OR 97218
> 678-522-1322/503-282-1370
>
>

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


body:
Oh... I thought you RSVP'd? By the way, in case anybody's ("anybody
is") wondering, RSVP is an abbrevation of Respondez S'il Vous Pla?t.
Surely, those who don't ("do not") know what RSVP means, will know the
meaning of Respondez S'il Vous Pla?t.

And, for the transcript: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pap
... "gove" appear'd ("appeared") to be a noun though. Remember, please
don't noun verbs. In case you're ("you are") wondering, "noun verbs"
is a colloquial English phrase meaning "use what is usually a noun as
if it were a verb". In fact, the word "noun" in the phrase "It's bad
to noun verbs!" is a nouned verb.

Mark

On 17/06/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Oooh... snap...
> >
> >Ray got served!!!
> >
> >Mark
> >
> Hell of a lot of good that does if I'm not attending the dinner.
>
> Ec
>
>

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


from_name: James R. Johnson

body:
It would be an interesting idea to have an offline wikipedia for schools,
wherein the content/pictures are updated overnight, so that it's refreshed
by the morning.  That'd be nice to do for every wikipedia...any program
specifically that could perhaps be set to download specified wikis, with
settings per wiki?

Nice.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andy Rabagliati
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 3:10 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Offline wikipedia (was: WCCE and Wikipedia etc.)

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Guaka wrote:

> > On another note, we ( http://www.slug.org.za/ ) installed Linux Thin
> > Client labs in ten schools today, which included a March snapshot of
> > en wikipedia (including pictures).
> >
> > This was mostly possible because the 15 Gig required (pictures) could be
> > carried to the school on a hard drive (the server pre-installation).
>
> That's nice. Is that 15 GB the entire Commons? Or just the pix from the
> English Wikipdia?

It is pictures from en wikipedia.

http://download.wikimedia.org/images/ (or a version thereof at the time)
used to have the picture dump.

I have been too busy recently to chase up a more recent dump. And I need
to figure out the 'commons' thing for my downloads.

However, the 1.5 mediawiki release, and attendant database changes, mean
that I am waiting for the dust to settle before spending time getting a
new snapshot.

The old one (March) is so great anyway (for folks that do not even have
internet) that I am hanging with that for a while.

I tart it up (for schools that dial up overnight) with todays wikipedia
front page, edited to link to their snapshot.

An example can be seen at http://esangweni.shacknet.nu/ - a school that
has a wireless (24hour) connection.

Cheers,   Andy!

--
http://wizzy.org.za/
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> James R. Johnson wrote:
>
>> Can we test the Ultimate Wiktionary in a language before moving to it
>> completely?  Say, put it up in a test format on meta?
>
> If the project ever actually makes it as far as having some software, of
> course it would be publicly tested first. So far as I know no code has
> been written, and any work that's been done has been designing how it
> might function.
>
> This isn't something that's going to spring up and take over Wiktionary
> next week.

Nevertheless Gerard has thrown some very effective marketting zeal into
his South Sea Bubble.  The kind of confidence that he exudes about his
project could sound very convincing to anyone who has not followed this
since the idea was introduced.

Ec


from_name: geni

body:
On 6/17/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy...
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)
>

No. Formal surveys have to registed. Straw polls don't have to be.

--
geni


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Yeah -- Why on earth is Mr Meijssen (that ij is a single letter, mind
>you, in het nederlands) asking Ray what "gove ... pap" is? Shouldn't
>it be in the oh-so-ultimate Ultimate Wiktionary?
>[[ultimatewiktionary:gove]] [[ultimatewiktionary:pap]]
>[[ultimatewiktionary:Gove a lot of pap]]...
>
>Mark
>
>
I do confess to a typo in that comment it should read "gives a lot of
pap"  No association with a Dutch "govie" was intended. I apologize for
any confusion caused by my typo.

Pap, of course, is the kind of refined porridge that is fed to babies.
It can be used more figuratively to describe anything bland and
unappetising, like the kind of translation that you would get by strict
adherence to translation templates.

Ec


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>And, for the transcript: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pap
>... "gove" appear'd ("appeared") to be a noun though. Remember, please
>don't noun verbs. In case you're ("you are") wondering, "noun verbs"
>is a colloquial English phrase meaning "use what is usually a noun as
>if it were a verb". In fact, the word "noun" in the phrase "It's bad
>to noun verbs!" is a nouned verb.
>
>
I have not found "gove" in an English dictionary but "borogove" appears
to be derived from it, and we all know that that is a "thin
shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round--something
like a live mop."

Ec


body:
Can we test the Ultimate Wiktionary in a language before moving to it
completely?  Say, put it up in a test format on meta?

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gerard Meijssen
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 10:54 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Cc: wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org; wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>>
>> As a result of our exploring opportunities for Ultimate Wiktionary, I
>> was pointed to LISA the Localisation Industry Standards Association.
>> I downloaded some information and was asked afterwards for some
>> information. This in turn led to the question if I was willing to
>> write an article about Wikimedia and localisation. So I did. It can
>> be found here: http://www.lisa.org/globalizationinsider/
>
>
> The following is what he says there
>
>>     Using this imperfect system of templates has taught us that 80% of
>>     the lexicological content can be expressed using templates.
>>
> What evidence is there of this? Sure, we can get closer to that when
> translations are viewed as mechanical acts and we can ignore all
> subtleties of language. In reality such an attitude only goves a lot
> of pap.

The evidence can be found in the practice of the it: or nl: and other
wiktionaries. Please explain  "goves a lot of pap".

>
>>     The next step will be for us to combine all the
>>     language-independent content in a database.
>>
> That's a very small part of the content.

Given that the language-independent content is over 80%, I wonder what a
big part is..

>
>>     Our challenge will be to translate the user interface in as many
>>     languages as possible.
>>
> That much is already being done without Gerard's UW

There will be an User Interface part to the Ultimate Wiktionary, that
will have to be localised.

>
>>     This is the first hurdle to make the Ultimate Wiktionary
>>     accessible in any language. The next step is to encourage people
>>     with language knowledge to contribute to the Wiktionary by
>>     providing descriptions and etymological information for various
>>     terms.
>>
> This too is already being done in the English Wiktionary. That's what
> lexicography is all about.

At issue is the scope that you have. If you think the English Wiktionary
everything, you forget about all the other Wiktionaries. If work done on
the English Wiktionary is only to benefit the English Wiktionary your
scope is somewhat limited.

>
>>     The Ultimate Wiktionary will become extremely relevant, based on
>>     the special content that it will contain. For example, we plan to
>>     include the GEMET thesaurus <http://www.eionet.eu.int/GEMET>, the
>>     ecological resource of the European Community (EC).
>>
> Although I have no doubt that this is useful information there should
> be no preference given to EC terminology. It needs to be made clear
> that different terminology used in countries which share a language
> with some member of the EC will be on an equal footing.

We have already introduced a glossary with medical information in the
Dutch Wiktionary, the GEMET database contains data for many languages
including American English. The definitions are by reputable
institutions including US universities. So please know what you talk
about. The GEMET data is given to us to be published under the GNU-FDL.
So what is your problem? If we can obtain other worthwhile resources and
combine them in UW we will because it enriches the UW as a resource.

>
>>     It will also be possible for users to add content in other
>>     languages, making the original thesaurus even more accessible and
>>     more valuable to more people. We hope to be able to cooperate with
>>     organizations such as the EC in order to host other glossaries and
>>     thesauri. As everyone is invited to contribute content, we
>>     envision this content being translated into many more languages
>>     and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC.
>>
> This looks like some kind of hidden agenda. Many of us have resisted
> any appearance of being dominated by the thinking and ideas of the
> United States. Any attempt to impose EC dominance should be resisted
> just as strongly.

I will be asking the Dutch government if we can host a glossary of words
and their meaning in the various Dutch governmental organisations. When
we want to inform what a word means and you equate informing what a word
means for an organisation with letting this organisation dominate you,
you disallow making this information public. From my point of view you
are barking up the wrong tree, with a dictionary a glossary you inform
and if the EC is more Open than the US, good for them..

The aim of Wiktionary is all words of all languages, would it not be
great if we can have organisations look at their vocabulary .. even if
it means that it makes plain how far off they are from what is commonly
meant by this vocabulary they are ??

>
>>     The current Wiktionaries will be converted to the Ultimate
>>     Wiktionary.
>>
> You say this with far too much conviction. At other times you appear
> to make the prediction that participants in the various projects will
> see your UW as so great that they will melt into your arms. As a
> sceptic I can accept that statement. It allows me to wait until there
> is something real to comment about; it allows others with more
> technical experience to amend your software to suit the needs of
> Wikimedia. I cannot and will not accept your flat out statement that
> it "will be converted" any more than I can suspend rationality long
> enough to accept Christ as my personal saviour.

As a sceptic, it does not allow you to bide your time and wait for the
results. You do what you must. In the mean time I will work to make the
UW a success.

>
>>     This means that people will have access to the Dutch Wiktionary
>>     with many words in Papiamento, the Italian Wiktionary with many
>>     Neapolitan words, and the Kurdish Wiktionary with words in many
>>     different Kurdish dialects. The goal with the Ultimate Wiktionary
>>     is to overcome the fractured nature of individual Wiktionaries. By
>>     combining them into one central repository, people will be able to
>>     access a much greater variety of content, thus enabling the
>>     Ultimate Wiktionary to be greater than the sum of its separate
>>     Wiktionary parts.
>>
> This is in sharp contrast to what you said in other parts of the article

I do not understand what you mean; but let me try to explain. We want an
user interface for every lanuguage, selectable in the user preferences.
When content has been imported into the UW, the content included in the
Dutch Wiktionary will make Papiamento, English, Italian etc content
available. With more resources imported into the UW, the infomation will
be enriched. I do not rubbish the accomplishments of the other
wiktionaries, I want to make them available to all people of all
languages. When an English word is known because of theire being an
entry created in association with a word in Italian, it will be
available for everyone never mind what user interface is used.

>
>>     Contrary to what the typical LISA Member has available, we do not
>>     have an organizational structure that decides what to do next. We
>>     do not have policies that determine what content is to be
>>     available in all Wikipedias. We do not translate content as a rule.
>
>
> or again
>
>>     As the projects grow, we find that they have different values and
>>     a different view of "the Truth." These are the issues where
>>     culture comes into play.
>
>
> What you praise here about the Wikipedias you would condemn in
> Wiktionary. The difference in values and cultures is just as strong in
> Wiktionary as it is in Wikipedia. It needs to be respected just as much.
>
I do not see the point that you are making. A dictionary is
deterministic; it informs of the meaning(s) of a word and other
information that can be found about a word. We will have them all. An
encyclopedia tries to explain what things are and how they relate. There
is in my mind a huge difference in the amount of culture you will find
in an encyclopedia and in a dictionary.

> Ec
>
> PS: It is not my usual habit to crosspost my comments, an I seriously
> considered posting this on only one of the lists, but since Gerard has
> chosen to put his POV on three lists it seemed appropriate that at
> least the initial rebuttal should be similarly distributed.
>
I have published in a periodical. The posting on the three lists was to
inform you about this. These postings are as much as anything to prevent
the feeling some people have that things are done in secret. They are
not. Many people knew I was going to publish on the LISA periodical and
hey, today you can read the result :) ..

The creation of this article was a lengthy affair. I have discussed
issues with many wikimedians. If Ray is of the opinion that it is my
POV, he is correct I published it and I am proud of it. I hope and
expect that in time Ultimate Wiktionary will prove a success. If people
are interested in how I envision certain things, they can ask me and we
can discuss things. I am eager to know where we need to improve on the
ideas that we have. But please use arguments in stead of sceptical
comments based on .. what ??

Thanks,
   GerardM
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
I'm also a bit wary about merging all the wiktionaries into one
mega-wiktionary.  The idea about the user-interface appearing in one's
preferred language is interesting though.  There are different wiktionaries
for the same reason there are different wikipedias.  As Mark and others have
been telling for the past several months that I've contributed to wikis, we
have these multitudinous
wikipedias/wiktionaries/wikibooks/wikiquote/wiki-... sites to encourage each
language, and the thesauri become more useful and more accessible to people
through the community involvement of the users on each wiki.  The German
wiktionary grows through the efforts of those who contribute to it, as do
the English, Russian, etc.  Let the individual wiktionaries apply the GEMET
if they so choose, using the terminology they choose.  Individuals can make
a better choice than some centralized monolith can, and often faster, and
better.  And as far as I have seen, it's the individual with conviction that
improves the wikis and spreads the concept to new languages, people, and
articles.  Some of the things you want in this Ultimate Wiktionary can be
done in the individual wiktionaries, if the users want it.

And " and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC." -
Wikis are about more than simply Europe.  There's more to the world than
Europe, and the wiktionaries are not simply there to benefit Europe and its
trade opportunities.  Sounds like the kind of cultural imperialism the US
gets accused of.

Later,

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 7:30 AM
To: wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
>
> As a result of our exploring opportunities for Ultimate Wiktionary, I
> was pointed to LISA the Localisation Industry Standards Association. I
> downloaded some information and was asked afterwards for some
> information. This in turn led to the question if I was willing to
> write an article about Wikimedia and localisation. So I did. It can be
> found here: http://www.lisa.org/globalizationinsider/

The following is what he says there

>     Using this imperfect system of templates has taught us that 80% of
>     the lexicological content can be expressed using templates.
>
What evidence is there of this? Sure, we can get closer to that when
translations are viewed as mechanical acts and we can ignore all
subtleties of language. In reality such an attitude only goves a lot of pap.

>     The next step will be for us to combine all the
>     language-independent content in a database.
>
That's a very small part of the content.

>     Our challenge will be to translate the user interface in as many
>     languages as possible.
>
That much is already being done without Gerard's UW

>     This is the first hurdle to make the Ultimate Wiktionary
>     accessible in any language. The next step is to encourage people
>     with language knowledge to contribute to the Wiktionary by
>     providing descriptions and etymological information for various
>     terms.
>
This too is already being done in the English Wiktionary. That's what
lexicography is all about.

>     The Ultimate Wiktionary will become extremely relevant, based on
>     the special content that it will contain. For example, we plan to
>     include the GEMET thesaurus <http://www.eionet.eu.int/GEMET>, the
>     ecological resource of the European Community (EC).
>
Although I have no doubt that this is useful information there should be
no preference given to EC terminology. It needs to be made clear that
different terminology used in countries which share a language with some
member of the EC will be on an equal footing.

>     It will also be possible for users to add content in other
>     languages, making the original thesaurus even more accessible and
>     more valuable to more people. We hope to be able to cooperate with
>     organizations such as the EC in order to host other glossaries and
>     thesauri. As everyone is invited to contribute content, we
>     envision this content being translated into many more languages
>     and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC.
>
This looks like some kind of hidden agenda. Many of us have resisted any
appearance of being dominated by the thinking and ideas of the United
States. Any attempt to impose EC dominance should be resisted just as
strongly.

>     The current Wiktionaries will be converted to the Ultimate
>     Wiktionary.
>
You say this with far too much conviction. At other times you appear to
make the prediction that participants in the various projects will see
your UW as so great that they will melt into your arms. As a sceptic I
can accept that statement. It allows me to wait until there is something
real to comment about; it allows others with more technical experience
to amend your software to suit the needs of Wikimedia. I cannot and will
not accept your flat out statement that it "will be converted" any more
than I can suspend rationality long enough to accept Christ as my
personal saviour.

>     This means that people will have access to the Dutch Wiktionary
>     with many words in Papiamento, the Italian Wiktionary with many
>     Neapolitan words, and the Kurdish Wiktionary with words in many
>     different Kurdish dialects. The goal with the Ultimate Wiktionary
>     is to overcome the fractured nature of individual Wiktionaries. By
>     combining them into one central repository, people will be able to
>     access a much greater variety of content, thus enabling the
>     Ultimate Wiktionary to be greater than the sum of its separate
>     Wiktionary parts.
>
This is in sharp contrast to what you said in other parts of the article

>     Contrary to what the typical LISA Member has available, we do not
>     have an organizational structure that decides what to do next. We
>     do not have policies that determine what content is to be
>     available in all Wikipedias. We do not translate content as a rule.

or again

>     As the projects grow, we find that they have different values and
>     a different view of "the Truth." These are the issues where
>     culture comes into play.

What you praise here about the Wikipedias you would condemn in
Wiktionary. The difference in values and cultures is just as strong in
Wiktionary as it is in Wikipedia. It needs to be respected just as much.

Ec

PS: It is not my usual habit to crosspost my comments, an I seriously
considered posting this on only one of the lists, but since Gerard has
chosen to put his POV on three lists it seemed appropriate that at least
the initial rebuttal should be similarly distributed.

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
Also, if you do it for Wiktionary, it would only be logical to merge all
wikipedias into the Ultimate Wikipedia, Ultimate Wikiquote, Ultimate
Wikibooks, etc.  But that's simply for consistency's sake.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James R. Johnson
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 2:16 AM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA

I'm also a bit wary about merging all the wiktionaries into one
mega-wiktionary.  The idea about the user-interface appearing in one's
preferred language is interesting though.  There are different wiktionaries
for the same reason there are different wikipedias.  As Mark and others have
been telling for the past several months that I've contributed to wikis, we
have these multitudinous
wikipedias/wiktionaries/wikibooks/wikiquote/wiki-... sites to encourage each
language, and the thesauri become more useful and more accessible to people
through the community involvement of the users on each wiki.  The German
wiktionary grows through the efforts of those who contribute to it, as do
the English, Russian, etc.  Let the individual wiktionaries apply the GEMET
if they so choose, using the terminology they choose.  Individuals can make
a better choice than some centralized monolith can, and often faster, and
better.  And as far as I have seen, it's the individual with conviction that
improves the wikis and spreads the concept to new languages, people, and
articles.  Some of the things you want in this Ultimate Wiktionary can be
done in the individual wiktionaries, if the users want it.

And " and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC." -
Wikis are about more than simply Europe.  There's more to the world than
Europe, and the wiktionaries are not simply there to benefit Europe and its
trade opportunities.  Sounds like the kind of cultural imperialism the US
gets accused of.

Later,

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 7:30 AM
To: wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
>
> As a result of our exploring opportunities for Ultimate Wiktionary, I
> was pointed to LISA the Localisation Industry Standards Association. I
> downloaded some information and was asked afterwards for some
> information. This in turn led to the question if I was willing to
> write an article about Wikimedia and localisation. So I did. It can be
> found here: http://www.lisa.org/globalizationinsider/

The following is what he says there

>     Using this imperfect system of templates has taught us that 80% of
>     the lexicological content can be expressed using templates.
>
What evidence is there of this? Sure, we can get closer to that when
translations are viewed as mechanical acts and we can ignore all
subtleties of language. In reality such an attitude only goves a lot of pap.

>     The next step will be for us to combine all the
>     language-independent content in a database.
>
That's a very small part of the content.

>     Our challenge will be to translate the user interface in as many
>     languages as possible.
>
That much is already being done without Gerard's UW

>     This is the first hurdle to make the Ultimate Wiktionary
>     accessible in any language. The next step is to encourage people
>     with language knowledge to contribute to the Wiktionary by
>     providing descriptions and etymological information for various
>     terms.
>
This too is already being done in the English Wiktionary. That's what
lexicography is all about.

>     The Ultimate Wiktionary will become extremely relevant, based on
>     the special content that it will contain. For example, we plan to
>     include the GEMET thesaurus <http://www.eionet.eu.int/GEMET>, the
>     ecological resource of the European Community (EC).
>
Although I have no doubt that this is useful information there should be
no preference given to EC terminology. It needs to be made clear that
different terminology used in countries which share a language with some
member of the EC will be on an equal footing.

>     It will also be possible for users to add content in other
>     languages, making the original thesaurus even more accessible and
>     more valuable to more people. We hope to be able to cooperate with
>     organizations such as the EC in order to host other glossaries and
>     thesauri. As everyone is invited to contribute content, we
>     envision this content being translated into many more languages
>     and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC.
>
This looks like some kind of hidden agenda. Many of us have resisted any
appearance of being dominated by the thinking and ideas of the United
States. Any attempt to impose EC dominance should be resisted just as
strongly.

>     The current Wiktionaries will be converted to the Ultimate
>     Wiktionary.
>
You say this with far too much conviction. At other times you appear to
make the prediction that participants in the various projects will see
your UW as so great that they will melt into your arms. As a sceptic I
can accept that statement. It allows me to wait until there is something
real to comment about; it allows others with more technical experience
to amend your software to suit the needs of Wikimedia. I cannot and will
not accept your flat out statement that it "will be converted" any more
than I can suspend rationality long enough to accept Christ as my
personal saviour.

>     This means that people will have access to the Dutch Wiktionary
>     with many words in Papiamento, the Italian Wiktionary with many
>     Neapolitan words, and the Kurdish Wiktionary with words in many
>     different Kurdish dialects. The goal with the Ultimate Wiktionary
>     is to overcome the fractured nature of individual Wiktionaries. By
>     combining them into one central repository, people will be able to
>     access a much greater variety of content, thus enabling the
>     Ultimate Wiktionary to be greater than the sum of its separate
>     Wiktionary parts.
>
This is in sharp contrast to what you said in other parts of the article

>     Contrary to what the typical LISA Member has available, we do not
>     have an organizational structure that decides what to do next. We
>     do not have policies that determine what content is to be
>     available in all Wikipedias. We do not translate content as a rule.

or again

>     As the projects grow, we find that they have different values and
>     a different view of "the Truth." These are the issues where
>     culture comes into play.

What you praise here about the Wikipedias you would condemn in
Wiktionary. The difference in values and cultures is just as strong in
Wiktionary as it is in Wikipedia. It needs to be respected just as much.

Ec

PS: It is not my usual habit to crosspost my comments, an I seriously
considered posting this on only one of the lists, but since Gerard has
chosen to put his POV on three lists it seemed appropriate that at least
the initial rebuttal should be similarly distributed.

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
Well, now it's "repondez" - the French dropped the 's' in that word too, just like in "plait".  Gew?ne for ??m ?e ?? ??odiscan budon, ??t h?e ofgiefen ??t ?ac.  But that's just something I heard.

And..."gove"?

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 2:33 AM
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article onLISA

Oh... I thought you RSVP'd? By the way, in case anybody's ("anybody
is") wondering, RSVP is an abbrevation of Respondez S'il Vous Pla?t.
Surely, those who don't ("do not") know what RSVP means, will know the
meaning of Respondez S'il Vous Pla?t.

And, for the transcript: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pap
... "gove" appear'd ("appeared") to be a noun though. Remember, please
don't noun verbs. In case you're ("you are") wondering, "noun verbs"
is a colloquial English phrase meaning "use what is usually a noun as
if it were a verb". In fact, the word "noun" in the phrase "It's bad
to noun verbs!" is a nouned verb.

Mark

On 17/06/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Oooh... snap...
> >
> >Ray got served!!!
> >
> >Mark
> >
> Hell of a lot of good that does if I'm not attending the dinner.
>
> Ec
>
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

body:
Besides doing a lot of good editing (by repute, as I have only looked
at his edit wars involving [[common era]] notation) Jguk believes
that the notation AD - BC is vastly superior to the common era
notation CE - BCE (which he believes is incomprehensible to our
users). Based on that belief he has changed the notation in a number
of articles, most of which he does not ordinarily edit, and if
reverted, engages in edit wars.

The proposed decision in the arbitration case is under consideration
with no remedy proposed having majority support, see:

[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jguk/Proposed_decision]]

Fred

On Jun 18, 2005, at 5:31 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050613 10:38]:
>
>> Sean Barrett wrote:
>>
>
>
>>> I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation
>>> of a
>>> committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia
>>> and to
>>> ban those that feel that it is important to record it.
>>>
>
>
>> I don't think that's what we are discussing.
>>
>
>
> jguk has already left Wikipedia over the present content-related AC
> case,
> feling he was being railroaded. I don't think that counts as a win for
> Wikipedia - we're talking about a good contributor, not some obnoxious
> nutter we're better without.
>
> It's a larger version of exasperating one's opponents off the wiki,
> only
> this time using the AC as a hammer. So far I'm only seeing taking on
> content-related cases as setting up a disaster.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> James R. Johnson wrote:
>
>> Can we test the Ultimate Wiktionary in a language before moving to it
>> completely?  Say, put it up in a test format on meta?
>
>
> If the project ever actually makes it as far as having some software, of
> course it would be publicly tested first. So far as I know no code has
> been written, and any work that's been done has been designing how it
> might function.
>
> This isn't something that's going to spring up and take over Wiktionary
> next week.
>
Gerard wrote this if I recall well: it will be tested using the GEMET
data - and of course we have other multilanguage glossaries to upload
(two of mine: colour names and oenology) which are pure glossaries like
translators use them during work so as for mine: definitions are needed
as well as classifications of words, adding gender etc. This will show
how things work and where improvement is needed. Every software needs to
be betatested :-)

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA

body:
James R. Johnson wrote:

>Also, if you do it for Wiktionary, it would only be logical to merge all
>wikipedias into the Ultimate Wikipedia, Ultimate Wikiquote, Ultimate
>Wikibooks, etc.  But that's simply for consistency's sake.
>
>
>James
>
>
>
No, this does not make sense - witktionary is very different in its
contents. But it makes sense to link between from these projects to UW
(or now Wiktionary) and from there to the projects. We already do this
partly. Often it is important that you can see how a word is used in
context and sometimes it is good if within a text you have a link to the
definition of a word, in particular if you are talking about very
specific things that could be difficult to understand for others.

Language courses on Wikibooks for example are a logical way to link from
the book to wiktionary/UW and add defintions and translations there.

Of course, thinking about translations in literature we often need
quotations and how they are translated - it would make sense to have
quotations and/or proverbs translated in as many languages as possible.
So this could be a use for wikidata.

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


body:
James R. Johnson wrote:

>I'm also a bit wary about merging all the wiktionaries into one
>mega-wiktionary.
>
You won't see too many differences - the data is there, but you choose
from which language you start - so let's say I start from Italian with
my search I will see things similar to it.wiktionary.org - of course the
"visual aspect" is not really defined now - so the presentation of the
data might be different, but the contents will be the same you see now
on a wiki page.

>The idea about the user-interface appearing in one's
>preferred language is interesting though.  There are different wiktionaries
>for the same reason there are different wikipedias.  As Mark and others have
>been telling for the past several months that I've contributed to wikis, we
>have these multitudinous
>wikipedias/wiktionaries/wikibooks/wikiquote/wiki-... sites to encourage each
>language, and the thesauri become more useful and more accessible to people
>through the community involvement of the users on each wiki.  The German
>wiktionary grows through the efforts of those who contribute to it, as do
>the English, Russian, etc.  Let the individual wiktionaries apply the GEMET
>if they so choose, using the terminology they choose.  Individuals can make
>a better choice than some centralized monolith can, and often faster, and
>better.  And as far as I have seen, it's the individual with conviction that
>improves the wikis and spreads the concept to new languages, people, and
>articles.  Some of the things you want in this Ultimate Wiktionary can be
>done in the individual wiktionaries, if the users want it.
>
>
The thing is: many wiktionaries do not have a structure that is easy to
convert to UW - this would mean to do things twice and that does not
make sense to me. UW was created out of the fact that we do things more
than just once. For example: I know five languages, so I could
contribute to at least five wiktionaries adding German translations ...
but this does not make sense - I would add five times the same words and
need five times those two minutes to go there and add. On UW I insert
this word just once and so the other four times can be used for other
words, write a definition (in my mothertognue), classify words etc. This
means that we are going to be more productive.

>And " and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC." -
>Wikis are about more than simply Europe.  There's more to the world than
>Europe, and the wiktionaries are not simply there to benefit Europe and its
>trade opportunities.  Sounds like the kind of cultural imperialism the US
>gets accused of.
>
>
The use of EC terminology has nothing to to with imperialism the US gets
accused of. We just received data from the EC and they are interested in
UW - that's all. Of course, knowing a terminology of a certain
economical area allows also for better business in that area ... so this
should be some kind of stimuli for the US government to contribute ;-)

The contents of UW depends from the contributors just like any other
project around. So whoever contributes valuable data is welcome.

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Article on LISA

body:
Brion:
> If the project ever actually makes it as far as having some software, of
> course it would be publicly tested first. So far as I know no code has
> been written

I'm actively working on it, though of course I'm not going to commit
something incomplete to CVS. It will still be a while until we get from
where we are to a working implementation (I'll post an updated timetable
on Meta soon). This is a very large project and I want to get it right
instead of hacking together some simplistic template-based solution over
a weekend. It needs to be flexible and scalable beyond UW itself.

So, personally, I think a discussion about the usefulness of UW is at
this point a bit premature, as the development has been funded and is
underway, and the decision about whether we want to do this should be
made when people have had a chance to look at a working prototype and
comment on it.

There will be no automatism; just because someone develops something,
it's not necessarily going to be used or even accepted into MediaWiki
itself. Gerard's article is a solid presentation of his view on where we
are going to take this, which I share, but it should be self-evident
that this can only happen with the approval and support of the community.

Best,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Article on LISA


from_name: っ

subject: [Foundation-l] re: Intent to launch: Russian, Japanese Wikinews

body:
Hello,

I'm glad the set up information of the Japanese edition of Wikinews.

We think about the problem in the Japanese Copyright Law.
While the Japanese version of Wikinews would be related to it, I heard that it doesn't give Japanese leave to relinquish any copyright or make their copyright make PD.
Eloquence suggests us to use CC-by-2.5.
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eloquence)
It helps us, but we should confirm the others' opinions.

--Qqqqq http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:%E3%81%A3


body:
It exists, but generally cases fall into a grey area where resolving
the content issue is not vital. For example in the Skyring
arbitration, the problem is not the content he wants to put in the
articles, it is the persistent way he keep arguing and going over the
matter again and again, despite  his failure to convince the others
who edit the articles. It is necessary to look at the article and see
whether the article is no good or inaccurate without the material he
wants to insert.

Much the same happened in the climate change arbitration. it is not
so much that Cortonin is wrong but that he insists on being wrong
like a bulldog.  Again it helps to analyze the content he insists on
to see if if adds to the article or introduces confusion about the
underlying scientific principles.

The Njyoder case involves [[gender]], an article which makes sense in
a subcultural context but not much sense to Njyoder. A content
inquiry as to whether within the subcultural context there there is
significant content which might go into the article is helpful.

I think the test is whether without some reference to content
questions, the disputes remain unresolved and unresolvable under a
theory that one opinion is as good as another. LIke I said earlier, a
theory of a flat earth is fine in [[flat earth]] but out of place in
[[astrophysics]].

Fred

On Jun 18, 2005, at 7:08 AM, Dan Grey wrote:

> To get a handle on how much content-arbitration is
> really needed, perhaps the people who feel it's
> required could list some examples of when it would
> have been useful.
>
> Or perhaps we're discussing a problem that doesn't
> exist?
>
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide
> with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
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>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Research Network meeting today

body:
The Wikimedia Research Network is a voluntary association of individuals
interested in studying the content, communities and technology of the
Wikimedia projects. It is free for anyone to join:

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

Today, 20:00 UTC, the WRN will convene on IRC, on the channel

         #wikimedia-research
on

         irc.freenode.net

Unlike the first meeting, this one will focus on very specific issues. I
intend to split the channel very quickly into two main topic areas:

* MediaWiki (software) related research
* study of the Wikimedia content and the project communities.

If you've never used IRC before, see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_instructions
for instructions. To convert UTC to your local timezone, go to:
http://worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_UTC.aspx

== Agenda ==

For the technical side (this may depend on certain individuals being
present):

* Single login: helping Brion with the implementation by providing GUI
mock-ups and workflows
* Standardized wiki syntax: Lee's proposal
( http://piclab.com/lee/index.php/Wiki_syntax_proposal )
* Wikiversity/Wikisophia: defining the project's technical requirements
* If there is interest:
** Wikinews, Wikicommons enhancements
** next generation discussion system
* Planning the first community meeting: Wikibooks
* anything on your mind

Ideas for the content/community side:
* organizing a community-wide survey
* evaluating the state of the article validation system (possible
feedback to tech team)
* increasing collaboration across projects (Wikimedia COTW and similar)
* sharing study results and pooling data
* anything on your mind

== Research tasks and topics ==

As discussed in the last meeting, we have updated the following pages:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Interests
(Members of the WRN by topical interest)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research
(Research ideas and list of individuals doing research)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Development_tasks
(MediaWiki development tasks and specifications)

The latter two pages should become a major focus of attention for the
WRN over the coming months. They are the starting point to further,
project-specific pages. Please take a look and edit these pages as you
see fit. I would especially appreciate help with moving development
tasks from the "To do" section into the table (this requires classifying
and describing them, so only do that if you know what I mean with a
particular item ;-).

== Research mailing list ==

Specifically for the topic of *content* and *community* related
research, a new mailing list has been created:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

Technical discussions should continue to take place on:

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

There is not yet an organizational mailing list for the WRN itself; I
have requested permission to set this up.

All best,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimedia Research Network meeting today


from_name: Guaka

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article onLISA

body:
On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 02:36 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote:
> Well, now it's "repondez" - the French dropped the 's' in that word too, just like in "plait".

Actually it's "pla?t", and there the "s" somehow ended up in top of the
"i", just like in "h?tel" (which was hostel).


body:
On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 02:20 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote:
> Also, if you do it for Wiktionary, it would only be logical to merge all
> wikipedias into the Ultimate Wikipedia, Ultimate Wikiquote, Ultimate
> Wikibooks, etc.  But that's simply for consistency's sake.

There's a difference huge between a collection of words and a collection
of lists of phrases.

It would make sense to create an Ultimate Wikipedia when we'll be able
to create the Ultimate Pivot Language, possibly using the Ultimate
Wiktionary. If meaning, syntax and all these things are clearly
seperated in our UW it could guide to the creation of an artificial
language that does sufficiently well in serving as the thing stuff like
Universal Networking Language (tm) is supposed to do.

Wikipedia:
In machine translation, '''Universal Networking Language''' is 		an
artificial pivot language, that requires semi-automated translation from
the initial text into its pivot equivalent, but allows automated
translation from documents expressed in the pivot language into
virtually any language.


body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:

>> Also, if you do it for Wiktionary, it would only be logical to merge all
>> wikipedias into the Ultimate Wikipedia, Ultimate Wikiquote, Ultimate
>> Wikibooks, etc.  But that's simply for consistency's sake.
>>
>> James
>
> Logical, but ever so practical? A dictionary is per se about
> differences between two different languages (OK, except for describing
> unilingual dictionaries, but we're talking about translation
> dictionaries now, aren't we?). An encyclopedia is not. A Wikitionary
> consulter usually looks for a translation, and in Wiktionary several
> languages are merged already. Wikipedia always keeps one language.

The difference between two languages is only a secondary purpose for
each Wiktionary.  The Wiktionary for a particular language primarily
describes the different ways in which the word in question is used
within the language.  You may very well usually look to Wiktionary for
translations, but others can look for different things.

Ec


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] (ÌµÂê)

body:
Hi all,
Japanese Wiktionary has been unlocked since Monday, June 12, just
after four months locking period to restart. After re-launching, over
60 new articles have been submitted and some were speedily deleted ;-)

Thank you for your help, encouragement and understanding during our
hardest days and your help and cooperation for re-launching project
will be appreciated as well as former ones.

Valeto,
--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [Foundation-l] (ÌµÂê)


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] (no subject)


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requests page

body:
Dear fellow list subscribers,

Yesterday I had the unpleasant experience that Mark Williamson scolded me
for "Censor" and "Thought police". The reason was that I had deleted some of
the requests on the Requests for new languages page on meta
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages), and
subsequently he placed most of them back, along with some other ones that
had been removed by long, and not by me.

As a matter of facts, I got /furious/ and if Mark had stood right before me
I would have spit into his face. Later however, he eludicated the reason why
he placed them back, and we seem to agree on more things than I thought at
first. The page /is/ really getting overloaded with requests and becomes too
long. The difference was, he wanted to keep them anyway.

I may opinion, the right solution is to cut-and-paste them to an archive,
newly to be created. I could very well create it right now, but thanks to
Mark's great action I am unsure whether this wil be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Incompetent, inautoritive censor and thought police Wouter Steenbeek.

Btw: it seems perhaps a little inappropriate to discuss this meta topic on
the Wikipedia mailing list, but since the topic is realted to the creation
of new Wikipedias I took the liberty to post it here.

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


from_name: Johan F

subject: [Wikitech-l] tex: \cdot

body:
It would be nice if the could \cdot be rendered in html, as it would
greatly reduce the number of tex snippets needing image conversion.
Perhaps '?' could be used? (E.g. 3?4=12.)

/Johan F?nge


body:
>Also, if you do it for Wiktionary, it would only be logical to merge all
>wikipedias into the Ultimate Wikipedia, Ultimate Wikiquote, Ultimate
>Wikibooks, etc.  But that's simply for consistency's sake.
>
>
>James

Logical, but ever so practical? A dictionary is per se about differences
between two different languages (OK, except for describing unilingual
dictionaries, but we're talking about translation dictionaries now, aren't
we?). An encyclopedia is not. A Wikitionary consulter usually looks for a
translation, and in Wiktionary several languages are merged already.
Wikipedia always keeps one language.

Incompetent, inautoritive censor and thought police Wouter Steenbeek

SI HOC LEGERE POTES, APPARENTER DOCTUS ES. SI LEGIS TOTAS HAEC RES, INSANUS
ES ET TIBI NECESSE EST COLSULTARE MEDICUM VEL PSYCHOLOGUM. SI SCRIPSISTI
HAEC RES, ETIAM PEIORES TIBI RES SUNT: NONNULLIS SERIOSUM TE CAPERE NON IAM
POSSUNT.

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


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk

body:
This decision is apparently setting the precedent that
if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are
offensive to them, then their view is the only
acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors
can go hang.

RickK

__________________________________
Discover Yahoo!
Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/


from_name: Dan Grey

body:
To get a handle on how much content-arbitration is
really needed, perhaps the people who feel it's
required could list some examples of when it would
have been useful.

Or perhaps we're discussing a problem that doesn't
exist?

Dan

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New Creative Commons Licenses - version 2.5

body:
This is about a week late, but I figured I would take a look today and
see what the differences are by comparing the two side by side.

It seems to clarify some of the attribution information, especially
the case of requesting someone to *remove* attribution (basically, if
I create work X licensed under CC, and people I don't want to be
associated with use it to create work Y, I cannot demand that they
stop doing it, if they are using the license correctly, but I *can*
request they take my name off it). This was already in 2.0 but they
seem to have tried to strengthen this a bit, if I'm interpretting this
correctly (but I'm no lawyer).

It also looks like you can have a Licensor Designate ("e.g. a sponsor
institute, publishing entity, journal") be in charge of the licensing
as well, instead of just the Original Author.

Besides these two changes to section 4(a) and 4(b) there doesn't seem
to be anything else different.

FF

On 6/10/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > By the way, I fail to see any difference between 2.0 and 2.5 Can some
> > more law-savvy people explain the difference. I'm almost sure it's in
> > the legal version of the license.
>
> I find the creativecommons site very hard to find such information on,
> although I'm sure it's there. But with a bit of Googling I turned up
> the *beginning* of the discussion about v2.5...
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2005-May/002313.html
> ...and it "Drawing to a Close"...
> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5457
> ...but no announcement that it has "become official", although it does
> seem to have.
>
> Basically, it seems to be to do with electing who gets attribution -
> to allow collective and nominated attribution in some way. Don't ask
> me how, or how this relates to the cc-wiki proposal, because I've only
> skimmed the stuff, but the links above seem to basically explain it if
> you have the patience to work it out.
>
> --
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against
	jguk

body:
No, it sets the precedent you cannot impose the particular usage you
prefer on the rest of the world, especially on groups who are
offended by that usage. It is more an elaboration of our general
policy on courtesy. Another aspect of the decision is that you cannot
unilaterally declare your preference Wikipedia policy without having
it adopted as an actual policy.

Fred

On Jun 18, 2005, at 2:34 PM, Rick wrote:

> This decision is apparently setting the precedent that
> if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are
> offensive to them, then their view is the only
> acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors
> can go hang.
>
> RickK
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Discover Yahoo!
> Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out!
> http://discover.yahoo.com/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Sorry...don't have the French keyboard installed to put that accent over it.
I always switched over when I was in France to the English keyboard because
the letters and numbers were all messed up!

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Guaka
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 5:19 AM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article
onLISA

On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 02:36 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote:
> Well, now it's "repondez" - the French dropped the 's' in that word too,
just like in "plait".

Actually it's "pla?t", and there the "s" somehow ended up in top of the
"i", just like in "h?tel" (which was hostel).

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requests page

body:
If the wiki request gets past a certain date with no action, it seems to
make sense to move it to an archive.  Just need a policy for that, if there
isn't one already.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Wouter Steenbeek
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 6:28 AM
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requests page

Dear fellow list subscribers,

Yesterday I had the unpleasant experience that Mark Williamson scolded me
for "Censor" and "Thought police". The reason was that I had deleted some of

the requests on the Requests for new languages page on meta
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages), and
subsequently he placed most of them back, along with some other ones that
had been removed by long, and not by me.

As a matter of facts, I got /furious/ and if Mark had stood right before me
I would have spit into his face. Later however, he eludicated the reason why

he placed them back, and we seem to agree on more things than I thought at
first. The page /is/ really getting overloaded with requests and becomes too

long. The difference was, he wanted to keep them anyway.

I may opinion, the right solution is to cut-and-paste them to an archive,
newly to be created. I could very well create it right now, but thanks to
Mark's great action I am unsure whether this wil be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Incompetent, inautoritive censor and thought police Wouter Steenbeek.

Btw: it seems perhaps a little inappropriate to discuss this meta topic on
the Wikipedia mailing list, but since the topic is realted to the creation
of new Wikipedias I took the liberty to post it here.

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

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] probably one of the most remarkable Wikipedians to
	date...

body:
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, guaka at no-log.org wrote:

> I was too optimistic about what would be the right incentive (200 CFA is too little).
>
> > An issue I have, though, is: how many speakers of Bamana and Fulfulde
> > have access to the internet, to actually read these articles? How many
> > even have access to a computer?
>
> 1) Very very little.
> 2) A bit more.
>
> Another question: how many speakers of Bamanan and Fulfulde are actually able to read?
>
> Quite some more, but only very very optimistic estimations are higher than 30%. It's
> more likely to be 10% or so.

And can they also speak French ?

> > wider dissemination of internet technologies in Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso,
> > Guinea...?

However, wikipedia does not need Internet.

Put a copy of fr and Bamako on a Linux box there,

> There is a lot activity there as well. Often one internet connection is shared by
> radio station, hospital, CLIC and municipality office.
> BTW, most Geekcorps Mali partner radios aren't equipped with internet yet. Geekcorps
> first wants to make sure that people at the radio actually use the computer for their
> radio shows. However, I did add the wik2dicted French and Bambara Wikipedias to

I see you have done that ..

> Kunnafonix, the one-question-GNU/Linux-installCD. With fellow Geek Sebastian I also
> added the creation of Debian packages to wik2dict, in order to make it easier to get
> this stuff spreaded.

I must check that out. Sounds great.

> Maybe some of you know of another compressed hypertext format that does
> include images? I like DICT for its spead and simplicity, but it lacks images...

No pictures ? Still very useable.

> The possession rate of mobile phones in Mali is probably something like 1%. But many
> mobile phones are often used by entire families, just like fixed lines in the rich
> world. And an African family is somewhat larger than a western family...

And mobile phones are much more commonplace than landlines.

> But maybe this all sounds too optimistic. But it also seems interesting to get in
> touch with African mobile phone operators to set up a service where people can access
> information. The colonial language Wikipedias are already interesting enough to get
> this done. Read out live even by flesh-and-blood persons when there's no ogg version
> yet.

Discussions and conference in Pretoria talked about SMS'ing your
request, and a voice callback with the first para of the article.

> Another thing to take a look at is text-to-speech synths. It's a challenge to write an
> interface to access Wikipedia, that can be used by people who are not able to read.
>
> What I haven't mentioned in this message yet: The existence of an encyclopedia in
> their own language, written by themselves, will probably give people a boost of
> confidence in their language.

I think you are right.

Cheers,  Andy!


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal

body:
Hello all,
In this email, I would like to propose a few ideas for grants and
money-raising, in order to get community feedback. The focus of this email will  be
smaller grants and donations.
In the past few months, various people have raised projects that require
particular funding. This ranges from the large amount required to put the
Ultimate Wiktionary project into motion by developing an appropriate database,  to
smaller projects such as Amikeco's work in the Ossetian language and Guako's
work promoting Wikimedia projects in  Mali. Should the  Foundation choose to go
ahead with these projects?and in some cases, it already  has--the potential
costs will add to our existing budget for regular  maintenance, new servers,
transportation and communication expenses,  etc.
That is not to say that these projects should not be pursued. In fact,  some
people might have a particular interest in promoting one or another of  these
projects.
I therefore suggest that donors have the possibility of earmarking their
donation. That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they want
their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for servers,
while another donor may give specifically to promote a language, print a
particular wikibook, or whatever.
The option will work as follows:
    1.  People interested in promoting particular  projects will be asked to
create a project page, and to submit a budget for  their project. The "Total
Cost" will be the amount of money they would like to  collect for the project +
the additional percentage charged by PayPal. + 10  percent (to be explained
below). Budgets should be as detailed as possible to  inspire confidence in the
project and explain exactly where the money is  going.
    1.  Donors giving to the Foundation will have the  option of either
giving directly to the general running costs of Wikimedia or  perusing the list of
specific projects. They can then decide how they want  their money to be
spent.
    1.  IMPORTANT: In the event that people decide to  give money to a
specific project, it will be made clear to them that 10  percent will be deducted
automatically for "Overhead," i.e., the day-to-day  costs of running the
Wikimedia Foundation. In other words, even if someone  decides to give $100 toward
printing the Wiki-Roadkill-Cookbook with  scratch-and-smell recipes, $10 dollars
will still be deducted for use by the  Foundation as the Board sees fit.
    1.  Sums collected will be charted on the project  page. Once a project
has reached its target sum, it will be removed from the  list of projects
available to donors. Any additional funds earned will be  given to the general
Foundation fund.
Advantages
I believe that this proposal has a number of important advantages.
    1.  This allows us to focus on our goals as a  charitable organization,
with the objective of giving to others.
    2.  It allows for projects to grow naturally as a  reflection of the
interests of the community and the donors.
    3.  People involved in specific projects will  naturally assume the
responsibility of "Project Heads" and naturally grow to  fill leadership positions
    4.  Motivated individuals will promote their  projects, gaining them
greater visibility.
    5.  Public budgets for projects will foster greater  transparency of the
financial process. People like to know where their money  is going and how it
is being spent.
    6.  With several projects emerging, the Foundation  will be able to
release a "Catalogue of Giving Opportunities" for potential  donors, including
large-gift donors.
    7.  Budgets for these projects will be a genuine  reflection of needs,
and benefit from being accessible to community  comment.
Disadvantages
Though I am thoroughly biased in favor of this, I have not discussed it  with
Mav and others involved in finances, and I want to make sure something of
this sort is feasible, and that it does not pose too much work on people
handling the money.
I am very eager to hear your responses to this proposal. More proposals
regarding larger grants will be forthcoming over the next few days.
Danny
Member, Wikimedia Grants Team


subject: [Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal


body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:

>>> Logical, but ever so practical? A dictionary is per se about
>>> differences between two different languages (OK, except for
>>> describing unilingual dictionaries, but we're talking about
>>> translation dictionaries now, aren't we?). An encyclopedia is not. A
>>> Wikitionary consulter usually looks for a translation, and in
>>> Wiktionary several languages are merged already. Wikipedia always
>>> keeps one language.
>>
>> The difference between two languages is only a secondary purpose for
>> each Wiktionary.  The Wiktionary for a particular language primarily
>> describes the different ways in which the word in question is used
>> within the language.  You may very well usually look to Wiktionary
>> for translations, but others can look for different things.
>> Ec
>
> OK, that's it... But wasn't the idea of a Mega-Wiktionary born from
> its usage as a translation dictionary? In a recent private talk,
> Gerard defended this idea with a similar argument, if I understood him
> correctly.

The differences between Gerard and me are based in a fundamental
philosophical differences about the nature of Wiktionaries in particular
and dictionaries in general.  His position is a logical consequence from
the premise that Wiktionary is just a translation dictionary; I disagree
with his premise by considering Wiktionary to be much more than that.

Each Wiktionary may be tasked with explaining all words from all
languages, but it does so for the benefit of speakers of its own
language.  Gerard's Ultimate Wiktionary would work well if translatiions
were simply questions of one on one relationships.  As one example, the
word "minister" exists in both Dutch, and you are probably safe to use
the same word when going from Dutch to English.  It doesn't work in the
other direction.  You can't translate the English "minister" to its
Dutch equivalent when "predikant" is intended.  Add in a third language
and it can get very complicated.  As an experiment get someone to
translate a short paragraph from a modern English novel into Dutch, a
second person translates the same thing from Dutch to Italian, and a
third translates it back to English.  Compare the result with the
original.  The Wiktionaries in individual languages are in a better
position to explain this kind of problem in the target language for the
translation.  Sometimes the savings found in a technical shorcut present
a false economy.

There is a place for a project that brings things together, but there is
also a need to recognize the limitations of such a project.  It can't be
everything to everybody in the way that Gerard seems to envision his
project.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Censorship discussion: Thanks to all

body:
Dovi Jacobs (dovijacobs at yahoo.com) [050615 04:02]:

> Overall, "pausing to evaluate the situation" is a good idea, and it is important to choose battles wisely. What worries me is that this might be more than just a pause, and put the issue on a back-burner indefinitely. And also how we evaluate which battles we choose to fight.

Indeed. Presumably the same semi-permanent back burner a Cantonese
Wikipedia is on.

> 2. When it comes to choosing our battles, we should remember that our choices *now* have implications for our *future* choices. Will we also deny Wikinews in Arabic if people in some countries are worried about that being blocked? Or certain other countries in Asia and Africa, or even a few left in Eastern Europe? A firm policy decision now will might prevent damage in the future if people (and governments and corporations) simply know, in advance, that censorship is not on the agenda at Wikimedia.

This is fantastically important.

> 3. When you decide which battles to fight, you first have to evaluate how strong you are! Wikimedia is not weak; Wikipedia (plus its sisters) have become invaluable resources provided by a well-known, well-respected organization. This is only becoming more and more so, month by month, and the trend is not going to be reversed. In other words, we have the *strength* to stand up to this in the long term. It is not all or nothing: We should assume that even the *worst-case* scenario is a ban that will be eventually be revoked, because no govenment will be able to justify banning it in the long term.

Yep. It's not hard to phrase it in terms of lost face either.

I agree with everything in this message.

- d.


body:
Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050613 10:38]:
> Sean Barrett wrote:

> > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a
> > committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to
> > ban those that feel that it is important to record it.

> I don't think that's what we are discussing.

jguk has already left Wikipedia over the present content-related AC case,
feling he was being railroaded. I don't think that counts as a win for
Wikipedia - we're talking about a good contributor, not some obnoxious
nutter we're better without.

It's a larger version of exasperating one's opponents off the wiki, only
this time using the AC as a hammer. So far I'm only seeing taking on
content-related cases as setting up a disaster.

- d.


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anno Wikipædiæ

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>
>To avoid any bias whatsoever, let each wikipedia count the date by
>number of edits! 100 edits are a wiki-minute...
>
>Magnus
>
>
>
But that would mean that we could only measure time until the
WikiSingularity occurs...

-- Neil


subject: [Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal

body:
In a message dated 6/18/2005 9:30:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
beesley at gmail.com writes:

On  19/06/05, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> I therefore  suggest that donors have the possibility of earmarking their
> donation.  That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they
want
>  their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for
servers,
> while another donor may give specifically to promote a  language, print a
> particular wikibook, or whatever.

Isn't there  a danger of this leading to huge resources for the English
Wikipedia and  not enough for the rest of the projects and languages
simply because more  people visit that and therefore decide to put all
their donations towards  that project rather than the Foundation's
wider  goals?

Actually, this will help smaller projects. By projects, I do not mean a
specific wikilanguage. Rather, I mean projects like "Buying new servers,"
"Developing Wiktionary," "Helping Ossetian," the "Africa Project", etc. It does  not
mean earmarking money for a specific Wiki. In fact, this will help people
keep abreast of new charitable projects as they emerge. This has nothing to do
with English or any other language

It  might make more sense to say we will spend grant money on certain
projects,  but I'm not yet convinced it makes sense for all donations
to have to go  towards specific tasks in this way.
No, not all donations. But this allows people to have some say in how they
want the money they donate spent. There will certainly be an option to give to
the general running of Wikimedia, and all smaller grants will donate 10
percent  to  that cause as well.

Larger grants, in general, will require us to report on how we are spending
their money. I am suggesting that this serve as an outline for that. For
instance, we received a grant to push ahead with Wikijunior. We then have to
report to the donors how taht money was used to further that specific end.

Finally, of course the Board will have final say in which projects are
legitimate and which are not.

>     3.  People involved in specific  projects will  naturally assume the
> responsibility of "Project  Heads" and naturally grow to  fill leadership
positions

I'm not  sure how the topic of donations is related to this, nor
whether having  "Project Heads" is needed.
It is already occurring. The address for Ultimate Wiktionary is Gerard. The
address for Ossetian is Amikeco. I think that this is a good thing, because it
 helps build grassroots leadership.

On 19/06/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  This proposal helps the board to take decisions according to the
>  community wishes and at the same time, it allows editors to support
>  certain projects rather than others.

Would community wishes be  reflected by this though? Many donors are
not members of the community, or  not the editing community anyway, and
vice versa. What if a large donor  puts all their money towards a
project that is not supported by the  community? How could that be
dealt with?

Sure, and we want donors to have options about where to donate. From
non-Wiki experience, I can tell you that donors do not like the idea of just  giving,
without knowing where their money is going. They want to get the best  bang
for their buck, if you will pardon the Americanism. At the same time, they
also want to find a project that best suits their personal interests and
objectives. We are offering them a pallette from which they can  choose.


subject: [Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal


body:
>>
>>Logical, but ever so practical? A dictionary is per se about differences
>>between two different languages (OK, except for describing unilingual
>>dictionaries, but we're talking about translation dictionaries now, aren't
>>we?). An encyclopedia is not. A Wikitionary consulter usually looks for a
>>translation, and in Wiktionary several languages are merged already.
>>Wikipedia always keeps one language.
>
>The difference between two languages is only a secondary purpose for each
>Wiktionary.  The Wiktionary for a particular language primarily describes
>the different ways in which the word in question is used within the
>language.  You may very well usually look to Wiktionary for translations,
>but others can look for different things.
>
>Ec
>
OK, that's it... But wasn't the idea of a Mega-Wiktionary born from its
usage as a translation dictionary? In a recent private talk, Gerard defended
this idea with a similar argument, if I understood him correctly.

regards,
Thought police and censor Wouter S.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal

body:
In a message dated 6/18/2005 9:38:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
erik_moeller at gmx.de writes:

Hello  Danny,

earmarking is something I generally support, with some caveats.  My main
concern is that not everything we *should* do will necessarily be
directly funded by the community. This is especially true for
bootstrapping investments that benefit projects that currently don't
have a large supporting community yet. So I suggest that beyond overhead
costs, a substantial amount of money of every donation is also allocated
to a general bootstrapping fund to be used at the Foundation's  discretion.
Hi Erik

I dont think we really disagree, except in terms of allotment. As I
mentioned in my previous email, there will certainly be a general fund to cover
operational costs. In fact, we should encourage people to donate to that, in
addition to the ten percent from other projects that I propose. Furthermore,  this
is talking about smaller donations, whereas larger donations will be the
subject of a second email in a day or two.

As for the ten percent number, admittedly that was random, but it is based
on some realities. In general, Overhead costs range from 8-15 % in grants,
though i have seen as low as 0 % and as high as 20 %. I am proposing a
compromise for small donors, so that they feel that their money is going where  they
want. For instance, if I want to give 25 euros to Guako, I want to know  that at
least _most_ of that money reaches him. 50 % would cause me some  concern.
Nevertheless, I do feel that the 10% I suggested is negotiable. I would  like to
hear what other people say as well.

It could be split into different (broad) areas,  e.g.:
Bootstrap - Documentation: $5K
Bootstrap - Development:  $5K

I think that operational costs should take top priority. There's  not
much point in asking people to fund development if we can't afford to
keep the servers running. So during a fundraising drive, only after our
goal is met, the "slots" for targeted donations should be opened. This
might also add some excitement to the drive.
I am not sure that the two are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, I think  this
will encourage more people to give to something. As Wikipedia continues to
grow, actual running costs will be much higher than small donations can  hope
to cover.

My other concerns are usability-related. I think if we do this,  we need
to plan the implementation properly. I'd be glad to assist with  that,
though not immediately (perhaps after Wikimania there will be some
time). In fact, I can envision this to eventually become a project of
its own and extend beyond Wikimedia's own needs, to fund open source
development and free content. But that's very long term thinking  (years).
Before we hit long term, I'd like to concentrate on immediate implications.
Personally, I think that if we start soon, we may even be able to cover some
funding for Wikimania.

Danny

Best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal


body:
Jack Lynch (jack.i.lynch at gmail.com) [050618 04:43]:
> On 6/15/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050613 12:17]:

> > >  That is to say, the current practice of holding votes
> > > willy-nilly if you can get away with it

> > That is a stunningly accurate description of how it actually seems to occur
> > on en:, yes.

> > > needs to be stopped, and a
> > > proper framework should be developed instead that is compatible with our
> > > highest ideals.

> > I'm not quite sure how. Requiring all straw polls to be registered?

> Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy...

Not that I know of. I'm not sure how to make it work either.

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tentative schedule for MediaWiki 1.5 conversion

body:
We're tentatively scheduling taking MediaWiki 1.5 beta and upgrading the
Wikimedia sites for next weekend, circa June 24/25/26.

This will mean some read-only time while the databases are restructured.
Exactly how long it will take we're not sure; if possible this will be a
'rolling blackout' with each wiki taken off for conversion in turn while
the others remain editable.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
>
>Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050613 10:38]:
> > Sean Barrett wrote:
>
> > > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a
> > > committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and
>to
> > > ban those that feel that it is important to record it.
>
> > I don't think that's what we are discussing.
>
>
>jguk has already left Wikipedia over the present content-related AC case,
>feling he was being railroaded. I don't think that counts as a win for
>Wikipedia - we're talking about a good contributor, not some obnoxious
>nutter we're better without.
>
>It's a larger version of exasperating one's opponents off the wiki, only
>this time using the AC as a hammer. So far I'm only seeing taking on
>content-related cases as setting up a disaster.

jguk was a good contributor when it came to cricket related articles; he was
pretty obnoxious when it came to the use of BCE/CE.  Also, his leaving is
recent; many people who have been sanctioned by ArbCom, or even threatened
with sanction, return after a few weeks.  The way I see it, the good
contributors who leave in exasperation are more often never involved with
ArbCom, and are driven away by the people who eventually do get sanctioned
by ArbCom.

Jay.
Jay.


body:
>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Besides doing a lot of good editing (by repute, as I have only looked  at
>his edit wars involving [[common era]] notation) Jguk believes  that the
>notation AD - BC is vastly superior to the common era  notation CE - BCE
>(which he believes is incomprehensible to our  users). Based on that belief
>he has changed the notation in a number  of articles, most of which he does
>not ordinarily edit, and if  reverted, engages in edit wars.

Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a campaign to
remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made over 1,000 article
edits solely to support that campaign.

Jay.


body:
On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 16:25 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote:
> Sorry...don't have the French keyboard installed to put that accent over it.
> I always switched over when I was in France to the English keyboard because
> the letters and numbers were all messed up!

Oh yeah, the first thing I do on those keyboards is type setxkb[tab] us
You can put the accents using "dead keys". ^o for ?, "a for ?. I use
that setting most of the time, but I never actually figured out how to
change it using setxkmap...


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Grants -- a proposal

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com a ?crit:
>  Hello all,
> In this email, I would like to propose a few ideas for grants and
> money-raising, in order to get community feedback. The focus of this email will  be
> smaller grants and donations.
> In the past few months, various people have raised projects that require
> particular funding. This ranges from the large amount required to put the
> Ultimate Wiktionary project into motion by developing an appropriate database,  to
> smaller projects such as Amikeco's work in the Ossetian language and Guako's
> work promoting Wikimedia projects in  Mali. Should the  Foundation choose to go
> ahead with these projects?and in some cases, it already  has--the potential
> costs will add to our existing budget for regular  maintenance, new servers,
> transportation and communication expenses,  etc.
> That is not to say that these projects should not be pursued. In fact,  some
> people might have a particular interest in promoting one or another of  these
> projects.
> I therefore suggest that donors have the possibility of earmarking their
> donation. That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they want
> their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for servers,
> while another donor may give specifically to promote a language, print a
> particular wikibook, or whatever.
> The option will work as follows:
>     1.  People interested in promoting particular  projects will be asked to
> create a project page, and to submit a budget for  their project. The "Total
> Cost" will be the amount of money they would like to  collect for the project +
> the additional percentage charged by PayPal. + 10  percent (to be explained
> below). Budgets should be as detailed as possible to  inspire confidence in the
> project and explain exactly where the money is  going.
>     1.  Donors giving to the Foundation will have the  option of either
> giving directly to the general running costs of Wikimedia or  perusing the list of
> specific projects. They can then decide how they want  their money to be
> spent.
>     1.  IMPORTANT: In the event that people decide to  give money to a
> specific project, it will be made clear to them that 10  percent will be deducted
> automatically for "Overhead," i.e., the day-to-day  costs of running the
> Wikimedia Foundation. In other words, even if someone  decides to give $100 toward
> printing the Wiki-Roadkill-Cookbook with  scratch-and-smell recipes, $10 dollars
> will still be deducted for use by the  Foundation as the Board sees fit.
>     1.  Sums collected will be charted on the project  page. Once a project
> has reached its target sum, it will be removed from the  list of projects
> available to donors. Any additional funds earned will be  given to the general
> Foundation fund.
> Advantages
> I believe that this proposal has a number of important advantages.
>     1.  This allows us to focus on our goals as a  charitable organization,
> with the objective of giving to others.
>     2.  It allows for projects to grow naturally as a  reflection of the
> interests of the community and the donors.
>     3.  People involved in specific projects will  naturally assume the
> responsibility of "Project Heads" and naturally grow to  fill leadership positions
>     4.  Motivated individuals will promote their  projects, gaining them
> greater visibility.
>     5.  Public budgets for projects will foster greater  transparency of the
> financial process. People like to know where their money  is going and how it
> is being spent.
>     6.  With several projects emerging, the Foundation  will be able to
> release a "Catalogue of Giving Opportunities" for potential  donors, including
> large-gift donors.
>     7.  Budgets for these projects will be a genuine  reflection of needs,
> and benefit from being accessible to community  comment.
> Disadvantages
> Though I am thoroughly biased in favor of this, I have not discussed it  with
> Mav and others involved in finances, and I want to make sure something of
> this sort is feasible, and that it does not pose too much work on people
> handling the money.
> I am very eager to hear your responses to this proposal. More proposals
> regarding larger grants will be forthcoming over the next few days.
> Danny
> Member, Wikimedia Grants Team

Hi

I am fully supportive of this proposal, which could help solve what I
see increasingly as a problem to us... while technical issues related to
running the project every day are seen as a priority by most (if not all
actually), how to define whether spending a little part of the
Foundation money on a specific project is acceptable by the community or
not. This proposal helps the board to take decisions according to the
community wishes and at the same time, it allows editors to support
certain projects rather than others. In short, both a grant tool and a
communication/feedback tool.

Technically, the main issue might well be for the donator to mention
where the money should go. If this is in the comment area, this will
mean much work for Mav.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Grants -- a proposal


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Validation status

body:
Just a note; the 'validation' feature will most likely not be turned on
on en.wikipedia.org when we upgrade, since it's not currently in a
usable state.

Problems include, but are not limited to:

* In various places it tries to load metadata for *every* revision of
the page. This would be fatal on the actual Wikipedia, where there are
pages with tens of thousands of revisions. There are likely other severe
performance and scalability issues with it.

* The 'management' interface for defining survey options is not locked
off properly, and is very hard to use if you do get to it.

* Lack of HTML-safety on the UI interface: as a quick hack I added
htmlspecialchars() guards, but things really should be changed to use
wikitext where appropriate; several of the UI messages are currently
displaying raw HTML tags.

If anybody would like to work on it further that would be spiffy;
otherwise it will remain in limbo indefinitely.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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