from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A Request

body:
Alphax wrote:
>Phil Boswell wrote:

> > I would strongly suggest that you select someone you think appropriately
> > trustworthy---Jimbo or Angela spring to mind, or possibly David Gerard as
> > the current custodian of the IP check thingamabob---and supply that person
> > with your correct identity, with proof, so that further spoofing of your
> > identity can be detected.

> Tim Starling also comes to mind.

Tim's been handing an increasing number of requests to me, so he can
get on with useful things like writing the software and running the
servers ...

Summary: Cranston Snord = Enviroknot = ElKabong = KaintheScion = Anon
Y. Mouse = annoying idiot on IRC who comes in only from a remarkably
Enviroknot-like IP or through a Tor server = annoying idiot under any
number of names on [[WP:ANI]] who comes in through UofH, an
Enviroknot-like IP or an open proxy.

I've kicked Enviroknot off this list *again*. Please stop feeding the troll.

- d.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
On 9/9/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> If the article is being edited and re-edited, constantly being
> improved enough to get certified by another user or two, I don't see
> any problem at all with this type of gaming the system.  In fact, I
> think we should strongly encourage that type of gaming the system.

Well, I mean for articles which clearly ARE non-notable; i.e. some
vanity band page and the bassist keeps adding new information to the
article in an appeal to keep it alive. But needing another user (and
not a sockpuppet) to "certify" any requests would probably stop 90% of
that sort of "gaming".

> Stubs expand only if they exist.  This rhetorical "someone else"
> seldom writes fully referenced and cited articles in one fell swoop.

Well, true. But stubs don't expand by themselves, either. (Of course,
I have to admit, I enjoy writing new, uncreated articles in on fell
swoop, in part because then I can add it to the "Did you know?" list,
and having things on the front page is very satisfying to me; not so
much for the vanity aspects, but it's one of the easiest ways to get
some attention for your articles from other editors).

> The problem is that article authors have an investment in what they
> write.  VfD voters usually have no investment whatsoever; when I've
> called for the most basic of research of notability before voting
> "delete", a three second Google search, I've been accused of making
> personal attacks against delete voters.  VfD will always remain toxic,
> especially to new users who aren't accustomed to it's climate, if we
> cannot insist that delete voters put in at least some tiny effort into
> research before voting.

Sure, but I don't know how you'd get *voters* to do that without doing
something like limiting the voting pool significantly. One alternative
approach is to make *nominators* work a bit harder -- i.e., not
allowing nominations which don't reflect some sort of attempt was made
to really assess the article or not.

Sometimes (maybe most of the time), I think this is the case: a
nominator comes in, says, "Look, this biography looks like a vanity
article to me. This guy's name gets no google hits. He apparently used
to own a baseball team. Big whoop. Let's axe it." Most voters wouldn't
even have to verify this -- if only a few voters DID check up on the
nominator, one of them would likely vote "Strong Keep -- what you've
written is just plain wrong, I ran his name through Google and found
out he's president of the United States!" which would hopefully
influence other voters as well.

(Of course, I haven't been taking part at all in the deletion reform,
so I shouldn't be so eager to be an armchair philosopher about it.)

FF


from_name: charles matthews

subject: legal paranoia (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Encarta article list)

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote

> I'm sorry, but acting carefully on advice from actual lawyers is not
> legal paranoia.

In any case, the big things seem to be going so well for WP ($240K new
funds, Alexa rankings up with the IMDB and Canadian Google), that looking
for potential snags is rather more like the avoidance of complacency and
hubris.

Charles


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Time spent in page rendering

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
>>See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Profiling/20050822
>>[...]
>>It's much easier to produce user-visible speed improvements by
>>concentrating on relatively rare but slow operations. These often
>
>
> Good thinking, but your kind of profiling output doesn't support
> this kind of optimization.

Strange, how did I manage to perform it successfully so many times then?
Must have been magic. Feel free to gasp in awe ;)

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
On 9/9/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/9/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If the article is being edited and re-edited, constantly being
> > improved enough to get certified by another user or two, I don't see
> > any problem at all with this type of gaming the system.  In fact, I
> > think we should strongly encourage that type of gaming the system.
>
> Well, I mean for articles which clearly ARE non-notable; i.e. some
> vanity band page and the bassist keeps adding new information to the
> article in an appeal to keep it alive. But needing another user (and
> not a sockpuppet) to "certify" any requests would probably stop 90% of
> that sort of "gaming".

Needing a <i>different</i> (non-sockpuppet) user to certify that the
each change warrants a restart of the vote would stop 99% of the
gaming of the system before the fifth certification, even if each of
the band members sets up an account.  ;)

> > Stubs expand only if they exist.  This rhetorical "someone else"
> > seldom writes fully referenced and cited articles in one fell swoop.
>
> Well, true. But stubs don't expand by themselves, either. (Of course,
> I have to admit, I enjoy writing new, uncreated articles in on fell
> swoop, in part because then I can add it to the "Did you know?" list,
> and having things on the front page is very satisfying to me; not so
> much for the vanity aspects, but it's one of the easiest ways to get
> some attention for your articles from other editors).

YOU'RE the 'rhetorical "someone else"'???  Glad to finally meet you!  :D

>
> > The problem is that article authors have an investment in what they
> > write.  VfD voters usually have no investment whatsoever; when I've
> > called for the most basic of research of notability before voting
> > "delete", a three second Google search, I've been accused of making
> > personal attacks against delete voters.  VfD will always remain toxic,
> > especially to new users who aren't accustomed to it's climate, if we
> > cannot insist that delete voters put in at least some tiny effort into
> > research before voting.
>
> Sure, but I don't know how you'd get *voters* to do that without doing
> something like limiting the voting pool significantly. One alternative
> approach is to make *nominators* work a bit harder -- i.e., not
> allowing nominations which don't reflect some sort of attempt was made
> to really assess the article or not.
>
> Sometimes (maybe most of the time), I think this is the case: a
> nominator comes in, says, "Look, this biography looks like a vanity
> article to me. This guy's name gets no google hits. He apparently used
> to own a baseball team. Big whoop. Let's axe it." Most voters wouldn't
> even have to verify this -- if only a few voters DID check up on the
> nominator, one of them would likely vote "Strong Keep -- what you've
> written is just plain wrong, I ran his name through Google and found
> out he's president of the United States!" which would hopefully
> influence other voters as well.

Sounds like a great idea; that a VfD can be ended with "Speedy Keep"
if nominators don't explain how they performed a bit of research and
what the results were.  Even if the article gets nominated properly
two minutes later, this would be a huge improvement over what
frequently occurs now.

> (Of course, I haven't been taking part at all in the deletion reform,
> so I shouldn't be so eager to be an armchair philosopher about it.)

On the contrary, in my opinion, you've just made some very good suggestions.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[Foundation-l] Donation drive stopped early with insufficient
	funds collected

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> So I simply suggested that everybody consider setting aside the issues that
> have been stopping action for nearly a year. I did *not* suggest that any rash
> decisions be made or that things get decided unilaterally or randomly. But I
> did suggest that issues relating to legal ownership (a major bottleneck - in my
> observation - so far) can be worked out in due time. As is, the great majority
> of the money is just sitting there.

Legal ownership isn't really particularly a bottleneck here.

> As more and more chapters get tax exempt status, this will be more and more of
> an issue. This issue needs to be worked out ASAP, before over half the money
> generated in fund drives goes to chapters instead of directly to the
> foundation.

An alternative to this, which Soufron is looking into for me (but he
warns that it will take some months at least) is to get the foundation
itself directly recognized in Europe as having tax exempt status.

--Jimbo


list: wikimedia-l


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Donation drive stopped early with insufficient
	funds collected

body:
Jakob Voss wrote:
> P.S: In this message there is a hidden reminder about a contract
> regarding logo and trademarks usage that Wikimedia Germany is awaiting
> eagerly every day since weeks.

It is currently in the hands of our San Francisco law firm.  The person
they have on staff who is doing this work, as I understand it, is a
German lawyer *and* a US lawyer.  So he seems like just the right person
to take care of this.

I do not have a time frame for when we will hear back, but I estimate
within a week or two.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ryan Norton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
Hi there,

> Another aspect that could help is reemphasising that VFD is a
> discussion, not an election;

Wasn't that the reason for the switch from VfD-->AfD? The whole change
struck me as somewhat odd, as if people want to pretend VfD is
something it is not in order to keep sockpuppets away. Of course, the
actual name change was welcome ("Votes for deletion" always gets a
chuckle from me :)).

Thanks,
RN


body:
Evan Martin wrote:
> On 9/8/05, Domas Mituzas <Domas.Mituzas at microlink.lt> wrote:
>
>>>Why not cache prerendered versions of all pages?
>>
>>We have multiple caches.
>>[explanation snipped]
>
>
> Thanks for the explanation!
> And with all of that, rendering is still the bottleneck?

Not really, Article::view is only 19% of profiling time, based on the
figures I posted. As I was saying, I prefer to discourage the
"bottleneck" mindset. An average request is very diffuse. It's
meaningful to talk about the bottleneck of some slow functions, but
there's no "bottleneck of MediaWiki".

To put it another way, in that profiling run, there were 17983 requests.
10556 (58%) of them were action=view. 8952 (49%) were for the current
revision, the other 9% were diffs and old revisions. Of those 8952
requests, about half would have been parser cache hits (current hit
ratio is 53%). So only about 23% of requests require the rendering of
the current article text. And this is meant to be our bottleneck?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Peter Grecian

subject: [Wikitech-l] rebuildall.php mediawiki-1.5rc4

body:
Running rebuildall.php I get:

> Content-type: text/html
> X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.4
>
> ** Rebuilding fulltext search index (if you abort this will break
> searching; run this script again to fix):
> Dropping index...
> Rebuilding index fields for 1277 pages...
> 0
> 500
> 1000
> Rebuild the index...
>
>
> ** Rebuilding recentchanges table:
> Loading from CUR table...
> A database error has occurred
> Query: INSERT INTO `recentchanges`
> (rc_timestamp,rc_cur_time,rc_user,rc_user_text,rc_namespace,rc_title,rc_comment,rc_minor,rc_bot,rc_new,rc_cur_id,rc_this_oldid,rc_last_oldid,rc_type)
> SELECT
> cur_timestamp,cur_timestamp,cur_user,cur_user_text,cur_namespace,cur_title,cur_comment,cur_minor_edit,0,cur_is_new,cur_id,0,0,
> IF(cur_is_new != 0, 1, 0)  FROM `cur`
> Function: rebuildRecentChangesTablePass1
> Error: 1146 Table 'wikidb.cur' doesn't exist (localhost)
>
> Backtrace:
> GlobalFunctions.php line 451 calls wfbacktrace()
> Database.php line 400 calls wfdebugdiebacktrace()
> Database.php line 350 calls databasemysql::reportqueryerror()
> Database.php line 1266 calls databasemysql::query()
> rebuildrecentchanges.inc line 38 calls databasemysql::insertselect()
> rebuildall.php line 26 calls rebuildrecentchangestablepass1()

I'm trying to rebuild the index and links from an imported wiki.

Any help much appreciated.

Peter


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Bullocks. This is legal paranoia.

I'm sorry, but acting carefully on advice from actual lawyers is not
legal paranoia.

Beyond that, of course I agree with the current concept of creating a
generally researched list from many sources of topics which we don't
have but should.

--Jimbo


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki dump organization

body:
Doro?y?ski Janusz wrote:
> But ...
> Fact 1. Since 23rd June anybody can downloaded whole content
> (or text)
> Fact 2. Past 23rd June anybody can download excerpt of whole
> content (yes, yes, because are important technical reasons,
> etc., and I accept them without any doubts)

I'm not sure what this means.

First, "since 23rd June" and "past 23rd June" mean about the same thing.
Second, you can both download the whole content (with complete history)
and download excerpts (current versions only, or current versions of all
non-talk pages except user pages). This is the case both before and
after that date (though the *additional* current-non-talk-non-user dump
is new as of September).

> But what it means is really personal POV. I say "limiting",
> may be I'm not right, may be I am. But I have right to think
> and right to have my opinion. Like everybody have right to
> have. And you don't think that I means that you are
> "complete ...", please. My thinks are totally opposite :-)

What do you think is limiting?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
WHOA - SPUI just moved all the AfD pages back to VfD!!!

"being bold, just like whoever moved it here"

I guess so!

Ryan


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Boris Lohnzweiger

subject: [Wikipedia-l] new request for ASL/English wikipedia

body:
Are there any books written in Sign Language? Do deaf people ever write letters or e-mails in Sign Language? Do deaf people jot down their shopping lists in ASL or do they rather use English? Maybe somebody can tell me. I must admit I know to little about deaf culture.

Boris

XXL-Speicher, PC-Virenschutz, Spartarife & mehr: Nur im WEB.DE Club!
Jetzt gratis testen! http://freemail.web.de/home/landingpad/?mc=021130


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>
>>So I simply suggested that everybody consider setting aside the issues that
>>have been stopping action for nearly a year. I did *not* suggest that any rash
>>decisions be made or that things get decided unilaterally or randomly. But I
>>did suggest that issues relating to legal ownership (a major bottleneck - in my
>>observation - so far) can be worked out in due time. As is, the great majority
>>of the money is just sitting there.
>>
>>
>
>Legal ownership isn't really particularly a bottleneck here.
>
>
>
>>As more and more chapters get tax exempt status, this will be more and more of
>>an issue. This issue needs to be worked out ASAP, before over half the money
>>generated in fund drives goes to chapters instead of directly to the
>>foundation.
>>
>>
>
>An alternative to this, which Soufron is looking into for me (but he
>warns that it will take some months at least) is to get the foundation
>itself directly recognized in Europe as having tax exempt status.
>
>--Jimbo
>
Hoi,
I have had contact with the Dutch taxoffice in Heerlen about this issue.
It is possible for the Wikimedia Foundation to have a tax exempt status
in the Netherlands. The Tax office takes a much more severe look at
organisations that are not Dutch. Typically only 1% of the requests are
honored I was told. It makes no difference if it is a US or a European
organisation I was told. When we are to ask for a tax exempt status for
a Dutch chapter, we could prepare papers for the WMF at the same time..

Given the great reputation the WMF has in the Netherlands it should be
possible to acquire this status. This reputation can be demonstrated in
quotes of organisations like Kennisnet who have publicly stated that
Wikipedia is important to the Dutch education.

Thanks,
    Gerard


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Images dump

body:
On 08/09/05, Sergey Samoylov <ssamoylov at gmail.com> wrote:
> Images dump which I downloaded from
> http://download.wikimedia.org/images/wikipedia/en/ is not full.
> Is it because of license for some images or another reason?
>
> For example there are no *Tux.png, **Commons-logo.png, **
> Wikiquote-logo-en.png **and Wikibooks-logo-en.png *for Linux article.

These are probably hosted on the Wikimedia Commons (which is a
repository of liberally-licensed multimedia content, if you haven't
come upon it yet) - images hosted there can be directly used in
Wikipedia pages, but they won't turn up in the dump because they're
not hosted by that project. [I checked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux.png and that one is, for a start.]
This is kind of confusing, but at least if you do get the Commons
dump, you can be fairly sure there are no images in it that are
actually copyrighted, since Commons has no place for "fair use" or
anything like that. Hope this helps some.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: new request for ASL/English wikipedia

body:
No. Each signed language has a very different grammar from each other
one. American Sign Language and Italian Sign Language, for example,
are not mutually comprehensible.

Mark

On 07/09/05, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> > There are two main ASL writing systems: Stokoe, and SignWriting. If you
> > can work out how to make either of these (or any other system I don't
> > know about, but is common amongst deaf users of ASL) work with
> > Wikipedia, you've got a good chance of getting a consensus to start a
> > new Wikipedia for ASL as a first-class written language. Otherwise, all
> > you have is the visual equivalent of spoken-word readings of articles in
> > other languages: they may be interesting and even useful, but since
> > they're not interactive and Wiki-linked, they're not a Wikipedia.
>
> Would an automatic converter like simplified Chinese/traditional
> Chinese be possible to convert it to other sign languages?
>
> --
> Ausir
> Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
> http://pl.wikipedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
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: Daniel Mayer

subject:
Using 'publish this page' to develop WMF website content on Meta (was
	Re: [Foundation-l] a crazy idea...)

body:
--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been thinking this over for a few days, and I believe the option
> of reunifying meta and the Foundation wiki makes most sense.

In theory I'm with you all the way, but in practice meta is an ever bigger mess
than the foundation wiki. So at the very least this will require a great deal
of prep-work. There is also the issue that meta largely does not contain
official items, while the foundation wiki does. On top of this is a *major*
security concern; the foundation wiki needs to parse full HTML, while allowing
that on a generally editable wiki would be dangerous.

But yeah - the separation is very annoying and wastes a lot of time. Perhaps
what is needed is a new MediaWiki feature that I'll call 'Publish this page.'
There would be no separate foundation wiki and all foundation webpages would be
maintained on meta yet also displayed on a separate static website.

A new user group would be needed, but those in the group could click 'Publish
this page' and presto! A static version of that page - in full HTML - would
then exist at wikimediafoundation.org under a page name selected for that page
(different names would be needed between the foundation website and meta due to
the extensive use of subpages on meta for development purposes; alternatively,
only the name after the last / could be used for the static page name - I like
the second option better).

This feature could also be used for WikiJunior ; development of WikiJunior
books would still happen on Wikibooks, but we could also have a static version
of published WikiJunior books at wikijunior.org. Parents and teachers would
feel much more comfortable sending kids to a static, yet often updated, website
instead of wiki that may have been vandalized a few seconds before the kids get
there.

I imagine that this will be a killer feature for many websites that are
currently static and built the bad old way. Using this feature they could have
an internal MediaWiki wiki to for multiple purposes and simply publish a
sub-set of that content to their external static website.

> If the test wikis and help pages are moved elsewhere, I think meta can
> become useful again, and that the inclusion of all the Foundation
> pages there would be preferable to the current situation.

The current situation really is not good at all. I also agree that it is time
for the MediaWiki help pages to move. A wiki just for MediaWiki should be
set-up at mediawiki.org. The test junk should also be moved to one or more test
wikis (test.mediawiki.org could be used to test developing MediaWiki features,
while test.wikimedia.org could be used for the test wiki junk currently on
meta).

-- mav

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


body:
In my opinion, the best option is to use sign synthesis software. Each
program tends to use a slightly different notation.

However, in the end it should not be difficult for a native ASL signer
to learn with a little bit of effort.

The advantage to such systems is that only the person writing the
article needs to know the transcription, whereas those viewing the
article can view it in transcription OR by computer-generated signing,
the latter of which will be almost universally comprehensible.

http://s-leodm.unm.edu/signsynth/ (the avatar is a little ugly, but it
serves its purpose)
http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/eSIGN/Overview.html (experimental)
http://sy.jdl.ac.cn/en/synthesis.asp (Chinese Sign Language only)
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/gsl-rec/ (sign recognition, rather
than synthesis)

Mark

On 09/09/05, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
>
> >> Regardless of the technical means and organization of a signed Wikipedia, I
> >>would encourage people discussing the matter not to use wordings that may
> >>suggest that ASL is not a language in its own right, or that deaf people
> >>have a less fundamental right to acquire knowledge through their own
> >>languages than have hearing people.
> >> Haruo
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Well, the comments are mostly because the person who proposed the new
> >project wanted to include also English language text of the articles,
> >which would basically mean forking. And ASL might be a language, but
> >unless it has also a special writing system, I don't know if it can be
> >created - after all, we do not create Wikipedias for other languages
> >that are only spoken and not written.
> >
> >
> >
> ASL is most certainly a first-class language, but it _must be written_
> to be usable in a text-based system like Wikipedia.
>
> There are two main ASL writing systems: Stokoe, and SignWriting. If you
> can work out how to make either of these (or any other system I don't
> know about, but is common amongst deaf users of ASL) work with
> Wikipedia, you've got a good chance of getting a consensus to start a
> new Wikipedia for ASL as a first-class written language. Otherwise, all
> you have is the visual equivalent of spoken-word readings of articles in
> other languages: they may be interesting and even useful, but since
> they're not interactive and Wiki-linked, they're not a Wikipedia.
>
> Your best bet is probably Stokoe, because it's less dependent on graphic
> layout. You could _possibly_ represent Stokoe using Unicode symbols and
> combining character representations, or use the in-built TeX support, or
> you could try ASCII-Stokoe, or writing a custom plugin for a Stokoe-like
> Wikitext.
>
> SignWriting is altogether a more difficult problem, as the symbols are
> not in most fonts. Something could probably be done with a Wikipedia
> extension that converts some form of TeX-like Wikitext format to
> SignWriting glyphs, either as rendered .png files, or as SVG.
>
> For an advanced project, you could even consider a SignSynth-like system
> that would automatically sign written Wiki-ASL.
>
> Are there any written-sign-language experts here?
>
> -- Neil
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
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: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikien-l Mailing List

body:
I've received the following spam, masking as though it's from the
mailing list.  Directly replying would be to the roomity address, and
not to this mailing list.
  Ec

Joni Ellsworth wrote:

> Ray,
>
> I was reading your posts on the Wikien-l mailing group yesterday, and
> think our site may be of interest to you.  It will put all the posts
> from the group on one page, and keep your inbox cleaner.
>
> There is nothing to buy, and there is a video demo, if you like.  If
> you do get a chance to check it out, let me know what you think of it
> - I would love to hear your thoughts.
>
> The site addy is http://www.roomity.com.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Joni Ellsworth
> Community Operator
> EMail: coasteraddict at roomity.com
> URL:   http://www.roomity.com
> Office: 214-827-3319
>
> To opt out of this email, please contact coasteraddict at roomity.com


from_name: Jack Barry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My dyslexic friend....

body:
....always refers to you guys as "Wicked Pee ?...Dja!"...

I don't get it.
jack barry

--
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
JackBarry99 at gmail.com
415-564-0225/415-235-7897cell
Quote: --"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what
lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
http://jackbarry99.buzznet.com
http://UncleRealtor.blogspot.com


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
You have attempted to edit a page, either by clicking the "edit this
page" tab or by following a red link.

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Smoddy.

The reason given is this:
Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "SPUI".
The reason given for SPUI's block is: "disruption by moving AfD; time to
repair the damage".

----

I moved [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]] back to [[Wikipedia:Votes
for deletion]] and fixed the double redirects. How is this any different
from the move that was done in the other direction?


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

body:
>>As more and more chapters get tax exempt status, this will be more and more of
>>an issue. This issue needs to be worked out ASAP, before over half the money
>>generated in fund drives goes to chapters instead of directly to the
>>foundation.
>
>
> An alternative to this, which Soufron is looking into for me (but he
> warns that it will take some months at least) is to get the foundation
> itself directly recognized in Europe as having tax exempt status.

Which is quite difficult from what I can see now.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> I've blocked him for an hour and am reverting all his moves.  We don't
> need this trolling.
>
What the fuck? How is this any different than the bold move to AFD?


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> The fact that that was done following discussion and for good reasons.
>  It was aimed at being complete.  Your move seemed to be no more than
> trolling.  You should have realised that that kind of move was bound
> to create dissent and distaste.  If you want to move the pages back, I
> suggest discussing it first.

The same could be said about the move to AFD - it was bound to create
"dissent and distaste". I was merely being bold and using the "use
common names" policy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body: Oh, and I love how I'm blocked for a day by the autoblocker.


from_name: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Typically the blocking admin remembers to remove these after the
block expires.

-Snowspinner

On Sep 9, 2005, at 4:59 PM, SPUI wrote:

> Oh, and I love how I'm blocked for a day by the autoblocker.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Jack Lynch wrote:
> Do you really think thats what typically happens? Why do we have an
> autoblocker? Isn't it adding insult to injury?

It has its use in preventing someone blocked from simply logging out,
but it's horribly broken and the devs seem to not care. And before
anyone tells me to submit code for it, send me the appropriate material
to learn to program and wait a few years.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki dump organization

body:
On 09/09/05, Doro?y?ski Janusz <dorozynskij at poczta.onet.pl> wrote:
> But ...
> Fact 1. Since 23rd June anybody can downloaded whole content
> (or text)
> Fact 2. Past 23rd June anybody can download excerpt of whole
> content (yes, yes, because are important technical reasons,
> etc., and I accept them without any doubts)

As far as I know, this is not the situation - the dumps still
represent the same data, it's just that they represent it in a
different format. For instance, where previously you had the content
of the 'cur' table, you now have an XML file (pages_current.xml.gz)
which contains the same thing - the current version of each page.
Similarly, the old 'old' table is available in a *more* friendly form
(with the current revisions in too, which makes sense) as
pages_full.xml.gz or filtered to the main namespace as
all_titles_in_ns0.gz

The only downside is that the dumps are now harder to import, because
the helper scripts are not yet well-developed. Once those scripts are
working better, the new system will actually allow *improved* access
to the data, since there can easily be more different dumps for
different purposes.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
>>It has its use in preventing someone blocked from simply logging out,
>>but it's horribly broken and the devs seem to not care. And before
>>anyone tells me to submit code for it, send me the appropriate material
>>to learn to program and wait a few years.
>
>
> It's not broken at all. It blocks for a further 24hrs as a reminder
> not to try to circumvent blocks.

And how does someone know they're blocked before they try to edit and
the autoblocker kicks in? Duh.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
On 9/9/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> In all seriousness, I think DYK is one of the best tools we have for
> encouraging good new articles. Try as we might to downplay vanity, it
> is a cheering thing to see something you wrote on the front page; I
> try and ensure that as many articles that I write as possible are good
> enough to be DYKed - plus, as FF says, it's a guaranteed way to get
> people to come and edit your work, to link it into things you wouldn't
> have thought of...
>
> Even if it's anonymous, we all like the egoboo of knowing people are
> reading our work. It's one of the hidden advantages of the wiki
> system, being able to see this so clearly.

There's vanity and then there's vanity. We can't downplay most vanity
too much -- it's one of the main reasons that people will participate
in a volunteer website! We don't pay people with money, we pay them
with personal credit and a sense of participating materially in
something bigger than themselves. Anthropologists and economists call
this a [[gift economy]]. I'm not sure if that totally explains why so
many people would waste their time ;-) on a wiki, but it's a nice
start at a theoretical framework.

FF


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
On 09/09/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Well, I mean for articles which clearly ARE non-notable; i.e. some
> > vanity band page and the bassist keeps adding new information to the
> > article in an appeal to keep it alive. But needing another user (and
> > not a sockpuppet) to "certify" any requests would probably stop 90% of
> > that sort of "gaming".
>
> Needing a <i>different</i> (non-sockpuppet) user to certify that the
> each change warrants a restart of the vote would stop 99% of the
> gaming of the system before the fifth certification, even if each of
> the band members sets up an account.  ;)

Another aspect that could help is reemphasising that VFD is a
discussion, not an election; if there are a large number of votes to
delete, but all the votes in the last three days are to keep, and
aren't sockish, then that is quite likely not actually a consensus to
delete.

> > Well, true. But stubs don't expand by themselves, either. (Of course,
> > I have to admit, I enjoy writing new, uncreated articles in on fell
> > swoop, in part because then I can add it to the "Did you know?" list,
> > and having things on the front page is very satisfying to me; not so
> > much for the vanity aspects, but it's one of the easiest ways to get
> > some attention for your articles from other editors).
>
> YOU'RE the 'rhetorical "someone else"'???  Glad to finally meet you!  :D

In all seriousness, I think DYK is one of the best tools we have for
encouraging good new articles. Try as we might to downplay vanity, it
is a cheering thing to see something you wrote on the front page; I
try and ensure that as many articles that I write as possible are good
enough to be DYKed - plus, as FF says, it's a guaranteed way to get
people to come and edit your work, to link it into things you wouldn't
have thought of...

Even if it's anonymous, we all like the egoboo of knowing people are
reading our work. It's one of the hidden advantages of the wiki
system, being able to see this so clearly.

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


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] treating references as first class objects in wiki

body:
2005/9/7, Amruta Lonkar <gtg808u at mail.gatech.edu>:
> According to what i have been able to grasp from the source code till now, do
> i have to make additions to the skins files?. Which file actually lists all
> the tab names and the cases for their display?.

No you don't, take a look at my content_action.php extension in the
extension module in CVS which does just that using an existing
extension hook.


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A Request

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
<snip>
> I would strongly suggest that you select someone you think appropriately
> trustworthy---Jimbo or Angela spring to mind, or possibly David Gerard as
> the current custodian of the IP check thingamabob---and supply that person
> with your correct identity, with proof, so that further spoofing of your
> identity can be detected.
>

Tim Starling also comes to mind.

--
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> PS. Top posting sucks.
>

Yes.
> Are you sure?
>> Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
>>> Why is top posting frowned upon?

--
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


body:
On 09/09/05, Ros' Haruo <rosharuo at gmail.com> wrote:

>  ... the project would likely cope much better as part of the
> larger en.wiki community. ? Andrew Gray
>
> (these are just a couple of random selections, nothing against either poster
> personally) could, I think, easily be taken as opposing the basic Wikipedian
> principle of people's right to access to information in their own languages.

My point was mainly directed at the "bilingual" idea. If it is to
involve a large amount of text in English, which is the impression I
got from the query, alongside the ASL... then it makes sense to try
and arrange it in such a way as to take advantage of the fact that we
have a well-developed, organised community writing that English text
at an astonishing rate.

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


body:
On 09/09/05, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> >  Regardless of the technical means and organization of a signed Wikipedia, I
> > would encourage people discussing the matter not to use wordings that may
> > suggest that ASL is not a language in its own right, or that deaf people
> > have a less fundamental right to acquire knowledge through their own
> > languages than have hearing people.
> >  Haruo
>
> Well, the comments are mostly because the person who proposed the new
> project wanted to include also English language text of the articles,
> which would basically mean forking. And ASL might be a language, but
> unless it has also a special writing system, I don't know if it can be
> created - after all, we do not create Wikipedias for other languages
> that are only spoken and not written.

We do, however, have seperate Wikipedias for what are, I understand,
very closely related languages with seperate orthographies (cf/
Moldovan/Romanian)

It may, perhaps, be useful to consider ASL as a very unusual
orthography for a language closely related to English?

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


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject:
Using 'publish this page' to develop WMF website content on Meta
	(was	Re: [Foundation-l] a crazy idea...)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I've been thinking this over for a few days, and I believe the option
>>of reunifying meta and the Foundation wiki makes most sense.
>>
>
>But yeah - the separation is very annoying and wastes a lot of time. Perhaps
>what is needed is a new MediaWiki feature that I'll call 'Publish this page.'
>There would be no separate foundation wiki and all foundation webpages would be
>maintained on meta yet also displayed on a separate static website.
>
>A new user group would be needed, but those in the group could click 'Publish
>this page' and presto! A static version of that page - in full HTML - would
>then exist at wikimediafoundation.org under a page name selected for that page
>(different names would be needed between the foundation website and meta due to
>the extensive use of subpages on meta for development purposes; alternatively,
>only the name after the last / could be used for the static page name - I like
>the second option better).
>
>This feature could also be used for WikiJunior ; development of WikiJunior
>books would still happen on Wikibooks, but we could also have a static version
>of published WikiJunior books at wikijunior.org. Parents and teachers would
>feel much more comfortable sending kids to a static, yet often updated, website
>instead of wiki that may have been vandalized a few seconds before the kids get
>there.
>
>
I would imagine that this would also be a useful feature for Wikiversity
(publishing a sylibus from a "teacher"), Wikibooks (making a 1.0
"version" of the book as a static version), and even Wikipedia (for
"vetted" articles that have been through the wringer, have citations,
and are of a more professional caliber that the typical Wikipedia
article).  In short, a very useful feature for just about any current
project.

I'm not sure if this should become a new user group permission or simply
something new for admins to play with.  Certainly if there was anything
that was brought up by community concensus that should be "published",
it could be then done technically by an admin.  The question would then
become if the existing admins on most projects are overwhelmed with
other issues and a new group of users with slightly more privileges than
a regular registered user should get this power or if this should simply
be with a community member that has the trust to become an admin anyway.
 In some ways it would be nice to add another "level" to the heirarchy
of super-user privileges, so the jump from registered user to admin
isn't quite as drastic, or could be done in a couple of steps rather
than one.

The answer to this question would discuss both the technical issues
having to impliment this sort of feature and the social issues creating
a new class of users.  Both I think are rather trivial, but I'm not
totally sure.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] new request for ASL/English wikipedia

body:
Hi all. My first email was copied to the person who originally
enquired, and they've now replied directly to me; I get the impression
from this that they may not be subscribed to the list.

As such, I've let them know how to read the archives on the web and
subscribe themselves, and I'm taking the liberty of forwarding their
followup message to the list so that people can see it.

If you reply, might be helpful to copy comments to the address below.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us <HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us>
Date: 09-Sep-2005 16:50
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] new request for ASL/English wikipedia
To: andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

There are approximately 500,000 users of American Sign Language(ASL)  in
the United States and many more in Canada. We will not merely be adding
sign language to articles but providing a Wikipedia in a separate
language(ASL) just as separate Wikpedias are available for German, French,
etc.... The English text article will be available as deaf users of ASL are
bilingual with varying levels of reading English. The average deaf adult
reads at about the 4th grade level
http://gri.gallaudet.edu/Literacy/#reading . Thus much of the internet  and
encyclopedias in general are inaccessible to these users due to the level
of reading required. A survey of the readability of internet sites showed
popular sites such a the NY Times and Nickelodeon were above 4th grade
level (www.readability.info). The article on cats from Wikipedia receives
the following scores

       Readability report for The cat in wikipedia.doc
           readability grades:
                   Kincaid: 11.0
                   ARI: 12.2
                   Coleman-Liau: 13.4
                   Flesch Index: 52.5
                   Fog Index: 14.4
                   Lix: 49.1 = school year 9
                   SMOG-Grading: 12.8
           As you can see these are all well above the 4th grade level.
Although simple.wikipedia.org strives to provide a version of English that
is easier to read it does not totally meet the needs of deaf users. The
readability of the "cat" article in simple wikipedia hovers at or slightly
above the 4th grade level on 2 measures of readability and is above 7th
grade on 3 measures of readability.

       Readability report for A cat in simple wikipedia.doc
           readability grades:
                   Kincaid: 4.6
                   ARI: 3.9
                   Coleman-Liau: 7.7
                   Flesch Index: 85.4
                   Fog Index: 7.4
                   Lix: 27.0 = below school year 5
                   SMOG-Grading: 7.7
To make information accessible to  deaf users ASL video is necessary that
accompanies the English text. An ASL-English bilingual Wikipedia would
provide deaf users with a tool for not only acquiring general world
knowledge via an accessible medium (American Sign Langauge) but also a
powerful educational tool for enhancing literacy by being able to compare
the ASL video and English text. Also, articles could be written tailored to
the reading level of deaf readers, rather than muddling through the text of
another wikipedia. A tool is also available for users to access the signs
for each word of the English text. It is MySignLink and is available for
free at www.aasdweb.com.MySignLink .
An ASL-English Wikipedia will also provide deaf students with a national
project that all students  can contribute to while producing their everyday
reports for their classes in Social Studies, Science, etc? It will be a
great motivator for  students to produce a product that is actually of use
to others and a great lesson for them to learn that their labor can help
others. The  deaf community can also produce articles. A deaf fly fisherman
in Montana may want to add an article on fly fishing or trout via ASL.  It
will be a source of pride in the deaf community. I hope you will agree that
American Sign Language needs a home of its own.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

(in reply to http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-September/041425.html
)

Thanks all,
--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New Tampa Hardware Manager

body:
kyle wrote:
> Greetings everyone. My name is Kyle and I would like to introduce myself
> to the group. I am the new hardware manager for the Tampa servers. My
> handle is Solar or SolarKennedy to catch me on IRC or email me at
> kyle at xkyle.com if you need something done.
>
> SolarKennedy

Hello Kyle and welcome,

Could you update this little paragraph so as to introduce you to
everyone. Please also add your irc and email over there, it will
certainly be helpful.

Thanks

Ant


body:
Anthere wrote:

> kyle wrote:
>
>> Greetings everyone. My name is Kyle and I would like to introduce myself
>> to the group. I am the new hardware manager for the Tampa servers. My
>> handle is Solar or SolarKennedy to catch me on IRC or email me at
>> kyle at xkyle.com if you need something done.
>>
>> SolarKennedy
>
>
> Hello Kyle and welcome,
>
> Could you update this little paragraph so as to introduce you to
> everyone. Please also add your irc and email over there, it will
> certainly be helpful.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ant

Naturally I forgot the link :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_organigram#Other_personnel

Sigh


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

body:
>  Regardless of the technical means and organization of a signed Wikipedia, I
> would encourage people discussing the matter not to use wordings that may
> suggest that ASL is not a language in its own right, or that deaf people
> have a less fundamental right to acquire knowledge through their own
> languages than have hearing people.
>  Haruo

Well, the comments are mostly because the person who proposed the new
project wanted to include also English language text of the articles,
which would basically mean forking. And ASL might be a language, but
unless it has also a special writing system, I don't know if it can be
created - after all, we do not create Wikipedias for other languages
that are only spoken and not written.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New request for Cantonese Wikipedia: vote at 29-6

body:
Jimbo, my whole point in informing an international mailinglist, and
ALL people who listed themselves as Cantonese speakers (including a
few who ended up voting against a Cantonese Wikipedia), was that it
seemed to me unfair to give Mandarin-only users an extra tip-off when
no other community got one.

And I have been quite right so far -- since Angela posted to zhwiki-l,
there have been a handful of new votes, including:

Ffootballchu, "support", from Hong Kong (a Cantonese-speaking area)

Zy26, "oppose", from "Northeast China" [zhongguo dongbei] (a
Mandarin-speaking area)
BenBenI, "oppose", from Chengdu (a Mandarin-speaking city)
Alexcn, "oppose", from Nanjing (a Mandarin-speaking city)

Now can you see why I am worried about fairness? I don't think it's
fair to let one Wikipedia vote on the creation of another Wikipedia,
rather I think it should be completely international OR up to the
people who speak the language.

Now, with this, it has been focused specifically towards zhwiki
community comment, which is giving the impression that the
Mandarin-speaking majority may have the final say on whether or not
the minority gets a separate Wikipedia. Now, from some points of view,
this may be fair (majority rules), but perhaps an analogy is in order:

If Kosovo wants to be internationally recognised as completely
independent from Serbia, who should vote on it? All of Serbia, or just
Kosovars? Certainly, if it is up to ALL of Serbia, they will remain
part of Serbia, while if it is up to the Kosovars only, they may very
well not.

It's similar with East Timor. Should all Indonesians have been allowed
to vote?? I don't think so. And they weren't -- only East Timorese
people were allowed to vote, and the overwhelming majority voted for
independence.

If Indonesians in general were allowed to vote, what do you think the
outcome would've been?

Now, currently this is largely unnessecary because "support" has more
votes by a large margin, but it's quite possible that more people from
zhwiki will come and vote. Some of them support, some of them against.

Now obviously not everybody falls within such a pattern: Hello World,
Sl, Jeromy~Yuyu, all Cantonese-speaking people, voted "against", and
Milcheflasch, a Mandarin speaker, voted "support".

But so far, I have been right: The majority of people for whom
Mandarin is the native language have voted "oppose", while the
majority of people for whom Cantonese, Wu, or Minnan is the native
variety have voted "support". In fact, even if you subtract Wu and
Minnan, the majority of Cantonese native speakers voted "support".

Now, this whole case has caused much frustration to me and all others
involved for a few reasons.

1) Quite a few users supporting on wikipedia-l, including zhwiki
members in good standing such as Milchflasch and Alex Kwan;

2) Quite a few people, including native speakers and quotes from
sources, confirming that Cantonese is indeed a very different and
largely mutually unintelligible written language;

3) Examples have been given;

4) Opposition almost entirely from non-Cantonese-speakers;

5) Test-Wikipedia articles have demonstrated just how different
Yueyubaihuawen (contemporary written Cantonese) and Baihuawen (based
on Mandarin) are, even on the most basic of levels (different words
for "is", "of", quite a few other very basic words, largely different
syntaxes, different vocabulary, etc.);

6) Jimbo said, and I quote: "I am told repeatedly by many people that
while Mandarian and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible in the
spoken form, in written form they are the same.  This is pretty
compelling for me." Who were these 'many people', we wondered (it was
discussed via PM on IRC, via private e-mails, and via instant
messaging)? What about all of the people who had come out of the
woodwork to say on Wikipedia-l that they AREN'T the same in written
form? Don't they count for anything?? For people working for a
separate Cantonese and eventually Wu and Hakka Wikipedias, this was
very confusing, discouraging, upsetting, and irritating all at the
same time.

7) Even non-Chinese Wikipedians have come out in support of a
Cantonese Wikipedia (and potentially others): Harvey Fiji, Walter van
Kalken, The Epopt, Arbeo, Nat Krause, Satyadasa, Katimawan, Chris
Sundita, Chamadrae, David Gerard, Wouter Steenbeek, Milos^ Rancic,
E2m, Oscar. The only non-Chinese who voted in opposition so far is
Elian. (if I've made a mistake and revealed someone's real name which
they prefer to keep secret, I apologise, but some are mailinglist
posters or people I know elsewhere).

Before the vote, everyone who wanted a Cantonese Wikipedia was
thinking, "what's the holdup?? how is it that andrew lih and
shengjiong ran over us with a steamroller in the court of Jimbopinion,
but we had the majority and we cited sources to support our argument
when they didn't???". That was the motivation for the vote, to have
something that screamed for attention by giving a concrete message of
how many people support it, that would be difficult to ignore.

Cheers
Mark

On 09/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > If I hold a vote on the creation of a Wikipedia in Venetian, do I have
> > to inform wikiit-l? No. Would it be nessecary? Probably not.
>
> Yes, that would be wise.  I can't think of any reason why *not* to
> inform them.
>
> > In fact, it has. Just because I didn't heed YOUR suggestions doesn't
> > mean I suck.
>
> No, you don't suck.  He didn't say that you suck, either.  Chill, man,
> it's WikiLove, ya know...
>
> > 4) The lack of announcement was partially intentional. I felt that it
> > was most fair to send a message to wikipedia-l, and international
> > mailing list, and then to individual Cantonese-speaking users.
>
> To me this sounds pretty much an unfair way to go about it.
>
> >>One reason the final (sixth) GNAA VfD was accepted after several
> >>controversial rounds of voting was because of how professionally the
> >>vote was administered. We should learn from that.
> >
> >
> > And by "we", you mean "Node", right?
>
> I think he means all of us.  This is a tough call, and therefore in
> order to generate widespread support throughout the entire community, a
> very professionally done vote is critical.
>
> This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything.  The only valid
> purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to
> build community consensus.  Deliberately excluding some interested
> parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get
> buy-in from the entire community.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
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: Neil Harris

body:
Pawe? Dembowski wrote:

>> Regardless of the technical means and organization of a signed Wikipedia, I
>>would encourage people discussing the matter not to use wordings that may
>>suggest that ASL is not a language in its own right, or that deaf people
>>have a less fundamental right to acquire knowledge through their own
>>languages than have hearing people.
>> Haruo
>>
>>
>
>Well, the comments are mostly because the person who proposed the new
>project wanted to include also English language text of the articles,
>which would basically mean forking. And ASL might be a language, but
>unless it has also a special writing system, I don't know if it can be
>created - after all, we do not create Wikipedias for other languages
>that are only spoken and not written.
>
>
>
ASL is most certainly a first-class language, but it _must be written_
to be usable in a text-based system like Wikipedia.

There are two main ASL writing systems: Stokoe, and SignWriting. If you
can work out how to make either of these (or any other system I don't
know about, but is common amongst deaf users of ASL) work with
Wikipedia, you've got a good chance of getting a consensus to start a
new Wikipedia for ASL as a first-class written language. Otherwise, all
you have is the visual equivalent of spoken-word readings of articles in
other languages: they may be interesting and even useful, but since
they're not interactive and Wiki-linked, they're not a Wikipedia.

Your best bet is probably Stokoe, because it's less dependent on graphic
layout. You could _possibly_ represent Stokoe using Unicode symbols and
combining character representations, or use the in-built TeX support, or
you could try ASCII-Stokoe, or writing a custom plugin for a Stokoe-like
Wikitext.

SignWriting is altogether a more difficult problem, as the symbols are
not in most fonts. Something could probably be done with a Wikipedia
extension that converts some form of TeX-like Wikitext format to
SignWriting glyphs, either as rendered .png files, or as SVG.

For an advanced project, you could even consider a SignSynth-like system
that would automatically sign written Wiki-ASL.

Are there any written-sign-language experts here?

-- Neil


body:
As a matter of interest, a few moments of Googling finds this:

http://www.mail-archive.com/unicode at unicode.org/msg04506.html

Unfortunately, none of these scripts appear to have been Unicoded yet.

I suppose we could always use the Private Use Area in Unicode until
someone gives an official assignment for the characters needed for these
writing systems.

In particular note this from
http://www.sciences.univ-nantes.fr/info/recherche/taln2003/articles/rocha.pdf

"The ISO Registration Authority has approved in February 2000, as an
addition
Standard, the alpha-3 code sgn to designate deaf sign languages, with
country names added to identify their nationality. Thus, for instance,
sgn-FR is the code for the French Sign Language,
and sgn-BR is the code for LIBRAS, the Brazilian Sign Language."

In my opinion, XML encodings seem to me to be very undesirable as a way
for human beings to encode anything. On the other hand, some shorthand
for spatial encoding, similar to the a^b and a_b notations in TeX might
be just what's needed.

-- Neil


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
I've blocked him for an hour and am reverting all his moves.  We don't
need this trolling.

Sam

On 9/9/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:
> WHOA - SPUI just moved all the AfD pages back to VfD!!!
>
> "being bold, just like whoever moved it here"
>
> I guess so!
>
> Ryan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Are you referring specifically to this case?

If so, what other options are there? The way I see it, there are two
rigidly opposed options:

1) Cantonese Wikipedia;
2) No Cantonese Wikipedia.

Obviously there are other solutions, like a Cantonese encyclopaedia
being hosted off-site, but that would fall under "2". Or creating a
Cantonese Wikipedia, but not allowing interwiki links. ...but that
would be under "1".

If you can think of an option that can't be logically classified as
either of the two, then I'll be very surprised.

Also, I don't see how the vote was badly organised.

I did all of the things I think I should've done:

1) notification of vote on wikipedia-l, the international Wikipedia mailinglist
2) e-mails and private messages to all people who had a Babel template
of zh-yue-N on en.wiki and zh.wiki
3) not including personal sentiment in my e-mails, rather just a
simple notification of vote and begging people to vote

So I don't see what was missed. I informed Cantonese speakers, and the
international community. What's missing?

As regards confusing instructions, Andrew Lih is the only one who was
confused, which doesn't surprise me anymore.

Mark

On 17/08/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Badly organized votes don't determine consensus; they destroy it.
>
> A vote will force a choice between two or more specific options, which
> may even be poorly defined.  A true consensus may lie somewhere outside
> of those specific options.
>
> Ec
>
> Phroziac wrote:
>
> >Actually, Jimmy, aren't they to determine consensus, not build it?
> >
> >
> >>This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything.  The only valid
> >>purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to
> >>build community consensus.  Deliberately excluding some interested
> >>parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get
> >>buy-in from the entire community.
> >>
> >>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
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


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
The fact that that was done following discussion and for good reasons.
 It was aimed at being complete.  Your move seemed to be no more than
trolling.  You should have realised that that kind of move was bound
to create dissent and distaste.  If you want to move the pages back, I
suggest discussing it first.

If you want to complain, I recomment WikiEn-l as the appropriate forum.

Yours,
Sam

On 9/9/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> You have attempted to edit a page, either by clicking the "edit this
> page" tab or by following a red link.
>
> Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Smoddy.
>
> The reason given is this:
> Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "SPUI".
> The reason given for SPUI's block is: "disruption by moving AfD; time to
> repair the damage".
>
> ----
>
> I moved [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]] back to [[Wikipedia:Votes
> for deletion]] and fixed the double redirects. How is this any different
> from the move that was done in the other direction?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
I now realise that this IS WikiEn-l.

I feel slightly stupid for that.

Sam

On 9/9/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> The fact that that was done following discussion and for good reasons.
>  It was aimed at being complete.  Your move seemed to be no more than
> trolling.  You should have realised that that kind of move was bound
> to create dissent and distaste.  If you want to move the pages back, I
> suggest discussing it first.
>
> If you want to complain, I recomment WikiEn-l as the appropriate forum.
>
> Yours,
> Sam
>
> On 9/9/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You have attempted to edit a page, either by clicking the "edit this
> > page" tab or by following a red link.
> >
> > Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Smoddy.
> >
> > The reason given is this:
> > Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "SPUI".
> > The reason given for SPUI's block is: "disruption by moving AfD; time to
> > repair the damage".
> >
> > ----
> >
> > I moved [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]] back to [[Wikipedia:Votes
> > for deletion]] and fixed the double redirects. How is this any different
> > from the move that was done in the other direction?
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>


from_name: sophie

subject: [Foundation-l] Kære Wikimedia,

body:
Du bruger sikkert lige som mig et effektivt spamfilter.
Jeg har sat dig p? min liste over godkendte modtagere og det betyder at de e-mails du sender til mig, altid kommer frem til mig.
Jeg vil meget gerne have at du ogs? s?tter min adresse: sophie at nostromo.dk p? din "Godkendt" liste hvis du har s?dan en, s? jeg er sikker p? at de e-mails jeg sender til dig, ogs? kommer sikkert frem.

Hvis du mod forventning ikke har et godt spamfilter, s? kan jeg anbefale dig at pr?ve SPAMfighter. Det er et gratis dansk program til Outlook og Outlook Express, som er let at bruge og som jeg selv har meget gl?de af.

Du kan l?se mere om SPAMfighter her:
http://www.spamfighter.dk/wl/

Jeg h?ber du vil s?tte mig p? listen, s? vi i fremtiden kan kommunikere sikkert.

Med venlig hilsen

sophie


subject: [Foundation-l] Kære Wikimedia,


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Re: new request for ASL/English wikipedia
	(Neil Harris)

body:
Again, somebody who seems to have skipped over everything I've ever
said about signed languages, going months and dozens of posts back.

Whatever.

The part of the e-mail that really struck me, though, was:

> We might then run into
> a situation similar to the b?kmal/nynorsk, or the cantonese/mandarin
> fiascos, in which each variant of sign language demands a seperate wiki for
> itself.  If we allow an ASL wiki, then how can we say no to an Auslan wiki,
> a Gestuno wiki, an ISL wiki, etc.

1) Bokm?l is spelt bokm?l, not b?kmal. Not that big of an issue
though, because people do things like that all the time, for example
Jimbo's "Mandarian" or Angela's "Sinetic" (though to be fair, Angela's
"Sinetic" e-mail was in response to somebody else who used that
erroneous spelling).
2) Perhaps you're thinking of Traditional and Simplified Chinese,
rather than Cantonese and Mandarin? As countless native speakers have
testified here, Written Cantonese is very different from written
Mandarin, it can't be considered a variant logically.
3) Each variant of sign language is the part that really took away a
good part of my faith in the human race.

>From the Wikipedia article on signed languages: "However, contrary to
popular belief, sign language is not universal. Wherever communities
of deaf people exist, sign languages develop, but as with spoken
languages, these vary from region to region. They are not based on the
spoken language in the country of origin; in fact their complex
spatial grammars are markedly different."

Chinese Sign Language and American Sign Language are AS DIFFERENT AS
ENGLISH AND CHINESE, if not more so.

In fact, relations between signed languages often offer interesting
contrasts to the spoken languages of the areas, for example:

American Sign Language is closely related to French Sign Language, but
is completely mutually unintelligible with British Sign Language.

Taiwanese Sign Language is closely related to Japanese Sign Language,
but is completely mutually unintelligible with Chinese Sign Language
or Hong Kong Sign Language.

Cheers?
Mark

On 09/09/05, Craig Franklin <craig at halo-17.net> wrote:
> Scr?obh Neil Harris:
>
> > ASL is most certainly a first-class language, but it _must be written_
> > to be usable in a text-based system like Wikipedia.
>
> I think this is the key here.  Do deaf persons in the United States actually
> write ASL in their everyday lives.  A quick bit of Googling and research
> seems to indicate that there isn't even a settled orthography for ASL, so
> producing material in a written form seems counterproductive.  Half a
> million people might "speak" the language on a daily basis, but if only 5%
> of people understand the particular form of notation that is used, it's
> going to be close to useless for most deaf persons.  We might then run into
> a situation similar to the b?kmal/nynorsk, or the cantonese/mandarin
> fiascos, in which each variant of sign language demands a seperate wiki for
> itself.  If we allow an ASL wiki, then how can we say no to an Auslan wiki,
> a Gestuno wiki, an ISL wiki, etc.
>
> Sadly, I think that sign languages can, at the present time, be only
> classified as being spoken and not written.  If you can show me a commonly
> accepted written notation for ASL (that has, for example, 50%+ understanding
> from those who use ASL as a spoken language), that can be conceivably used
> on the internet, then I'll be the first to call for the wiki's creation.
> Unfortunately, I think this is a technical challenge that might not be
> possible at the present time (since SignWriting, which seems to be the most
> popular of the written notations, doesn't seem to have any Unicode support).
>
> - Craig [[en:Lankiveil]]
>
> -------------------
> Craig Franklin
> PO Box 764
> Ashgrove, Q, 4060
> Australia
> http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
> and Culture.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
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


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Quite so.  In fact, I'll unblock the autoblocked address now.  Just
don't edit until your block expires, so that it isn't reactivated.

Sam

On 9/9/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Typically the blocking admin remembers to remove these after the
> block expires.
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On Sep 9, 2005, at 4:59 PM, SPUI wrote:
>
> > Oh, and I love how I'm blocked for a day by the autoblocker.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Look, I've undone the autoblocker.  Let me tell you, however, that, if
you go back to moving AfD around, there will be another autoblocker
coming into action: the index finger of my right hand.  Don't troll.

Sam

On 9/9/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jack Lynch wrote:
> > Do you really think thats what typically happens? Why do we have an
> > autoblocker? Isn't it adding insult to injury?
>
> It has its use in preventing someone blocked from simply logging out,
> but it's horribly broken and the devs seem to not care. And before
> anyone tells me to submit code for it, send me the appropriate material
> to learn to program and wait a few years.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
> It has its use in preventing someone blocked from simply logging out,
> but it's horribly broken and the devs seem to not care. And before
> anyone tells me to submit code for it, send me the appropriate material
> to learn to program and wait a few years.

It's not broken at all. It blocks for a further 24hrs as a reminder
not to try to circumvent blocks.

Dan


from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
SPUI is right about the autoblocker. By the way, MediaWiki isn't a
program. It's a script. Or,  I should say, a set of scripts. PHP is
also a super easy language to learn, but the multi-language stuff in
MediaWiki makes it harder then most stuff. Maybe i can patch it.

On 9/9/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan Grey wrote:
> >>It has its use in preventing someone blocked from simply logging out,
> >>but it's horribly broken and the devs seem to not care. And before
> >>anyone tells me to submit code for it, send me the appropriate material
> >>to learn to program and wait a few years.
> >
> >
> > It's not broken at all. It blocks for a further 24hrs as a reminder
> > not to try to circumvent blocks.
>
> And how does someone know they're blocked before they try to edit and
> the autoblocker kicks in? Duh.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
What really bugs me is the deletionists who don't just say to delete
it and tell why. They have to include personal attacks, and lame
comments that just tend to make people mad. I've even witnessed admins
doing this.

On 9/9/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/9/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In all seriousness, I think DYK is one of the best tools we have for
> > encouraging good new articles. Try as we might to downplay vanity, it
> > is a cheering thing to see something you wrote on the front page; I
> > try and ensure that as many articles that I write as possible are good
> > enough to be DYKed - plus, as FF says, it's a guaranteed way to get
> > people to come and edit your work, to link it into things you wouldn't
> > have thought of...
> >
> > Even if it's anonymous, we all like the egoboo of knowing people are
> > reading our work. It's one of the hidden advantages of the wiki
> > system, being able to see this so clearly.
>
> There's vanity and then there's vanity. We can't downplay most vanity
> too much -- it's one of the main reasons that people will participate
> in a volunteer website! We don't pay people with money, we pay them
> with personal credit and a sense of participating materially in
> something bigger than themselves. Anthropologists and economists call
> this a [[gift economy]]. I'm not sure if that totally explains why so
> many people would waste their time ;-) on a wiki, but it's a nice
> start at a theoretical framework.
>
> FF
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Test-wp issue again.

body:
There appears to be an issue with test-wikipedias again.

Elian has deleted 3 without first gaining a consensus that they may be
deleted, and also added the message:

"Important note: The existing test wikipedias listed here may continue
to use Meta-Wiki as temporary workspace but no new ones should be
added here. Remember that this space serves as a proof of concept and
that the number of pages is limited to 100. Please don't create any
redirects or pages in the main name space. Images should be uploaded
to Commons, not Meta so that they can be later used in the newly
created wiki as well."

Why can't anybody create new Test Wikipedias?? Whose decision was
that? The consensus at RfD before was to keep all Test Wikipedias,
with overwhelming support.

I can understand limiting pages to 100, and requesting people not to
make pages in the main namespace, but why can't people create new Test
Wikipedias???

And why did you delete 3? Scots I can understand, it has its own Wikipedia now.

But North Frisian and Kokborok??? What is your reasoning for this??
Yes, they're only one or two pages, but it's still wrong to delete
them without a successful RfD because there's already a previous vote
which by a wide margin chose to keep them.

Mark


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Because your you, and their THEM?

On 9/9/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> You have attempted to edit a page, either by clicking the "edit this
> page" tab or by following a red link.
>
> Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Smoddy.
>
> The reason given is this:
> Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "SPUI".
> The reason given for SPUI's block is: "disruption by moving AfD; time to
> repair the damage".
>
> ----
>
> I moved [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]] back to [[Wikipedia:Votes
> for deletion]] and fixed the double redirects. How is this any different
> from the move that was done in the other direction?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them%21_%281954_film%29

On 9/9/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam Korn wrote:
> > I've blocked him for an hour and am reverting all his moves.  We don't
> > need this trolling.
> >
> What the fuck? How is this any different than the bold move to AFD?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
I'm also tired of the use of '<whatever>-cruft' as a reason for deletion.
There's a certain mindset that seems to think that the existence of articles
on minor but factual and verifiable topics detracts from Wikipedia. To that,
I'd say: everyone's pet interest is a fringe interest to someone. Whether a
Wikipedia article should exist on a topic should have nothing to do with how
well one can disparage the subset of people interested in that particular
topic.

That said, if there's not enough to say about a topic, it might not deserve
an article of its very own. I'm all in favor of e.g. grouping minor
fictional characters together in an article 'Minor characters in <novel>',
or whatever.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for being bold

body:
Do you really think thats what typically happens? Why do we have an
autoblocker? Isn't it adding insult to injury?

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 9/9/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Typically the blocking admin remembers to remove these after the
> block expires.
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On Sep 9, 2005, at 4:59 PM, SPUI wrote:
>
> > Oh, and I love how I'm blocked for a day by the autoblocker.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] My dyslexic friend....

body:
"I'm a wicked pee admin"
"I use wicked pee"
"I started a wicked pee"
I'll have to remember that, replacing wikipedia with wicked pee makes
sentences funny.

On 9/9/05, Jack Barry <jackbarry99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ....always refers to you guys as "Wicked Pee ?...Dja!"...
>
> I don't get it.
> jack barry
>
> --
> A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
> JackBarry99 at gmail.com
> 415-564-0225/415-235-7897cell
> Quote: --"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
> compared to what
> lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
> http://jackbarry99.buzznet.com
> http://UncleRealtor.blogspot.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
signature


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>I'm also tired of the use of '<whatever>-cruft' as a reason for deletion.
>There's a certain mindset that seems to think that the existence of articles
>on minor but factual and verifiable topics detracts from Wikipedia. To that,
>I'd say: everyone's pet interest is a fringe interest to someone.
>
I remember once coming across a VfD where someone wanted to delete an
article because it was "sciencecruft". It was about some obscure
mathematical thing I didn't understand, and probably that the nominator
didn't understand either. :)


body:
Actually, Jimmy, aren't they to determine consensus, not build it?

On 9/10/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > If I hold a vote on the creation of a Wikipedia in Venetian, do I have
> > to inform wikiit-l? No. Would it be nessecary? Probably not.
>
> Yes, that would be wise.  I can't think of any reason why *not* to
> inform them.
>
> > In fact, it has. Just because I didn't heed YOUR suggestions doesn't
> > mean I suck.
>
> No, you don't suck.  He didn't say that you suck, either.  Chill, man,
> it's WikiLove, ya know...
>
> > 4) The lack of announcement was partially intentional. I felt that it
> > was most fair to send a message to wikipedia-l, and international
> > mailing list, and then to individual Cantonese-speaking users.
>
> To me this sounds pretty much an unfair way to go about it.
>
> >>One reason the final (sixth) GNAA VfD was accepted after several
> >>controversial rounds of voting was because of how professionally the
> >>vote was administered. We should learn from that.
> >
> >
> > And by "we", you mean "Node", right?
>
> I think he means all of us.  This is a tough call, and therefore in
> order to generate widespread support throughout the entire community, a
> very professionally done vote is critical.
>
> This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything.  The only valid
> purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to
> build community consensus.  Deliberately excluding some interested
> parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get
> buy-in from the entire community.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
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> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
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from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bot for French cities on Romanian Wikipedia

body:
Hi,

I am a sysop on the Romanian Wikipedia and I am
interested in running a bot on the Romanian Wikipedia
to add articles for French cities. I am totally new to
bots and have no idea what steps to take next. Would
it possible to use the same bot (by Gac) as the one
creating French commune stubs on the Italian
Wikipedia? The only thing that would be different is
the actual interface (which would be in Romanian), but
it can use the same data. What are the next steps from
here? How would I be able to gain access to the
database?

Thanks very much,

Ronline

PS: How many French communes are there in total that
the bot must add?

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bot for French cities on Romanian Wikipedia

body:
Hi Ausir,

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I seee to be
getting an error message (Numer błędu - 404,
Ten dokument nie istnieje) when accessing it. I would
like to run the bot myself, but since I know next to
nothing about coding, would I be able to use the
source code they used at it.wiki?

Ronline

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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVG enabled

body:
I've enabled SVG uploads and rendering.

SVG images are automatically rendered to PNG for thumbnails and inline
display, currently using rsvg (of librsvg) as a converter backend. (If
anybody sets up new Apaches in the cluster, make sure the librsvg2
package is installed.)

Note that some old SVGs might have bogus size information if the image
table which causes rendering to fail; I'll try to get that worked out,
but as a workaround you can re-upload the file.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> If I hold a vote on the creation of a Wikipedia in Venetian, do I have
> to inform wikiit-l? No. Would it be nessecary? Probably not.

Yes, that would be wise.  I can't think of any reason why *not* to
inform them.

> In fact, it has. Just because I didn't heed YOUR suggestions doesn't
> mean I suck.

No, you don't suck.  He didn't say that you suck, either.  Chill, man,
it's WikiLove, ya know...

> 4) The lack of announcement was partially intentional. I felt that it
> was most fair to send a message to wikipedia-l, and international
> mailing list, and then to individual Cantonese-speaking users.

To me this sounds pretty much an unfair way to go about it.

>>One reason the final (sixth) GNAA VfD was accepted after several
>>controversial rounds of voting was because of how professionally the
>>vote was administered. We should learn from that.
>
>
> And by "we", you mean "Node", right?

I think he means all of us.  This is a tough call, and therefore in
order to generate widespread support throughout the entire community, a
very professionally done vote is critical.

This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything.  The only valid
purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to
build community consensus.  Deliberately excluding some interested
parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get
buy-in from the entire community.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] We made it !!!!!!

body:
Angela wrote:
> On 9/3/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> We do have such JavaScript, and it seems to work fine there in breaking
>> out so fr.wikipedia.org reaches the top-level. (Tested Safari 2.0.1)
>
> It stays inside the frame using Firefox 1.0.6, even when I click an
> external link and go somewhere else entirely.

This should be fixed now. (Pending cache clearing etc...)

Someone tried to put in an exception for some site to the frame blocker,
which in fact stopped it from working entirely on most browsers.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] We made it !!!!!!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Lingala Wikipedia

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> What _is_ the most effective way to get there?
>
> Surely, not by having it so that the sole administrator is the user
> with the worst Lingala out of the three?

Eventually, of course.  But it certainly depends on the particular
people involved.  If the sole administrator is doing a good job and is
actively working to get more people involved, then why not?  Better to
have an experienced wikipedian assisting there than to abandon them.

The point is, I see no reason for *us* to interfere.  If the other users
have a complaint, then that's a different matter.

> User:Bombo, lists himself as ln-0, likes to post articles in French,
> has made almost no contributions that could even be argued to be
> helping ln.wiki;

I don't know the user.  Perhaps a French speaker can contact him and ask
what's up?

> User:Moyogo, lists himself as ln-1, is responsible for most of the
> interface but has made some significant good contributions with actual
> Lingala;

Why say "but" instead of "and"?  The work on the interface is important
and good, too.

> Which of these people is the one who so desparately needs the French
> interface?

I'm not thinking of them.  I'm thinking of newcomers.  Again, it seems
fairly likely to me that there are fluent French speakers who are weak
in Lingala who would be happy to come and help out.  Having the dual
interface for a little while seems more or less fine to me.  When they
want to fix it, I'm sure they will.  Why are you bothered about it?

> If anyone needs to use a French interface, remember that they can
> choose it in their personal preferences, or even by adding something
> to the end of each URL (uselang=fr).

I'm thinking of likely newcomers.

> "Up to them" -- it makes sense to leave such decisions up the local
> community in most cases, but in cases like this, the local community
> is little more qualified than are you or I -- Bombo, one of the three
> active users, doesn't seem to know any Lingala at all. If he gets to
> decide, why can't I? What if I start posting heaps of French articles,
> does that mean that suddenly I get to help with the decision because
> now I'm part of the community?

*sigh*  Please try to relax.  A deep breath.  Bombo is most likely
someone who very strongly shares your core values.  He's trying to help.
 Maybe you don't agree with what he's doing, or maybe I don't agree with
it.  But Assume Good Faith.

> Neither Themalau nor Moyogo seem to be in favour of keeping the
> etrefas bilingual, and they're the only two users with very good
> Lingala.

Ok, well, I'm quite sure they'll do as they see fit.  Trust them.

--Jimbo


body:
Stokoe has no copyright restrictions whatsoever.

I'm not sure about HamNoSys.

Ultimately, the best idea would be to store signs in HamNoSys, and to
generate SuttonSignWriting, Stokoe, and streaming video on the fly,
all of which are very doable. Unfortunately I don't know how to
program beyond qbasic -- if I did, I'd be doing a lot more these days.

Mark

On 10/09/05, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
> >On 9/10/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Where does it say in the goals of the WMF that everything is to be text
> >>based? It says that we are "dedicated to encouraging the growth,
> >>development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to
> >>providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public
> >>free of charge." Not even the Wiki principles make it compulsary to be
> >>text based.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >No, but the Wiki principles do make it compulsory to be easily edited.
> >The only alternative for text-based that anyone has brought forward is
> >to use videos of people signing. Using that method would mean that one
> >would have to re-sign the whole article each time one would want to
> >correct a small error. Not to mention that it is a highly
> >non-standardized system. It would be comparable to a system of having
> >a Wikipedia consisting completely of scans of hand-written articles,
> >or of sound files.
> >
> >
> >
> Andre's analogy with scans of hand-written documents or sound files of
> articles being read out is a very good one.
>
> Just for the record, I am _in favour_ of starting Wikis for _all_ sign
> languages, subject only to the normal rules for creating Wikipedias in
> any new language, _if_ the technical problem of representing and editing
> them in a Wiki can be solved.
>
> I'm also not against someone making video files of signed Wikipedia
> articles: but this would not be a Wikipedia, or even something closely
> resembling one. It might, however, be a valid way of publishing
> Wikipedia content, in the same way as publishing a printed or audiobook
> version of Wikipedia content.
>
> I've sent a message to the Unicode mailing list asking if there are
> plans to encode the written forms of signed languages in Unicode. So
> far, the answer has been a terse "Yes, there are plans."
>
> We should also look at any possible trademark or other IP restrictions
> on the writing systems: the term "SignWriting", for example, is
> trademarked. See, for example,
> http://signwriting.org/about/questions/quest0004.html, which still seems
> slightly ambiguous to me. If we were to use it, we would probably want
> either a more formal grant of GFDL-compatible rights to use the system
> fromValerie Sutton and the Deaf Action Committee for SignWriting, or a
> legal opinion that writing systems are not encumbered by
> GFDL-incompatible restrictions.
>
> We should also take the same considerations into account for Stokoe, or
> any other writing system we might want to consider.
>
> -- Neil
>
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