from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
> There is one other thing wrong with voting for languages. You are supposed
> to vote for a project if you are willing to help with that project.

That's quite untrue. If it were true, it would say so in some official
or quasiofficial page. And it doesn't.

> Consequently I have not voted for nds-nl.  For people who vote AGAINST the
> setup of a language there is no such barrier. There is nothing in there for
> them. It does not have consequences.

...

Then, why don't we have Zlatiborian WP? Or American English?

If you requested a new language, "Meijssenish", and somehow managed to
find 5 or 6 people willing to work on it, does that mean that
opposition votes would not matter?

The voting system is implemented to weed out requests that have issues
with them or that might cause problems. Thus, Zlatiborian, American
English, Brazilian Portuguese, DDR-Sprach, and the like, were not
created, even though they had some supporters.

> There has been a lot of acromony about this language, Mark has moved it out
> of the standard request page several times and it still just does not die.

No -- you've got it backwards. I have moved it BACK to the standard
request page; Servien has been moving it off of there to the Approved
requests page.

> If anything it proves that people want this language and want it badly. I do

No -- it proves that Servien is stubborn. He requested people to come
vote against the Veluws WP because he was afraid the proposal might
come through... even though that would've meant a Wikipedia in his
language in some form or another.

> not understand what is in there for Mark. I do know that a democracy and
> voting where the votes do not carry the same weight is bad.

1) What there is for me, is that I think this request is absurd. So
far, only 2 (count it -- 2) native speakers have weighed in on this.
All other votes are from people who either do not speak the variety in
question at all, or who speak it not as their native language. Some
votes are based on the premise that it's to separate LS from the Dutch
WP, which Servien told some people, which is patently absurd. Now, I
would not oppose this request if I hadn't made 100% sure that no such
language exists.

According to a dialect atlas of LS referenced for me by Arbeo, there
are 4 dialects of LS:

1) North Lowlands Saxon
2) Westphalian
3) Eastphalian
4) Schleswigish.

The first dialect is the dialect used in the Netherlands, as well as
much of Northern Germany, and is the dialect used on the current
nds.wiki.

There are no significant isoglosses along the Dutch-German border.
Even the spraak/taal difference does not correspond to national
boundaries -- in Groningen, they say "spraak". Veluws has some
interesting linguistic features that distinguish it from other speech
of the Northern LS area, but Gronings doesn't. Gronings is barely
different from what's spoken in neighbouring Germany.

Also, the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages
recognises one language called "Low Saxon", as a regional language in
Germany and in the Netherlands. It doesn't recognise a separate "Dutch
Low Saxon" language or "German Low Saxon" language.

Now, if somebody requested a Westphalian WP, I'd support it because
Westphalian and Northern LS are not mutually intelligible easily. But
most Northern LS dialects are.

Wikipedias are created for separate languages, not separate countries.
What Servien is trying to do here is pretend that there is a separate
language, when in fact there is not. All pages about "Nedersaksisch"
note that it's spoken in NL and DE both. I found 0 references to a
so-called "Dutch Low Saxon" language, and no website or book which
considered the national border a real linguistic boundary.

The benefit to a Wikipedia in which people from different countries
cooperate is that national POVs are balanced. If Servien has his way,
he will have a WP of only Dutch people with largely conservative
views. Many things could be written there that would be declared POV
at nds.wiki.

Now, to address the "democracy" part -- Wikipedia is not a
"democracy". Majority does _not_ rule. We have a little thing called
"consensus". That means that there is general agreement. 3 people
disagreeing out of 18 is not "general agreement". Yes, the 18 people
are in a majority, but Wikipedia is designed so that the minority
doesn't have to bend over so the majority can do whatever it wants,
and the majority is encouraged to seek a compromise that more people
will agree on.

Now certainly, if it were 1 oppose vote to 50, that would be a
definite consensus. But 3 to 18 isn't. It means there are still
outstanding issues that need to be resolved, or the WP shouldn't be
created.

Now, if the ndsnl.wiki is created, that sets the precedent for other
potentially ridiculous WPs... at any moment when they just happen to
have a majority supporting (as Zlatiborian did for a few days), they
can say "Oh our request is approved now create it".

Mark

PS

Perhaps you want to know why I would vote against a Wikipedia, because
you think its creation won't affect me. Well, if you think that, it's
an incorrect assumption -- if a Wikipedia is created like that, for a
national boundary rather than a genuine linguistic boundary, it
degrades the status of the Foundation and of the project as a whole. I
do not want to see this happen.

Now, in all of this, it's also undeniable that Servien has not exactly
had exemplary behaviour either. He started out by being rather rude,
then moved on to trying to force his proposal through (at one point,
the vote was 15-4, and yet he still said it should be considered
"Approved" because of a majority, failing to understand the concept of
consensus and unresolved issues). He was impatient with questions, did
not provide full explanatory answers, and continued to be rude. More
recently, he has resorted to namecalling aswell.

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikitech-l] Immediate request for wiki set-ups

body:
Ahh, and if you think Dutch spelling and German spelling of Lowlands
Saxon are truly incompatible, check the archives of the mainpage at
nds.wiki -- People have in the past posted messages there in Duthc
spelt Lowlands Saxon, received responses in German spelling, and then
responded in turn to that in Dutch spelling.

People from across the border exchange mails in LS everyday on lowlands-l.

Mark

On 25/11/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There is one other thing wrong with voting for languages. You are supposed
> > to vote for a project if you are willing to help with that project.
>
> That's quite untrue. If it were true, it would say so in some official
> or quasiofficial page. And it doesn't.
>
> > Consequently I have not voted for nds-nl.  For people who vote AGAINST the
> > setup of a language there is no such barrier. There is nothing in there for
> > them. It does not have consequences.
>
> ...
>
> Then, why don't we have Zlatiborian WP? Or American English?
>
> If you requested a new language, "Meijssenish", and somehow managed to
> find 5 or 6 people willing to work on it, does that mean that
> opposition votes would not matter?
>
> The voting system is implemented to weed out requests that have issues
> with them or that might cause problems. Thus, Zlatiborian, American
> English, Brazilian Portuguese, DDR-Sprach, and the like, were not
> created, even though they had some supporters.
>
> > There has been a lot of acromony about this language, Mark has moved it out
> > of the standard request page several times and it still just does not die.
>
> No -- you've got it backwards. I have moved it BACK to the standard
> request page; Servien has been moving it off of there to the Approved
> requests page.
>
> > If anything it proves that people want this language and want it badly. I do
>
> No -- it proves that Servien is stubborn. He requested people to come
> vote against the Veluws WP because he was afraid the proposal might
> come through... even though that would've meant a Wikipedia in his
> language in some form or another.
>
> > not understand what is in there for Mark. I do know that a democracy and
> > voting where the votes do not carry the same weight is bad.
>
> 1) What there is for me, is that I think this request is absurd. So
> far, only 2 (count it -- 2) native speakers have weighed in on this.
> All other votes are from people who either do not speak the variety in
> question at all, or who speak it not as their native language. Some
> votes are based on the premise that it's to separate LS from the Dutch
> WP, which Servien told some people, which is patently absurd. Now, I
> would not oppose this request if I hadn't made 100% sure that no such
> language exists.
>
> According to a dialect atlas of LS referenced for me by Arbeo, there
> are 4 dialects of LS:
>
> 1) North Lowlands Saxon
> 2) Westphalian
> 3) Eastphalian
> 4) Schleswigish.
>
> The first dialect is the dialect used in the Netherlands, as well as
> much of Northern Germany, and is the dialect used on the current
> nds.wiki.
>
> There are no significant isoglosses along the Dutch-German border.
> Even the spraak/taal difference does not correspond to national
> boundaries -- in Groningen, they say "spraak". Veluws has some
> interesting linguistic features that distinguish it from other speech
> of the Northern LS area, but Gronings doesn't. Gronings is barely
> different from what's spoken in neighbouring Germany.
>
> Also, the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages
> recognises one language called "Low Saxon", as a regional language in
> Germany and in the Netherlands. It doesn't recognise a separate "Dutch
> Low Saxon" language or "German Low Saxon" language.
>
> Now, if somebody requested a Westphalian WP, I'd support it because
> Westphalian and Northern LS are not mutually intelligible easily. But
> most Northern LS dialects are.
>
> Wikipedias are created for separate languages, not separate countries.
> What Servien is trying to do here is pretend that there is a separate
> language, when in fact there is not. All pages about "Nedersaksisch"
> note that it's spoken in NL and DE both. I found 0 references to a
> so-called "Dutch Low Saxon" language, and no website or book which
> considered the national border a real linguistic boundary.
>
> The benefit to a Wikipedia in which people from different countries
> cooperate is that national POVs are balanced. If Servien has his way,
> he will have a WP of only Dutch people with largely conservative
> views. Many things could be written there that would be declared POV
> at nds.wiki.
>
> Now, to address the "democracy" part -- Wikipedia is not a
> "democracy". Majority does _not_ rule. We have a little thing called
> "consensus". That means that there is general agreement. 3 people
> disagreeing out of 18 is not "general agreement". Yes, the 18 people
> are in a majority, but Wikipedia is designed so that the minority
> doesn't have to bend over so the majority can do whatever it wants,
> and the majority is encouraged to seek a compromise that more people
> will agree on.
>
> Now certainly, if it were 1 oppose vote to 50, that would be a
> definite consensus. But 3 to 18 isn't. It means there are still
> outstanding issues that need to be resolved, or the WP shouldn't be
> created.
>
> Now, if the ndsnl.wiki is created, that sets the precedent for other
> potentially ridiculous WPs... at any moment when they just happen to
> have a majority supporting (as Zlatiborian did for a few days), they
> can say "Oh our request is approved now create it".
>
> Mark
>
> PS
>
> Perhaps you want to know why I would vote against a Wikipedia, because
> you think its creation won't affect me. Well, if you think that, it's
> an incorrect assumption -- if a Wikipedia is created like that, for a
> national boundary rather than a genuine linguistic boundary, it
> degrades the status of the Foundation and of the project as a whole. I
> do not want to see this happen.
>
> Now, in all of this, it's also undeniable that Servien has not exactly
> had exemplary behaviour either. He started out by being rather rude,
> then moved on to trying to force his proposal through (at one point,
> the vote was 15-4, and yet he still said it should be considered
> "Approved" because of a majority, failing to understand the concept of
> consensus and unresolved issues). He was impatient with questions, did
> not provide full explanatory answers, and continued to be rude. More
> recently, he has resorted to namecalling aswell.
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: User Jcb deleting articles in ia.wikipedia.org

body:
Sure.

But Jay (or is it Ilooy? Or Jacinto??) still doesn't seem to get the
basics of sysophood.

He seems to think that _anonymous users_ were resposnible for the mass
deletions, and has blocked them for that.

Anybody who has been at Wikipedia rfor long will know how ridiculous
that is. Anons cannot delete articles!!!

Mark

On 25/11/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "ilooy" <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:6ed35420511222113w6288ac01l at mail.gmail.com...
> > Dear fellow wikipedians,
> > The regrettable situation at ia.wikipedia.org
> > has gone on for too long.
>
> Given this edit:
> http://ia.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussion_Usator%3AILVI&diff=26421&oldid=26420
>
> Can we assume that this particular thread can be closed and the discussion
> can continue in a calmer fashion?
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


list: wikien-l

from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] complaints of admin actions on wikien-l

body:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 01:42:56AM +1100, Mark Gallagher wrote:
> I'm kinda shocked how few "I've been blocked!" messages we receive that
> *don't* follow the above instructions.

(Warning -- Long message.  Serious issue, too.)

Folks might want to look into this one a little more closely.  Ed Poor
made what seem to me like thinly-veiled threats on the AfD in question
-- threats to block people who disagree with him:

	"Only an someone pushing an anti-Creationist POV would want to
	censor this sort of information. Pushing any POV is grounds for
	a block. I think you already know this; but if you don't, I'm
	telling you now - officially - as an Admin."

To me, Poor's words come across as an accusation that Schroeder was
trying to "censor" the article by nominating it for deletion and arguing
for its deletion.  Poor seems to claim that any person who argues for
the article's deletion is trying to "censor" it, and should for that
reason be blocked.

I am one of the majority who have argued for the article's deletion on
the AfD page.  So I consider this a threat which includes me personally.
Poor's expressed view classes me as "someone pushing an anti-Creationist
POV" since I want the article deleted; and therefore, calls for me to be
blocked.  This threat doubled when I discovered that Poor had actually
blocked Schroeder; and redoubled when I found out that this blocking was
connected with Poor's out-of-process removal of an AfD nomination.

Moreover, Poor's phrasing sounds to me like bullying: "I'm an admin, so
I can block you if you cross me -- and that goes for the rest of you,
too."  (After all, Poor made his threat on the AfD page itself; if he
meant it to apply to only Schroeder, he could have used Schroeder's user
talk page.)

Wikipedia can't work right if admins are permitted to use their powers
to "resolve" POV controversies or personal squabbles to which they are
themselves parties.  Poor, the creator of the article in question,
should have been disallowed from several of the actions that he took,
most notably including blocking a person with whom he was involved in a
substantive dispute.  If Schroeder's conduct was abusive, then Poor
could have asked on WP:AN/I (or several other forums) for an uninvolved
administrator to block him.

(I'm not saying administrators shouldn't use their powers at all in
articles where they edit.  For instance, rolling back simple vandalism
or blocking a repeat vandal should always be encouraged.  But what we
have here is a POV dispute:  Schroeder and Poor disagree on a matter of
substance, which led them into interpersonal conflict.  This leaves Poor
in no position to judge Schroeder's conduct fairly.)

The AfD nomination in question has significant precedent.  On (IIRC) at
least two previous occasions, Ed Poor has created articles which were
nominated for deletion as "POV forks" of evolution-related articles, and
which were subsequently deleted by consensus.

Poor's persistence in this issue has not taken the literal form of
re-creating deleted articles.  However, consensus has been against him
in the past on evolution-related articles, and the present AfD
discussions on [[Evolutionary materialism]] and [[Unguided evolution]]
show the same is still true.

Moreover, the creation of POV forks is considered unacceptable in both
policy and consensus.  The past AfD decisions against Poor's articles
mean that he should have expected these articles to be nominated for
deletion and adjudged to be POV forks.  So in the present situation,
Poor seems to be in the position of using administrative power to defend
a *known unacceptable* action ... by attacking an editor whose own
actions (the AfD nominations) are right now in the process of being
adjudged correct!

The current (unfiltered) standings on the AfD nominations for Ed Poor's
new articles are:

[[Evolutionary materialism]]:
	Delete:  14	Keep:  3	Redirect:  1	Total:  18
	Delete percentage:  77.8%
	Delete/Keep ratio:  4.67 times more Deletes than Keeps

[[Unguided evolution]]:
	Delete:  24	Keep:  8	Total:  32
	Delete percentage:  75.0%
	Delete/Keep ratio:  3 times more Deletes than Keeps

This seems to me to indicate that Poor's judgments in --
	* creating the articles,
	* unlisting an AfD nomination,
	* threatening to block the nominator and supporters, and
	* following up on that threat by blocking the nominator
-- were solidly and fundamentally against editorial consensus.

As such, I suggest that Ed Poor should no longer act as an administrator
with regards to any article that deals with evolution, or with regards
to editor conduct on articles or discussions dealing with evolution.
His own conduct is far outside what the community accepts.  This means
that he is unable to do the job of an administrator -- to protect and
enforce the community's decisions -- in this subject area.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] A proposal for new language creation

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> ilooy wrote:
>
>>I'd like to suggest that taking into consideration ISO codes or SIL codes may
>>be one solution. This would mean that an outside group which is well
>>established and has looked into the matter has deemed a certain language
>>important enough to be assigned a separate code.
>
>
> This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has proved
> insufficient.
>
> Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
> * split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian [controverial]
> * Klingon
> etc
>
> and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their own codes
> but which are oft asked for.

Yes.  It's really important that everyone gets this.  The idea of
referencing these external codes is and was a great one in many ways...
it gets the argument out of our hands, it could presumably be a
professionally-decided list, etc.

The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
broken in many many ways.  It was fine for getting a list of things like
"English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it breaks down when
you start looking at it more closely.

--Jimbo


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Cleaning up Wikibooks

body:
Anthere wrote:

> I would like to make it clear that Jimbo's opinion should be his
> opinion, unless specifically said to be board opinion. Angela, I,
> Michael and Tim, we are all human beings with our own opinions on
> things and unless we are specifically asked our opinion, I do not
> think it is okay to consider that what Jimbo's say, we necessarily go
> along with. By default, we are separate people. Similarly, this is not
> because we do not say anything on a topic, that we necessarily agree
> with the only one talking. We may disagree and decide not to say
> anything or we may not be aware of the issue at all. I think it is
> important not to make these types of confusions.
>
> Ant

As a long-time participant on this list, and having been through
discussions like this, I can understand and relate to this fact that
Jimbo does not always speak on behalf of the whole board.  Remember I
was just reposting a comment from another user who put this on my
personal user talk page.  I'm making these statements here to let the
board as a whole and the broader Wikimedia community know what Jimbo has
said in a capacity that seems to be in the minds of the ordinary users
on Wikibooks as speaking on behalf of the board as a whole.  And as was
stated, absent either Jimbo explicitly stating this is only his personal
opinion or a statement like the one above from any other board member,
there is no reasonable way to know if it is only his own opinion on what
policy changes need to happen on Wikibooks (the real issue, where Jimbo
did change policy without community concent or any user input at all) or
if this is something that the Foundation board has been talking about
for some time and Jimbo is just acting as the hatchet man.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Deletion of Wikibooks content by Jimbo

body:
I've already complained about what Jimbo has been doing on Wikibooks, so
this isn't news.

Several of the Wikibooks that Jimbo was complaining about were deleted
by him with the admin status he gave himself.  That by itself is OK, but
he did it with a total disregard to the fact that ongoing community
discussion about the modules is going on, and a complete ignorance of
what it means to delete a Wikibook in its entirety.  Deleting Wikibooks
is a very involved process, and removing [[b:Jokebook]] is going to be
something that will take several hours to complete by a competent admin
and deleting the front page is only going to make things worse.

I don't want to get into an edit war with of all people Jimbo himself,
but this IMHO has gone way too far.  If he wants to serve some sort of
political agenda and disregard the genuine efforts of the community that
is building Wikimedia projects like Wikibooks, so be it.  He can write
everything himself there if he wants to as well.

So long Wikimedia and all of the people here.  I have tried.  I hope
things improve for the better in the future.

I hereby resign my position as admin on Wikibooks and I anticipate that
I will be banned there as well.  Good luck in the future in ever trying
to find people to keep this project going.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] six wikipedia conjectures, and slowness

body:
On Friday 25 November 2005 07:04, S. Woodside wrote:
> On Nov 22, 2005, at 2:50 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Conjecture 8. Regardless of the final result, the inner workings of
> > Wikipedia are so chaotic and at times unpleasant that most readers
> > would rip all of their hair out if they watched a documentary about
> > the creative process behind the articles.
> >
> > Fair?
>
> but hard to prove :-)

Why? Simply make a documentary about it and force some lab
rats^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreaders to watch it.


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Some Wikipedia writers cover up for Nazism
	onWikipedia

body:
"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> wrote in
message news:43863225.1080505 at telus.net...
> Matt R wrote:
>>--- Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>>"Rex" <rexy at ij.net> wrote in message [snip]
>>>>...  They cover up discoveries by the historian Rex Curry.
>>>Just checking: are you actually "the historian Rex Curry"?
>>Not just that, but his own website modestly proclaims that: "RexCurry.net
>>is a familiar voice of freedom for millions. As an international
>>businessman, worldwide correspondent, journalist, distinguished lecturer,
>>political scientist, consultant, author, and activist, Rex operates a
>>think
>>tank and pressure group to promote liberty."
>>Ah, I love the Internet...
> A "pressure group to promote liberty"!?  Wow! :-\

<accent style="Basil Fawlty" quality="bad, very bad">

You vill be free, vezzer you like it or not...(don't mention the war :-)

</accent>
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Some Wikipedia writers cover up for cranks on
	Wikipedia

body:
"David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:fbad4e140511240907u5b10e910t3f7572fcdf915eac at mail.gmail.com...
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> >"Rex" <rexy at ij.net> wrote:
> >> ...  They cover up discoveries by the historian Rex Curry.
> > Just checking: are you actually "the historian Rex Curry"?
> > If so, are you sure you have checked the Wikipedia policy against
> > "original
> research"?
>     http://rexcurry.net/
> It's an ... amazing page.

I'm assuming that it's purely a coinkydink that his site is a member of the
"Ring of Freedom and Liberty"

...code-name "rofl"

...'cos he don't look like he got much of a sense of yumah ;-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Suggestion for Category links

body:
"Jamie Bliss" <astronouth7303 at gmail.com> wrote
in message news:dm5mb8$8ls$1 at sea.gmane.org...
> Phil Boswell wrote:
>> [note cross-posting and prune as appropriate]
>> How difficult would it be to add <<title>> attributes to the Category
>> links which appear at the bottom of articles?
>> I was thinking it might be a good idea to have some way to display the
>> "sort key" without having to delve into edit mode, so I wondered if this
>> could be displayed as a "tool-tip" when hovering over the link, in the
>> same way as the destination article is shown for a regular wikilink. Is
>> this an idea which might be helpful, or am I getting punch-drunk after a
>> difficult day?
> Shouldn't it be the other way? Display the sort key in the page itself and
> put the real title in the title="" attribute (no humor intended).

No, because you want the set of categories to which the article belongs to
be instantly visible. You would also want it readily available for printing.

The "sort key" is a secondary attribute which can safely be left hidden
unless the viewer wants to see it, and is likely to be less relavant to a
printed version.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Suggestion for Category links


body:
"Matt R" <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
message news:20051124173047.22669.qmail at web25007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
> --- Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > "Rex" <rexy at ij.net> wrote in message
> > [snip]
> > > ...  They cover up discoveries by the historian Rex Curry.
> > Just checking: are you actually "the historian Rex Curry"?
> Not just that, but his own website modestly proclaims that:
[snip]
> Ah, I love the Internet...

For someone who seems so keen on spreading information around, he doesn't
seem to give much away for free: is there anything on that site you don't
have to pay for?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
"ilooy" <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:6ed35420511222113w6288ac01l at mail.gmail.com...
> Dear fellow wikipedians,
> The regrettable situation at ia.wikipedia.org
> has gone on for too long.

Given this edit:
http://ia.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussion_Usator%3AILVI&diff=26421&oldid=26420

Can we assume that this particular thread can be closed and the discussion
can continue in a calmer fashion?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
There is one other thing wrong with voting for languages. You are supposed
to vote for a project if you are willing to help with that project.
Consequently I have not voted for nds-nl.  For people who vote AGAINST the
setup of a language there is no such barrier. There is nothing in there for
them. It does not have consequences.

There has been a lot of acromony about this language, Mark has moved it out
of the standard request page several times and it still just does not die.
If anything it proves that people want this language and want it badly. I do
not understand what is in there for Mark. I do know that a democracy and
voting where the votes do not carry the same weight is bad.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 11/24/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 24/11/05, Leon Planken <leon at ch.tudelft.nl> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'll step in here and try not to cause too much of a fuss.
> >
> > I just want to notice here that every time this debate comes up, the
> > only one who voices objections is Mark, the only non-anonymous voter
> > against the new language Wikipedia.  (I may remember this selectively
> > though.)  Of course, the people that most eloquently *support* the
> > creation probably voted for it too.
>
> Yes, to a certain degree; but how many people asked for its creation
> on-list? So far, Servien and Arbeo and perhaps Gerard M. So just as
> it's not fair to apply 3 to a full count of voters, I don't think it's
> fair to do the same for 1.
>
> Mark
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] User Jcb deleting articles in ia.wikipedia.org

body:
>
>Well, I now have some information
>thanks to Andre Engels I know
>more about what happened and why
>a lot of articles disappeard and without
>discussions at that. Now I'm getting
>the heat from a User Waerth who
>is vowing to leave nl.wiki due to
>censorship and who still claims
>to be a steward. Why is he posting
>on my discussion page with such
>venom and spunk??? What is there
>between ia.wiki and nl???
>
>
>
I am posting on your page because "this is wikipedia .... anyone can
edit" . Also I am not posting with venom and spunk. You are the one
doing that. If you post such comments in nl.wikipedia you might just
draw reactions from other people on nl.wikipedia. And the last time I
checked I still was a steward. I am just not that active at the moment
because I am having more work than I can handle at the moment. Which is
good btw as the months before november I barely had any work.

Greetings Walter / Waerth


body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>(Warning -- Long message.  Serious issue, too.)
>
>Folks might want to look into this one a little more closely.  Ed Poor
>made what seem to me like thinly-veiled threats on the AfD in question
>-- threats to block people who disagree with him:
>
>	"Only an someone pushing an anti-Creationist POV would want to
>	censor this sort of information. Pushing any POV is grounds for
>	a block. I think you already know this; but if you don't, I'm
>	telling you now - officially - as an Admin."
>
>
Funny, the blocking policy doesn't mention POV pushing.

grm_wnr


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Manske
> Sent: Friday, 25 November 2005 06:51
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How is validation supposed to work?
>
> geni wrote:
> > On 11/24/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> >
> >> Relating to a recent thread on wikipedia-l, I hereby demand an
> >> article on every canal in the world, present or past!
> >>
> >> Magnus
> >>
> >
> > I'm working on it. Just not very quickly.
> >
> Damn, I was trying to get the last word on this by suggesting
> you write [[Root canal]], but it's already there :-)

Is there a redirect from [[Birth canal]] or is this just an Australian joke?

Pete, possibly barking up the wrong tree


from_name: Brian

body:
Well, as long as you're not over-dramatic abou...

Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> I've already complained about what Jimbo has been doing on Wikibooks,
> so this isn't news.
>
> Several of the Wikibooks that Jimbo was complaining about were deleted
> by him with the admin status he gave himself.  That by itself is OK,
> but he did it with a total disregard to the fact that ongoing
> community discussion about the modules is going on, and a complete
> ignorance of what it means to delete a Wikibook in its entirety.
> Deleting Wikibooks is a very involved process, and removing
> [[b:Jokebook]] is going to be something that will take several hours
> to complete by a competent admin and deleting the front page is only
> going to make things worse.
>
> I don't want to get into an edit war with of all people Jimbo himself,
> but this IMHO has gone way too far.  If he wants to serve some sort of
> political agenda and disregard the genuine efforts of the community
> that is building Wikimedia projects like Wikibooks, so be it.  He can
> write everything himself there if he wants to as well.
>
> So long Wikimedia and all of the people here.  I have tried.  I hope
> things improve for the better in the future.
>
> I hereby resign my position as admin on Wikibooks and I anticipate
> that I will be banned there as well.  Good luck in the future in ever
> trying to find people to keep this project going.
>


body:
Hoi,
When we consider if a language is appropriate for having a wikipedia, you
may find old respectable languages that have gone in official disuse like
Neapolitan and consequently diverged in spelling because there was no longer
an education in a language. Neopolitan is a  language that some see as a
dialect of Italian. I understand that the Andalusian statute does not say
that Andalusian is a language while it is as different, as distinct as many
of the other languages spoken in Spain. I know that Andalusian is known for
its many songs which is one form of literature. On the I&I conference I
spoke with someone from Guatamala and discussed Mayan languages. I learned
that for many people it is their first and only language. It does not have a
literature or standardised orthography because it is primarily a spoken
language.

My point is that by creating artificial barriers, you prevent us from making
our aim come true; all information for all people. When a small
dialect/language is good for codifying that culture, it serves our purpose.
I doubt that we would get these same people to write about their culture as
much in a language that they are forced to use. When we insist on literature
and one orthography we may exclude the people that use predominantly a
spoken language and prevent us from getting our information to these people.

As I mentioned on the wikitech list, the whole idea of voting is broken
anyway because when you vote for a language, you are supposed to actively
support this project to be while a nay-sayer is excused from any effort.  I
do not vote for Dutch nds or for Andalusian because I will not work on these
projects.

Artificial languages are different from dialects and languages as they do
not represent a culture, a people. Consequently comparing natural and
artificial languages is problematic. It also helps to be a little more
relaxed about artificial languages; even with Klingon it works as a project
for as long as there is a community willing to put a lot of effort in it. As
it is a rather silly thing, I am sure that these people will reach this
conclusion at some point. In the mean time it does not detract from the
value of our other projects. It only becomes a problem when we adopt or care
about the value system of the officious.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 11/25/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > ilooy wrote:
> >
> >>I'd like to suggest that taking into consideration ISO codes or SIL
> codes may
> >>be one solution. This would mean that an outside group which is well
> >>established and has looked into the matter has deemed a certain language
> >>important enough to be assigned a separate code.
> >
> >
> > This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has
> proved
> > insufficient.
> >
> > Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
> > * split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian [controverial]
> > * Klingon
> > etc
> >
> > and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their
> own codes
> > but which are oft asked for.
>
> Yes.  It's really important that everyone gets this.  The idea of
> referencing these external codes is and was a great one in many ways...
> it gets the argument out of our hands, it could presumably be a
> professionally-decided list, etc.
>
> The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
> broken in many many ways.  It was fine for getting a list of things like
> "English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it breaks down when
> you start looking at it more closely.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2005/11/25, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> Sure.
>
> But Jay (or is it Ilooy? Or Jacinto??) still doesn't seem to get the
> basics of sysophood.
>
> He seems to think that _anonymous users_ were resposnible for the mass
> deletions, and has blocked them for that.
>
> Anybody who has been at Wikipedia rfor long will know how ridiculous
> that is. Anons cannot delete articles!!!

That's indeed very strange... Where would he get that idea? Not to
mention that those IPs don't have any edits on ia:, so where did he
get the numbers anyway? Could you please explain, ILVI?

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


body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Several of the Wikibooks that Jimbo was complaining about were deleted
> by him with the admin status he gave himself.  That by itself is OK, but
> he did it with a total disregard to the fact that ongoing community
> discussion about the modules is going on, and a complete ignorance of
> what it means to delete a Wikibook in its entirety.  Deleting Wikibooks
> is a very involved process, and removing [[b:Jokebook]] is going to be
> something that will take several hours to complete by a competent admin
> and deleting the front page is only going to make things worse.

No, not in complete ignorance, and certainly not in disregard to
anything.  Indeed, the reason I only deleted the front page was
specifically to make sure that I wasn't doing anything that would be too
difficult to reverse.

> I don't want to get into an edit war with of all people Jimbo himself,
> but this IMHO has gone way too far.  If he wants to serve some sort of
> political agenda and disregard the genuine efforts of the community that
> is building Wikimedia projects like Wikibooks, so be it.  He can write
> everything himself there if he wants to as well.

?  Political agenda?  Do you mean my insistence that a book advocating
white power is not appropriate for any Wikimedia project is a political
agenda?  If it is, I plead guilty.  NPOV is non-negotiable.

> So long Wikimedia and all of the people here.  I have tried.  I hope
> things improve for the better in the future.
>
> I hereby resign my position as admin on Wikibooks and I anticipate that
> I will be banned there as well.  Good luck in the future in ever trying
> to find people to keep this project going.

Why would you be banned?  Why resign as an admin?  I don't really
understand this at all.

--Jimbo


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] scalability design ideas

body:
On 11/25/05, S. Woodside <sbwoodside at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ARTICLE
> - for storing the content
> The unit of content is a 3-tuple: {wikitext, red coloured links,
> templates}
> - each time I am edited:
> --- change my content
> --- if I'm a new/moved article, change colour of links in articles
> that reference me
> --- if I'm a template, change each article that uses me
> - goal:
> --- when I'm edited, propagate those changes as *efficiently* as
> possible to my fellow articles
> --- insist that when I'm changed, directly or indirectly, I am only
> read *once* by the Content cache
> --- insist that I'm only changed by the authentication server

And so you perform a linear scan of all articles redlinks to find the
ones you must remove and a reparse of all articles to find the
redlinks you must add every time there is a move or delete?

Moves only decrease redlinks, but deletes must be handled as well.

We have enough people dreaming up ideas, myself included.
Show us the code, and the benchmarks.


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms

body:
How can we work on this together ?

I would be very happy to set up a session to discuss about it on IRC and
on Skype.

For example, who would be available next Sunday?

Jean-Baptiste Soufron

David Newton wrote:
> As has become apparent recently there is considerable confusion
> possible when reading the text of the Wikisource copyright page at
> [[Wikisource: Copyright]]. It is not clear whether only GFDL works,
> GFDL-compatible works and public domain works can be posted at the
> site, or whether any licence that allows relatively free reproduction
> can be used. We need this situation cleared up. I am therefore
> proposing to re-write the offending bits of the Wikisource copyright
> page to remove the ambiguity.
>
> Since this is a serious step for the project I thought it sensible to
> post here and see what the level of agreement is with what I am
> proposing to do. I will also post an equivalent message to the
> Scriptorium.
>
> What I am proposing to do is to re-word the licensing page to make it
> clear that the documents themselves are licensed separately from the
> content of the site. That means that things on talk pages, the
> Scriptorium, Community Portal and similar will be under the GFDL as
> per Wikipedia. However, the documents themselves will be licensed
> according to conditions appropriate to their source. That means that
> works that are public domain in the United States should be noted as
> such with a template at the top or bottom of the page, whichever is
> felt most appropriate. It means that works that carry different
> licensing conditions from the GFDL and that have licences that are
> incompatible with the GFDL can be noted as such.
>
> Such a step will open up Wikisource to a large number of possibilities
> of hosting that are currently not open and it will also clear up a
> considerable amount of confusion. What do you think?
>
> David Newton
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

body:
Same thing than with wikisource,

wouldn't it be better to set up a session about it on IRC and on Skype ?
For example, next Sunday.

Jean-Baptiste Soufron

Any File wrote:
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
>>> So an organization cannot, without permission of government-sanctioned
>>> bodies, send people to observe and report on events?  We're not talking
>>> about official government press passes here (the U.S. analog is
>>> state-issued passes), simply a piece of paper that indicates the person
>>> in question has the sanction of Wikinews to report on their behalf.
>>> People are free to ignore that piece of paper of course, and demand
>>> something government-issued, but are you saying that the mere act of
>>> issuing that piece of paper is illegal,
>> I am just saying that not only can it be illegal, but also that it will
>> certainly engage the liability of the foundation.
>>
>> Unions accreditating journalists will certainly be mad at it (as in
>> France), and it would picture the foundation as a liable editor rather
>> as a not-liable publisher.
>>
>
> Would make thing easier if the the word journalist is never used?
> What the matter if a person is just accredited as external
> (unprofesional) collaborator?
>
> Form Italian laws being unprofessional there is no need to be register
> (actualle there is not the need to pay the fee to be register) as
> journalist and being declared that is an external collaborator (and
> not an employed by the newsagency) should limit very much any action
> againt the comunity or the foundaton.
>
> By the way wikinews editor act just exactly like an external
> unprofessional collaborator. The only difference is that they made it
> for free and that there is not  a editor-board approvation (actually
> this last point is not irrivelant)
>
> About an eventual legal reponsability of the foundation a possible
> (but unfortunately not free of charge) solution would be to required
> accredited Wikinewsers to have an insurance to cover their civil
> responsabilities and foundation civil responsabilities.
>
> As for any other thng like this it would very interesting to know what
> legislation is in acts (since every country could claim that their own
> legislation should be consider valid).
>
> AnyFile
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] License problems in en.wikipedia.org?

body:
On 11/25/05, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> Hello
>
>
> I just found the following image
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RFJesus.jpg
>
> which seems to be under a different sort of license, if I am not
> mistaken.
>
> I would like to include that image, in the corresponding German
> wikipedia article, however so far people hesitated since they believe
> that this license as expressed in the above url, would/could violate
> the GDL. I find it odd that different wikipedias have different
> standards concerning the license politics.
>

I think the German wikipedia tries to follow german law which doesn't
have much of an equiverlet of fair use.

> What can be done? May the simplest solution would be to contact the
> artist (if he/she can be find) and ask for explicit permission.
>

You almost certianly won't get i.t

> Any comments, suggestions?
>
>
> Uwe Brauer

What do you want to use it for?

--
geni


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 15:19 +0100, Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Hello
>
>
> I just found the following image
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RFJesus.jpg
>
> which seems to be under a different sort of license, if I am not
> mistaken.
>
> I would like to include that image, in the corresponding German
> wikipedia article, however so far people hesitated since they believe
> that this license as expressed in the above url, would/could violate
> the GDL. I find it odd that different wikipedias have different
> standards concerning the license politics.
>
> What can be done? May the simplest solution would be to contact the
> artist (if he/she can be find) and ask for explicit permission.
>
> Any comments, suggestions?

This is typical of en-w's "flexible" approach to licensing.

Someone is pretending that because it was printed in some
newspapers under terms that we know nothing about somehow this
gives us permission to use it under some unknown terms even though
we dont accept pictures where we are explicitly given permission
any more.

Currently its not worth trying to get rid of these pictures from en
as there are still thousands of more dubious ones (no source for
example). It might get picked up at some point in the fair use
examination.

You cant use it in de: only real free images, sensible policy.

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: License problems in en.wikipedia.org?

references:
<87irug4xpl.fsf@mat.ucm.es>
	<f80608430511250632k3bce9db8u85c08d07689f4fe3@mail.gmail.com>
	<871x144wor.fsf@mat.ucm.es>

body:
On 11/25/05, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> Well maybe this way the artist gets publicity for free!
>

It turned up in pretty much every newspaper in the uk. I don't think
the artist is short of publicy

> To put in the German article about the same subject!

historical jesus? To be honest I don't think the image has much value
since at best it shows a typical first centurey jew.

--
geni


from_name: Uwe Brauer

body:
Hello

I just found the following image
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RFJesus.jpg

which seems to be under a different sort of license, if I am not
mistaken.

I would like to include that image, in the corresponding German
wikipedia article, however so far people hesitated since they believe
that this license as expressed in the above url, would/could violate
the GDL. I find it odd that different wikipedias have different
standards concerning the license politics.

What can be done? May the simplest solution would be to contact the
artist (if he/she can be find) and ask for explicit permission.

Any comments, suggestions?

Uwe Brauer


body:
>>>>> "geni" == geni  <geniice at gmail.com> writes:

   >>

   geni> I think the German wikipedia tries to follow german law which
   geni> doesn't have much of an equiverlet of fair use.

A could be, I  don't know about that. Good point.

   >> What can be done? May the simplest solution would be to contact
   >> the artist (if he/she can be find) and ask for explicit
   >> permission.
   >>

   geni> You almost certianly won't get i.t

Well maybe this way the artist gets publicity for free!

   geni> What do you want to use it for?

To put in the German article about the same subject!


body:
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 16:10 +0100, Uwe Brauer wrote:
>  Anyhow, I wrote BBC, let us see what will happen, most likely
> nothing.

What did you ask for ezactly? Release as GFDL or CC?

They are not very cooperative I dont think.

They also may not own the copyright, the person who
created it may - might be a better source.

Justinc


body:
>>>>> "geni" == geni  <geniice at gmail.com> writes:

   geni> It turned up in pretty much every newspaper in the uk. I
   geni> don't think the artist is short of publicy

Well right, but who does remember the newspaper of last year? I mostly
don't.

   geni> historical jesus? To be honest I don't think the image has
   geni> much value since at best it shows a typical first centurey
   geni> jew.

That's the title of that article. Well the image is certainly better
than anything available I have seen so far: all this paintings of
person which remains much more of western European type.  Or the
movies. Anyhow, I wrote BBC, let us see what will happen, most likely
nothing.


body:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 10:31:49AM +0100, grm_wnr wrote:
> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
> >Folks might want to look into this one a little more closely.  Ed Poor
> >made what seem to me like thinly-veiled threats on the AfD in question
> >-- threats to block people who disagree with him:
> >
> >	"Only an someone pushing an anti-Creationist POV would want to
> >	censor this sort of information. Pushing any POV is grounds for
> >	a block. I think you already know this; but if you don't, I'm
> >	telling you now - officially - as an Admin."
>
> Funny, the blocking policy doesn't mention POV pushing.

Hmm.  That *is* interesting.  So let me see if I have the fact pattern
correct:

* An administrator is involved in a POV dispute with another editor.
* The administrator, it turns out, is on the non-consensus side of that
  dispute -- and has been repeatedly in the past.
* The administrator accuses the other editor of POV-pushing, and
  threatens to block him (or anyone) on that grounds.
* POV-pushing isn't actually legitimate grounds for a block.
* The administrator goes on to block the other editor anyway.

And now it seems that Joshua Schroeder has left the project.  That's
really unfortunate.  It gives me the impression that an administrator
acting deliberately against consensus was able to use administrative
powers and threats thereof to drive off an editor who was acting in
accord with consensus.  Or, in other words, Schroeder was in the right;
Poor was in the wrong; but since Poor is an administrator, Schroeder was
driven out.

It's unfortunate that some folks in the past have been very eager to
call out "rogue admin!" when an administrator does something they don't
like.  Spurious accusations in the past have left Wikipedia ill-prepared
to deal with what's looking more and more like a real, live case of a
rogue administrator.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


body:
On Friday 25 November 2005 11:20, Mark Williamson wrote:
> Ahh, and if you think Dutch spelling and German spelling of Lowlands
> Saxon are truly incompatible, check the archives of the mainpage at
> nds.wiki -- People have in the past posted messages there in Duthc
> spelt Lowlands Saxon, received responses in German spelling, and then
> responded in turn to that in Dutch spelling.
>
> People from across the border exchange mails in LS everyday on lowlands-l.

It's nice to know that there are people who are even worse than us :)

Have you considered installing extension which is being made for Serbian
Wikipedia, which would enable that each article is viewable in both
spellings?


subject:
[Foundation-l] Cleaning up Wikibooks (was Re: Incubator Wiki
	for	New Wikimedia Projects)

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> The big deal right now is that if we follow this general policy to its
> ultimate conclusion, about half of the current content on Wikibooks
> needs to be removed somehow.

It doesn't seem that way to me.  Indeed, the sorts of books which were
posing such an embarassment for the seriousness of the project were (and
are, they aren't all gone yet) in the extreme minority.

--Jimbo


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>>The user that added this white power book has otherwise done Wikibooks
>>>quite a bit of good, and banning him would only make an enemy rather
>>>than a useful contributor.
>>
>>I very strongly disagree.  Wikibooks does not need such books, and it
>>was an is an embarassment to see such a thing.
>>
>>--Jimbo
>
>
> I agree that Wikibooks doesn't need such books, and I'm sure you were
> embarassed to see it.  But that doesn't mean you need to ban the
> person who added it.

I didn't.  But if someone did, and the ban were appealed to me, I would
let it stand.

--Jimbo


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

body:
>
>IIRC the Ethnologue criterion for including a constructed language is
>the the existence of literary works in that language.

I don't think so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIL_International

Ilario

They recognize 24
>
>such languages. Yes, there are people with the kind of mentality that
>will create a literature in Klingon or Elvish.  A better criterion for
>us would be the existence of native speakers.  Another might be to ask
>who is the audience for this new language project.  What interests the
>readers rather than the writers?  What practical information would serve
>


body:
>>
>> For dialects, then, we want to require a much higher threshold before
>> allowing the wikipedia -- we need a good reason to start it.  A
>> "Bavarian" Wikipedia proposal would need a much much stronger rationale
>> before we start it than "German".  Obviously.
>
>This point isn't enough to clarify when whe should or should not create
a
>new
>dialect wikipedia, because it's using the unique criteria of interlegibility.
>By exemple, Catalan (my native lang) and Occitan are mutually interlegible

This is not correct. The problem is that some dialects have forgetten their
traditional words. Neapolitan is similar to italian because people don't
speaks the correct Neapolitan. If we read a book (or listen a song) written
in Neapolitan in the previous century also a Neapolitan can have difficulties.

The problem is that: if during the votation someone can exhibits linguistic
studies to support the candidature, the decision can be taken with more reliability.

Ilario

>in
>text written, or between Neapolitan and Italian. And for some persons
>Portuguese and Spanish are interlegible too, but they are considered as
>independent languages. I think that perhaps the point to consider the inclusion
>of a new dialect wikipedia would be better moving around the
>exclusionist-inclusionist poles.
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Cleaning up Wikibooks

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> BTW, have you seen the Wikipedia article on [[w:White
> nationalism]]?  Using this same logic, this article on Wikipedia should
> be deleted on the spot and all of the participants banned as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism

is a perfectly fine encyclopedia article.

But let me give you a few quotes from the "White Heritage Security"
wikibook, and ask you to ask yourself what will happen when a grant
maker who is seeking quality volunteer efforts to fund will think about
our project when they see this?  I want you to imagine the headlines
that would result from us being tolerant of such things...

"Whites may need to create a separate nation to defend themselves from
racial destruction by racial mixing."

"Other races exploit the white race in a number of ways to their detriment."

There's plenty more where that comes from.

Robert wrote:
>>> The user that added this white power book has otherwise done Wikibooks
>>> quite a bit of good, and banning him would only make an enemy rather
>>> than a useful contributor.

I responded:
>> I very strongly disagree.  Wikibooks does not need such books, and it
>> was an is an embarassment to see such a thing.

Robert again:
> So, do you have a personal beef against [[b:User:Zondor]]?

A _personal_ beef?  Not really, no.  A _professional_ beef?  Absolutely.
 This is a serious project, and we do not need the help of people who
behave in such a fashion.

> The #1 complaint I have here about this whole thing is not so much what
> you've done, but how you've done it, particularly in regard to changing
> policy without really explaining this policy change.

I have not changed policy.  I did change one policy page, but only to
correct something that I think everyone will agree is obviously in
error: "As a general rule, any book you might expect to find in the
non-fiction section of your local library or bookshop is acceptable."

There are tons and tons of non-fiction books which are not NPOV, and
NPOV is, as always, non-negotiable.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Cleaning up Wikibooks


body:
Anthere wrote:
> The cookbook : I had a long time fight with Gentgeen, when he started
> moving all (or nearly all recipees) away from en.Wikipedia. I tried
> desperatly to keep them in Wikipedia, but most were moved nevertheless I
> think. I did not oppose recipees being in Wikibooks, but simply, maybe
> because french, I consider many recipees are "cultural", so have their
> place in an encyclopedia.

I agree with Anthere that recipes can quite properly go into the
encyclopedia, but this is a battle we lost a long time ago.

To my knowledge, there is no one supporting the idea that the cookbook
should be removed from wikibooks.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471286796/102-8042500-9168961?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance

"Produced by the Culinary Institute of America as a textbook for
chefs-to-be, The New Professional Chef, Sixth Edition, is a book for all
who love to cook, as well as students of the craft. It's a cooking
school between covers, a teaching and reference work of extraordinary
breadth."

[...]

"The hundreds of recipes (500 new to this edition) are designed for 10
or more servings; though reducible, their outstanding usefulness lies in
revealing dish anatomy--the way recipes work."

A cookbook is very much a textbook.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: A proposal for new language creation

body:
>I don't think we're talking about an interlegibility criterion here, at

>least that's not how I understand Jimbo's proposal. Certainly nobody
>objects to separate wikis for the Scandinavian languages. The issue is
>not whether native speakers of one language can read material in another
>language. It's whether there are native speakers who actually read and
>write in this as a literary language at all, as opposed to reading and
>writing in some "other" language of which theirs is merely a dialect.

The criterion of Jimbo is not incorrect. Some philology use the same criterion
to distinguish tongues between dialects.

>
>Expanding on Jimbo's point, here's the problem with dialect Wikipedias
>(leaving aside, for a moment, the thorny problem of deciding whether
>something is a dialect or a language). Dialects tend to be in a similar

>position to constructed languages, in that they have no pre-existing
>literature and their orthography has to be invented to a significant
>degree. When the standards these establish are missing, we really have
>no factual basis from which to write in such a language. Inventing
>spelling or grammar while you write the encyclopedia, just like
>inventing facts while you write the encyclopedia, is perpetrating an
>intellectual fraud and a hoax.

This is not correct: same tongues can became dialects. The sicilian for example
had a very important literature with Frederick II, Duke of Swabia. Also the
occitanic at moment is not used in literature, or in law courts, or in officials
circumstances.

It's wright that a dialect became tongue where it enriches with "registers",
but a tongue can become dialects when it loses them.

Ilario


body:
   Justin> On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 16:10 +0100, Uwe Brauer wrote:
   >> Anyhow, I wrote BBC, let us see what will happen, most likely
   >> nothing.

   Justin> What did you ask for ezactly? Release as GFDL or CC?

I did not specify, but I was thinking of the CC.

   Justin> They are not very cooperative I dont think.

   Justin> They also may not own the copyright, the person who
   Justin> created it may - might be a better source.

That's what I asked, the address of the person who is the copyright
holder.
May be the cleanest solution, if this does not work out is to make a
link to that page.

Uwe


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki about every person in the world

body:
On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Bernd Kulawik wrote:
> > A.2) In addition, there is a similar "market" for genealogical data
> > and research: Recently I read, that genealogy is the second largest
> > "hobby horse" in the USA...
>
> Agreed.  Some kind of genealogical skills would probably be needed to
> keep it all organized.  The work of the LDS (Mormon) Church alone is
> enormous; their genealogical library in Salt Lake City is an impressive
> resource, and they have very liberal policies about public access to
> this material.  How can our efforts best complement rather than
> duplicate their work?
>

Putting it all online, under a free license, in a wiki, would be a good start.


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: wikipedia connection are slowed down: client side
	solutions?

body:
Uwe Brauer wrote:
> I noted since a couple of days a slow down when I try to submit a
> contribution. Is there anything I could do like enhance the cache of
> my browser?

There can be several cause, most of them are not related to client side
caching :)

When you submit a contribution, the software need to write in the master
database (which is handling all writes for all projects). Then the
software need to reparse the whole page and send it back to you (and
flush various caches).

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


body:
On 11/25/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> > The cookbook : I had a long time fight with Gentgeen, when he started
> > moving all (or nearly all recipees) away from en.Wikipedia. I tried
> > desperatly to keep them in Wikipedia, but most were moved nevertheless I
> > think. I did not oppose recipees being in Wikibooks, but simply, maybe
> > because french, I consider many recipees are "cultural", so have their
> > place in an encyclopedia.
>
> I agree with Anthere that recipes can quite properly go into the
> encyclopedia, but this is a battle we lost a long time ago.
>
> To my knowledge, there is no one supporting the idea that the cookbook
> should be removed from wikibooks.
>
Is there anyone supporting the idea that Wikibooks should be limited
to textbooks?  I'm sure there are some, though I can't think of
anyone.


from_name: oscar

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: User Jcb deleting articles in ia.wikipedia.org

body:
On 11/25/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2005/11/25, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > Sure.
> >
> > But Jay (or is it Ilooy? Or Jacinto??) still doesn't seem to get the
> > basics of sysophood.
> >
> > He seems to think that _anonymous users_ were resposnible for the mass
> > deletions, and has blocked them for that.
> >
> > Anybody who has been at Wikipedia rfor long will know how ridiculous
> > that is. Anons cannot delete articles!!!
>
> That's indeed very strange... Where would he get that idea? Not to
> mention that those IPs don't have any edits on ia:, so where did he
> get the numbers anyway? Could you please explain, ILVI?
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels

fyi from anonymous users who edited on articles that are since then deleted
you cannot see any edits anymore, so theoretically this is indeed possible.
nevertheless i would also appreciate to know where these ip's came from.

oscar


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
Joshua

I didn't realise you had left.  I want you to know how much I value your
contributions - and how little I think of Ed's nonsense.  I agree with you -
he should not be an admin any longer.  I do hope you will reconsider.

Ian (Guettarda)

On 11/22/05, Joshua Schroeder <joshuaschroeder at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Administartor Ed Poor has blocked me for reasons I cannot figure out. Can
> somebody help me?
> Joshuaschroeder
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Petr Kadlec

body:
On 11/25/05, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> fyi from anonymous users who edited on articles that are since then
> deleted
> you cannot see any edits anymore, so theoretically this is indeed
> possible.
>

Just FYI this is not completely true, see e.g.
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kate/cgi-bin/archive_contribs?user=86.195.145.5&dbname=iawiki

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms

body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
> How can we work on this together ?
>
> I would be very happy to set up a session to discuss about it on IRC
> and on Skype.
>
> For example, who would be available next Sunday?
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron
>
> David Newton wrote:
>> As has become apparent recently there is considerable confusion
>> possible when reading the text of the Wikisource copyright page at
>> [[Wikisource: Copyright]]. It is not clear whether only GFDL works,
>> GFDL-compatible works and public domain works can be posted at the
>> site, or whether any licence that allows relatively free reproduction
>> can be used. We need this situation cleared up. I am therefore
>> proposing to re-write the offending bits of the Wikisource copyright
>> page to remove the ambiguity.
>>
>> Since this is a serious step for the project I thought it sensible to
>> post here and see what the level of agreement is with what I am
>> proposing to do. I will also post an equivalent message to the
>> Scriptorium.
>>
>> What I am proposing to do is to re-word the licensing page to make it
>> clear that the documents themselves are licensed separately from the
>> content of the site. That means that things on talk pages, the
>> Scriptorium, Community Portal and similar will be under the GFDL as
>> per Wikipedia. However, the documents themselves will be licensed
>> according to conditions appropriate to their source. That means that
>> works that are public domain in the United States should be noted as
>> such with a template at the top or bottom of the page, whichever is
>> felt most appropriate. It means that works that carry different
>> licensing conditions from the GFDL and that have licences that are
>> incompatible with the GFDL can be noted as such.
>>
>> Such a step will open up Wikisource to a large number of possibilities
>> of hosting that are currently not open and it will also clear up a
>> considerable amount of confusion. What do you think?
>>
>> David Newton
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms


body:
2005/11/25, Petr Kadlec <petr.kadlec at gmail.com>:
> On 11/25/05, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > fyi from anonymous users who edited on articles that are since then
> > deleted
> > you cannot see any edits anymore, so theoretically this is indeed
> > possible.
> >
>
> Just FYI this is not completely true, see e.g.
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kate/cgi-bin/archive_contribs?user=86.195.145.5&dbname=iawiki

Hmmm... That's quite a remarkable case - it seems that here Jcb does
have something to account for: The page was deleted after 2 1/2 years
on the wiki. My first guess would be that it was deleted for being a
vandal page and he forgot to check the history of the page first. But
without being able to see the page, I cannot know for sure (I am quite
tempted to make myself a temporary sysop just to look...)

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


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms

body:
Le Friday 25 November 2005 13:29, Jean-Baptiste Soufron a ??crit :
> How can we work on this together ?
>
> I would be very happy to set up a session to discuss about it on IRC and
> on Skype.
>
> For example, who would be available next Sunday?

Yes,, fine for me for a IRC??session Sunday evening, European time, between 17
and 21 UTC.

Yann

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms


from_name: Puddl Duk

body:
On 11/25/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Yann Forget wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >I really think that this Jokebook should be deleted from Wikibooks.
> >
> >1. Wikibooks is mean to host educational content and textbooks. There is no
> >way that jokes could be included for this purpose.
> >2. Many jokes are offensive and don't follow the NPOV rule.
> >
> >If contributors from the project are not able to enforce the basic rules, then
> >others have to do it.
> >
> >
> Why delete the jokebook? Earning my bread from cmedy I certainly see it
> could be used as an educational tool for people wanting to make their
> bread as a comedian.
>
> Waerth/Walter

Can these be moved to Wikicities?


body:
Hi,

I??really think that this Jokebook should be deleted from Wikibooks.

1. Wikibooks is mean to host educational content and textbooks.??There is no
way that jokes could be included for this purpose.
2. Many jokes are offensive and don't follow the NPOV rule.

If contributors from the project are not able to enforce the basic rules, then
others have to do it.

Regards,

Yann

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedia writers cover up for Nazism on Wikipedia

body:
On Fri, 25 Nov 2005, Phil Boswell wrote:

> "Matt R" <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
> message news:20051124173047.22669.qmail at web25007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
> > --- Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > "Rex" <rexy at ij.net> wrote in message
> > > [snip]
> > > > ...  They cover up discoveries by the historian Rex Curry.
> > > Just checking: are you actually "the historian Rex Curry"?
> > Not just that, but his own website modestly proclaims that:
> [snip]
> > Ah, I love the Internet...
>
> For someone who seems so keen on spreading information around, he doesn't
> seem to give much away for free: is there anything on that site you don't
> have to pay for?

You noticed that too?

That fact provides us with a simple solution to Rex's insistence that his
materials are not being cited or refered to on Wikipedia: it's due to
copyright considerations. He appears to be very concerned with his rights
over his materials or research, & we'd rather error on the side of caution,
rather than violate his copyright. If he provides information on his
website that is reusable under a free license, then we'll revisit the issue
whether his research is unfairly excluded from Wikipedia.

Geoff


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms

body:
Hoi,
I am very much interested in licenses as the Ultimate Wiktionary but
also Wikidata will have this as an important aspect. When Ultimate
Wiktionary becomes a runaway success as I hope it will be, the argument
may become less relevant. With Wikidata there will be data that may come
from many sources and we will want to use that in our projects. Just by
using it in one project you do not want to change the license of the
data that comes from a Wikidata source. Another application that I
foresee is that we will get permission to use data that is hosted
elsewhere .. How to use that within a mediawiki framework ..

Anyway, you guessed it I really want to be in on a discussion of
licenses and Mediawiki and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Thanks,
  GerardM

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
> How can we work on this together ?
>
> I would be very happy to set up a session to discuss about it on IRC
> and on Skype.
>
> For example, who would be available next Sunday?
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron
>
> David Newton wrote:
>> As has become apparent recently there is considerable confusion
>> possible when reading the text of the Wikisource copyright page at
>> [[Wikisource: Copyright]]. It is not clear whether only GFDL works,
>> GFDL-compatible works and public domain works can be posted at the
>> site, or whether any licence that allows relatively free reproduction
>> can be used. We need this situation cleared up. I am therefore
>> proposing to re-write the offending bits of the Wikisource copyright
>> page to remove the ambiguity.
>>
>> Since this is a serious step for the project I thought it sensible to
>> post here and see what the level of agreement is with what I am
>> proposing to do. I will also post an equivalent message to the
>> Scriptorium.
>>
>> What I am proposing to do is to re-word the licensing page to make it
>> clear that the documents themselves are licensed separately from the
>> content of the site. That means that things on talk pages, the
>> Scriptorium, Community Portal and similar will be under the GFDL as
>> per Wikipedia. However, the documents themselves will be licensed
>> according to conditions appropriate to their source. That means that
>> works that are public domain in the United States should be noted as
>> such with a template at the top or bottom of the page, whichever is
>> felt most appropriate. It means that works that carry different
>> licensing conditions from the GFDL and that have licences that are
>> incompatible with the GFDL can be noted as such.
>>
>> Such a step will open up Wikisource to a large number of possibilities
>> of hosting that are currently not open and it will also clear up a
>> considerable amount of confusion. What do you think?
>>
>> David Newton
>>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Cleaning up Wikibooks

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Is there anyone supporting the idea that Wikibooks should be limited
> to textbooks?  I'm sure there are some, though I can't think of
> anyone.

Wikibooks *is* restricted to textbooks.  As ever.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
On Wed, 23 Nov 2005, charles matthews wrote:

> "Geoff Burling" write
>
> >Wikipedia is not only reinventing
> > the idea of an encyclopedia but also the (excuse me) paradigm of academia
>
> Is that the right comparison?  I thought we were doing 'distance learning',
> really.  Hey, if we offered degrees in two weeks, like other Florida
> institutions, we could charge enough to buy servers ...
>
I'm sorry, Charles that I didn't see your response sooner. For some reason
the subject line on this thread got changed, then when I looked in the
WikiEN-L archives, I couldn't find any trace of my original post --
probably because I misremembered the name on the thread.

But to answer your question. Originally, when I spoke of "acadmia", I was
thinking of the model some of my professors presented of their profession,
which was one where they & their peers were engaged in an ongoing dialogue
over important topics or new findings; the education of young minds or
certifying their credentials was merely a secondary, but necessary, part
of performing the first task. I think this is covered, after a fashion,
by the saying "publish or perish".

(For the record some of my other professors did not embrace this model,
but only a few seemed to show that their first interest was to teach.)

But as I started to write this delayed response, I remembered one aspect
of Wikipedia tht seems to get overlooked, its opportunity for hands-on
education. Or maybe I'm the only person to notice that to write a useful
article on a subject, one needs to know how to research, to distill what
is found, then to write about it in a clear & readable manner. And the
dynamics of a Wiki provides fairly quick feedback whether one has achieved
those goals: contributing to Wikipedia has a number of similarities to
an ongoing education program.

Of course there is the perennial problem of the stereotype of an immature
15-year-old, who argues with experts over subects he doesn't understand.
To this, all I can say that if the expert is guilty of making hasty
generalizaions without supporting citations or clear writing, then who is
the immature party in the dispute? Sometimes I forget that there are
kooks on Wikipedia who will argue with anyone over data & conclusions
that they don't agree with, but these kooks are everywhere; we somehow
make an unconscious assumption that because they have a computer, they are
somehow more of a threat than the bore next to you at a bar who insists
he alone has the solution to all of our problems.

Geoff


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiStatus - OpenFact's replacement

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

OpenFact's Wikipedia Status ( http://tinyurl.com/48a5m ) is the original
Wikipedia Status page. However, it suffers from a huge problem: it is
prohibitively unwieldly to use. The solution? Create a more streamlined
application designed for the exact task of allowing the community to
report on contingency issues. Yup... it's called WikiStatus for lack of
a more creative name.

You can view an online version of it here: http://tinyurl.com/a62lu and
the source code is here: http://tinyurl.com/b9z8n

I'm not sure when/how OpenFacts became the de facto standard for status
reporting, but it would be cool if we could add a link to WikiStatus
from the standard error page. Of course, it's really new software (I
consider it alpha quality) and it probably needs to be audited, but when
there's a problem, there should be multiple contingency sites.

Please check it out! Thanks. :D

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDh9quqTO+fYacSNoRAmKQAJ4654F+d8NrScr40cwdek8x7Mky8wCfa3RU
beH7MlBjYFiqejEZChf8EnA=
=S57w
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: L S Lesser

subject: [WikiEN-l] fonts for foreign language wikibooks

body:
I have installed Latin-2 encoding, Arial Unicode MS, and Aruniupd.exe, and yet I cannot read many of the Croatian, Slovenian, Slovak, and Romanian characters on the wiki pages describing their languages and grammars.  [?, ?, ?, etc.].  I run Windows ME and Internet Explorer 5.5.  I'd greatly appreciate some advice.  Thanks.

Larry


subject: [WikiEN-l] complaints of admin actions on wikien-l

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 10:31:49AM +0100, grm_wnr wrote:
>
>
>>Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Folks might want to look into this one a little more closely.  Ed Poor
>>>made what seem to me like thinly-veiled threats on the AfD in question
>>>-- threats to block people who disagree with him:
>>>
>>>	"Only an someone pushing an anti-Creationist POV would want to
>>>	censor this sort of information. Pushing any POV is grounds for
>>>	a block. I think you already know this; but if you don't, I'm
>>>	telling you now - officially - as an Admin."
>>>
>>>
>>Funny, the blocking policy doesn't mention POV pushing.
>>
>>
>
>Hmm.  That *is* interesting.  So let me see if I have the fact pattern
>correct:
>
>* An administrator is involved in a POV dispute with another editor.
>* The administrator, it turns out, is on the non-consensus side of that
>  dispute -- and has been repeatedly in the past.
>* The administrator accuses the other editor of POV-pushing, and
>  threatens to block him (or anyone) on that grounds.
>* POV-pushing isn't actually legitimate grounds for a block.
>* The administrator goes on to block the other editor anyway.
>
>

Note that I'm only criticizing Ed's quote above. He actually blocked for
disruption, which /is/ on the blocking policy.

grm_wnr


from_name: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] A proposal for new language creation

body:
On 11/25/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has proved
> > insufficient.
> >
> > Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
> > * split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian [controverial]
> > * Klingon

Another issue is, that we've already created wikipedias in most ISO
639-1 languages.  So those that remain are by definition somewhat
difficult.

> > and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their own codes
> > but which are oft asked for.

Should it be possible for language enthusiasts to pitch to Wikipedia
directly, rather than to some third-party language-centered org that
WP truts and works with?  If it were not possible to pitch directly to
WM (say, acceptance by such a third-party group is a pre-req to
applying for a lang-project), this would help avoid subsets of the
world's language zealots engaging in subsets of global debates on WM
mailing lists.

> The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
> broken in many many ways.  It was fine for getting a list of things like
> "English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it breaks down when

Who are the target audiences for a new and improved list of codes?
language-enthusiast editors?  readers?  third-party content
developers/aggregators?  linguists?  translators? educators?    If
some of these audiences will have to do more work and others less,
which should get priority?

--
++SJ


from_name: Tom Cadden

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nightmare getting on WP

body:
What is going on with the server? It has been a nightmare tonight? One minute it is down. The next up. The next down again. I finally got an article I had to write off WP onto WP but 10 seconds later when I tried to add in a second I couldn't - it would take so long my browser would time out.

 Sometimes I'm told that my article has not been saved, but then when I look on my watchlist there it is. Other times I save something but it isn't on anything.

 At this stage one can forget about using the preview button (oh look another timed out message on my other screen!) to make sure everything is OK. It is a matter of saving in case in a few seconds the damn thing goes down yet again. (Oh lookie, its back again.) *sigh*

 Better go and use it before it goes for the 28th time.

 Thom

---------------------------------
  Win a Yahoo! Vespa NEW - Yahoo! Cars has 3 Vespa LX125s to be won Enter Now!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
That's exactly what I always say.  We strive to be (and sometimes, but
not yet nearly as much as we'd like) Britannica or better quality.  But
even at that level of quality, frankly, it's just not appropriate to
cite any encyclopedia at the university level.  That's not the role of
an encyclopedia in the process.

The proper role is what Tony describes here -- you use the encyclopedia
to get started, to get an overview, and *then* you do your homework, and
hopefully a lot more effectively than you would if you took a random
stab at the library catalogue.
 That is what I would hope. Unfortunately our lack of enforceable standards in articles means that even using WP to get started is risky. You may get the best encyclop?dia in existence with us (and some certainly are in my opinion) but you may get complete tripe (all too common). Or you may get an article which, up to 30 seconds before you looked at it was a masterpiece, but at the moment you look at it contains utter garbage. The problem there isn't vandalism - that is usually easily spotted, but either illinformed edits, people who don't know what they are talking about on the topic but have a 'stab' anyway and completely screw up the article.

 Unfortunately WP needs to have a major health warning:
 "This encyclop?dia strives for high standards but does not always achieve them. Check every fact you read here independently. And remember the analysis you read might not be truthful and unbiased but may be distorted and agenda-pushing. While we do our best to stop it happening, it can and unfortunately it does.".

---------------------------------
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from_name: Nyenyec N

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL compatibility of image licenses

body:
What is the definitive source to read about which image licenses are
compatible with the GFDL?

Or perhaps a GFDL text with non-GFDL images added doesn't count as
derivative work?

Thanks,
nyenyec


from_name: Ben E.

body:
I would suggest that it is your browser that is giving you trouble. Head
over to http://getfirefox.com and use the browser in which everything looks
good: Mozilla Firefox. You'll be more secure, too. :-).

--
Ben E.
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Personal Apology RE: Wikibooks

body:
Mr. Wales,

    Thank you for your apology.  Really.  I am perhaps taking this whole
thing overboard way too much.

    I really do have the best interests at heart with what is going on
for Wikibooks, and what I have enjoyed the most there is actually
sitting down and writing textbooks.  While I've been involved with the
politics of Wikibooks as well, my heart is with trying to write content.
 I believe in that mission, and while I may differ with you on the
philosophy that other content besides strictly textbooks should exist on
that project, I do support the concept of an "open source"
collaboratively written textbook, such as what is happening on
Wikibooks, and elsewhere to a lesser degree such as Benjamin Crowell's
Light and Matter on http://lightandmatter.com

    One of the motiviations that I have had for this project is that I
am the father of six children, and I'm living in a state where the
rising costs of textbooks is being particularly felt locally.  My
children are often using textbooks that are 10-15 years old and have
scribbles in them from almost a full generation of school children,
because the local schools can't afford to replace these books.  There
was one local school that was built brand new, but because the school
district was really stretching it budget for the construction they
couldn't afford to buy any books, either for the library or for the
classrooms, including textbooks.  The ones they finally got were
discarded from another school district that were updating their
textbooks, together with a community book drive for the grade school
library that finally got at least a few books in there.

    One of my goals to be involved with Wikibooks was to try and make
textbooks for children where I am living to be much more affordable.
 There is no reason why a science textbook for sixth grade should cost
60 or 70 dollars, yet they do.  I'm not talking some obscure 3rd world
country, but right here in America where we both live.

    I've also benefited in the past from cheap or free "textbooks" in a
professional capacity as well.  By profession, I'm a software engineer,
and I've had what would best be called an unorthodox educational
experience to say the least to get to the point for where I'm at.  I
picked up much of my knowledge by experimentation on a number of
computer systems that were made available to children while I was
growing up, including on-line technical manuals and early predecessors
to IRC chatrooms.  I had an e-mail address 30 year ago and got my first
piece of spam about the same time.  Using those early systems I was able
to learn techniques and concepts that often my professors in college had
no idea about until after I demonstrated the idea.  I got an "F" from
one professor because he thought I was a smart-ass and because the
professor couldn't get the computer to do the things I made it do.

    I feel I am getting old enough that I need to start passing on the
knowledge that I've gained over the years to the next generation, and
Wikibooks has provided me with a forum to be able to accomplish this
goal.  In the process of learning more about Wikibooks and its
organization, I've also come to know more about the Wikimedia Foundation
and how Wikipedia was started.

    I do want to thank you for starting Wikipedia, and having the vision
to see that perhaps the Wiki concept could be applied to other areas of
human knowledge as well.  I know other people were also involved, but
you have been giving it the encouragement that it has needed as well.
 The early financial backing is also something that I don't think
anybody is going to forget, and thanks for that as well.

    I am going to take a break for now from what I've been doing on
Wikibooks, and scale back my activities.  Still, with your apology and
some retrospect on my part, I'm going to continue to be involved in some
small part.  I've often said that even ordinary users on Wikimedia
projects can do extraordinary things.  I'll try to prove that point by
doing it.

    I'm also sorry that I had to be such a pain in your side.  And I
apologize for the facist comment.  That was made in a moment of passion
and I should have measured my comments that way in a much better tone.
 Dredging up painful memories of an awful world experience 60 years ago
and casting you as a participant of a truly evil group of people was
really over the top, and I promise that I will never do that again.

    As far as the White Nationalism and associated group of Wikibooks is
concerned, I hope you understand that all I'm trying to suggest is that
there could be an interesting Wikibook about the topic, and I completely
agree with your assessment regarding a Neutral Point of View being
essential when presenting things of that nature.  I was an outspoken
critic of that Wikibook when it appeared, and to be honest I don't even
understand the mentality of the people who actually believe that stuff.
 The only point we differ on is how it should be dealt with when content
like that appears, and this is really a very minor point to be arguing
over.  We both agree it should have been removed as it was written, and
I was not willing myself to make it into a NPOV book.  Life is too
short, and I have other things I would rather do.

    I also want to thank you on one point with Wikibooks as well:  There
was a need to "clean house" and get the Wikibooks community to pay
attention to the out right silly books that have somehow been ingrained
within the Wikibooks project.  This whole thing has caused the debate
over what the direction of Wikibooks should be, and I geuninely hope
that Wikibooks becomes a better place.  Looking at things like Alexa
rankings and citations around the internet, Wikibooks is about to really
come out from behind the shadow of its bigger cousin of Wikipedia and
become something truly remarkable.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: GerardM

body:
On 11/26/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/25/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Brion Vibber wrote:
> > > This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has
> proved
> > > insufficient.
> > >
> > > Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
> > > * split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian
> [controverial]
> > > * Klingon
>
> Another issue is, that we've already created wikipedias in most ISO
> 639-1 languages.  So those that remain are by definition somewhat
> difficult.

There are nice tables for converting ISO-639-1 to ISO-639-2. The upcoming
ISO-639-3 code is like the ISO-639-2 in three characters and there will be
no conversion. However some codes will be removed and replaced by others.
For your information, in Ultimate Wiktionary we will have a table with the
ISO-639-3 codes but for convenience sake we have room for the ISO-639-1
codes. In order to make it more simple, we will have a field where we store
the name that the WMF uses.

> > and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their
> own codes
> > > but which are oft asked for.
>
> Should it be possible for language enthusiasts to pitch to Wikipedia
> directly, rather than to some third-party language-centered org that
> WP truts and works with?  If it were not possible to pitch directly to
> WM (say, acceptance by such a third-party group is a pre-req to
> applying for a lang-project), this would help avoid subsets of the
> world's language zealots engaging in subsets of global debates on WM
> mailing lists.

As Ultimate Wiktionary, aims to have all words in all languages, words
particular to dialects are certainly welcome. This will allow us to have
words in Westfries, spoken in the region where I was born, once a language
but now not more than a dialect of the Dutch language.. :)

> The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
> > broken in many many ways.  It was fine for getting a list of things like
> > "English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it breaks down when
>
> Who are the target audiences for a new and improved list of codes?
> language-enthusiast editors?  readers?  third-party content
> developers/aggregators?  linguists?  translators? educators?    If
> some of these audiences will have to do more work and others less,
> which should get priority?

By creating "the" list of languages, you remove the discussion from the
argument "is this a language or not". This removes the need from creating
your own list and it is important because as we know it can be an endless
struggle. Even when there is a language known on the list and there are
people denying the validity and there are always more languages to consider.
Being on the list is important when you care for a language. The audience ?
All of the above. However for organisations like ours it does not free us
from having the argument anyway. We have people that insist on a fixed
orthography, a literature or an army to have the argument going their way.

I would like us to be relaxed about it. Let us have the projects in the
languages that are requested, in the end the proof of the pudding is in the
eating, when a project is a success, it is a reason to rejoice.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: shivraj singh

subject: [WikiEN-l] Shivraj Singh/Sher Shah Suri/Dmcdevit

body:
Admins,
    I have been blocked by User:Dmcdevit eventhough I did not violate 3RR
rule on
    Sher Shah Suri page.  I have asked Dmcdevit for a reason but none has
come forth.

    On Sher Shah Suri page some other users are engaging in revert wars.  I
have provided
    a book as a reference and a website which both agree and are based on
different
    sources.  Book is by Richard Saran and Norman Ziegler from UMich Ann
Arbor, both
    Phd's who spent greater then a decade to research the book and then
published it.
    Website is afghan-network.com which sources its materials from some
other historians
    and not Richard and Norman.  Though both these sources agree on the
history of
    events related to SherShah.

     These other users Taaoo/Wisesabre are pushing a one sided history of
SherShah
     where they do not want any negative character of his to be portrayed.
I have
     repeatedly asked them on the talk page to not censor anything or if
they dispute
     my references they should give some citations of there own. They do not
provide
     any books supporting there edits yet keep reverting.

WP:User: Shivraj_Singh

  -Shivraj Singh


from_name: FxParlant

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki: 1.6devel

body:
Hi,

I've seen that wikipedia runs on a 1.6devel version of mediawiki.
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version )

Although I tried to open my eyes I couldn't find the files for any 1.6
version on http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34373#files
nor
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

Can someone tell me what this version is ?

Thanks
Fran?ois