body:
That said, when he says "Indian topics" he is referring to Indian
topics rather than topics relating to American indigenes.

Mark

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:21:46 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gerard, perhaps you should look at the text Boris quoted.
>
> He isn't referring to the creation of a Hopi Wikipedia, he is
> referring to the ideas of Stan and Delirium to create different
> Wikipedias for different cultures rather than different languages,
> which I think is a bad idea.
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:49:53 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Boris Lohnzweiger wrote:
> >
> > >Frankly spoken, I am totally against that idea because I think it would lead to a fragmentation of the knowledge that we are trying to collect. I couldn't think of any Indian topics that wouldn't have a place in the general English encyclopedia. The main advantage of a large encyclopedia is that is gathers knowledge from various fields (in our case, in many different languages). We shouldn't fragmentize knowledge but rather unify it in one single place. Once we'd start splitting Wikipedias into separate editions for ethnic or cultural groups, it would eventually lead to "Wikipedias for Christians", "Wikipedias for Muslims", "Wikipedias for Women", "Wikipedias for Students", "Wikipedias for Seniors" and the like, and all of them would have to be translated into 200 languages. Would that still constitute a "Free Encyclopedia" then or wouldn't it rather mean of plethora of "closed shops".
> > >
> > >
> > We are talking languages here and not "Wikipedia for Christians" or some
> > such. This will never happen as Wikipedia is a trademark. A wikipedia in
> > Hopi does not mean that the same subjects cannot be covered in any other
> > wikipedia therefore how does it fragment the knowledge we are trying to
> > collect ? Your argument against Hopi is as valid when wielded against
> > the English wikipedia because the French wikipedia could serve equally
> > well as a lingua franca.
> >
> > >IMHO, our main advantage is that we bring together people with all different sorts of backgrounds and enable them to *cooperate*. Thus we are able to attract as much knowledge as we presently do. The exchange between people of very different origins is a unique feature of Wikipedia. Any sort of separation or segregation among Wikipedia's contributors would invariably effect the level of quality we have been able to achieve, simply because it would mean a brain-drain for the general Wikipedia.
> > >
> > >
> > The level of quality that we achieve is something that can happen in any
> > wikipedia and some argue that the de:wikipedia is better than the
> > en:wikipedia. Our stated aim is to provide our wikipedia in all
> > languages currently 187. We can achieve great things in all languages.
> > It will take time, hard work but there is nothing lost and much gained
> > with a wikipedia for each language that is spoken.
> >
> > >Nevertheless certains steps in order to better serve specific communities of users can very well make sense. More than that, they would raise Wikipedia's value even more. AFAIK WikiReaders provide a very useful tool for that and so do categories and lists. Please let us not make knowledge exclusive while we are striving to unify it in one single place were it is easily accessible to everyone. We're here to remove obstacles to knowledge and not to errect new ones.
> > >
> > >
> > How will you serve the people that speak Arabic, Parsi or Bangla with an
> > English reader? Please let us not make knowledge exclusive to those that
> > speak one of the major languages. We are striving to provide a resource
> > to all people, we should cherish all spoken languages and not
> > discriminate against any of them. If there are five people willing and
> > committed to write an encyclopedia, with NPOV content, cherish them
> > because to me they are the unsung heroes of our community.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > >
> > >wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 11.03.05 20:25:23:
> > >
> > >Sure, that's a way to go. But not to the detriment of the big English or
> > >French Wikipedias. Especially there could be an Indian (South Asia)
> > >Wikipedia in English. But only when the time comes that a lot of people want
> > >it.
> > >
> > >Fred
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >>From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
> > >>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > >>Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:48:28 -0500
> > >>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > >>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The role of a wikipedia for a language like Hopi
> > >>
> > >>Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
> > >>Wikipedias catering to different cultures?
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The role of a wikipedia for a language like Hopi

body:
Shh... don't say that too loudly, or we'll get a Serbian or a Croatian
or a Bosnian in here telling you how they're vastly different
languages and how you have no idea what you're talking about and all
sorts of other nationalist bull. That isn't to say there aren't
differences between the three, just that they're smaller than
nationalists would like to have you believe.

Serbian nationalist Mr Nikola Smolenski of en.wikipedia and
sr.wikipedia would like us to revise Wikipedia to have Bosnian
considered a dialect of Serbian, along with Montenegrin, both of which
are very widely considered to be separate languages and if anything
are dialects of "Serbo-Croatian" rather than "Serbian". AaMoF, he has
been somewhat successful with his POV-pushing regarding Montenegrin -
it is obvious, at least to me, when reading [[:en:Montenegrin
language]] that he had a hand in multiple revisions, but I don't dare
{{sofixit}} because I have seen him tear other users to shreds over
it, although admittedly [[User:Montenegrin]]'s contributions bordered
on POV-pushing themselves.

Mark

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 20:39:44 +0000, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Delirium wrote:
>
> > Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
> > Wikipedias catering to different cultures?
>
> Nope. Now, for your next task, you must (a) call 'bullshit' on
> the separation of the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Wikipedias
> (b) get this to stick. Good luck ;-D
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Oh - excuse me - it was Fred and Mark's posts I was thinking of.

Mark

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:53:03 -0800, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >[...] the ideas of Stan and Delirium to create different
> >Wikipedias for different cultures rather than different languages,
> >which I think is a bad idea.
> >
> Whoa whoa whoa, you've completely misinterpreted what I said. All
> I said was that language and culture are intertwined, even if you
> don't want them to be. That used to be a truism in linguistics
> back when I studied it, but that was twenty years ago and maybe
> new theories are in vogue, I don't know.
>
> Stan
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public

body:
dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote

> The people trying to determine whether Australis is a republic should get
> together with WHEELER, who has expertise in that area.

Gilbert & Sullivan had it down: the punishment should fit the crime.

Charles


from_name: Ulf Lunde

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] 8.2 articles per 1000 inhabitants for nn. Any
	better?

body:
 > the Norwegian (Nynorsk) Wikipedia takes a clear lead with over 8 articles
 > pr 1000 inhabitants.

Ummm... not quite.  As I have just mentioned in the "Hopi" thread, *Esperanto*
has an even higher ratio.

But the Esperanto wikipedia is an old one.  Nynorsk's 8.2 articles
per 1,000 speakers is pretty impressive after less than one year in
existence!

Verdlanco


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public

body:
Charles Matthews said:
> dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote
>
>> The people trying to determine whether Australis is a republic should
>> get together with WHEELER, who has expertise in that area.
>
> Gilbert & Sullivan had it down: the punishment should fit the crime.

I'm all for clapping them in irons and sending them to a country on the
other side of the world.  Oh wait...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia running nicely today, at least for me...

body:
> Yes it did, and your e-mail appears to have jinxed it already. :-(
>
> Jay.

Fear not.  I'm assured by amazon.com that Wikipedia 'usually ships within 24
hours'.

Charles


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut

body:
The "removal of content" aspect is the rub. What I'm planning to do
with the section on [[Nuclear weapon]] is to rewrite that section to
be more encyclopedic, mentioning a few *significant* cultural
additions (i.e. that [[Dr. Strangelove]] became the paradigmatic movie
and way of thinking about MAD; the way in which [[Godzilla]] became
the exemplar of "monster made huge by radiation" movies, coming out
just months after the [[Castle Bravo]] fallout incident which so
panicked the Japanese; the way in which [[The Day After]] is an
excellent example of "pathologization" of nuclear war which comes out
of the Reagan years; etc.) in a way which discourages "list making."

With any luck, if done well, nobody will realize or care that I cut
out John Travolta's [[Broken Arrow]] from the mix, and nobody will
think that adding a line about the Rush song is appropriate for the
section (without some justification of its importance, anyway).

I think these sections need to be snipped in the bud, or reformatted
into coherent lines of texts. Because once they are really list-length
(i.e. [[List of mad scientists]]) then there's not much that can be
done which doesn't seem like you are removing tons of content.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who feels this way, I was
feeling somewhat snobbish.

FF

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 07:20:31 -0500, Brian M <brian1954 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be
> deleted.   It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia
> of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV
> episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner
> of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum.  But
> when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes  a major
> problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at
> all.
>
> Your example of [[Nuclear weapons]] is perfect.   If there were a
> section on public opinion about nuclear weapons, which would be quire
> reasonable to have, and there were some movie, book, or other item of
> popular culture  that had a significant impact in influencing this
> public opinion, then the book, etc, should be mentioned, of course.
> But just a list under "in popular culture" listing movies and books
> that nuclear weapons in them, is ridiculous.    Next thing you know,
> there will be a section in the article "Nuclear Weapons In Star Wars",
> describing the use of nuclear weapons in Star Wars, and so forth.
> The article is currently missing this important aspect of nuclear
> weapons.
>
> Perhaps the "solution" is just to concede that Wikipedia is really
> just the online encyclopedia of popular culture, throw in the towel,
> and delete the 20% of so of it that is about reality.   You know
> off-topic stuff like [[Nuclear weapons]].
>
> Seriously, how does one go about deleting these sections?   Someone is
> going to insist that it is "removal of information" and , therefore,
> vandalism to remove them.
>
>
> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture"
> > heading that certain articles have, which  which become a hodgepodge
> > list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in
> > a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science
> > fiction novel.
> >
>


subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut

body:
> Or it makes WP more attractive to readers because it has information
> that can't be gotten from other sources.

Well, that's the trade-off. What's useful to whom? This is why I
suggested this had to be a judgment call and that this was not a call
for attempting an articulation of hard-and-fast policy (which I think
would be not useful). The difficulty of course is also that some
people are very vested in their "trivia" for whatever reason (see the
Charles Darwin/Abraham Lincoln same birthday debate which went on for
months).

> Robert Collison's history makes mention of a decision by Britannica
> (for the 9th edition?) to include topics like farming, metalworking,
> and so forth, not because they thought they had suddenly become
> "encyclopedic", but to try to sell EB to middle-class people that
> didn't have so much of a need for complete coverage of Marcus Atilius
> Regulus and medieval German literature. Even so, we now know that
> EB simply failed to report on great swathes of their own culture.

I have nothing against writing sensibly on popular culture impacts and
effects. I'm just against such sections being representing such
influence as a *list*. Lists are not "content" in the same sense--they
are organizational systems, and can be very useful in some situations.
But a well-written set of paragraphs about changing attitudes and
impact is going to be far more appropriate for an encyclopedia.

> Nuclear weapons are one of the areas where 20th-century geopolitics
> has impinged on the general consciousness, and popular culture
> references are a reflection of the fears they've come to engender
> in ordinary people. Not only are the references themselves
> manifestations of the artists' feelings, but the very urge to add
> the references tells you something about the fears of WP editors.
> (There's also a good argument to be made that the desire to delete
> all the cultural references is a different kind of editorial response
> to the same fears.)

Again, I'm interested in singling out the aspects which have had a
larger impact on culture or popular conception. John Travolta's
[[Broken Arrow]] doesn't seem to have done this, at least not in the
way that Stanley Kubrick's [[Dr. Strangelove]] did, or John Hersey's
[[Hiroshima]] which helped set the entire tone for our thinking about
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm somewhat uncomfortable
with creating a psychoanalytic theory of why WP editors add to these
lists (I tend to think it is just a well-meaning attempt to
contribute, rather than anything to do with the article in question),
but anyway it is somewhat irrevalent. The goal is to make a good
encyclopedia, not to satisfy the inner motivations of the
contributors, as I'm sure you'll agree. Of course this is an issue of
taste.

> So yeah, if a reference is trivial, maybe it doesn't need to be
> there, but it would be good to exercise a light touch, keeping in
> mind the breadth of our audience, and that many (probably most)
> readers will be far more interested in the culture stuff than the
> mathematical equations.

As am I, honestly. I just think there are better ways to "do" culture,
but I'll admit it takes work and some specialized knowledge to do it.
With [[Nuclear weapon]] this is not insurmountable, as there are
scholarly works on the impact of them on culture and in politics, etc.
(i.e. Spencer Weart's wonderful and highly-recommended _Nuclear fear:
A history of images_, well-written and insightful!) But with most
topics I'm sure there aren't extensive literature on their culture
impacts and it'll become more a matter of opinion, which I think is
when it gets into really problematic territory.

FF


from_name: David Carson

body:
Your post was extremely funny? Well, I thought so!

Cheers,
David... (Stormie)

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jim Cecropia
Sent: Friday, 11 March 2005 4:22 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT!

The issue is not Dr. Zen.
The issue is not WHEELER.
The issue is not 172.

The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward shutting
people up.
The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial review
or standards.
The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people
have grievances with.

My post was incendiary? Perhaps.
My post was unacceptable? In your opinion.
My post was inappropriate? I think not.

Luv, C.

----- Original Message -----
From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT!
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST)

>
>
> --- Jim Cecropia <jcecropia at mail.com> wrote:
> >
> > HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!!
>
> This posting was entirely inappropriate.
>
> Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation
> of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to
> do so.  Your posting to the mailing list is an
> unacceptable incendiary posting.
>
> RickK
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT!

body:
Wocka wocka (makes Rap noises).

TBSDY

Jim Cecropia wrote:
> The issue is not Dr. Zen.
> The issue is not WHEELER.
> The issue is not 172.
>
> The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward shutting people up.
> The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial review or standards.
> The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people have grievances with.
>
> My post was incendiary? Perhaps.
> My post was unacceptable? In your opinion.
> My post was inappropriate? I think not.
>
> Luv, C.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT!
> Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST)
>
>
>>
>>--- Jim Cecropia <jcecropia at mail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!!
>>
>>This posting was entirely inappropriate.
>>
>>Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation
>>of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to
>>do so.  Your posting to the mailing list is an
>>unacceptable incendiary posting.
>>
>>RickK


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] new vote for switching off First
	Letter Capitalization on en.wiktionary.org

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> ...speaking of which, capitalisation is a problem on Wikipedia.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_languages will give you a page
> different from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Languages or
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_Of_languages or
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIST_OF_LANGUAGES
>
> The arguement against removing capitalisation sensitivity is in my
> opinion a very weak one: the number of cases for which it serves as a
> natural disambiguation is very very small, and even in those cases
> somebody might use capitals or not use capitals and inadvertently end
> up at the wrong article.
>
> I think we need to get rid of case sensitivity once and for all.

The only argument against it is that it will require some effort to
implement and work into the existing system, and there are plenty of
bigger priorities.

We'll be in a better position to do this after the MediaWiki 1.5
release; the restructured tables will be lighter and easier to change.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] new vote for switching
	off	First	Letter	Capitalization on en.wiktionary.org

body:
Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Muke Tever wrote:
>> Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>>
>>> Who contributes simply takes the words he is "moving" (working on) off
>>> the list - the admins have enough work with deleting all the re-directs
>>> (or is there a way to do this automatically) maybe modifying the page
>>> and writing "to be deleted" instead of the re-direct?
>>
>>
>> Why delete the redirects?  You'll break all the old pages on the web
>> that link to Wiktionary articles.
>>
>> You'll have to think of other wikimedia sites too.  For example
>> en.wikipedia's "link to Wiktionary" template currently just uses{{PAGENAME}}, which will always be capitalized, because Wikipediacapitalizes all topics it treats.
>
> Hoi,
> You delete the redirects because they are plain wrong. A word that has
> has both a capitalised version and a non capitalised version will be
> split into two versions.

It is almost never useful to delete a redirect, unless you are planning on
replacing it with another page.  Even en: policy says to leave them in place
for things like common errors, last I checked.

> The usage of wikipedia's link to Wiktionary currently does indeed use
> PAGENAME, how do you know that it still refers to the correct versionof the word ?? You do not ! So it needs to be changed as PAGENAME isnot good enough.  It is feasible to change the PAGENAME to something elsefor instance a genuine parameter that is either capitalised or not. I thinkit would be feasible to have a bot check the occrurence of the old templateand change it for a capitalised or an  uncapitalised REAL parameter. So
> practically all the instances of the current template need to be changed
> anyway.

Yes, all that is what I said: such things need to be thought of.

> One other reason why you want to change the current wiktionary content
> is because you will not add redirects for all the new words that will be
> added in the future.

I stopped working on en: regularly awhile ago.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT!

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> Hmmm!  You might consider going out to buy yourself a sense of humour.

According to [[Good Humor]], 'stop me and buy one' is harder than it used to
be.

Well, I'm in a good mood - the 2005 [[Wolf Prize in Mathematics]] has gone
to [[Grigory Margulis]] and [[S. P. Novikov]], and I started both those
pages some time ago; so wiki-en is a good source for anyone who looks them
up.

Charles


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] new vote for switching
 off	First	Letter	Capitalization on en.wiktionary.org

body:
Muke Tever wrote:

> Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
>> Who contributes simply takes the words he is "moving" (working on) off
>> the list - the admins have enough work with deleting all the re-directs
>> (or is there a way to do this automatically) maybe modifying the page
>> and writing "to be deleted" instead of the re-direct?
>
>
> Why delete the redirects?  You'll break all the old pages on the web
> that link
> to Wiktionary articles.
>
> You'll have to think of other wikimedia sites too.  For example
> en.wikipedia's
> "link to Wiktionary" template currently just uses {{PAGENAME}}, which
> will always
> be capitalized, because Wikipedia capitalizes all topics it treats.
>
>
>     *Muke!

Hoi,
You delete the redirects because they are plain wrong. A word that has
has both a capitalised version and a non capitalised version will be
split into two versions. The usage of wikipedia's link to Wiktionary
currently does indeed use PAGENAME, how do you know that it still refers
to the correct version of the word ?? You do not ! So it needs to be
changed as PAGENAME is not good enough.

It is feasible to change the PAGENAME to something else for instance a
genuine parameter that is either capitalised or not. I think it would be
feasible to have a bot check the occrurence of the old template and
change it for a capitalised or an  uncapitalised REAL parameter. So
practically all the instances of the current template need to be changed
anyway.

The decision of the capitalisation on en:wiktionary has been made, now
it is necessary to plan a good conversion plan. It will hurt and it will
be a lot of work. Extra painfull is the fact that the en:wiktionary did
not agree to change the first time round because MANY new words have
been added in the mean time. I think it is better to suffer a bit and do
a good job than to do an incomplete job and not remove the pain.

One other reason why you want to change the current wiktionary content
is because you will not add redirects for all the new words that will be
added in the future.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut? On the contrary

body:
Fastfission wrote:

> I'm not against the ==In popular culture== sections if they are
> coherent sentences, narratives, etc. about the impacts and
> representatiosn in popular culture. Popular culture is important
> (though of course I worry that "popular culture" simply means "US and
> UK popular culture" but anyway that's for the CSB people to worry
> about).
> I'm against *lists* where people just hemorrage "trivia" in a
> non-interesting, non-useful function.
> Sure, a reader thought the fact that a song called "Manhattan Project"
> by the prog-rock band "Rush" was relevant and interesting. But I think
> most people would find that to be "trivia", and not very interesting
> trivia at that.

That would be ideal to shunt off to a disambig page, c.f.
[[Lilith]] vs [[Lilith (disambiguation)]].

If the present sections are currently unfinished lumps of data, then
reworking and polishing is in order, rather than removal - something
that will solve the problem forward rather than attempting to wind
it back, 'cos that trick's not going to work if so many people want
to put stuff there.

- d.


from_name: Sj

subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million

body:
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:46:19 +0100, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release?

Definitely.  I'm currently drafting one...

> Celebration? Party?

Great idea!  Shall we coordinate a global party for next Saturday?
Then we could issue the press release Saturday/Sunday.

+SJ+


body:
I've noticed this. I see that Dr Zen never got an RFC and yet an arbcom
dispute has been filed.

He was also blocked the other day and I had to unblock him. I'd like to
know if the arbcom will be dealing with one issue, or many. If it's one
issue I might suggest that they accepted this arb request to quickly.

TBSDY

Jim Cecropia wrote:
> In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity. Now it seems to be a first resort for some.
>
> Not good, however well-intentioned.
>
> --C


body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Jim Cecropia wrote:
>
>> In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity.
>> Now it seems to be a first resort for some.
>>
>> Not good, however well-intentioned.
>>
>>
> I think this observation is perceptive. Note that the problem is not
> with the Arbitration Committee itself, it's the community's use of the
> arbitration process. I'm disappointed that a number of cases in the past
> week or two have been brought with little or no indication that other
> methods of dispute resolution have been given any serious effort, or
> that such efforts are in the long-distant past. I would also be
> disappointed with the Arbitration Committee for accepting such cases,
> but they have rejected some, and in other cases I recognize that the
> arbitrators feel obligated to respond to the community, and when
> community sentiment is strongly for arbitration this is difficult to
> resist.
>
> The other dispute resolution methods (requests for comment, surveys,
> mediation) are not simply formalities to check off on the inexorable
> path to arbitration. Treating them as such is not acting in good faith.
>
> Yes, it's nice that arbitration is now working much more quickly than
> before. This doesn't mean that you get to speed through the rest of the
> process on an expedited track. Writing a great encyclopedia takes time.
> The attendant discussion and resolving of disagreements takes time too.
>
> With arbitration working more efficiently, no doubt some people feel
> that the other processes are now comparatively inefficient. Please work
> to change this. The mediation process still desperately needs more
> mediators to handle the load. Requests for comment for article disputes
> would work better if everyone seeking comment also took the time to add
> their input to someone else's request. The RfC page could also stand to
> be pruned more often and stale listings removed.
>
> Finally, I would note that the admin noticeboard is a nice idea and
> often a useful tool, but it is not part of the dispute resolution
> process. It exists for people to consider whether admins should take
> action to deal with problems, but its focus and tone are better suited
> for halting disputes (temporarily) than resolving them. Going directly
> from the noticeboard to arbitration is, in almost all cases,
> short-circuiting the process.
>
> --Michael Snow

Agreed. This was NEVER my intention when I setup the admin noticeboard.
I'm beginning to regret that I've concentrated the power of a majority
of admins and made them a might too powerful.

I say this because lately I've been acting the same way. Time for me to
pull back from admin tasks I feel.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia referenced by SANS

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:
> I received an email tonight from the SANS Institute, one of the most
> widely known authorities on matters pertaining to network security and
> provider of some of the best information on the subject of computer
> security threats available online.  The email is an invitation to a
> conference they'll be hosting.  Since it's in Colorado and costs great
> scads of money between the attendance fee and the expenses, I won't be
> going.
>
> I thought an excerpt from the email might interest this list, though.
>
> "According to Wikipedia, "spyware consists of computer software that
> gathers and reports information about a computer user without the user's
> knowledge or consent." This can encompass a wide range of different
> types of malware that perform a variety of actions on computer systems.
> Some spyware delivers advertising, while other spyware gathers user
> information without his/her knowledge. Spyware can also install modem
> dialing software and redirect users to malicious Web sites."
>
> That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference.  It seems like good
> news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to provide
> definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade.
>
> Good night.
>

That's cool :) Can you add this to [[WP:Media]]?

TBSDY


from_name: Klaus-Eduard Runnel

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Czech speakers

body:
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:53:48 +0100, Sabine Cretella
<sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Do we have a Czech speaker here?
>
> What does "Je???ek" really mean - Father Christmas?
>
> I had an edit on it. wiktionary and I am not sure if this is a vandal or
> serious edit - He added that the Czech word means "Jesus, the child"
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Ciao, Sabine

I'm not a Czech speaker, but I can assure you it was a serious edit.
In Czech Republic the one who brings presents is the little Jesus. Try
searching "Je???ek christmas" on google. The Chech word for "Jesus" is
"Je???", see http://www.slovnik.cz/.

Klaus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>> [...] the ideas of Stan and Delirium to create different
>> Wikipedias for different cultures rather than different languages,
>> which I think is a bad idea.
>
> Whoa whoa whoa, you've completely misinterpreted what I said. All
> I said was that language and culture are intertwined, even if you
> don't want them to be. That used to be a truism in linguistics
> back when I studied it, but that was twenty years ago and maybe
> new theories are in vogue, I don't know.

I think that the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis has had some severe criticism,
but I believe that it still has a role.  One still has to avoid reading
too much into it as Mark seems to have done.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: The role of a wikipedia for a language like Hopi

body:
I think we should clarify something so we don't get people's knickers
in a knot over it: what you say about the article on area not
including more than passing mention of imperial units, does /not/ mean
there could not be a separate article about them.

Would that be "eng-ch?"?

Mark

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 20:46:44 -0500, Henry Tan-Tenn
<share2002nov at lomaji.com> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen ti 2005/3/10 EP 05:22 sia-kong:
>
> > What we have to consider when we talk about our wikipedias, is that no
> > two projects have the same content. Translations exist, but the majority
> > of the articles written contain info that makes it particular to the
> > language and reflects a culture.
>
> I'd like to interpret the part about "reflecting a culture" along a
> specific line:  "reflecting the encyclopedia needs of the particular
> readership."  For example, the English article on "area" would surely
> mention the SI units but also Imperial units now outdated in many
> places.  The equivalent Southern Min article would also deal at length
> with the SI units but be less interested in Imperial units.  It might
> note, for example, the decline of their use in most Anglo-influenced
> countries and ex-colonies -- but without presenting a lengthy and
> largely irrelevant table on interconversions.  It would also mention
> which empire we are talking about when we say "the Imperial units" (the
> Mongolians?).  More to the point it would also mention other types of
> units used in Southern Min-speaking regions, notably the "kah" (used in
> Taiwan) and the "pheng" (Taiwan and some other places).  Both of these
> would be unlikely to be mentioned at all in the English article (whose
> editors are not likely to be familiar with such local units).  (Of
> course now that I have mentioned them, someone might well add them in
> English, but maybe not.)  In short we always emphasize certain facets of
> knowledge and de-emphasize others, and cultural considerations are among
> the criteria used to decide which way to go.  More radically, one might
> even argue that cultural factors limit the range of what we know we can
> emphasize or de-emphasize.
>
> One reason why the idea of "One English Encyclopedia to Rule Them All"
> (a la Tokien) is deeply flawed.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikibreak

body:
Christopher Mahan a ?crit:
> --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> And so you know, my wife is now 5.5 months pregnant, so I do know
> what I'm talking about.

Glad for you Chris :-)

Yeah, these are strange times. For my two first kids, I was not working
and spent all days just ... euh... doing what actually ? Hmmm, getting
informed by others, swimming, trying to prepare myself...
But after the birth of the second, I felt like my brain was dying from
lack of activity. Just being with other non working young moms, and with
babies who do not even talk, your brain begins to crumble, and you
wonder why on Earth you ever received an education. It is so easy to let
oneself slip. Turn one self only toward family duties, cleaning,
ironing, cooking, sleeping, chatting. Just duties. Passive activities.

These days, I work too much, I do not take enough rest. But it is
important for me to not turn entirely inside and to stick to outside
world. Not sure everyone can understand that. A balance Wikipedia helps
keeping :-)


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikibreak


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million

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

I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release?
Celebration? Party?
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subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release

body:
I've put up a draft press release to celebrate the English WP's
500,000th article here:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/March_2005

It is not quite like our previous press releases; see what you think,
edit and improve on it.
It should eventually mention the 500,000th article by name, so see if
you can spot it as it zooms by.

Here is a meta-page for translating the release (though you should
wait until the end of the weekend, say, once it has been edited a
bit):
  http://tinyurl.com/58dnq

Why translate an EN-centered press release?  For one thing, it is not
*only* an English-language press release; it is celebrating the
project as a whole.  For another, all major project announcements
should be multilingual.  For instance, I would like to see it sent to
the many spanish- and chinese-language newspapers (among others) in
the US.  Skimming through the circulation numbers in Bacon's media
directory, it is surprising to see how broad their audiences are; I
have no doubt that the bulk of their readers read English to some
extent, and could both benefit from EN: and help bridge the gap
between it and their native language-edition.

--
+sj+


subject: [Foundation-l] our resource

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

Anthere schrieb:
> Honestly...
>
> See the only pictures we have about fetus and embryos on wikicommons,
> and frankly...frankly...
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fetus
>
> No ?

You're right! Someone ought to grab a digital camera, get some pregnant
woman, tell her "hold still, it's for the commons" and fire away!

Oh, wait...

On the other hand, there's still the two-headed newborn in formaldehyde
at our university here. It looks *way* cuter than the one on commons...
(most biology/medical students here went to see that "horror cabinet",
but I fear they closed it for the public recently).

Magnus
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=+sTj
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subject: [Foundation-l] our resource


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Bug 710] Redirect to category page doesn't work

body:
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:05:35 -0600, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:54:05 +0000 (UTC),
> bugzilla-daemon at mail.wikimedia.org
> <bugzilla-daemon at mail.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=710

You should really post replies to bug reports on the bug tracker, not
by replying to the notification e-mails. Replying by e-mail will *not*
add your comment to the tracker, Bugzilla's not designed to work like
that.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Mark Williamson

references:
<4230C88F.1080107@gmail.com> <d0thl2$daf$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<849f98ed0503111758128afb1b@mail.gmail.com>
	<d0tk0m$i3i$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Many Wikipedias have articles on topics that are culturally not very relevant.

The difference I'm talking about is that while information specific to
the Avoirdupois system would be very minimal, there would be no reason
not to have an entirely separate article about imperial units,
corresponding roughly to [[:en:Imperial units]].

("eng-ch?" was a guess based on the Mandarin term)

Mark

Henry Tan-Tenn ti 2005/3/11 21:27:03 -0500 si?-k?ng:
> Mark Williamson ti 2005/3/11 EP 08:58 sia-kong:
> > I think we should clarify something so we don't get people's knickers
> > in a knot over it: what you say about the article on area not
> > including more than passing mention of imperial units, does /not/ mean
> > there could not be a separate article about them.
>
> Theoretically we could have articles on anything and everything that has
> relevance to more than a few people in the world.  But I am talking
> about actual practices:  writing readable articles that avoid being
> overly verbose, lengthy, technical, pedantic, or represented in "pure
> mathetmatics" by assuming certain base knowledge, i.e. a specific
> readership.  As far as I can see, all en: Featured Articles do so.  And
> that means leaving out certain things not of interest or relevance to
> English speakers while retaining others.  It would be a mistake to
> assume such well-written articles are necessarily universal in relevance
> or otherwise devoid of cultural assumptions as to be meaningful to other
> language speakers without all sorts of post-translation re-editing if
> not rewriting.
>
> > Would that be "eng-ch?"?
>
> I don't know.  The topic has yet to be written down (or the article spun
> off) due to its lower relevance :)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Excuse me? I am quite familiar with Sapir-Whorf.

See below:

Kim Ch?n-su (Mark Williamson) ti 11/03/2005 15:55:50 -0700 si?-k?ng:
> Oh - excuse me - it was Fred and Mark's posts I was thinking of.
>
> Mark
>
> Ti Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> 11/03/05 14:53:03 -0800 si?-k?ng:
> > Mark Williamson wrote:
> >
> > >[...] the ideas of Stan and Delirium to create different
> > >Wikipedias for different cultures rather than different languages,
> > >which I think is a bad idea.
> > >
> > Whoa whoa whoa, you've completely misinterpreted what I said. All
> > I said was that language and culture are intertwined, even if you
> > don't want them to be. That used to be a truism in linguistics
> > back when I studied it, but that was twenty years ago and maybe
> > new theories are in vogue, I don't know.
> >
> > Stan
> >
> >
>


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million

body:
Brian M wrote

> As a deletionist <snip>

Actually, is there a journalistic angle here?

Consider that there is presumably a 'tipping point' out there, where a
Blandopedia fork will be a commercial proposition.  Like a Linux
distribution, say: the CD-ROM you pay for is a definite version, someone has
taken the decisions for you, you are not filling your computer up with stuff
in which you have no interest, and for which no one takes the slightest
responsibility.

So, when will it come for WP?  Can we induce - I won't say a media feeding
frenzy - some speculation about how long?

Charles


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Ulf Lunde wrote:
>
>> I also wanted to say that I agree that gerard Meijssen's point is very
>> important: The wikipedias are indeed culture-bearers for their
>> respective populations, and not just for humanity as a whole!
>
> I disagree that this should be the case, and to the extent that it is,
> feel it should be corrected.  Languages are not culture, although they
> have connections with it.
>
Languages are not culture ?? Encyclopedias most certainly are !! Please
consider what words are used in a culture. The English used reflects the
culture the person speaking or writing comes from. The idea that you can
divorse culture from language is odd. When comparing articles on the
same topic the diffferences are sometimes huge.

> If we wanted languages to be identified with culture, then we should
> split some up, and have a "United States" wikipedia as a
> culture-bearer for the U.S., a "French Canadian" Wikipedia as a
> culture-bearer for French-Canadians, and so on.  But we don't, and to
> the extent possible keep these together.  In essence, the only reason
> we have separate Wikipedias at all is because of language
> barriers---when languages are similar enough to keep together (as with
> the French spoken in Canada vs. France vs. Algeria), we do so.
>
> Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
> Wikipedias catering to different cultures?

When we have an encyclopedia with articles that are acceptable to all
people who speak a language, we aim to achieve a neutral point of view
and provide more extended information. We want to maintain one wikipedia
bridging the divide between the cultures that use a language. Given the
virtually limitless amount of harddrive capacity we have articles on
cricket and honkbal. We are happy to host any topic that is of intrest.
What this discussion is about, is not about en: or fr: It is about Hopi.
By having a Hopi or a Dutch or a Frisian wikipedia, you allow many
topics to be narrated with a Hopi, Dutch or Frisian point of view. Not a
non-neutral but with a Hopi, Dutch or Frisian point of view. This is
good because certain things that are true from an English perspective
are plain different and non-neutral from another culture point of view.
To put it bluntly, the words mean different things, they have different
conotations denying people a resource like that is like denying that
languages differ and that languages reflect a culture.

The UN has a mother language day. This day is to celebrate the diversity
of the cultures of the world. All languages have a need for good
information, that is what wikimedia aims to provide. The argument that
the Dutch can read and write English and do not their own wikipedia is
great. It only reminds me of a recent tiff I was in, where I was accused
of not being able to express myself in English... So please allow me to
read and write in Nederlands and, I will not be asking for a wikipedia
in Westfries. :) And I do apologize for my poor English (or was it
apologise ...)

I would almost accept your point if you agree to only read French or
Chinese in future. You will find how much it will divorce you from the
culture that you live in.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia referenced by SANS

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:

>> That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference.  It seems like
>> good news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to
>> provide definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade.

> This is a great thing, because it also showcases one of our strengths:
> We're becoming an authoritative source for summaries of consensus
> opinion.  A common way of doing that is to find a few authors who have
> made statements, like "according to Foo, spyware is 'blah'; according to
> Foo2, it's 'blah2'".  Wikipedia sort of collects and summarizes those
> sorts of things for them.
> (For our good articles anyway. :-)

Our technical coverage has some gaps, but most of it is of sterling quality.
If I want to learn WTF something I've barely heard of *actually is*, I look
at Wikipedia first - a Google search tending to turn up mailing list posts
(which I look to for tech support, not introductions) and Linux HOWTOs dated
six years ago. I use and *recommend* Wikipedia for technical matters now.

- d.


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
> Wikipedias catering to different cultures?

Nope. Now, for your next task, you must (a) call 'bullshit' on
the separation of the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Wikipedias
(b) get this to stick. Good luck ;-D

- d.


from_name: Henry Tan-Tenn

body:
Gerard Meijssen ti 2005/3/10 EP 05:22 sia-kong:

> What we have to consider when we talk about our wikipedias, is that no
> two projects have the same content. Translations exist, but the majority
> of the articles written contain info that makes it particular to the
> language and reflects a culture.

I'd like to interpret the part about "reflecting a culture" along a
specific line:  "reflecting the encyclopedia needs of the particular
readership."  For example, the English article on "area" would surely
mention the SI units but also Imperial units now outdated in many
places.  The equivalent Southern Min article would also deal at length
with the SI units but be less interested in Imperial units.  It might
note, for example, the decline of their use in most Anglo-influenced
countries and ex-colonies -- but without presenting a lengthy and
largely irrelevant table on interconversions.  It would also mention
which empire we are talking about when we say "the Imperial units" (the
Mongolians?).  More to the point it would also mention other types of
units used in Southern Min-speaking regions, notably the "kah" (used in
Taiwan) and the "pheng" (Taiwan and some other places).  Both of these
would be unlikely to be mentioned at all in the English article (whose
editors are not likely to be familiar with such local units).  (Of
course now that I have mentioned them, someone might well add them in
English, but maybe not.)  In short we always emphasize certain facets of
knowledge and de-emphasize others, and cultural considerations are among
the criteria used to decide which way to go.  More radically, one might
even argue that cultural factors limit the range of what we know we can
emphasize or de-emphasize.

One reason why the idea of "One English Encyclopedia to Rule Them All"
(a la Tokien) is deeply flawed.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Half a million

body:
I think that would be a great idea. The last press release is already
about 6 months old (million of articles).

Anthere

Magnus Manske a ?crit:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release?
> Celebration? Party?
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> BCeQ1G3qegURGQC8hYZrgao=
> =tm8x
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: our resource

body:
Yup

Another option when you want to inform your older kids without scaring
the hell out of them.

Na?tre?
Lennart Nilsson, Lars Hamberger
Pr?face Ren? Frydman
Editions Hachette
25 Euros TTC.

Ahlalala :-)

Magnus Manske a ?crit:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Anthere schrieb:
>
>>Honestly...
>>
>>See the only pictures we have about fetus and embryos on wikicommons,
>>and frankly...frankly...
>>
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fetus
>>
>>No ?
>
>
> You're right! Someone ought to grab a digital camera, get some pregnant
> woman, tell her "hold still, it's for the commons" and fire away!
>
> Oh, wait...
>
> On the other hand, there's still the two-headed newborn in formaldehyde
> at our university here. It looks *way* cuter than the one on commons...
> (most biology/medical students here went to see that "horror cabinet",
> but I fear they closed it for the public recently).
>
> Magnus
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFCMezwCZKBJbEFcz0RAqMTAJ4uHdSTZDrRqtpzx9BIulTBUoszSQCggbsz
> dwf9QuGsuIXtTFcFPoPqYdY=
> =+sTj
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: our resource


body:
Mark Williamson ti 2005/3/11 EP 08:58 sia-kong:
> I think we should clarify something so we don't get people's knickers
> in a knot over it: what you say about the article on area not
> including more than passing mention of imperial units, does /not/ mean
> there could not be a separate article about them.

Theoretically we could have articles on anything and everything that has
relevance to more than a few people in the world.  But I am talking
about actual practices:  writing readable articles that avoid being
overly verbose, lengthy, technical, pedantic, or represented in "pure
mathetmatics" by assuming certain base knowledge, i.e. a specific
readership.  As far as I can see, all en: Featured Articles do so.  And
that means leaving out certain things not of interest or relevance to
English speakers while retaining others.  It would be a mistake to
assume such well-written articles are necessarily universal in relevance
or otherwise devoid of cultural assumptions as to be meaningful to other
language speakers without all sorts of post-translation re-editing if
not rewriting.

> Would that be "eng-ch?"?

I don't know.  The topic has yet to be written down (or the article spun
off) due to its lower relevance :)


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture glut

body:
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005, Charles Matthews wrote:

> J.F. de Wolff wrote
>
> > I would like to seek consensus on what kind of morbidity is worthy of
> > inclusion in articles. I would say: only if someone's morbidity has
> > *significantly* altered public perception of a disorder is this person
> > worth mentioning (e.g. [[Lou Gehrig]] and his eponymous disease; [[Stephen
> > Hawking]] would qualify for this as well). Otherwise, only the article *on
> > that person* should mention morbidity and mortality.
>
> Reasonable.  In a sense it is not so important, either way, in most cases.
> Tuberculosis: there's a case where in a sense a historical list would be of
> considerable general interest.  The problem with historical listings is of
> course that the factuality of the diagnosis can be problematic.
>
Drifting a little OT (one might think), I remember reading about an annual
exercise where the autopsy of a historical individual is reiewed -- but
with said person's identity removed. The participants are given a description
of the symptoms that lead to the death, & some amount of environmental
information. Sometimes the modern review leads to a clearly different
diagnosis than the contemporary doctors made.

The case that I best remember was that of Edgar Allan Poe, whose death
at the time was attributed to alcohol poisoning. A re-examination of the
facts in his death led to a surprisingly different diagnosis -- which
was defended by the fact the original coroner merely assumed because Poe
had a history of alcohol abuse, & showed symptoms of delirium in his last
hours that he drank himself to death.

I wish I could remember more about this official medical exercise, but it's
one of those things that I've seen written up in the local paper maybe
twice in the last 15 years, & never think to save the article. If
Wikipedia doesn't have an article about it, then someone should write
one; if Wikipedia already has one, then we should try to develop it into
a Featured Article.

Geoff


subject: [Foundation-l] Ticket#: 114592-FW]

body:
Hoi,
I received this e-mail in the Dutch OTRS and forward it for
consideration. The "daily advisor" mentioned, SanderSpek, is one of the
moderators on the Dutch Wikipedia and is well respected for his work and
his contributions. He is also a nice guy :)

I hope there is a way to make this interesting project possible, I think
that there will be a need to have the requested table with the database
that it belongs to.

I send it to the moderators of the Dutch wikipedia as well, as I am
really interested what their opinion on this one is..

Thanks,
GerardM

NB I tried to forward it from OTRS, It failed so now I am sending it
this way.

---- Doorgestuurd bericht van "Schepers Frank (Stud. SIT)"
<Frank.Schepers at Student.tUL.EDU> ----

Datum:
Van: "Schepers Frank (Stud. SIT)" <Frank.Schepers at Student.tUL.EDU>
Aan: "Wikipedia information team" <info-nl at wikimedia.org>
Cc:
Antwoord aan:
Betreft: [Ticket#: 114592-FW] RE: Bericht van bezoeker Wikip [...]

 > Frank Schepers
 > Keelstraat 5a
 > 3770 Vroenhoven ? Riemst (Belgium)
 > 0032 ? 498 ? 365280
 >
 > Hello,
 >
 > I?m a last year student Knowledge Engineering/Computer Science of the
 > faculty of General Sciences at the University of Maastricht. The subject
 > of the Master Thesis I?m working on is: ?Personalization of the
 > WikiWikiWeb?. On the Dutch Wikipedia I have an account with the nickname
 > frankschepers, but I don?t have edited articles yet. My supervisor is
 > prof. dr. Jaap van den Herik. My daily advisor will be drs. Sander Spek,
 > who is a frequent editor on the Dutch Wikipedia site and who came up
 > with the subject of this Master thesis. The thesis will contain a
 > theoretical and a practical part. In the theoretical part various
 > methods of personalization will be examined and their applicability on
 > Wiki?s.
 > In the practical part, I will make an extension for the wikimedia
 > software. This will be an article recommender system. This system will
 > display for a Wikipedian, who has a watch list, some articles that
 > aren?t on his watch list, but though are interesting for him. If it is
 > possible to create a good working recommender system, this will improve
 > the quality of the articles on Wikipedia because more interested users
 > will read/edit the article.
 > So I will evaluate if personalization can be applied in an effective way
 > on Wiki?s.
 > For this research I need a database dump of the watchlist table. This
 > table cannot be downloaded from
 > http://download.wikimedia.org/archives/nl/ because of some privacy
 > issues I suppose.
 > So my question is, if it is possible to get a database dump of the watch
 > list table.
 >
 > If you require any further information, feel free to contact me.
 >
 > Kind regards,
 >
 > Frank
 >


subject: [Foundation-l] Ticket#: 114592-FW]


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikibreak

body:
Ray Saintonge a ?crit:
> Anthere wrote:

> I at least recognize that BOTH of us had your concerns in mind.  There
> is so much in your many posts to which I would like to reply.  They are
> usually very thoughtful (even if slightly prolix).  The problem is that
> they make me think so much that I never find time to reply.  It's much
> easier to respond to an idiot by making a sarcastic comment than to give
> due reflection to thoughtful essays.  So I put your messages aside while
> I deal with the mountain of other things in the hope that I will be able
> to appreciate the diamond that is left when the heap of dung (including
> spam from non-WP sources) has been removed.  The result has been that I
> now have postings from you in my things-to-reply-to box going as far
> back as June 2003.

This comment is adorable Ec. Thanks :-)
Just as Chris concerns is. Thanks as well.

> I can only hope that the timing of your life-affirming event will not
> conflict with the proposed events of August.  Although I would not
> consider my attendance to be a certainty until I have secured the plane
> ticket, I do look forward to meeting you.

Ah, very good point.
Let's see. Normally, plane is okay till 7 months pregnancy for long
flights, even 8 for short flights. Wikimania being early august, I think
it should be okay.
Train might be more secure from a physical point of view, but on the
other hand, once one is stuck in a possibly 8 hours trip, that might be
a bit problematic. Car is not a great idea, as it prevents moving, and
tends to increase contractions.
So, I would rather say that if all goes well, I will go.

To be more specific, I will add this. In France, pregnancy leave for 3rd
child is 6 months (2 before, 4 after). To which one may quite easily add
at least 2 weeks before and 4 after. According to this, and adding
holidays leftover, I could expect to stop working early august. Just in
time !

> En "Citadelle" CCXII on trouve, "...le gendarme, ?tant n? pour cogner,
> s'?tiole s'il manque d'aliments".  J'imagine bien ton dessin de
> l'endroit que tu a visit? en Alg?rie, et des enfants qui sauront qu'un
> dessin d'un chapeau n'est pas toujours un dessin d'un chapeau.
>
> E
> c

Quand j'?tais enfant, j'ai d?vor? plusieurs fois les ouvrages de Frison
Roche, dont certains se passaient dans mon pays (Les Alpes), tels que
Premier de cord?e, la grande crevasse. Plus tard, j'ai lu ses romans
sahariens, dont les fabuleux la piste oubli?e, la montagne aux
?critures, l'appel du Hoggar... Frison Roche et St Exup?ry ont su tous
deux porter un certain regard sur ce pays.

But the country they described is only part of what I could see.

Now, one image I will never forget is this one
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image%3ATurhaya2.jpg

This is how little developped areas integrate modern life while keeping
traditions. One of this man jobs is to keep borders. To prevent certain
goods to cross borders. Such as cigarets or alcohol or weapons. Another
of his jobs is to guide people in the desert, people with alcohol and
cigarets in luggage.

Look in the background. There may be a border. Or no border.
Do you see someone ? We never saw anyone, but many saw us.

Curious no ?


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikibreak


list: commons-l

from_name: Jean-Christophe Chazalette

subject: [Commons-l] SXC poll

body:
Hello there,

Short note to make you all aware that the poll I organized on Commons about
the validity of pictures coming from the would be free site
http://www.sxc.hu/ is about to end up, see
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Stock.xchng_images/vote

This vote was based on my legal analysis of the situation (text - in
English - at the top of the page), from which I demanded people their
opinion about two issues.

1?) Can pictures from Stock.XCHNG be uploaded on Commons as long as there is
no conflicting usage restriction explicitely decided by the copyright holder
(the photographer) ?

2?) Should pictures from Stock.XCHNG not be categorized as such or listed as
such in a special page to avoid setting up a Stock.XCHNG ? gallery ? ?

The vote is over the day after tomorrow and appears to approve my analysis.
Out of loyalty, I nonetheless prefer to tell you about the whole thing
because it is not impossible that this new policy makes SCX.HU very unhappy.
My opinion is that there is nothing to fear as long as SXC's terms of use
are the way they are.

But please speak up now if you're thinking to veto the community decision or
to suspend it for a while in consideration of troubles that you might fear.
Otherwise, I'm just going to close the vote on March 13th and to enforce it
on the Commons.

Thank you :)

villy ~~JC


body:
Mark,
It is simple, this posting is about things that will happen on the
en:wiktionary. It is not an encyclopedia but a dictionary. It is not an
English dictionary only and it includes words of potentially any
language. In a dictionary you expect to find words as they should be
spelled. Having them capitalised is plain wrong. Consequently the
current methodology of linking from the en:wikipedia to the
en:wiktionary will break. So work needs to be done to correct this. We
hope we will be able to do a lot of the work by using bots.

I hope you will be giving us a helping hand in this big undertaking.
Again this has nothing to do with the capitalisation of articles on the
en:wikipedia.

Thanks in advance,
    GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:

>...speaking of which, capitalisation is a problem on Wikipedia.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_languages will give you a page
>different from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Languages or
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_Of_languages or
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIST_OF_LANGUAGES
>
>The arguement against removing capitalisation sensitivity is in my
>opinion a very weak one: the number of cases for which it serves as a
>natural disambiguation is very very small, and even in those cases
>somebody might use capitals or not use capitals and inadvertently end
>up at the wrong article.
>
>I think we need to get rid of case sensitivity once and for all.
>
>Mark
>
>On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:27:41 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Muke Tever wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Who contributes simply takes the words he is "moving" (working on) off
>>>>the list - the admins have enough work with deleting all the re-directs
>>>>(or is there a way to do this automatically) maybe modifying the page
>>>>and writing "to be deleted" instead of the re-direct?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Why delete the redirects?  You'll break all the old pages on the web
>>>that link
>>>to Wiktionary articles.
>>>
>>>You'll have to think of other wikimedia sites too.  For example
>>>en.wikipedia's
>>>"link to Wiktionary" template currently just uses {{PAGENAME}}, which
>>>will always
>>>be capitalized, because Wikipedia capitalizes all topics it treats.
>>>
>>>
>>>    *Muke!
>>>
>>>
>>Hoi,
>>You delete the redirects because they are plain wrong. A word that has
>>has both a capitalised version and a non capitalised version will be
>>split into two versions. The usage of wikipedia's link to Wiktionary
>>currently does indeed use PAGENAME, how do you know that it still refers
>>to the correct version of the word ?? You do not ! So it needs to be
>>changed as PAGENAME is not good enough.
>>
>>It is feasible to change the PAGENAME to something else for instance a
>>genuine parameter that is either capitalised or not. I think it would be
>>feasible to have a bot check the occrurence of the old template and
>>change it for a capitalised or an  uncapitalised REAL parameter. So
>>practically all the instances of the current template need to be changed
>>anyway.
>>
>>The decision of the capitalisation on en:wiktionary has been made, now
>>it is necessary to plan a good conversion plan. It will hurt and it will
>>be a lot of work. Extra painfull is the fact that the en:wiktionary did
>>not agree to change the first time round because MANY new words have
>>been added in the mean time. I think it is better to suffer a bit and do
>>a good job than to do an incomplete job and not remove the pain.
>>
>>One other reason why you want to change the current wiktionary content
>>is because you will not add redirects for all the new words that will be
>>added in the future.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>    GerardM
>>


from_name: Steven Melenchuk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Amendment to arbitration policy

body:
The November 2004 proposed amendment to arbitration policy
implemented]]. Pursuant to the new amendment section of the policy I
have created a subpage to house further proposed changes to the policy
at [[Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposals]]. I ask for your comments
and discussion on the above, but please keep it in the context of the
wiki. Thanks.

~Grunt


from_name: Boris Lohnzweiger

body:
Frankly spoken, I am totally against that idea because I think it would lead to a fragmentation of the knowledge that we are trying to collect. I couldn't think of any Indian topics that wouldn't have a place in the general English encyclopedia. The main advantage of a large encyclopedia is that is gathers knowledge from various fields (in our case, in many different languages). We shouldn't fragmentize knowledge but rather unify it in one single place. Once we'd start splitting Wikipedias into separate editions for ethnic or cultural groups, it would eventually lead to "Wikipedias for Christians", "Wikipedias for Muslims", "Wikipedias for Women", "Wikipedias for Students", "Wikipedias for Seniors" and the like, and all of them would have to be translated into 200 languages. Would that still constitute a "Free Encyclopedia" then or wouldn't it rather mean of plethora of "closed shops".

IMHO, our main advantage is that we bring together people with all different sorts of backgrounds and enable them to *cooperate*. Thus we are able to attract as much knowledge as we presently do. The exchange between people of very different origins is a unique feature of Wikipedia. Any sort of separation or segregation among Wikipedia's contributors would invariably effect the level of quality we have been able to achieve, simply because it would mean a brain-drain for the general Wikipedia.

Nevertheless certains steps in order to better serve specific communities of users can very well make sense. More than that, they would raise Wikipedia's value even more. AFAIK WikiReaders provide a very useful tool for that and so do categories and lists. Please let us not make knowledge exclusive while we are striving to unify it in one single place were it is easily accessible to everyone. We're here to remove obstacles to knowledge and not to errect new ones.

wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 11.03.05 20:25:23:

Sure, that's a way to go. But not to the detriment of the big English or
French Wikipedias. Especially there could be an Indian (South Asia)
Wikipedia in English. But only when the time comes that a lot of people want
it.

Fred

> From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:48:28 -0500
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The role of a wikipedia for a language like Hopi
>
> Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
> Wikipedias catering to different cultures?

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

__________________________________________________________
Mit WEB.DE FreePhone mit hoechster Qualitaet ab 0 Ct./Min.
weltweit telefonieren! http://freephone.web.de/?mc=021201


subject: [Commons-l] Re: SXC poll

body:
board at wikimedia.foundation doesn't work (not cool, it'everywhere on the
Foundation.org pages). So this this it again :

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jean-Christophe Chazalette" <jean-christophe.chazalette at laposte.net>
To: <board at wikimedia.foundation>
Cc: "Andre Engels" <andreengels at gmail.com>; <erik_moeller at gmx.de>;
<commons-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 10:16 PM
Subject: SXC poll

| Hello there,
|
| Short note to make you all aware that the poll I organized on Commons
about
| the validity of pictures coming from the would be free site
| http://www.sxc.hu/ is about to end up, see
| http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Stock.xchng_images/vote
|
| This vote was based on my legal analysis of the situation (text - in
| English - at the top of the page), from which I demanded people their
| opinion about two issues.
|
| 1?) Can pictures from Stock.XCHNG be uploaded on Commons as long as there
is
| no conflicting usage restriction explicitely decided by the copyright
holder
| (the photographer) ?
|
| 2?) Should pictures from Stock.XCHNG not be categorized as such or listed
as
| such in a special page to avoid setting up a Stock.XCHNG ? gallery ? ?
|
| The vote is over the day after tomorrow and appears to approve my
analysis.
| Out of loyalty, I nonetheless prefer to tell you about the whole thing
| because it is not impossible that this new policy makes SCX.HU very
unhappy.
| My opinion is that there is nothing to fear as long as SXC's terms of use
| are the way they are.
|
| But please speak up now if you're thinking to veto the community decision
or
| to suspend it for a while in consideration of troubles that you might
fear.
| Otherwise, I'm just going to close the vote on March 13th and to enforce
it
| on the Commons.
|
| Thank you :)
|
| villy ~~JC
|


body:
Boris Lohnzweiger wrote:

>Frankly spoken, I am totally against that idea because I think it would lead to a fragmentation of the knowledge that we are trying to collect. I couldn't think of any Indian topics that wouldn't have a place in the general English encyclopedia. The main advantage of a large encyclopedia is that is gathers knowledge from various fields (in our case, in many different languages). We shouldn't fragmentize knowledge but rather unify it in one single place. Once we'd start splitting Wikipedias into separate editions for ethnic or cultural groups, it would eventually lead to "Wikipedias for Christians", "Wikipedias for Muslims", "Wikipedias for Women", "Wikipedias for Students", "Wikipedias for Seniors" and the like, and all of them would have to be translated into 200 languages. Would that still constitute a "Free Encyclopedia" then or wouldn't it rather mean of plethora of "closed shops".
>
>
We are talking languages here and not "Wikipedia for Christians" or some
such. This will never happen as Wikipedia is a trademark. A wikipedia in
Hopi does not mean that the same subjects cannot be covered in any other
wikipedia therefore how does it fragment the knowledge we are trying to
collect ? Your argument against Hopi is as valid when wielded against
the English wikipedia because the French wikipedia could serve equally
well as a lingua franca.

>IMHO, our main advantage is that we bring together people with all different sorts of backgrounds and enable them to *cooperate*. Thus we are able to attract as much knowledge as we presently do. The exchange between people of very different origins is a unique feature of Wikipedia. Any sort of separation or segregation among Wikipedia's contributors would invariably effect the level of quality we have been able to achieve, simply because it would mean a brain-drain for the general Wikipedia.
>
>
The level of quality that we achieve is something that can happen in any
wikipedia and some argue that the de:wikipedia is better than the
en:wikipedia. Our stated aim is to provide our wikipedia in all
languages currently 187. We can achieve great things in all languages.
It will take time, hard work but there is nothing lost and much gained
with a wikipedia for each language that is spoken.

>Nevertheless certains steps in order to better serve specific communities of users can very well make sense. More than that, they would raise Wikipedia's value even more. AFAIK WikiReaders provide a very useful tool for that and so do categories and lists. Please let us not make knowledge exclusive while we are striving to unify it in one single place were it is easily accessible to everyone. We're here to remove obstacles to knowledge and not to errect new ones.
>
>
How will you serve the people that speak Arabic, Parsi or Bangla with an
English reader? Please let us not make knowledge exclusive to those that
speak one of the major languages. We are striving to provide a resource
to all people, we should cherish all spoken languages and not
discriminate against any of them. If there are five people willing and
committed to write an encyclopedia, with NPOV content, cherish them
because to me they are the unsung heroes of our community.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>
>wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 11.03.05 20:25:23:
>
>Sure, that's a way to go. But not to the detriment of the big English or
>French Wikipedias. Especially there could be an Indian (South Asia)
>Wikipedia in English. But only when the time comes that a lot of people want
>it.
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>>From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
>>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:48:28 -0500
>>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The role of a wikipedia for a language like Hopi
>>
>>Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
>>Wikipedias catering to different cultures?
>>
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] Retention and recruitment

body:
I agree with Stirling's thoughts below.  Recruitment and retention are
both important, perhaps even (dare I say it?) more important than how
we handle a fledling request for Hopi, and we could focus more on both
of them.

==Recruitment==
On meta, Zanimum and Spm have begun discussing a college promotion
campaign, which sounds like a wonderful idea to me:
*  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_college_promotion_campaign

We should combine this with some kind of mailing-list and
bulletin-board campaign, beginning with lists and forums which focus
on academic matters.  Be careful not to spam lists indiscriminately;
it is important to begin such campaigns by attracting serious
contributors.
*  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_online_promotion_campaign

Finally, it would be nice to coordinate a promotion campaign with a
membership drive; and a membership drive, in turn, with the promotion
of Wikimania (one of the natural benefits of being a Foundation member
might be reduced fees for attending Foundation events).

It would help to have formal specifications for what membership and
Wikimania-registration interfaces will look like (both will involve
dealing with personal information beyond anything we currently ask of
users).

If you've been working on these projects privately, or have thoughts
on how they should be set up, please edit/comment on their specs:
*   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Specs

==Retention==
It would help to find out what each contributor likes and hates about
the site, what interests them, whether they have explored some of the
other projects (as I think Sabine was noting recently, Wikipedia
itself is not as welcoming as other projects for many)

I am working on a survey that I would like to send around to users,
for fun; but also to provide a better framework for finding groups of
co-editors (to save users from filling up meta with sporadic "Lists of
Wiki[pm]edians by attribute".

What else could we do to support the spirit of fun and discovery that
comes so naturally to a bare wiki?

++ SJ

Stirling wrote:
> As well, the problems of retention and wider recruitment need to be
> dealt with now, otherwise by the time people realize there is a problem
> it will be too late


from_name: Fritz Wuehler

subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll)

body:
Hi, Recycling Troll.

Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've
done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is
not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias,
(you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's
a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies
and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you.

Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse.
If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they
control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great
"court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons.

Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml


subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut

body:
Fastfission wrote:

> The "removal of content" aspect is the rub. What I'm planning to do
> with the section on [[Nuclear weapon]] is to rewrite that section to
> be more encyclopedic, mentioning a few *significant* cultural
> additions (i.e. that [[Dr. Strangelove]] became the paradigmatic movie
> and way of thinking about MAD; the way in which [[Godzilla]] became
> the exemplar of "monster made huge by radiation" movies, coming out
> just months after the [[Castle Bravo]] fallout incident which so
> panicked the Japanese; the way in which [[The Day After]] is an
> excellent example of "pathologization" of nuclear war which comes out
> of the Reagan years; etc.) in a way which discourages "list making."

You don't ned to actually *remove* even the trivia. Write a two-para
summary for the main article, with a link ''Main article: [[Nuclear
weapons in popular culture]]'', make *that* article your essay - don't
forget the immaculate sociological references ;-) - then include a link
*there* to [[List of ...]] something. Make a section ==Nuclear weapons
in popular culture == and make its content ''See [[List of ...]]''.
Also see if categories are your friend.

That way, you get the pop culture and sociology out of the main article
where it doesn't really belong, and you have two new articles which very
self-evidently show what belongs in them.

This is more work, but produces a thoroughly elegant result ;-)

- d.


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

> Shh... don't say that too loudly, or we'll get a Serbian or a Croatian
> or a Bosnian in here telling you how they're vastly different
> languages and how you have no idea what you're talking about and all
> sorts of other nationalist bull. That isn't to say there aren't
> differences between the three, just that they're smaller than
> nationalists would like to have you believe.

I have a Srpski-speaker who calls "bullshit" on the idea, noting the
differences are on the level of 'Merkin vs British, and who I think
would happily call it "Serbo-Croato-Montenegro-Bosian" if it could all
be made to work together. Just need to get him on Wikipedia.

And I think my views on nationalist POV-pushers are well known ;-)

Really, it's nationalist splitting for no reason that's to Wikipedia's
good. But a merge would have to go down well with the contributors,
of course.

(I look forward to guerilla bands of interwikiers "translating" articles
from one to another by copy'n'paste. And machine transliteration to sr:.)

- d.


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal back ''again''

body:
The page-move vandal WoW is back again. this time as [[User: ?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:%A9&action=edit>]], an
account kept from August 2004. So clearly WoW has some "old" accounts
still registered, and regards them as throw-away accounts.

Could a developer or bureaucrat please take a look at the logs to see
where this nuisance user is coming from, to see if there's a consistent
pattern of IP addresses?

-- Neil


body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> The page-move vandal WoW is back again. this time as [[User: ?
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:%A9&action=edit>]], an
> account kept from August 2004. So clearly WoW has some "old" accounts
> still registered, and regards them as throw-away accounts.
>
> Could a developer or bureaucrat please take a look at the logs to see
> where this nuisance user is coming from, to see if there's a
> consistent pattern of IP addresses?
>
> -- Neil

They now seem to be doing abusive page moves in batches of sixty or so
at a hit. This is a major drag on admin time for multiple admins. They
appear to spend the time that the admins are cleaning up preparing their
next vandalism run, then rinse and repeat ad lib.

-- Neil


from_name: Chad Perrin

body:
Fritz Wuehler wrote:
> Hi, Recycling Troll.
>
> Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've
> done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is
> not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias,
> (you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's
> a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies
> and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you.
>
> Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse.
> If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they
> control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great
> "court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons.
>
> Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml
>

Am I the only person this joker has started emailing off-list with
indictments of my flippant quips about his emails?

--
Chad
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:  NPOV

body:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend
on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing
points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language
editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because
"readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their
reality."

    http://www.btimes.co.za/97/0406/tech/tech6.htm


from_name: Sj

subject: [Wikipedia-l] IBM "history flow" study and Wikipedia

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> Has there been contact with IBM about the possibility to use their
> work? For example, I think it would be interesting to create these
> diagrams for a large number of Wikipedia pages, and make those
> available.

SJ wrote:
| Yes.  Two weeks ago, I visited the group that did the history flow
| study, and spent a couple of hours talking to Martin Wattenberg about
| their interest in wikis and some of their ongoing projects.

To continue: they have packaged up a history flow tool that they are
planning to release soon for anyone to use.   (Sadly, the code won't
be open source.)  That should help people extract statistics from
MediaWiki databases, and generate their own images, like the one Jack
was hoping to get permission to add to WP.

They like the idea of people building useful tools on top of this.
For instance, something which uses their sentence-by-sentence diff
engine to estimate how old each sentence of an article is, or what %
of the article was contributed by each user in its history.   I think
it would be fun to work out a way to generate weekly stats with such a
tool; even if it had to be done on an off-site machine from the latest
dump.

--SJ++

PS - Jack, I sent another request about that history image; we'll see
if there's any response.


from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:  NPOV

body:
Message: 11
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 20:29:05 +0100
From: Gerard Meijssen
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The role of a wikipedia for a language like
Hopi
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <4231F181.60408 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Delirium wrote:

> Ulf Lunde wrote:
>
>> I also wanted to say that I agree that gerard Meijssen's point is very
>> important: The wikipedias are indeed culture-bearers for their
>> respective populations, and not just for humanity as a whole!
>
> I disagree that this should be the case, and to the extent that it is,
> feel it should be corrected. Languages are not culture, although they
> have connections with it.
>
Languages are not culture ?? Encyclopedias most certainly are !! Please
consider what words are used in a culture. The English used reflects the
culture the person speaking or writing comes from. The idea that you can
divorse culture from language is odd. When comparing articles on the
same topic the diffferences are sometimes huge.

> If we wanted languages to be identified with culture, then we should
> split some up, and have a "United States" wikipedia as a
> culture-bearer for the U.S., a "French Canadian" Wikipedia as a
> culture-bearer for French-Canadians, and so on. But we don't, and to
> the extent possible keep these together. In essence, the only reason
> we have separate Wikipedias at all is because of language
> barriers---when languages are similar enough to keep together (as with
> the French spoken in Canada vs. France vs. Algeria), we do so.
>
> Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate
> Wikipedias catering to different cultures?

When we have an encyclopedia with articles that are acceptable to all
people who speak a language, we aim to achieve a neutral point of view
and provide more extended information. We want to maintain one wikipedia
bridging the divide between the cultures that use a language. Given the
virtually limitless amount of harddrive capacity we have articles on
cricket and honkbal. We are happy to host any topic that is of intrest.
What this discussion is about, is not about en: or fr: It is about Hopi.
By having a Hopi or a Dutch or a Frisian wikipedia, you allow many
topics to be narrated with a Hopi, Dutch or Frisian point of view. Not a
non-neutral but with a Hopi, Dutch or Frisian point of view. This is
good because certain things that are true from an English perspective
are plain different and non-neutral from another culture point of view.
To put it bluntly, the words mean different things, they have different
conotations denying people a resource like that is like denying that
languages differ and that languages reflect a culture.

The UN has a mother language day. This day is to celebrate the diversity
of the cultures of the world. All languages have a need for good
information, that is what wikimedia aims to provide. The argument that
the Dutch can read and write English and do not their own wikipedia is
great. It only reminds me of a recent tiff I was in, where I was accused
of not being able to express myself in English... So please allow me to
read and write in Nederlands and, I will not be asking for a wikipedia
in Westfries. :) And I do apologize for my poor English (or was it
apologise ...)

I would almost accept your point if you agree to only read French or
Chinese in future. You will find how much it will divorce you from the
culture that you live in.

Thanks,
GerardM

I agree with Gerard here.  I believe scn.wiki serves to explore certain topics from a Sicilian perspective.  Why?  Rely on the English wikipedia to be NPOV about matters relevant to Sicily?  Yeh, right!  Do that and you may be excused for thinking that Frederick II never set foot in Sicily and was entirely uninfluenced by his education and upbringing in Palermo (in fact he was educated in Rome according to en.wiki!! the discussion page even questions whether he could possibly have spoken 9 languages - but if they knew anything about medieval Sicily, they would not bother asking the question); that the Sicilian language pretty much stopped developing during the Saracen epoch (with Norman French, Catalan and Spanish, after many paragraphs, being mentioned briefly in one closing line as "influences");  that "Trinacria" may not have come to exist as the Greek name for the island because of the triangular shape of the island - surely this can't be so because it predates proper
 cartographic technology, i.e. if the English, Americans, or North Europeans didn't do it first - as if a bunch of southern Europeans could have managed it!

NPOV?  Please, spare me.

pippu d'angelo

---------------------------------
Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger E' molto pi? divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica
 Scaricalo ora!


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:  NPOV

body:
I think in the end the people of the world will want both. We can choose to
serve that want or not. NPOV can function in both environments but can
subtly change in different cultures.

Fred

> From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re:  NPOV
>
> Jack Lutz wrote:
>
>> On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend
>> on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing
>> points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language
>> editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because
>> "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their
>> reality."
>>
>>
> This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased
> encyclopedias that will be more locally popular".  If the Serbian
> Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to
> regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the
> Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing
> NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such
> information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr,
> de, ...) for it.
>
> I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral
> information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:

body:
Fastfission stated for the record:

> Haha,  SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN...
>
> FF

I am so envious ... you got your very own cussing out from Sollog!  Well
done, FF!

> You jesus christing moron!

English: the language in which any noun can be verbed.

--
  Sean Barrett     | I came, I saw, I did what I had
  sean at epoptic.com | to do and got the hell out.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll)

references:
<200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com>
	<d0qks0$ifv$1@sea.gmane.org> <4232B48F.5070508@gmail.com>

body:
> If they want to vandalise Wikipedia, we'll vandalise them.
>
> Let's register at the WikipediaSucks forum! Yeah! Vandalise the place!
>
> ~~~~

That would be childish. Anyway I can't be bothered to set up a proxy

--
geni


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Late checkin on 1.4 branch

body:
I made a late checkin on the 1.4 branch today.

The problem was with Hooks.php, the event-handling mechanism for
optional functionality and third-party extensions. wfRunHooks(), the
interface for mainline code to raise events for hooks to handle, was
using PHP's variable-argument syntax so you could give different
parameter sets to different events:

    wfRunHooks('Event1', $param1, $param2, $param3); # three params
    wfRunHooks('Event2', $param4, $param5); # just two params

The problem with this is that the var args syntax silently changes
pass-by-reference semantics to pass-by-value semantics. So events that
should allow modifying parameters do not. For example:

    $wgEventHooks['Event3'][] = 'MyEvent3Handler';
    # ...
    function MyEvent3Handler(&$str) {
        $str .= " and so on.";
        return true;
	}
    # ...
    $somestring = "Eggs, bananas, bacon";
    # NOTE: OLD CALLING FORMAT
    if (wfRunHooks('Event3', &$somestring)) {
        echo $somestring; # prints "Eggs, bananas, bacon"
    }

After some consulting with PHP gurus, the best solution I could come up
with was to pack the params in an array when passing them to
wfRunHooks(). Now the last few lines are:

    if (wfRunHooks('Event3', array(&$somestring))) {
        echo $somestring; # prints "Eggs, bananas, bacon and so on."
    }

Adding a reference to an array keeps its "reference-ness".

I wanted to make sure that the hooks technology was at least worth
experimenting with in the 1.4 branch, and that the interface (from both
sides) was relatively stable. Hooks need to be able to modify their
parameters to be useful, so I made these changes.

I've done pretty extensive testing of all the points in 1.4 where
wfRunHooks() is called, and it seems to be stable.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou
evan at bad.dynu.ca


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:  NPOV

body:
Jack Lutz wrote:

>On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend
>on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing
>points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language
>editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because
>"readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their
>reality."
>
>
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased
encyclopedias that will be more locally popular".  If the Serbian
Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to
regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the
Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing
NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such
information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr,
de, ...) for it.

I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral
information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.

-Mark


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

> Fastfission stated for the record:
>
>> Haha,  SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN...
>>
>> FF
>
> I am so envious ... you got your very own cussing out from Sollog!
> Well done, FF!
>
>> You jesus christing moron!
>
> English: the language in which any noun can be verbed.

I would probably object if someone sought to include "christing" in
Wiktionary. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:

body:
Ray Saintonge stated for the record:

>>> You jesus christing moron!
>>
>>
>> English: the language in which any noun can be verbed.
>
>
> I would probably object if someone sought to include "christing" in
> Wiktionary. :-)

Would objections of that sort be eclecticologifications?

--
  Sean Barrett     | I came, I saw, I did what I had
  sean at epoptic.com | to do and got the hell out.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

> Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
>
>>>> You jesus christing moron!
>>>
>>> English: the language in which any noun can be verbed.
>>
>> I would probably object if someone sought to include "christing" in
>> Wiktionary. :-)
>
> Would objections of that sort be eclecticologifications?

You do me praise to suggest that my chosen pseudonym should also become
an eponym.  Modesty would demand that such an honour be relegated to the
list of protologisms.

Ec