from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 6/25/05, DF <dragons_flight at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So what now?
>
> Either we need to accept that such a list, though
> potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern
> to keep around.

OR

We could just realize that we are removing the list already... A
couple of entries at a time. :)

This isn't in the main namespace so it's not directly a part of our
encyclopedia and it is not permanent since we are already removing it.

I am in favor of strict copyvio rules on the content in our articles,
our work needs to be unquestionably free and it's not acceptable to
taint our work with 'maybe' material. I'd always favor removing the
questionable since we have the resources to recreate almost
anything...

However, I do not believe it is as important to be as aggressive with
meta content. A violation outside of the main namespace, in our work
groups, and on our talk pages would need to be fixed if we found one,
but since the production of that material is not our primary concern
we have little to worry about taint from potentially illegally used
material.  If we discover that something in one of those namespaces is
clearly infringing, of course we should remove it but there usually
isn't as much need to be aggressive in removing potentially violating
material.

So, I think that we can answer this question without a strong
determination as to the copyvio status of the page... We should not
take action because the problem is solving itself.


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: sulev Iva

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 4 new Wikipedias have just been created

body:
Hi all!

V?rokeeline Vikipeedi? is created! It is a great news for V?ros and for all Finno-Ugrian world!
Wikipedia in our mother tongue is a great gift for V?ros on St. John day - our most important summer holiday.
I think it is a very promising fact also for other regional and minority languages.
Thousands thanks to all who supported and helped to create V?ro Wikipedia (Angela, Mark, Tim, etc)!
Congratulations to Scots, Cebuano and Kapampangan speakers for their own Wikis!

J?v? Sull?v / Sulev Iva

22.06.05 14:20:14, "Wouter Steenbeek" <musiqolog at hotmail.com> kirot':

>Hi all,
>
>I would like to announce that 4 new Wikipedias have just been created
>by Tim Starling (thanks!)
>
>They are:
>http://pam.wikipedia.org/ Kapampangan Wikipedia
>http://ceb.wikipedia.org/ Cebuano Wikipedia
>http://sco.wikipedia.org/ Scots Wikipedia
>http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org/ V?ro Wikipedia
>>
>>I also hope that in the near future we may add additional Philippines
>>languages to our repertoire (many have millions of speakers, for
>>example Illocano, Bicolano, Hilgaynon, Samaran, Pangasinan...)
>>
>THANK GOD! FINALLY IT PROCEEDED! Man, this is encouraging! I'll drink one on
>this happy event tonight!
>
>Wouter
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Nooit ongewenste berichten ontvangen: gebruik MSN Messenger
>http://messenger.msn.nl/
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List

body:
DF wrote:
>
> there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a
> copyright in the list of articles itself.

I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a
response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just
ask them if they're okay with it?


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform

body:
On 6/25/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is still a solution desperately in search of a problem. We have
> one incident in recent times where this *did* occur, and the admin
> involved was very quickly desysopped by consensus to protect the
> content they were deleting, in the similar manner to the way Mr.
> Treason was hardbanned by general agreement. If, god forbid, such an
> incident occurred again, it could very easily be dealt with by the
> same measures. And if it is not that urgent, then it hurts none to go
> through due process.

Maybe that part of the proposal is not necessary. Your thoughts on the
rest of the proposal are welcome. :)

I have rephrased and summarised some of the arguments I have made:
 --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Adminship_reform

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
http://talrias.net/


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Fulfulde Wikipedia [was:Request for a Wikipedia
	in Cebuano]

body:
Guaka wrote:
>
> I still need the "rounded" Y if you know what
> I mean?

? U+01B3 Ƴ
? U+01B4 ƴ

> And the 'ng', a rounded n

? U+014A Ŋ
? U+014B ŋ


body:
On 6/25/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead?
> Given their regular habit of bad-mouthing us in the press, I'm not keen
> on handing them an opportunity they can spin into "Look, Wikipedia is
> blatantly copying all of our articles." With Brockhaus, where we have
> established contacts and a more amicable relationship, I might view it
> differently.

Then we point out that we asked and that they hadn't answered... we
point out that they certainly keep such lists of their competitors
internally and because of our differing development model that this
list is out nearest equivalent. We'd survive, and the press would
likely do us good.

If someone wanted to make a fuss about copyright for us there are much
better examples... There is a lot of copyvio media still on wikipedia,
and some of our editors pretty clearly disrespect copyright.
Fortunately we're cleaning up the media ... but it takes time.


list: textbook-l

from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks Newsletter No. 1

body:
> *Think Tank & Issues of Debate*
> '''How should the textbook hierarchy be organized?''' With slashes,
> colons,
> dashes ? "Wikibooks founder" Karl Wick suggests slashes, as the site
> automatically recognizes slashes as indicators of page structure,
> and now
> has software enabled that creates automatic links on daughter pages to
> parent pages (see New Developments).

This issue can be discussed at [[Wikibooks:Hierarchy naming scheme]]
(Coming soon: [[WB:HNS]] shortcut) or [[Wikibooks:Naming conventions]].

Personally, I'm in favor of slashes for tree-like or linear
structures, but colons for more general graph-like structures.

Someone should also spearhead the movement for making any
nonconformant book conform to whatever naming convention is agreed
upon, as well as a movement for transwikiing/deletion of foreign-
language pages (of which many remain).


list: wikitech-l

from_name: David A. Desrosiers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Webservices API

body:
> Something as simple as requiring a "user agent" string might be
> enough?

	No, see below..

> A misbehaving application will come in through many ip numbers.

	And a forged user agent will be easy to bounce through Tor +
privoxy or similar mechanisms to "anonymize" the requests. You can't
block all of the IPs (well, you could block the Tor nodes in that
case, but someone will find dozens of ways around that too, by
chaining proxies together).

David A. Desrosiers
desrod at gnu-designs.com
http://gnu-designs.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness

body:
On 6/25/05, Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com> wrote:
> G'day all,
>
> Currently the colour of the normal link and the visited link are
> indistinguishable to the colourblind. This is a problem across all the
> sites we have. Sure this isnt really important, but are then any web
> designers who have faced this problem before who could suggest colours
> which could be distinguished by most colourblind ppl (since most
> colourblind ppl arent completely colourblind, just red-green
> colourblind). Apparently about 10 percent of ppl are colourblind

I thought that these were defined in browser preferences? Also,
color-blind people could change the setting in their monobook.css file
I believe.


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness


from_name: Rebecca

body:
On 6/25/05, Chris Jenkinson <talrias at gmail.com> wrote:
> An obvious flaw, so far, with this system, is that a potential
> malicious user can go through the adminee period, get nominated
> without a hitch, and then cause trouble. This is why a deadminship
> procedure would need to be created - abuses of power should /not/ be
> tolerated. Currently there are irrevocable actions admins can take -
> these must either be fixed in code, or more appropriately, it made
> absolutely clear that anyone who takes malicious actions as an admin
> will face severe disciplinary action.

This is the case now. We've had three admins face disciplinary action
over admin abuses before, all leading to de-sysopping, and more
recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting
rampage. This sort of thing is specifically what the arbitration
committee is for. There is no need to create an additional lynch mob
so that a handful of users can settle scores with people who - they
freely admit - have done nothing wrong, but they just don't like.

-- ambi


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Why do we have them??

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have a question: why do we have separate Wikipedias for Malay and Indonesian?

I've often asked the same question, this is my personal favourite
linguistic hobby horse. Presumably any merge would have to occur with
much input and help from the editor communities on each wiki, and I'm
yet to make contact with any of them. They don't seem to be too
concerned about the issue themselves, judging by the fact that none of
them has brought a merge proposal to the Board, the developers or this
list.

James R. Johnson wrote:
> Not to start up another argument (I remember the last ones), but this sounds
> like the same thing betweek Bokmal and Nynorsk.

In Bokm?l and Nyorsk are said to be barely mutually intelligible. The
distinction between Indonesian and Malaysian was only made in 1945, both
national languages are based on the standardised trading language. Even
since 1945 there has been standardisation of the written language with
cooperation from both countries, particularly the EYD spelling reform.

I think we can put the blame on our use of language code lists which are
biased towards political rather than linguistic divisions.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)

body:
As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum.

Stellingwarfs and Middel-pommersch are surely not mutually
intelligible, but Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.

You are foolishly dividing Platt by nations. This is illogical. If we
had an Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely
understand it and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the
Netherlands and Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany.

The problem of dialect continuum is a very difficult one.

HOWEVER, given the community reaction to a request for a Baseldytsch
Wikipedia, I think the same is logical for a request for a "Dutch Low
Saxon" Wikipedia -- your language may be different to whatever degree
than what many people on X Wikipedia use, but there is no rule
forbidding its use. There is no rule against writing pages and pages
and pages of content on nds.wiki in Stellingwarfs or Achterhooks. When
I suggested doing this, I got a cold response that Dutch Low Saxon and
German Low Saxon aren't mutually intelligible. Before whinging to us
about that, can you at least actually try to use your dialect on
nds.wiki to prove to us that it really doesn't work?

Mark

On 25/06/05, Servien Ilaino <nl2b at europe.com> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I'd like to request for a Wikipedia in Dutch-Low Saxon (?1.8 million
> speakers). There is currently a Low Saxon one but 95% of it is in
> German-Low Saxon and quite ununderstandable for Dutch-Low Saxon speakers.
>
> We already have the minimum number of interested persons who will work on
> the Dutch-Low Saxon Wikipedia encyclopedia. (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Dutch-Low_Saxon)
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Servien Ilaino
> (I'm just new here)
>
> --
> ___________________________________________________________
> Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
> http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines?

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>However, I do in general disagree that policy (or at least guideline)
>couldn't be bypassed when it is for the best for the encyclopdia as a whole.
>That should be our target, not slaveishly following guidelines for their own
>sake.
>
Oh, I agree with that, especially for guidelines. However, in this
particular case I figured "there must be something wrong with this" back
when I first stumbled across the category and only later when it turned
into a debate did I go around and find the specific guidelines that I
felt applied here. Even if there were no guidelines on this subject I'd
still be arguing that this isn't IMO an appropriate category to have in
the main category network.


from_name: Alphax

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Better then Netscape :)

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

Milos Rancic wrote:
> On alexa.com, Wikipedia passed Netscape:
>
> http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=large&compare_sites=netscape.com&y=r&url=http://www.wikipedia.org
>

Also check the 3 year analysis:

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=640&h=480&r=3y&u=wikipedia.org&u=netscape.com

and compare with Sourceforge:

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=640&h=480&r=3y&u=wikipedia.org&u=sourceforge.net

The straight Wikipedia stats are pretty interesting too:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=wikipedia.org

Although if a lot of our editors installed the Alexa toolbar, the page
views per user would increase quite a lot... :)

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCvQIs/RxM5Ph0xhMRAmgvAJ9BpAKOfitCMonIWYsi0VMYGdPckgCdGRe7
AR0AYPn4qDih0ze85QBrOUY=
=OKfq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines?

body:
Timwi wrote:

> If you need a helping hand, I'll help, because I agree with you. By
> letting Calsicol revert you and by walking away from it, you are
> letting them win. :)

That's okay, I'm not walking away in "defeat." I'm a patient editor, I
was planning to come back to the issue in a couple of months and try
again in the hopes that more of those who were dead-set against my
opinion had lost interest or changed their minds. I don't want to turn
this into a revert war, especially when there are much more productive
and important issues to deal with first.

Does anyone know where I can find a list of new features that MediaWiki
1.5 will have? If there's something in there that would allow for whole
category trees to be viewed, that might be enough to satisfy those who
argue that adding category tags to talk pages or to a manually-updated
list page is too much work (as opposed to the hundreds of reverts that
had to be done to undo my attempt to change this to a talk-page
category, which apparently _weren't_ too much work to do manually :).


body:
On 6/25/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead?
> Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond.

Only if we presume the material is copyvio... So far the only people
in our community who have any authority at all on the matter who have
responded can not agree.

I'd suggest that it be moved into another wiki to escape the debate,
but there is a huge technical reason to have it in wikipedia...
Redlinks.


body:
I will say it again: "Before whinging to us about that, can you at
least actually try to use your dialect on nds.wiki to prove to us that
it really doesn't work?"

Mark

On 25/06/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum.
> >
> >Stellingwarfs and Middel-pommersch are surely not mutually
> >intelligible, but Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.
> >
> >You are foolishly dividing Platt by nations. This is illogical. If we
> >had an Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely
> >understand it and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the
> >Netherlands and Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany.
> >
> >The problem of dialect continuum is a very difficult one.
> >
> >HOWEVER, given the community reaction to a request for a Baseldytsch
> >Wikipedia, I think the same is logical for a request for a "Dutch Low
> >Saxon" Wikipedia -- your language may be different to whatever degree
> >than what many people on X Wikipedia use, but there is no rule
> >forbidding its use. There is no rule against writing pages and pages
> >and pages of content on nds.wiki in Stellingwarfs or Achterhooks. When
> >I suggested doing this, I got a cold response that Dutch Low Saxon and
> >German Low Saxon aren't mutually intelligible. Before whinging to us
> >about that, can you at least actually try to use your dialect on
> >nds.wiki to prove to us that it really doesn't work?
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >
> >
> Mark here we go again. It has plenty of support and someone reacted to
> your arguments. You do not speak it. So how can you judge?
>
> Walter/Waerth
>

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] For those with fear of Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
M se toujou pa s?ten d ou ide. M panse ki anpil moun se dak?. Menm
estrikti d Ouikip?di kapab chanje k?k enpe byenke sa se deja yon "fait
accompli", donk m espere ki UW se d menm ki branlan.

Je suis toujours incertain de vos id?es. Je pense que la plupart des
personnes sont d'accord. M?me la structure de Wikipedia peut ?tre
chang?e quelque peu bien que ce soit d?j? un "fait accompli", donc
j'esp?rerais qu'UW est de m?me que flexible.

Mark

On 25/06/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
> > According to GerardM today on IRC it is already a fait accompli that
> > wiktionary will be replaced by ultimate wiktionary.
> >
> > Waerth/Walter
>
> Hoi,
> It is a pity that Waerth does not do justice to what I said. What I said
> was that this is the time when people should discuss the functionality
> of what the Ultimate Wiktionary will become. People that wait until the
> implementation is there will find a fait accompli. This is a message
> that I have been saying for quite some time so there is nothing special
> about it. As to UW replacing the Wiktionaries, I have said and I say so
> again, it is up to the people and the communities to do what they want.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 6/25/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> DF wrote:
> >
> > there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a
> > copyright in the list of articles itself.
>
> I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a
> response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just
> ask them if they're okay with it?
>
I was about to ask the same thing in my post, but I somehow forgot.


from_name: RA Giri

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Why do we have them??

body:
Well, the reason why we have separate Indonesian Malay
and Malaysian Malay wikipedias is the fact that these
languages are quite distinct although both are
perfectly mutually intelligible. This may sounds
paradoxal but it is a fact.

I have to say that the differences between these two
languages are mostly on the level of vocabulary. This
is due to the different histories of the two
languages. Indonesian Malay has been heavily
influenced by Dutch, Javanese and Sanskrit. While on
the other hand Malaysian Malay has been heavily
influenced by English and Arabic.

So this fact can lead to a great difference between
the two languages.

I must admit that some kind of concensus can be
reached  but I don't think the Indonesian speaking
community is willing to merge with the Malaysian
speaking community and vice versa. For example, the
Indonesian language interface for Wikipedia is based
on the Malaysian language interface. And I got many
complaints from Indonesian speakers.

Although similar to the situation between the
difference of American English and Commonwealth
English, it is also different. Unlike Americans or
British who have been regularly exposed to each other
languages, the same cannot be said of Malaysians and
Indonesians. In fact it was forbidden for a long time
to import (some) books from Malaysia in Indonesia and
vice versa. So it is also politically charged. This
may also clarify the fact why we have separate
Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian wikipedias.

Meursault2004 alias Revo Arka Giri S. a sysop on the
Indonesian and Malay wikipedias.

--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Tim Starling wrote:
>
> >Mark Williamson wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hi all,
> >>I have a question: why do we have separate
> Wikipedias for Malay and Indonesian?
> >>
> >>
> >I've often asked the same question, this is my
> personal favourite
> >linguistic hobby horse. Presumably any merge would
> have to occur with
> >much input and help from the editor communities on
> each wiki, and I'm
> >yet to make contact with any of them. They don't
> seem to be too
> >concerned about the issue themselves, judging by
> the fact that none of
> >them has brought a merge proposal to the Board, the
> developers or this
> >list.
> >
> >
> Is there anybody who happens to participate in both
> communities? If so,
> they might be best placed to explain the situation.
>
> --Michael Snow
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com


from_name: David Benbennick

body:
On 6/25/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> and more
> recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting
> rampage.

I'm curious, who was the user?  (The de-sysopping doesn't appear in
the Bureaucrat log.)  I'd like to look up how long the de-sysopping
took, and what was deleted.

[[User:Dbenbenn]]


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do?

body:
You don't want to be in a revert war with a pack of POV editors, but
they still need to cite references and present all sides of a
question. If they won't, don't try to fight it out at the article,
but simply insist on dispute resolution. Hopefully the Arbitration
Committee, with your help, can get to the bottom of what is happening.

Fred

On Jun 25, 2005, at 6:56 PM, Jack Lynch wrote:

> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and
> where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single
> user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic,
> chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along?
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)
>
> On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If all attempts at discussion fail, you can always try dispute
>> resolution.
>>
>> --Mgm
>>
>> On 6/23/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>>
>>> For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the some
>>> people are and where they say these things. If the sources for both
>>> views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the real
>>> source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more troublesome.
>>>
>>> Fred
>>>
>>> On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Let's say that:
>>>>
>>>> There is an article about a relatively controversial subject
>>>> that, for
>>>> some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars.
>>>> Maybe the
>>>> subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no
>>>> one has
>>>> actually written much about it- until now.
>>>>
>>>> There are two people editing this article. You get involved a
>>>> bit, and
>>>> try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one
>>>> side
>>>> immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a
>>>> version that says "some people say this, some people say that"
>>>> but it
>>>> is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to
>>>> understand
>>>> what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and
>>>> argumentative,
>>>> more concerned with being right than with what is logical and
>>>> not. The
>>>> subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder
>>>> than
>>>> the other; maybe not.
>>>>
>>>> You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere.
>>>>
>>>> What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them
>>>> fight? But
>>>> then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever
>>>> problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these
>>>> people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is
>>>> the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad
>>>> that the article gets locked?
>>>>
>>>> /Habj
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
(forwarded to Reinhart (Ron) Hahn to get his opinion)

[Some basic background on the issue for Ron: As you know there is
already a Low Saxon Wikipedia. Somebody just requested a "Dutch Low
Saxon" Wikipedia, complaining that nds.wiki is in "German Low Saxon".
I expressed a few concerns, not least among them that in a case of a
dialect continuum, it will be difficult for us to decide where to draw
lines between varieties, and which varieties should get their own
Wikipedias.]

Concerns that nobody has responded to yet:

* As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum. Stellingwarfs and
Middel-pommersch are surely not easily mutually intelligible, but
Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.

* Dividing Platt along national boundaries is illogical. If we had an
Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely understand it
and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the Netherlands and
Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany. There are no definite borders between
one and the next, and the national border is just as arbitrary as any.

This would also mean that a man from the tiny village of Laar (in
Germany) would use a different Wikipedia than a man from the tiny
village of Gramsbergen (in the Netherlands), even though they're about
4km (~2.5mi) apart and their speech is identical. Does this make much
sense?

* A case of a dialect continuum is a very new thing for us. We have no
experience with it so far, or we have crammed them all into a single
Wikipedia.

Mark


from_name: Sj

subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness

body:
I agree that our default link coloring could be improved.  We could
make better use of  brighter shades of reds, blues, and oranges.  Some
other sites use green to further distinguish links b/t red and blue;
though of course this would have less of an effect for people with g/r
colorblindness.

At the very least, providing clean preferences for setting link colors
-- offering a few discrete palettes rather than requiring people to
futz with their CSS settings (and figure out how to do that) -- would
be a simple change.

As to accessibility in general, I agree with rose that it is time for
some groups to focus on usability and accessibility of the site.  In
addition to tools like Bobby, the National Center for Accessible Media
[2] has some excellent references on making media, scientific works,
and other educational materials accessible.

[1] http://www.watchfire.com/products/desktop/bobby/default.aspx
[2]  http://ncam.wgbh.org/ebooks/

On 6/25/05, rose.parks at att.net <rose.parks at att.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> I don't agree with this remark in any way. I think that the "accessibility" of our site is quite important. By Section 508 of our accessibility laws, the U.S. government is not allowed to use non-accessible computer software, applications, etc. Further, I believe it is morally right that our site be accessible.
>      If anything, I think it is time to review our site for accessibility. What could Jimbo mean by his oft-quoted statement:
>
> Wikipedia is described by its founder Jimmy Wales as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#endnote_WalesGoal)
>
> if our site is not available to the millions of disabled in the U.S., not to mention the world.
> The W3 has complete guidelines on accessibility for web site designers to implement:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
>
>                      As Ever,
>
>                           Ruth Ifcher
> --
>
>
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com>
> > G'day all,
> >
> > Currently the colour of the normal link and the visited link are
> > indistinguishable to the colourblind. This is a problem across all the
> > sites we have. Sure this isnt really important, but are then any web
> > designers who have faced this problem before who could suggest colours
> > which could be distinguished by most colourblind ppl (since most
> > colourblind ppl arent completely colourblind, just red-green
> > colourblind). Apparently about 10 percent of ppl are colourblind
> >
> > paz y amor,
> > -rjs.
> >
> > --
> > hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
> > jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
> >
> > upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>

+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness


body:
Please read what I wrote, and respond to that, instead of just telling
me over and over that my opinion doesn't count.

Mark

On 25/06/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>  Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>  I will say it again: "Before whinging to us about that, can you at
> least actually try to use your dialect on nds.wiki to prove to us that
> it really doesn't work?"
>
> Mark
>
>
>  There is two people from NDS both admins there supporting the creation of
> NDS-NL they are:
>  Slomox and HeikoEvermann. They are native speakers of the dialects
> involved. You are most definately not. Read their arguments. Apart from that
> there is a minimum of 5 for and if you count Slomox 6.
>
>  You really want me to hustle up more support? I can do that if you want. It
> says 5 in support. Those are the rules. May I also point out that
> nl.wikipedia is doing quite well so is li.wikipedia and fy.wikipedia. So a
> wikipedia in another language in the Netherlands area might just do very
> well.
>
>  And on another point Papiamentu and Surinamese have also reached support of
> more than 5 people.
>
>  Here are the arguments in favour of NDS-NL by native speakers (Which Node
> most obviously is not)
>
>  Lowlands-l does not help here. After some discussions we have decided to
> use the German based spelling according to SASS for the nds wikipedia. The
> spelling proposed by Lowlands-l is no option for us. And I can understand
> very well, that the dutch based spelling and our spelling do not match. In
> addition to that we have another problem: when Low Saxon lacks a word, we
> (on the German side of the border) have the tendency to borrow a German
> word, and on the other side of the border they would certainly prefer to
> borrow a dutch word. The language fell apart a long time ago. In fact most
> people in Germany do not even know that there is a Low Saxon language on the
> other side of the border. When I think about the two different versions of
> the Norse wikipedia that are made for one single country and when I think
> about the Aromunian wikipedia, I think that having a separate wikipeda for
> nds-nl is the best option. HeikoEvermann 11:01, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
>
>  For what shall we try first? I looked for a comparison in English language
> and I would say, that nds-de and nds-nl are as far apart in pronounciation
> and in spelling as modern English and the 1400 example of middle English in
> en:Middle English (this isn't the best comparison because one is a parallel
> development and the other serial, but the best example I found). If it were
> possible I really would like and want one Wikipedia for both. But it would
> be very hard to understand. Sure, if there would be a common orthography
> neither based singly on German nor on Dutch, this would be easier, but there
> is no such common orthography that is in broader use. The actual reality is,
> that we need two Wikipedias. --Slomox 16:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
>

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


from_name: Martin Richards

body:
Michael Snow wrote;

It would depend on how Safeway created the list. If Safeway sends
employees to WalMart stores to write down every item they can find that
Safeway doesn't offer, that's entirely legitimate because there's no
copying (in the copyright sense) involved. If Safeway somehow obtains
WalMart master internal list of merchandise and takes information from
it, then they are copying.

I am 90% sure these lists were not copied, but generated. So it would be more akin to writing down every item as opposed to copying an internal master list. This would would of course have to be confirmed with user:Bogdangiusca who first uploaded the lists.

thanks
Martin (User:Bluemoose)


body:
Re Papiamentu and Sranan Tongo (NOT "Surinamese"), they have indeed
gotten plenty of support votes but have any native speakers showed up
yet? No. People have said "I have a friend..." or "My dad's business
partner is a native speaker..."  or things like that, but as of yet
not a single native speaker has showed up to express their support for
these Wikipedias. If they had, they would've been created with
Cebuano, Kapampangan, Scots, and V?ro.

Mark

On 25/06/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>  Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>  I will say it again: "Before whinging to us about that, can you at
> least actually try to use your dialect on nds.wiki to prove to us that
> it really doesn't work?"
>
> Mark
>
>
>  There is two people from NDS both admins there supporting the creation of
> NDS-NL they are:
>  Slomox and HeikoEvermann. They are native speakers of the dialects
> involved. You are most definately not. Read their arguments. Apart from that
> there is a minimum of 5 for and if you count Slomox 6.
>
>  You really want me to hustle up more support? I can do that if you want. It
> says 5 in support. Those are the rules. May I also point out that
> nl.wikipedia is doing quite well so is li.wikipedia and fy.wikipedia. So a
> wikipedia in another language in the Netherlands area might just do very
> well.
>
>  And on another point Papiamentu and Surinamese have also reached support of
> more than 5 people.
>
>  Here are the arguments in favour of NDS-NL by native speakers (Which Node
> most obviously is not)
>
>  Lowlands-l does not help here. After some discussions we have decided to
> use the German based spelling according to SASS for the nds wikipedia. The
> spelling proposed by Lowlands-l is no option for us. And I can understand
> very well, that the dutch based spelling and our spelling do not match. In
> addition to that we have another problem: when Low Saxon lacks a word, we
> (on the German side of the border) have the tendency to borrow a German
> word, and on the other side of the border they would certainly prefer to
> borrow a dutch word. The language fell apart a long time ago. In fact most
> people in Germany do not even know that there is a Low Saxon language on the
> other side of the border. When I think about the two different versions of
> the Norse wikipedia that are made for one single country and when I think
> about the Aromunian wikipedia, I think that having a separate wikipeda for
> nds-nl is the best option. HeikoEvermann 11:01, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
>
>  For what shall we try first? I looked for a comparison in English language
> and I would say, that nds-de and nds-nl are as far apart in pronounciation
> and in spelling as modern English and the 1400 example of middle English in
> en:Middle English (this isn't the best comparison because one is a parallel
> development and the other serial, but the best example I found). If it were
> possible I really would like and want one Wikipedia for both. But it would
> be very hard to understand. Sure, if there would be a common orthography
> neither based singly on German nor on Dutch, this would be easier, but there
> is no such common orthography that is in broader use. The actual reality is,
> that we need two Wikipedias. --Slomox 16:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
>

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


body:
>  > Re Papiamentu and Sranan Tongo (NOT "Surinamese")
> Sranan means Surinamese
> Tongo means Tongue
>
> Surinamese is a perfectly acceptable name to use for the language in
> English. A name any Sranan speaker would agree to. As they would agree
> to the name of Surinaams in Dutch.

No, it is NOT an acceptable name to use because other languages are
also spoken widely in Surinam such as Saramaccan, Aukan, Guyanese,
Javanese, Chinese, and Native American languages. These are just as
much "Surinamese" as Sranan. So while "Sranan" does indeed mean
"Surinamese", the name "Sranan" is also used in English to distinguish
it from other languages of Surinam.

> And yes remember the earlier conversation. I lived in the country and
> learnt the lingo. It is rusty I admit though.

Well, you're one person, and "rusty I admit though" is not comforting
at all. And what about Papiamento??

> >gotten plenty of support votes but have any native speakers showed up
> >yet?
> >
> <skip>
>
> >these Wikipedias. If they had, they would've been created with
> >Cebuano, Kapampangan, Scots, and V?ro.
> >
> >
> >
> Who decides if wikipedias get created? You? It sometimes seems like it.

You know very well it isn't me. It's the decision of the developers,
ultimately, although if a board member or somebody else high up in the
organisational structure decides it should be created, the developer
will usually create it for them.

Comments such as "You? Sometimes it seems like it." serve no purpose
but to inflame the conversation and you know that very well.

You still have not responded to my earlier mail in this thread (the
one that is CC'd to Reinhart Hahn).

Mark


body:
That's not the impression I get from what you've been saying.

It's bad to just tell people over and over 'Your arguments are bad!
You are not a native speaker! Not a native speaker!' (obviously you
didn't use these words, but it seemed almost like it!).

Real problems should be addressed. Just because I am not fluent in Low
Saxon does _NOT_ mean I cannot have a grasp of the sociopolitical
issues involved.

Mark

On 25/06/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Please read what I wrote, and respond to that, instead of just telling
> >me over and over that my opinion doesn't count.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >
> >
> Your opinion does count. But a littlebit less than that of 2 native
> speakers who are actually admins off the "affected" wikipedia in question.
>
> Waerth/Walter
>

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


from_name: Henry Kissinger

body:
Ask any questions you like and i will answer them. I trust your judgement
after you receive my answers to anything you ask.

HK

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Jack Lynch"
  To: "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" , "English Wikipedia"
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do?
  Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:56:10 +0200

  >
  > I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and
  > where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a
  single
  > user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic,
  > chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along?
  >
  > Jack (Sam Spade)
  >
  > On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
  > > If all attempts at discussion fail, you can always try dispute
  resolution.
  > >
  > > --Mgm
  > >
  > > On 6/23/05, Fred Bauder wrote:
  > > > For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the
  some
  > > > people are and where they say these things. If the sources for
  both
  > > > views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the
  real
  > > > source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more
  troublesome.
  > > >
  > > > Fred
  > > >
  > > > On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote:
  > > >
  > > > > Let's say that:
  > > > >
  > > > > There is an article about a relatively controversial subject
  that, for
  > > > > some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars.
  Maybe the
  > > > > subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no
  one has
  > > > > actually written much about it- until now.
  > > > >
  > > > > There are two people editing this article. You get involved a
  bit, and
  > > > > try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes
  one side
  > > > > immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person
  creates a
  > > > > version that says "some people say this, some people say
  that" but it
  > > > > is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to
  understand
  > > > > what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and
  argumentative,
  > > > > more concerned with being right than with what is logical and
  not. The
  > > > > subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is
  louder than
  > > > > the other; maybe not.
  > > > >
  > > > > You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere.
  > > > >
  > > > > What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them
  fight? But
  > > > > then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave
  whenever
  > > > > problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to
  these
  > > > > people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this,
  or is
  > > > > the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are
  so bad
  > > > > that the article gets locked?
  > > > >
  > > > > /Habj
  > > > > _______________________________________________
  > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
  > > > >
  > > >
  > > > _______________________________________________
  > > > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
  > > >
  > > _______________________________________________
  > > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
  > >
  > _______________________________________________
  > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC

body:
I replied to the other I believe. Ask anything u like and I will answer.
I am a total loner with my prankstering. Excuse the hack of language.

HK

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Jack Lynch"
  To: "Dan Grey" , "English Wikipedia"
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFC
  Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:55:08 +0200

  >
  > I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk
  page,
  > email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every
  > situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob
  > psychology.
  >
  > Jack (Sam Spade)
  >
  > On 6/23/05, Dan Grey wrote:
  > > On 23/06/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote:
  > > >
  > > > RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to
  > > RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial
  > > articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors
  > > through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often
  > > leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is
  > > sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already
  > > tired and wants to go back to normal editing.
  > > >
  > > > Jfdwolff
  > >
  > > In the last few weeks, several of us have made an effort to
  respond to
  > > RfCs and try and 'mediate' on an ad-hoc basis - with good
  results, I
  > > might add.
  > >
  > > And as a result of a suggestion by Maurreen in response to Raul's
  > > RfAr/RfC, we've recently made an overhaul of the RfC content
  section -
  > > with the results being very well recieved.
  > >
  > > So please, don't write RfCs off.
  > >
  > >
  > > Dan
  > > _______________________________________________
  > > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
  > >
  > _______________________________________________
  > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
I for one (despite being a cricket cabalist) agree with you on the category
thing. I don't quite understand the reasoning for the cricket subcategories
category. I actually intend to undertake a major review of cricket
categories very soon, so I'll discuss the point then.

However, I do in general disagree that policy (or at least guideline)
couldn't be bypassed when it is for the best for the encyclopdia as a whole.
That should be our target, not slaveishly following guidelines for their own
sake.

Sam

On 6/25/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
> > Timwi wrote:
> >
> >> I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in
> >> some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style
> >> and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their
> >> own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no
> >> say anyway.
> >
> >
> > I've recently come across a couple of examples of something like this
> > this too, on Wikiproject Cricket.
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cricket_subcategories> directly
> > contains all subcategories of Category:Cricket in it, for use by
> > wikiproject members who want a list of categories to search when
> > categorizing new aticles. My attempts to either replace this with a
> > plain old list page or to move the category tags into talk pages (in
> > accordance with the category guidelines suggesting that "meta"
> > categories should go on talk pages) were vigorously opposed by
> > Wikiproject members. I let the issue lie for a few months since it
> > didn't seem in any way urgent and monitoring the category's usage over
> > that time has been useful.
>
> As a followup "where are things now" sort of thing, here's what
> happened. After I mentioned category:cricket subcategories here, it was
> put up for deletion by User:Thebainer. I had been hoping to wait for six
> months or so before putting it up for deletion again, the last time was
> only four months earlier. It failed the vote again, with Grutness voting
> keep because "they seem to be keener on using the category, so I'm
> swayed towards supporting a keep here." and Ngb voting keep because
> "This is, as previously discussed in a recent CfD for the same category,
> an invaluable tool for participants in the Cricket Wikiproject
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cricket>. Conversion
> to a list is unsuitable as the list would need to be manually updated
> every time a new category was developed."
>
> I still maintain that this category is in violation of Wikipedia
> guidelines,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization#Wikipedia_namespace
> states "Categories relating to the Wikipedia namespace
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Project_namespace> should be
> added only to the talk page
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page> of articles. For
> example, tags suggesting the article is needs work
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:To_do>, or is listed on VfD
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VFD> would be placed on the talk page
> as they are relevant to editors, not an aid to browsing in the way
> ordinary categories are." So in accordance with that, I went ahead and
> started moving the category tags over to the category_tak: pages.
>
> I got as far as the "C"s before User:Calsicol
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Calsicol>came along and reverted all
> the work I'd done. He said "You seem to be an American, and your page
> gives no indication that you have any interest in cricket. Thank you."
> While it is true that I have no particular interest in cricket, this
> strikes me as being exactly the sort of problem that this thread was
> talking about; it doesn't _matter_ that I have no particular interest in
> cricket (and although I'm not actually American, it wouldn't matter if I
> was either). I have an interest in making sure the category system on
> Wikipedia is being used in a nice and tidy manner, which gives me just
> as much reason to be changing this setup as someone who's a rabid
> cricket fan.
>
> Anyway, I guess I'll let the issue drop again for another couple of
> months and come back to it. I still have the 2005 cricket season
> subcategory thing to work on, I expect that'll draw a lot of ire when I
> start actually changing things too.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Timwi

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
> I still maintain that this category is in violation of Wikipedia
> guidelines,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization#Wikipedia_namespace
> states "Categories relating to the Wikipedia namespace should be
> added only to the talk page of articles." So in accordance with that,
> I went ahead and started moving the category tags over to the
> category_tak: pages. I got as far as the "C"s before User:Calsicol
> came along and reverted all the work I'd done.

If you need a helping hand, I'll help, because I agree with you. By
letting Calsicol revert you and by walking away from it, you are letting
them win. :)

Just let me know.
Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC

body:
I apologize for my ignorance. I really don't want to contribute to
articels or writng. I may have inadvertantly pissed off the wrong people,
and for this I apologize. I may be barking up the wrong tree. However, if
I'm not, just let me know who not to offend. I wouldn't mind adding my
single lone addition to other ventures if I possibly could.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Henry Kissinger"
  To: "Jack Lynch" , "English Wikipedia"
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFC
  Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:10:30 -0500

  >
  > I replied to the other I believe. Ask anything u like and I will
  answer.
  > I am a total loner with my prankstering. Excuse the hack of
  language.
  >
  > HK
  >
  > ----- Original Message -----
  > From: "Jack Lynch"
  > To: "Dan Grey" , "English Wikipedia"
  > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFC
  > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:55:08 +0200
  >
  > >
  > > I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk
  > page,
  > > email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every
  > > situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob
  > > psychology.
  > >
  > > Jack (Sam Spade)
  > >
  > > On 6/23/05, Dan Grey wrote:
  > > > On 23/06/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote:
  > > > >
  > > > > RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to
  > > > RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial
  > > > articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded
  editors
  > > > through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it
  often
  > > > leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is
  > > > sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already
  > > > tired and wants to go back to normal editing.
  > > > >
  > > > > Jfdwolff
  > > >
  > > > In the last few weeks, several of us have made an effort to
  > respond to
  > > > RfCs and try and 'mediate' on an ad-hoc basis - with good
  > results, I
  > > > might add.
  > > >
  > > > And as a result of a suggestion by Maurreen in response to
  Raul's
  > > > RfAr/RfC, we've recently made an overhaul of the RfC content
  > section -
  > > > with the results being very well recieved.
  > > >
  > > > So please, don't write RfCs off.
  > > >
  > > >
  > > > Dan
  > > > _______________________________________________
  > > > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
  > > >
  > > _______________________________________________
  > > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
  >
  > --
  > ___________________________________________________________
  > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
  > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
  >
  > _______________________________________________
  > WikiEN-l mailing list
  > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
  > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Colourblindness

body:
The links are not blue and red.

The non visited links are blue.
The visited links are purple blue.

The stubs are purple red.
The empty are red.

Even for non colour blind, they are hard to distinguish.
I often confuse non visited with visited.
And 90% of the time confuse the stubs and the empty.

I am not colour blind, but errr, do not have a very good vision :-)

ant

Brion Vibber a ?crit:
> Robin Shannon wrote:
>
>> Currently the colour of the normal link and the visited link are
>> indistinguishable to the colourblind. This is a problem across all the
>> sites we have. Sure this isnt really important, but are then any web
>> designers who have faced this problem before who could suggest colours
>> which could be distinguished by most colourblind ppl (since most
>> colourblind ppl arent completely colourblind, just red-green
>> colourblind). Apparently about 10 percent of ppl are colourblind
>
>
> Our links are blue and red. Can you confirm that these really are
> indistinguishable to someone with red-green colorblindness?
>
> I would really like to know if this is based on actual experience (eg,
> you are colorblind or a colorblind person has reported to you that they
> are in fact not distinguishable) or if it's speculation. Without hard
> data it's going to be very difficult to just come up with a change.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Colourblindness


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Webservices API

body:
But basically this announcement was made without anyone on "our side"
having made the commitment to implement this right? I don't know about
my fellow developers but I just just found out through dot.kde.org
that KDE and Wikimedia were planning some kind of cooperation.

Has anyone commited (him|her)self to implement this?


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upgrade status

body:
I've upgraded the 'Nostalgia Wikipedia', a copy of the English Wikipedia
database from December 2001, to MediaWiki 1.5 as an initial test of our
upgrade infrastructure:

http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version

(Editing is disabled, and it's running the nostalgia skin, so you can
look but not touch. :)

We'll be hitting a few more over the next few hours, including Commons.
After some more live testing to work out kinks, the remaining wikis will
get upgraded bit by bit over the coming days.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20050625/95ed1dd6/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again

body:
On Saturday 25 June 2005 00:55, Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 24/06/05, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > On Friday 24 June 2005 17:53, David Gerard wrote:
> > > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a
> > > > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a
> > > > large UK telco).
> > > > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net
> > >
> > > Trouble is that admins can't actually see what IP a username is coming
> > > from. So there's no indication until someone calls it to their
> > > attention.
> >
> > Hmm. There seems to be a clash between anonymity and usability here, as
> > is so often the case with security systems.
> >
> > Perhaps we could allow admins to see part of the reverse DNS, but not all
> > of it. If we strip off the last two parts of the name (in this example,
> > leaving just "manc-cache-5.server"), we'd get something that nine times
> > out of ten would identify a proxy or not, but would not be personally
> > identifiable.
>
> Hmm. Set recent-changes to show only anons; 250 edits comes to about
> 175 unique IPs (busy people, these - one was there four or five
> times). Converting them to names, then stripping off the two trailing
> sections, we get this list - http://www.generalist.org.uk/wiki.txt
> (somewhere along the line it went to 126 addresses. Buggered if I know
> why.)
>
> Of those, only 20 have proxy or cache in the name.
>
> Thoughts on how useful this sort of data would be, given the
> reasonably sized sample above?

Ok, so of 126 addresses, we have about 20 proxies. So about 16% of anonymous
Wikipedias users are recognised as being behind a proxy, using this scheme. I
don't know the answer to this question, but does anybody know roughly what
proportion of web users go through a proxy server? Is it close to 16%? If so,
we've got a pretty good scheme here.

Of course, a determined user could create a sub-domain with 'proxy' or 'cache'
in the title, which would fool a simple software implementation, but perhaps
not a human.

In reply to geni's comment, we're talking about a minor change to the software
anyway, so all that's needed is to present the admin with this information at
the time that he or she chooses to block a user.

Ideally, the software could give the admin a "no IP block" option, to exercise
at his or her discretion (the software may already do this; I don't know).
That would enable pests to be banned without banning others behind the same
proxy. If I were to implement that, I'd also set a "banned user" cookie that
would catch a change of username.

Pros:
* Avoid blocking legitimate users
* Preserves anonymity, to a reasonable extent
* (If "no IP block" option is implemented) Grants more flexibility to admins
in their work.

Cons:
* Will take a couple of days to implement
* Not 100% foolproof (or smart-but-malicious-proof)

Comments, anyone?

Jake


subject: Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)

body:
>From Rohn.

And he *is* a native speaker.

Mark

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Date: 25-Jun-2005 21:41
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)
To: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>

--- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> (forwarded to Reinhart (Ron) Hahn to get his opinion)
>
> [Some basic background on the issue for Ron: As you know there is
> already a Low Saxon Wikipedia. Somebody just requested a "Dutch Low
> Saxon" Wikipedia, complaining that nds.wiki is in "German Low Saxon".
> I expressed a few concerns, not least among them that in a case of a
> dialect continuum, it will be difficult for us to decide where to draw
> lines between varieties, and which varieties should get their own
> Wikipedias.]
>
> Concerns that nobody has responded to yet:
>
> * As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum. Stellingwarfs and
> Middel-pommersch are surely not easily mutually intelligible, but
> Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.
>
> * Dividing Platt along national boundaries is illogical. If we had an
> Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely understand it
> and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the Netherlands and
> Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany. There are no definite borders between
> one and the next, and the national border is just as arbitrary as any.
>
> This would also mean that a man from the tiny village of Laar (in
> Germany) would use a different Wikipedia than a man from the tiny
> village of Gramsbergen (in the Netherlands), even though they're about
> 4km (~2.5mi) apart and their speech is identical. Does this make much
> sense?
>
> * A case of a dialect continuum is a very new thing for us. We have no
> experience with it so far, or we have crammed them all into a single
> Wikipedia.
>
> Mark

Hi, Mark!

Thanks for forwarding this.  It all makes a lot of sense to me.

I would find it very regrettable if the language were separated along the
political border, though I know quite a few people that would welcome it.

In the case of Low Saxon, what is at the root of the problem is
orthography.  In Germany it is based on German principles, in the
Netherlands on Dutch principles.  While most people in the Netherlands
have some German, the Dutch-based system is quite incomprehensible to the
majority of people in Germany.  However, this is not to say that the
German-based system ought to be used.  I personally hate it for several
reasons, and I am not alone.  It is not emotional but because the system
is very poorly suited, does not make many necessary phonemic distinctions
and thus teaches learners faulty pronunciation, which it has done already.
 However, this is a very contentious issue, because the vast majority of
Low Saxon speakers are older, conservative and narrow-minded, plus
uneducated in anything linguistic, hanging on to myths and false
assumption, such as orthographic standardization being designed to
artificially created a single standard language, when orthographic
standardization has nothing to do with language standardization, only with
facilitating mutual reading comprehension.  So we are up against a monster
here.

It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But they
don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is "Patentplatt"
(based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of German.  I am not at
all opposed to introducing technical neologisms, but there needs to be
first of all a firm grasp of the basic language, the grammar and the
authentic idiom.

It would be best -- if doable -- to have an international team work on
this and use a type of compromise orthography that is easily accessible to
all.

Thanks for your engagement in all of this.

Regards,
Ron

Reinhard "Ron" F. Hahn
Seattle, USA
==========
I do not open unexpected or unexplained attachments.
Ich ?ffne keine unerwarteten oder unerkl?rten Beilagen.
Ik maak keen Bilagen apen, vun de ik niks afweten do.
Ikj moak kjeene Bieloge op, von dee ikj nuscht weete do.
Ik open geen bijlagen waarover ik niets weet.
Ek maak geen onverwagte of onverklaarbare aanhangsels oop nie.
Jeg ?bner ingen uforventede bilag, s?fremt der ikke er redegjort for dem.
No abro archivos adjuntos de origen desconocido.
N?o abro arquivos anexados de origem desconhecida.
Je n'ouvre jamais les annexes qui ne sont pas annonc?es ou d?crites.
Я не
открываю
никакие
приложения,
о которых
не знаю
ничто.

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


from_name: Rebecca

body:
On 6/25/05, Chris Jenkinson <talrias at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fine, this wasn't a necessary part of the proposal. The reason I added
> it was mainly due to time concerns for the Arbitration Committee - a
> decision appears to take a long time, and in that time the "bad" admin
> could do more damage.

This is still a solution desperately in search of a problem. We have
one incident in recent times where this *did* occur, and the admin
involved was very quickly desysopped by consensus to protect the
content they were deleting, in the similar manner to the way Mr.
Treason was hardbanned by general agreement. If, god forbid, such an
incident occurred again, it could very easily be dealt with by the
same measures. And if it is not that urgent, then it hurts none to go
through due process.

-- ambi


body:
Michael Snow wrote:
>
> On 6/25/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a
>> response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just
>> ask them if they're okay with it?
>
> And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead?

Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond.


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness

body:
Hi,

     I very rarely post to the wikimedia mailing lists, but this message caught my attention. It mentions something that I feel is very important. Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com>
refers to the problem of distinguishing different types of links, which might be hard for the color blind. She says:

"Sure this isnt really important..."

I don't agree with this remark in any way. I think that the "accessibility" of our site is quite important. By Section 508 of our accessibility laws, the U.S. government is not allowed to use non-accessible computer software, applications, etc. Further, I believe it is morally right that our site be accessible.
     If anything, I think it is time to review our site for accessibility. What could Jimbo mean by his oft-quoted statement:

Wikipedia is described by its founder Jimmy Wales as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#endnote_WalesGoal)

if our site is not available to the millions of disabled in the U.S., not to mention the world.
The W3 has complete guidelines on accessibility for web site designers to implement:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

                     As Ever,

                          Ruth Ifcher
--

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com>
> G'day all,
>
> Currently the colour of the normal link and the visited link are
> indistinguishable to the colourblind. This is a problem across all the
> sites we have. Sure this isnt really important, but are then any web
> designers who have faced this problem before who could suggest colours
> which could be distinguished by most colourblind ppl (since most
> colourblind ppl arent completely colourblind, just red-green
> colourblind). Apparently about 10 percent of ppl are colourblind
>
> paz y amor,
> -rjs.
>
> --
> hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
> jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
>
> upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness


from_name: John Ky

subject: [Wikitech-l] New syntax proposal

body:
Hi,

I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet, but I want to raise it just
in case it hasn't.

I like the proposal to make internal and external links use the same
markup because it is more consistent, but I worry about the treatment
of the ? character:

In the current syntax, it appears that the internal [[]] syntax encodes the
? character so that wiki pages can have the ? character in its name.  While
the external [] syntax does not encode the ? character so that pages
that have the ? character in the URI still work (eg. cgi pages).

So in the new syntax, is the ? encoded or not?  It would be nice if
it were possible for the author to force the character to be encoded
or not encoded.

I recently ran into a problem where I attempted to use interwiki
links to shorten URIs (some of them can be hopelessly long) only
to find that when I use the [[]] syntax, the ? becomes encoded
and so the URI becomes mangled and unusable.  Because of this
behaviour I was unable to use the interwiki links the way I intended.

I wanted to use [[cvs:dir1/dir2/file?revision=1.3]] to link to

http://cvs.something.org/really-really-really-long/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/file?revision=1.3

but instead got:

http://cvs.something.org/really-really-really-long/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/file%3Frevision=1.3

Which the cgi application couldn't accept.

So the treatment of the ? character is important because it has a special
meaning.

-John


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] New syntax proposal

body:
On Sat, 2005-06-25 at 11:51 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:

> > In the current syntax, it appears that the internal [[]] syntax encodes the
> > ? character so that wiki pages can have the ? character in its name.  While
> > the external [] syntax does not encode the ? character so that pages
> > that have the ? character in the URI still work (eg. cgi pages).

I hadn't planned on changing that behavior, other than to more
completely document it.  Internal and external links are still
entirely distinguishable, and there's no reason they can't have
slightly different rules where convenient.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
For more on Missingsch, please see
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missingsch or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missingsch

Mark

On 25/06/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> From Rohn.
>
> And he *is* a native speaker.
>
> Mark
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Date: 25-Jun-2005 21:41
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)
> To: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
>
> --- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > (forwarded to Reinhart (Ron) Hahn to get his opinion)
> >
> > [Some basic background on the issue for Ron: As you know there is
> > already a Low Saxon Wikipedia. Somebody just requested a "Dutch Low
> > Saxon" Wikipedia, complaining that nds.wiki is in "German Low Saxon".
> > I expressed a few concerns, not least among them that in a case of a
> > dialect continuum, it will be difficult for us to decide where to draw
> > lines between varieties, and which varieties should get their own
> > Wikipedias.]
> >
> > Concerns that nobody has responded to yet:
> >
> > * As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum. Stellingwarfs and
> > Middel-pommersch are surely not easily mutually intelligible, but
> > Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.
> >
> > * Dividing Platt along national boundaries is illogical. If we had an
> > Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely understand it
> > and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the Netherlands and
> > Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany. There are no definite borders between
> > one and the next, and the national border is just as arbitrary as any.
> >
> > This would also mean that a man from the tiny village of Laar (in
> > Germany) would use a different Wikipedia than a man from the tiny
> > village of Gramsbergen (in the Netherlands), even though they're about
> > 4km (~2.5mi) apart and their speech is identical. Does this make much
> > sense?
> >
> > * A case of a dialect continuum is a very new thing for us. We have no
> > experience with it so far, or we have crammed them all into a single
> > Wikipedia.
> >
> > Mark
>
> Hi, Mark!
>
> Thanks for forwarding this.  It all makes a lot of sense to me.
>
> I would find it very regrettable if the language were separated along the
> political border, though I know quite a few people that would welcome it.
>
> In the case of Low Saxon, what is at the root of the problem is
> orthography.  In Germany it is based on German principles, in the
> Netherlands on Dutch principles.  While most people in the Netherlands
> have some German, the Dutch-based system is quite incomprehensible to the
> majority of people in Germany.  However, this is not to say that the
> German-based system ought to be used.  I personally hate it for several
> reasons, and I am not alone.  It is not emotional but because the system
> is very poorly suited, does not make many necessary phonemic distinctions
> and thus teaches learners faulty pronunciation, which it has done already.
>  However, this is a very contentious issue, because the vast majority of
> Low Saxon speakers are older, conservative and narrow-minded, plus
> uneducated in anything linguistic, hanging on to myths and false
> assumption, such as orthographic standardization being designed to
> artificially created a single standard language, when orthographic
> standardization has nothing to do with language standardization, only with
> facilitating mutual reading comprehension.  So we are up against a monster
> here.
>
> It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
> WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But they
> don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is "Patentplatt"
> (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of German.  I am not at
> all opposed to introducing technical neologisms, but there needs to be
> first of all a firm grasp of the basic language, the grammar and the
> authentic idiom.
>
> It would be best -- if doable -- to have an international team work on
> this and use a type of compromise orthography that is easily accessible to
> all.
>
> Thanks for your engagement in all of this.
>
> Regards,
> Ron
>
> Reinhard "Ron" F. Hahn
> Seattle, USA
> ==========
> I do not open unexpected or unexplained attachments.
> Ich ?ffne keine unerwarteten oder unerkl?rten Beilagen.
> Ik maak keen Bilagen apen, vun de ik niks afweten do.
> Ikj moak kjeene Bieloge op, von dee ikj nuscht weete do.
> Ik open geen bijlagen waarover ik niets weet.
> Ek maak geen onverwagte of onverklaarbare aanhangsels oop nie.
> Jeg ?bner ingen uforventede bilag, s?fremt der ikke er redegjort for dem.
> No abro archivos adjuntos de origen desconocido.
> N?o abro arquivos anexados de origem desconhecida.
> Je n'ouvre jamais les annexes qui ne sont pas annonc?es ou d?crites.
> Я не
> открываю
> никакие
> приложения,
> о которых
> не знаю
> ничто.
>
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
>

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of ... the surinamese thread

body:
>  No, it is NOT an acceptable name to use because other languages are
> also spoken widely in Surinam such as
>  >Saramaccan,
>  Is an inland language not commonly used outside the jungle areas that
> Saramaccaners live in. Not a nationally widely spoken language

5% of the population of Surinam

>  >Aukan,
>  Aucaners same situation as Saramacaners.

3,5% of the population of Surinam.

>  >Guyanese,
>  Definately not spoken in most of Surinam and as the name suggest it is not
> a Surinamese language.

11% of the population of Surinam. You're right that most of its
speakers are in Guyana, but 50000 of them are in Surinam which is 11%
of the population of the nation.

>  Javanese,
>  Only spoken by people of Indonesian background and as the name suggest it
> is not a Surinamese language.

It has a longer history in Surinam than Arabic (not "Moroccan") does
in the Netherlands. In fact, what is Sranan Tongo's history in
Surinam? How long has it been spoken there? It was brought by
"immigrants" just as much as Javanese was. And also, the Javanese
spoken in Surinam is a distinct variety of Javanese, unique to
Surinam, so it IS very much a Surinamese language.

It is spoken by 14% of the population, hardly a negligible figure.

>  Chinese,
>  Only spoken by people of  Chinese background and as the name suggest it is
> not a Surinamese language.

Chinese has nearly as long a history in Surinam as does Sranan Tongo.
In addition to that, it's spoken by 3% of the population.

> Hindustani

A form of Hindustani unique to Surinam, so it's a very much
"Surinamese" language, and it's spoken by a whopping 35% of the
population.

>  and Native American languages.
>  There are about 10.000 of those, they are not even acknowledged in the
> Surinamese flag with its five points which stand for the five most important
>  ethniticities.

3385 speakers total. In addition, the speakers of these languages have
a much much much longer history in Surinam than any of the other
people, they are more "Surinamese" than Indians, Chinese, Javanese,
Blacks, Europeans, or mixed-race.

"Five most important ethnicities" is a judgement passed by the ruling
elites. Do you think the Native Americans would agree that they're not
important??

>  These are just as much "Surinamese" as Sranan.
>  No they are not. Sranan is what binds most of the population together with
> Dutch .... so what is next you are going to call  Moroccan a Dutch language
> because people in the Netherlands speak Moroccan? Or Dutch a Thai language
> because there are Dutch people in Thailand? All of these languages are not
> Surinamese. They happen to be spoken in the country of Surinam yes. There is
> but one Surinamese and that is Sranan Tongo.

This is a very glorified view of a language spoken by only 29% of the
population. Hindustani is spoken by more people in Surinam, actually
35%, and Dutch is spoken by 46% of the population.

>  So while "Sranan" does indeed mean "Surinamese", the name "Sranan" is also
> used in English to distinguish it from other languages of Surinam.
>
>  Well I am not a native Oxford-English or American-English or whatever
> English speaker but I still have my doubts about that.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sranang_Tongo,
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=srn, both of which
prefer the name "Sranang Tongo" or "Sranan".

> <>Well, you're one person, and "rusty I admit though" is not comforting
>  at all. And what about Papiamento??
>  How comforting is it for me to see you requesting many languages you never
> spoke or heard of? If we go in that road of argumenting. My 4 years in
> Surinam are a lot more comforting. And no I do not speak Papiamentu.

What the hell? How many languages have I requested in my ENTIRE
LIFE??? Sicilian, Friulian, and Ligurian. THAT IS ALL. 3 languages. A
whopping 3 languages. With Sicilian and Friulian, I had native
speakers who expressed interest BEFORE the Wikipedias were created.
Both were created, are now active, and scn.wiki has over 1000
articles.

>  Who decides if wikipedias get created? You? It sometimes seems like it.
>
>  You know very well it isn't me.
>  Precisely but your reactions on this list and elsewhere always show that
> you feel you should be the one who is deciding. 6 people support NDS-NL
> among which 2 native speakers. And you oppose and because you oppose you
> feel you can obstruct the whole progress because your "demands" weren't met.
> Frankly I am getting a littlebit tired of your "every language has to go by
> me" attitude. You are doing lots of good work in the languagefield. But
> destroying it by your behaviour.

No, I don't feel that I should be the one deciding. But the process is
one of community discussion, and any community member has the right to
express their opinion. "every language has to go by me" attitude? What
the hell??!? A language obviously doesn't need my blessing to get a
Wikipedia created, and I don't think it should be the case, but I as
everybody else in the community have a right to express my opinion on
each language. So stuff it.

>  It's the decision of the developers, ultimately, although if a board member
> or somebody else high up in the organisational structure decides it should
> be created, the developer will usually create it for them.
>
>  So maybe I should go to a board member instead of discussing with you here!
> Good alternative indeed. Thanks for your understanding.

Asking a board member is not an "alternative" for community
discussion. Community discussion, and resolution of outstanding
issues, is nessecary before the creation of any new Wikipedia.

On the talkpage, Angela implied in one of her comments that as long as
there is an opposing vote, there needs to be a community discussion to
observe objections and explore solutions before it can be created.

I have a right to express my opinion on any language. So please, let
me express my opinion.

Mark


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why do we have them??

body:
Mark Williamson (node.ue at gmail.com) [050625 12:22]:

> I have a question: why do we have separate Wikipedias for Malay and Indonesian?
> According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Malay_and_Indonesian
> , "The differences between Malay (Bahasa Melayu) and Indonesian
> (Bahasa Indonesia) are comparable to the those between British English
> and American English."
> If this is the case, then why does our policy on English differ so
> sharply than our policy with Malay/Indonesian?

Probably the same reason we have separate wikis for Bosian, Serbian and
Croatian. And for Romanian and Moldovan.

- d.


from_name: Fastfission

body:
> If you want to claim fair use for this list, please review and analyze
> the fair use factors and tell us how this list qualifies for fair use.
> Fair use is analyzed on a case-by-case basis, so you can't really just
> say glibly that a particular type of content is always fair use. It's
> the *use* that matters much more than the nature of the original content.
>
> There *is* creativity involved in a list of what an encyclopedia
> contains, quite specifically due to the selection process involved in
> determining what subjects go into the encyclopedia in the first place.
>
> I agree that we have lots of dubious claims of fair use, but that
> doesn't make this one okay.

I think an easy thought-experiment here is to imagine what this letter
to EB would look like:

Dear Sirs,

We've created an alphabetical list of articles your encyclopedia
contains, and subtracted from it all articles which we do not have in
our encyclopedia, for the purposes of indicating to our own editors
possible areas of deficiency in our own work.

... Then what? "Do you mind?" "Do you think you'd plausibly claim that
this was copyright infringement?" I don't even know what the next line
would be, because the idea that this list -- one in which we've put as
much "creativity" as was possibly put in assembling it -- would
somehow constitute copyright infringement is -- in my non-lawyerly
opinion -- totally bonkers.

Personally I would contend -- and I think a lawyer could easily argue
in court -- that a list of a table of contents, with many entries
removed, does not constitute a creative work (it is NOT the same thing
as the "creativity" put into arranging their encyclopedia, something
which I still don't think is clear-cut copyrightable at all). More
importantly, I think that EB's lawyers would be worried enough that
such could be plausibly argued that they would NOT bother sueing over
it. They'd have a hard time arguing potential damages -- what, that
they're in the business of selling article headings?

There is likely no simple legal answer to this (i.e., no clear-cut
precedent), BUT there it also seems like a vanishingly small
possibility this would ever be a problem, and enough plausible
arguments that this is NOT a copyright infringement that a
conscientious company would not want to bother with the expenses and
time to attempt to prosecute something which could go either way. As
for non-conscientious companies, there's nothing that can be done
about that anyway, and imagine if Wikipedia ever gets seens as an
organization with money to be sued for, those will crop up on their
own anyway.

So okay. What am I -- not a lawyer, not pretending to be, but just
someone who has read a few books on copyright and patent law --
saying?

1. I doubt that a list of article titles can be considered a
copyrightable work. I doubt that "topics of articles chosen for
inclusion" would be considered a copyrightable work.

2. If so, however, our fair use claims are something like:
    A. Character of use: Research about our own nonprofit
encyclopedia, makes explicit the source of the data.
    B. Nature of the work to be used: Citation information, factual,
published; normally considered necessary for attribution in the first
place, normally considered uncopyrighted. Nothing unique to this
particular source (that is, no more unique than it is in any
encyclopedia -- whether EB or not).
    C. Amount of work to be used: Minimum amount possible -- strictly
logical information, minus a lot of it which we have pruned away.
    D. Effect on market for original: in terms of "arragement," none.
EB sells full articles, not arrangements. If we duplicated their
arrangement and filled in every article content with the words "peanut
butter" it would not give us any market advantage over them -- the
arrangement is not what they sell, the content as a whole is.

3. Copyright law is, more than anything else, built upon lawsuits and
the threat of lawsuits. It seems unlikely to me that EB would:
    A. Care much about this
    B. Think they had much of a case on this
    C. Want to waste their resources finding out
    D. Even consider this an issue if we didn't raise it with them first

Again, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an expert in this, I'm not even
nonchalant about copyright issues (they'll do us in eventually -- but
just not this one!). I just don't think this is really worth worrying
about.

It does raise the question of whether Wikimedia has their own lawyers
or not, though. If there was at least one person paid part-time to do
these sort of consultations, we wouldn't have to rely on
back-of-the-envelope approaches like this. Law is not something which
functions well by consensus of non-experts, obviously.

I recommend not contacting them and just going with the assumption,
made in good faith, that we're just looking at non-copyrightable
information -- bibliographic, logical, citation, etc. -- that is no
more copyrightable than the titles of articles we use in our
references to our articles.

Anyway -- that's my take on it. Again, not a lawyer. Just another
editor. I don't think there's any easy answer with this sort of thing
-- there never is with most copyright law questions. It'll always be
something in terms of "probabilities," and I think it is far enough on
the "likely not a problem" end of the scale to not worry about or see
any need to take down the page. But that's just my thoroughly
off-the-cuff interpretation.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me!

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050625/908f5112/attachment.diff


body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050625/68224dc3/attachment.diff


body:
Even more alternative solution: move it off of Wikipedia altogether,
to the webspace of some brave soul who would be happy to post a list
of "articles EB has that Wikipedia does not" (they could even pretend
it was an anti-Wikipedia page!).

One could easily imagine a script which would cycle through the
articles once every few days and check if they are still red-linked,
and move the filled in ones to a different section of the page. Hell,
I'll *write* that script if nobody else will. Then we can forget the
whole question. If someone will host it.

(I'd host it myself if I had any webspace of my own which could support it)

FF

On 6/25/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/25/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead?
> > Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond.
>
> Only if we presume the material is copyvio... So far the only people
> in our community who have any authority at all on the matter who have
> responded can not agree.
>
> I'd suggest that it be moved into another wiki to escape the debate,
> but there is a huge technical reason to have it in wikipedia...
> Redlinks.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050625/96033ddb/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Better then Netscape :)

body:
Alphax (alphasigmax at gmail.com) [050625 17:06]:

> Although if a lot of our editors installed the Alexa toolbar, the page
> views per user would increase quite a lot... :)

    http://pages.alexa.com/exec/faqsidos/help/index.html?index=127

I do remember the 'What's related' functionality being built into previous
versions of Mozilla. It was actually quite useful.

There are a number of other extensions to show Alexa information, but it's
not clear if any of those do in fact send data back to Alexa.

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Announcement - Wikipedia SQL Query Tool
	www.wikisign.org

body:
Filzstift wrote:
>
> http://www.wikisign.org
>
> (it would be also super if the interface could be translated into your
> language: http://www.wikisign.org/helptranslate.php)

I would have volunteered to fix the awful English, but since you're
explicitly not offering to add the English Wikipedia contents to the
facility, I guess there's nothing in it for me.

Timwi


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness

body:
G'day all,

Currently the colour of the normal link and the visited link are
indistinguishable to the colourblind. This is a problem across all the
sites we have. Sure this isnt really important, but are then any web
designers who have faced this problem before who could suggest colours
which could be distinguished by most colourblind ppl (since most
colourblind ppl arent completely colourblind, just red-green
colourblind). Apparently about 10 percent of ppl are colourblind

paz y amor,
-rjs.

--
hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>

upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>


subject: [Foundation-l] Colourblindness


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>
>
>I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and
>where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single
>user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic,
>chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along?
>
>Jack (Sam Spade)

Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large number of
other editors reject his POV edits?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean?

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/af14fbb2/attachment.diff


subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC

body:
>From: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>
>
>I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk page,
>email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every
>situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob
>psychology.

An alternative view it that editors recruit other editors to give their
opinions and gain consensus about an on-going conflict, using various means,
including RfC, Talk: pages, etc.  And if you can't find anyone to support
your view, whereas many editors support your opponents' view, then this may
well be a sign that you are wrong.

Jay.


body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason was the admin in question.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=%C6var+Arnfj%F6r%F0+Bjarmason&page=
for his deletions

Sam

On 6/26/05, David Benbennick <dbenbenn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/25/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > and more
> > recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting
> > rampage.
>
> I'm curious, who was the user?  (The de-sysopping doesn't appear in
> the Bureaucrat log.)  I'd like to look up how long the de-sysopping
> took, and what was deleted.
>
> [[User:Dbenbenn]]
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Upgrade status

body:
Commons has been upgraded:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Version

The EXIF metadata extraction is off at the moment since we have to
recompile PHP, but that should be available shortly.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20050626/94882ab2/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] Recording an accurate IP number for an NTL user

body:
On 26/06/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> A few NTL users are proving as painful as AOL has hitherto been. NTL puts
> *everyone* behind huge regional proxy servers, 100k+ users all showing the
> same IP. This creates endless fun with blocks, as you can imagine.

It's also worth noting that NTL proxies are semi-open. When I was on
NTL, I could make use of any other NTL proxy, not only the 4 allocated
to my town. I'm guessing this is the case for all NTL users.

Angela.


body:
David Benbennick wrote:
> > I'm curious, who was the user?  (The de-sysopping doesn't appear in
> > the Bureaucrat log.)

Sam Korn wrote:
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason was the admin in question.

Desysoppings usually appear in the bureaucrat log on meta, since this
is where the steward interface is, and only stewards, not bureaucrats,
can desysop users. This is at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights

However, in ?var's case, he was desysopped by a developer, not a
steward, presumably because it was an emergency and no stewards were
on IRC at the time.

Angela


from_name: Henry Kissinger

subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean?

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/eafa5ddf/attachment.diff


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> According to GerardM today on IRC it is already a fait accompli that
> wiktionary will be replaced by ultimate wiktionary.
>
> Waerth/Walter

Hoi,
It is a pity that Waerth does not do justice to what I said. What I said
was that this is the time when people should discuss the functionality
of what the Ultimate Wiktionary will become. People that wait until the
implementation is there will find a fait accompli. This is a message
that I have been saying for quite some time so there is nothing special
about it. As to UW replacing the Wiktionaries, I have said and I say so
again, it is up to the people and the communities to do what they want.

Thanks,
    GerardM