from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template cruft

body:
On 9/18/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I speak as a long-time Wikipedian who is more interested in content than
> pretty presentation.  I had a hand in helping develop the early versions
> of taxoboxes, and descriptive boxes for battles.  To some extent the use
> of charts and tables is essential for organizing data.  But when we
> reach a point that changing the content of these charts and boxes is a
> mysterious process for the average user, or when it is only with great
> difficulty that one even finds what page to edit, then we have to
> consider the possibility that we have gotten away from the essential
> principal that this is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
>
> When we speak of Wikipedia as a site that anyone can edit that means
> more to me than permission.  That permission is hollow if a person lacks
> the techniques to do it.  In the earliest time we took pride in the fact
> that wiki-markup was so simple that anyone could understand it; the
> essentials could be put on a single page that did not even need to be
> scrolled.  Someone could edit without having to learn html.  Can we
> still honestly say that a retired professor in the arts and humanities
> is still able to contribute from his vast experience?  His familiarity
> with his subject may be unquestionable, but his expertise preceeded the
> cyber-age and did not depend on familiarity with computer languages.

I strongly disagree.  Our goal here must fundamentally be to produce
an encyclopedia for the reader rather than merely to engage in the
perpetual process of editing it.  Producing a high-quality
encyclopedia necessarily means allowing a somewhat more sophisticated
set of layout and content presentation tools than the retired
professor may be willing to learn -- but this is only a problem
insofar as the professor *needs* to learn those tools.  Just as we do
not expect all users to be equally capable of taking high-quality
photographs, writing FAs, or any of a variety of other tasks, we
should not expect that all users will be equally capable of working on
complex issues of templatized design and layout.

The retired professor, in your example, is most likely here to
contribute content rather than to play around with the aesthetics of
little colored boxes; the overwhelming majority of his exposure to
templates will be either simply including them -- but usually there's
no shortage of volunteers to do this anyways -- or using them as black
boxes for data, like so

{{Infobox Clown
|name= John Smith
|born= January 10, 1904
|died= March 22, 1957
|country= United Kingdom
}}

There is absolutely no reason, in most cases, for said professor to
concern himself with how {{Infobox Clown}} transforms the values he
enters into a pretty table; if he's particularly interested in layout
issues, he can always ask someone for help if he can't figure things
out.

Forcing everyone else to abandon all the sophisticated presentation
tools we've developed, meanwhile, will drastically decrease the
quality of page layout in the encyclopedia, and won't help the
professor in the least, as the nice "black box" template will either
be replaced with a fragile table, or nothing at all -- neither of
which is something he'll be particularly pleased to work with, I
suspect.

--
Kirill Lokshin


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change language name...

body:
ro.wiki wrote:
> Can please somebody change the name of the Aromanian language ( http://roa-rup.wikipedia.org ) as it appears in Wikipedia's interlanguage links from "Arm?neashti" to the correct spelling form "Arm?neshce" ?
>
>   Also I wanna ask, how can this Wikipedia be transferred to rup.wikipedia.org , the correct Wikipedia adress as per ISO 639-2 Alpha 3?( http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html ) When it was created there was no ISO code for this language, but one was created. It is anyway a small Wikipedia so there should be no problem in movin articles.
>
>   Thanks
Hoi,
Do I understand correctly that Arm?neshce is the same as Macedo ? The
rup code is reserved for this language. If it is not, it is not
acceptable to call this wiki rup.wikipedia.org.
Thanks,
     GerardM

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rup


list: wikien-l

from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are destroying Wikipedia

body:
On Sep 18, 2006, at 8:52 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>> From: Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> On Sep 18, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Carl Peterson wrote:
>>> Perhaps the slogan should be "verified truth" or "verifiable
>>> truth." This
>>> puts them both on an equal plane and requires both.
>>
>> I was thinking of something like "truth is ensured by verifiability,"
>> actually.
>>
>> -Phil
>
> Verifiable sources do not ensure truth. (It's not clear to me that
> there's any way to ensure truth... you know, observer A says it's a
> wave, observer B says it's a particle... blind men... elephant...
> etc.)

Which, when you're invested in NPOV, is truth, since our goal, at
least on subjects where there's dispute, is not to say "It's an
elephant" but rather "This is what seven people say about it."

-Phil


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Arnold

subject:
[Foundation-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
	will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia

body:
Am Montag, 18. September 2006 13:12 schrieb David Gerard:
> Yes. Though we're notably lacking in forks that are actively edited;
> Wikinfo is the only one I know of. Other than that it's pretty much
> static mirror sites with Google ads.

There were/are at least two more serious efforts that knew how and what to
fork: One spanish and one german fork. Both did came up out if different
reasons. The spanish one because of fears that Wikipedia could commercialize
(you probably all know it) the german one because of fundamental disagreement
on quality and project scope (the fork founder regarded de.wikipedia as too
open towards everything).

Interestingly Sanger didn't have a such a huge impact like one could expect
given his Wikipedia history in the german language community although he
anounced it at Wizards of OS 4 in Berlin, Germany that quite some active
de.wikipedians and German Wikimedians attended.

One reason is: The ideas of Sanger are similar to the spirit of the fork of
the german language Wikipedia and thus people have had some experience on
such more "elitist" forks there. That de.wikipedia fork couldn't keep
momentum although these people are highly skilled and knew exactly what they
want to achieve and were really passionate about it. But despite the
usual "we dislike us each other rantings" that fork did help de.wikipedians
concentrating at least a little bit more on quality and content and not
meta-discussions as the critics in themselves weren't completely fetched out
of thin air but de.wikipedia started walking a completely different solution
path than they did.

As I can read it from the postings of some others seem to "wonder" (to express
it soft-gloved) on de.wikipedias content/quality policies: this is at least
partly due to that very fork and our lesson out of it.

So we should consider that Citizendium fork as helpful competition and not
regard this as enemy or something we should ignore or even denying the
Citizendium fork competence (this would be the most dangerous for us).

Citizendium will help us focusing ourselves on *content* (!) and on quality
improvements, although we have a different approach than they have.

Let us start now happy competiting and keeping the momentum in Wikipedia,
Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wiktionary...!

Arnomane


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: David Alexander Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
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Guettarda wrote:
> On 9/18/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
>>

> The idea that such an environment is meaningless because the content can be
> ported back to Wikipedia isn't true.  For one, it provides a work
> environment for people who don't want to deal with the stress of Wikipedia.
> It also creates a "stable version" against which the Wikipedia version will
> always be compared. Implemented properly, it can serve as a buffer against
> articles becoming degraded.
>
> The idea that expert-driven process will result in experts "telling people
> what to do" seems like a rather pessimistic view of "experts".  We have lots
> of experts on WP - some of them lack the ability to work with others, some
> of them grow disenchanted and leave the project - but lots of others stay
> and slog it out - and work quite well with others.
>
> Ian

My problem with Citizendium is not any personality issues with experts,
but more that it explicitly states that 'experts' will be given more
control over the project than ordinary editors, therefore people are
given control based on their credentials rather than their ability to
write a good article.

Kim van der Linde wrote:
>
> Interesting idea. Suppose that some evolutionary biology experts write
> the citizendium entry on say evolution. I am pretty sure, it will be
> substantially different from our version (which has substantial sections
> just to deal with the continued stream of creationist POV-pushers). I
> can see how a bot driven replacement of the content is just going to
> result in either revert wars with the bot, or if that is blocked,
> editors that are going to leave the article alone (open for anyone to
> edit). But suppose, it gets accepted as a proper version. At wikipedia,
> everybody can edit it, so it is free game again for regular editors as
> well as POV-pushers. The latter have to be kept in check, either by
> editors reverting, or by full protecting the article. The latter is more
> likely, because as soon as citizendium updates their page, it gets
> replaced at Wikipedia by the bot, taking away any incentive to improve
> the content. So, as this is taking away the incentive for Wikipedia
> editors to improve the article, I suspect that there will be never a bot
> that is going to do this. Consequently, the articles at both sides will
> remain different, and than quality differences start to play a role. As
> soon as citizendium is perceived as qualitatively better and more
> stable, people will start looking there and at wikipedia second.
>
> Kim
>
>

Sorry, I didn't mean that the Citizendium article would automatically
overwrite the Wikipedia version, more that any improvements to the
Citizendium version could be incorporated into Wikipedia. You're right
though - it's probably not something a bot could do reliably, when I
think on it a bit more.

I don't know if people will prefer the Citizendium version though - if
people want there are plenty of academic websites already. The whole
reason people USE Wikipedia is its up-to-date coverage on a stupendous
range of topics - sure, Citizendium will have a complete 'fork copy' of
Wikipedia to begin with, but only the articles that its experts are
interested in will ever get updated - that is the essential problem with
a project that aims at giving control to a handful of experts to the
exclusion of everyone else. You might get a reasonably up-to-date
article on evolution or philosophy, but if you want to find out about
something less expert-attractive then you need Wikipedia.

That means that Wikipedia will still be people's first port of call -
even though some articles on Citizendium /might/ be better (not
guaranteed), there is a very good chance that you will find what you're
looking for.
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
On 9/18/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Yeah, but then surely you'd have to take the union of a potentially
> > large number of tables to display a single-category view, which I
> > suspect is going to remain a more common request than a
> > category-intersection view.  Isn't that going to give you a
> > substantial performance hit for large categories?
>
> I'm not sure where you get this idea that each intersection would be a
> separate table. Obviously it wouldn't, it would still be one single
> database table, containing everything. And this single table can be
> queried for a single category, which (assuming proper indexes are in
> place) would not be any less efficient than it already is currently.

Yes, I see now.  But not only the table would be larger, you would
have many more indices as well, and however you cast it you'd need to
complicate queries for single-category retrieval.  As to how much of a
performance hit that would be, well, that's out of my league (my SQL
skills tend to be limited to simple SELECT statements), so all I can
do at this point is appeal to Domas' authority.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos
	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
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Ben McIlwain stated for the record:
> [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
>
>>>On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places <postmaster at forbidden-places.be> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hi Jason,
>>>>No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
>>>
>>>We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the
>>>video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at
>>>Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for
>>>your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
>
>
> Who are you to say that we won't edit the video?  Maybe you won't, but
> maybe someone else will, in a way that makes it more useful, and then
> link that on Wikipedia.  That's the point of viral licensing and
> ShareAlikes.  I'm afraid "you're not allowed to edit it" is a deal-breaker.
>
> --
> Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
>
> ~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~

Emphatic agreement with Ben. The video ''will'' be edited -- I
personally guarantee it.  Please ensure that Forbidden Places
<postmaster at forbidden-places.be> knows that I have said so, and that you
have no authority to revoke parts of the GFDL.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I'm tired of getting the fuzzy
 sean at epoptic.com | end of the lollipop. --Sugar Kane
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from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on main pages

body:
On 16/09/06, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Nigel Miller"
> > We're using Mediawiki at our company, but one gripe with it is that the
> > Talk
> > pages are separate. Ideally we would like to see a comments section at the
> > bottom of the actual pages - with an add comment button.  Nothing fancy
> > just a
> > list of comments with the username and date in there.
> >
> > Does anyone know of any extenstion that does this or have any idea how
> > easy it
> > would be to write one?
> >
> > Nigel
>
> You can add to each page where you want it:
>
> ----
> [{{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} Edit comments]
> [{{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|action=edit|section=new}} New comment]
>

Or you can use the recently added __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word, if
you run version 1.7. (See also
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4876)

(The possibility to modify MW to _always_ include the link is there,
too ? see the above-mentioned patch, the change would be trivial.)

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted on
	Wikipedia?

body:
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. Unforgettableid wrote:
> Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as
> easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process
> step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and for
> the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping Wikipedia
> by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process and
> make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.

I'm not sure if its a good idea to promise 'free promotion' in a
permission request, since (s)he would get is an external link in the
media info page, which only Wikipedia /editors/ will ever see.

Cynical
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from_name: Nathaniel Krause

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sanger's first post to Citizendium-l

body:
On 9/18/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:  > "I have a suggestion from someone very high up in the Creative Commons  > organization that we should dual-license (CC and GFDL), which I simply  > hadn't thought of.  I'm inclined to think it's a good idea."  >  > I'd like to know how that would be compatible with working from  > Wikipedia content.

I can only assume it would mean they'd have to accept a mix of dual-licensed and GFDL-only articles for the foreseeable future, the same as if Wikipedia were to implement a switch to dual-licensing.

All material imported from Wikipedia would be labelled GFDL-only by default, and all new articles would be required to be dual-licensed. Imported material could be switched to a "dual-license" label if someone on their side confirms that the relevant Wikipedia editors have actually released it under CC or public domain.

The main downside of this process, seems to me, would be that one wouldn't be able to freely lift text from one article to another within the same wiki; you'd always have to check if the licenses match. Note that lifting text like this technically causes copyright problems already on Wikipedia, unless one is careful to provide authorship information.

-Nat Krause

---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the  new Yahoo.com


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/18/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/18/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I voted for three people who I felt would be the best and
> most-qualified:
> > there is one who I think is the most qualified, and two who are about
> equal.
> > I wonder if I am doing my first choice user a disservice by voting for
> the
> > other two, and instead just vote for the one who I think is the clear
> > frontrunner.
>
> Based on the counts in the previous elections a huge number of people
> only supported one... In my discussions with people I found that many
> that supported only one in the election actually thought that multiple
> would have done an okay job, but either didn't understand or didn't
> feel comfortable with the approval voting process.

I'm one of those who are not familiar with this voting process. When I
looked at the candidates, there were a few I did not want to win, a couple
that I thought would be ok,  one that I favored, and a whole bunch that I
had no opinion on. So I voted for the one I favored and the couple I thought
would be ok.

Does that seem like a sensible approach?

(Really wanting to be educated...)

-Rich
[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] I've Kicked the Process Habit

body:
On 9/18/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 18, 2006, at 9:28 AM, geni wrote:
>
> > Perhaps but it was somewhat nicer than the full version.
>
> Geni, this may be news to you, but I'm a semi-active editor in all
> fields. I have a job and a life, and I don't have time to get
> involved with gaping idiocy that arises when one tries to edit
> Wikipedia on a regular basis.

Try editing a different bit of wikipedia.

> To say that I haven't made a lot of use
> of my admin powers of late misses the larger point - the paralyzing
> force of process has driven me away from virtually all aspects of the
> site.

Weird. Click edit button, edit submit. I'm not seeing much in the way
of process. There are vast areas of wikipedia you can have all to
yourself (minor Olympic medal winners or events to start with). Of
course if you choose to play wikipolics that may be somewhat different
(and don't argue that this isn't possible. I know people who edit in
various rather contiversal areas who for the most part manage to stay
clear of wikipolictics.

> A combination of the absurd idiocy that is the CVU and a small
> mob of process droids who were disinclined to expend any time
> actually thinking about an enormously subtle sourcing issue brought
> me to the point where, as I saw it, the sane options were to just
> give up or to just go back to editing in the way that worked quite
> nicely two years ago when I got my adminship.

It isn't two years ago. Trying to live in the past isn't really an
option. Certain things don't scale. Walking away from certian areas is
always an option.

> Is the concept that enormous gunk of process that you appear to be so
> aware of might wear me down over the course of the last year or so
> that hard for you to understand?

Most process you only have to worry about if you deal with certain
areas. At least some of the process we have talked about I didn't know
what it was but I knew where to find it if I needed it. I didn't know
it off the top of my head because it involved stuff I don't deal with
much.

> Or, for that matter, that offensive
> that you had to launch into such a bizarre attempt to smear me,
> including trying to re-air year old dirty laundry like when I blocked
> [[User:The Recycling Troll]], a user who turned out to be a
> sockpuppet the one person who was vocally complaining about that block?

I didn't mention the content of the RFCs (I assume that is what you
are talking about). Weather you like it or not you don't have the
greatest interpersonal skills on Wikipedia. Sure they are better than
mine but that isn't a major achievement.

> What are you trying to accomplish here?

Either your withdraw from your current position or your resignation as
an admin. Doesn't have to be permanent. As soon as you feel that you
are ready to consider what process is again I would not oppose you
getting them back and I believe the general policy is to give back
powers to anyone who voluntarily agrees to give them up.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/18/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:  >  > For each person like you who used the approval process correctly there  > will probably be four who tried to game it by only picking their first  > choice.

I'm not too comfortable with the implication that there is a wrong and right way to use approval voting in this election. It strikes me as a bug rather than a feature that Board elections currently don't allow the voter to express any preference at all among the candidates that she or he finds acceptable.

I'd really like to see WMF switch to a form of Condorcet voting, such as the Schultze method, for the next elections. This would allow the voter the flexibility to rank candidates in order of preference, or to rank several equally if they prefer.

-Nat Krause

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Everyone is raving about the  all-new Yahoo! Mail.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template cruft

body:
On 9/18/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> It does not have to be mutualy exclusive. It's a hard problem,
> but they are not inherently at odds.

Of course they're not.  But the answer will necessarily be more
complex -- and much more flexible -- than merely "kill all the damn
boxes"; we can't afford to cater *only* to those editors who can't
deal with complex markup any more than we can afford to cater *only*
to those who can.

(I wonder whether a limited syntax highliter of sorts -- looking for,
say, template invocations image inclusions, categories/interwiki
links, and <ref> tags -- would be easier to write.  Most of the
unpleasant markup that's likely to be seen in the average article is
one of those types.)

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Stephen Streater

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted
	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 18 Sep 2006, at 21:55, David Alexander Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> . Unforgettableid wrote:
>> Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as
>> easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process
>> step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and
>> for
>> the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping
>> Wikipedia
>> by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process
>> and
>> make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.
>
> I'm not sure if its a good idea to promise 'free promotion' in a
> permission request, since (s)he would get is an external link in the
> media info page, which only Wikipedia /editors/ will ever see.

There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple
as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content
I have shot is only available for non-commercial use
because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be
released under a free licence so cannot be included
in Wikipedia.


from_name: Kim van der Linde

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
David Alexander Russell wrote:

> I don't know if people will prefer the Citizendium version though -
> if people want there are plenty of academic websites already.

Encyclopaedia's with clear navigation, crosslinking etc? No, not really.

> The whole reason people USE Wikipedia is its up-to-date coverage on a
> stupendous range of topics

And why would Citizendium not be like that?

> - sure, Citizendium will have a complete 'fork copy' of Wikipedia to
> begin with, but only the articles that its experts are interested in
> will ever get updated -

That is a risk. If I had my say, it would not be a fork in the way Larry
describes, but that pages get copied and improved, and if the page is
not available at Citizendium, a link to Wikipedia is provided. That will
be a good incentive for everybody to make those basic pages as well. But
do not worry, if I start with the evolutionary biology section, I will
start with the basic pages.

> that is the essential problem with a project that aims at giving
> control to a handful of experts to the exclusion of everyone else.

Maybe the control of the content is there, but just imagine a group of
authors working together with some experts to make a truly good article,
after which it gets approved and instead that you have to continually
monitor it for idiots who have vandalized it, or added some nonsense,
you can just start working on the next cool article.

> You might get a reasonably up-to-date article on evolution or
> philosophy, but if you want to find out about something less
> expert-attractive then you need Wikipedia.

Indeed, I personally do not see the need for all the fancruft etc. to be
at a Citizendium.

> That means that Wikipedia will still be people's first port of call -
>  even though some articles on Citizendium /might/ be better (not
> guaranteed), there is a very good chance that you will find what
> you're looking for.

Could be. It could also just work the other way round. And if the
articles at Citizendium are not better than at Wikipedia, it will be
gone within no time. There is no need for a project of equal quality,
there is a need for a project of higher quality.

Kim
--
http://www.kimvdlinde.com


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template cruft

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It does not have to be mutualy exclusive. It's a hard problem,
>> but they are not inherently at odds.
>
> Of course they're not.  But the answer will necessarily be more
> complex -- and much more flexible -- than merely "kill all the damn
> boxes"; we can't afford to cater *only* to those editors who can't
> deal with complex markup any more than we can afford to cater *only*
> to those who can.

Indeed not.  But we should also remember, as the Perl folks are
fond of pointing out, that there's more than one way to do it.

We could somehow make it easier to edit complicated templates
and other elaborate structure.  We could try to get rid of or
strenuously minimize the too-complicated templates and other
elaborate structure.  We could foster an attitude that it's
totally okay, with no inherent stigma or shame, to edit article
text in ignorance of its structure (i.e. by blatting in raw,
unstructured new text) with the knowledge that someone else will
be along to fix up the structure soon enough.  We could come up
with more ways of linking experts who know the material with
mentors who know how to navigate the editing system (some aspect
of which, not matter what we do, is always going to be onerous
for some would-be editors).  Or of course we could do a combination
of these things, or all of these things.


subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 9/18/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
> Another projetcs uses Mediawiki:sitenotice and Mediawiki:annonotice only if
> it is REALLY necessary. The Portuguese Wikipedia community dislike to get a
> warn every second to make donations (in any case, majority of editors in
> Portuguese wikis are from Brazil and credit cart is a dispensable object in
> that contry and mail donations is so very expensive).

Taking that approach on en will get you de-admined.

--
geni


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change language name...

body:
Monday, September 18, 2006, 8:56:31 PM, you wrote:

rw> Can please somebody change the name of the Aromanian language
rw> ( http://roa-rup.wikipedia.org ) as it appears in Wikipedia's
rw> interlanguage links from "Arm?neashti" to the correct spelling
rw> form "Arm?neshce" ?

AFAIK, both variants are correct, but in two different dialects.
I wonder how one can make an encyclopedia in that language, when there's
no standard dialect...


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>>1.2. Identification of big media group (make a list).
>>Contact and proposition of articles. Language focus: english, french,
>>arab, portuguese.
>>Of course, include them in the list of press release.
>>
>
> I take it that you want to engage the media in the countries themselves,
> this is more effectively done by local people. They will be able to do
> so effectively when they know themselves empowered to do so. This means
> that local chapters may be really relevant here. They are because they
> can handle money and they provide a front to the people who do things on
> the ground. If you want to stimulate local languages, learn how it is
> done by others, what is done in Neapolitan is one good example but there
> are more like it.

Can you explain more about what is done in Neapolitan language ?

>>1.3. Identification of specialized press (make a list)
>>Focus: Linux fanatics :-) Contact and proposition of articles
>>
>
> I think the Linux fanatics are overrated, they have many of the concepts
> right, they have the fanatism wrong. We should reach out to everyone we
> do not want to be associated and identified with a fanatic fringe. I
> understand and appreciate the wink, but some of these people are fringe
> and are more of a burden than of a help.

Frankly... I have seen most languages start thanks to developers
participation. And remember quite well that for a rather long time, the
only articles we got were only in tech journals. This is something we
should rely on.

>>1.4. Identification of major NGO working on education and woman groups.
>>Contact. Provide them with a bit of "advertisment".
>>
>
> When you want to get NGO's to work on our projects, you do not only want
> to inform them, you also want to engage them. It means that a
> substantial amount of time will be involved. The time frame in which
> they operate is quite different, they work with budget cycles,
> deadlines. NGO's are often really enthusiastic but for them wikis and
> their methodology are new; they have to be initiated in the wiki way. It
> takes time and perseverance.

Correct

>>1.5. Contact of all major universities.
>>propose them teleconference (if they are equipped) or irl presentation
>>(if that fit well with a formal conference or a trip)
>>
>
> I have not done that systematically yet, but it is extremely likely that
> I will get many more contacts in universities soon.

ok

>>2. Favor production of content in languages already developped
>>Cases such as RAFT or Wiki voices. If necessary, find money and someone
>>to help coordinating this to ensure success.
>>
>
> It is helpful if there is a place where these things are coordinated. A
> language subcommittee of the SPC could do many of these things.. It is
> just for this subcommittee to be allowed to start. Finding money is not
> that hard. It just needs a plan that needs implementation. Approving
> plans for funding and incorporation in the WMF would be a step towards
> the notion of "donations, putting your money where your mouth is"
> (details on Meta).

Right now, the problem seems to be that nobody is willing to take time
doing plans. Doing plans is not as funny as writing articles.
For example, I suggested a long time ago we should build up a list of
african media contacts to send press releases to. I started doing that a
long time ago for Algeria and Marocco (press releases sent there never
raised any attention though). But a much more extensive list needs to be
set up and used. But no list has ever been made as far as I know. Saying
"it needs a plan" is good, that does not make it happen. Approving plans
is good as well, but needs a plan in the first place.

I am unsure how to approach this.

>>3. Favor production of content in local languages
>>
>>* Help Beta Wiki
>>* Contact local NGOs for help in translation interface
>>* Identification (now) of major languages (according to read/write
>>coverage)
>>
>>
>
> There is agreement between Brion and Nikerabbit that Beta Wiki will be
> hosted on a more convenient place. This is an extremely important thing
> and I am grateful to Brion to help out on this one.
>
> Translating the User Interface only for our projects is a missed
> opportunity. MediaWiki is extremely powerful software. When the
> localisation is also seen as an opportunity to have this great tool
> available, it becomes something that has relevance to an organisation
> for itself. This is an extremely powerful argument. It also underlines
> why the localisation in a wikipedia is not such a great idea; it's scope
> is only that project and there is no added benefit.

Here, I appear to have lost you on the way... can you re-explain ?

>>Here are some thougts. Are they others ?
>>Who feel like helping take care of some of those points ?
>>
>
> It is important to be enthusiastic about what we do and it is as
> important to have a good understanding what the WMF does and what it's
> projects are. It is however also really relevant to tell that the WMF is
> part of a growing ecosphere with many other projects like Wikitravel,
> Yellowiki, Wikia being part of it. This shows that the wikiway is not
> only the Wikipedia way.
>
> I have been taking care of some of these points because it helps
> WiktionaryZ. For WiktionaryZ it is relevant that we are part of this
> whole wiki thing. The strength of what we do is achieved in the many
> different things we do, try and achieve. We would be better served if we
> cooperated more and bickered less.

indeed

I went back to the meta page on the topic. They are hopelessly outdated.

Well, my first move will be to contact back this BBC journalist as well
as the journalist from IT & Telecom Digest. One step at a time.

> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/afrophonewikis/ - Yahoo group on
> supporting African language
> http://www.kasahorow.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page - Wiki for a
> project plan for supporting Ghanaian languages
> http://wiktionaryz.org - Pre alpha project to do lexicology, terminology
> and ontology has both language and country portals
> http://nike.users.idler.fi/dev/index.php?title=ISO-639-3/gil


subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa


body:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Arne Klempert <klempert-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>
>>May I ask you in which languages these articles are? Probably not in
>>the same language I usually read.
>
>
> Dunno does google take news from things writen in not-english?
>
>
>>Let's put the donation notice on all projects and see what happens.
>>
>>-- Arne
>
>
> They were when I saw the figures
>
> anyway of the big 10 .Ja .it .pt .de .pl .sv and .es don't currently
> have donation notices. The other in the 100,000 club (.ru) doesn't
> either.

That calls for numbers.

Arne, are you able to tell us how much does the German Verein makes on
donations as of today ? Roughly ?

Anthere


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 9/17/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I completely disagree with this; I would much, much rather know *more* about
>>the people I'm voting for, rather than less
>>
>>
>So are you honestly saying that you'd spend 14 hours reading candidate
>statements?
>
>If thats true I suspect that you would be alone.
>
>There comes a point where writing more causes you to know less.
>
>
I don't think anybody needs to read everything by or about all the
candidates.  For most of us there are some easy yesses and some easy
nos; it's only the uncertain ones that we need to examine more closely.

Ec


body:
On 18 Sep 2006, at 23:05, User:Unforgettableid wrote:

> On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>>
>> There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple
>> as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content
>> I have shot is only available for non-commercial use
>> because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be
>> released under a free licence so cannot be included
>> in Wikipedia.
>
> Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted?
> You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any
> American law which back up your claim.
>
> Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread
> regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them
> recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be
> trademarked.

In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you
have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial
use without permission.

Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property
without consent, which is often refused or charged
for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.

Here's a link for more info:
http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/
uk_photographers_rights_guide


body:
On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted?
> You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any
> American law which back up your claim.
>

If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item
outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.
--
geni


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 18/09/06, User:Unforgettableid <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple
> > as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content
> > I have shot is only available for non-commercial use
> > because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be
> > released under a free licence so cannot be included
> > in Wikipedia.
>
> Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted?
> You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any
> American law which back up your claim.

> Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread
> regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them
> recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be
> trademarked.

To the best of my knowledge, the United States does not possess any
"royal parks". Given Stephen appears to live in the UK, a country
which does have royal parks, it seems reasonable to assume he shot the
videos there. In which case, the question of what  American laws apply
to the filming seems a bit less relevant.

If you are going to complain about people spreading "fear, uncertainty
and doubt" about legal issues, it may be useful to spend some time
considering

a) that different jurisdictions have different laws;
b) that moving to one jurisdiction does not magically invalidate any
implicit or explicit contract you made in another; and
c) that "trademarked" and "copyrighted" are Not The Same Thing At All.

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


body:
Angela wrote:
> On 9/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 9/18/06, Arne Klempert <klempert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>May I ask you in which languages these articles are? Probably not in
>>>the same language I usually read.
>>
>>Dunno does google take news from things writen in not-english?
>
>
> Yes, but only if you visit Google News in another language. I don't
> believe there's a way to get news on a topic in all languages from
> Google. For example, you need to visit
> http://news.google.com/news?ned=de to see news in German (or perhaps
> in Germany. They seem to mix up language and country.
> http://news.google.com/news?ned=pt-BR_br
> http://news.google.com/news?ned=pt-PT_pt generally give the same
> alerts.)
>
> Angela.

Example:

Wikipedia in french google news (www.google.fr).
Only 500 references are used by the french google news in France. Note
that these references are in french (not in english, or german...), but
some of these websites are french from France, other french from Canada
(this confirms what Angela wrote above)

http://news.google.fr/news?hl=fr&ned=fr&q=Wikipedia&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d


subject: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution? Question for Jimbo!

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>In the case of the street layouts ... it's possible Wikipedia isn't
>the place for this unless and until there's a third-party source to
>verify it. And, you know, there are websites other than Wikipedia in
>the world to write up this stuff in the *first* instance.
>
>
>>I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many
>>people who have something to add.
>>
I wouldn't go so far as to draw that conclusion.  For most things
verifiability brings us to a website or some dead-tree sourece.  These
shouldn't be treated as exclusive means.  Something is verifiable if it
is stable enough that another person can go there and see the same thing.

Ec


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] KDE and Wikiversity

body:
Hi all,

I just thought I'd let you know that I'm meeting (informally) with a couple
of people from KDE [1] at their upcoming conference [2] in Dublin - about
Wikiversity. (Well, actually, we're meeting this Friday, the day before the
conference officially begins, but that's the only day that suits.) From
what I gather, they're thinking of using Wikiversity as a training
centre/programme for their developers - which sounds like a very practical
application for Wikiversity (and applicable to MediaWiki development also),
so we'll see what comes out of it. I'm really just there as a person to
explain to them what Wikiversity is and what it could be used for, but,
since I'm not very technically minded, any ideas or things to bear in mind
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Cormac / Cormaggio

[1] http://www.kde.org/
[2] http://conference2006.kde.org


subject: [Foundation-l] KDE and Wikiversity


body:
On 9/18/06, [[User:Unforgettableid]] <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright
> laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern
> skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are
> automatically copyrighted to the author.

That is somewhat open to question. While current case law that I know
of points that way there is a fair bit of legal opinion (includeing
the stuff in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp which does cover UK
law). suggesting a future case would go the other way. Problem is no
one on either side really wants to be a test case.

 >On the other hand, I do not
> know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old
> paintings. Likewise, I assume France, where is not as strict regarding
> filming.
>

Depends if you include any buildings in your film and how old they are.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Names of places in unrecognized countries

body:
geni wrote:

>On 9/18/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>The fact that Moldovan is already written with the Roman alphabet is a
>>strong argument in its favour.  A Russian form still needs to be
>>transliterated from the Cyrillic.  Legally, Transnistria is a part of
>>Romania, and it should not be up to us to decide whether it should be an
>>independent country.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>Part of Moldova rather.
>
Ooops!  Sorry.

Ec


from_name: Ian Woollard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template cruft (was: Libertarian spam)

body:
On 18/09/06, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Put in plain brown wrapper English, unreadability means the experience of
> reading Wikipedia has elevated vaccum retention levels. Which, IMHO goes
> against our implicit mandate to make the Internet not... do that.

How do I get an explicit list of these implicit mandates anyway? :-)

Thanks for making it 'plain brown wrapper English' but I still don't
have a clue what you are talking about. And there seems to be a reason
for that. :-)

Answers on a postcard, please Mr Troll!

> -sv.

--
-Ian Woollard

"Victory can be perceived but not created."
For your own security, the Department of Homeland Security is watching you.


body:
On 9/18/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> I think you have it exactly wrong.
>
> *  Wikimedia Foundation is not about the English Wikipedia. If it was,
> the other projects should get out of the Wikimedia Foundation asap
> because it would make it the wrong place to grow their project.

The language barrier tends to result in the foundation being less
involved on other projects. Can you imagine what would happen if en
had the same issues with the verifiability policy as ru? the odds are
we would be being asked some pretty tough question by the foundation.
How many other projects have an equivalent to [[en:Wikipedia:Office
Actions]]?

> * It would be good to discriminate against the English Wikipedia because
> it gets too much attention. The alternative is that it cannot look after
> itself. If this is the case the project should organise itself and not
> be dependant on outside control.

Again the foundation is unlikely to allow this. In practice you should
hope the en does not focus on exclusively looking after it self
(although for a number of reasons that would be pretty much impossible
for this to happen) and considers itself as part of a greater project.

> * Even the Neapolitan wikipedia has had articles in the Italian National
> Press. This is certainly true for all the bigger projects. If you think
> that the domination of the English wikipedia is so self evident, think
> again most of what happens around the other projects you do not know
> about.

OK lets look at some international figures:

en dominates the alexa results:

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

other than a brief appearance by de en dominates the search results:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=en.wikipedia.org%2C+es.wikipedia.org%2C+de.wikipedia.org%2C+fr.wikipedia.org%2C+Ja.wikipedia.org&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

> Also the growth of the other projects is faster than the English
> project. It will not take long and the other projects will be
> substantially bigger.
>

Combined I think they already are in terms of number of articles.
Individually nothing is going to challenge en any time soon.

> If you choose a board member only because you think he or she is
> "nice".. you might consider if he of she will also be effective and do
> good for ALL the projects.

I tend towards the "vote for anyone I consider competent" approach.

--
geni


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Anthere wrote:
>>
>>> 1.2. Identification of big media group (make a list).
>>> Contact and proposition of articles. Language focus: english, french,
>>> arab, portuguese.
>>> Of course, include them in the list of press release.
>>>
>>>
>> I take it that you want to engage the media in the countries themselves,
>> this is more effectively done by local people. They will be able to do
>> so effectively when they know themselves empowered to do so. This means
>> that local chapters may be really relevant here. They are because they
>> can handle money and they provide a front to the people who do things on
>> the ground. If you want to stimulate local languages, learn how it is
>> done by others, what is done in Neapolitan is one good example but there
>> are more like it.
>>
>
> Can you explain more about what is done in Neapolitan language ?
>
The Neapolitan language is a language that is considered by many to be
inferior. People are not educated in it, while the Neapolitans are a
proud people many sadly do not take pride in their own language. In
order to promote the Neapolitan language, everything is done to
stimulate the recognition of the Neapolitan language. Stubs are created
to create a tapestry of articles that are linked. Translation tools are
used to generate content. There is a newsletter in Neapolitan to people
who are interested. People living as far afield as the USA and Australia
are contacted when they show their interest in the Neapolitan language.
There have been articles in the press about the project. Neapolitan
traditions are covered, local interest is sought.

As the Italian chapter now has a coordinator for the regional languages,
it will be interesting to see how the chapter will be able to facilitate
projects like the Neapolitan wikipedia.. I know for instance that the
Neapolitan project would love to have a Neapolitan dictionary to scan
and OCR as well as support for scanning original Neapolitan literature
(most of is it in the public domain).
>>> 1.3. Identification of specialized press (make a list)
>>> Focus: Linux fanatics :-) Contact and proposition of articles
>>>
>> I think the Linux fanatics are overrated, they have many of the concepts
>> right, they have the fanatism wrong. We should reach out to everyone we
>> do not want to be associated and identified with a fanatic fringe. I
>> understand and appreciate the wink, but some of these people are fringe
>> and are more of a burden than of a help.
>>
>
> Frankly... I have seen most languages start thanks to developers
> participation. And remember quite well that for a rather long time, the
> only articles we got were only in tech journals. This is something we
> should rely on.
>
It may be true that many of our "languages" (you mean Wikipedia ?) were
started by developers, but since then many other projects have started
and many of these projects have not been started by developers. Many of
these projects are doing well. When you consider the press coverage we
are getting, you will find that we are now have traction in the main
press. The effect of publications like the one in Nature, the
Seigenthaler interview on CNN proved extremely valuable. This is where
our current relevant exposure comes from. A slashdot article does no
longer generate a slashdot effect.

I am not suggesting that we should cold shoulder the computer press.
They are relevant to a large part of the wiki community. What I am
saying is that the Linux fanatics are not and have never been that
important. The people who became involved in our projects have been too
level headed to call them fanatics.

>>> 1.4. Identification of major NGO working on education and woman groups.
>>> Contact. Provide them with a bit of "advertisment".
>>>
>>>
>> When you want to get NGO's to work on our projects, you do not only want
>> to inform them, you also want to engage them. It means that a
>> substantial amount of time will be involved. The time frame in which
>> they operate is quite different, they work with budget cycles,
>> deadlines. NGO's are often really enthusiastic but for them wikis and
>> their methodology are new; they have to be initiated in the wiki way. It
>> takes time and perseverance.
>>
>
> Correct
>
>
>>> 1.5. Contact of all major universities.
>>> propose them teleconference (if they are equipped) or irl presentation
>>> (if that fit well with a formal conference or a trip)
>>>
>>>
>> I have not done that systematically yet, but it is extremely likely that
>> I will get many more contacts in universities soon.
>>
>
> ok
>
>
>>> 2. Favor production of content in languages already developped
>>> Cases such as RAFT or Wiki voices. If necessary, find money and someone
>>> to help coordinating this to ensure success.
>>>
>>>
>> It is helpful if there is a place where these things are coordinated. A
>> language subcommittee of the SPC could do many of these things.. It is
>> just for this subcommittee to be allowed to start. Finding money is not
>> that hard. It just needs a plan that needs implementation. Approving
>> plans for funding and incorporation in the WMF would be a step towards
>> the notion of "donations, putting your money where your mouth is"
>> (details on Meta).
>>
>
> Right now, the problem seems to be that nobody is willing to take time
> doing plans. Doing plans is not as funny as writing articles.
> For example, I suggested a long time ago we should build up a list of
> african media contacts to send press releases to. I started doing that a
> long time ago for Algeria and Marocco (press releases sent there never
> raised any attention though). But a much more extensive list needs to be
> set up and used. But no list has ever been made as far as I know. Saying
> "it needs a plan" is good, that does not make it happen. Approving plans
> is good as well, but needs a plan in the first place.
>
> I am unsure how to approach this.
>
There is a plan what a language subcommittee can do. It has been
published on Meta. There are people who are willing to execute that
plan. The only thing that is needed is to have a mandate to do this for
the Wikimedia Foundation as well. We are doing many of the things
mentioned anyway because it benefits the WiktionaryZ project and we do
not mind that the benefit is more than just WiktionaryZ; that is what
makes it so sweet to do.
>>> 3. Favor production of content in local languages
>>>
>>> * Help Beta Wiki
>>> * Contact local NGOs for help in translation interface
>>> * Identification (now) of major languages (according to read/write
>>> coverage)
>>>
>> There is agreement between Brion and Nikerabbit that Beta Wiki will be
>> hosted on a more convenient place. This is an extremely important thing
>> and I am grateful to Brion to help out on this one.
>>
>> Translating the User Interface only for our projects is a missed
>> opportunity. MediaWiki is extremely powerful software. When the
>> localisation is also seen as an opportunity to have this great tool
>> available, it becomes something that has relevance to an organisation
>> for itself. This is an extremely powerful argument. It also underlines
>> why the localisation in a wikipedia is not such a great idea; it's scope
>> is only that project and there is no added benefit.
>>
>
> Here, I appear to have lost you on the way... can you re-explain ?
>
When an NGO helps with the localisation of MediaWiki, only to have a
Wikipedia benefit, is a nice effort but a missed opportunity. MediaWiki
can be used for other projects including projects of the NGO itself and
the partners they asked to do the localisation for them. This way
MediaWiki becomes a tool for these organisations as well and this in
turn makes the investment in the localisation more valuable. This means
that MediaWiki should be seen as a valuable commodity in it's own right,
a commodity we should more actively promote.
>>> Here are some thougts. Are they others ?
>>> Who feel like helping take care of some of those points ?
>>>
>>>
>> It is important to be enthusiastic about what we do and it is as
>> important to have a good understanding what the WMF does and what it's
>> projects are. It is however also really relevant to tell that the WMF is
>> part of a growing ecosphere with many other projects like Wikitravel,
>> Yellowiki, Wikia being part of it. This shows that the wikiway is not
>> only the Wikipedia way.
>>
>> I have been taking care of some of these points because it helps
>> WiktionaryZ. For WiktionaryZ it is relevant that we are part of this
>> whole wiki thing. The strength of what we do is achieved in the many
>> different things we do, try and achieve. We would be better served if we
>> cooperated more and bickered less.
>>
>
> indeed
>
> I went back to the meta page on the topic. They are hopelessly outdated.
>
> Well, my first move will be to contact back this BBC journalist as well
> as the journalist from IT & Telecom Digest. One step at a time.
>
>> Thanks,
>>      GerardM
>>
>> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/afrophonewikis/ - Yahoo group on
>> supporting African language
>> http://www.kasahorow.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page - Wiki for a
>> project plan for supporting Ghanaian languages
>> http://wiktionaryz.org - Pre alpha project to do lexicology, terminology
>> and ontology has both language and country portals
>> http://nike.users.idler.fi/dev/index.php?title=ISO-639-3/gil


subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-09-19

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Tim Starling

body:
Tim Starling has been ill for the last nine days and went into surgery
today. He was originally misdiagnosed as having gastroenteritis but it
turned out to be a bowel obstruction, probably caused by adhesion from
an appendectomy nine years ago.

The surgery took about three and a half hours, but he's now well
enough to be on a main ward, so it seems it went well (it's impossible
to find a doctor to actually tell you about this in the middle of the
night though, so I may have more news tomorrow - let me know if you
want updates).

He's likely to be in the hospital ([[St Vincent's Hospital,
Melbourne]]) for another week and then taking up to six weeks before
he's 100% again.

If you'd like to send "get well soon" messages, please edit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tim_Starling/Get_Well_Soon - I'll be
getting it printed to take in to him in a few days.

Angela.

--
Angela Beesley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Tim Starling


from_name: Forbidden Places

body:
Hi Jason,
No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
What do I have to do?

I'd love to get a link from wiki (en) from the urban exploration page, would
that be possible?

Best regards, Sylvain

-----Message d'origine-----
De?: . Unforgettableid [mailto:unforgettableid at gmail.com]
Envoy??: lundi 18 septembre 2006 22:44
??: info at forbidden-places.be
Cc?: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Objet?: Would you like one of your videos posted on Wikipedia?

To: info at forbidden-places.be

Hello,

My name is Jason and I am a volunteer editor for Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia anyone can edit. I saw your SAFEA chemical factory urban
exploration video at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7772963855357017766 on Google
Video and enjoyed it very much. (The train video sounds interesting
too but it seems you want to keep it private.) We at Wikipedia are
considering using your video to illustrate our articles
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration (English)
and
- http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_urbaine (French).

Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as
easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process
step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and for
the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping Wikipedia
by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process and
make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.

We are wondering: Are you interested?

Please use the "Reply to All" button if you reply.

Regards,
Jason
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Unforgettableid


body:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Actually, the translation issue is a very strong argument against
>> direct election of Board members.  Indirect election, via elected
>> delegates at each project (or other appropriate grouping), would avoid
>> much of this issue.  It would also curtail the "popularity effect" of
>> enwiki -- we could use a diminishing-returns allocation of delegates
>> to minimize the "hulking gorilla" effect that enwiki otherwise has on
>> popular polling within Wikimedia.
>>
>> Kelly
>>
>
>
> I haven't done an exact count but a quick scan (not removeing deleted
> votes) suggests than less than 50% of votes came from en.wikipedia.
>
> Enwikipedia tends to be on the reciving end of rather more board
> actions than anyone else (the downside of not haveing a language
> barrier). Thus it has a greater interest than other projects in the
> outcome of foundation elections.
>
> Secondly there is no reason the descriminate against members of the
> wikipedia community for being part of a popular project.
>
> Thirdly any board member who can't get along we en.wikipedia and
> doesn't have at least a reasonable degree of support from en is
> unlikely to be able to function since en.wikipedia isn't just big in
> voteing power but in everything else (articles publicity effects on
> other projects donations recived representation at the meta level) as
> well.
Hoi,
I think you have it exactly wrong.

*  Wikimedia Foundation is not about the English Wikipedia. If it was,
the other projects should get out of the Wikimedia Foundation asap
because it would make it the wrong place to grow their project.
* It would be good to discriminate against the English Wikipedia because
it gets too much attention. The alternative is that it cannot look after
itself. If this is the case the project should organise itself and not
be dependant on outside control.
* Even the Neapolitan wikipedia has had articles in the Italian National
Press. This is certainly true for all the bigger projects. If you think
that the domination of the English wikipedia is so self evident, think
again most of what happens around the other projects you do not know
about. Also the growth of the other projects is faster than the English
project. It will not take long and the other projects will be
substantially bigger.

If you choose a board member only because you think he or she is
"nice".. you might consider if he of she will also be effective and do
good for ALL the projects.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Ben McIlwain

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

[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places <postmaster at forbidden-places.be> wrote:
>> Hi Jason,
>> No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
> We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the
> video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at
> Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for
> your website in the corner of your video though... :-)

Who are you to say that we won't edit the video?  Maybe you won't, but
maybe someone else will, in a way that makes it more useful, and then
link that on Wikipedia.  That's the point of viral licensing and
ShareAlikes.  I'm afraid "you're not allowed to edit it" is a deal-breaker.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~
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k0pfYeGID+wHSm4jrGEefS8=
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from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa

body:
>>
> When the lexicons are completed, I'll start translation runs in Neopolitian.
>
Jeff, that will take some time - I am trying to get Carmine involved -
if things depend only on me ... well: I cannot give any deadline.

I hope that other small wikipedias take up the possibility and start to
create their contents as well.

Thank you!!!

Best wishes,

Sabine
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>>Brad Patrick wrote:
>>
>>
>>>From my perspective, what happens in the office to keep
>>>the servers running, bills paid, and all of the rest of the stuff that
>>>never touches the online space (much less in other languages and
>>>projects) could not be more separate than the day-to-day goings on of
>>>the projects.
>>>
>>>
>I am afraid I don't get what you mean here.
>
>Delphine
>(English as a second language. ;-) )
>
I think that what Brad is getting at is the need to begin identifying
the tasks that need to belong to the Foundation, and those that belong
to other elements of the Wikimedia family, whether it's a wikicouncil, a
project, a language or a chapter.  We need to start with what is
obvious, and work our way from there.  Some of the above tasks might
also belong to the chapters.

Clarity is important to the longterm health of the Wikimedia family.
Thus as long as the fear is there that the entire operation could be
taken over by proprietary corporate interests, that fear won't go away
by ignoring it.

Ec


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images into
 PNG	on	MediaWiki 1.7.1

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKKEHIIOAA.nickpj@gmail.com>	<450F34AA.3020209@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<eene3a$f3e$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Mark Clements wrote:

>"Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
>wrote in message news:450F34AA.3020209 at wolfmountaingroup.com...
>
>
>>Nick Jenkins wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>That's from the
>>>http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#disclaimer page; In
>>>other words, the people who wrote how to ask better technical questions
>>>are simply saying "don't then proceed to ask us
>>>(the how-to-ask-questions-people) those technical questions; rather,
>>>ask it of the appropriate mailing list (or whatever) for the software in
>>>question". Which is what you've done ;-)  I.e. It's not the MediaWiki
>>>people refusing to help you.
>>>
>>>All the best,
>>>Nick.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>OK.   We should not be referring to our community members as "idiots".
>>This is way out of line.   The general tone raises some hairs on the
>>back of my neck, but when it got to the term "idiot" I think this
>>creates needless friction.   I certainly understand why the developers
>>would not want to deal with trivial issues and I agree with this.  I
>>also understand this was an off list posting, but Brion did refer to it
>>as reference.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>
>(a) That is a message from the writers/maintainers of that article to people
>who have been directed to it by a third-party, as has happened here.  They
>have no affiliation with MediaWiki and do not want to receive e-mails
>asking how to render inline SVG images into PNG on MediaWiki 1.7.1 from
>people who can't tell the difference between a mailing list and an
>unaffiliated web page.
>
>
It may be construed to be rather tacky to use that listing for third
parties as a statement that reflects on
the MediaWiki project.

>
>(b) If you'd read to the end, you'd have seen this:
>http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#keepcool
>
>

I am cool. I seriously doubt that someone who invests large sums of
money in MediaWiki sponsored companies likes
being pointed to text that refers to them as an "idiot". I am not upset
at all -- just making an observation.

:-)

Jeff

>Have a nice day!
>
>- Mark Clements (HappyDog)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It would be nice to actually have others stats than those gathered by
> Alexa. Do we have other sources of information ?
>

might be able to compare main page views through:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts

but you would need one heck of a fudge factor to account for different
usage patterns

> In any cases, this discussion is pretty much a troll and we already know
> there will never be any agreement on this issue of "let's pick up
> english board members 'cause en.wikipedia is the biggest and requires
> most attention" or the "bullshit, the other languages are growing and
> require attention as well". This will not get anywhere EVER.
>

The question is largely irrelevant. I would be surprised if en makes
up 50% of the votes thus candidates need support from non en groups in
order to win. I do however object to anything that would discriminate
against en users.

> So, no, there is no exactly similar WP:Office in all big languages,
> because the Foundation can not afford paying people to do Danny's job in
> 10 languages right now.

I've delt with copyright issues on lanagues I don't speak. Libel would
be harder but there are ways to do it.
--
geni


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images into PNG on
 MediaWiki 1.7.1

references:
<450E2BBB.2010709@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<450E4EA2.9060709@pobox.com>	<450EBF3D.1060307@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<450F3984.7030702@pobox.com>

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>Here is a more complete question.
>>
>>I have attempted to setup SVG to PNG rendering and it does  not seem to
>>work on 1.7.1.  I checked the Defaults file in includes and
>>I have verified rsvg is properly installed.  I have also enabled the
>>DebugLogFile option and attempted to run a trace
>>the results indicate this section of code is not even activating as
>>there are no messages being output to indicate
>>that the RSVG section of code is even becoming active during rendering.
>>The mine/type detection does appear to work
>>in that SVG images are in fact detected.
>>
>>
>
>Since you still do not provide any of your SVG-related configuration settings or
>the details of your investigations, I can't guess whether you've simply
>configured something wrong.  All I can tell you is that if configured correctly,
>it is known to work.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>

Ask, and ye shall receive.  Here is the LocalSettings.php (passwords
removed) from MediaWiki 1.7.1.   It fails with the default
1.7.1 right out of the tar.gz file.  I also included the DefaultSettings.php

Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

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

Nathaniel Krause wrote:
> I'm not too comfortable with the implication that there is a wrong
> and right way to use approval voting in this election. It strikes me
> as a bug rather than a feature that Board elections currently don't
> allow the voter to express any preference at all among the candidates
> that she or he finds acceptable.

A bug?  No, preference voting isn't a "bug", it's simply another style
of voting, along with plurality, Borda count, Condorcet criterion, etc.
 It's possible to create an infinite number of sets of voters such that
a different candidate wins in each election for each different
vote-counting method.  It's one of those tricky mathematical problems
... how do you count and tabulate opinion?  For what it's worth, I
prefer the preference vote, because many mathematicians have looked at
the issue very carefully and it's what they use when voting amongst
themselves.

> I'd really like to see WMF switch to a form of Condorcet voting, such
> as the Schultze method, for the next elections. This would allow the
> voter the flexibility to rank candidates in order of preference, or
> to rank several equally if they prefer.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~
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references:
<450E2BBB.2010709@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<450E4EA2.9060709@pobox.com>	<450EBF3D.1060307@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<450F3984.7030702@pobox.com>
	<450F9B29.7010309@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Here is a more complete question.
>>>
>>> I have attempted to setup SVG to PNG rendering and it does  not seem
>>> to work on 1.7.1.  I checked the Defaults file in includes and
>>> I have verified rsvg is properly installed.  I have also enabled the
>>> DebugLogFile option and attempted to run a trace
>>> the results indicate this section of code is not even activating as
>>> there are no messages being output to indicate
>>> that the RSVG section of code is even becoming active during
>>> rendering.  The mine/type detection does appear to work
>>> in that SVG images are in fact detected.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Since you still do not provide any of your SVG-related configuration
>> settings or
>> the details of your investigations, I can't guess whether you've simply
>> configured something wrong.  All I can tell you is that if configured
>> correctly,
>> it is known to work.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>>
>>
>
> Ask, and ye shall receive.  Here is the LocalSettings.php (passwords
> removed) from MediaWiki 1.7.1.   It fails with the default
> 1.7.1 right out of the tar.gz file.  I also included the
> DefaultSettings.php
>
> Jeff
>
>
Splicing in the text for LocalSettings.php.  The mailer rejects the
attachments.  The only change I made to DefaultSettings.php is the
addition of
a "+" symbol to $wgLegalChars.

Jeff

# This file was automatically generated by the MediaWiki installer.
# If you make manual changes, please keep track in case you need to
# recreate them later.
#
# See includes/DefaultSettings.php for all configurable settings
# and their default values, but don't forget to make changes in _this_
# file, not there.

# If you customize your file layout, set $IP to the directory that contains
# the other MediaWiki files. It will be used as a base to locate files.
if( defined( 'MW_INSTALL_PATH' ) ) {
    $IP = MW_INSTALL_PATH;
} else {
    $IP = dirname( __FILE__ );
}

$path = array( $IP, "$IP/includes", "$IP/languages" );
set_include_path( implode( PATH_SEPARATOR, $path ) );

require_once( "includes/DefaultSettings.php" );

# If PHP's memory limit is very low, some operations may fail.
# ini_set( 'memory_limit', '20M' );

if ( $wgCommandLineMode ) {
    if ( isset( $_SERVER ) && array_key_exists( 'REQUEST_METHOD',
$_SERVER ) ) {
        die( "This script must be run from the command line\n" );
    }
} elseif ( empty( $wgNoOutputBuffer ) ) {
    ## Compress output if the browser supports it
    if( !ini_get( 'zlib.output_compression' ) ) @ob_start( 'ob_gzhandler' );
}

#$wgDebugLogFile         = './debug.log';

$wgUseTidy = true;
$wgTidyBin = 'usr/bin/tidy';
$wgTidyConf = $IP.'/extensions/tidy/tidy.conf';

$wgSitename         = "WikiGadugi";

$wgScriptPath        = "";
$wgScript           = "$wgScriptPath/index.php";
$wgRedirectScript   = "$wgScriptPath/redirect.php";

## For more information on customizing the URLs please see:
## http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eliminating_index.php_from_the_url
## If using PHP as a CGI module, the ?title= style usually must be used.
$wgArticlePath      = "/wiki/$1";
#$wgArticlePath      = "$wgScript/$1";
# $wgArticlePath      = "$wgScript?title=$1";

$wgStylePath        = "$wgScriptPath/skins";
$wgStyleDirectory   = "$IP/skins";
$wgLogo             = "$wgStylePath/common/images/SequoyahStub.jpg";

$wgUploadPath       = "$wgScriptPath/images";
$wgUploadDirectory  = "$IP/images";

$wgEnableEmail = true;
$wgEnableUserEmail = true;

$wgEmergencyContact = "webmaster at wikigadugi.org";
$wgPasswordSender    = "webmaster at wikigadugi.org";

## For a detailed description of the following switches see
## http://meta.wikimedia.org/Enotif and http://meta.wikimedia.org/Eauthent
## There are many more options for fine tuning available see
## /includes/DefaultSettings.php
## UPO means: this is also a user preference option
$wgEnotifUserTalk = true; # UPO
$wgEnotifWatchlist = true; # UPO
$wgEmailAuthentication = true;

$wgDBserver         = "localhost";
$wgDBname           = "wikidb";
$wgDBuser           = "wikiuser";
$wgDBpassword       = "password";
$wgDBprefix         = "";
$wgDBtype           = "mysql";

# Experimental charset support for MySQL 4.1/5.0.
$wgDBmysql5 = false;

## Shared memory settings
$wgMainCacheType = CACHE_NONE;
$wgMemCachedServers = array();

## To enable image uploads, make sure the 'images' directory
## is writable, then set this to true:
$wgEnableUploads        = true;
$wgUseImageResize        = true;
$wgUseImageMagick = true;
$wgImageMagickConvertCommand = "/usr/bin/convert";

## If you want to use image uploads under safe mode,
## create the directories images/archive, images/thumb and
## images/temp, and make them all writable. Then uncomment
## this, if it's not already uncommented:
# $wgHashedUploadDirectory = false;

## If you have the appropriate support software installed
## you can enable inline LaTeX equations:
$wgUseTeX             = true;
$wgTexvc = './math/texvc';
$wgMathPath         = "{$wgUploadPath}/math";
$wgMathDirectory    = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/math";
$wgTmpDirectory     = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/tmp";

$wgLocalInterwiki   = $wgSitename;

$wgLanguageCode = "en";

$wgProxyKey =
"1a76ed0ff0e05fadaa9c9db5344ee0a981d4348cb14f36a2209083e6a48da8e8";

## Default skin: you can change the default skin. Use the internal symbolic
## names, ie 'standard', 'nostalgia', 'cologneblue', 'monobook':
$wgDefaultSkin = 'monobook';

## For attaching licensing metadata to pages, and displaying an
## appropriate copyright notice / icon. GNU Free Documentation
## License and Creative Commons licenses are supported so far.
$wgEnableCreativeCommonsRdf = false;
$wgRightsPage = ""; # Set to the title of a wiki page that describes
your license/copyright
$wgRightsUrl = "http://www.wikigadugi.org/index.php/License";
$wgRightsText = "Wikigadugi Public License";
#$wgRightsIcon = "${wgStylePath}/common/images/gnu-fdl.png";
# $wgRightsCode = "gfdl"; # Not yet used

$wgDiff3 = "/usr/bin/diff3";

# When you make changes to this configuration file, this will make
# sure that cached pages are cleared.
$configdate = gmdate( 'YmdHis', @filemtime( __FILE__ ) );
$wgCacheEpoch = max( $wgCacheEpoch, $configdate );

$wgUseFileCache = true;
$wgFileCacheDirectory = "/wikidump/chrcache";
$wgShowIPinHeader = false;
$wgUseGzip = false;
$wgAntiLockFlags = ALF_NO_LINK_LOCK | ALF_NO_BLOCK_LOCK;

require_once( "$IP/extensions/Chr2Syl.php" );
require_once( "$IP/extensions/Cite.php" );
require_once( "$IP/extensions/ParserFunctions/ParserFunctions.php" );

#$wgDebugLogFile         = 'debug.log';


references:
<450E2BBB.2010709@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<450E4EA2.9060709@pobox.com>	<450EBF3D.1060307@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<450F3984.7030702@pobox.com>	<450F9B29.7010309@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<450F9C08.3000107@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Here is a more complete question.
>>>>
>>>>I have attempted to setup SVG to PNG rendering and it does  not seem
>>>>to work on 1.7.1.  I checked the Defaults file in includes and
>>>>I have verified rsvg is properly installed.  I have also enabled the
>>>>DebugLogFile option and attempted to run a trace
>>>>the results indicate this section of code is not even activating as
>>>>there are no messages being output to indicate
>>>>that the RSVG section of code is even becoming active during
>>>>rendering.  The mine/type detection does appear to work
>>>>in that SVG images are in fact detected.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Since you still do not provide any of your SVG-related configuration
>>>settings or
>>>the details of your investigations, I can't guess whether you've simply
>>>configured something wrong.  All I can tell you is that if configured
>>>correctly,
>>>it is known to work.
>>>
>>>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Ask, and ye shall receive.  Here is the LocalSettings.php (passwords
>>removed) from MediaWiki 1.7.1.   It fails with the default
>>1.7.1 right out of the tar.gz file.  I also included the
>>DefaultSettings.php
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>>
Here are the default settings for DefaultSettings.php for the SVG renderer.

Jeff

# Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) may be uploaded as images.
# Since SVG support is not yet standard in browsers, it is
# necessary to rasterize SVGs to PNG as a fallback format.
#
# An external program is required to perform this conversion:
$wgSVGConverters = array(
'ImageMagick' => '$path/convert -background white -geometry $width
$input $output',
'sodipodi' => '$path/sodipodi -z -w $width -f $input -e $output',
'inkscape' => '$path/inkscape -z -w $width -f $input -e $output',
'batik' => 'java -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar
$path/batik-rasterizer.jar -w $width -d $output $input',
'rsvg' => '$path/rsvg -w$width -h$height $input $output',
);
/** Pick one of the above */
$wgSVGConverter = 'rsvg';
/** If not in the executable PATH, specify */
$wgSVGConverterPath = '';
/** Don't scale a SVG larger than this */
$wgSVGMaxSize = 1024;


from_name: Mark Clements

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images into PNG
	on	MediaWiki 1.7.1

body:
"Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
wrote in message news:450F34AA.3020209 at wolfmountaingroup.com...
> Nick Jenkins wrote:
>
> >That's from the
> >http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#disclaimer page; In
> >other words, the people who wrote how to ask better technical questions
> >are simply saying "don't then proceed to ask us
> >(the how-to-ask-questions-people) those technical questions; rather,
> >ask it of the appropriate mailing list (or whatever) for the software in
> >question". Which is what you've done ;-)  I.e. It's not the MediaWiki
> >people refusing to help you.
> >
> >All the best,
> >Nick.
> >
> OK.   We should not be referring to our community members as "idiots".
> This is way out of line.   The general tone raises some hairs on the
> back of my neck, but when it got to the term "idiot" I think this
> creates needless friction.   I certainly understand why the developers
> would not want to deal with trivial issues and I agree with this.  I
> also understand this was an off list posting, but Brion did refer to it
> as reference.
>
> Jeff

(a) That is a message from the writers/maintainers of that article to people
who have been directed to it by a third-party, as has happened here.  They
have no affiliation with MediaWiki and do not want to receive e-mails
asking how to render inline SVG images into PNG on MediaWiki 1.7.1 from
people who can't tell the difference between a mailing list and an
unaffiliated web page.

(b) If you'd read to the end, you'd have seen this:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#keepcool

Have a nice day!

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Jacky PB

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change language name...

body:
> I wonder how one can make an encyclopedia in that
> language, when there's
> no standard dialect...

Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. It is a
super-collection of (interesting) information.

In this sense, a wikipedia in Aromanian is quite
useful for people interested in the language,  but
which are not professional linguists. It's probably
the only place I could get in contact with the
language.

As for the standard dialect: for a language that
doesn't have one, if the editors don't start to fight,
then it's OK for me. :)

Yours,
Dpotop

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


body:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Hoi,
>>I think you have it exactly wrong.
>>
>>*  Wikimedia Foundation is not about the English Wikipedia. If it was,
>>the other projects should get out of the Wikimedia Foundation asap
>>because it would make it the wrong place to grow their project.
>
>
> The language barrier tends to result in the foundation being less
> involved on other projects. Can you imagine what would happen if en
> had the same issues with the verifiability policy as ru? the odds are
> we would be being asked some pretty tough question by the foundation.
> How many other projects have an equivalent to [[en:Wikipedia:Office
> Actions]]?
>
>
>>* It would be good to discriminate against the English Wikipedia because
>>it gets too much attention. The alternative is that it cannot look after
>>itself. If this is the case the project should organise itself and not
>>be dependant on outside control.
>
>
> Again the foundation is unlikely to allow this. In practice you should
> hope the en does not focus on exclusively looking after it self
> (although for a number of reasons that would be pretty much impossible
> for this to happen) and considers itself as part of a greater project.
>
>
>>* Even the Neapolitan wikipedia has had articles in the Italian National
>>Press. This is certainly true for all the bigger projects. If you think
>>that the domination of the English wikipedia is so self evident, think
>>again most of what happens around the other projects you do not know
>>about.
>
>
> OK lets look at some international figures:
>
> en dominates the alexa results:
>
> http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=wikipedia.org&url=wikipedia.org

Already said *many* times, but worth repeating yet another time.

There is apparently a *significant* bias in the results given by Alexa.
This bias is largely due to the fact that Alexa works thanks to results
brought back by its tool bar. That tool bar is not used proportionally
per language.

For example, according to Alexa, the french wikipedia represent 3% of
the total traffic. Given that the french wikipedia is the third biggest
project and only one third of the english one, Alexa stats appear
unreasonable. This is pretty well colerated with the fact Alexa toolbar
is very little used by french editors.

It would be nice to actually have others stats than those gathered by
Alexa. Do we have other sources of information ?

> other than a brief appearance by de en dominates the search results:
>
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=en.wikipedia.org%2C+es.wikipedia.org%2C+de.wikipedia.org%2C+fr.wikipedia.org%2C+Ja.wikipedia.org&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Oh, very interesting stats !!!

>>Also the growth of the other projects is faster than the English
>>project. It will not take long and the other projects will be
>>substantially bigger.
>>
>
>
> Combined I think they already are in terms of number of articles.
> Individually nothing is going to challenge en any time soon.
>
>
>>If you choose a board member only because you think he or she is
>>"nice".. you might consider if he of she will also be effective and do
>>good for ALL the projects.
>
>
> I tend towards the "vote for anyone I consider competent" approach.
>

In any cases, this discussion is pretty much a troll and we already know
there will never be any agreement on this issue of "let's pick up
english board members 'cause en.wikipedia is the biggest and requires
most attention" or the "bullshit, the other languages are growing and
require attention as well". This will not get anywhere EVER.

What IS interesting though, and which Geni mentions correctly, is the
fact that the english speaking project receives much more attention from
the OFFICE/EXECUTIVE (which is, mind you, a bit different of attention
from the board).

I believe the current board *IS* careful to consider most languages.
Jimbo is frequently travelling and attending meetings from wikipedians
in various countries. Angela is very well known to be very helpful for
all languages. Whilst I am still focused on my original community, am
vocal about any english language dominance issue and trying to support
development of smaller languages.

I hope that current non-english editors do not feel the board is not
taking them into account. We may not be helpful/available enough, but I
do think we try to be fair.

BUT, if the board tries to see globally, I think it is a fact the
executive is more english oriented, and frankly, it is pretty
normal/understandable.

So, no, there is no exactly similar WP:Office in all big languages,
because the Foundation can not afford paying people to do Danny's job in
10 languages right now.
And there is no assistant to answer the phone in more than 2 languages;
so volunteers do the job and answer the phone from their home.
The operations are english centred.
The strategy is not.

The board is "strategy", not "operation".


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images
 into	PNG	on	MediaWiki 1.7.1

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:

>Hi!!!!
>
>
>
>>I am cool. I seriously doubt that someone who invests large sums of
>>money in MediaWiki sponsored companies likes
>>being pointed to text that refers to them as an "idiot".
>>
>>
>
>If you're investing money into companies already sponsored by
>MediaWiki team, would you call ourselves partners? :)
>
>Domas
>
>

Howdy partner. I am investing in a company that promotes the use of
MediaWiki in Native American Language Preservation
programs for Wikimedia content. Close enough. When my ban is lifted on
the English Wikipedia, then I will start the money
flow into the Foundation -- which is what I think you meant. In the
meantime, I work on the Cherokee Wikipedia and Machine Translation
Support for
the Foundations projects -- I like the folks at Wikimedia.

:-)

Jeff

>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Domas Mituzas wrote:
>
>
>
>When my ban is lifted on the English Wikipedia, then I will start the money
>flow into the Foundation -- which is what I think you meant.
>
>
Regarding this comment, I cannot conribute directly to Wikimedia with a
ban on the English Wikipedia
in place -- it could be viewed in the wrong light by observers since
folks would claim I "paid"
for privileges. Better to let it run its course until Christmas when it
is supposed to be lifted.

Jeff


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikiversity-l] KDE and Wikiversity

body:
Hi Cormac,

On 9/19/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I just thought I'd let you know that I'm meeting (informally) with a
> couple of people from KDE [1] at their upcoming conference [2] in Dublin -
> about Wikiversity.
>

I'm very glad you confirm this meeting will happen :) I was afraid the
timing would be too short.

I really think this is a very good thing that different projects such as
Wikiversity and KDE join together and try to collaborate. I'm currently
trying to build other bridges between KDE and other Wikimedia projects, and
it seems to people from both side that this kind of collaboration will be
mutually beneficial.

Projects coming from the free world (I mean free software, free content,
etc.) share the same humanism and the same will to share. They are aiming at
the same ideal. Thus, they should try to work together whenever possible.

g.

--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.


from_name: A. Özgür Erdemli

subject: [Foundation-l] KDE and Wikiversity

body:
Wow sweet news.

I think technical part won't be any important. I believe main topic will be
learning through wikiveristy enviroment, methods etc. which is your
profession, Cormac :) I am looking forward to hear after meeting updates
from you.

?zg?r

On 9/18/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I just thought I'd let you know that I'm meeting (informally) with a
> couple
> of people from KDE [1] at their upcoming conference [2] in Dublin - about
> Wikiversity. (Well, actually, we're meeting this Friday, the day before
> the
> conference officially begins, but that's the only day that suits.) From
> what I gather, they're thinking of using Wikiversity as a training
> centre/programme for their developers - which sounds like a very practical
> application for Wikiversity (and applicable to MediaWiki development
> also),
> so we'll see what comes out of it. I'm really just there as a person to
> explain to them what Wikiversity is and what it could be used for, but,
> since I'm not very technically minded, any ideas or things to bear in mind
> would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Cormac / Cormaggio
>
>
> [1] http://www.kde.org/
> [2] http://conference2006.kde.org
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] KDE and Wikiversity


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG
 images	into	PNG	on	MediaWiki 1.7.1

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:

>Hi! Cool! Digs!
>
>
>
>>Howdy partner. I am investing in a company that promotes the use of
>>MediaWiki in Native American Language Preservation
>>programs for Wikimedia content. Close enough.
>>
>>
>
>Good initiative. I'm working on use of mediawiki in Native European
>Language Preservation too!
>
>
>
>>When my ban is lifted on the English Wikipedia, then I will start
>>the money
>>flow into the Foundation -- which is what I think you meant. In the
>>
>>
>
>Bans are set by communities. Foundation oversees operational issues,
>that supports many communities, including Native European Languages.
>
>
>
>>meantime, I work on the Cherokee Wikipedia and Machine Translation
>>Support for the Foundations projects -- I like the folks at Wikimedia.
>>
>>
>
>Great! I like them (Wikimedia people) too! I don't like machine
>translation though, because due to difficult ancient grammar
>constructs Native European Languages resist automatic conversions.
>
>I actually even thought it would be great idea to have a special
>mailing list for native language preservation issues - your emails to
>foundation about new dumps etc don't get that much attention and does
>appear as a spam there. With a new mailing list you could send all
>your information about language preservation to interested folks like
>me!
>
>

Well, a lot of the pointless conversations on that list are spam to me
-- I guess its a matter of perspective. Danny and Brad
are both very interested in what I am doing and have been sending me
grammar references and providing assitance, and
spreading the reach of languages if the next horizon for the Foundation,
not the folks who all rush to respond to Jimbo's
emails with endless kiss-up all the time. David Gerard is a hard worker
and several other folks, and Sabine and Dr. Benjamin
were real great folks to hook up with there, so it's been helpful for
all I think.

I am not interested in the Wikia competition and blasting someone as
spam because they are a perceived competitor (which I am not --
Wikia is no competition at all). :-)

Jeff

>Best regards,
>Domas
>
>
>