body:
Okay, perhaps we should just wait for this discussion to pan out, to
see what comes of it before we do anything else. This would seem
sensible to prevent any kind of conflict or unwelcome pressure.

On 14/07/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I can definitely do that. If you provide me the exact text.
> But it seems that a steward already contacted an administrator yesterday
>
> http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81#MediaWiki:Sitenotice
>
> There is a new discussion, where it is a
> general agreement to remove the Qur'anic verse
> from the Sitenotice but to display it on the main
> page in any case. There is still an argument going on
> in favour and against this new proposition.
>
> --heema
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com>
> To: Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com>; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:13:21 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)
>
> So, are we okay to post one of those notices? Heema, are you willing
> to translate and post both? I think we need to at least open
> discussion on the wiki as we're just repeating ourselves here on the
> list, it seems.
>
> On 13/07/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> > To: andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:20:50 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)
> >
> > >No one sane?
> >
> > >It has been edited by:
> > >http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%B1
> >
> > >One of the buracrats on that wikipedia.
> >
> > this guy argued that if you are against Qur'anic verses in the Sitenotice
> >  means you are against Qur'an.
> >
> > >It was created by:
> > >http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81
> >
> > >The admin we have contected over the sitenotice issue.
> >
> > Doesn't surprise me, because he added the Quranic verse into the Sitenotice
> > in the first place.
> >
> > --heema
> >
> > On 7/13/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all.
> > >
> > > (I apologise this won't show up in threading - I've only just
> > > subscribed and I'm reading old mesages through the archives)
> > >
> > > Heema Khan:
> > >
> > > > On Urdu Wikipedia, article on Israel is very short:
> > > > http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%DB%8C%D9%84
> > > > I can translate it:
> > > > "Israel, a palce where jews live. In addition to Pakistan there are many other
> > > > countries that do not recognize this place of Jews as a country.
> > > > Majority of the Urdu speaking public believes that there
> > > > is no country by the name of Israel exists. But there is
> > > > a country named Palestine, whose some part is captured
> > > > by Jews and they call it Israel. And the English speaking
> > > > world says that in a country called Israel some
> > > > Palestenians want to create a country called Palestine."
> > > >
> > > > This is the whole article. Quite extraordinary, nothing to add more.
> > >
> > > In this specific case, if my reading of the page is right, this
> > > article has had a grand total of 21 edits, the ten most recent of them
> > > in a single three-day period in June. Every single bit of the content
> > > has been contributed by one single registered user; all anon edits
> > > have been vandalism (well, one was pageblanking, that might count as
> > > justified!) No discussion page, of course.
> > >
> > > On the whole, while it's still a pretty terrible article, it scares me
> > > less once I know that it's the work of one guy and it's just that
> > > no-one sane has managed to look at it yet...
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
>     ?Xyrael
>         sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sean Whitton

subject: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)


list: wikien-l

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>We're not re-inventing the wheel.
>
>"Operation Iraqi Freedom" is both 1. not NPOV at all
>
I still don't buy the argument that the mere names of things
somehow express POV in a way that matters for WP's NPOV policy.
NPOV is all about reporting POVs, not picking one and claiming
that it's "more neutral" than any of the others. If you
deliberately choose a term that is not the most common in English,
how is that not pushing your own POV against the entire body of
speakers of the language?

Stan


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 7/13/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>And FWIW, the US Code defines "publication" as "the distribution of
>>copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other
>>transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering
>>to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for
>>purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public
>>display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a
>>work does not of itself constitute publication."
>>
>>Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there is no
>>rental, lease, or lending.  But then again, by that definition
>>*nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
>>court would agree with that.
>>
>>
>Looking further, "To perform or display a work "publicly" means?
>(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any
>place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle
>of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or
>(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of
>the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means
>of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of
>receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or
>in separate places and at the same time or at different times."
>
>Seems 2) fits in closer with what Wikipedia is doing than the
>definition of "publication".
>
I don't doubt that this is a part of US law.  The point really is does
the Code have the same definition of "publish" (and its related words)
in the context of copyright law as it does in the context of defamation
law, or any other branch of law where the definition may be an issue?

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On 7/14/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh at gmx.net> wrote:
> > No. You can't habitually break off polite discussion and make attacks.
> >
> > Fred
>
> Huh? Non sequitur. That statement is fallacious in so many ways.
> Please stop disrupting and go away, crazy person.

Not positive, but pretty sure you just proved his point, Dabljuh.  --LV


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiFilter

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

Ivan Krstic wrote:
> This is how the early Britannica CD sets worked, along with a bunch of
> other encyclopedias that I've used ages ago. It's not an uncommon
> approach. You don't have to actually install anything -- simply run the
> webserver from the DVD/CD directly. The task is made especially easy if
> you code your webserver in, say, Python, as you can make things
> reasonably cross-platform without too much effort.

It might be a reasonable idea, then.

> I have a hacker trying to see if the parser component can be easily
> extracted and used separately.

Never underestimate the hideous complexity of Parser.php!  Make sure you
refer the guy to previous efforts:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers

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an7TIxc8c0WBvO/G6dL3L4c=
=aNLR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 7/13/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>Robert Scott Horning said:
>>>The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold
>>>copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free
>>>Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects:  If there is a
>>>copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the
>>>copyright and defending the GPL.
>>>
>>>
>>My preference here would be to have each editor appoint WMF as a
>>non-exclusive agent for the purpose of taking all steps to defend
>>editors' copyrights.
>>
>>
>Optionally, I hope.  I personally have no desire to sue people over
>the vast majority of my legal rights under copyright law.  Basically,
>as long as you don't take my works and then create a non-free
>derivative, I don't care what you do with it, at least so far as
>copyright law is concerned.
>
I think that that view is shared by most of us who have a philosophical
attachment to the concept of free information.

>Frankly, I'd hope that the WMF would do the same, and only use
>lawsuits to make works more free, not less.
>
I presume that with "optionally" you are referring to WMF retaining the
option to sue or not sue based on the circumstances of the situation,
and not that each editor has an option about naming WMF as agent ...
sometimes.  The alternative would only create more confusion when the
WMF's right to pursue the matter comes up.  On the other hand, it would
be ridiculous to demand that WMF pursue with vigour every bit of
perceived copyvio.

This also relates to the need for the Board to take a clear policy
position that every credited extract from any WMF project not exceeding
a pre-defined size will be considered as fair use throughout the world.
By agreeing not to prosecute certain apparent violations in civil
actions, or to co-operate with authorities in criminal prosecutions it
would be a big step forward in establishing a level playing field for
fair use.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Borderline notable bios (yes, again)

body:
On 7/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 7/13/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > (sorry for duplicate, Anthony)
> >
> > On 14/07/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > > > It is, of course, possible to be guilty of one thing and not guilty
> of
> > > > another. I know a chap who was convicted for a particularly farcical
> > > > robbery attempt; he's guilty, no doubt, and it wasn't a victimless
> > > > crime. But if I wandered around this evening and kicked him in the
> > > > face, he'd be pretty justified in considering himself an innocent
> > > > victim of my mindless assault.
> > > >
> > > > I don't see how Peppers being convicted of something means we should
> > > > help people kick *him* in the face because they feel like it.
> > > >
> > > I'm not advocating that we kick Peppers in the face, I'm advocating
> > > that we provide information about him in Wikipedia.
> >
> > ...why? Wikipedia is not a registry of sex offenders. We're an
> > *encyclopedia*. Being convicted of a crime was not, last I checked,
> > even remotely near any sensible threshold for inclusion...
> >
> > Yes, we have "more of a right" to provide information about him than
> > about some other people... but that doesn't mean we need to, or that
> > anyone would be well-served by us doing so.
> >
> The simplest answer to why is that there are a lot of people who want
> to know about him.  Also, there is a lot of misinformation going
> around.
>
> Frankly, I thought the answer to "why" was obvious, which is why my
> message above focussed on why I think it's OK.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Where is the evidence that a lot of people want to know about him?

How many reliable sources do we have on him?

Some people on a website have decided to mock him. I don't think that we
should have an article on every person who has ever committed an offence
especially when there are so few reliable sources of information about him.

Regards

*Keith Old*

Keith Old


subject: [Wikitech-l] Ideas for faster MediaWiki startup

references:
<e97k44$15i$1@sea.gmane.org> <e983j7$grn$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e985si$ojr$1@sea.gmane.org>

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

Tim Starling wrote:
> We've used xdebug, but it will only give you a very small sample
> size, any more than a few requests and the files get too large to
> handle.

Hmm, I've tried XDebug for profiling and I didn't like it very much. You
may want to try APD.

> Our own profiler can average over an arbitrary number of
> requests at quite a high sample rate. For a breakdown of Setup.php
> and CommonSettings.php, see
>
> http://noc.wikimedia.org/cgi-bin/report.py?db=enwiki&sort=name&limit=5000

The report only offers a few dozen or so high-level functions. Could we
further break them down to see if it's a dumb inefficiency and not
systematic (for instance, Setup.php-misc2 takes 15% of Setup.php
processing. I wonder what it does?)

A function breakdown, even if its only performed once, would be
interesting to see. (of course, I could run the profiling myself, but
they wouldn't be very representative) (someone could, theoretically
speaking, build a processor that would average multiple runs too, but
the base problem of having a heck of a lot more information remains).

Tim Starling wrote:
> Sure, but that would require touching many more lines of code.

The price of abstraction. ;-) (Whether or not it's worth paying is
another issue.)

> We've found extract(unserialize(...)) to be quite fast. A
> configuration object would be useful if we wanted to operate on
> multiple wikis in the course of a single run, but that's complicated
> for lots of other reasons. In any case, the changes I'm proposing
> would be a useful step towards getting rid of configuration globals,
> it's not mutually exclusive.

One step at a time, I suppose. Of course, you could always unserialize
the registry... Configuration object would take a lot more work though,
so we'd probably want to lay off that for now.

> A module, by my meaning, can be either part of the core or an
> extension. It's not about orderly fashions, it's about speed, and the
> changes I'm talking about would potentially have application to the
> core as well as the extensions.

That clarified things a bit. I think that you've got the experience (and
intuition) to home in on the spot that's inefficient, so I won't comment
on that.

Still trying to be helpful, How do you plan on clearing these serialized
caches?
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OMuOH6q555rAldPaunxti3Y=
=QJoa
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN for Language Select Javascript?

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

So... who do I ask for Subversion access?
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iD8DBQFEt68sqTO+fYacSNoRAkpXAJwNsbq+hSOuu2syQJpzEIJ7EBufWQCfaqb8
ro/DlHT7gqm7iJLsHWXuaCo=
=rxpF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Campaigns Wikia

body:
2006/7/14, Ronald Chmara <ron at opus1.com>:
> On Jul 10, 2006, at 9:47 PM, rose.parks at att.net wrote:
> > Thank you, Andre.
> >      The message I posted was purposely written with the intention of
> > saying nothing either positive or negative. And, the main reason for
> > that is that I am not familiar with the site and have formed no
> > opinions about it.
> >  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> > From: "Andre Engels" <andreengels at gmail.com>
> >> 2006/7/10, Pawe?? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org>:
> >>>> If you have not visited the site yet, be prepared for Google Ads,
> >>>> POV entries, and - oh yes - an occassional Wikipedian.
> >>>> Apologies if this is old news...
> >>> So? It's not a Wikimedia project, but a private wiki. Not every wiki
> >>> has to be NPOV and without ads (and wikia is a commercial wiki
> >>> provider, so they're bound to have ads).
> >> So? So nothing. Ruth is just warning people who expect to get to some
> >> kind of Wikipedia as to what to actually expect.
>
> If I go to google.com, I do not expect the wikipedia.
> If I go to wiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
> If I go to twiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
> If I go to emacswiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
> If I go to pbwiki.com I do not expect the wikipedia.
> If I go to wiki.x.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
> If I go to wikia.com I do not expect the wikipedia.
>
> Wiki != wikipedia. (NOT(!) equal to (=) wikipedia, for those  who don't
> know this code syntax)
>
> I have no idea why andre thinks  he knows "what to actually expect"
> from yet another wiki idea... Looks like after viewing the 708 million
> hits on google for 'wiki', he has concluded that 1,500 wikis out of
> 708,000,000 hits determine the future of wikipedia.
>
> Perhaps I should ask for stock tips?

What are you talking about? Why are you twisting my and other people's
words? What the fuck is going on here?

If this is things work, it's the last time I explain something on this list.

I'm angry.

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


references:
<h52db2hmf3m177bq1n1bo1pegi9g24h64s@4ax.com>
	<20060713225733.57897.qmail@web82215.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<b80736c80607131613y7603ea91qc410afa86435554f@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90607131640t2d2f9cfbo48f652d5bebbd210@mail.gmail.com>
	<dfgeb29avft24pptb892ut798jbtmp5s10@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90607140203y2c2ff212r20f02effaa3c8913@mail.gmail.com>
	<sncfb2te8hfvs3le7r2ka5is0dtmfpfokk@4ax.com>

body:
On 7/14/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
> certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
> which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
> enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
> biography.

Seriously... why doesn't someone with access to LexisNexis run a
search and see if there are some real sources out there for Peppers?
Doubt you'll find much.  --LV


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Timwi wrote:
> There is one thing I don't really quite understand, and I was wondering
> if someone could explain this to me in very simple and easy-to-follow
> terms...
Well, I can try...

> Basically, I seem to be making the following two recurring
> observations:
>
> (1) Users who are unhappy with some admin action or other post to the
>      mailing list - sometimes angrily, sometimes rationally, but always
>      making explicit that they are annoyed - complaining about what
> they
>      perceive to be "admin abuse".
Agreed; however, typically each user objects to a different action, and
often, to the action of a different admin.  It is very infrequent that
we get multiple objections about the same action.

> (2) Admins sometimes defend their actions by using the argument, "If
>      you've managed to piss off several admins, chances are you've done
>      something wrong."
Agreed - however, a more accurate gloss of the argument is: given some
action - 1 user objects to it, multiple admins support it.  That is the
crux of the argument.

> Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
> demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
> the ones that get annoyed,
Invalid.  You cannot measure the frequency or severity of annoyance
based merely on the number of posts to wikien-l.  A more accurate
(although still radically inaccurate) estimate would include every post
to AIV, every comment at AN (and subpages), most of the comments at VP,
many of the comments at the XfDs, most of the comments at CP, most of
the comments related to image deletion (including the reasons given for
deletion), and many talk page comments, as well as some method for
measuring complaints on IRC.  Wikien-l has by design tilted towards
complaints by blocked users (until the creation of unblock-l, it was
the designated place for such complaints), so it is not surpirsing at
all that most of the threads begin with such a complaint.
>  and supposing that the argument #2 is
> applicable,
Invalid.  It is not applicable.  Argument #2 claims that multiple
people have objected to *the same thing*.  As I said above, the vast
majority of the complaints we get on wikien-l are about *different*
actions.  We get very few examples of multiple complaints about the
same action, and when we do, we typically investigate (or at least
discuss) them.
>  doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
> doing much more significant wrongs?
Since two of your postulates were wrong (see above), no, it doesn't. ;-)

<snip conclusions to incorrect argument>

Hope this helps explain your confusion!

Jesse Weinstein


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:05:53 +0100, David Boothroyd
><david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>The legal issues relating to Gregory Lauder-Frost have all been
>>considered and there is nothing which would prevent a suitable,
>>balanced, neutral, sourced and factual article being written. In
>>order to be fully comprehensive, it would have to mention, in its
>>proper context, the fact of his 1992 conviction.
>>
>>
>According to his fan-club, that would violate the Rehabilitation of
>Offenders Act.  That is the entire basis of their legal threats, that
>the disclosure of the conviction is motivated by malice and is
>therefore proscribed.  This is, of course, complete bollocks in as
>much as I would not know Lauder-Frost from a hole in the ground, and
>the editor who did most of the work on the conviction, including
>paying for a Lexis-Nexis search, is not even British.
>
re "motivated by malice":  One can hardly make this argument
successfully if Wikipedia consistently includes this kind of detail
about everyone to whom it verifiably applies.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Corrected upload records with bad filenames

body:
I've run a cleanup script to fix uploaded image records with invalid titles,
uploaded under older, buggier versions of MediaWiki. These fell into mainly
these categories:

* Filenames with %HH hex codes
* Filenames with non-normalized Unicode sequences
* Filenames with Latin-1 encoding
* Blank database entries
* Filenames with other illegal chars ("[" and "{")

Where the file could not be located, the entry was removed from the database.
Where it was present, the filename was normalized and the record and the file
renamed. Names conflicting with existing titles have had a number appended.

Complete list of changes (be sure to view in UTF-8):

http://download.wikimedia.org/tools/bad-image-fixes.txt

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Rob

body:
On 7/14/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:

> Seriously... why doesn't someone with access to LexisNexis run a
> search and see if there are some real sources out there for Peppers?
> Doubt you'll find much.  --LV

Nada. Ran a general search and then one on Ohio papers specifically.
Also ran a search in NewsBank's America's Newspaper's database, which
I find more useful than Lexis/Nexis for searching smaller regional
newspapers.  Nothing there either.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On 14/07/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> > According to his fan-club, that would violate the Rehabilitation of
> > Offenders Act.  That is the entire basis of their legal threats, that
> > the disclosure of the conviction is motivated by malice and is
> > therefore proscribed.  This is, of course, complete bollocks in as
> > much as I would not know Lauder-Frost from a hole in the ground, and
> > the editor who did most of the work on the conviction, including
> > paying for a Lexis-Nexis search, is not even British.
>
> It may be in English wikipedians best interests to not contribute to
> the article if there's any doubt about the legal implications.  I am
> sure we can find non-British editors willing to deal with it.

British courts have shown an unfortunate willingness to ignore the
nationality of defendants in Internet defamation cases, incidentally.
I wouldn't be so quick to prescribe this.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
Sarah wrote:

>On 7/13/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>How does Wikipedia not benefit from including the information?  If
>>Wikipedia biographies are to be accurate articles, they should not
>>selectively exclude facts deemed inconvenient.
>>
>>
>We don't benefit because he's a very minor figure, arguably not
>someone who should have an article in the first place, and it wasn't a
>good article anyway. So for the sake of upholding some unwritten
>principle of completeness (i.e. for the sake of ideology), we're
>prepared to harm an individual's real life, someone who has done
>nothing to any of us, to ensure that this incident will continue to
>haunt him, whereas he thought he had put it behind him.
>
>My argument is that it's neither fair nor rational to do that, and we
>ought always to be both fair and rational when dealing with people who
>are, in a very real sense, at Wikipedia's mercy.
>
We don't invent the facts in a person's life; they lived them
themselves.  I don't think that ideology is a factor.  This person
happens to be on the right end of the spectrum, but I'm sure that we
have enough "right"-minded editors to make sure that no criminal
activity is "left" behind.

The most disturbing part of these comments is to measure the inclusion
of these facts by reference to criteria such as, "We don't benefit," or
"has done nothing to any of us."  Such personalizing of the criteria to
Wikipedia could too easily erode objectivity.

Ec


body:
On 7/14/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nada. Ran a general search and then one on Ohio papers specifically.
> Also ran a search in NewsBank's America's Newspaper's database, which
> I find more useful than Lexis/Nexis for searching smaller regional
> newspapers.  Nothing there either.

Kind of what I was figuring.  There have been plenty of mentions of
other memes in the traditional media, yet none on Peppers.  Seems odd.
 How are we expexted to write an article on a subject that doesn't
have corroboration in something other than internet sources?  I mean,
I know the name Gary Brolsma from offline sources.  I know I have seen
stuff on the Star Wars Kid and that German yelling kid offline as
well.  It's hard to believe something "this famous" would have no
mention in newspapers, etc.  I don't know.  The WP:WEB guideline and
WP:MEME (proposed) don't really give much help either.  --LV


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
On 7/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> * several are gratuitously offensive.  It should be possible to read
> the article on joke, be told that racist jokes exist, but not be
> subjected to them unless you visit a separate article

Interesting. How does this principle apply to spoilers?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:02 AM, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>
>>Fastfission wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>We're not re-inventing the wheel.
>>>
>>>"Operation Iraqi Freedom" is both 1. not NPOV at all
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I still don't buy the argument that the mere names of things
>>somehow express POV in a way that matters for WP's NPOV policy.
>>NPOV is all about reporting POVs, not picking one and claiming
>>that it's "more neutral" than any of the others. If you
>>deliberately choose a term that is not the most common in English,
>>how is that not pushing your own POV against the entire body of
>>speakers of the language?
>>
>>Stan
>>
>
>Choosing a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV
>implications is our policy. See
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Descriptive_names
>
Guideline, not policy, but I see the point about descriptive names.
The loophole I see is that the page assumes the choice of descriptive
vs proper name is obvious, but if I understand stevertigo's original
point, WP-manufactured descriptive names would take precedence over
proper names in many cases.

Stan


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 8:12 AM, Dabljuh wrote:

>> No. You can't habitually break off polite discussion and make
>> attacks.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>
> Huh? Non sequitur. That statement is fallacious in so many ways.
> Please stop disrupting and go away, crazy person.

You are the one who is banned indefinitely and this sort of behavior
is undoubtedly part of the reason why.

That said, your perspective is badly needed and I would be happy to
see you actively editing after you clean up your act.

Fred


from_name: Ivan Krstic

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiFilter

body:
Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> Never underestimate the hideous complexity of Parser.php!

Actually, what I'm curios about is simply how much work it currently
takes to extract the parser that the wikifilter folk already wrote, and
make it a standalone library or utility. I'm not looking to add features
to the parser itself.

--
Ivan Krstic <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
We're not re-inventing the wheel.

"Operation Iraqi Freedom" is both 1. not NPOV at all, and 2. most
likely not actually the most common name in English for the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq in 2003.

So it's actually not something that works with either of our policies
on content titles.

It really shouldn't be too hard to come up with a neutral title here.
"2003 invasion of Iraq" or some other variant is descriptive,
accurate, NPOV, and more reflective of how this event is actually
discussed and named in English (not including Fox News and the Bush
administration).

FF

On 7/14/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> They gave it a name.  Lets not reinvent the wheel here.


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Dabljuh wrote:

> I am also opposed to attempts to try to enforce civility
> by means of administrative punishment or policy.

Ok, but I don't think that is going to change.

Fred


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
I would say that the Main Page is almost as bad as the MediaWiki
message space (though not quite). It is still quite an official page
for Wikipedia and should, like all pages, remain unbiased.

On 14/07/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I can definitely do that. If you provide me the exact text.
> But it seems that a steward already contacted an administrator yesterday
>
> http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81#MediaWiki:Sitenotice
>
> There is a new discussion, where it is a
> general agreement to remove the Qur'anic verse
> from the Sitenotice but to display it on the main
> page in any case. There is still an argument going on
> in favour and against this new proposition.
>
> --heema
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com>
> To: Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com>; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:13:21 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)
>
> So, are we okay to post one of those notices? Heema, are you willing
> to translate and post both? I think we need to at least open
> discussion on the wiki as we're just repeating ourselves here on the
> list, it seems.
>
> On 13/07/06, Heema Khan <heema_khan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> > To: andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:20:50 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Israel article (was: Quran in Sitenotice)
> >
> > >No one sane?
> >
> > >It has been edited by:
> > >http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%B1
> >
> > >One of the buracrats on that wikipedia.
> >
> > this guy argued that if you are against Qur'anic verses in the Sitenotice
> >  means you are against Qur'an.
> >
> > >It was created by:
> > >http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81
> >
> > >The admin we have contected over the sitenotice issue.
> >
> > Doesn't surprise me, because he added the Quranic verse into the Sitenotice
> > in the first place.
> >
> > --heema
> >
> > On 7/13/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all.
> > >
> > > (I apologise this won't show up in threading - I've only just
> > > subscribed and I'm reading old mesages through the archives)
> > >
> > > Heema Khan:
> > >
> > > > On Urdu Wikipedia, article on Israel is very short:
> > > > http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%DB%8C%D9%84
> > > > I can translate it:
> > > > "Israel, a palce where jews live. In addition to Pakistan there are many other
> > > > countries that do not recognize this place of Jews as a country.
> > > > Majority of the Urdu speaking public believes that there
> > > > is no country by the name of Israel exists. But there is
> > > > a country named Palestine, whose some part is captured
> > > > by Jews and they call it Israel. And the English speaking
> > > > world says that in a country called Israel some
> > > > Palestenians want to create a country called Palestine."
> > > >
> > > > This is the whole article. Quite extraordinary, nothing to add more.
> > >
> > > In this specific case, if my reading of the page is right, this
> > > article has had a grand total of 21 edits, the ten most recent of them
> > > in a single three-day period in June. Every single bit of the content
> > > has been contributed by one single registered user; all anon edits
> > > have been vandalism (well, one was pageblanking, that might count as
> > > justified!) No discussion page, of course.
> > >
> > > On the whole, while it's still a pretty terrible article, it scares me
> > > less once I know that it's the work of one guy and it's just that
> > > no-one sane has managed to look at it yet...
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
>     ?Xyrael
>         sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:02 AM, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Fastfission wrote:
>
>
>> We're not re-inventing the wheel.
>>
>> "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is both 1. not NPOV at all
>>
>>
> I still don't buy the argument that the mere names of things
> somehow express POV in a way that matters for WP's NPOV policy.
> NPOV is all about reporting POVs, not picking one and claiming
> that it's "more neutral" than any of the others. If you
> deliberately choose a term that is not the most common in English,
> how is that not pushing your own POV against the entire body of
> speakers of the language?
>
> Stan

Choosing a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV
implications is our policy. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Descriptive_names

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:17 AM, Puppy wrote:

> Dabljuh wrote:
> (snip)
>
>>
>> You know how Ghandi got started? He said "Lets screw
>> the laws of the british and go pick salt at the shore"
>> because he (and many others) thought it was the right thing
>> to do.
>>
>> Doing that on Wikipedia gets you banned in under 5 seconds.
>>
>>
> What are you comparing to salt reclamation?
> -KillerChihuahua

POV editing and insults apparently.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

references:
<e98jf0$9c4$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<l3lfb2hms38p953ba8ao8hut6ki1f67qag@4ax.com>
	<e98l3m$eom$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 11:43 AM, Timwi wrote:

> Oh, and what do you think makes them so determined? Could it be
> something they genuinely perceive as a wrong? Could it be that they
> are
> trying to be genuinely productive, and that from their point of
> view it
> is the admins who were "starting a fight"?

Wikipedia editing policies are not necessarily intuitive. There is a
potential for any new user to break them, respond negatively to
correction and for the situation to escalate.

Fred


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Campaigns Wikia

body:
(top posting - context below)

To Ronald: I think you've misunderstood what Andre said - he was
simply reinforcing what Ruth had originally said; that on Wikia (a
non-Wikimedia venture) people may expect something different from what
they expect of Wikimedia projects, ie no Google ads, NPOV etc. Please
re-read the context below - of course, you're right that "wiki" is not
equal to wikip/media - but that's not what Andre or Ruth were saying

To Andre: I don't think there's any need to get angry - I think this
is a simple misunderstanding of who you are and what you said.

Cormac

PS: Thanks for the link, Ruth - very interesting :-)

==Context==

Ruth wrote:
If you have not visited the site yet, be prepared for Google Ads, POV
entries, and - oh yes - an occassional Wikipedian.

Apologies if this is old news...

Then Pawe? wrote:
So? It's not a Wikimedia project, but a private wiki. Not every wiki
has to be NPOV and without ads (and wikia is a commercial wiki
provider, so they're bound to have ads).

Then Andre wrote:
So? So nothing. Ruth is just warning people who expect to get to some
kind of Wikipedia as to what to actually expect.

Then Ronald wrote:
If I go to google.com, I do not expect the wikipedia.
If I go to wiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
If I go to twiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
If I go to emacswiki.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
If I go to pbwiki.com I do not expect the wikipedia.
If I go to wiki.x.org I do not expect the wikipedia.
If I go to wikia.com I do not expect the wikipedia.

Wiki != wikipedia. (NOT(!) equal to (=) wikipedia, for those  who don't
know this code syntax)

I have no idea why andre thinks  he knows "what to actually expect"
from yet another wiki idea... Looks like after viewing the 708 million
hits on google for 'wiki', he has concluded that 1,500 wikis out of
708,000,000 hits determine the future of wikipedia.

Perhaps I should ask for stock tips?

Then Andre wrote:
What are you talking about? Why are you twisting my and other people's
words? What the fuck is going on here?

If this is things work, it's the last time I explain something on this list.

I'm angry.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Anthony wrote:
>
>
>
>>On 7/13/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>And FWIW, the US Code defines "publication" as "the distribution of
>>>copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other
>>>transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering
>>>to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for
>>>purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public
>>>display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a
>>>work does not of itself constitute publication."
>>>
>>>Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there is no
>>>rental, lease, or lending.  But then again, by that definition
>>>*nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
>>>court would agree with that.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Looking further, "To perform or display a work "publicly" means?
>>(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any
>>place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle
>>of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or
>>(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of
>>the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means
>>of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of
>>receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or
>>in separate places and at the same time or at different times."
>>
>>Seems 2) fits in closer with what Wikipedia is doing than the
>>definition of "publication".
>>
>>
>>
>I don't doubt that this is a part of US law.  The point really is does
>the Code have the same definition of "publish" (and its related words)
>in the context of copyright law as it does in the context of defamation
>law, or any other branch of law where the definition may be an issue?
>
>Ec
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
" ...Wikimedia doesn't transfer the ownership of anything, and there is no
rental, lease, or lending. But then again, by that definition
*nothing* distributed over the Internet is published, and I doubt a
court would agree with that...."

Because of the way the GFDL works, ownership is transferred to every person
that receives it.  The old bible tracts given away back in the 60's by
the Baptist
churches in the South for "free" and the Gideon bibles in every hotel
room in
the South are another example of pre-GFDL activities with "free"
published works
(check the case law on several litigations in the 70's over copyright
issues
with some of these works -- they are viewed as "publications".)

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 7/14/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:03:52 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> wrote:
>
> >> All the indications are that this was a technical offence.  It has
> >> been suggested that he touched his nurse inappropriately while trying
> >> to gain her attention.  We don't know, because there is virtually no
> >> source material to work on, and that is why we should not have an
> >> article.
>
> >What indication is there, other than your unsourced "suggestion" which
> >contradicts all the other evidence, that this was a technical offence?
> > If Peppers accidently "touched his nurse inappropriately while trying
> >to gain her attention", then he is not guilty of the offense, and this
> >story is even more important.
>
> Original research.  we don't know (either way) because there are no
> reliable sources.
>
Actually, the person who claimed to be the guy's brother and started
that rumor about the nurse admitted it was a hoax.  I sent you the
link earlier today.

> >Yes, right now we can't find any source material to definitively
> >determine exactly what happened.  The same could be said of a large
> >number of articles.  But unlike your suggestion, there is plenty of
> >source material to create a short article on what we *do* know.
>
> The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
> certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
> which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
> enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
> biography.

As I've said, I disagree.  I think there are enough neutral sources to
have a short article, maybe two paragraphs long, which would be far
better than having nothing.

Anthony


from_name: Sean Whitton

subject:
[Foundation-l] Requests to use the foundations'
	trademarks/logos.

body:
As far as I'm aware the board needs to explicitely approve any use of
their logos. Last time it was asked for on IRC, Angela directed the
user to drop a line to board at wikimedia.org, so it might be sensible to
forward that to there.

On 14/07/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> The USA Library of Congress has requested permission to include
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> in their collection of
> Internet material concerning the crisis in Darfur.
>
> They wish to
> 1. archive the page at regular intervals, and
> 2. publish it on their publicly accessible web site.
>
> They completely reproduce pages for archival purposes: capturing all
> identifying site documentation, including URL, trademark, copyright
> statement, ownership, publication date
> <http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/faq.html>; so the GFDL requirements are
> met, but what about the trademark/logo? Who needs to give permission
> or refuse?
>
> WikiMedia OTRS ticket: 2006071110012086
> LC Reference: Darfur 88979 CD
>
> The College Art Association is also asking to reuse the Wikipedia logo
> in a news <http://www.collegeart.org/news/> article (OTRS
> 2006071110016751).
> --
> user:Jeandr?
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
	?Xyrael
		sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net


list: commons-l

from_name: Mak Thorpe

subject: [Commons-l]  repositories of content

body:
Danny, when you get it finalized, to aid in the domino effect of persuading
local repositories iit would be real nice if you contacted someone big like
NPR or other media outlets for doing a story on it.  If local repositories
understand that established, significant collections such as LOC are doing
this, it really removes a lot of skepticism, and provides formidable ass
protection for bureaucrats whose sole job function appears to be job
preservation.  I have talked to one fellow at auch a collection and he
thinks the idea is great, but is hesitant about how the conservative
curators and board members would feel about such new fangled concepts.

I resolved to do it guerrila style but going through the front door would be
a lot more efficient and beneficial for all concerned.

-Mak

---------------------
daniwo59 at aol.com daniwo59 at aol.com
Thu Jul 13 19:48:58 UTC 2006

That said, I still think we should wait until this is formalized.
...
as  Sabine pointed out, to begin looking at other repositories as well.

Danny

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee?
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


body:
On 7/14/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Lord Voldemort wrote:
> > On 7/14/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Nada. Ran a general search and then one on Ohio papers specifically.
> >> Also ran a search in NewsBank's America's Newspaper's database, which
> >> I find more useful than Lexis/Nexis for searching smaller regional
> >> newspapers.  Nothing there either.
> >
> > Kind of what I was figuring.  There have been plenty of mentions of
> > other memes in the traditional media, yet none on Peppers.  Seems odd.

Actually, that's untrue.  There was at least one story in a Toledo paper.

> >  How are we expexted to write an article on a subject that doesn't
> > have corroboration in something other than internet sources?  I mean,
> > I know the name Gary Brolsma from offline sources.  I know I have seen
> > stuff on the Star Wars Kid and that German yelling kid offline as
> > well.  It's hard to believe something "this famous" would have no
> > mention in newspapers, etc.  I don't know.  The WP:WEB guideline and
> > WP:MEME (proposed) don't really give much help either.  --LV
> >
>
> So, since there's no source that isn't "and I read it on the internets",
> we can't have an article on him, because it's not verifiable.
>
There are plenty of good verifiable sources for Brian Peppers.  The
article listed many of them, before it was deleted.

An online source is not necessarily a bad source.

Anthony


body:
On 7/14/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> Actually, that's untrue.  There was at least one story in a Toledo paper.

Which paper?  Nothing appears in the archive of the Toledo Blade
(http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=ARCHIVES)
and the Toledo City Paper and Toledo Free Press do not appear to have
searchable archives online.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> re "motivated by malice":  One can hardly make this argument
> successfully if Wikipedia consistently includes this kind of detail
> about everyone to whom it verifiably applies.
>
> Ec

Malice towards all, charity towards none?

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 12:39 PM, Sarah wrote:

> On 7/14/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:05:53 +0100, David Boothroyd
>>> <david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> According to his fan-club, that would violate the Rehabilitation of
>>> Offenders Act.  That is the entire basis of their legal threats,
>>> that
>>> the disclosure of the conviction is motivated by malice and is
>>> therefore proscribed.  This is, of course, complete bollocks in as
>>> much as I would not know Lauder-Frost from a hole in the ground, and
>>> the editor who did most of the work on the conviction, including
>>> paying for a Lexis-Nexis search, is not even British.
>>>
>>>
> I must admit I did wonder who had done the digging around on GLF, and
> why. The article about the incident under discussion is, as I recall,
> from 16 years ago or thereabouts.
>
> Sarah

I think there is some motivation to discredit his political viewpoint.

Fred


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
Dabljuh wrote:
(snip)
>
> You know how Ghandi got started? He said "Lets screw
> the laws of the british and go pick salt at the shore"
> because he (and many others) thought it was the right thing
> to do.
>
> Doing that on Wikipedia gets you banned in under 5 seconds.
>
What are you comparing to salt reclamation?
-KillerChihuahua


body:
It is important to keep the community informed about this. By making
it clear on the talk page that the article is being reproduced by LoC
the article may be kept to higher standards. I'm guessing the
community were not informed about Pope/Tsunami? Anyway, it's good
news.

On 14/07/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I remember a similar request from 2004 during the Tsunami (okay, the
> > actual request should have been from january-february 2005) from the
> > US LOC for a collection about this.  Maybe someone is able to find the
> > ticket and how we reacted to this. As far as I am concerned, their
> > request is fine and I consider it a shame that libraries are requested
> > to ask for this to preserve the cultural heritage, no matter if it is
> > on dead trees or on a DVD.
>
> I found a ticket where Jimmy forwarded the request for
> <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pablo_II> to OTRS (ticket 119314),
> but the ticket doesn't include the permission. According to the email,
> Jimmy  gave permission for <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope> on
> 2005-04-13 by email (not thru OTRS).
>
> This request <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> was also
> forwarded by Jimmy to OTRS.
>
> > As far as I'm aware the board needs to explicitely approve any use of
> > their logos. Last time it was asked for on IRC, Angela directed the
> > user to drop a line to board at wikimedia.org, so it might be sensible to
> > forward that to there.
> > -- Sean Whitton
>
> I've forwarded it there, thanks. That was my first thought, but Jimbo
> forwarded it to OTRS, so I tried juriwiki-l (no response yet) before
> asking here.
> --
> Jeandr?
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Adam Lorenz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
I think that #2 is an invalid argument, and the action should be defended by
the actual circumstance. If a user is blocked for disruption, and the user
complains, the admin should defend his/herself by citing contribs, or some
other valid explanation.

Adam

On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
>
> There is one thing I don't really quite understand, and I was wondering
> if someone could explain this to me in very simple and easy-to-follow
> terms...
>
> Basically, I seem to be making the following two recurring observations:
>
> (1) Users who are unhappy with some admin action or other post to the
>     mailing list - sometimes angrily, sometimes rationally, but always
>     making explicit that they are annoyed - complaining about what they
>     perceive to be "admin abuse".
>
> (2) Admins sometimes defend their actions by using the argument, "If
>     you've managed to piss off several admins, chances are you've done
>     something wrong."
>
> Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
> demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
> the ones that get annoyed, and supposing that the argument #2 is
> applicable, doesn't it follow plainly obviously that the admins are
> doing much more significant wrongs?
>
> The only ways out of this dilemma appear to be either to admit that a
> larger proportion of users are right in their "cabal" accusations than
> is widely assumed, OR... to accept that argument #2 is invalid.
>
> If we accept that argument #2 is invalid, then it must logically follow
> that admins getting annoyed is no indication of user behaviour being
> wrong. If that is so, then what sort of non-wrong behaviour gets them
> pissed off and why?
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Adam J. Lorenz


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
[snip]
> Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
> demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
> the ones that get annoyed,

If one one thousandth of the users complained, how many people would that be?
What percentage would signify something of significance?
What percentage has complained thus far?

Without that information I would have a hard time considering anything
a massive influx.

Please keep in mind the scale with which we're working. The sky isn't falling.


from_name: Jack

subject: [Foundation-l] Requests to use the foundations' trademarks/logos.

body:
The USA Library of Congress has requested permission to include
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> in their collection of
Internet material concerning the crisis in Darfur.

They wish to
1. archive the page at regular intervals, and
2. publish it on their publicly accessible web site.

They completely reproduce pages for archival purposes: capturing all
identifying site documentation, including URL, trademark, copyright
statement, ownership, publication date
<http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/faq.html>; so the GFDL requirements are
met, but what about the trademark/logo? Who needs to give permission
or refuse?

WikiMedia OTRS ticket: 2006071110012086
LC Reference: Darfur 88979 CD

The College Art Association is also asking to reuse the Wikipedia logo
in a news <http://www.collegeart.org/news/> article (OTRS
2006071110016751).
--
user:Jeandr?


from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On 7/14/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:05:53 +0100, David Boothroyd
> ><david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >According to his fan-club, that would violate the Rehabilitation of
> >Offenders Act.  That is the entire basis of their legal threats, that
> >the disclosure of the conviction is motivated by malice and is
> >therefore proscribed.  This is, of course, complete bollocks in as
> >much as I would not know Lauder-Frost from a hole in the ground, and
> >the editor who did most of the work on the conviction, including
> >paying for a Lexis-Nexis search, is not even British.
> >
I must admit I did wonder who had done the digging around on GLF, and
why. The article about the incident under discussion is, as I recall,
from 16 years ago or thereabouts.

Sarah


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
On 7/14/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> The USA Library of Congress has requested permission to include
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> in their collection of
> Internet material concerning the crisis in Darfur.
>
> They wish to
> 1. archive the page at regular intervals, and
> 2. publish it on their publicly accessible web site.
>
> They completely reproduce pages for archival purposes: capturing all
> identifying site documentation, including URL, trademark, copyright
> statement, ownership, publication date
> <http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/faq.html>; so the GFDL requirements are
> met, but what about the trademark/logo? Who needs to give permission
> or refuse?
>
> WikiMedia OTRS ticket: 2006071110012086
> LC Reference: Darfur 88979 CD

I remember a similar request from 2004 during the Tsunami (okay, the
actual request should have been from january-february 2005) from the
US LOC for a collection about this.  Maybe someone is able to find the
ticket and how we reacted to this. As far as I am concerned, their
request is fine and I consider it a shame that libraries are requested
to ask for this to preserve the cultural heritage, no matter if it is
on dead trees or on a DVD.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > [snip]
> >
> >>Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
> >>demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
> >>the ones that get annoyed,
> >
> > If one one thousandth of the users complained, how many people would that be?
> > What percentage would signify something of significance?
> > What percentage has complained thus far?
>
> You have just undermined my argumentation. The amount of annoyed users
> is obviously strictly greater than the amount of annoyed e-mails we
> actually see. We actually see an annoyed e-mail from a new user almost
> every day. But how many similarly annoyed e-mails do you see from admins?

I suspect you didn't intend to say what you said, and thus you
wouldn't enjoy my thanks for admiting your failure.. :)

In any case, You're making a significant logical error....   You are claiming:

*Users get angry if admins take action against them
*admins get pissed if users are bad
*there are strictly more pissed users than pissed admins
thus
*Admins are taking action against good users because otherwise we
would expect equal numbers of angry users and angry admins.

There are a number of mistakes with this line of reasoning. The most
important of which is that admins don't always get pissed when users
do bad... The claim you are referring to made is that only if users
are bad admins are pissed, not if and only if.  Your argument also
makes questionable assumptions about the probability of an annoyed
person speaking up.

I am quite sure that mistakes are made... and that we even have a few
low quality admins. ... But I've seen no information which causes me
to believe that this should be considered a high priority problem


from_name: Mick Monaghan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Custom left nav per namespace?

body:
Hi,
Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?

Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
the namespace?

Thanks,
~mm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>>> Given that this massive influx of annoyed complaints plainly
>>> demonstrates that users are much more commonly and much more seriously
>>> the ones that get annoyed,
>> If one one thousandth of the users complained, how many people would that be?
>> What percentage would signify something of significance?
>> What percentage has complained thus far?
>
> You have just undermined my argumentation. The amount of annoyed users
> is obviously strictly greater than the amount of annoyed e-mails we
> actually see. We actually see an annoyed e-mail from a new user almost
> every day. But how many similarly annoyed e-mails do you see from admins?
>
> Timwi
>

Perhaps the administrators are selected because they are the type to
uphold the policies, rather than rail against them.
Just a thought.

-kc-


body:
> I remember a similar request from 2004 during the Tsunami (okay, the
> actual request should have been from january-february 2005) from the
> US LOC for a collection about this.  Maybe someone is able to find the
> ticket and how we reacted to this. As far as I am concerned, their
> request is fine and I consider it a shame that libraries are requested
> to ask for this to preserve the cultural heritage, no matter if it is
> on dead trees or on a DVD.

I found a ticket where Jimmy forwarded the request for
<http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pablo_II> to OTRS (ticket 119314),
but the ticket doesn't include the permission. According to the email,
Jimmy  gave permission for <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope> on
2005-04-13 by email (not thru OTRS).

This request <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> was also
forwarded by Jimmy to OTRS.

> As far as I'm aware the board needs to explicitely approve any use of
> their logos. Last time it was asked for on IRC, Angela directed the
> user to drop a line to board at wikimedia.org, so it might be sensible to
> forward that to there.
> -- Sean Whitton

I've forwarded it there, thanks. That was my first thought, but Jimbo
forwarded it to OTRS, so I tried juriwiki-l (no response yet) before
asking here.
--
Jeandr?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things about admins

body:
On 7/14/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
[snip]
> I don't see how I'm making this assumption. Quite to the contrary, you
> now seem to be making the assumption that users always get pissed when
> admins do bad against them...

I'm not making any assumptions. My only claim is that we do not have
statistically significant information... and that you are complaining
about a complaint level which is probably itself too low to be
statistically significant.

If my restatement of your position didn't match your thoughts, then
I've failed to understand what you are arguing.

> > The claim you are referring to made is that only if users are bad
> > admins are pissed, not if and only if.
>
> I'm sorry, this sentence does not parse grammatically. Please rephrase? :)

I omitted 'being' before made.
Your (2) is effectively: Only if users are bad admins are pissed

It seemed to me that you were reading (2) as : If and only if users
are bad  admins are pissed.

> Does it? Are you alleging that all or most annoyed people speak up? I
> don't think so.

No, I'm claiming that we have a lot of users and that you've failed to
make any attempt to demonstrate that the level of complaint we are
seeing is significant.

> > I am quite sure that mistakes are made... and that we even have a few
> > low quality admins. ... But I've seen no information which causes me
> > to believe that this should be considered a high priority problem
>
> You'd rather continue to have this flurry of angry complaints on this
> mailing list? :)

They don't bother me.
You can always unsubscribe if they bother you.

How else could I respond?  Even if everything were perfect we'd still
get complaints... and if the number of users becomes large enough,
we'd still get a lot of complaints in absolute terms.    So if lots of
complaints bothers you, you should unsubscribe.

Now if you actually think that the complaints are evidence of
something that needs improvment, please provide evidence...


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

body:
On 7/14/06 2:24 PM, "Anthony" <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> I think it's pretty clear that the story about the nurse was a hoax.
> Maybe not clear enough to put in the article, but certainly clear
> enough that one shouldn't call this a minor technical offense.

Which again goes to prove that we don't know enough to write a article. We,
quite honestly, don't know what kind of offense this is at all, other than
the very broad and general legal definition of attempting "gross sexual
imposition." We don't know who his victim was, we don't know what he tried
to do, we don't know the context of the crime - we don't even know where the
crime occurred!

Quite simply, there is not enough verifiable information available to write
a biographical article on this subject.

-Travis


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> This has come up a few times. Here was what I thought the most
> reasonable solution was: if the operation name is obviously meant to
> influence your opinion about the validity/success of the operation
> itself, it should not be used as the article title, and instead
> something more neutral and descriptive should be used.
>
> So "Operation Barbarossa" -- no problem. "Operation Crossroads" -- no
> problem. "Operation Just Cause" -- should be "United States invasion
> of Panama" (which it is). "Operation Iraqi Freedom" -- should be
> something more neutral (it is currently "Iraq War", which I find a
> little too ambiguous, personally, since there have been many Iraq
> Wars, but anyway, anything is better than the operation name).
>
<snip>

Personally I like "Gulf War II".

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
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Puppy stated for the record:
> Dabljuh wrote:
> (snip)
>
>>You know how Ghandi got started? He said "Lets screw
>>the laws of the british and go pick salt at the shore"
>>because he (and many others) thought it was the right thing
>>to do.
>>
>>Doing that on Wikipedia gets you banned in under 5 seconds.
>>
>
> What are you comparing to salt reclamation?
> -KillerChihuahua

Gosh, I didn't realize that it was against Wikipedia policy to pick salt
at the shore.  Can someone give me a link to the policy page?

Also, I'd like to see raw data from which you obtained your "under 5
seconds" value.  I'd be very surprised if the time doesn't average over
a minute.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.
 sean at epoptic.com | But this wasn't it. --Groucho Marx
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from_name: Michael Monaghan

body:
On 7/14/06, Sean Whitton <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> As far as I'm aware, it isn't possible with the current codebase.

I was afraid of that.
Anybody know if this feature will be included in a future release?

> If
> you know how, it might not be that hard to write a modification.

Hmmm, unfortunately I don't. I haven't really looked under the
MediaWiki's hood, and am not terribly familiar with php.

Thanks for the response.

~mm

>
>
> On 14/07/06, Mick Monaghan <mickmon at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?
> >
> > Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
> > the namespace?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > ~mm
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
> --
>         ?Xyrael
>                 sean at silentflame.com | xyrael.net
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Dabljuh

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
> Its obvious that you are reasonably intelligent and articulate, so I can only assume
> that you were "banned" (as Jay put) because you crossed the line into making personal
> attacks, or making points which violate Godwin's (now sacred) law banning comparisons
> to Nazis in internet discussion forums. That itself isnt an issue if you can make your
> points without sounding bigoted or incivil; the "come to your senses" and "please
> reconsider your own position" comments were inapproprate because our personal views are
> beside the point.
>
> There is no enlightened way to take a side between competing nationalisms -- all
> concepts of "nationhood" are equivalent, and equally inferior to a universal concept of
> civility. Therefore we reserve our distinctions to those which advance civility, and
> discard concepts based in one particular culture or another as simply POV.
>
> That said, I appreciate your explanation of the situation, according to your point of
> view. It is not a point of view which appears to be sufficiently represented (probably
> because people under attack -- by anything bigger than bottlerockets -- means the
> electricity is out and there are probably other things to worry about. Thats assuming
> you people can write good English in the first place.
> -Stevertigo

First of all, thanks for actually reading my stuffs.

Regarding my ban: I don't want to go too deeply into the details but in my understanding,
I was removed from Wikipedia by POV warriors in administrative positions for not
backing down when confronted with their POV. I have written a short essay to this list
"Wikipedia's Administrative System: Corrupted to the core" in reaction to that.
You furthermore speak of "you people" as if I was of arab descendence or had lebanese
affiliation. I am not.

Our personal views are never besides the point, they are THE point. We are all influenced
by our personal and badly informed opinions. We write what we believe is true into
these articles of Wikipedia. But the process of coming to believe what is true and what
is not is a long and complex one. And not everyone succeeds: People believe in
magic, believe in ghosts, believe in deities, some believe in THE TIME CUBE,
all of which has no basis in science, in my understanding.

Similiarly, one believes for example that the israeli attack on Lebanon is a righteous
and just reaction to something Lebanon did. This as well is, in my personal understanding,
a misjudgement, and is not covered by western humanist secular philosophy. In that
particular occasion, it is not even supported by the Torah: "Eye for an Eye" exactly
means that you should not bomb 60 Lebanese civilians to smitherines because some of them
kidnapped 2 and killed 6 more.

So, by pretty much all objective, neutral ethical standards, the Israeli attack on
Lebanon is a disproportionate injustice that will only work against Israel in the long
run by rallying support for more antisemitic sentiments in the region and the entire
world.

Of course you can now point out, that this is "but one POV". But unlike certain other
POVs like "Israel has the right to do whatever it feels" or "Arabs are the innocent
victims of Zionist supression", I believe, my POV warrants some merit by being
objective without favoring one side over the other. You could call it, "neutral".
Consider a judge who sentences someone for murder after his guilt has been proven
beyond the shadow of a doubt. Is that judge partial to anyone because he condemns
the murderer?

The enlightened path for competing nationalism, is to reject all nationalism altogether.
Behind the dehumanizing descriptions such as "Hezbollah Terrorists" or "Zionist Nazis"
there are always people, that are suffering because of the stupidity of others.

But instead going ahead and justifying the israeli attacks on lebanon with small
time criminals and terrorists, now that is horribly POV. I wanted to point that
out, and make clear to Jay"Superturbozionistdeluxe"Jg that other people probably are
more objective and neutral when it comes to judging what the title of the article
should be, and that he should keep out because all he does is make Wikipedia more POV.

-- Dabljuh


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats

body:
On 7/14/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It may be in English wikipedians best interests to not contribute to
> > the article if there's any doubt about the legal implications.  I am
> > sure we can find non-British editors willing to deal with it.
>
> British courts have shown an unfortunate willingness to ignore the
> nationality of defendants in Internet defamation cases, incidentally.
> I wouldn't be so quick to prescribe this.

I am not an attorney, however...

US courts have held that items covered under US Free Speech doctorine
here, said here by US citizens, are not areas where they will enforce
either foreign court actions nor extradition requests.

Were it to come to that, and that would be a ridiculously unlikely
outcome anyways, someone residing here in the US is almost certainly
perfectly safe if they avoid committing anything that meets the
definitions of libel or slander here in the US.  We have no equivalent
to the criminal history privacy law at issue here; people's long ago
criminal convictions are a matter of open public record.  Factual
discussion of them is not actionable or a tort.

It might conceivably interfere with future travel abroad, but the odds
are so low as to be vanishingly negligible.

As far as I can tell, anything which one could write which would be
outside clearly protected free speech in the US would not be suitable
for Wikipedia anyways, and someone else would no doubt revert it out.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

body:
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Mick Monaghan wrote:
> Is it possible to have a custom left navigation for a custom namespace?

Not by the core code.

> Or is 'MediaWiki:Sidebar' applied to all pages in a wiki, regardless of
> the namespace?

MediaWiki:Sidebar is applied to all pages.

If you want to achieve functionality of having a custom menu on certain
pages, you can always use templates. Personally, I don't think changing
the left sidebar is a good idea: most users expect it to stay the same
throughout the whole site.

Ideal hacking spot would likely be on the skin file.
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=Sr1T
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list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] Schoolbooks Are Given F’s in Originality, NYTimes article

body:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/books/13textbook.html?ei=5070&en=7a37ae14ce46fc14&ex=1153022400&pagewanted=all

This article mentions some things about how the US textbook business works
and some shortfalls of current textbooks.

Karl

(Free registration at NYTimes.com may be required to view the article.)


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 04:40:46 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
wrote:

>> >> How many articles do we have on people known only for their
>> >> deformities?  The only one I can think of is Joseph Merrick.

>> >I have no idea how many.  I also don't think it's accurate to say that
>> >Peppers is known *only* for his deformities.  There are plenty of
>> >people more deformed than Peppers, after all.

>> Really?  So what else is he famous for?  Apart from people laughing at
>> his deformities?  The extent of them is not relevant to this question,
>> obviously.

>I've actually never heard someone laugh at his deformities.  I'm just
>saying if the only reason Peppers is know is because of his
>deformities, there would likely be a lot more people of equal fame.
>Show me someone else with the level of google searches as peppers.
>Looking at Google trends I see the number of searches for his name
>since 2005 are roughly equal to the number of searches for "stephen
>hawking".  Surely his deformities alone have not been the only factor
>in this.  If they were, then he wouldn't be the only one.

He's not known for his deformities, he's known because people laughed
at them.

>First of all, looking at the info, you're right.  He pled guilty to
>two counts of attempted gross sexual imposition.  And going back to
>the topic which brought that up, I still don't think it's in the realm
>of reality to call attempted gross sexual imposition "a minor
>technical offence".

You think not?  There was a discussion of it at the time.  It barely
qualifies as a sexual offence at all.

>In any case, I'd say the fact that Snopes is wrong on this illustrates
>quite powerfully one of the reasons Wikipedia *should* have an article
>on Peppers.

Actually it illustrates the fact that there is virtually nothing that
can be said about him without straying into conjecture.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:03:52 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
wrote:

>> All the indications are that this was a technical offence.  It has
>> been suggested that he touched his nurse inappropriately while trying
>> to gain her attention.  We don't know, because there is virtually no
>> source material to work on, and that is why we should not have an
>> article.

>What indication is there, other than your unsourced "suggestion" which
>contradicts all the other evidence, that this was a technical offence?
> If Peppers accidently "touched his nurse inappropriately while trying
>to gain her attention", then he is not guilty of the offense, and this
>story is even more important.

Original research.  we don't know (either way) because there are no
reliable sources.

>Yes, right now we can't find any source material to definitively
>determine exactly what happened.  The same could be said of a large
>number of articles.  But unlike your suggestion, there is plenty of
>source material to create a short article on what we *do* know.

The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
biography.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
> No. You can't habitually break off polite discussion and make attacks.
>
> Fred

Huh? Non sequitur. That statement is fallacious in so many ways.
Please stop disrupting and go away, crazy person.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 14/07/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Jack <jackdt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The USA Library of Congress has requested permission to include
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict> in their collection of
> > Internet material concerning the crisis in Darfur.
> >
> > They wish to
> > 1. archive the page at regular intervals, and
> > 2. publish it on their publicly accessible web site.
> >
> > They completely reproduce pages for archival purposes: capturing all
> > identifying site documentation, including URL, trademark, copyright
> > statement, ownership, publication date
> > <http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/faq.html>; so the GFDL requirements are
> > met, but what about the trademark/logo? Who needs to give permission
> > or refuse?
> >
> > WikiMedia OTRS ticket: 2006071110012086
> > LC Reference: Darfur 88979 CD
>
> I remember a similar request from 2004 during the Tsunami (okay, the
> actual request should have been from january-february 2005) from the
> US LOC for a collection about this.  Maybe someone is able to find the
> ticket and how we reacted to this. As far as I am concerned, their
> request is fine and I consider it a shame that libraries are requested
> to ask for this to preserve the cultural heritage, no matter if it is
> on dead trees or on a DVD.

It's the major problem with web archiving - if you get 10% response
you're lucky. Most have grudgingly accepted they have to go with
"archive on spec" and take down afterwards if there's a complaint. I
strongly, strongly suggest we figure out a way to have a blanket
permissions policy for this sort of thing; it's exactly what we want
to encourage, though there's generally less need to archive us than
with most people...

Whilst I remember, the rather cunning trick developed to get around
permissions (at least for the biggest web archivers, the
national-level people), is to quietly redefine legal deposit, so that
the deposit libraries have the right to make and store copies of any
material published to the web in their jurisdiction. Defining
"jurisdiction" is fun, of course, but they seem to have knocked
something together; France is working on theirs, the UK has passed the
enabling legislation but hasn't put it into force yet, and I think
Denmark's got it up and running.

(I was lucky enough to attend a one-day conference on internet
archiving - it was a bit accidental, we hadn't quite realised it was
directed at the big players - which was remarkably interesting. It's
going to be a fun field to watch)

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


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiFilter

body:
>
>
> Never underestimate the hideous complexity of Parser.php!  Make sure you
> refer the guy to previous efforts:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers
>
>
Yes ! and you can be sure in terms of features to be always behind the PHP
parser.
I'm maybe dumb, but I simply never understood why people invest so much
energy for an offline-reader to build a wiki parser, and whereas it's a lot
easier to work on a HTML dump.

Emmanuel


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

body:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:15:43 -0400
"Lord Voldemort" <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not positive, but pretty sure you just proved his point, Dabljuh.  --LV

I'm not sure either. The way I understood him, I think I have proved
him wrong: We both can.


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
Anthony wrote:

>>I presume that with "optionally" you are referring to WMF retaining the
>>option to sue or not sue based on the circumstances of the situation,
>>and not that each editor has an option about naming WMF as agent ...
>>sometimes.  The alternative would only create more confusion when the
>>WMF's right to pursue the matter comes up.  On the other hand, it would
>>be ridiculous to demand that WMF pursue with vigour every bit of
>>perceived copyvio.
>>
>>
>>
>What I'm saying is that if the WMF requires me to give it the right to
>enter into copyright lawsuits on my behalf, I won't ever contribute
>anything to Wikipedia or any of the other projects again.  (I suppose
>I'd make an exception for those things that I'm willing to give to the
>public domain).
>
>I don't want the WMF to have the option to sue or not sue based on the
>circumstances of the situation.  I obviously can't stop others from
>giving them this right, but I won't give it to them for my own
>content.
>
>Anthony
>
>
I hope that you are correct and I am wrong in a concern about the lack
of a copyright over Wikimedia project content by the WMF.  I can't
possibly envision all of the situations that real life might bring up,
and I've seen over the years too many unusual situations to be able to
even predict just what might be an issue in the future that would
require a WMF copyright claim on project content.  It just seems as
though the dismissal of claim of copyright hasn't been completely
thought through, nor is this denial of claim formal either.

What I am suggesting is that if the WMF has a copyright claim on project
content (not necessarily exclusive claim, which is a different issue),
there are both good and bad legal points to be made about what the
consequences of that copyright claim might be, as is also the case of a
denial of copyright claim entirely.  Often some organizations will
assume liability on behalf of their members, especially volunteers, for
official activities of that organization.  The American Red Cross and
the Boy Scouts of America are two organizations I know of that do this
for their volunteers.  As a volunteer scouter, if I get sued because of
my activities when involved with working with youth, the Boy Scouts will
have their legal representatives consult with me over the situation and
defend me in court.  There are official policies and such that must be
followed, and I have to convince them that I was following those
polices, but the safty net is there to help me volunteer.  I don't know
how far the WMF would go to defend project contributors who are acting
in good faith and follow project and WMF policies to the best of their
ability.  I hope I never find out.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Anthony

references:
<h52db2hmf3m177bq1n1bo1pegi9g24h64s@4ax.com>
	<20060713225733.57897.qmail@web82215.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<b80736c80607131613y7603ea91qc410afa86435554f@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90607131640t2d2f9cfbo48f652d5bebbd210@mail.gmail.com>
	<dfgeb29avft24pptb892ut798jbtmp5s10@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90607140203y2c2ff212r20f02effaa3c8913@mail.gmail.com>
	<sncfb2te8hfvs3le7r2ka5is0dtmfpfokk@4ax.com>
	<71cd4dd90607140936t5c39a62djd754130a0519e90b@mail.gmail.com>
	<0nkfb2ltmpng9eqtcu9to4r7vd8b1q2i5j@4ax.com>

body:
On 7/14/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:36:34 -0400, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> wrote:
>
> >> Original research.  we don't know (either way) because there are no
> >> reliable sources.
>
> >Actually, the person who claimed to be the guy's brother and started
> >that rumor about the nurse admitted it was a hoax.  I sent you the
> >link earlier today.
>
> You're missing the point.  We don't know either way, there are no
> reliable sources.  we don't have a court transcript, a report from the
> paper, a statement, nothing.
>
So you think the guy's brother was telling the truth, and then he
retracted it for some reason?  Or you think some random guy made up a
hoax story which just coincidentally happened to be the truth?

I think it's pretty clear that the story about the nurse was a hoax.
Maybe not clear enough to put in the article, but certainly clear
enough that one shouldn't call this a minor technical offense.

> >> The point is, this has so little neutral coverage that we almost
> >> certainly won't know. If we ever get a contemporaneous news report
> >> which details what happened and to whom then we might arguably have
> >> enough to go on, but honestly there is nothing here on which to base a
> >> biography.
>
> >As I've said, I disagree.  I think there are enough neutral sources to
> >have a short article, maybe two paragraphs long, which would be far
> >better than having nothing.
>
> We disagree here in two fundamental respects.
>
> First, I don't think that there are any sources neutral enough, given
> that virtually every source we do have is related to the "who's a
> pepper?" thing.  There are no reports unrelated to that, other than
> the primary sources (eSORN etc.) and they are monumentally
> uninformative.
>
There are primary sources, there is at least one newspaper article,
there was at least one television news report, and there is snopes.

> Second, I think that having a short article ''is'' worse than having
> no article, because we have no idea what else the guy has done with
> his life.  Maybe he spent his entire childhood rescuing drowning
> kittens.  We oimply have no idea.  All we know about him is he pleaded
> guilty to an attempted felony, and he looks "kinda weird".  We can
> reasonably infer that he is disabled, but even that is probably
> original research.  We really know next to nothing about the guy, so
> we have no way of presenting a neutral biography.
>
Frankly, I think an article which said that we know nothing about the
guy would be better than no article at all.  At least then someone
interested in knowing about this Brian Peppers guy would know there
probably isn't that much more to know.  So this, I suppose, is a
fundamental disagreement.

That said, we do have several pictures of him, we know that he pled
guilty to two counts of attempted gross sexual imposition, a
fourth-degree felony, we know his victim was a child female over the
age of 13, we know he spent 30 days in jail, we know his birth date,
we know where he spent time in prison, we know that he served his
probation without violation, we know he lived in a nursing home, and
that he still lives in a (different) nursing home, we know his
approximate height and weight, we know he was in a wheel chair, we
know the name of his prosecutor and his defender.  Maybe that isn't
all interesting enough for the article, and maybe some of it would
have to be attributed, but for one of the hundreds of thousands of
people who does a google search for "Brian Peppers", if they happen to
click on the second link for that search, I think they'll be more
satisfied than receiving a notice that "this page has been deleted by
Jimbo Wales, and should not be re-created until 21 February 2007 at
the earliest."

But, again, I suppose that's a fundamental disagreement between the
two of us.  I think a little bit of information is better than
nothing.

> If someone writing a book on memes goes out and researches properly
> and comes back with some actual substance maybe I'd change my mind,
> but right now I think that these two facts - conviction and appearance
> - do not, between them, constitute sufficient material for a WP:BLP.
>
> Guy (JzG)

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
On 7/14/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> BTW, the Library of Congress does not have a maximum limit of only 5
> copyright claimants, but since the GFDL suggests the number of 5 people
> listed, most people assume that is the most that you are permitted to
> list as authors.  It is not, and I don't see a problem with listing 20
> or more people, as can happen with some Wikimedia projects.  For
> Wikibooks, that can be 20 different people with significant
> contributions.  My reading of the GFDL is that it suggests that you
> should list at least five different people if there were that many
> contributors, and that meets the minimum terms of the GFDL, and not
> necessarily even the minimum requirements for copyright law.
>
This is a common misconception.  The GFDL requires you list at least 5
authors (plus yourself) *on the title page*.  You are still required
to list *all* authors on the history page.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Ben Yates

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joke

body:
I understand your reasoning, but the defoliation of the article -- er
... fills me with deep sadness?  It really was a nice, entertaining
article, with plenty of examples, even if all of them weren't the
platonic ideals of jokes.  Now it's dry and uninteresting, difficult
to skim, and gives no indication of the incredible volume of content
in the humor pages it links to.

There was a wikipedia guideline that I can't remember the name of --
something like "show, don't just tell": if you're writing an article
about trees it's good to have a photo of a tree; if you're writing
about music, it's good to have a sound clip.  This is the same
principle.  Should we remove all the photos at [[Tree]] because
they're not totally reprentative of all trees?  It seems like the
solution for [[Joke]] is to get an expert review, not to bulldoze a
shabby but vibrant public space.

On 7/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke
>
> I removed the jokes.  Mikka reverted.  My reasoning:
> * no reliable sources for these being considered representative of the
> classes of joke discussed
> * this is about the concept of the joke, it is not [[List of jokes]]
> (and most especially not [[List of randomly selected and generally
> abysmal jokes]])
> * several are gratuitously offensive.  It should be possible to read
> the article on joke, be told that racist jokes exist, but not be
> subjected to them unless you visit a separate article
> * WP:NOT a joke book
> * cruft, cruft, cruft and more cruft.  Most are drive-bys.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

body:
On 7/14/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>
> >On 7/13/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>Robert Scott Horning said:
> >>>The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold
> >>>copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free
> >>>Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects:  If there is a
> >>>copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the
> >>>copyright and defending the GPL.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>My preference here would be to have each editor appoint WMF as a
> >>non-exclusive agent for the purpose of taking all steps to defend
> >>editors' copyrights.
> >>
> >>
> >Optionally, I hope.  I personally have no desire to sue people over
> >the vast majority of my legal rights under copyright law.  Basically,
> >as long as you don't take my works and then create a non-free
> >derivative, I don't care what you do with it, at least so far as
> >copyright law is concerned.
> >
> I think that that view is shared by most of us who have a philosophical
> attachment to the concept of free information.
>
I dunno.  I've seen an awful lot of lawsuit-happy Wikipedians.  I've
even been legally threatened by a number of them for running a mirror
site.

> >Frankly, I'd hope that the WMF would do the same, and only use
> >lawsuits to make works more free, not less.
> >
> I presume that with "optionally" you are referring to WMF retaining the
> option to sue or not sue based on the circumstances of the situation,
> and not that each editor has an option about naming WMF as agent ...
> sometimes.  The alternative would only create more confusion when the
> WMF's right to pursue the matter comes up.  On the other hand, it would
> be ridiculous to demand that WMF pursue with vigour every bit of
> perceived copyvio.
>
What I'm saying is that if the WMF requires me to give it the right to
enter into copyright lawsuits on my behalf, I won't ever contribute
anything to Wikipedia or any of the other projects again.  (I suppose
I'd make an exception for those things that I'm willing to give to the
public domain).

I don't want the WMF to have the option to sue or not sue based on the
circumstances of the situation.  I obviously can't stop others from
giving them this right, but I won't give it to them for my own
content.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Human dignity

body:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 5:01 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> imagine if
> someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the
> (daft, if
> you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using.  It is a
> confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
> her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
> lived meme

The worst aspect of this is that there is no way to flesh out the
woman's humanity. It is doubtful any other published information exists.

Fred