from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
IMO, this is a Bad Thing (TM).  It will discourage many useful users from participating in Wikipedia.  I use my real name (at least part of it), but I totally can understand why people would not do so.

RickK

Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:

I have been thinking lately about [[PPR:RealNamesPlease]].
(That's .)
This is a longstanding policy on the orginal wiki
which perhaps Wikipedia should have adopted a long time ago.
???

-- Toby
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject:
[WikiEN-l] It is time to act on two obsessed users who are
	violating Sysop requests

body:
How is this possibly useful to any discussion?

RickK

Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
WARNING: Sarcasm rampage.

--- Robert wrote:
> Martin, you really can't stop the harassment, can you? You
> really have no ability to control your rage, do you?

RK, you really can't stop the anti-harassment, can you? you
really have no ability toe control your rage, do you?

> You and Entmoots Of Trools have now created som SIX
> WIKIEPDIA PAGES dedicated to slander and harassment of me
> alone.

Woot? Only six measly pages for such an illustrious Wikipedia
Intelligensia Esteemed and Most Honoured Member? Six hundred, even
six thousand would be more fitting!

> I can't imagine how many hours you two have spent
> obsessed with me,

Narcissim at its best, my hat is off to you. O High One.

> and damaging Wikipedia in the process.

Quick, the Fire Brigade.. Hum, the Antibodies, hum... What are they
called these days? The Phlegm Patrol?

> So yeah, I do really think that you are in some clinical
> sense, obsessed (i.e. "sick").

A most astute diagnosis my Dear Colleage. I am sure the autopsies
will prove you right.

> You have spent months
> harassing me, so has Entmoots of Trools, and your
> collective harassment and libel is over the top.

Alas, I fear your humility has come between you and reality. Indeed,
theirs is but a poor attempt at expressing the true nature of your
greatness. You should encourage them to blossom into full-fledged
woshippers.

> Again, I request a ban on both Martin (MyRedDice) and
> EntmootsOfTrools.

So noted, Your Excellency. But, well, as you know, our democracy is
not what it used to be... In the good old days they would have been
hanged and quartered, of course...

> I fail to understand why the Wikipedia
> community is still allowing them to create more and more
> Wiki sites dedicated to slander and harssment.

The Wikipedia community is, at large, busy with working on an
encyclopedia, which, the spies report, Your Majesty, with all due
respect, grows unchecked in all corners of the Your illustrious
Realm.

> They even
> have created fake User Talk pages, which distract readers
> from my genuine User Talk page.

They have? Oh dear. It would have been better if they had vandalized
valid encyclopedia pages. Then the Rebel Alliance would have surely
struck them down.

> That itself is a bannable
> offense.

If we get our hands on them Your Highness, they will wish they had
been banned. (Whispers sinisters words to shadowy figure behind
curtain).

> Wiki Sysops have written to them and asked them
> to stop their harssment multiple times, but they refuse to
> do so. What course of action is left?

Indeed, The World and All That Is Good has come to a Most Fateful
End.

> Please ban these unrepentant vandals who refuse to follow
> any semblance of Wikietiquette. This is getting more than
> annoying; it is harassment (in the legal sense of the
> term), and is now bordering on dangerous.

Your Excellency, the FBI, CIA, and Los Angeles Police are once more
powerless against this ignoble enemy. What shall we do ourselves but
flee to the ends of the earth; outcasts hunted by the very demons of
Hell?

> Robert (RK)

Yes, Robert, King of Wikipedia and All the Articles.

Now that I feel better, what was your problem again?

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] A course of action

body:
So in other words, it all falls on Robert to make all of the first moves?  Why can't you and the Troll just drop it and let it die instead of continuing to aggravate things?

RickK

martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> What course of action is left?

Here's my suggestion:
1. Robert accepts that it is wrong to insult people on Wikipedia, apologises, and
agrees not to do so in the future.
2. Those who Robert has insulted accept his apology, forgive him, and agree not to
bring up the subject in the future.
3. Robert accepts that it is wrong to ask for bona fide Wikipedians to be banned,
apologises, and stops doing so.
4. Those who Robert has asked to be banned accept his apology, forgive him, and
agree not to bring up the subject in the future.
5. Robert accepts that it is wrong to accuse bona fide Wikipedians of being vandals,
apologises, and stops doing so.
6. Those who Robert has accused of being vandals accept his apology, forgive him,
and agree not to bring up the subject in the future.
7. Those who created all the junk on this topic accept that it was wrong to create so
much junk, apologise for doing so, and agree not to do so in the future.
8. Those who were affected by all the junk on the subject accept the collective
apology, forgive those who created it, and agree not to bring up the subject in the
future.
9. All the junk on this topic, scattered over various talk pages, user talk pages, ban
pages, mailing lists, etc, is all sent to the big recycle bin in the sky.
10. Time passes.
11. People start to forgive.
12. People start to forget.

This 12 step procedure will make everyone happy, I believe. However, I welcome
alternative suggestions, or improvements. If you want to edit it, it'll be at
[[Wikipedia:Community case RK]], replacing the big pile of junk previously located
there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to sort out step zero: filling in my tax return... ;-)

Love,
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
_______________________________________________
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] It is time to act on two obsessed users who
	areviolating Sysop re

body:
I completely and unreservedly second this call.

RickK

james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:

Finally, in view of the constant behaviour of EoT, which is quite frankly
highly distasteful, to put it at its mildest, and deeply disrespectful of a
member of the community, and in view of his constant ignoring of appeals
from Jimbo for restraint (which he regularly deletes from his userpage) I
hereby call for the banning of EoT.

JT

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from_name: Steve Vertigum

subject:
[WikiEN-l] It is time.. die clock ist ticking... le End c'est
	nearer..

body:
>Vicki: "Rampant philo-Semitism"? This is an
accusation
> right up
> there, for what it says about the accuser, with
> people who
> called White civil rights activists "nigger lovers".

Dear Vicki Rosenweig,

If you bothered to read what I actually wrote, you
would have read:  "...would only exacerbate the
percieved problems of rampant anti-Semitism and
philo-Semitism on Wikipedia."

Note I said *perceived problems.  The perception of a
pro-Jewish bias or an anti-Jewish bias far exceed the
reality, and hence the problem arises not from the
facts, rather from the perceptions.  Perceptions
aside, you may ask what is wrong with a "pro-Jewish
bias," to which I would answer 'the same thing thats
wrong with all bias--prejudice, POV etc, as human as
they are, are all simply shortcuts for reason and
thinking.  And quite often, bias is a shortcut for
*reading as well.

Sincerely,
-S-

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subject: [WikiEN-l] EoT's behaviour and refusal to stop

body:
> RK's
> behaviour is no justification
> for EoT's response, which breaks just about every
> rule of wikiettique
> imaginable.

Ettiquette? Hm. I wonder what reception an Arab
Palestinian editor with RK's level of "ettiquette"
might recieve. Oh yes-- you and I reverted some of his
"edits" recently didnt we?

> EoT has been repeatedly asked to stop
> creating these pages, and
> has refused to do so. Jimbo has made it clear that
> he HAS to stop, yet he
> has continued with the behaviour. In the
> circumstances I see no alternative
> but to ban EoT. /Any/ user who acted in that manner
> in my view forfeits the
> right to be on wikipedia.

If this is true then I agree with you. As I understand
it, it is not currently the case.  The only edits EofT
seems to be making regarding RK are to the ridiculous
"case" page, which I made to replace and remove those
invasive pages EofT started.

The precedent for /ban pages was already set and was a
bad practice ready to be missapplied -- its important
to clear this up. After Jims "suggestion" that /ban
pages were inappropriate, and EofT's refusal to heed
this "suggestion" -- yes, certainly, EofT is on his
own.

> RK's behaviour is grossly unacceptable and needs to
> be confronted also.

Well?  Tick, tock, tick, tock... the general
heavyweights may seem to go in favor of banning EofT
-- are they doing it at the request of RK -- a person
whos behaviour is also "grossly unacceptible?"
Wherefore comes this momentum for taking unilateral
action that favors one miscreant over another?  What
would Judge Judy do?  Throw them both out, I imagine.

> EoT, used a *methodology that is
> unprecedented in wiki
> history and is so far beyond the realm of acceptable
> behaviour...

The *methodology you speak of -- /ban pages, and the
creation of excess pages on the matter, although
unusual, did have plenty of precedent, as this was the
method that other "trolls" were "informed" and
"documented" as to their status -- while still active.

Continuing the "Big City Smartass" tradition,
-S-

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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Jurriaan Schulman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia's database schema

body:
Is there any way to add new fields to the MySQL database schema used by
Wikipedia? This way one would be able to perform a much more sophisticated
search.

For instance, if I would like to find all artists born before 1955 or all
butterflies of the UK, there currently is no way to do this, or is there?

Jurriaan


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject:
[WikiEN-l] It is time.. die clock ist ticking... le End
	c'est nearer..

body:
At 06:15 PM 8/26/03 -0700, Stevertigo wrote:
>Dr. Duffy wrote:
>"Much of what went on was simply Robert-baiting and
>anti-Robertism. That does not make it right, but it is
>wrong to attach religious or ethnic connotations to
>what has been going on. There have been cases of
>jew-baiting on wiki, a few cases, and I have blocked
>on the most recent culprits and called for the banning
>of another."
>
>This is highly quotable. May I? While I agree with
>nearly everything James has said, I disagree that EofT
>deserves banning. Punishing one child and not the
>other is a typical manifestation of lopsided parenting
>- usually resulting in a
>great despartity between how they are each treated,
>and consequently how they each continue to behave.
>Banning EofT, despite his rudeness, and inability to
>take good sound advice -- and not banning RK -- in all
>fairness, would only exacerbate the percieved problems
>of rampant anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism on
>Wikipedia.

"Rampant philo-Semitism"? This is an accusation right up
there, for what it says about the accuser, with people who
called White civil rights activists "nigger lovers".
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> How is this possibly useful to any discussion?
>
> RickK
>
> Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> WARNING: Sarcasm rampage.

Rick,

There are many forms of expression. One of them is satire. Satire is
generally used to demonstrate a point when a point might be
retaliated against were it described in plainer language.

I use a mix of sarcasm and satire to demonstrate the point that some
people do not readily accept commentary critical to their point of
view.

The fact that I chose this particular mode of expression is itself a
commentary on the sort of interaction I have had and expect to have
with some on this list.

I hope that you can now see how this can be useful this forum we
share.

Another point is that satire and sarcasm can be found humorous by
some and will, rather than enrage, generally make people more
thougthful through humorous introspection.

I only fear that I wasn't able to express myself well enough, thus
causing some readers a level of discomfort at my oft-awkward words.
If this is the case with you, please accept my apologies. I promise
to sharpen my wit and expand by verve for the next go-round.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: Merritt L. Perkins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure
languages that you cannot expect to include them all.
What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into? I think that
you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German,
French and Spanish for example. There is a difference between this French
spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in
Mexico. There are special characters used to write the languages.
Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers. The language should be
easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I don?t know how. It
may require a special keyboard and software.
The head of the modern language department of a large German university
may be fluent in several languages and able to teach about subjects from
the Kavala to Xenophon?s Anabasis. He may have served in the Army and be
familiar with Army terminology and idioms, but not familiar with
submarines, ships, or airplanes.
The translator should be a native speaker thoroughly familiar with the
subject of the article and may choose to write his own article instead of
translating the existing article.
I find no objection to including articles written or translated into
Icelandic, Hungarian, or any other language even though there would be
few readers. Readers need to know where to find them
Merritt L. Perkins


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Controversial user nicknames

body:
At 07:52 PM 8/26/2003, you wrote:
>Someone calling himself Dante Alighieri but not named Dante wrote:
> > As a matter of fact, I don't suppose there's any way that you
> > could prove that my name /isn't/ legally Dante Alighieri.
>
>Hmm...I think I remember something...<goes to Google, searches
>WikiEN-l archives>
>
>In
>  http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-May/003655.html
>the same e-mail address <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com> wrote:
> > Yeah, that last one from Karim Moussally was from me. That's my real name.
> > Darn multiple sig files. ;)
>
>Q.E.D. ;-)
>
>-[[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey Thomas]] (which is my real name)

Poor misguided Geoffrey. :) You simply fell victim to my ingenious ploy. By
"accidentally" posting to the list with my "real name" I have you all
convinced that Dante Alighieri is merely a pseudonym. Now that I have you
all firmly enmeshed in my plot, I can begin phase 2... take over the
world... MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Hello,
> I wanted to install lastest Wikipedia, but just reading the install file I
> gave up...

hehe... :)

If you need help with anything specific, please feel free to ask.

I'm trying to get some documentation together on meta-wikipedia at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture ; if anything is
lacking please feel free to contribute. Contributions of questions of
what the heck it means are welcome. :)

> I now looking for a older version of Wikipedia with PHP source, usemod
> functions and file upload feature.
> Do someone know if the package named "Old Wikipedia code (draft PHP code)
> "is what I'm looking for, or can point out where I have to search.
> "phpwiki" on the cvs repository is the Phase II version ?
> Thanks for help.

Phase II is unmaintained and rather buggy. If you can't get phase 3
running, phase 2 won't be any easier, and it won't work as well.

I have no idea what's in that package, but assume it's very ancient. :)

If you really want UseModWiki, you can get it at
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UseModWiki/Download
(but note that a new enhanced version is to be released in a couple of
weeks; it's in beta testing now). Various add-ons to the current version
are available: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiPatches

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: james duffy

body:
>Martin, you really can't stop the harassment, can you? You
>really have no ability to control your rage, do you?
>
>You and Entmoots Of Trools have now created som SIX
>WIKIEPDIA PAGES dedicated to slander and harassment of me
>alone. I can't imagine how many hours you two have spent
>obsessed with me, and damaging Wikipedia in the process. So
>yeah, I do really think that you are in some clinical
>sense, obsessed (i.e. "sick"). You have spent months
>harassing me, so has Entmoots of Trools, and your
>collective harassment and libel is over the top.
>
>Again, I request a ban on both Martin (MyRedDice) and
>EntmootsOfTrools.  I fail to understand why the Wikipedia
>community is still allowing them to create more and more
>Wiki sites dedicated to slander and harssment. They even
>have created fake User Talk pages, which distract readers
>from my genuine User Talk page. That itself is a bannable
>offense.  Wiki Sysops have written to them and asked them
>to stop their harssment multiple times, but they refuse to
>do so. What course of action is left?
>
>Please ban these unrepentant vandals who refuse to follow
>any semblance of Wikietiquette.  This is getting more than
>annoying; it is harassment (in the legal sense of the
>term), and is now bordering on dangerous.
>
>Robert (RK)

A couple of points.

1. EoT's pages are a gross abuse of a fellow user. Under no circumstances
should that treatment of anyone be tolerated.

2. I don't believe Martin handled the situation well, but I do not believe
for one moment that he was trying to harrass Robert. What he was trying to
do, wrongly in my view, but with genuine motivation, was pull together the
multitude of pages EoT has been creating, so that a decision can be taken on
them en bloc. My vote is for their immediate and complete deletion.

Please do not take what I have to say next, Robert, as a personal attack,
because it not intended to be so.

I believe that Robert is a sincere and genuine user. Nevertheless I do
believe is attacks on people have been seriously misguided. Comments about
'jew-baiting' and 'anti-semitism' were wide of the mark. Much of what went
on was simply Robert-baiting and anti-Robertism. That does not make it
right, but it is wrong to attach religious or ethnic connotations to what
has been going on. There have been cases of jew-baiting on wiki, a few
cases, and I have blocked on the most recent culprits and called for the
banning of another.

Robert's predicament reminds me of the boy who cried wolf too often. When
finally the wolf did come and the boy called for help, no-one believed him
because he had cried wolf falsely so many times. Robert's constant accusing
of a large number of people of anti-semitism and jew-baiting, genuinely
though he may have felt it (and I do accept Robert's sincerity) was a
misguided reaction. As a result, when real jew-baiting and real
anti-semitism has been expressed, people have been so fed up reacting to
false charges in the past that they have paid no heed.

Robert's attack on Martin is similarly misguided and unfair. Both are
genuine users doing what they believe is the right thing.  But by over the
top attacks on a genuine user, Robert's past attacks  have undermined the
power of his genuine complaints about the behaviour of EoT.

Please Robert, for your own sake, distinguish between the misguided but well
motivated actions of some people, and those, a very tiny minority, who
deserve criticism. I accept unreservedly Robert's sincerity. Unlike Adam, DW
etc Robert's clashes with people have been motivated by a genuine if
misguided honesty. But please Robert, recognise that others too who clash
with you are sincere and don't make wild and unfair allegations against
them.

Finally, in view of the constant behaviour of EoT, which is quite frankly
highly distasteful, to put it at its mildest, and deeply disrespectful of a
member of the community, and in view of his constant ignoring of appeals
from Jimbo for restraint (which he regularly deletes from his userpage) I
hereby call for the banning of EoT.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Adam Bishop

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
How would you stop people from creating fake "real" names? They could just
use the random name generator that Tim Starling posted on Saddam Hussein's
talk page.

>From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for English-language
>Wikipedia<wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames
>Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:16:20 -0700 (PDT)
>
>IMO, this is a Bad Thing (TM).  It will discourage many useful users from
>participating in Wikipedia.  I use my real name (at least part of it), but
>I totally can understand why people would not do so.
>
>RickK
>
>Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
>
>I have been thinking lately about [[PPR:RealNamesPlease]].
>(That's .)
>This is a longstanding policy on the orginal wiki
>which perhaps Wikipedia should have adopted a long time ago.
>???
>
>
>-- Toby
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Do you Yahoo!?
>SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
tarquin wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm trying to get some documentation together on meta-wikipedia at
>> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture ; if anything is
>> lacking please feel free to contribute. Contributions of questions of
>> what the heck it means are welcome. :)
>
>
> oh good! (you may regret saying that Brion ... ;)

Hey, I didn't say I'd _answer_ them! ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Thank Brion,
> I found a backup of an early version of Phase III on my PC !
> I modified "LocalSettings.php" and put that all on my server.
> When I launch "createdb.php" I got this error message :
>
> *Warning*: set_time_limit() has been disabled for security reasons in
> *createdb.php* on line *9*

D'oh! If that's the only way you have to run maintenance scripts they
could perhaps time out if they take too long.

If the message bugs you just take the line out...

> Creating new tables.
> *Warning*: Access denied for user: 'wikiadmin at php6-1.free.fr' (Using
> password: YES) in *DatabaseFunctions.php* on line *17*
> Connexion impossible ? la base de donn?es sur localhost
...
> Where can I set the wikiadmin ? In "LocalSettings.php" I have only
> "user", "user password" and "admin password". Have I to create user
> manualy ?

In maintenance directory should be 'buildusers.sql'. Do a
search-and-replace to change the passwords to what you want to use, and
run those statements into your mysql. It may need fiddling to be right,
particularly if your mysql server is remote (as it looks like).

OR, if you don't have the rights to create new mysql user accounts, then
just set the admin and user usernames and passwords in localsettings to
the username and password you've been given to use.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] One link on GFDL


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: distributing 1.0

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:

> And in some countries High-speed internet is charged for by data volume
> transferred. There is no way I'd be downloading any ISO images on an
> account with 1GB/month "free" and the rest at $0.2 ber MB.

I'll send one to you by post if you promise to make at least 10 copies
for friends, universities or libraries. And you should convince your
friends to make copies, too.

BTW, there is some kind of social underground movement in Germany (I'm
sure in other contries too) where people are founding Umsonstl?den
("gratis shops"). You can bring things you don't need any more to them
or take-away things you need - for free. It's meant as an alternative to
market economy or barter economy. Some of them also have a PC where you
can copy the latest Linux distros. I think we should consider using them
as distribution centers.

Kurt

P.S.: Some addresses in Germany are listed on
http://co-forum.de/index.php4?UmsonstLaden (it's a wiki, btw)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
At 03:03 AM 8/27/2003, tarquin wrote:
>I am fed up with this mailing list churning out all this yelling.
>
>I no longer know who did what, who said what, and who is to blame.

It's very simple to understand.

*I* didn't do anything wrong, it was the other person's fault.
*I* didn't engage in any untowards behavior, the other person did.
When *I* do something, it's justified.
When the other person does the same thing, it's a bannable offense.
*I* don't need to apologize for anything.
The other person needs to apologize for everything.

Hope this clears things up. ;)

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

>What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you
want to include
>Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so
many obscure
>languages that you cannot expect to include them all.

Yes, ideally, all languages

I read a great reduction of spoken languages was
expected over the next decennies.
If Wikipedia can help make some of them stay alive, so
much the best.

it was expected
>What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated
into? I think
that
>you should choose languages that would have many
readers. High German,
>French and Spanish for example. There is a difference
between this
French
>spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken
in Spain and in
>Mexico.

The Encyclopedia is not translated and will not be
translated in other languages. Each language is free
of its own creativity. Articles from one language can
influence another language. But they are not copies.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


body:
>
>Dr. Duffy wrote:
>"Much of what went on was simply Robert-baiting and
>anti-Robertism. That does not make it right, but it is
>wrong to attach religious or ethnic connotations to
>what has been going on. There have been cases of
>jew-baiting on wiki, a few cases, and I have blocked
>on the most recent culprits and called for the banning
>of another."
>
>This is highly quotable. May I? While I agree with
>nearly everything James has said, I disagree that EofT
>deserves banning. Punishing one child and not the
>other is a typical manifestation of lopsided parenting
>- usually resulting in a
>great despartity between how they are each treated,
>and consequently how they each continue to behave.
>Banning EofT, despite his rudeness, and inability to
>take good sound advice -- and not banning RK -- in all
>fairness, would only exacerbate the percieved problems
>of rampant anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism on
>Wikipedia.
>
>While one may deserve the other, and while the rest of
>the world may deserve neither, this does not mean that
>misplaced force will ever solve anything. Of course,
>HL Mencken disagreed:  "Hanging one scoundrel, it
>appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it?
>The first one is at least disposed of." But then so
>many good turn of the century commentarians were
>speechless after 1945. Will Rodgers... Harry Truman,
>etc. etc.
>
>-S-

I understand your point and I do believe that Robert's behaviour is
seriously wrong. However I have to say that EoT's behaviour, specifically
his creating of some many abusive /pages/, not merely fights on pages, way
crosses the line of acceptable behaviour. RK's behaviour is no justification
for EoT's response, which breaks just about every rule of wikiettique
imaginable. EoT has been repeatedly asked to stop creating these pages, and
has refused to do so. Jimbo has made it clear that he HAS to stop, yet he
has continued with the behaviour. In the circumstances I see no alternative
but to ban EoT. /Any/ user who acted in that manner in my view forfeits the
right to be on wikipedia.

RK's behaviour is grossly unacceptable and needs to be confronted also.
Wrong as his behaviour has been, in tone and context, however, at least he
has not created a whole stream of abusive personalised subpages about his
opponents, which to my mind is a worse offence. With EoT out of the way,
Jimbo also needs to get tough with RK and warn him that his behaviour is
unacceptable and MUST stop.

I was not casting judgments on the nature of the abuse by both men against
the other and treating one as worse than the other, merely observing the
fact that one user, EoT, used a methodology that is unprecedented in wiki
history and is so far beyond the realm of acceptable behaviour that it
beggars belief. The sheer scale of that offence and consistent refusal to
stop requires nothing short of a ban.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
>Anthere wrote:
>
>Here's my suggestion:
>1. Robert accepts that it is wrong to insult people on
>Wikipedia, apologises, and agrees not to do so in the
>future.
>2. Those who Robert has insulted accept his apology,
>forgive him, and agree not to
>bring up the subject in the future.
>3. Robert accepts that it is wrong to ask for bona
>fide Wikipedians to be banned, apologises, and stops
>doing so.
>4. Those who Robert has asked to be banned accept his
>apology, forgive him, and agree not to bring up the
>subject in the future.
>5. Robert accepts that it is wrong to accuse bona fide
>Wikipedians of being vandals, apologises, and stops
>doing so.
>6. Those who Robert has accused of being vandals
>accept his apology, forgive him, and agree not to
>bring up the subject in the future.
>7. Those who created all the junk on this topic accept
>that it was wrong to create so much junk, apologise
>for doing so, and agree not to do so in the future.
>8. Those who were affected by all the junk on the
>subject accept the collective apology, forgive those
>who created it, and agree not to bring up the subject
>in the future.
>9. All the junk on this topic, scattered over various
>talk pages, user talk pages, ban pages, mailing lists,
>etc, is all sent to the big recycle bin in the sky.
>10. Time passes.
>11. People start to forgive.
>12. People start to forget.
>
>This 12 step procedure will make everyone happy, I
>believe. However, I welcome alternative suggestions,
>or improvements. If you want to edit it, it'll be at
>[[Wikipedia:Community case RK]], replacing the big
>pile of junk previously located there.

Forgetting and forgiving is hard when everyone still feels that /they/ are
the wronged person. So I'll suggest a simple course of action for RK and
EoT, since they seem to be the main protagonists.

1. Each writes ONE message to the wiki list explaining:
a. Why they are behaving as they are:
b. Why they perceive the need to act as they have.
c. What regrets if any they have for their behaviour.

2. Once each has explained their actions, both are BANNED from discussing
each other's contributions on the wiki-list until 30th September. It is
/one/ message and no more. If either tries to get in a reply, the person who
tries to come back with a reply will be instantly banned from wiki for one
week, and one week for every subsequent attempt to get in another reply.

3. EoT /immediately/ deletes or has deleted ALL his /pages about RK without
exception. A failure to do so will  be followed by their forced deletion and
his banning for one month.

4. RK promises to stop making wild accusations of anti-semitism and
jew-baiting against members. Any more wild exaggurated claims will be
followed by his banning for one month. If between now and the 30th September
he feels there is a genuine case of anti-semitism or jew-baiting, he should
raise it first with a sysop or with Jimbo. If they independently concur, he
can bring it to the wiki list, but only in a restrained and responsible
manner. After 30th September he can make allegations directly, but only in a
restrained and responsible manner.

5. Both are asked to take a week's break from wiki, to allow tempers to cool
down.

6. Any return to the past behaviour will earn that user a month's ban on
each occasion it happens.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
on 8/26/03 10:37 PM, Richard Grevers at lists at dramatic.co.nz wrote:

> I find your post curious - it seems as though you are contributing to this
> list without having actually explored the wikipedia site to discover how
> it works.

Yes, Merritt L. Perkins' posts do seem remarkably "born yesterday".

Merritt, Is there some explanation for this?

Fred


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
on 8/26/03 10:11 PM, Merritt L. Perkins at mlperkins3 at juno.com wrote:

> What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
> Encyclopedia articles on all languages.

I'm sure Jimbo means what he says, but yes, Wikimedia aspires to a version
in any language anyone wants to work on.

 There are so many obscure
> languages that you cannot expect to include them all.

It is possible that no one will ever come forward to work on encyclopedias
in some languages. I would expect some relatively rarely used languages to
be used though, perhaps for cultural reasons, for example it is easy to
imagine a gaelic wikipedia or a Cherokee Wikipedia

> What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into?

We don't actually do that although folks who work on a wikipedia in any
language could translate articles if they wish.

 I think that
> you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German,
> French and Spanish for example.

We have a Wikipedia in low German already, The Netherlands one.

There is a difference between this French
> spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in
> Mexico.

It is likely that French speaking Wikipedians will choose to have one French
Wikipedia, but the possibiltiy arises for a second French Wikipedia, perhaps
a Cajun one? Or simple French?

 There are special characters used to write the languages.

Yes but there almost any imaginable language in included in the unicode
system.

> Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers.

Good examples of Wikipedias which might happen when those folks discover
Wikipedia in any numbers, The Basques are rather nationalistic, Maori
presumably have both specialized interests and a desire to preserve their
language, Manxmen and Manxwomen might take an interest in resurrecting the
language.

The language should be
> easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
> Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I don?t know how. It
> may require a special keyboard and software.

It does require software but that is easily available. The Apple system X
has it, for example. I have seen pictures of special ideograph keyboards but
I don't think they are in general use.

> The head of the modern language department of a large German university
> may be fluent in several languages and able to teach about subjects from
> the Kavala to Xenophon?s Anabasis. He may have served in the Army and be
> familiar with Army terminology and idioms, but not familiar with
> submarines, ships, or airplanes.

While it is fun to learn about and write articles on subjects one is
unfamiliar with, it is not expected of anyone.

> The translator should be a native speaker thoroughly familiar with the
> subject of the article and may choose to write his own article instead of
> translating the existing article.

Yes, although one may write in a language one is only learning (sure to lead
to lots of extra learning) or about a subject one wishes to learn more about
or is just curious about (also likely to lead to some extra learning).

> I find no objection to including articles written or translated into
> Icelandic, Hungarian, or any other language even though there would be
> few readers. Readers need to know where to find them

That's white of you. Links to the Wikipedias in other languages are on the
main page of Wikipedia.

> Merritt L. Perkins

Fred


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
Merritt, I think one problem is that you haven't been around long and
haven't really grasped that we're an international community, as
opposed to a single organization that 'decides' things like this in a
centralized manner.

Merritt L. Perkins wrote:
> What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
> Encyclopedia articles on all languages.

Yes, I mean exactly that.

> There are so many obscure languages that you cannot expect to
> include them all.

Well, I suppose that there are living languages that are spoken by so
few people that the creation of a Wikipedia in that language will not
be practical.  But if several hundred thousand people speak a
language, then there is no reason for us not to support them.  Indeed,
if only a few hundred people speak a language, and if someone wants to
write in that language, then we should support that.

> What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into?

The different languages are not mere translations of each other.
Translation is but one tool for the creation of content, and I think
that in practice it is not the easiest nor most often used.

> I think that you should choose languages that would have many
> readers.

I think it's the wrong way to think about it to suppose that we should
'choose' based on 'readers'.  The right way to look at it is that
writers may choose to write whatever they want to write, in whatever
language Wikipedia they want to write about.

For some background, please look at:

http://de.wikipedia.org
http://es.wikipedia.org
http://jp.wikipedia.org

and of course there are many other fine examples.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

in_reply_to:
<oprujq4ho9zs1r4a@localhost>;
	from lists@dramatic.co.nz on Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 04:37:19PM +1200

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:
> I find your post curious - it seems as though you are contributing to this
> list without having actually explored the wikipedia site to discover how
> it works.

I agree.  Merritt, please spend some time exploring wikipedia in-depth.

--Jimbo


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] wikiversity licensing

in_reply_to:
<20030826155127.12189.qmail@web41812.mail.yahoo.com>;
	from littledanehren@yahoo.com on Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 08:51:27AM
	-0700

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> Does the CC SA have provisions for transparent
> coppies? I think that that's a major difference in
> some people's minds (in the case of ebooks, etc).
> LDan

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode

Yes, it's in there, in this form:

>You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
>publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological measures
>that control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with
>the terms of this License Agreement. You may not distribute, publicly
>display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work with
>any technological measures that control access or use of the Work in a
>manner inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement.

This is different in many ways from the way the GNU FDL spells it out,
but in essence, it's the same thing.

That's the real problem of incompatibility that I think can only be
solved through an explicit recognition of each other's licenses or
clauses allowing the use of other licenses that have 'substantially
similar' provisions.

--Jimbo


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 22:46:25 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
gave utterance to the following:

> james duffy wrote:
>
>> This might seem a small point now, as we don't have that many
>> controversial user nics. But as wiki grows the number of new users and
>> usernics will rocket. If two or three people use them and get away with
>> it, the likelihood is that more new members will follow, on the basis
>> that 'if he can call himself 'x', then I will call myself 'y'.'  Sooner
>> or later we will face the problem. It makes sense to do it now, with
>> the small community, than try to deal with it when there are twice or
>> three times as many users, by which time offence may already have been
>> caused to some, and potential wikipedians frightened off by the
>> impression given by the unfortunate use of badly chosen names.
>>
>> Any observations?
>
> My observation on these names is that most of these users have an
> attention span that matches their social grace.  Once [[User:Adolf
> Hitler]] has joined us, he is not likely to stay long.  His usage of the
> name, however,  means that all others are blocked from using that name
> in the future.  The problem will effectively solve itself without the
> need for more rules.
>
Then why doesn't someone senior and responsible simply create all the user
names we think are offensive, effectively removing them from circulation.
Would this create a problem with user:talk pages?
--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
At 12:11 AM 8/27/03 -0400, Merritt Perkins wrote:
>What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
>Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure
>languages that you cannot expect to include them all.
>What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into? I think that
>you should choose languages that would have many readers.

Because of how Wikipedia works, we have encyclopedias in the languages
that volunteers want to work in.

>  High German,
>French and Spanish for example. There is a difference between this French
>spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in
>Mexico. There are special characters used to write the languages.
>Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers. The language should be
>easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
>Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I don't know how. It
>may require a special keyboard and software.

We already have Arabic and Chinese Wikipedias. I certainly can't support
any approach that rules out two of the most-used languages on the planet.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
At 09:57 AM 8/27/03 +0100, sannse wrote:
>Adam Bishop  wrote:
>
>
> > How would you stop people from creating fake "real" names? They could just
> > use the random name generator that Tim Starling posted on Saddam Hussein's
> > talk page.
>
>As I understand it, the way the "use real names" policy is used elsewhere is
>to simply ask new users if the name they are using is theirs.  So the choice
>is to either use a real name or to lie.  This doesn't seem that useful to
>me, those likely to cause trouble are the same people as those likely to
>lie.  For myself, I don't wish to use my real name and I wouldn't lie - so I
>would not participate in a community with a "use real names" policy.

There's another problem with "use real names." I'm using mine. If the other
Vicki Rosenzweig I'm aware of wants to participate in Wikipedia, I doubt
either of us would think it a good idea for her to edit as "Vicki
Rosenzweig 2".

And that's with an unusual name: there are a *lot* of "John Smith"s out there.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: mangle addresses

body:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 02:50:59 +0200, Paul Ebermann <Paul-Ebermann at gmx.de>
gave utterance to the following:

> "Walter Vermeir" skribis:
>
>> Matthew Woodcraft [...] wrote [...]
>>
>> > Gustav Foseid wrote:
>> >> It was gmane that that mangled the address.
>> >
>> > Why don't we turn that feature off? It's clear that it can cause
>> > confusion, and we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the
>> > lists.
>>
>> If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is
>> not
>> a good idea i find.
>>
>> The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". [...]
>> It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to
>> person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email
>> adress is save from spammers.
>
> As Matthew said:
>
>> > we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.
>
> So the spammers could get your adress anyway ...
>
So the archive should be taken offline until it can be rewritten with all
email addresses either encrypted or munged (global substitution of the
last four characters of any string containing @ other than in the first or
last character with .... should work.

The address I post to these groups with is spam free, and I'd like to keep
it that way because the traffic is far to high to have to pass it through
mailwasher.
--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Adam Bishop  wrote:

> How would you stop people from creating fake "real" names? They could just
> use the random name generator that Tim Starling posted on Saddam Hussein's
> talk page.

As I understand it, the way the "use real names" policy is used elsewhere is
to simply ask new users if the name they are using is theirs.  So the choice
is to either use a real name or to lie.  This doesn't seem that useful to
me, those likely to cause trouble are the same people as those likely to
lie.  For myself, I don't wish to use my real name and I wouldn't lie - so I
would not participate in a community with a "use real names" policy.

Regards,

sannse


subject: [Wikipedia-l] sharing results from Wikipedia online survey

body:
It might be good as well to post a link to this survey for a few days
on the homepage of the site.  By mostly advertising on the mailing
list, you're basically talking to admins and policy nerds.  Lots of
people don't pay any attention to us, they just use the site and laugh
at all our hand-wringing, I think. :-)

Fernanda Viegas wrote:

> Dear Wikipedians,
>
> We have been getting great responses to our online survey of Wikipedia use and we would like to compile the results and share them with you. Even though the survey is anonymous, we would still only show numerical averages of people's responses. For privacy reasons we would not show anyone's long answers.
>
> Would a page on Meta-Wikipedia be a good option for sharing the results with the community?
>
> If you haven't taken the survey yet, please do so, we're still gathering data!http://smg.media.mit.edu/survey/wikipedia.html
>
> If you have already taken the survey, our many thanks for your participation.
>
> - Fernanda Viegas
>
> http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/
> sociable media group
> mit media laboratory

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


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

>What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
>Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure
>languages that you cannot expect to include them all.
>What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into? I think that
>you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German,
>French and Spanish for example. There is a difference between this French
>spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in
>Mexico. There are special characters used to write the languages.
>Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers. The language should be
>easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
>Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I don?t know how. It
>may require a special keyboard and software.
>The head of the modern language department of a large German university
>may be fluent in several languages and able to teach about subjects from
>the Kavala to Xenophon?s Anabasis. He may have served in the Army and be
>familiar with Army terminology and idioms, but not familiar with
>submarines, ships, or airplanes.
>The translator should be a native speaker thoroughly familiar with the
>subject of the article and may choose to write his own article instead of
>translating the existing article.
>I find no objection to including articles written or translated into
>Icelandic, Hungarian, or any other language even though there would be
>few readers. Readers need to know where to find them
>Merritt L. Perkins
>
>
timewarp much?
all this stuff is already happening!


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>
> I'm trying to get some documentation together on meta-wikipedia at
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture ; if anything is
> lacking please feel free to contribute. Contributions of questions of
> what the heck it means are welcome. :)

oh good! (you may regret saying that Brion ... ;)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

> Poor misguided Geoffrey. :) You simply fell victim to my ingenious
> ploy. By "accidentally" posting to the list with my "real name" I have
> you all convinced that Dante Alighieri is merely a pseudonym. Now that
> I have you all firmly enmeshed in my plot, I can begin phase 2... take
> over the world... MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Hmmm!  My son (age 13) has advised me that only Pinky and never The
Brain succeeds in this venture.  Biblically, it's a fulfillment of the
prophecy, "Blessed are the mice, for they shall inherit the earth."

Ec :-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
Forgetting and forgiving is hard when everyone still feels that /they/
are the wronged person. So I'll suggest a simple course of action for RK
and EoT, since they seem to be the main protagonists.

>
> 1. Each writes ONE message to the wiki list explaining:
> a. Why they are behaving as they are:
> b. Why they perceive the need to act as they have.
> c. What regrets if any they have for their behaviour.

I am fed up with this mailing list churning out all this yelling.

I no longer know who did what, who said what, and who is to blame.


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Alternate search engine software?

body:
As an alternative for both our very own OK-but-slow search and the
fast-but-never-up-to-date google search, how about

	http://www.mnogosearch.org/

Its UNIX version is GPL. It consists of two parts, indexer (crawler) and
search module. The latter can be called from PHP, so we could even keep
out interface. Question is, can we tune it so it updates every edit fast
enough?


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] animal encyclopedia

body:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Jurriaan Schulman wrote:

> I have been thinking about starting an open content animal encyclopedia. I
> would like to know if someone has any thoughts on what would be the best way
> to integrate this with wikipedia.

I would say:

Possibility 1:
* Put your encyclopedia on GNU/FDL
* Get the existing animal articles from Wikipedia, and put them on yours (with
  a notification that they come from Wikipedia)
* Try to have regular updates in both directions (if something is new on
  Wikipedia within your range of interest, port it to your encyclopedia, if
  something is new on yours, port it to Wikipedia)

Possibility 2:
* Start working within Wikipedia specifically on the animal pages
* If ever you want something more tangible do step (1 and) 2 above.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
There are a lot of Adam Bishops too, I even went to high school with another
one. If there was a real name policy, maybe it would have to include middle
names, even though that wouldn't always solve the problem either (but I
don't think there should be a real-name policy anyway :))

>From: Vicki Rosenzweig <vr at redbird.org>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for English-language
>Wikipedia<wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames
>Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 08:00:58 -0400
>
>At 09:57 AM 8/27/03 +0100, sannse wrote:
>>Adam Bishop  wrote:
>>
>>
>> > How would you stop people from creating fake "real" names? They could
>>just
>> > use the random name generator that Tim Starling posted on Saddam
>>Hussein's
>> > talk page.
>>
>>As I understand it, the way the "use real names" policy is used elsewhere
>>is
>>to simply ask new users if the name they are using is theirs.  So the
>>choice
>>is to either use a real name or to lie.  This doesn't seem that useful to
>>me, those likely to cause trouble are the same people as those likely to
>>lie.  For myself, I don't wish to use my real name and I wouldn't lie - so
>>I
>>would not participate in a community with a "use real names" policy.
>
>There's another problem with "use real names." I'm using mine. If the other
>Vicki Rosenzweig I'm aware of wants to participate in Wikipedia, I doubt
>either of us would think it a good idea for her to edit as "Vicki
>Rosenzweig 2".
>
>And that's with an unusual name: there are a *lot* of "John Smith"s out
>there.
>--
>Vicki Rosenzweig
>vr at redbird.org
>http://www.redbird.org
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
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subject: distributing 1.0 (was: Re: [WikiEN-l] copyright on old paintings)

body:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 19:27:44 +0100, Kurt Jansson <jansson at gmx.net> gave
utterance to the following:

>
> Every new computer today has a CD-burner, and when 1.0 is ready for
> distribution every computer will have a DVD-burner. We just have to
> produce some ISO-images and a handbook in PDF ready for print (and some
> nice artwork with a "handicraft work guide" (?) for those people who
> want "paperboard boxes" (?)).
>
> People can make as many copies for their friends as they like. We can
> distribute the process of sending copies to universities or libraries
> (like theopencd.org did) among Wikipedians, especially in developing
> countries. No need to order huge amounts from the "press shop" (?).
>
> BTW, I find all this talk about a paper Wikipedia completely useless
> (sorry if someone feels offended). It's (much!) too much work, too risky
> and I don't see a necessity for it. Can't we talk about this again in
> five or ten years when the DVD-version has stabilised and we are sure
> that our 50.000 most important articles (and pictures!) have no
> copyright violation in them? Book-on-demand production might also be a
> bit cheaper than today.
>
> Just my two WikiCent.
> Kurt
>
> P.S.: Sorry if I choose some strange word constructions :-)
>
And in some countries High-speed internet is charged for by data volume
transferred. There is no way I'd be downloading any ISO images on an
account with 1GB/month "free" and the rest at $0.2 ber MB.

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Merritt L. Perkins wrote:
>
>>What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you
>>
>want to include
>
>>Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so
>>
>many obscure
>
>>languages that you cannot expect to include them all.
>>
>
>Yes, ideally, all languages
>
>I read a great reduction of spoken languages was
>expected over the next decennies.
>If Wikipedia can help make some of them stay alive, so
>much the best.
>
In Canada a genocidal policy that forced more than a generation of first
nations children into residential schools where they were forbidden to
use their own language has put many of these languages in desparate
situations.  There may not be a critical mass of population for keeping
some of these languages and cultures alive.  We can provide space for a
Kootenayan language Wikipedia, but what good is that if there is no-one
around with the ability to write in that language?  The elders may be
the only ones with a functional knowlege of the language, but these
elders are no different from the elders of other societies who are
overwhelmed by anything having to do with computers.

PS: the English for "decennie" is "decade"

> What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated
>
>into? I think that
>
>>you should choose languages that would have many
>>
>readers. High German,
>
>>French and Spanish for example. There is a difference
>>
>between this French
>
>>spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in Mexico.
>>
>
>The Encyclopedia is not translated and will not be
>translated in other languages. Each language is free
>'''in''' its own creativity. Articles from one language can
>influence another language. But they are not copies.
>
I changed "of" to "in" in your comment, Anthere.  "Of" would suggest
that a language is somehow liberated from its own creativity.

Your message contains a very important subtlety.  If I could translate
this text into Cree the result would not be in Cree; it would be in
English with Cree words.  There exists a pervasively na?ve and
simplistic view about translations that it is just a matter of changing
words that have a one to one correspondence.  Some topics, notably
technical ones, can survive that transition very well, but topics that
are closely linked to culture fare rather badly.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
At 12:34 PM 8/27/2003, you wrote:
>>Tarquin wrote
>>I am fed up with this mailing list churning out all this yelling.
>>
>>I no longer know who did what, who said what, and who is to blame.
>
>That is why I called for one message, and only one, from each, with no
>right to comeback. The idea was to say - explain in 1 letter your
>behaviour then stop revisiting the issue. Otherwise this will go on and on
>and on ad nausaum.
>
>JT

There's another option. Jimbo, from on high, declares that this situation
is OVER. No discussion, no nothing. No one mentions it, it's gone, done, in
the past. The first person who violates this fiat gets tossed out on
his/her ear. ;)

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Any user name is a copyright pseudonym if it is not a real user's name.
The user name (or IP address) is the only way to trace the attribution
rights
(this is especially inportant in droit d'auteur countries such as Canada
where
an author's moral rights must be respected, and if someone has questions
about the validity of the copyright of the underlying text submitted to
Wikipedia the only way to check that is to contact the contributor from
Wikipedia (they usually call that 'due diligence' in the copyright chain of
title
review industry).

The  GFDL requires that the last five authors of a document released be
listed
(see section 4(B) of the license).  Thus,  five contributors to a page may
technically have to be listed by any GFDL republisher of that page.

Imagine someone who wants to publish a page and finds that one of the
authors has an offensive name; they may decide that they cannot morally
accept to use such a page because of the offensive character of the author's
name which they must acknowledge.

 If there is an offense username, a controversial name, or one which
involves
 profanity, then this would tend to discourage the redistribution of
Wikipedia
 content. Thus IMHO using an offensive user name is in violation of the
spirit of the licensing scheme that we use in order to encourage
redistribution
 of our work. That  should be enough reason to prohibit the use of such
names.

Alex756

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vicki Rosenzweig" <vr at redbird.org>

> There's another problem with "use real names." I'm using mine. If the
other
> Vicki Rosenzweig I'm aware of wants to participate in Wikipedia, I doubt
> either of us would think it a good idea for her to edit as "Vicki
> Rosenzweig 2".
>
> And that's with an unusual name: there are a *lot* of "John Smith"s out
there.


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Alex R. wrote:

>The  GFDL requires that the last five authors of a document released be
>listed
>(see section 4(B) of the license).  Thus,  five contributors to a page may
>technically have to be listed by any GFDL republisher of that page.
>
>Imagine someone who wants to publish a page and finds that one of the
>authors has an offensive name; they may decide that they cannot morally
>accept to use such a page because of the offensive character of the author's
>name which they must acknowledge.
>
> If there is an offense username, a controversial name, or one which
>involves
> profanity, then this would tend to discourage the redistribution of
>Wikipedia
> content. Thus IMHO using an offensive user name is in violation of the
>spirit of the licensing scheme that we use in order to encourage
>redistribution
> of our work. That  should be enough reason to prohibit the use of such
>names.
>
>
This brings up an interesting point, especially if Wikipedia is going to
ever be published in paper.  With online publishing, a link to the page
history should suffice for attribution, but in a paper format the
publisher would actually have to list five authors for every single
article, and they certainly wouldn't want to list offensive names for
those authors.

I think this whole thing is unfortunate though, and it's becoming
increasingly clear that the GFDL exactly as written isn't *really* what
we want to do.  I think most Wikipedians would be happier with a license
that required Wikipedia to be credited rather than five authors.  As it
stands now, the republisher *has* to credit five authors, but does *not*
have to credit Wikipedia at all.  They could give it their own name and
not mention its connection to us at all, as long as they list the
authors properly.  I think most of us would prefer the opposite -- that
they be required to credit Wikipedia, and not be required to credit the
individual authors.  But this would require a license change, which may
be impossible at this point.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
I wrote:

> I think this whole thing is unfortunate though, and it's becoming
> increasingly clear that the GFDL exactly as written isn't *really*
> what we want to do.  I think most Wikipedians would be happier with a
> license that required Wikipedia to be credited rather than five
> authors.  As it stands now, the republisher *has* to credit five
> authors, but does *not* have to credit Wikipedia at all.  They could
> give it their own name and not mention its connection to us at all, as
> long as they list the authors properly.  I think most of us would
> prefer the opposite -- that they be required to credit Wikipedia, and
> not be required to credit the individual authors.  But this would
> require a license change, which may be impossible at this point.

A thought occured to me, though I'm not sure if it's feasible or not.
Our license is "the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation."  This "or any
later version" is generally added explicitly to allow the FSF to correct
any license deficiencies that weren't realized until later.  Now
certainly the FSF isn't going to release a
specially-crafted-for-Wikipedia license, but would they FSF possibly be
amenable to adding a clause to the GFDL permitting collaborative
projects to be optionally credited by the name of the project rather
than the individual authors?  This would be a fairly general addition it
seems, possibly useful to projects other than Wikipedia.  Certainly a
lawyer would have to see if there's a legally reasonable way to word
such a requirement.  But it'd (hopefully) have the effect that a
republisher could credit "Wikipedia" and in so doing be absolved from
the requirement to credit five individual authors, which really seems to
be what we want.

Any thoughts?  Is this one of those 'not gonna happen' things?

-Mark


from_name: Fernanda Viegas

body:
Dear Wikipedians,

We have been getting great responses to our online survey of Wikipedia use and we would like to compile the results and share them with you. Even though the survey is anonymous, we would still only show numerical averages of people's responses. For privacy reasons we would not show anyone's long answers.

Would a page on Meta-Wikipedia be a good option for sharing the results with the community?

If you haven't taken the survey yet, please do so, we're still gathering data!http://smg.media.mit.edu/survey/wikipedia.html

If you have already taken the survey, our many thanks for your participation.

- Fernanda Viegas

http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/
sociable media group
mit media laboratory
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Your message contains a very important subtlety.  If I could translate
> this text into Cree the result would not be in Cree; it would be in
> English with Cree words.  There exists a pervasively na?ve and
> simplistic view about translations that it is just a matter of
> changing words that have a one to one correspondence.  Some topics,
> notably technical ones, can survive that transition very well, but
> topics that are closely linked to culture fare rather badly.

While that's certainly true, I think the various Wikipedias can still
benefit from translation of a sort.  A word-for-word translation is
likely not desirable in all cases for the reasons you mentioned, but
moving the information itself across is very useful.  For example, all
the factual information from a German-language biography is directly
applicable to an English-language biography; it just needs to be written
into such an article by an English speaker who understands enough German
to pull the relevant facts out of the original.

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>on 8/26/03 10:11 PM, Merritt L. Perkins at mlperkins3 at juno.com wrote:
>
>There is a difference between this French
>
>>spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in
>>Mexico.
>>
>It is likely that French speaking Wikipedians will choose to have one French
>Wikipedia, but the possibiltiy arises for a second French Wikipedia, perhaps
>a Cajun one? Or simple French?
>
We've already done quite well in accomodating British and American
English in one Wikipedia.  Contrariwise the Yugoslavs have chosen to
have separate projects for languages that are not very different.  Each
group has to sort that out for itself

>There are special characters used to write the languages.
>
>Yes but there almost any imaginable language in included in the unicode
>system.
>
I can't use it to write Egyptian hieroglyphics. :-(

>>Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers.
>>
>
>Good examples of Wikipedias which might happen when those folks discover
>Wikipedia in any numbers, The Basques are rather nationalistic, Maori
>presumably have both specialized interests and a desire to preserve their
>language, Manxmen and Manxwomen might take an interest in resurrecting the
>language.
>
The number of readers doesn't matter; we should probably be more
concerned with the number of writers.  The readers will follow.

>The language should be
>
>>easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
>>Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I dont know how. It
>>may require a special keyboard and software.
>>
>It does require software but that is easily available. The Apple system X
>has it, for example. I have seen pictures of special ideograph keyboards but
>I don't think they are in general use.
>
There's no need to make enterring the special characters easier for
someone who will never use them anyway.  I'm sure that a computer
literate Arab has no problem enterrring text in his own language.

>>The head of the modern language department of a large German university
>>may be fluent in several languages and able to teach about subjects from
>>the Kavala to Xenophons Anabasis. He may have served in the Army and be
>>familiar with Army terminology and idioms, but not familiar with
>>submarines, ships, or airplanes.
>>
>
>While it is fun to learn about and write articles on subjects one is
>unfamiliar with, it is not expected of anyone.
>
I wouln't normally expect someone from a modern language department to
write about the mentioned topics.

Ec


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
--- Angela <sloog77 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't think brushing the issues under the carpet
> help. The RK issues keep on coming up. Telling
> everyone to stop discussing them doesn't solve the
> problem.

Amen

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Oliver Pereira wrote:

>What gives you the impression that more than a handful of people want
>this? As far as I'm aware, most people like to be credited for what they
>do. What exactly is wrong with the idea of crediting people for what they
>do, anyway?
>
>Aside from the problem of having to credit people with offensive user
>names, that is, which is really only a minor point at the moment, because
>there are few of them around.
>
>
It's quite possible I'm wrong on that point; I should've qualified it.
It was a guess based on some previous discussion both here and on the
village pump.  The main problem I see with crediting individual authors
is that it greatly dilutes credit.  Someone could publish an
encyclopedia that's 1/4 other content and 3/4 Wikipedia content, and as
long as they credited five random authors for each article, they could
publish it without ever mentioning Wikipedia, instead only mentioning
"User:145.223.22.5" and "User:Saddam Hussein" and so on as authors.  If
they wished to purposely deny credit as much as possible, they could
even go through and prefer to list IP addresses rather than user
accounts where possible, since the GFDL lets them list any five authors
of their choosing.

-Mark


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Delirium wrote:
> With online publishing, a link to the page
> history should suffice for attribution, but in a paper format the
> publisher would actually have to list five authors for every single
> article, and they certainly wouldn't want to list offensive names for
> those authors.

Then get five other people to edit it. Problem solved! ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
Angela wrote:
> I don't think brushing the issues under the carpet
> help. The RK issues keep on coming up. Telling
> everyone to stop discussing them doesn't solve the
> problem.

No, but a cease-fire can work wonders in calming people to
the point that rational discussions can take place.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

in_reply_to:
<3F4D1B9C.70904@planetunreal.com>;
	from tarquin@planetunreal.com on Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 09:59:08PM
	+0100

body:
tarquin wrote:
> so let's see the paper trail.  if RK really is a problem, let's air
> the laundry.

I agree completely.  Martin appeared to be unhappy with what happened
after I asked him to leave a clean paper trail, but we can rectify
that if there really is a problem.

My own position is well-known.  I think RK does himself a disservice
by going ballistic every time some troll tweaks him.  He does himself
a bigger disservice by lashing out at good people, although we should
all give him points for apologizing.

But what I don't see him doing is what some have accused him of, i.e.
I don't see him trying to turn Wikipedia articles into one-sided
rants.  I don't see him generally going ballistic without *some*
provocation, though usually far too slight to really justify the
results.

We now know what we all more or less openly ignored before, which is
that EntmootsOfTrolls was already banned as 142.  So *his* dustup with
RK is not really the issue.  But there are other people with beefs,
and it'd be swell if we could get apologies or anyhow
agreement-to-disagree, and just move on.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Fred Bauder wrote:

>  I think that
> > you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German,
> > French and Spanish for example.
>
> We have a Wikipedia in low German already, The Netherlands one.

I think the Lower Saxon one (nds:) would be what I call low German.

> > Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers.
>
> Good examples of Wikipedias which might happen when those folks discover
> Wikipedia in any numbers,

Actually, the Basque one is not a good example of one that might happen,
because it already has (although it is kind of moribund), see
http://eu.wikipedia.com

> The language should be
> > easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
> > Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I don?t know how. It
> > may require a special keyboard and software.
>
> It does require software but that is easily available. The Apple system X
> has it, for example. I have seen pictures of special ideograph keyboards but
> I don't think they are in general use.

Arabic exists, Chinese does, Korean and Japanese. We are beyond this person's
limits already.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

in_reply_to:
<5.2.0.9.2.20030827123818.011afe88@digitalgrapefruit.com>;
	from dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com on Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at
	12:39:40PM -0700

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
> There's another option. Jimbo, from on high, declares that this situation
> is OVER. No discussion, no nothing. No one mentions it, it's gone, done, in
> the past. The first person who violates this fiat gets tossed out on
> his/her ear. ;)

Well, I wouldn't go that far of course, but if all the relevant
parties came to a consensus to let bygones-be-bygones, I'd be happy to
formally declare a general amnesty.

But rather than have a 'first who violates gets tossed', I'd just say,
look, we're all at ground zero with respect to Israel and Palestine
and similar, and everyone should work really hard to be on their best
behavior, so that the true jerks will show themselves and get banned.

And if there are no true jerks, and all these things were just
unfortunate errors, then we can all live happily ever after.

None of this applies to EntmootsOfTrolls, who has recently admitted to
being a banned user anyway.  I'm not rebanning him just yet, but
mostly because he seems to be saying that he's going to just go away
in disgust anyway.

That'd be best.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Video policy discussion

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>After a question being asked on the English Wikipedia's Village Pump about
>video recently, I've sketched some thoughts about the topic on meta at
>
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/video_policy
>
>
>
seen & wikified :)
(though I don't think en: has an article on Theora)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] The GNU LFDL idea (was Re: Controversial user nicknames)

body:
Cross post with Wikipedia-l (please respond there)

Delirium wrote:
>I think this whole thing is unfortunate though,
>and it's becoming increasingly clear that the
>GFDL exactly as written isn't *really* what
>we want to do.  I think most Wikipedians would
>be happier with a license that required Wikipedia
>to be credited rather than five authors.  As it
>stands now, the republisher *has* to credit five
>authors, but does *not* have to credit Wikipedia
>at all.  They could give it their own name and
>not mention its connection to us at all, as long
>as they list the authors properly.  I think most
>of us would prefer the opposite -- that they be
>required to credit Wikipedia, and not be required
>to credit the individual authors.  But this would
>require a license change, which may be impossible
>at this point.

1) This is more appropriate for Wikipedia-L
2) On Textbook-L we are already talking about
persuading the GNU people make a FDL 2.0 that states
that anything licensed under the GNU FDL 2.0 or later
that does /not/ have invariant sections or cover
texts, can also be licensed under a "GNU LFDL" which
would be written more along the lines of the Creative
Commons Attribution Share Alike License (and the LFDL
would also explicitly state that any LFDL text can be
used under the CC-Att/SA, the GNU FDL 2.0 or later or,
of course, the LFDL). The idea is to dump the GNU FDL
and its problems and relicense all Wikimedia content
under the less restrictive and less complex LFDL. See
the archives: Look for the "wikiversity licensing"
thread at
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2003-August/subject.html#start

Which reminds me again; we really need a Wikimedia-l
mailing list to talk about these types of
Wikimedia-wide issues and also discus new project
ideas like Wikiversity.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

See also:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode
(a copyleft content license)

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The GNU LFDL idea (was Re: Controversial user
	nicknames)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 00:11:07 -0400, Merritt L. Perkins
<mlperkins3 at juno.com> gave utterance to the following:

> What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include
> Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure
> languages that you cannot expect to include them all.
> What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into?

You will find a list of the languages that wikipedians consider important
enough to have devoted time to at
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_coordination

> I think that
> you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German,
> French and Spanish for example. There is a difference between this French
> spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in
> Mexico. There are special characters used to write the languages.
> Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers. The language should be
> easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and
> Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I don?t know how. It
> may require a special keyboard and software.

The various language wikis are mainly contributed to by native speakers,
who usually have the appropriate language version of their OS, but there
are IME's available for CJK writing systems for English windows, for
example. We have Chinese students living with us, and believe me, they are
just as fast at communicating by typing as English is. (Each glyph takes
about 5 keystrokes to enter, but often represents an entire word.

> I find no objection to including articles written or translated into
> Icelandic, Hungarian, or any other language even though there would be
> few readers. Readers need to know where to find them

Include? You will find articles in those languages in the appropriate
wikipedias, therefore it is extremely easy for readers to find them. THe
main page of every wikipedia has links to all the others, and when there
are equivalent articles on a topic in other languages, these are also
interlinked.
I find your post curious - it seems as though you are contributing to this
list without having actually explored the wikipedia site to discover how
it works.

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Delirium wrote:
>
>> With online publishing, a link to the page history should suffice for
>> attribution, but in a paper format the publisher would actually have
>> to list five authors for every single article, and they certainly
>> wouldn't want to list offensive names for those authors.
>
>
> Then get five other people to edit it. Problem solved! ;)

The borrower could even invent 5 user names that best reflect his point
of view; a [[User:Baby Killer]] would suggest a very specific POV about
[[abortion]], or could you have faith in the student [[User:Learner
Heisenberg]]'s credibility about the [[Uncertainty Principle]]?

Ec


from_name: Kurt Kawohl

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia e-mail

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
To: "Kkawohl" <kkawohl1 at cox.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: Wikipedia e-mail

> I fear I am not the person with whom you should discuss this matter.
> My suggestion is that you post this mail to the mailing list
> (wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org).
>
> Jason Richey
>
> Kkawohl wrote:
>
> >
> > Please voice your opinion on deletion.
> >
> > 21st Century Transcendentalism is not a religion and does not advocate
(request belief, membership or anything else) anything; it stands for
religious rationality in the 21st Century. If Wikipedia can describe what
atheists, Christianity, Islam, Bokononism thinks then why can not I as a
21st Century Transcendentalist describe what I think? Bias, maybe?
> >
> > "Transcendentalism Today Org." with Kurt Kawohl as its founder has been
accepted by and is a member of:
> > IONS - Institute of Noetic Sciences,
> > World Interfaith Congress,
> > United Communities of Spirit,
> > Alliance for Spiritual Community,
> > Interfaith Voices for Peace And Justice,
> > [[user:kkawohl]]
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
GFDL Sec. 4(B) states at least five of the major authors, so if someone is
the
major contributor and their name is not listed well, it does not matter
how many users make subsequent edits, that original major contributor
will have to be cited, otherwise whoever uses it will be subject to a
lawsuit for violation of the copyright license as granted.

Wouldn't that be interesting, user:Saddam Hussein suing some publisher
for not using his pseudonym in violation of a copyleft license. Of course
sometimes courts will find something so offensive as to not enforce the
law. I recall a California publicity rights case of a dildo that was cast
from a porn star's penis and the judge in that case refused to recognize
that the "owner" of the penis had any rights to prevent a casting of it
from being used without compensation. Perhaps that is the defense to
use if one refuses follow the attribution rules under the GDFL for
offensive names. Even though IAAL I cannot guarantee such an
outcome, it would be an interesting case, I wonder if user:SH would
be game to file such a suit should the occasion arise? Might be
interesting publicity for Wikipedia! (Just joking)
Alex756
----- Original Message -----
From: "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>

> >
> It's quite possible I'm wrong on that point; I should've qualified it.
> It was a guess based on some previous discussion both here and on the
> village pump.  The main problem I see with crediting individual authors
> is that it greatly dilutes credit.  Someone could publish an
> encyclopedia that's 1/4 other content and 3/4 Wikipedia content, and as
> long as they credited five random authors for each article, they could
> publish it without ever mentioning Wikipedia, instead only mentioning
> "User:145.223.22.5" and "User:Saddam Hussein" and so on as authors.  If
> they wished to purposely deny credit as much as possible, they could
> even go through and prefer to list IP addresses rather than user
> accounts where possible, since the GFDL lets them list any five authors
> of their choosing.
>
> -Mark


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Hello,
I wanted to install lastest Wikipedia, but just reading the install file I
gave up...
I now looking for a older version of Wikipedia with PHP source, usemod
functions and file upload feature.
Do someone know if the package named "Old Wikipedia code (draft PHP code)
"is what I'm looking for, or can point out where I have to search.
"phpwiki" on the cvs repository is the Phase II version ?
Thanks for help.

Aoineko


subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
Alex R. wrote:

>GFDL Sec. 4(B) states at least five of the major authors, so if someone is
>the major contributor and their name is not listed well, it does not matter
>how many users make subsequent edits, that original major contributor
>will have to be cited, otherwise whoever uses it will be subject to a
>lawsuit for violation of the copyright license as granted.
>
>Wouldn't that be interesting, user:Saddam Hussein suing some publisher
>for not using his pseudonym in violation of a copyleft license. Of course
>sometimes courts will find something so offensive as to not enforce the
>law. I recall a California publicity rights case of a dildo that was cast
>from a porn star's penis and the judge in that case refused to recognize
>that the "owner" of the penis had any rights to prevent a casting of it
>from being used without compensation. Perhaps that is the defense to
>use if one refuses follow the attribution rules under the GDFL for
>offensive names. Even though IAAL I cannot guarantee such an
>outcome, it would be an interesting case, I wonder if user:SH would
>be game to file such a suit should the occasion arise? Might be
>interesting publicity for Wikipedia! (Just joking)
>
It's too bad you're just joking.  A really good publicity stunt requires
this kind of chutzpah..  You don't mind people calling you nuts as long
as they keep buying the product.

It's very easy for some people to get carried away making up rules about
every facet of life.  Every time a cat writes a rule to make himself
secure against some merely perceived problem, he gives the mice an
opportunity to find creative ways for circumventing the rule.  There are
more mice than cats ... and far more cockroaches.

Ec.


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Languages

body:
>>What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated
into?

>We don't actually do that although folks who work on
>a wikipedia in any language could translate articles
>if they wish.

I do occasionally translate articles, just because
it's fascinating to watch how the two versions develop
and become unrecognizable from each other so quickly.

Angela.

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus - For a better Internet experience
http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/yplus/yoffer.html


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

body:
Thank Brion,
I found a backup of an early version of Phase III on my PC !
I modified "LocalSettings.php" and put that all on my server.
When I launch "createdb.php" I got this error message :

Warning: set_time_limit() has been disabled for security reasons in createdb.php on line 9
Creating new tables.
Warning: Access denied for user: 'wikiadmin at php6-1.free.fr' (Using password: YES) in DatabaseFunctions.php on line 17
Connexion impossible ? la base de donn?es sur localhost

I assume my server (not local) don't support set_time_limit() function. It is a problem ?
Where can I set the wikiadmin ? In "LocalSettings.php" I have only "user", "user password" and "admin password". Have I to create user manualy ?

Aoineko

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com>
To: "A mailing list for discussing about the technical organization of theWikipedias" <wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] PHP Code

> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I wanted to install lastest Wikipedia, but just reading the install file I
> > gave up...
>
> hehe... :)
>
> If you need help with anything specific, please feel free to ask.
>
> I'm trying to get some documentation together on meta-wikipedia at
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture ; if anything is
> lacking please feel free to contribute. Contributions of questions of
> what the heck it means are welcome. :)
>
> > I now looking for a older version of Wikipedia with PHP source, usemod
> > functions and file upload feature.
> > Do someone know if the package named "Old Wikipedia code (draft PHP code)
> > "is what I'm looking for, or can point out where I have to search.
> > "phpwiki" on the cvs repository is the Phase II version ?
> > Thanks for help.
>
> Phase II is unmaintained and rather buggy. If you can't get phase 3
> running, phase 2 won't be any easier, and it won't work as well.
>
> I have no idea what's in that package, but assume it's very ancient. :)
>
> If you really want UseModWiki, you can get it at
> http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UseModWiki/Download
> (but note that a new enhanced version is to be released in a couple of
> weeks; it's in beta testing now). Various add-ons to the current version
> are available: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiPatches
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Arrow graphics for enhanced recentchanges?

body:
These are kinda needed for enhanced recentchanges to make sense:

-rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       289 Jan  6  2003 Arr_d.png
-rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       918 Jan  7  2003 Arr_.png
-rwxr-xr-x    1 apache   wikidev       282 Jan  6  2003 Arr_r.png

a) Who made them?
b) Are they GPL-compatible?
c) If a) and b) are satisfactory, any objection to adding them to CVS?
(They have to be marked as binary files in some way if so. I don't know
the option offhand.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] First logo voting stage

body:
The first voting stage for the new Wikipedia logo has begun:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote

has begun. Please add your signature under up to 10 logos. The 10 logos
with the highest number of votes will then enter the final voting stage.
The deadline for the first stage is September 5, 20:00 UTC.

With over 130 logos and many variants we have lots of excellent candidates
to choose from. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

Regards,

Erik


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
>Any user name is a copyright pseudonym if it is not a real user's name.
>The user name (or IP address) is the only way to trace the attribution
>rights
>(this is especially inportant in droit d'auteur countries such as Canada
>where
>an author's moral rights must be respected, and if someone has questions
>about the validity of the copyright of the underlying text submitted to
>Wikipedia the only way to check that is to contact the contributor from
>Wikipedia (they usually call that 'due diligence' in the copyright chain of
>title
>review industry).
>
>The  GFDL requires that the last five authors of a document released be
>listed
>(see section 4(B) of the license).  Thus,  five contributors to a page may
>technically have to be listed by any GFDL republisher of that page.
>
>Imagine someone who wants to publish a page and finds that one of the
>authors has an offensive name; they may decide that they cannot morally
>accept to use such a page because of the offensive character of the
>author's
>name which they must acknowledge.
>
>  If there is an offense username, a controversial name, or one which
>involves
>  profanity, then this would tend to discourage the redistribution of
>Wikipedia
>  content. Thus IMHO using an offensive user name is in violation of the
>spirit of the licensing scheme that we use in order to encourage
>redistribution
>  of our work. That  should be enough reason to prohibit the use of such
>names.
>
>Alex756
>

That is an /extremely/ interesting point which pretty much shows that
dealing with issue is a necessity.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


subject: [WikiEN-l] Forgiving and forgetting

body:
>Tarquin wrote
>I am fed up with this mailing list churning out all this yelling.
>
>I no longer know who did what, who said what, and who is to blame.

That is why I called for one message, and only one, from each, with no right
to comeback. The idea was to say - explain in 1 letter your behaviour then
stop revisiting the issue. Otherwise this will go on and on and on ad
nausaum.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


from_name: Oliver Pereira

subject: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames

body:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Delirium wrote:

> I think most Wikipedians would be happier with a license that required
> Wikipedia to be credited rather than five authors.  As it stands now,
> the republisher *has* to credit five authors, but does *not* have to
> credit Wikipedia at all.  They could give it their own name and not
> mention its connection to us at all, as long as they list the authors
> properly.  I think most of us would prefer the opposite -- that they be
> required to credit Wikipedia, and not be required to credit the
> individual authors.  But this would require a license change, which may
> be impossible at this point.

What gives you the impression that more than a handful of people want
this? As far as I'm aware, most people like to be credited for what they
do. What exactly is wrong with the idea of crediting people for what they
do, anyway?

Aside from the problem of having to credit people with offensive user
names, that is, which is really only a minor point at the moment, because
there are few of them around.

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+