body:
Perhaps the "Foundation is evil" calls would be quelled a little bit by some
examples of donation ideas that were rejected. After all, we've only heard
about the donations that were accepted, so we can't measure them against
anything else.

(Without having to disclose names and embarrass potential donors, of course)

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 7:20 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Attempt at a compromise (Re: Advertising)

On 30/12/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Yeah, but you need both. As I said earlier, donations almost always
> > follow a power law, like Alexa ratings or whatever. And you don't get
> > the first without the thank-yous, because they're used to them.

> So let's retrain them. Don't charitable entrepeneurs want to break the
> traditional paradigms?

Note that the first round of donations was matched by precisely the
sort of anonymous donor you describe.

But you know, I have no problem saying "thank you" quite loudly to
someone giving us tens of thousands of dollars - if it was someone we
would have a problem saying "thank you" quite loudly to, then we
wouldn't accept it. And I understand Danny has said "no thanks" to
more than a few bad ideas that might have netted us substantial cash.

- d.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Attempt at a compromise (Re: Advertising)


list: wikien-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Slight adjustment for PROD

body:
On 29/12/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 29/12/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > Just found out it's a copyvio... now what?!  My instinct is to go the
> > > regular {{copyvio|url}} + dated WP:CP route, but that would be kind of
> > > silly if the article was going to be dumped anyway.

> > Ahahaha! I'm not sure ... keep it prodded and mark it copyvio and
> > delete it and kill it with a stick screaming "AIEEEEEEEEEEE" maybe ;-p

> Kept the PROD, added the copyvio.  I'm guessing it will just sit there.

I think this one comes under "whatever works" ...

- d.


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Anglo-Saxonisation of the commons

body:
On 29/12/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

>   There's no reason why we shouldn't have a gallery at both [[Munich, Germany]]
> and [[M?nchen, Deutschland]].  If people aren't interested in maintaining both,
> then I suppose we could get really worked up about which one is the redirect and
> which one is the actual gallery, but it is a pretty trivial thing to argue over.

Commons is multilingual, so a redirect to the local language and text
in all redirected languages would make the most obvious sense.

(and then we can argue about countries with two national languages, of
course - [[Brabant]] or [[Bruxelles]]? I think the *essential* point
is that people can find images and media!)

>  Categories are different, and should use English, with the goal of eventually
> translating based on user preferences.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm ... I believe category redirects work in current versions
of MediaWiki, though they're less than ideal. Hopefully categories
will morph into tags soon (if MySQL's hideous performance difficulties
can be worked around) and we can do things like tags-with-aliases (so
that [[Tag:Brabant]] and [[Tag:Bruxelles]] work like they're one tag).

- d.


list: foundation-l

body:
You don't, but people have quit Wikipedia (and I imagine other Wikimedia
projects as well) heavily offended due to the alledged apparent disregard of
the Foundation towards the community.

I don't think the Foundation is evil either, for the record, but I couldn't
think of a better word to succinctly summarize the things I've heard. But
the question still stands. What options did the Foundation dismiss?

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Oldak Quill
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 9:41 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Attempt at a compromise (Re: Advertising)

On 30/12/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps the "Foundation is evil" calls would be quelled a little bit by
some
> examples of donation ideas that were rejected. After all, we've only heard
> about the donations that were accepted, so we can't measure them against
> anything else.

Dozens and dozens of people have been engaged in this discussion, not
one of them said that the "Foundation is evil". As far as I can
remember, not one of them implied that the "Foundation is evil". What
people have been questioning is the Foundation's methods in a healthy,
responsive manner.

Despite my objections to the placement of the name and logo in the
sitenotice, may I take this opportunity to make it clear that I do
_not_ think the Foundation is evil. I also want to make it clear that
I very much appreciate the hard work put in by all members of the
board. I understand their job is difficult--balancing the realities of
running a top 10 website with the ideology of the Wikimedia
community--and their performance is close to perfect.

Your reduction of the debate to "Foundation is evil" vs. "Foundation
is perfect" isn't productive or helpful to either side. We all
ultimately want and aim for pretty much the same thing, and these aims
will only be achieved if we continue to discuss and debate in an open,
friendly way.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


body:
On 29/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> (and then we can argue about countries with two national languages, of
> course - [[Brabant]] or [[Bruxelles]]? I think the *essential* point
> is that people can find images and media!)

And I hit "send" and *then* realised that, of course, I should have
used the example [[Gdansk]] or [[Danzig]]. O the embarrassment!

- d.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Be bold!

body:
On 12/29/06, Michiel Bontenbal <wikipedia.bontenbal at gmail.com wrote:
> Don't give in to demands from sponsors or donors, don't give in to the
> principle of independence, not just a tiny little bit.

We should also not give in to dogma, or to those who shout the loudest
and complain the longest, for that is not democracy. We should
continue to have a reasoned debate about the best fundraising
strategies, and consult and involve the community in this process as
much as possible.

There are those who have values, but no reason.
There are those who have reason, but no values.
If we are to succeed, we need both. Senseless passion can be as
dangerous as heartless calculation.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] Be bold!


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] This is not an Advertisement

body:
David Gerard schreef:
> On 29/12/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Oh brother!
>>
>
>
> Note edit summary for article's creation.
>
> (It's amazing the Fair Use a satirical site can get away with under US law.)
>
>
> - d.
Hoi,
Especially the logo is brilliant..
*This image is a copyright <http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Copyright>
violation because this is a Wikimedia image.*
Luckily, nobody cares <http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Nobody_cares>.
Thanks,
   GerardM
**


list: wikitech-l

from_name: DS

subject: [Wikitech-l] Question about Infoboxes

body:
Hey everyone, this is my first message sent to the list.
I have a problem with my wiki-page. I just installed it, PHP and MySQL are
appropiate versions, and so far, everything works smoothly.
However, I do have a problem with infoboxes.
I did create the correct Templates, but on the pages I use infoboxes on,
they?re messed up. Instead of actual tables / infoboxes as seen on
Wikipedia, the data which is supposed to go into the box is printed without
a box around it, and I get a lot of "{{#if:"
Is it possible that this has to do with the class="infobox"-tag? I lack a
lot of experience here, and from what I gathered from tutorials at
mediawiki... is it possible I have to add tables to the MySQL database for
the class="infobox" to work?
I hope this makes sense... I could post the URL of one of the pages in my
Wiki that has such a messed-up infobox, if that?ll help.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Dan

------
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life
is suffering, and only the very young or very foolish imagine otherwise.
George Orwell


subject: [WikiEN-l] OK, so DRV *is* broken

body:
On 29/12/06, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Last I checked, DRV is NOT AFD part2, and should not be involved with
> content based decisions, just proceedural / consensus measuring ones.

No, that's completely and insanely wrong. It is indeed supposed to
review the decision and discussion and content and everything.

- d.


from_name: James Hare

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why the article warning templates should go on the
	*article*, not the talk page

body:
Oh God don't get me started on that Wikiasari crap I've read about in da
n00z.

Newspapers, while not the accuratest (and we all know how bad journalists
can be) (this is coming from a journalist), are really the best thing
available for current things since they're the very first authority on it.
Once current events turn into events and there's books and such that
probably took longer to write than the average news article, then we should
wean from the newspaper and focus on the books.

On 12/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Article warning templates should go on the *article*, not the talk page:
>
>   http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jul23-06.html#wikipedia
>
> "The fact that Wikipedia encourages us to use these notices give us
> confidence that Wikipedia is putting our interests over its own.
>
> "So, why is it that you don't see such frank notices in traditional
> sources such as newspapers and encyclopedias? Is it because their
> articles don't ever suffer from any of these human weaknesses? Oh,
> sure, newspapers issue corrections after the fact, and "This is
> non-neutral opinion" is implicit on the Op-Ed page. But why isn't
> there any finer grain framing of the reliability and nature of what's
> presented to us in their pages? Can we come to any conclusion except
> that traditional authorities are more interested in maintaining
> authority than in helping us reach the truth?"
>
> That second para is important: newspapers are not Reliable Sources.
> Anyone who's been following the Wikiasari media-vaporware non-story
> may be surprised to know there *is no story* - Wikiasari was the name
> of an older project, search.wikia.com was a ghost site they've had to
> reactivate in the wake of this story ... the whole thing came from an
> idle Jimbo quote about Google and a journalist spotting
> search.wikia.com, and adding 2+2 and getting 2237943297729432.
>
> My arse newspapers are a "reliable" source. Not if accuracy is your
> interest. Easily checkable is not the same thing.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

body:
The discussion about Munich can be found at the top of the Village
Pump, or maybe in the latest archive by now.

Bryan

On 12/29/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>    Hi,
>
> Quoting Patrick-Emil Z?rner <paddyez at yahoo.de>:
>
> > I am quite appalled about how things have a nasty tendency to a nasty
> > outcome on commons. M?nchen is being moved to Munich, Praha is moved
> > to Prague,... and all on a specious kind of based argumentation. I
> > know how the cities are called. I have seen the traffic signs! The
> > cities are actually called M?nchen, Praha,...
>
>   There's no reason why we shouldn't have a gallery at both [[Munich, Germany]]
> and [[M?nchen, Deutschland]].  If people aren't interested in maintaining both,
> then I suppose we could get really worked up about which one is the redirect and
> which one is the actual gallery, but it is a pretty trivial thing to argue over.
>  Categories are different, and should use English, with the goal of eventually
> translating based on user preferences.
>
>                      Jkelly
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


body:
On 29/12/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

> How about sponsors get listed in the order of the percentage of their
> net worth they contributed? So some guy who makes $15K a year and
> donates $100 gets listed higher than some guy worth $6 billion who
> donates $200K.
> Yes, I recognize that's not actually feasible, but I think you get the idea.
> You shouldn't get to pay to get higher placement on some donor list
> just because you're richer.

That idea has some heartwarming qualities, but it doesn't get us more
of the cash. Because the second guy gave us more *we* can use than the
first did. Which is, after all, the point of the exercise.

- d.


body:
On 12/29/06, Tom Holden <thomas.holden at gmail.com> wrote:
> In future I propose that matched donation days be advertised by
> something like the following:
> "All donations today will be matched by a
> (corporate/charity/individual) third party sponsor. The WMF offers
> them and all its other donors its sincerest thanks."
>
I particularly like this one, and I endorse the rest of you post.

Bryan


from_name: Teun Spaans

subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement

body:
Sorry, Birgitte. It may be that this mailinglist is intended as  the
communication channel between the foundation and the community, but I dont
think it works very well. The reactions here show most, if not all, people
were taken by surprise. Which in itself shows this mailing list doesnt
provide

To blame the people for not reading this mailing list is imho opinion the
wrong approach.

Perhaps a bot posting sensitive messages into every village pump, simply in
english, would be a solution.

Most posts here are not very interesting to the avergae wikipedian. The
summary indeed , but doesnt mention Virgins name: "our anonymous donor's
decision".  I dont see any mention of a sitenotice before dec 20. That's
about a week in advance.

Please dont misunderstand me: I dont say we shouldnt have taken the gift. I
appreciate their gift, and 60K/day is a large amount. But timely
communication would have prevented a lot of misunderstanding. Of course then
too some people would have recated vehemently, but it would have been easier
to explain.

teun

On 12/28/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > > 5) Could the board please communicate all
> > decisions which are sensitive
> > > among the wikipedians, timely to all relevent
> > mailinglists?
> >
> > I second this request.
> >
> > > 6) Has there ever been an open call to all
> > wikipedians to provide
> > > suggestions to the foundationboard of ways to
> > receive money?
> >
> > Not formally, I think.
> >
> > --
> > Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
> >
>
> 5)No, just follow this list.
>
> 6)Yes
>
> This is the mailing list you subscribe to to be aware
> of things that affect all Wikimedia communities.  If
> you are part of another mailing list that you think
> would be sensitive to an issue here, you should
> forward the message along to that list.  There is also
> now a summary service on meta which you could point
> people towards.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives
>
> At the beginning of the drive there was an
> announcement on this list of the fund raising drive
> which included many details you seem to have been
> unaware of.  But the general idea of matching donors
> had been discussed here much earlier.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2006_12_10-16
> "Brad Patrick announced the opening of the latest
> fundraising"
>
>
> There have been many messages asking for people to
> help with fundraising.  Announcing the creation of the
> Fundraising Committee and asking interested people to
> sign up (Certainly an open call).  Even more general
> questions asking for fundraising ideas both before and
> after the Committee was started.  Any fundraising
> discussions seemed to be met with questions about the
> audit and budget.  It seems to me that the current
> drive began as soon as the audit was released because
> of a real need of money that has probably been put off
> because the community requested the WMF not take part
> in any overt fundraising until the audit documents
> were released.
>
> Anyone has been subscribed to this list should be
> aware of all this.  Anyone who wishes to be aware of
> these sorts of things should subscribe or read the LSS
> including links.  I think most people who have
> subscribed to list did so because they were blindsided
> by some decision in the past and wanted to make sure
> they stayed informed in the future.  I know I did.  I
> sympathize that you feel blindsided, but it can only
> be up to you to ensure that you are informed of these
> things.
>
> Birgitte SB
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement


subject: [Wikitech-l] Move page showing double redirects

body:
On 29/12/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Simetrical wrote:
> > On 12/29/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:

> >> Could use the job queue for it, although I'm pretty sure there was
> >> some previous discussion either on this list or the bug tracker
> >> regarding the issue, where the consensus was to let the user do the
> >> cleanup.

> > Why the job queue?  Even if you have several dozen redirects, it
> > should surely still be fast enough to do immediately.

> I'm sure we have a page with hundreds of redirects pointing to it
> somewhere on enwiki.

Many. I've fixed them after page moves. Gah...

> But I suppose the reasonable solution is to do the
> fixing immediately if the number of redirects is reasonable (say, less
> than 200) and otherwise either dump it into the job queue or just flat
> out refuse to do it.

hah!

Having done hundreds of redirects, I would strongly urge *not* to do
it automatically. Semi-auto with a bot, maybe, but in the "hundreds"
cases every one needs a human review IME.

- d.


body:
Of course all small bits help us, but larger bits help us more than
small bits. So I would say the more money you give, the higher you are
listed. But that is of course my capitalist pov.

Bryan

On 12/29/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> How about sponsors get listed in the order of the percentage of their
> net worth they contributed? So some guy who makes $15K a year and
> donates $100 gets listed higher than some guy worth $6 billion who
> donates $200K.
>
> Yes, I recognize that's not actually feasible, but I think you get the idea.
>
> You shouldn't get to pay to get higher placement on some donor list
> just because you're richer.
>
> On 12/29/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What I'd like is a link to a list of donors, and big sponsors like Mr.
> > Anonymo and Virgin Unite can be listed by the top then following that is a
> > generic list of the other donors. I also like how there's a thank-you letter
> > on the WMF wiki for Virgin Unite.
> >
> > On 12/29/06, Tom Holden <thomas.holden at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I think it is worth remembering that both sides of this discussion
> > > ultimately want the same thing, namely for the WMF's assorted projects
> > > to retain the independence (both financial and otherwise) they need
> > > for their continued success. One side has maybe been guilty of
> > > threatening to throw their toys out of the pram, but the other side
> > > has equally damaged their position by adopting a rather patronising
> > > tone.
> > >
> > > Proposing that "editors who don't like it just leave" is never a valid
> > > solution. There will always be people with differing opinions to the
> > > Foundation, and it is vital for the continued success of the project
> > > that these people feel there is a forum where their views will be
> > > seriously considered. We will always need every editor we can get. The
> > > gradual reform of WMF's political structure from (benevolent)
> > > dictatorship to democracy is obviously a key part of this process.
> > >
> > > Now having Virgin's name and logo on every page is certainly not the
> > > end of the world. Wall Street bankers are not yet rubbing their hands
> > > together with glee. That said it does represent a significant change
> > > in the WMF's fund-raising strategy. Whether or not Virgin hoped to
> > > benefit from their donation, the fact is that the message both
> > > increases brand awareness and gives the brand positive connotations.
> > > Contrary to the repeated dogmatic assertions of some on this list,
> > > like it or not this is effectively advertising. (Think of the last few
> > > Honda adds say. Not a purchasable product in sight...) Rightly or
> > > wrongly, I like many others feel this should have had more public
> > > discussion a significant time before the event.
> > >
> > > It is important to remember that people's objections to advertising go
> > > a long way beyond just "they're annoying" or "they're the tools of the
> > > capitalist scum". There is a real risk of them introducing biases and
> > > distortionary pressures which would severely damage the credibility of
> > > the WMF's projects. Furthermore, it is always dangerous for a site to
> > > mix its factual content with advertising, as one can easily be
> > > mistaken for the other. I'm sure you could all think of many further
> > > arguments, which, broadly, is why WMF has shied away from advertising
> > > in the past.
> > >
> > > Certainly though it is only polite to thank our donors. However, it is
> > > just as important we thank Paul from Michigan who gave $2 as it is we
> > > thank Virgin who gave $200,000 (or however much it was). The way WMF
> > > has traditionally done this is by posting a thank you notice along
> > > with a link to a list of donors. I do not see any reason why this is
> > > not as adequate for Virgin as it is for Paul from Michigan. If I was
> > > to give an ordinary (non-matching) donation of $200,000 would I get a
> > > day long thank you notice?
> > >
> > > In future I propose that matched donation days be advertised by
> > > something like the following:
> > > "All donations today will be matched by a
> > > (corporate/charity/individual) third party sponsor. The WMF offers
> > > them and all its other donors its sincerest thanks."
> > >
> > > I really do not believe this would have any significant impact on our
> > > ability to attract matching donors, and it would certainly have spared
> > > us the past few days of arguments here and elsewhere.
> > >
> > > As for further funding ideas, I still think our best bet is to
> > > continue on towards becoming a devolved, democratic, membership based
> > > organization. I would much rather give a regular donation to a UK
> > > charity in exchange for the benefits and rights of membership, than a
> > > one off donation to an organization that will spend the money without
> > > the guarantees of a written constitution and full democratic
> > > accountability, and I am sure many would agree with me.
> > >
> > > Yours in peace,
> > >
> > > Tom Holden
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
This sounds very socialist and even more impractical.

Give anyone with a gift > 100.000$ a sitenotice of 1 day. If our costs have
doubles, double the amount to get a sitenotice mention. It doesnt hurt to
thank our friends. But we should communicate clearly, timely and in an open
mind with the community. That communication lacked.

teun

On 12/29/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How about sponsors get listed in the order of the percentage of their
> net worth they contributed? So some guy who makes $15K a year and
> donates $100 gets listed higher than some guy worth $6 billion who
> donates $200K.
>
> Yes, I recognize that's not actually feasible, but I think you get the
> idea.
>
> You shouldn't get to pay to get higher placement on some donor list
> just because you're richer.
>
> On 12/29/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What I'd like is a link to a list of donors, and big sponsors like Mr.
> > Anonymo and Virgin Unite can be listed by the top then following that is
> a
> > generic list of the other donors. I also like how there's a thank-you
> letter
> > on the WMF wiki for Virgin Unite.
> >
> > On 12/29/06, Tom Holden <thomas.holden at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I think it is worth remembering that both sides of this discussion
> > > ultimately want the same thing, namely for the WMF's assorted projects
> > > to retain the independence (both financial and otherwise) they need
> > > for their continued success. One side has maybe been guilty of
> > > threatening to throw their toys out of the pram, but the other side
> > > has equally damaged their position by adopting a rather patronising
> > > tone.
> > >
> > > Proposing that "editors who don't like it just leave" is never a valid
> > > solution. There will always be people with differing opinions to the
> > > Foundation, and it is vital for the continued success of the project
> > > that these people feel there is a forum where their views will be
> > > seriously considered. We will always need every editor we can get. The
> > > gradual reform of WMF's political structure from (benevolent)
> > > dictatorship to democracy is obviously a key part of this process.
> > >
> > > Now having Virgin's name and logo on every page is certainly not the
> > > end of the world. Wall Street bankers are not yet rubbing their hands
> > > together with glee. That said it does represent a significant change
> > > in the WMF's fund-raising strategy. Whether or not Virgin hoped to
> > > benefit from their donation, the fact is that the message both
> > > increases brand awareness and gives the brand positive connotations.
> > > Contrary to the repeated dogmatic assertions of some on this list,
> > > like it or not this is effectively advertising. (Think of the last few
> > > Honda adds say. Not a purchasable product in sight...) Rightly or
> > > wrongly, I like many others feel this should have had more public
> > > discussion a significant time before the event.
> > >
> > > It is important to remember that people's objections to advertising go
> > > a long way beyond just "they're annoying" or "they're the tools of the
> > > capitalist scum". There is a real risk of them introducing biases and
> > > distortionary pressures which would severely damage the credibility of
> > > the WMF's projects. Furthermore, it is always dangerous for a site to
> > > mix its factual content with advertising, as one can easily be
> > > mistaken for the other. I'm sure you could all think of many further
> > > arguments, which, broadly, is why WMF has shied away from advertising
> > > in the past.
> > >
> > > Certainly though it is only polite to thank our donors. However, it is
> > > just as important we thank Paul from Michigan who gave $2 as it is we
> > > thank Virgin who gave $200,000 (or however much it was). The way WMF
> > > has traditionally done this is by posting a thank you notice along
> > > with a link to a list of donors. I do not see any reason why this is
> > > not as adequate for Virgin as it is for Paul from Michigan. If I was
> > > to give an ordinary (non-matching) donation of $200,000 would I get a
> > > day long thank you notice?
> > >
> > > In future I propose that matched donation days be advertised by
> > > something like the following:
> > > "All donations today will be matched by a
> > > (corporate/charity/individual) third party sponsor. The WMF offers
> > > them and all its other donors its sincerest thanks."
> > >
> > > I really do not believe this would have any significant impact on our
> > > ability to attract matching donors, and it would certainly have spared
> > > us the past few days of arguments here and elsewhere.
> > >
> > > As for further funding ideas, I still think our best bet is to
> > > continue on towards becoming a devolved, democratic, membership based
> > > organization. I would much rather give a regular donation to a UK
> > > charity in exchange for the benefits and rights of membership, than a
> > > one off donation to an organization that will spend the money without
> > > the guarantees of a written constitution and full democratic
> > > accountability, and I am sure many would agree with me.
> > >
> > > Yours in peace,
> > >
> > > Tom Holden
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Question about Infoboxes

body:
On 29/12/06, DS <dannyboy at hemuco.com> wrote:
> I did create the correct Templates, but on the pages I use infoboxes on,
> they?re messed up. Instead of actual tables / infoboxes as seen on
> Wikipedia, the data which is supposed to go into the box is printed without
> a box around it, and I get a lot of "{{#if:"

The {{#if}} and similar come from the ParserFunctions extension
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions), which needs to be
installed if using them.

> Is it possible that this has to do with the class="infobox"-tag? I lack a
> lot of experience here, and from what I gathered from tutorials at
> mediawiki... is it possible I have to add tables to the MySQL database for
> the class="infobox" to work?

Infoboxes on Wikipedia generally use CSS classes defined in
MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Monobook.css. You can "borrow" these
from Wikipedia itself; visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css, and click "view
source", for instance - a little searching will be needed to pinpoint
the required CSS. This can then be pasted into the same page on your
local wiki - visit MediaWiki:Common.css and hit the "edit" button,
then paste it in, and do a hard refresh in the browser.

Rob Church


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Slight adjustment for PROD

body:
Ryan Wetherell wrote:
> On 12/29/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> "Ryan Wetherell" wrote
>>
>>>  Just objecting to the PROD is too easy an
>>> excuse to remove it.  It's not hard at all to give a sentence about
>>> why you think an article is important.
>>
>> My story about PROD: User:Arthur Rubin stuck one on [[Hillel Furstenberg]] shortly after I made it. With some nonsense about 'no assertion of notability' and then some other nonsense about not meeting [[WP:PROF]]. As far as I can see, Furstenberg meets each of the six criteria in section 1 of WP:PROF. So my reason for objecting to a PROD on an article about someone who is a member of both the US and Israeli Academies of Sciences is that the thing was ludicrous. Please bear in mind the number of people with time on their hands.
>
> And you justified yourself in the edit summary when you removed it;
> that's good enough.  I hope that's somewhat in-line with what James
> Hare is suggesting.

I don't know about James, but I expressed a similar sentiment in an
earlier discussion, and I'm certainly quite satified with the way both
the tagging and untagging was handled in this case.

Look at it like this: when one removes a PROD tag (or in some other way
reverts another editor) without giving any reason, there's no way for
the person being reverted to tell whether the actual reason is "Of
course he's notable, he just won the Nobel Prize" or "Waaah! Don't you
dare touch my article!" or anything in between.

The same goes for adding the tag in the first place.  Since the person
who added it gave a reason, you could respond to that specific concern.
  Since you also gave a reason for removing the tag, the person who
added it could read it and agree.  If either of you hadn't explained
your reasoning, the other one would've been left guessing, and the whole
thing would probably have gone to AfD.

"Explain your actions" should in my opinion be right up there with
"Assume good faith" and "Avoid edit wars".

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding
>out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism.
>My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic
>bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A
>protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And,
>ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
>
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time
ago.  If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very
well..  Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I
don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who
just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.

Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the
60s was not an easy task.  Principles served on a plate of squalor can
be very unappetizing.  It's amazing how over the long run the
establishment absorbs it all.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-30

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.9alpha (r18664).
Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test Thumbnail image caption with a free URL... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A RFC with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A mailto link with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail- we don't render math in the parsertests by default,
so math is not stripped and turns up as escaped <math> tags.... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Image caption containing another image... FAILED!
Running test Bug 3090: External links other than http: in image captions... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Fuzz testing: image with bogus manual thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

Passed 463 of 490 tests (94.49%)... FAILED!


body:
On 30/12/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 29/12/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > How about sponsors get listed in the order of the percentage of their
> > > net worth they contributed? So some guy who makes $15K a year and
> > > donates $100 gets listed higher than some guy worth $6 billion who
> > > donates $200K.
> > > Yes, I recognize that's not actually feasible, but I think you get the idea.
> > > You shouldn't get to pay to get higher placement on some donor list
> > > just because you're richer.

> > That idea has some heartwarming qualities, but it doesn't get us more
> > of the cash. Because the second guy gave us more *we* can use than the
> > first did. Which is, after all, the point of the exercise.

> Ah, but there are more of the first guys.

Yeah, but you need both. As I said earlier, donations almost always
follow a power law, like Alexa ratings or whatever. And you don't get
the first without the thank-yous, because they're used to them.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: gabriela sanhuezagaray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] (no subject)

body:
Solo les envio este email. para confirmar el recibo de los suyos a la esta
fecha.
Si no me comunico con Uds. es porque estoy desarrollando unos proyectos. A
penas pueda me comunicare con Uds.

Saludos
Gaby

_________________________________________________________________
Charla con tus amigos en l?nea mediante MSN Messenger:
http://messenger.latam.msn.com/


from_name: Rich Holton

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why the article warning templates should go on the
 *article*, not the talk page

body:
James Hare wrote:
> Oh God don't get me started on that Wikiasari crap I've read about in da
> n00z.
>
> Newspapers, while not the accuratest (and we all know how bad journalists
> can be) (this is coming from a journalist), are really the best thing
> available for current things since they're the very first authority on it.
> Once current events turn into events and there's books and such that
> probably took longer to write than the average news article, then we should
> wean from the newspaper and focus on the books.
>

Newspapers are what they are. I've written press releases that got
printed verbatim in a local paper. And I've been present for newspaper
interviews, and seen the resulting story that managed to mangle some
very basic information based on the interview. After these sort of
experiences, you come to understand how to treat information you read in
a newspaper--grateful for the timeliness, but skeptical of the accuracy.

This is not meant to be a slam against newspapers. The nature of their
business is reflected in the product.

But I don't buy the bit about a newspaper not being a "reliable source".
  There is no such thing as a 100% reliable source. Some newspapers will
be more reliable on average than others. Monthly news magazines will be
more reliable on average than newspapers. And peer-reviewed journals
more reliable on average still.

Reliability is not a binary value.

What we need to do is provide references to the sources we use, and
educate people on how to view those sources. It's the only way to get
beyond the endless arguments over "reliable sources". And by the way, it
doesn't treat our readers like they're dolts.

-Rich Holton


from_name: Ryan Bilesky

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode

body:
Hello,

I am proposing a new project called WikiCode, A free source code
repository.  I'd appreciate it if you could all look over the project page
at

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

I'd also applicate, comments, suggestions, a list of people interested
because i'd really like to see this become a project.

Thank you,
Ryan524
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ryan524


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 29/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>
>> Funny you discuss this.  At
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Allderdice_High_School&oldid=96979271
>> I've got someone asserting in the article that "a search of WorldCat
>> reveals that as of 2006 Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer than
>> sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on
>> microfilm in a major library."  I agree this is original research, but
>> can't find anyone to back me up. Fancy popping your head in and
>> discussing the point?
>
> And here we hit the problem with limited original research - bad
> interpretation. He's shown that "fewer than sixty high schools in the
> world are known to have...", not that "fewer than sixty high schools
> in the world have..." It's based on a false premise - that WorldCat is
> some kind of "grand global catalogue", which it isn't; it doesn't
> claim to be comprehensive, just large.

Yes, I'd say the operative word here isn't so much "original" as
"logically unsound".  You just can't get from here to there.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] OK, so DRV *is* broken

body:
On 30/12/06, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, I retract that, was a little overstated.  Although I've seen way to many
> items brought to DRV in the past just to have another go at them (generally
> in the case of xfd's ended in Keep).

Yeah. The trouble with DRV is it has regulars, who end up forming a
virtual committee. Committees often fail to scale with editors and
articles. The overworked regulars (who are bothering with this because
they care) see lots of stupid and get understandably terse with it.
They then tweak process to make the process page easier for themselves
- formalised systems, local jargon and so forth. This unintentionally
excludes outsiders from the pages. Many express open suspicion of
outsiders, who are perceived as not knowing how the process works.
Regulars lose sight of the big picture and begin to conflate the
process with the project and will defend the process at the expense of
arguable damage to the project.

I'm not sure of an easy approach to solving this.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Question about Infoboxes

body:
>Infoboxes on Wikipedia generally use CSS classes defined in
MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Monobook.css. You can >"borrow" these from
Wikipedia itself; visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css,
and click "view source",
>for instance(...)

Rob,
Thanks SO MUCH. Your advice helped me to get rid of that problem. I
downloaded the two php-files and edited the Localsettings for the
Parser-problem, and copying the infobox-stuff into the css did the rest.
Thanks again for your quick reply, I really appreciate this, and I hope I
wasn?t being too much of a nuisance with such a "noob"-question =)
Have a great day!
Dan


body:
Simetrical wrote:
> On 12/29/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Could use the job queue for it, although I'm pretty sure there was
>> some previous discussion either on this list or the bug tracker
>> regarding the issue, where the consensus was to let the user do the
>> cleanup.
>
> Why the job queue?  Even if you have several dozen redirects, it
> should surely still be fast enough to do immediately.

I'm sure we have a page with hundreds of redirects pointing to it
somewhere on enwiki.  But I suppose the reasonable solution is to do the
fixing immediately if the number of redirects is reasonable (say, less
than 200) and otherwise either dump it into the job queue or just flat
out refuse to do it.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

> I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit
> in WP.
>
>My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to
>their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I
>used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.
>
WP is about the information; not about the people who write it.  In the
ideal, when all the editing is done it should not matter who wrote it,
or who edited it.  I would be concerned if anyone developed the
reputation that he could not be criticized.

Ec


body:
Plyd wrote:
>
> To the proposition given by Steve, I would add "Correct all double
> redirects", to prevent not wanted pages to be re-redirected
> automatically.
>
> Like this :
>> * Poker/Hands (linked 1 time - [[correct]])
>> * Ace-to-six low (linked 3 times - [[correct]])
>> * Deuce-to-seven low (linked 7 times - [[correct]])
> [[Correct double redirects for these pages]]

That actually sounds like the best solution so far.  Maybe with a
checkbox for each redirect, like on [[Special:Undelete]] or
[[Special:Watchlist/edit]]?

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject:
[Commons-l] "How the anti-copyright lobby makes big business
	richer"

body:
On 12/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I note that free-content is not quite mentioned. I am somewhat pleased
> that many photographers' sense of entitlement *is* mentioned.

In fact, the entire article is about sense-of-entitlement.

-Matt


body:
On 30/12/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Yeah, but you need both. As I said earlier, donations almost always
> > follow a power law, like Alexa ratings or whatever. And you don't get
> > the first without the thank-yous, because they're used to them.

> So let's retrain them. Don't charitable entrepeneurs want to break the
> traditional paradigms?

Note that the first round of donations was matched by precisely the
sort of anonymous donor you describe.

But you know, I have no problem saying "thank you" quite loudly to
someone giving us tens of thousands of dollars - if it was someone we
would have a problem saying "thank you" quite loudly to, then we
wouldn't accept it. And I understand Danny has said "no thanks" to
more than a few bad ideas that might have netted us substantial cash.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
Parker Peters wrote:

>On 12/27/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>To say that a comparison between Apartheid and Israel is "very, very
>>valid criticism of the State of Israel" is not racist. It's accusing
>>Israel of being racist. Perhaps, if this claim doesn't have any
>>supporting evidence, you could call it nationalist. Nothing more.
>>
>>
>But the problem is, the evidence all points the other way. Attempts to
>compare Apartheid with Israel's situation have never been honest, but always
>have been nothing more than racist propaganda.
>
What makes them dishonest?  If the people who make that analogy really
believe it, that's all it takes to be honest. Propaganda involves much
more than discussing an idea in some electronic medium.  It involves a
conscious effort to spread that idea in a multitude of fora.

>If you're going to make a comparison with Apartheid, you've got a better
>comparison looking at Saudi Arabia, where multiple cities require
>non-Muslims to drive on different roads than Muslims, and non-Muslims are
>barred from multiple areas of many cities, and are subject to different laws
>and different punishments for breaking the laws.
>
<citation needed>

>The fact that this was brought up when it was is sad, and the fact that I
>see editors going on trying to find some method of justifying writings that
>are mere propaganda being placed onto wikipedia, is horrifying to me.
>
One does not achieve NPOV by suppressing views with which one disagrees.

Ec


body:
Article warning templates should go on the *article*, not the talk page:

  http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jul23-06.html#wikipedia

"The fact that Wikipedia encourages us to use these notices give us
confidence that Wikipedia is putting our interests over its own.

"So, why is it that you don't see such frank notices in traditional
sources such as newspapers and encyclopedias? Is it because their
articles don't ever suffer from any of these human weaknesses? Oh,
sure, newspapers issue corrections after the fact, and "This is
non-neutral opinion" is implicit on the Op-Ed page. But why isn't
there any finer grain framing of the reliability and nature of what's
presented to us in their pages? Can we come to any conclusion except
that traditional authorities are more interested in maintaining
authority than in helping us reach the truth?"

That second para is important: newspapers are not Reliable Sources.
Anyone who's been following the Wikiasari media-vaporware non-story
may be surprised to know there *is no story* - Wikiasari was the name
of an older project, search.wikia.com was a ghost site they've had to
reactivate in the wake of this story ... the whole thing came from an
idle Jimbo quote about Google and a journalist spotting
search.wikia.com, and adding 2+2 and getting 2237943297729432.

My arse newspapers are a "reliable" source. Not if accuracy is your
interest. Easily checkable is not the same thing.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
Parker Peters wrote:

>On 12/27/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Parker Peters wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 12/24/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Why do you feel the compulsion to do it
>>>>here? Racist is using the word antisemitic and denying the equivalent
>>>>use of antimuslim-itic (or what ever term is appropriate). Either get
>>>>over calling people names or actually leave like you threaten to.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Racism is the kind of behavior that Israel and Israelis face on a regular
>>>basis, and the fact that we have editors always trying to POV our articles
>>>
>>>
>>>related to Israel into propaganda saying Israel is bad, Israel is evil,
>>>yadda yadda is nothing new given that there are a decently large portion of
>>>
>>>
>>>the world who seem to feel that they have some right to do this.
>>>
>>>
>>Please stop perpetrating the illusion that very, very valid criticism of
>>the State of Israel is somehow equivalent to racism.
>>
>>
>When I see some valid criticism, I'll not call it racism.
>
>The stuff you're supporting, however, is just racist.
>
You haven't got a fucking clue about what I believe.  Quit making it up.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Virgin United creates article for Virgin Unite

body:
On 30/12/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:

> > any reason, or no reason, for anything anybody connected with it does
> > or fails to do.  Consistency is not a virtue for them; they can
> > simultaneously attack Wikipedians for deleting stuff, for failing to
> > delete stuff, for taking action in a dictatorial manner without

> This should be on a plaque somewhere.

I chiseled it on one at
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia_Watch (if that's ok with
Daniel ;-)

- d.


from_name: Luna

subject: [WikiEN-l] Regarding the "change size" indicator in change lists

body:
I can't speak for everyone, but I highly value the contributions of all
users, from the anons making their first tentative edits, to vandal
patrollers, article writers, cleanup task forces, and yes, even the devs.
Without so much help, surely the wiki wouldn't be around, or wouldn't be
nearly as successful. Not to mention, the devs are some of our most
particularly skilled volunteers -- and we all are *volunteers*.

I've assumed the new numbers (I'm not sure what to call them) were wrapped
in a div or span to make them friendly to CSS customization. From there on,
if a user doesn't like them, they're free to change the colors, text
decoration, or anything else, or even just make them disappear. As is
frequently the case with open source projects, if you don't like something,
you're usually free to *fix it*.

...and if you don't know how, at least have the sense to complain
productively. Good feedback is hard to come by; I've always been of the
opinion that the internet has an awfully high "signal to noise" ratio,
almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

On the bright side, I see this as an excellent chance to teach a few people
how to play with their custom CSS options.

I like the numbers. Long live new features.

-Luna

On 12/30/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [This is in response to all the bitching and whining that's taken
> place since December 24th, on mailing lists, bug trackers, village
> pumps and sleazy little back-alley forums...I apologise for the
> crossposting. As ever, please feel free to forward this to other
> appropriate parties or lists, but keep responses and/or discussion on
> one.]
>
> All right, this bickering has gone far enough. The fact of the matter
> is that we're under constant pressure to keep the site alive and
> introduce new features and fixes on a regular basis. I can well
> understand that a lot of people will object to each change, and we do
> our best to make things non-intrusive.
>
> When this feature was first introduced, some bright spark on the
> English Wikipedia edited the global CSS and made the numbers bright,
> garish green and red, and emboldened them - I didn't agree with that,
> but whatever. However, there were a huge number of not-too-polite
> complaints blaming us for doing it, and some of these failed to
> subside when it was pointed out that this had nothing to do with the
> development team.
>
> We might not implement their letter, but the spirit of the ideas of
> keeping civil and assuming good faith *are* applied at the development
> level; we just reserve the right to be blunt. If I've been
> particularly rude to anyone over this issue, I do apologise for it -
> and I'm sure anyone else who may have been apologises too.
>
> If we're to implement certain tweaks for this in user preferences,
> then we need some co-operation from the user base to allow us time to
> determine a clean means of doing so (we want to avoid duplication of
> code when generating changes list items), and we want people to
> remember that politeness goes both ways.
>
> Just because user A dislikes a feature, it doesn't mean that user B
> will, and it is not fair to scream and rant and rave over it because
> we tried to implement something that was useful. I would like to note
> also that the numbers, as with the "minor edit" flag, and the whole
> concept of edit summaries, are advisory - what we provide is a factual
> statement of who changed what, and how much they changed, and we allow
> that user to present justification for their changes. If that user
> chose to lie in their edit summary, or deliberately mis-labelled a
> minor edit, then there is nothing any of us can do - and you (the
> users) have coped with that well enough over (at least) the past four
> years or so.
>
> I will open a fresh feature request, giving an opportunity for Brion
> to say "yes" or "no" definitively, and I will avail myself to Leon or
> anyone else who would then wish to implement the outcome should they
> want any input.
>
> I point-blank refuse, however, to work with any user who feels that it
> is acceptable to assume bad faith on the part of the development team.
> That attitude could very well lose you a lot of the behind-the-scenes
> supporting cast one day, without whom you wouldn't even *have* a
> website.
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
On 30/12/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps the "Foundation is evil" calls would be quelled a little bit by some
> examples of donation ideas that were rejected. After all, we've only heard
> about the donations that were accepted, so we can't measure them against
> anything else.

Dozens and dozens of people have been engaged in this discussion, not
one of them said that the "Foundation is evil". As far as I can
remember, not one of them implied that the "Foundation is evil". What
people have been questioning is the Foundation's methods in a healthy,
responsive manner.

Despite my objections to the placement of the name and logo in the
sitenotice, may I take this opportunity to make it clear that I do
_not_ think the Foundation is evil. I also want to make it clear that
I very much appreciate the hard work put in by all members of the
board. I understand their job is difficult--balancing the realities of
running a top 10 website with the ideology of the Wikimedia
community--and their performance is close to perfect.

Your reduction of the debate to "Foundation is evil" vs. "Foundation
is perfect" isn't productive or helpful to either side. We all
ultimately want and aim for pretty much the same thing, and these aims
will only be achieved if we continue to discuss and debate in an open,
friendly way.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement

body:
Perhaps we would be better to post a link here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives

With a very short english message: "Last week's
summary of foundation-l is now available.  Please
translate."

Then if ever someone does transalate the message that
could be used in the future.  Also perhaps we will
round up new trnastors for the summary itself this
way.  I think it is important that this be done by
volunteers and not bots.  That way if people start
asking questions someone will be wathing to try and
work things out.  Also if some people complain that
the message is spamming a person can quickly apologize
and remove that wiki from the list of places getting
messages.

I don't like just posting "sensitive" messages because
it is hard to tell what any one wiki will find
sensitive.  Not all wiki's are complaining about the
sitenotice.  Although the LSS is not perfect I think
it is the best option for "pushing" information.

Birgitte SB

--- Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:

> You might be right.
> I realize that posting in english is not optimal.
> But the present
> situation, where people are confronted with a change
> and must go
> hunting around to find where information has been
> published, has
> disadvantages too.
>
> One way to work around the problem os that this
> "push" becomes
> optional, in the senese that village pumps can
> subscribe/unsubscribe.
>
> teun
>
>
> On 12/30/06, Bryan Tong Minh
> <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If one would post a message to all vilage pumps in
> english, I can see
> > the maillist flooded by messages concerning
> "anglosaxism", "language
> > pushing", "discrimination", etc. I don't think
> that would be a
> > solution.
> >
> > Bryan
> >
> > On 12/30/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > How? - by a bot.
> > >
> > > On the english wiki, I am a member of the
> Military history
> > > WikiProject. There is a newsletter, which
> appears every monbth or two
> > > months. All members are notified on their talk
> page. By a bot. Surely,
> > > if a project can manage this, the core of
> wikimedia can mange this? I
> > > admit, some volunteers are needed to do this.
> > >
> > > Yes, the language is a problem. At the moment I
> see no alternative to
> > > English. Translation by babelfish gives terrible
> results. At least at
> > > start, there wont be volunteers able to
> translate it. You are right
> > > that the next complaint will be that the message
> is in english. When
> > > we have taken this step, and the complaint
> comes, we can invite them
> > > to translate it.
> > >
> > > One of the problems with the current
> communication is that we rely a
> > > lot on "pull", not on "push". The information is
> posted somewhere, and
> > > it is left to the wikipedians to visiti these
> places frequently and
> > > read it. It is up to the wikipedians to discover
> these places. It is
> > > up to the wikipedians to go to these places
> frequently. It is up to
> > > the wikipedians to read them It is up to the
> wikipedians to act on it.
> > > This holds true for communication from the
> foundation. This is true
> > > for information from the local chapters. This is
> true for information
> > > from commons, such as deletions. It is true for
> policy changes on
> > > commons.
> > >
> > > There is no information brought to the door. I
> think it might be time
> > > to change all this. We might start about
> thinking delivering selected
> > > information to the people on their talk pages.
> information in the
> > > village pumps.
> > >
> > > I dont say we should communicate everything to
> everyone, but we may
> > > start thinking about such a change in our
> communication strategy.
> > >
> > > We are already communicating to the outside
> world based on "push".
> > > When the english wiki reaches it n-th million
> article, whap, out goes
> > > a press release. The same for commons: when the
> 1 million images
> > > milestone was reached. We dont wait till the
> media visit our sites to
> > > discover it, we go out and tell them.
> > > It wouldnt be bad when we followed the same line
> internally.
> > >
> > > teun
> > >
> > > On 12/30/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On 12/30/06, Teun Spaans
> <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Perhaps a bot posting sensitive messages
> into every village pump, simply in
> > > > > english, would be a solution.
> > > >
> > > > How? It would work somewhere. It wouldn't work
> in other places. If we
> > > > care the entire community, it is not the way
> we are going to,
> > > > regretfully I admit that is roughly what we
> are doing though.
> > > > Principally I have find no difference between
> communications via
> > > > sitenotice and ones via VP.
> > > >
> > > > On non-English projects, speically non
> Indo-European language
> > > > projects, I have seen some (important to some
> extent) messages posted
> > > > in English and left without comment. In this
> way the possiblity of
> > > > translation doesn't depend on its importance
> but genuinly availability
> > > > of volunteering translators. The next possible
> complaint would be "why
> > > > it came in English but not in our language?"
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > KIZU Naoko
> > > >   Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
> > > >   * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *
> > > >
> _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement


from_name: Okky Sulistijo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] NeOpuntia

body:
 What is NeOpuntia?
  NeOpuntia? is a natural lipophilic fiber made from dehydrated oval leaves (also called pads) of the Opuntia ficus indica cactus via a long development & patented process backed by strong scientific research. Developed by French scientists, NeOpuntia is the first effective vegetable fat-blocker. This 100% green and natural high quality ingredient enables you to lose weight safely, without starving yourself or force yourself to stick to a low-fat diet.

  Weight-loss cactus
  Originally native to Mexico, Opuntia ficus-indica (Indian Fig Opuntia) is a species of cactus, grown for the large, sweet fruits, called tunas, which are available in local and commercial markets worldwide. Most culinary references to the ?prickly pear? are referring to this plant. The name ?tuna? is also used for this cactus, and for Opuntia in general. The cactus leaves of Opuntia ficus-indica have been traditionally eaten in Mexico and southern Europe for many years. The cactus pads also provided a source of sticky binding material for adobe bricks during construction.

 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:13:08 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>
>> I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding
>> out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism.
>> My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic
>> bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A
>> protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And,
>> ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
>>
> It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time
> ago.  If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very
> well..  Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I
> don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who
> just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
>
> Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the
> 60s was not an easy task.  Principles served on a plate of squalor can
> be very unappetizing.  It's amazing how over the long run the
> establishment absorbs it all.
>
> Ec

Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was
frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was
never, never, discouraged.

Wikipedia, itself, is the protest.

Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
shall we please refrain from personal remarks? thx.

On 12/30/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/29/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This sounds very socialist and even more impractical.
>
> I don't think you understand socialism very well.
>
> > Give anyone with a gift > 100.000$ a sitenotice of 1 day. If our costs
> have
> > doubles, double the amount to get a sitenotice mention. It doesnt hurt
> to
> > thank our friends. But we should communicate clearly, timely and in an
> open
> > mind with the community. That communication lacked.
> >
> > teun
> >
> > On 12/29/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > How about sponsors get listed in the order of the percentage of their
> > > net worth they contributed? So some guy who makes $15K a year and
> > > donates $100 gets listed higher than some guy worth $6 billion who
> > > donates $200K.
> > >
> > > Yes, I recognize that's not actually feasible, but I think you get the
> > > idea.
> > >
> > > You shouldn't get to pay to get higher placement on some donor list
> > > just because you're richer.
> > >
> > > On 12/29/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > What I'd like is a link to a list of donors, and big sponsors like
> Mr.
> > > > Anonymo and Virgin Unite can be listed by the top then following
> that is
> > > a
> > > > generic list of the other donors. I also like how there's a
> thank-you
> > > letter
> > > > on the WMF wiki for Virgin Unite.
> > > >
> > > > On 12/29/06, Tom Holden <thomas.holden at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > I think it is worth remembering that both sides of this discussion
> > > > > ultimately want the same thing, namely for the WMF's assorted
> projects
> > > > > to retain the independence (both financial and otherwise) they
> need
> > > > > for their continued success. One side has maybe been guilty of
> > > > > threatening to throw their toys out of the pram, but the other
> side
> > > > > has equally damaged their position by adopting a rather
> patronising
> > > > > tone.
> > > > >
> > > > > Proposing that "editors who don't like it just leave" is never a
> valid
> > > > > solution. There will always be people with differing opinions to
> the
> > > > > Foundation, and it is vital for the continued success of the
> project
> > > > > that these people feel there is a forum where their views will be
> > > > > seriously considered. We will always need every editor we can get.
> The
> > > > > gradual reform of WMF's political structure from (benevolent)
> > > > > dictatorship to democracy is obviously a key part of this process.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now having Virgin's name and logo on every page is certainly not
> the
> > > > > end of the world. Wall Street bankers are not yet rubbing their
> hands
> > > > > together with glee. That said it does represent a significant
> change
> > > > > in the WMF's fund-raising strategy. Whether or not Virgin hoped to
> > > > > benefit from their donation, the fact is that the message both
> > > > > increases brand awareness and gives the brand positive
> connotations.
> > > > > Contrary to the repeated dogmatic assertions of some on this list,
> > > > > like it or not this is effectively advertising. (Think of the last
> few
> > > > > Honda adds say. Not a purchasable product in sight...) Rightly or
> > > > > wrongly, I like many others feel this should have had more public
> > > > > discussion a significant time before the event.
> > > > >
> > > > > It is important to remember that people's objections to
> advertising go
> > > > > a long way beyond just "they're annoying" or "they're the tools of
> the
> > > > > capitalist scum". There is a real risk of them introducing biases
> and
> > > > > distortionary pressures which would severely damage the
> credibility of
> > > > > the WMF's projects. Furthermore, it is always dangerous for a site
> to
> > > > > mix its factual content with advertising, as one can easily be
> > > > > mistaken for the other. I'm sure you could all think of many
> further
> > > > > arguments, which, broadly, is why WMF has shied away from
> advertising
> > > > > in the past.
> > > > >
> > > > > Certainly though it is only polite to thank our donors. However,
> it is
> > > > > just as important we thank Paul from Michigan who gave $2 as it is
> we
> > > > > thank Virgin who gave $200,000 (or however much it was). The way
> WMF
> > > > > has traditionally done this is by posting a thank you notice along
> > > > > with a link to a list of donors. I do not see any reason why this
> is
> > > > > not as adequate for Virgin as it is for Paul from Michigan. If I
> was
> > > > > to give an ordinary (non-matching) donation of $200,000 would I
> get a
> > > > > day long thank you notice?
> > > > >
> > > > > In future I propose that matched donation days be advertised by
> > > > > something like the following:
> > > > > "All donations today will be matched by a
> > > > > (corporate/charity/individual) third party sponsor. The WMF offers
> > > > > them and all its other donors its sincerest thanks."
> > > > >
> > > > > I really do not believe this would have any significant impact on
> our
> > > > > ability to attract matching donors, and it would certainly have
> spared
> > > > > us the past few days of arguments here and elsewhere.
> > > > >
> > > > > As for further funding ideas, I still think our best bet is to
> > > > > continue on towards becoming a devolved, democratic, membership
> based
> > > > > organization. I would much rather give a regular donation to a UK
> > > > > charity in exchange for the benefits and rights of membership,
> than a
> > > > > one off donation to an organization that will spend the money
> without
> > > > > the guarantees of a written constitution and full democratic
> > > > > accountability, and I am sure many would agree with me.
> > > > >
> > > > > Yours in peace,
> > > > >
> > > > > Tom Holden
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode

body:
On 12/30/06, Ryan Bilesky <rbilesky at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am proposing a new project called WikiCode, A free source code
> repository.  I'd appreciate it if you could all look over the project page
> at
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCode

There already is such a project at:
http://en.literateprograms.org/
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode


body:
[This is in response to all the bitching and whining that's taken
place since December 24th, on mailing lists, bug trackers, village
pumps and sleazy little back-alley forums...I apologise for the
crossposting. As ever, please feel free to forward this to other
appropriate parties or lists, but keep responses and/or discussion on
one.]

All right, this bickering has gone far enough. The fact of the matter
is that we're under constant pressure to keep the site alive and
introduce new features and fixes on a regular basis. I can well
understand that a lot of people will object to each change, and we do
our best to make things non-intrusive.

When this feature was first introduced, some bright spark on the
English Wikipedia edited the global CSS and made the numbers bright,
garish green and red, and emboldened them - I didn't agree with that,
but whatever. However, there were a huge number of not-too-polite
complaints blaming us for doing it, and some of these failed to
subside when it was pointed out that this had nothing to do with the
development team.

We might not implement their letter, but the spirit of the ideas of
keeping civil and assuming good faith *are* applied at the development
level; we just reserve the right to be blunt. If I've been
particularly rude to anyone over this issue, I do apologise for it -
and I'm sure anyone else who may have been apologises too.

If we're to implement certain tweaks for this in user preferences,
then we need some co-operation from the user base to allow us time to
determine a clean means of doing so (we want to avoid duplication of
code when generating changes list items), and we want people to
remember that politeness goes both ways.

Just because user A dislikes a feature, it doesn't mean that user B
will, and it is not fair to scream and rant and rave over it because
we tried to implement something that was useful. I would like to note
also that the numbers, as with the "minor edit" flag, and the whole
concept of edit summaries, are advisory - what we provide is a factual
statement of who changed what, and how much they changed, and we allow
that user to present justification for their changes. If that user
chose to lie in their edit summary, or deliberately mis-labelled a
minor edit, then there is nothing any of us can do - and you (the
users) have coped with that well enough over (at least) the past four
years or so.

I will open a fresh feature request, giving an opportunity for Brion
to say "yes" or "no" definitively, and I will avail myself to Leon or
anyone else who would then wish to implement the outcome should they
want any input.

I point-blank refuse, however, to work with any user who feels that it
is acceptable to assume bad faith on the part of the development team.
That attitude could very well lose you a lot of the behind-the-scenes
supporting cast one day, without whom you wouldn't even *have* a
website.

Rob Church


subject: [Wikitech-l] Regarding the "change size" indicator in change lists


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
For a compromise it is needed that both parties are willing to
compromise. The people that are "threatening to throw their toys out of
the pram" make a lot of noise because they have nowhere else to go. The
people that /do /want to bring organisations into the Open Content/Free
Content world find that because of the bedlam they create the atmosphere
is poisoned and it prevents the inclusion of organisations in projects.
Organisations that have massive amounts of data that they are willing to
make available under an appropriate license.

In the way people have talked about this making available of data, it is
generally considered that these organisations have to hand things over
and then step back. This is however very often not how organisations see
this. When the data is what they have worked on over a long period of
time paying many qualified people to create such a resource, they want
to play a visible role in the further development of this data. This may
mean that they want to concentrate more on the curation of the data. It
may mean that they want to collaborate in a neutral forum and work
together with other organisations, people that work on the same data.

At this moment the Wikimedia Foundation does not consider that
organisations might play such a role and because of the rabid
indignation when anything that even remotely looks like corporate
involvement, it is unlikely that this will change. The point that I am
making is that in the "attempt to compromise" the issue is pictured as
an issue between individual people maybe communities. There is no notion
that the WMF does not fulfil its potential because there is no room to
collaborate with organisations all that is considered is how to get
their valuables.

A compromise has to bring something to both parties in a dispute. As the
issue has not really considered in its entirety I am afraid that the
potential of what the WMF can do, will be the victim of all this.

Thanks,
   GerardM

Tom Holden schreef:
> I think it is worth remembering that both sides of this discussion
> ultimately want the same thing, namely for the WMF's assorted projects
> to retain the independence (both financial and otherwise) they need
> for their continued success. One side has maybe been guilty of
> threatening to throw their toys out of the pram, but the other side
> has equally damaged their position by adopting a rather patronising
> tone.
>
> Proposing that "editors who don't like it just leave" is never a valid
> solution. There will always be people with differing opinions to the
> Foundation, and it is vital for the continued success of the project
> that these people feel there is a forum where their views will be
> seriously considered. We will always need every editor we can get. The
> gradual reform of WMF's political structure from (benevolent)
> dictatorship to democracy is obviously a key part of this process.
>
> Now having Virgin's name and logo on every page is certainly not the
> end of the world. Wall Street bankers are not yet rubbing their hands
> together with glee. That said it does represent a significant change
> in the WMF's fund-raising strategy. Whether or not Virgin hoped to
> benefit from their donation, the fact is that the message both
> increases brand awareness and gives the brand positive connotations.
> Contrary to the repeated dogmatic assertions of some on this list,
> like it or not this is effectively advertising. (Think of the last few
> Honda adds say. Not a purchasable product in sight...) Rightly or
> wrongly, I like many others feel this should have had more public
> discussion a significant time before the event.
>
> It is important to remember that people's objections to advertising go
> a long way beyond just "they're annoying" or "they're the tools of the
> capitalist scum". There is a real risk of them introducing biases and
> distortionary pressures which would severely damage the credibility of
> the WMF's projects. Furthermore, it is always dangerous for a site to
> mix its factual content with advertising, as one can easily be
> mistaken for the other. I'm sure you could all think of many further
> arguments, which, broadly, is why WMF has shied away from advertising
> in the past.
>
> Certainly though it is only polite to thank our donors. However, it is
> just as important we thank Paul from Michigan who gave $2 as it is we
> thank Virgin who gave $200,000 (or however much it was). The way WMF
> has traditionally done this is by posting a thank you notice along
> with a link to a list of donors. I do not see any reason why this is
> not as adequate for Virgin as it is for Paul from Michigan. If I was
> to give an ordinary (non-matching) donation of $200,000 would I get a
> day long thank you notice?
>
> In future I propose that matched donation days be advertised by
> something like the following:
> "All donations today will be matched by a
> (corporate/charity/individual) third party sponsor. The WMF offers
> them and all its other donors its sincerest thanks."
>
> I really do not believe this would have any significant impact on our
> ability to attract matching donors, and it would certainly have spared
> us the past few days of arguments here and elsewhere.
>
> As for further funding ideas, I still think our best bet is to
> continue on towards becoming a devolved, democratic, membership based
> organization. I would much rather give a regular donation to a UK
> charity in exchange for the benefits and rights of membership, than a
> one off donation to an organization that will spend the money without
> the guarantees of a written constitution and full democratic
> accountability, and I am sure many would agree with me.
>
> Yours in peace,
>
> Tom Holden


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] oh no, not again

body:
On 12/29/06, niht-hr?fn <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 29, 2006, at 12:35, David Ashby wrote:
>
> > On 12/29/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 09:10:39 +0000, "David Gerard"
> >> <dgerard at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/
> >>> Log/2006_December_28#Category:Administrators_open_to_recall.E2.80.8E
> >>
> >> Best way forward, IMO.  It's a troll's charter.
> >
> > This nom's not going to change it, however.  There's pretty strong "no
> > consensus" shaping up right now.
> >
> > -david
>
> Is there any precedent (which hasn't been completely defunct) as to
> how to deal with such institutions as it were? Administrators open to
> recall isn't a category in the normal sense, and deleting the
> category doesn't necessarily disband the practice. I'd doubt anyone
> is objecting to the organization of these administrators, but instead
> to the practice of recalling (and all its idiosyncrasies). One can't
> really delete a practice, so I'd say it needs a separate more suited
> procedure for reforming and/or getting rid of it. However, the only
> similar situation that comes to my mind is the Esperanza deal, and
> I'd say MfD wasn't suited for that either...
>
> --keitei

The "practise" exits for all admins.  Every admin should be accountable to
the community.

If you do something wrong, people will tell you.  The people who are in the
best position to keep any admin in line are that person's friends and others
in the community who s/he respects.  If you are doing something wrong as an
admin, someone should speak to you or raise the matter in some public
forum.  If you are blindsided by a complaint then the system isn't working.

If there's a serious enough problem, we have admin conduct RFC.  Again, if
you have an admin conduct RFC filed against you, you should stop and think,
even if it's spurious.  Other mechanisms only come into play when you get
beyond these mechanisms.

So what is an admin open to recall?  Is it someone who rejects these
mechanisms and instead says "I only listen to feedback if you go through
these bureaucratic mechanisms"?  Or is it someone who says "despite the fact
that I ignored the opinion of the community at my admin-conduct RFC, I will
voluntarily surrender admin status if the community thinks I should"?

Recall only comes into play if you choose to ignore all the normal
channels.  I find this hard to believe.

The alternative to "admins open to recall" isn't admins who don't give a
damn what anyone else thinks"...the alternative is "admins who prefer
non-bureaucratic forms of feedback".


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Foundation-l] new site notice now ready

body:
On 12/28/06, Tom Holden <thomas.holden at gmail.com> wrote:
> To be honest, I don't think the logo is the issue. The word "Virgin" is a
> sufficiently strong international brand that very little is added to it by
> the addition of the logo. I also don't think the fact that it was their
> charitable arm is relevant. The notice creates a clear coupling of the
> "Virgin" brand and charitable giving, a coupling obviously designed to cast
> the brand in a favourable light and so to persuade people to choose "Virgin"
> products over the alternatives. Like it or not this is advertising.

For me, my issue was primarily with the logo, though people with an
even stronger stance about advertising have my sympathy. The logo just
makes it kind of crass.


body:
On 12/28/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28/12/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Donations to WMF from 12/15/06 to 12/28/06:
> > 2 people have given very large gifts ($25,000 and our anonymous matching
> > donor)
> > 49 people have given 500-10,000 USD ($67,594)
> > 739 people have given 100 - 499 USD ($96,222)
> > 1184 people have given 50-99 USD ($68,728)
> > 2346 people have given 25-49 USD ($70,106)
> > 5340 people have given 10-24 USD ($77,189)
> > 4204 people have given 1-9 USD ($19,059)
> > 891 people have given less than 1 USD ($481)
>
>
> Yes. One thing very few people understand about fundraising is that it
> works on a power law. A graph of donations per donor will show a very
> few donors donating a substantial fraction of the takings.
>
> And it is *usual* to thank them publicly and not to shy away from or
> try to play down doing so.
>
A lot of things are usual. Wikipedia is not one of them.


body:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> First of all, I want to say that I agree with most everything Erik has
> written so far, and can't really add to his eloquent explanations. Nevertheless,
> as someone who was involved from the beginning in these discussions, I want to
> raise a few points here.
>
> 1. The Wikimedia Foundation has grown beyond anyone's wildest  expectations
> in terms of traffic, hits, articles, and projects. We are a top ten  website.
> 2. We are doing this on a shoestring budget, with minimal staff and minimal
> expenses.
> 3. We are able to do this because of dedicated volunteers, like everyone
> writing on this list.
>
> But --
>
> 4. The Foundation, which hosts all these projects does not want to be
> gobbled up by some big corporation, like Youtube was, like Myspace was, or like  any
> other successful website was. We want to maintain our independence.
> 5. Independence comes at a cost. We have to buy servers, and we have to  find
> the right people to manage all of the other things involved with running a
> huge foundation.
> 6. Considering our growth, the base of volunteers does not scale. All the
> good will in the world does not mean that people can take off exams or their
> jobs or their families to work 24/7 to keep this thing running.
> 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the  audit,
> the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is  unrealized
> income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other  words it is
> many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen  to avoid
> ads so that we can maintain our independence.

You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on
tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to
write that up as a cost.


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode

body:
The site appears to be gone, or the link broken, or something....

On 12/30/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>On 12/30/06, Ryan Bilesky <rbilesky at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am proposing a new project called WikiCode, A free source code
>> repository.  I'd appreciate it if you could all look over the project
page
>> at
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCode

> There already is such a project at:
> http://en.literateprograms.org/
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik

> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 29 Dec 2006 at 22:55, "James Hare" <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh God don't get me started on that Wikiasari crap I've read about in da
> n00z.

Who's sari now?

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Michael Noda

body:
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/28/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the  audit,
> > the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is  unrealized
> > income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other  words it is
> > many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen  to avoid
> > ads so that we can maintain our independence.
>
> You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on
> tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to
> write that up as a cost.

The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was
[[opportunity cost]].


from_name: thomasasta at gmx.net

subject:
[Foundation-l] wiki search & wikimedia foundation collaboration
 with Limewire and Yacy ?

body:
Hello Jim, hello Sam,

you search for coders to get wiki-search out.
There are already a lot of coders in the list
http://search.wikia.com/wiki/search:Developers

What do you think about a collaboration with limewire ?

http://www.limewire.org/forum/showthread.php?p=3090&posted=1#post3090

Integrate yacy in limewire and built up a colaboration with yacy, limewire and messenger cspace (ported to java) for wikia and wikimedia foundation.

Both are java.
Kind regards tom.
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


from_name: Gurch

body:
Luna wrote:
> I've assumed the new numbers (I'm not sure what to call them) were wrapped
> in a div or span to make them friendly to CSS customization. From there on,
> if a user doesn't like them, they're free to change the colors, text
> decoration, or anything else, or even just make them disappear. As is
> frequently the case with open source projects, if you don't like something,
> you're usually free to *fix it*.

The non-bold numbers are to be wrapped in <span> tags with one of the
following three classes:

mw-plusminus-neg   (< 0, currently red)
mw-plusminus-null  (0, currently grey)
mw-plusminus-pos   (> 0, currently green)

The bold numbers are wrapped in <strong> tags with the same class. I'm
not sure if this means the boldness can be customized with CSS but the
colours certainly can be. (I never use Recent Changes so haven't tried
myself).

-Gurch


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode

body:
Even if it already exists it still fits in perfectly with WIkimedia's Ideals
and I think would be a great project for the foundation to undertake, while
being more of a niche than say wikipedia I still think this has potential to
be an active and useful repository of information.  I am downloading the
wiki software now to setup a demo site.


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiCode


from_name: David Strauss

body:
Michael Noda wrote:
> On 12/30/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/28/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>>> 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the  audit,
>>> the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is  unrealized
>>> income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other  words it is
>>> many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen  to avoid
>>> ads so that we can maintain our independence.
>> You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on
>> tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to
>> write that up as a cost.
>
> The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was
> [[opportunity cost]].

And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no
sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.

That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.

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body:
Michael Noda wrote:
> On 12/30/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/28/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>>> 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the  audit,
>>> the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is  unrealized
>>> income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other  words it is
>>> many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen  to avoid
>>> ads so that we can maintain our independence.
>> You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on
>> tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to
>> write that up as a cost.
>
> The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was
> [[opportunity cost]].

And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no
sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.

That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.

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body:
Michael Noda wrote:
> On 12/30/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/28/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>>> 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the  audit,
>>> the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is  unrealized
>>> income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other  words it is
>>> many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen  to avoid
>>> ads so that we can maintain our independence.
>> You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on
>> tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to
>> write that up as a cost.
>
> The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was
> [[opportunity cost]].

And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no
sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.

That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.

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