from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ...
> Launching a new projet is something extremely
> important. A voting bar set at 50% is something I find
> plain wrong.

I agree completely.

</aol>

> Though it is too late for this time, I would be very
> glad if next time a project is proposed, a more
> consensual procedure is adopted. And at least
> possibility to agree on some points, and refuse
> others.

Yes, we need to develop procedures for this type of thing. We also need to
build-in ways to help develop consensus and measure the level of
support/dissent. Approval voting would help with that.

> I know that in any decision the global community will
> adopt, there will be some happy and some unhappy
> people, and this is also why, though we must sometimes
> rely on voting procedure because of community size, I
> see voting as a bad choice. In such a vote, with a 50%
> barrier, that mean a project may be lauched with as
> much as 49 people very unhappy among 100. I do not see
> that as a positive move *at all*.

Exactly.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ...
> Launching a new projet is something extremely
> important. A voting bar set at 50% is something I find
> plain wrong.

I agree completely.

</aol>

> Though it is too late for this time, I would be very
> glad if next time a project is proposed, a more
> consensual procedure is adopted. And at least
> possibility to agree on some points, and refuse
> others.

Yes, we need to develop procedures for this type of thing. We also need to
build-in ways to help develop consensus and measure the level of
support/dissent. Approval voting would help with that.

> I know that in any decision the global community will
> adopt, there will be some happy and some unhappy
> people, and this is also why, though we must sometimes
> rely on voting procedure because of community size, I
> see voting as a bad choice. In such a vote, with a 50%
> barrier, that mean a project may be lauched with as
> much as 49 people very unhappy among 100. I do not see
> that as a positive move *at all*.

Exactly.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikinews


list: wikien-l

from_name: Eric B. and Rakim

subject: [WikiEN-l] Compendium

body:
>An ironic thing about schools vs species is that I could write an
>article about a species that has only ever been observed by one
>scientist, has only one paper about it in an obscure journal, and
>only one specimen in a jar somewhere, and yet no one would dream of
>deleting the article for non-notability (in fact we have a number
>of such articles already), while an article about the largest high
>school in Cleveland would probably cause a furious VfD debate. Is
>the obscure species, which is of interest to maybe a few dozen
>specialists, really more notable than the high school and its
>thousands of students?

This is very interesting. I think it proves that the notability criterium is
out of whack. It seems like when "the deletionists" say "notability" of
information, they instead mean "usability" of information. Because noone can
claim that one specimen of one species documented in one academic journal is
more notable than any high school in Cleveland. However, the information
about the specimen might well be more useful than that about the school....

.... to biologists!

But not to anyone else. Is it so that the deletions is a symptom of the fact
that many wikipedians see the target audience as something else than many
other wikipedians see it? If we assume that Wikipedia HAS a limited number
of target audiences, then I can understand that people want to delete
factual, verifiable information. It doesn't make sense to have an article
about a school in Cleveland if Wikipedia's target audience is not
Clevelanders (or foreign exchange students..) It also makes sense to delete
[[Melissa Doll]]   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Doll if Wikipedia's
target audience is not fans of Melissa Doll/people interested in porn
actors.

And so on. So maybe Wikipedia's *only* target audience is the target
audience that Encyclopaedia Brittanica has. But I don't think so. I'm a
member of the community and I has a say in what goes into Wikipedia too. So
does everyone else that has ever written something in Wikipedia. We are all
authors and contributors.

For every article ever witten someone has thought "I know this and I think
this is useful for someone else." Which means that everything ever written
has passed someones test of usability. That doesn't mean that it has to be
included in Wikipedia, but I think more thought should be spent on that fact
than currently is.

To summarize. Don't delete articles because they aren't "notable", delete
articles because they aren't usable. Delete information about someones bank
account number because, while it might be verifiable at an ATM machine, it
isn't usable to a large enough audience. Keep information about Cleveland's
high schools because that information is usable to thousands of students.
Delete information about some random street because nothing interesting has
ever happened there. Keep information about US President's dogs because
thousands of people do find that information useful.

-- Eric B. and Rakim

_________________________________________________________________
Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.com/


from_name: Rick

subject: Usability (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Compendium)

body:
OK, so then please explain the "usability" of [[List of externally visible animal parts]] and why it deserves to be kept.

RickK

Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Aha, perhaps something new in this debate - I like
this - is 'usability' something that we can agree on,
a perhaps move forward with?
Mark

--- "Eric B. and Rakim"
wrote:

> >An ironic thing about schools vs species is that I
> could write an
> >article about a species that has only ever been
> observed by one
> >scientist, has only one paper about it in an
> obscure journal, and
> >only one specimen in a jar somewhere, and yet no
> one would dream of
> >deleting the article for non-notability (in fact we
> have a number
> >of such articles already), while an article about
> the largest high
> >school in Cleveland would probably cause a furious
> VfD debate. Is
> >the obscure species, which is of interest to maybe
> a few dozen
> >specialists, really more notable than the high
> school and its
> >thousands of students?
>
> This is very interesting. I think it proves that the
> notability criterium is
> out of whack. It seems like when "the deletionists"
> say "notability" of
> information, they instead mean "usability" of
> information. Because noone can
> claim that one specimen of one species documented in
> one academic journal is
> more notable than any high school in Cleveland.
> However, the information
> about the specimen might well be more useful than
> that about the school....
>
> .... to biologists!
>
> But not to anyone else. Is it so that the deletions
> is a symptom of the fact
> that many wikipedians see the target audience as
> something else than many
> other wikipedians see it? If we assume that
> Wikipedia HAS a limited number
> of target audiences, then I can understand that
> people want to delete
> factual, verifiable information. It doesn't make
> sense to have an article
> about a school in Cleveland if Wikipedia's target
> audience is not
> Clevelanders (or foreign exchange students..) It
> also makes sense to delete
> [[Melissa Doll]]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Doll if
> Wikipedia's
> target audience is not fans of Melissa Doll/people
> interested in porn
> actors.
>
> And so on. So maybe Wikipedia's *only* target
> audience is the target
> audience that Encyclopaedia Brittanica has. But I
> don't think so. I'm a
> member of the community and I has a say in what goes
> into Wikipedia too. So
> does everyone else that has ever written something
> in Wikipedia. We are all
> authors and contributors.
>
> For every article ever witten someone has thought "I
> know this and I think
> this is useful for someone else." Which means that
> everything ever written
> has passed someones test of usability. That doesn't
> mean that it has to be
> included in Wikipedia, but I think more thought
> should be spent on that fact
> than currently is.
>
> To summarize. Don't delete articles because they
> aren't "notable", delete
> articles because they aren't usable. Delete
> information about someones bank
> account number because, while it might be verifiable
> at an ATM machine, it
> isn't usable to a large enough audience. Keep
> information about Cleveland's
> high schools because that information is usable to
> thousands of students.
> Delete information about some random street because
> nothing interesting has
> ever happened there. Keep information about US
> President's dogs because
> thousands of people do find that information useful.
>
> -- Eric B. and Rakim
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN
> Search!
> http://search.msn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: amount of availible (LA)TEX commands in
	<math>-formulas

body:
On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 02:17:36AM -0800, Peter Danenberg wrote:
> > How and why are the commands limited anyway ?
>
>
>      Different  security  models:  Texvc's "white list" sup-
> ports only which commands as have explicitly  been  compiled
> in;  WikiTeX' "black list", on the other hand, excludes dan-
> gerous commands.

Please prepare the list of safe symbols missing from texvc's whitelist
if you want them added.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for new Wikipedia: Friulian

body:
--- Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 13:34 +0000, Rowan Collins wrote:
>
> > As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
> > bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
> > is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
> > speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
> > indication.
>
> On Wikitravel, this is the deal:
>
>      1. There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki.
>      2. There needs to be one contact person for the new wiki.
>      3. The contact person has to make a monthly report about the state
>         of the wiki: what's been happening, advances, debates, changes
>         in policy or guidelines, etc.
>      4. If there's no or very little editing on the wiki for a month, or
>         if the reports stop coming in, or if generally the thing just
>         starts winding down, the wiki goes inactive. We turn off the
>         wiki software, and make the content available in case someone
>         else wants to use it.

Requiring a translated interface up-front might also be a good idea. It would
show that at least one person is very commited.

-- mav

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Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
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list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] {{-sound-}} template should be {{sound}}

body:
Hoi,
Sabine told me that the -sound- template was not well named as it is not
a header. She is absolutely right it should be {{sound}}. I am in the
process of fixing this.

Thanks,
    Gerard


from_name: NSK

subject: [WikiEN-l] Compendium

body:
On Monday 01 November 2004 12:32, Eric B. and Rakim wrote:
> Delete information about some random street because nothing interesting has
> ever happened there.

I disagree. A knowledge base full of random streets would be useful to people
living near these streets. Some streets have interesting properties and all
streets have their own special history.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:02:27 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem is that to do that, I need to be able to write a press
> release in the target language.

Which is, of course, another reason we need at least one dedicated,
fluent, user to support and nurture any new Wikipedia.

As for what is wrong with an abandoned Wikipedia, they become a haven
for vandalism, spam, and generally undesirable content. I seem to
remember hearing about a language where the entire content of the wiki
appeared to be essentially gibberish, and not the language of that WP
at all.

The problem is therefore that as soon as you create a new wiki, it is
instantly and permanently editable by all, so if you're community
dries up, there is a risk that it will just be abused, with no-one to
look after it. That doesn't really equate to loss of resources, but it
does dilute the Wikimedia "brand" - can you imagine what a field day
our detractors would have if it was revealed that there are a dozen
"translations" of Wikipedia that contained nothing but garbage and
spam? [I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying that this is
the risk we are weighing up here.]

As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
indication.  Perhaps, instead, we need some kind of "enthusiasm test",
to show that the user(s) starting it is/are going to dedicate time to
getting it off the ground, not just in terms of seeding the content,
but also recruiting the community. I'm not saying we should make
language creation some hideously complex process and put off anyone
who's a little bit nervous, but perhaps some clear guidelines of what
creating an effective new wiki involves, and a confirmation that there
is somebody willing to undertake that process.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 13:34 +0000, Rowan Collins wrote:

> As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
> bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
> is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
> speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
> indication.

On Wikitravel, this is the deal:

     1. There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki.
     2. There needs to be one contact person for the new wiki.
     3. The contact person has to make a monthly report about the state
        of the wiki: what's been happening, advances, debates, changes
        in policy or guidelines, etc.
     4. If there's no or very little editing on the wiki for a month, or
        if the reports stop coming in, or if generally the thing just
        starts winding down, the wiki goes inactive. We turn off the
        wiki software, and make the content available in case someone
        else wants to use it.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day and month names

body:
For month names, day names, and the like, AFAIK that is indeed your only option.

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:48:32 +0100, James R. Johnson
<modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>             I was recently asked on the Anglo-Saxon wiki if we could put the
> day and month names into Anglo-Saxon, but the only way I know of to do this
> is through the LanguageAng.php file.is there another way, or do I have to
> have that file installed by someone?
>
> Thanks,
>
> James
>
> http://ang.wikipedia.org <http://ang.wikipedia.org/>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for new Wikipedia: Friulian

body:
WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?

As noted before, if these rules had always existed, most of our
largest Wikipedias would not exist today!!!

Again I will quote Andre's statistics:

Looking at the statistics
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediansContributors.htm),
I find only 6 Wikipedia languages with 5 contributors in the first
month of their 'real' existence: en, he, fa, ast, be and tokipona. In
the second month this was reached by de, pl, fi, bg, ro, uk, ur. For
all other Wikipedias there was more difference between the time of
their first and their fifth user, although in reality there may be
some more because there might be non-registered users as well.

My own opinion is that a non-dead natural language with an ISO 639
code would in principle be okay for Wikipedia. There can of course be
exceptions, but to me at that moment the burden of proof lies with
those who disagree.

And gain, in case you missed it:

Looking at the statistics
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediansContributors.htm),
I find only 6 Wikipedia languages with 5 contributors in the first
month of their 'real' existence: en, he, fa, ast, be and tokipona. In
the second month this was reached by de, pl, fi, bg, ro, uk, ur. For
all other Wikipedias there was more difference between the time of
their first and their fifth user, although in reality there may be
some more because there might be non-registered users as well.

My own opinion is that a non-dead natural language with an ISO 639
code would in principle be okay for Wikipedia. There can of course be
exceptions, but to me at that moment the burden of proof lies with
those who disagree.

And again:

Looking at the statistics
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediansContributors.htm),
I find only 6 Wikipedia languages with 5 contributors in the first
month of their 'real' existence: en, he, fa, ast, be and tokipona. In
the second month this was reached by de, pl, fi, bg, ro, uk, ur. For
all other Wikipedias there was more difference between the time of
their first and their fifth user, although in reality there may be
some more because there might be non-registered users as well.

My own opinion is that a non-dead natural language with an ISO 639
code would in principle be okay for Wikipedia. There can of course be
exceptions, but to me at that moment the burden of proof lies with
those who disagree.

...

That leaves out for example the Spanish Wikipedia, the Chinese
WIkipedia, the Portuguese Wikipedia, and most notably THE JAPANESE
WIKIPEDIA!!!

Doesn't anybody notice that there are ONLY 5 LANGUAGES IN WIKITRAVEL
BECAUSE OF THIS VERY POLICY???

Such a policy is very dangerous, and will extremely limit the creation
of new Wikipedias, and with this there would be precedent to delete
existing Wikipedias with no content, which would make things much
worse!

mark


body:
Agreed. If there was easy access to statistics about how many articles
or users every Wiki had before they had a translated interface the way
there is to the statistics that Andre gave, I'd show them here and I'm
pretty sure they'd say something similar: that it is not a reasonable
expectation or requirement for a new Wikipedia.

--mark

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 18:21:32 -0500, Henry H. Tan-Tenn
<share2002nov at lomaji.com> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer ti 2004/11/1 EP 01:52 sia-kong:
>
> > Requiring a translated interface up-front might also be a good idea. It would
> > show that at least one person is very commited.
>
> Not necessarily.  It would probably only show that a language is lucky
> enough to have a Wikipedian who is somewhat familiar with the interface,
> or else someone with the know-how to install MediaWiki locally and play
> with it until she or he is sufficiently familiar with it to do the
> translation.
>
> Conceivably, however, a new language WP might be founded by _newly
> minted_ Wikipedians.  I was one such Wikipedian; I learned as I went and
> eventually translated most of zh-min-nan.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Wait, let me get this straight.

You think it makes sense to require 5 users pledged to start a Wiki
when our 3rd biggest Wiki, the Japanese Wikipedia, wouldn'tve met this
requirement itself, and the German Wikipedia would not have until its
second month of existance?

Requiring such reports will dangerously inhibit the growth of new
Wikipedias and will cause the rate of abandonment of new Wikis to
skyrocket. Plenty of people may be committed to translating articles
to their language, but you are adding heaps of new work that is just
going to make people less and less willing.

And regarding the fourth point, ARE YOU CRAZY!?!!!!?!!?!?! Turn off
the Wiki software do to "no or very little editing" in the past month?
These four criteria alone could put all of our existing, thriving
Wikipedias except for most of those with over 1000 articles and a
minority of those with under 1000 out of commission for a long time to
come! The Kannada Wikipedia for example is in an Indic language which
represents an area of much-needed growth for us, and is growing
steadily. However, the number of edits outside the MediaWiki namespace
per day is steadily decreasing, not due to people losing interest but
due to people having decided to make a couple of extreme contributions
per month instead of a hundred tiny ones.

If any of these measures get passed, the fork which I previously
mentioned and was serious about pursuing but not too enthusiastic
about will really become a priority and I will put lots of time and
effort into it, and it may well attract other Wikipedians shocked at
new linguistically-opressive policies.

These suggestions are dangerous to the very nature of Wikipedia as a whole!!!

node'

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 22:11:27 +0100, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>
> > --- Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> wrote:
> >>On Wikitravel, this is the deal:
> >>     1. There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki.
> >>     2. There needs to be one contact person for the new wiki.
> >>     3. The contact person has to make a monthly report about the state
> >>        of the wiki: what's been happening, advances, debates, changes
> >>        in policy or guidelines, etc.
> >>     4. If there's no or very little editing on the wiki for a month, or
> >>        if the reports stop coming in, or if generally the thing just
> >>        starts winding down, the wiki goes inactive. We turn off the
> >>        wiki software, and make the content available in case someone
> >>        else wants to use it.
>
> > Requiring a translated interface up-front might also be a good idea. It would
> > show that at least one person is very commited.
>
> Not necessarily. It could be done during the founding period. It's
> definitely more fun to work on the interface when already the first
> contributions happen than to do all the work alone beforehand.
>
> Evan's four points sound very sensible to me, especially the point with
> the contact person and the reports. From some of our wikis we know
> exactly nothing or hear only from them when serious problems appear. A
> short monthly report would be very helpful there.
>
> I put this stuff on the agenda for the next public board meeting:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda
>
> greetings,
> elian
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Yes, and that is why Wikipedia has something like 50 or 75 Wikipedias
with over 1000 articles, but you folks at Wikitravel only have 5
DIFFERENT LANGUAGES TOTAL!

If you guys are truly concerned about internationalism, it might be a
good idea to rethink policy a bit. If you''re not willing to change
things completely, you could at least change the numbers from 5
contributors to 4 or 3 or 2, and require less detail in reports, and
not closing down any Wiki if it has upwards of a cewrtai number of
articles.

Of course, if you guys enjoy having only a couple languages all from
rich Western European nations, I won't try to change your preferences.

mark

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 13:34:37 -0500, Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 13:34 +0000, Rowan Collins wrote:
>
> > As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
> > bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
> > is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
> > speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
> > indication.
>
> On Wikitravel, this is the deal:
>
>      1. There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki.
>      2. There needs to be one contact person for the new wiki.
>      3. The contact person has to make a monthly report about the state
>         of the wiki: what's been happening, advances, debates, changes
>         in policy or guidelines, etc.
>      4. If there's no or very little editing on the wiki for a month, or
>         if the reports stop coming in, or if generally the thing just
>         starts winding down, the wiki goes inactive. We turn off the
>         wiki software, and make the content available in case someone
>         else wants to use it.
>
> ~ESP
>
> --
> Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Whatever the bad moments,
	don't forget to have fun on Wikipedia

body:
Local association = Wikimedia France

To create an association, a minimum of interested people must be willing
to make a group and work together.

There is not really a big enough group to work on the occitan wikipedia,
let alone to create and maintain a legal structure.

Ant

As for alternative logos, the french wikipedia has been using them from
time to time all along 2004.
Though a few people complain sometimes, it is generally accepted, and in
majority supported.
The main argument against is that it could be a challenge to NPOV.
This argument fades as long as we may propose logos for various events
(for example, various religious big events).

Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> wait, what do you mean by "new local associations"? If you mean
> regional Wikipedia groups in France and elsewhere in the
> French-speaking world...
>
> http://br.wikipedia.org/ http://oc.wikipedia.org/
> http://wa.wikipedia.org/ http://ca.wikipedia.org/
> http://als.wikipedia.org/ http://lu.wikipedia.org/
> http://ht.wikipedia.org/ http://mg.wikipedia.org/ ...and other
> languages spoken along with French in parts of the Francophonie (I'm
> not sure what else I should add to the list)
>
> Many smaller Wikipedias have a problem with awareness, and those
> capable of editing them may be editing a different Wikipedia in
> complete ignorance of their existance.
>
> mark
>
> On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:39:12 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I have no problem with halloween decorations, but is it even
>>widespread in France, other than perhaps due to recent
>>internationalism?
>>
>>I know that in the US, many people find halloween offensive because
>>they believe it's satanic (ha!), and for that reason I would not
>>advocate using a halloween theme on en.wikipedia; however this might
>>be different in the francophonie.
>>
>>mw
>>
>>
>>
>>On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:34:38 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Two years ago, the french wikipedia celebrated its
>>>upgrading on phase III software.
>>>We spent the day hunting bugs, fixing user accounts
>>>and generally making everything work again.
>>>
>>>Two years later, we celebrate a rather happy time.
>>>
>>>Little vandalism, no conflict, nearly 60 000 articles,
>>>new local associations, as well as pumpkins and
>>>cooking art on
>>>
>>>http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recettes_du_mois#Octobre_2004
>>>
>>>(for all those complaining, we also celebrate
>>>Christmas, end of Ramadan, Carnaval and any other nice
>>>special days you can think of)
>>>
>>>Happy Halloween to Kira as well ;-)
>>>
>>>__________________________________
>>>Do you Yahoo!?
>>>Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
>>>http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>
>>


body:
> > The problem is that to do that, I need to be able to write a press
> > release in the target language.
>
> Which is, of course, another reason we need at least one dedicated,
> fluent, user to support and nurture any new Wikipedia.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Even plenty of thriving Wikipedias
have no mention of them in the press and a couple are actually trying
to keep things quiet until they gradually grow a bit bigger to avoid
sudden influxes of vandalism and inexperienced users.

Many of those that *do* have mentions in the press do not have them
because of press releases or contacts between journalists and
Wikipedians, but rather because the journalist simply happened upon
the site and mentioned it.

> As for what is wrong with an abandoned Wikipedia, they become a haven
> for vandalism, spam, and generally undesirable content. I seem to
> remember hearing about a language where the entire content of the wiki
> appeared to be essentially gibberish, and not the language of that WP
> at all.

As regards vandalism, spam, and generally undesirable content: that is
why I and others in a small group of users dedicated to a good
multilingual international reputation for Wikipedia and to quality
patrol such Wikipedias at least once a month to check for vandalism,
and sometimes vandalism and spam is actually caught much sooner,
sometimes within minutes of its posting. (for example, iu: or arc: get
visited less frequently than yi:)

As regards the Nauruan Wikipedia, that actually took place UNDER THE
WATCH OF TWO DEDICATED USERS - IN FACT, THEY WERE THE ONES
PERPETRATING THE FRAUD. They requested technical favours in public
places from devs, and the community knew about the new Wikipedia and I
for one was happy until I discovered loads of months later it was in
the wrong language.

I'm not sure but I think dz:, so far edited by 3 or 4 registered users
and a few other anons, has the same problem (for one, ttbomk Dzongkha
is written exclusively in U Can)

> The problem is therefore that as soon as you create a new wiki, it is
> instantly and permanently editable by all, so if you're community
> dries up, there is a risk that it will just be abused, with no-one to
> look after it. That doesn't really equate to loss of resources, but it
> does dilute the Wikimedia "brand" - can you imagine what a field day
> our detractors would have if it was revealed that there are a dozen
> "translations" of Wikipedia that contained nothing but garbage and
> spam? [I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying that this is
> the risk we are weighing up here.]

If we create 102020202020202 new Wikipedias, this may be a problem,
but for just the creation of two or three Wikipedias, it isn't.
Currently, the rate of "taking off" for previously barren Wikipedias
is higher than the rate of creation of new subdomains, and thus the
number of barren spaces to monitor is staying the same or even
decreasing.

> As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
> bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
> is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
> speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
> indication.  Perhaps, instead, we need some kind of "enthusiasm test",
> to show that the user(s) starting it is/are going to dedicate time to
> getting it off the ground, not just in terms of seeding the content,
> but also recruiting the community. I'm not saying we should make
> language creation some hideously complex process and put off anyone
> who's a little bit nervous, but perhaps some clear guidelines of what
> creating an effective new wiki involves, and a confirmation that there
> is somebody willing to undertake that process.

We already have guidelines for creating effective new Wikis, but
they're IMHO pretty sucky and according to my experience are wrong,
wrong, all wrong.

mark


from_name: Henry H. Tan-Tenn

body:
Daniel Mayer ti 2004/11/1 EP 01:52 sia-kong:

> Requiring a translated interface up-front might also be a good idea. It would
> show that at least one person is very commited.

Not necessarily.  It would probably only show that a language is lucky
enough to have a Wikipedian who is somewhat familiar with the interface,
or else someone with the know-how to install MediaWiki locally and play
with it until she or he is sufficiently familiar with it to do the
translation.

Conceivably, however, a new language WP might be founded by _newly
minted_ Wikipedians.  I was one such Wikipedian; I learned as I went and
eventually translated most of zh-min-nan.


body:
Sure, but even a couple of new users are appreciated.

As for the logos - perhaps most of the challengers are concerned
because it goes against their own POV, and when their own POV is
included as well, they are silenced. However this is hardly NPOV.

anyhow, I personally think that, POV or not, it is harmless and
basically a non-issue until there are large organisations accusing
fr.wikipedia of worshipping Satan or something rediculous like that
because of this.

--mark

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 18:13:31 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Local association = Wikimedia France
>
> To create an association, a minimum of interested people must be willing
> to make a group and work together.
>
> There is not really a big enough group to work on the occitan wikipedia,
> let alone to create and maintain a legal structure.
>
> Ant
>
> As for alternative logos, the french wikipedia has been using them from
> time to time all along 2004.
> Though a few people complain sometimes, it is generally accepted, and in
> majority supported.
> The main argument against is that it could be a challenge to NPOV.
> This argument fades as long as we may propose logos for various events
> (for example, various religious big events).
>
> Mark Williamson a ?crit:
>
>
> > wait, what do you mean by "new local associations"? If you mean
> > regional Wikipedia groups in France and elsewhere in the
> > French-speaking world...
> >
> > http://br.wikipedia.org/ http://oc.wikipedia.org/
> > http://wa.wikipedia.org/ http://ca.wikipedia.org/
> > http://als.wikipedia.org/ http://lu.wikipedia.org/
> > http://ht.wikipedia.org/ http://mg.wikipedia.org/ ...and other
> > languages spoken along with French in parts of the Francophonie (I'm
> > not sure what else I should add to the list)
> >
> > Many smaller Wikipedias have a problem with awareness, and those
> > capable of editing them may be editing a different Wikipedia in
> > complete ignorance of their existance.
> >
> > mark
> >
> > On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:39:12 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>I have no problem with halloween decorations, but is it even
> >>widespread in France, other than perhaps due to recent
> >>internationalism?
> >>
> >>I know that in the US, many people find halloween offensive because
> >>they believe it's satanic (ha!), and for that reason I would not
> >>advocate using a halloween theme on en.wikipedia; however this might
> >>be different in the francophonie.
> >>
> >>mw
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:34:38 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>Two years ago, the french wikipedia celebrated its
> >>>upgrading on phase III software.
> >>>We spent the day hunting bugs, fixing user accounts
> >>>and generally making everything work again.
> >>>
> >>>Two years later, we celebrate a rather happy time.
> >>>
> >>>Little vandalism, no conflict, nearly 60 000 articles,
> >>>new local associations, as well as pumpkins and
> >>>cooking art on
> >>>
> >>>http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recettes_du_mois#Octobre_2004
> >>>
> >>>(for all those complaining, we also celebrate
> >>>Christmas, end of Ramadan, Carnaval and any other nice
> >>>special days you can think of)
> >>>
> >>>Happy Halloween to Kira as well ;-)
> >>>
> >>>__________________________________
> >>>Do you Yahoo!?
> >>>Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
> >>>http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>>
> >>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: What a crook

body:
Ouch -- my sincere apology to everyone for having accidentally sent to
wikitech a totally irrelvant message.  It was meant for a friend.

Henry H. Tan-Tenn ti 2004/10/31 EP 01:07 sia-kong:

/deleted/


body:
Evan Prodromou a ?crit:
> On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 13:34 +0000, Rowan Collins wrote:
>
>
>>As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
>>bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
>>is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
>>speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
>>indication.
>
>
> On Wikitravel, this is the deal:
>
>      1. There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki.
>      2. There needs to be one contact person for the new wiki.
>      3. The contact person has to make a monthly report about the state
>         of the wiki: what's been happening, advances, debates, changes
>         in policy or guidelines, etc.
>      4. If there's no or very little editing on the wiki for a month, or
>         if the reports stop coming in, or if generally the thing just
>         starts winding down, the wiki goes inactive. We turn off the
>         wiki software, and make the content available in case someone
>         else wants to use it.
>
> ~ESP

I agree with these 4 points.
In particular, the last point seems relevant to me.

Ant


body:
On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 10:52 -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> --- Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> wrote:
> > On Wikitravel, this is the deal:
> > [...]
>
> Requiring a translated interface up-front might also be a good idea. It would
> show that at least one person is very commited.

Heh... that is in fact one of the requirements. It's not as hard for
Wikitravel as for Wikimedia projects, though, since so many languages
already have working interface files in MediaWiki. It's mostly making
changes for our license/site-name/etc.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou                  .O.
http://bad.dynu.ca/~evan/       ..O
evan at bad.dynu.ca                OOO


from_name: Joel Wiesmann

subject: [Wikitech-l] Deactivate Cache for a site

body:
Hi there

I've coded a calendar which I can include in any wikipage. Now there's just
one problem: the calendar has a function, that allows to "change date". So
I can click on an arrow, to go to the next month. Really cool I thought..
but the problem is, that it won't change as long as I don't do a
shift-reload (the informations are passed by 2 GET-variables and I catch
them with $wgRequest->getVars). I suppose that's the caching-function :/.
Now is there a way, to force a refresh of the cache? Or even deactivate it
for a wikipage?

I'm using the latest stable mediawiki out of the box - I did no special
configuration to the caching feature. I've implemented the calendar the
same way, as the TOC or CURRENTMONTH were implemented.

Regards
Joel


from_name: Stephen Forrest

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day and month names

body:
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 17:21:29 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> For month names, day names, and the like, AFAIK that is indeed your only option.
>
> On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:48:32 +0100, James R. Johnson
> <modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> >             I was recently asked on the Anglo-Saxon wiki if we could put the
> > day and month names into Anglo-Saxon, but the only way I know of to do this
> > is through the LanguageAng.php file.is there another way, or do I have to
> > have that file installed by someone?

If this is the case, then as another contributor to the Anglo-Saxon
wikipedia I would add my voice to that of James to request this
customisation file be installed.

I understand this requires the resources of a volunteer developer.
While I realize that the creation of ang.wikipedia.org generated some
controversy, as Old English is a dead language, I have been quite
impressed with the its growth since James announced its existence on
the Forum for Composition in Old English mailing list: over the last
month we've written 113 articles, on a variety of subjects, largely
ones outside the historical Anglo-Saxon world.  There are 20 users,
with perhaps 4-5 highly active ones.

If this customisation isn't regarded as being worthy of developer
resources, I would tentatively be willing to attempt it myself, as I'm
quite familiar with CVS, PHP, and a UNIX shell environment.  (I say
'tentatively' because I'm not sure how much of my time would be
required in learning the system and/or proving I'm sufficiently
trustworthy and competent to be given developer priveleges).

Thanks,

Steve


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>If any of these measures get passed, the fork which I previously
>mentioned and was serious about pursuing but not too enthusiastic
>about will really become a priority and I will put lots of time and
>effort into it, and it may well attract other Wikipedians shocked at
>new linguistically-opressive policies.
>
Probably the right thing for you to do anyway, so that you're putting
in some real effort of your own, instead of telling everybody else
how they should be spending their time. Speaking as someone who's
dealt with forks and the threat of forks in the past, I think you'll
find that it's a lot of trouble; if you can't find five people to
work on language WPs, you're not going to find the resources to
keep a fork going either. But some people need to learn by doing,
and the creation of the fork will be a valuable learning experience
for you.

Stan


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> wrote:
>>On Wikitravel, this is the deal:
>>     1. There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki.
>>     2. There needs to be one contact person for the new wiki.
>>     3. The contact person has to make a monthly report about the state
>>        of the wiki: what's been happening, advances, debates, changes
>>        in policy or guidelines, etc.
>>     4. If there's no or very little editing on the wiki for a month, or
>>        if the reports stop coming in, or if generally the thing just
>>        starts winding down, the wiki goes inactive. We turn off the
>>        wiki software, and make the content available in case someone
>>        else wants to use it.

> Requiring a translated interface up-front might also be a good idea. It would
> show that at least one person is very commited.

Not necessarily. It could be done during the founding period. It's
definitely more fun to work on the interface when already the first
contributions happen than to do all the work alone beforehand.

Evan's four points sound very sensible to me, especially the point with
the contact person and the reports. From some of our wikis we know
exactly nothing or hear only from them when serious problems appear. A
short monthly report would be very helpful there.

I put this stuff on the agenda for the next public board meeting:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda

greetings,
elian


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day and month names

body:
Hello,

            I was recently asked on the Anglo-Saxon wiki if we could put the
day and month names into Anglo-Saxon, but the only way I know of to do this
is through the LanguageAng.php file.is there another way, or do I have to
have that file installed by someone?

Thanks,

James

http://ang.wikipedia.org <http://ang.wikipedia.org/>


from_name: N Niedermowwe

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: amount of available (LA)TEX commands in
	<math>-formulas

body:
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 02:17:36AM -0800, Peter Danenberg wrote:
> > > How and why are the commands limited anyway ?
> >
> >
> >      Different  security  models:  Texvc's "white list" sup-
> > ports only which commands as have explicitly  been  compiled
> > in;  WikiTeX' "black list", on the other hand, excludes dan-
> > gerous commands.
>

Is there a webpage where texvc's white and wikitex's black list are
on display so that I know what possiblities there are at the moment?

> Please prepare the list of safe symbols missing from texvc's whitelist
> if you want them added.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tracking progress

body:
I was wondering if there were some way for the anglo-saxon wiki to have its
growth tracked, as it's already gotten 113 articles in about 2 weeks.

Thanks,

James


body:
On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 18:06 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:

> Yes, and that is why Wikipedia has something like 50 or 75 Wikipedias
> with over 1000 articles, but you folks at Wikitravel only have 5
> DIFFERENT LANGUAGES TOTAL!

Yeah, and we're fine with it. Administering dozens of empty, unused wiki
instances isn't really a big goal for me. Making the wikis that we do
have running into healthy communities creating great content is much
more important.

But if you're interested in making some points about it, it's probably
better to discuss it on the Wikitravel site itself:

    http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Language_version_policy

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou                  .O.
http://bad.dynu.ca/~evan/       ..O
evan at bad.dynu.ca                OOO


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tracking progress

body:
Hi,

James R. Johnson wrote:
> I was wondering if there were some way for the anglo-saxon wiki to have its
> growth tracked, as it's already gotten 113 articles in about 2 weeks.

What do you mean by tracking growth? I find a {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} on
its main page, this can be used for it.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Meta-Wiki 1.3.7 + Enotif 1.33 ???

body:
Dear developers - to whom it may concern -

I would be very happy if someone would be courageous to carefully apply
my email notification patch to the Meta-Wiki. I don't know, what the
initials "wm" stand for in the version "1.3.7wm", but perhaps the "wm"
changes are marginal (I don't know).

Thus, you *could* perhaps simply change the running "1.3.7wm" version
against my "mw137+en133" code (or better, copy the mw137+en133 OVER the
existing directory, which keeps the existing upload/images directories).
In any case, I am really looking forward, if the Meta-Wiki runs - at
least for a while and for test purposes - the Enotif code.

What do you all think about that proposal ? Okay, I might be "pushy".
Why not, look what Stanislaw Jerzy Lec said:  "In order to get to the
source you have to swim against the stream."   -  "Um an die Quelle zu
kommen, muss man gegen den Strom schwimmen."

The patch is *really* worth and robust enough to try it once
medium-scale on the Meta-Wiki.

Tom
Berlin


subject: [Foundation-l] Creation of new projects

body:
Since the issue was raised several times, and since
there is an open board meeting which will deal with
this topic among others, I drafted a policy about new
projects on meta.

Please see

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

This is naturally open to discussion, suggestions
etc...

I hope it constitute a base for next week end meeting
on irc.

Reminder : A meeting with the board will be held on
November 6 at 20:00 UTC in the #wikimedia IRC channel.
This meeting will be open to everyone, and a log will
be published on Meta.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Creation of new projects


body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> Sure, but even a couple of new users are appreciated.

Of course Mark.
But just a couple of new users can't create an association.
One need a community of a certain size to start a legal organisation.

> As for the logos - perhaps most of the challengers are concerned
> because it goes against their own POV, and when their own POV is
> included as well, they are silenced. However this is hardly NPOV.
>
> anyhow, I personally think that, POV or not, it is harmless and
> basically a non-issue until there are large organisations accusing
> fr.wikipedia of worshipping Satan or something rediculous like that
> because of this.
>
> --mark

Worshipping satan... (anthere is having a perplex gaze here...)

Well, that would not be worse/ridiculous than large organisations
accusing en.wikipedia of being nazipedia I guess.


body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?

Mark, we know this is very important to you, but would you consider
keeping cool please ? :-)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiteer

body:
I've added a proposal for Wikiteer.  Please add your name in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikiteer if
you're interested in working on this project.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiteer


from_name: shizhao

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Usage Statistics Don't work

body:
Since October 19, all Usage Statisticses of projects do not work, why?

see http://wikimedia.org/stats/zh.wikipedia.org/usage_200410.html

[[zh:user:shizhao]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to deal with new projects

body:
Over the last few months, there have been several requests for the
creation of wikipedias. There are good arguments on both sides why you
want more projects and why you do not want new projects. Several
"solutions" to this problem have been proposed.

Arguments for:
*It stimulates a language when a project is active in the language.
*People can develop their talent to write in this language that is often
not native to them.

Arguments against:
*Many dormant project have been used to enter content that had nothing
to do with the purpose of that project; the it:wiktionary and the
Nauruan wikipedia come to mind (the word Nauruose is still used because
of this faulty content :(  )
*It requires time to set up a project, time from a developper, and as
they are volunteers too, nobody can make them create projects they think
has little merit.

In the past several "solutions" have been proposed:
*If it has a ISO 639 code, it can have a project .. This does not solve
the problem of squatters when there is little intrest. It still takes
developper time to set up
*A certain number of contributors have to be found up front .. History
proves that many of our greatest projects would not have existed it they
had to suffer under this same rule.
*If a certain amount of words have been created for that language in a
Wiktionary, it shows that there is an interest for that language.
*No activity for an extended period means that a project is saved/locked
to prevent squatters and vandals.

*Having a project for each language that has a ISO 639 code is NPOV,
there are many "dead" languages in there like Ancient Greek and many
languages that are so fractured that there is not even a standard
spelling for that language like li Limburgian for instance.
*Having all these contributors up front would be a big block, history
has proven that many thriving projects started from small beginnings. We
are, and should be really happy with all active projects that grow and
maintain their integrity.
*If a list is compiled of words and phrases that are needed for a
localised interface in that language, there would be an objective
criterium; when these words are created in a wiktionary, it would be
usefull for the setup of a project in that language. Even if the list is
not finished, it has merit as it adds content to the wiktionaries.
*Locking a project to prevent vandalism when there is no activity for a
set period of time is really helpfull. When a project attrackts new
contributors and it has been extensively vandalised or abused, it drives
them away as the new contributors do not have the necessary admin rights
to remedy things. No activity means to me that one admin/moderator is
not checking the project for a week. A script CAN be created to check
for this. The project can be reactivated when an admin signs on to the
project, this can be done with a script as well.

My proposal:
Stop having these discussions about what language is worthwhile create a
defendable procedure and have it on META. A language is a language is a
language. When someone wants to de "Elfish" or Klingon, no skin of our
nose. As long as there is continued development. Having a hurdle before
a project can be started is fine; but having a hurdle that is positive
and has an objective merit makes it less debatable. I am partial to
Wiktionary, but I do not mind helping with the creation of a list of
required words in a language before a new project is started. I am also
willing to help the new contributor(s) filling this content. The benefit
of hosting it on the nl: fr: it: wiktionary is that it is possible to
share content among multiple wiktionaries without too much trouble.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Matthias Pospiech

subject: [Wikitech-l] Which Mediawiki for own development ?

body:
We are interested to test Mediawiki and to include some code similar to
texwiki. Now, this requires to have the code - but which is the best base ?
The stable branch, or the 1.4 dev branch, but how stable ist that one
allready ? And how can one get it ?
Additionally it would be great to have the source of texwiki, so that we can
see if it makes sence to enchance that system or to build another tex-wiki
implementation.

However if texwiki should be implemented in the same way as texvc, which
this strange 'ocaml' language, it would mean that we would have to create
another implementation anyway...

The aim of the project would be to have the base system to create a
community site for TeX/LaTeX users. People who would be working on it are
from that community itsself.

Matthias

---------------------------------
www.matthiaspospiech.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Day and month names

body:
On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 10:54:58 +0100, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:

> Translations are added by developpers, they can't be customized.
>
> Here is the list of data that need to be translated (I am not sure what
> are the "-gen" ending strings for):

The appropriate translations for these already exist in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageAng.php.  (However, they're in
a PHP array $wgAllMessagesAng, rather than the more specific arrays
like $wgWeekdayNamesAng; I'm not sure if that's significant.)

However, not all of LanguageAng.php is translated, and what isn't is
in German, so I wouldn't like to see that go live exactly as is now.

Steve


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>>>The problem is that to do that, I need to be able to write a press
>>>release in the target language.
>>>
>>>
>>Which is, of course, another reason we need at least one dedicated,
>>fluent, user to support and nurture any new Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>That makes no sense whatsoever. Even plenty of thriving Wikipedias
>have no mention of them in the press and a couple are actually trying
>to keep things quiet until they gradually grow a bit bigger to avoid
>sudden influxes of vandalism and inexperienced users.
>

One point that you appear to miss is that speakers of other languages,
including native American languages, don't like it when Anglos talk down
to them from their pedestal.  It's an offence to their pride.  When they
are ready to move they will do so, and not any earlier.  In the meantime
all we can validly do is to keep them casually informed of the available
resources.

Ec


body:
Notice I said " 50 to 75 Wikipedias with over 1000 articles ", not "
50 to 75 Wikipedias total ".

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 23:24:17 -0500, Evan Prodromou <evan at bad.dynu.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-01-11 at 18:06 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > Yes, and that is why Wikipedia has something like 50 or 75 Wikipedias
> > with over 1000 articles, but you folks at Wikitravel only have 5
> > DIFFERENT LANGUAGES TOTAL!
>
> Yeah, and we're fine with it. Administering dozens of empty, unused wiki
> instances isn't really a big goal for me. Making the wikis that we do
> have running into healthy communities creating great content is much
> more important.
>
> But if you're interested in making some points about it, it's probably
> better to discuss it on the Wikitravel site itself:
>
>     http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Language_version_policy
>
>
>
> ~ESP
>
> --
> Evan Prodromou                  .O.
> http://bad.dynu.ca/~evan/       ..O
> evan at bad.dynu.ca                OOO
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
How exactly am I telling others how they should be spending their time?

Chances are I would spend more time getting people situated at the
Friulian Wikipedia than anybody on this list would.

Oh, wait, I just found this quote: "You guys should all do hard labour
for the benifit of Wikipedia, while I sit home and veg out on the
couch!"

Oh wait, that's not a real quote.

I have worked hard to get small and new Wikipedias up and running.

I have sent e-mails, helped people every step of the way in some
cases, made logos, watched for vandalism, and have requested new
Wikipedias for people, scn: having been (so far) a success.

If you think I go around selecting random languages to request new
Wikipedias for, then you are very very very wrong. Before I do
anything like that, I make sure there is at least one potential
contributor, and preferrably more or some community involvement.

Regarding forks: you may have dealt with forks and the threat of forks
before, but have you ever dealt with the threat of new policy which
completely goes against what you think Wikipedia stands for? Whatever
it is you like about Wikipedia, if all of a sudden that was taken and
totally reversed, I think there's a very good chance you would start a
fork or defect to an already-existing one.

Even if I can find no people to help with a fork, I can do it myself.
It may not be as easy that way, but when drastic changes to policy are
threatened, sometimes drastic measures have to be taken to ensure a
continued healthy multilingual environment.

mark

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 21:47:02 -0800, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >If any of these measures get passed, the fork which I previously
> >mentioned and was serious about pursuing but not too enthusiastic
> >about will really become a priority and I will put lots of time and
> >effort into it, and it may well attract other Wikipedians shocked at
> >new linguistically-opressive policies.
> >
> Probably the right thing for you to do anyway, so that you're putting
> in some real effort of your own, instead of telling everybody else
> how they should be spending their time. Speaking as someone who's
> dealt with forks and the threat of forks in the past, I think you'll
> find that it's a lot of trouble; if you can't find five people to
> work on language WPs, you're not going to find the resources to
> keep a fork going either. But some people need to learn by doing,
> and the creation of the fork will be a valuable learning experience
> for you.
>
> Stan
>
>


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Broken articles in the database of cs: Wikipedia

body:
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 06:42:53 +0100, Jens Frank <jeluf at gmx.de> wrote:
> Done.

Thanks.
[[cs:User:Mormegil|Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: byron gamildien

subject: [WikiEN-l] NSK

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:54:21 +0800
 John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> How are you hurt if you don't come out and admit you
> don't edit Wikipedia much, if at all? We won't hurt you.
> We're just curious. We aren't judging your proposals
> based on who they're coming from, but if they sound
> ridiculous, then the way we look at them does depend on
> who you are. If it was, say, any known active Wikipedian,
> then we'd know for sure that something has to be
> corrected. But musings from someone who is not active on
> Wikipedia are likely to be way off.
>
>  From your postings, I think we've already established
> you aren't an
> active editor - that's okay with me. But you should know
> that trying to cover this up will only hurt your
> reputation instead of enhancing it.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
> NSK wrote:
>
> >On Wednesday 27 October 2004 03:24, Delirium wrote:
> >
> >
> >>it's natural that your ideas
> >>will be treated more skeptically than those of someone
> who is
> >>demostrably familiar with the community
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Hi,
> >
> >I think it would be a good idea if people could examine
> ideas and decide on their usefulness without considering
> who proposed these ideas.
> >
> >Consider for example that it is possible that a
> well-known community member may say something wrong and a
> newcomer can say something useful.
> >
> >So, although some people may be somewhat sceptical
> seeing a non-familiar name in their To: headers, they
> should examine the ideas and not the poster; or at least
> this is my opinion.
> >thanks a lot for the constructive criticism.i will take
heed of all of it.sorry if any of my ideas pissed anyone
off.since i am not a regular wikipedian i think i will shut
my mouth in future.
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

______________________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:57:16 +0200
 Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> NSK a ?crit:
>
> > Wikipedia is the largest wiki and I think its mailing
> lists are useful for
> > general discussion and not only just WP.
>
>
> Apology to interfere here. But no.
> This mailing list is meant to discuss Wikimedia
> Foundation issues.
>
> If you wish to discuss using mediawiki for your site,
> head to wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
> If you wish to discuss links with wikipedia, please
> discuss on wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
>
> If you wish to discuss your wiki projects only, please
> create your own mailing lists.
>
> We wish that lists are used according to what they are
> meant for.
>
> Thanks for this.
>
> Anthere
> thanks for the advice.will do.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

______________________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:24:39 +0200
 Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Angela reminded me today we had agreed on an open board
> meeting early november.
>
> So... Here it is.
>
> You are warmly welcome in #wikimedia for a tea-party (or
> a brunch, or an after-dinner liquor, just pick up
> depending on your time-zone).
>
>
> Date : Saturday the 6th of november
> Hour : 20 UTC
> Place : irc.freenode.net#wikimedia
> Who : everyone interested in wikimedia projects future
> (trolls not welcome though)
> Why : brainstorming session on the future
> Topic : see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda
> Outcome : Great hopefully.
>
> Log will be published on Meta.
> thanks for the invite
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

______________________________________________________________
http://www.webmail.co.za the South African FREE email service


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion as POV

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 04:24:21 -0700
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Nicholas Knight wrote:
>
> > Mark Richards wrote:
> >
> >> You're right, the majority of users find obscure maths
> >> and computing subjects more interesting than real
> places.
> >
> > I *would* like to emphasize the point Mark is making
> here, and add to
> > it: Finding solid, *accurate* information online about
> technical
> > subjects is *incredibly* easy in comparison to finding
> information
> > about real places that aren't ultra-famous and other
> non-technical
> > subjects.
> >
> > If I'm looking for information on a technical subject,
> I head to
> > google, and only look to Wikipedia if it turns out to
> be hard to find
> > (at which point Wikipedia doesn't usually have any
> useful information
> > on it, but sometimes I get lucky).
> >
> > If I'm looking for information on a country or a
> person, I go straight
> > to Wikipedia. It usually has enough to get me started,
> at least. If it
> > had information on every local school in the world,
> it'd be even more
> > useful.
>
> A fascinating perspective.  The "Guinness Book of World
> Records" is one of the most popular books ever, and yet
> it's full of nothing but trivia.  "Ripley's Believe It or
> Not" was in the same league, and, in the 19th century,
> "Haydn's Dictionary of Dates".  That should tell us
> something.  At one time some people wanted to delete the
> multitude of lists found on Wikipedia, but these have
> enormously attractive powers.
> There is more to an encyclopedia then stuffy narratives.
>  If we're lucky it may even have the information we're
> looking for.
>
> Ec
> all right how much more must i get insulted for my
mistake?when am i going to be forgiven?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

______________________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikijunior - Wikispecies, Mk 2?

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 04:37:21 -0700
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Just a thought... I think setting up an approval voting
> limit at simple majority to conclude a project is
> supported does not strike me as being  a consensual
> decision.
> >>
> >>I think we still need to think better how to
> start/decide new projects.
> >>
> >>
> >Yes, simple majority is *not* an acceptable level of
> support. We work by
> >consensus here and thus must develop proposals that a
> supermajority of people
> >support. If only a simple majority supports something,
> then we must go back to
> >the people who voted against the issue and ask what else
> needs to be done to
> >change their minds.
> >
> A simple majority often gives us a majority of the
> simple.
>
> A bare simple majority can be a symptom of a divided
> community.  I don't know if going back to "change their
> minds" is the right approach.  That as often results in
> people digging in their heels.  Even "supermajority"
> drags in the language of a system based on divisiveness.
>  The minority needs to be brought into the decision, and
> made to feel that they are a part of it irrespective of
> their earlier position.  It often means that the majority
> opinion still needs to be modified.
>
> Ec
> the type of voting you are talking about involves
millions of people.whether it is fair or not i will have to
think about.good luck in trying to implement your idea.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

______________________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Interwiki Cooperation; NSK

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:18:51 +1000
 David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> NSK (nsk2 at wikinerds.org) [041027 10:11]:
> > On Tuesday 26 October 2004 22:26, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > > what was your Wikipedia username again?
>
> > The reason I have not answered that question is because
> it was first asked by
> > a person who offended me ("as faulty as your logic", 23
> October 2004).
>
>
> Therefore it can never be asked again by anyone else
> ever? I used to have a
> girlfriend like that. Used to.
>
>
> > That said, I also don't understand why I need to answer
> this question. Is it
> > some kind of policy in Wikipedia to say your user names
> in emails? I notice
> > many people post without mentioning their usernames and
> I wonder why you
> > picked me specifically.
>
>
> Because I'm trying to work out how much credibility to
> assign to your
> radical and jarring ideas for the project.
>
>
> > > Do you in fact edit on Wikipedia at all?
>
> > Does it matter? I cannot understand why you ask this
> question. Are your
> > mailing lists restricted only to your members? I don't
> think so, because it
> > was very easy for me to register (if that's not the
> intended behaviour, you
> > need to configure your Mailman installation).
>
>
> It matters in terms of how seriously your suggestions are
> going to be
> taken. The reason I ask is to know whether you  have
> *any* experience of
> this wiki, the one you're advancing the ideas for. Your
> messages so far
> seem to indicate you don't actually understand much of
> Wikipedia culture;
> with a username, it would be possible to see what your
> edits are like, what
> you do and so on and get more of a handle on where you're
> coming from.
>
>
> > You can find me in many mailing lists or fora,
> including FSF-GNU/GNOME/CC/AMD,
>
>
> It's not a True Name thing (that being no secret), but
> your persona within
> Wikipedia - if any.
>
> The essential point I'm trying to get across is that
> you're starting from a
> position of no credibility. If that's fine by you, then
> continue as you
> are; however, if you wish to be taken seriously and (as I
> tried to explain
> before) your ideas gain traction, I suspect it won't be
> adequate.
>
>
> > and I am lurking on many other mailing lists and
> communities, while I have
> > also joined projects such as Drupal.org and
> OpenFormats.org and very soon I
> > will join KDE. Slashdot has published stories written
> by me (KDE/FSF's
> > WIWO...) and my karma there is Good. My university
> dissertation is on wikis.
> > I notice some people refer to me as "he/she" and I
> wonder whether they have
> > noticed who am I.
>
>
> Then surely you see what I meant about the phenomenon
> that although an
> outside perspective is good, you need to be able to
> explain it in insider
> terms for traction. Per project. This being not just any
> wiki, but the
> biggest by a long shot. Ask [[User:Kate Turner]] about
> the difference in
> feel between a small wiki and Wikipedia.
>
>
> > participate in your mailing lists as a representative
> of a friendly website
> > which seeks to have relations, cooperation and
> knowledge sharing with
> > Wikimedia. But if WMF does not wish to cooperate or
> thinks I am a
> > "competitor", then you can just say so and I will
> leave.
>
>
> I wouln't say that at all (speaking only for myself).
>
>
> > Finally, I would like to know how we can implement
> interwiki links to each
> > other and whether WMF is interested in this kind of
> linking.
>
>
> That would be a nice thing. At present it's largely
> hackable through
> templates in the 'External links' section of articles.
> you go brother,fight the good fight
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

______________________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Arbitration committe and content

body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:44:02 +0200
 "Jean-Christophe Chazalette"
<jean-christophe.chazalette at laposte.net> wrote:
> French Wikipedia has chosen to set up an arbitration
> committee by a vast
> majority of 85,24 % (pros 52 people, cons 9 people)
> during a poll that took
> place from sept.19 to oct. 24. There is now a second and
> last poll about the
> arbitration rules.
>
> Point 10 of the current poll offers people to vote for
> one of the following
> : "The arbitration does not relate on the relevance or
> the validity of the
> articles but only to individual behaviors (10.A)" or "the
> arbitration can
> relate with all the conflicts without distinction and can
> relate directly to
> the relevance or the validity of the articles (10.B)."
>
> There were in the past some serious edit wars about
> various topics or
> articles, often related to religion or eco-sciences.
>
> The current poll is expected  to last until nov. 7 and
> could lead to
> enforceable rules if at least 20 have voted.
>
> Now, I am told that the alternative 10.B is completely
> out of the line
> regarding wiki philosophy. An arbitration committee could
> never settled a
> dispute in giving a mandatory point of view regarding an
> article. That makes
> sense to me. But yet, 6 people voted in favor of 10.B.
>
> Anthere seems to see a very serious risk of "fork" here.
> Even if I support
> her point of view I'm wondering if it's not a big fuss
> out of a small thing.
> So in the same time I'm trying to make things clear on
> the French Village
> pump, I'd  like to have some feedback from everybody in
> the foundation,
> especially from the wiki veterans, not to mention Jimbo
> himself of course.
>
> Thanks.
>
> villy
>although i am new to the site and cnnot call myself a
wikipedian yet i agree with what you say and think it is a
very good idea.all the luck.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

______________________________________________________________
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body:
While I realise this is a potential problem, I have not run into it so far.

On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 09:16:43 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>
>
> >>>The problem is that to do that, I need to be able to write a press
> >>>release in the target language.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Which is, of course, another reason we need at least one dedicated,
> >>fluent, user to support and nurture any new Wikipedia.
> >>
> >>
> >That makes no sense whatsoever. Even plenty of thriving Wikipedias
> >have no mention of them in the press and a couple are actually trying
> >to keep things quiet until they gradually grow a bit bigger to avoid
> >sudden influxes of vandalism and inexperienced users.
> >
>
> One point that you appear to miss is that speakers of other languages,
> including native American languages, don't like it when Anglos talk down
> to them from their pedestal.  It's an offence to their pride.  When they
> are ready to move they will do so, and not any earlier.  In the meantime
> all we can validly do is to keep them casually informed of the available
> resources.
>
> Ec
>
>


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Day and month names

body:
James R. Johnson wrote:
> Hello,
>
>             I was recently asked on the Anglo-Saxon wiki if we could put the
> day and month names into Anglo-Saxon, but the only way I know of to do this
> is through the LanguageAng.php file.is there another way, or do I have to
> have that file installed by someone?
>
> Thanks,

Hello James,

Translations are added by developpers, they can't be customized.

Here is the list of data that need to be translated (I am not sure what
are the "-gen" ending strings for):

-------------->8-----------------------------------------------------
/* private */ $wgWeekdayNamesAng = array(
	'sunday', 'monday', 'tuesday', 'wednesday', 'thursday',
	'friday', 'saturday'
);

/* private */ $wgMonthNamesAng = array(
	'january', 'february', 'march', 'april', 'may_long', 'june',
	'july', 'august', 'september', 'october', 'november',
	'december'
);

/* private */ $wgMonthNamesGenAng = array(
	'january-gen', 'february-gen', 'march-gen', 'april-gen', 'may-gen',
'june-gen',
	'july-gen', 'august-gen', 'september-gen', 'october-gen', 'november-gen',
	'december-gen'
);

/* private */ $wgMonthAbbreviationsAng = array(
	'jan', 'feb', 'mar', 'apr', 'may', 'jun', 'jul', 'aug',
	'sep', 'oct', 'nov', 'dec'
);
-------------->8-----------------------------------------------------

Namespaces are translated in the LanguageXX.php file as well.

Once provided, a developper will create the LanguageAng.php file and
will make it available for all wikimedia websites.

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


body:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:26:57 -0700
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Jens Ropers wrote:
>
> > 3. You suspect that people dislike you and that they do
> so because
> > they somehow don't want you to have your own wikis.
> > Lemme put it like this:
> > Imagine some person travelled to the U.S. Now imagine
> that it turns
> > out that that person didn't actually come as an
> immigrant, and didn't
> > come to settle in and become a citizen of the country
> but rather
> > proceeded to lecture the citizens of the U.S. that the
> Declaration of
> > Independence and all these old handwritten papers were
> fundamentally
> > unimportant because all men are not created equal and
> actually,
> > certain people are per se inferior and not to be
> trusted and it is ok
> > to rape and murder them and plunder their houses,
> whereas others are
> > really not to be blamed of anything of any consequence,
> whatever
> > happens and, err... actually...
>
> To put this more starkly:  Imagine visiting a country
> that has a known reputation for human rights violation.
>  You meet with a small group of people and the
> conversation turns to the human rights situation where
> you have tremendous ideas about what THEY can do to
> improve things.  Some of the group show a great deal of
> enthusiasm about your proposals.  After the conversation
> ends you go to the airport and home.  You later receive a
> message that one of the people in the group was an
> incognito agent for the government who subsequently
> arranged for the arrest and re-education of some of the
> group.  What responsibility would you accept for that
> situation?
>
> Ec
> ok ok point taken
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day and month names

body:
I think I'll throw my $0.02 in. I regard this as quite an annoying
problem. The facts that
* every LanguageXx update requires a developer's action
* developers are generally very busy
* we have no developer on cs:
mean that "our" LanguageCs.php file in CVS is really outdated. I try
to regularly update/correct LanguageCs.php on meta, but this has no
effect (and [[meta:Requests for languageXX.php update]] is marked as
deprecated).

So I was thinking -- would it be possible to give a person some kind
of "language-maintainer", ("limited-developer") privileges? All that
would be required is write-access to the language subdirectories in
CVS and the language-specific wiki(es) or even only to the specific
LanguageXx.php and maybe some kind of possibility to reinitialize the
MediaWiki namespace (maybe through a little bit tweaked
rebuildMessages.php).

Any ideas, opinions, ...?

[[cs:User:Mormegil|Petr Kadlec]] (a sysop/bureaucrat on cs:)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Which Mediawiki for own development ?

body:
Matthias Pospiech wrote:
> We are interested to test Mediawiki and to include some code similar to
> texwiki. Now, this requires to have the code - but which is the best base ?
> The stable branch, or the 1.4 dev branch, but how stable ist that one
> allready ? And how can one get it ?

Hello Matthias,

To get the stable branch (1.3.7 actually):
   http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34373

Code for dev branch (known either as HEAD or 1.4) you will have to
connect to a source management system known as cvs. Some instructions
are available at:
   http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=34373

The dev branch include a lot of code rewrite and new features that might
corrupt existing database and or render the wiki unusable. It's not
recommended for any kind of production wiki. All (most?) developpers
have a working wiki installation running dev code and try to keep it
running :o)

<snip, I do not know enough about tex in MediaWiki :/ >

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 08:25:30 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
<gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Over the last few months, there have been several requests for the
> creation of wikipedias. There are good arguments on both sides why you
> want more projects and why you do not want new projects. Several
> "solutions" to this problem have been proposed.
>
> Arguments for:
> *It stimulates a language when a project is active in the language.
> *People can develop their talent to write in this language that is often
> not native to them.
>
> Arguments against:
> *Many dormant project have been used to enter content that had nothing
> to do with the purpose of that project; the it:wiktionary and the
> Nauruan wikipedia come to mind (the word Nauruose is still used because
> of this faulty content :(  )
> *It requires time to set up a project, time from a developper, and as
> they are volunteers too, nobody can make them create projects they think
> has little merit.
>
> In the past several "solutions" have been proposed:
> *If it has a ISO 639 code, it can have a project .. This does not solve
> the problem of squatters when there is little intrest. It still takes
> developper time to set up
> *A certain number of contributors have to be found up front .. History
> proves that many of our greatest projects would not have existed it they
> had to suffer under this same rule.
> *If a certain amount of words have been created for that language in a
> Wiktionary, it shows that there is an interest for that language.
> *No activity for an extended period means that a project is saved/locked
> to prevent squatters and vandals.
>
> *Having a project for each language that has a ISO 639 code is NPOV,
> there are many "dead" languages in there like Ancient Greek and many
> languages that are so fractured that there is not even a standard
> spelling for that language like li Limburgian for instance.
> *Having all these contributors up front would be a big block, history
> has proven that many thriving projects started from small beginnings. We
> are, and should be really happy with all active projects that grow and
> maintain their integrity.
> *If a list is compiled of words and phrases that are needed for a
> localised interface in that language, there would be an objective
> criterium; when these words are created in a wiktionary, it would be
> usefull for the setup of a project in that language. Even if the list is
> not finished, it has merit as it adds content to the wiktionaries.
> *Locking a project to prevent vandalism when there is no activity for a
> set period of time is really helpfull. When a project attrackts new
> contributors and it has been extensively vandalised or abused, it drives
> them away as the new contributors do not have the necessary admin rights
> to remedy things. No activity means to me that one admin/moderator is
> not checking the project for a week. A script CAN be created to check
> for this. The project can be reactivated when an admin signs on to the
> project, this can be done with a script as well.
>
> My proposal:
> Stop having these discussions about what language is worthwhile create a
> defendable procedure and have it on META. A language is a language is a
> language. When someone wants to de "Elfish" or Klingon, no skin of our
> nose. As long as there is continued development. Having a hurdle before
> a project can be started is fine; but having a hurdle that is positive
> and has an objective merit makes it less debatable. I am partial to
> Wiktionary, but I do not mind helping with the creation of a list of
> required words in a language before a new project is started. I am also
> willing to help the new contributor(s) filling this content. The benefit
> of hosting it on the nl: fr: it: wiktionary is that it is possible to
> share content among multiple wiktionaries without too much trouble.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. The Meta part I understand. This
is supposed to be the procedure as it is, but it's not very effective
and everything happens very
sllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly.

Let it be known that I don't mind hurdles as long as they are
extremely minor. Requiring one interested person who speaks the
language is what I am thinking. This means that I can't go say "OK,
I'm requesting a Wikipedia for Konkani" but have no people who are
interested/willing to contribute.

In addition, I'd like to request the replacement of arc: with syr:, or
at least the creation of syr:. There may not be anybody interested in
syr:, but arc: is the ancient version of syr: and has much much fewer
speakers, which would be akin to us having ang: but not en:. Of course
another possible solution would be to delete arc: entirely, but...

node


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Nov 2, 2004, at 10:57 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
[etc]

Mark, what I think people are not saying explicitly is that there's a
"boy who cried wolf" syndrome in effect here. Because the constant flow
of requests _comes from you_, those individual requests are not being
treated with the interest or respect they might be if they came from
other people.

Guilt by association is not cool, but the effect is real and it is
there. It's an ugly cycle, and we need to break out of it.

Instead of everybody flooding the mailing lists with a lot of petty
back-and-forth over many separate things, node could you please put
together a single list of the languages you'd like to see added? I'll
be happy to add those with individual ISO 639-1 or ISO 639-2 codes, as
is our traditional policy. Anything else needs to be looked at on a
case by case basis.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Anthere

body:
byron gamildien,

Hello,

Would you consider clarifying what you write in your name and where.

I am unable to deciphar what your message is in your 4 mails.

Anthere

byron gamildien a ?crit:
> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:18:51 +1000
>  David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>>NSK (nsk2 at wikinerds.org) [041027 10:11]:
>>
>>>On Tuesday 26 October 2004 22:26, David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>>>what was your Wikipedia username again?
>>>
>>>The reason I have not answered that question is because
>>
>>it was first asked by
>>
>>>a person who offended me ("as faulty as your logic", 23
>>
>>October 2004).
>>
>>
>>Therefore it can never be asked again by anyone else
>>ever? I used to have a
>>girlfriend like that. Used to.
>>
>>
>>
>>>That said, I also don't understand why I need to answer
>>
>>this question. Is it
>>
>>>some kind of policy in Wikipedia to say your user names
>>
>>in emails? I notice
>>
>>>many people post without mentioning their usernames and
>>
>>I wonder why you
>>
>>>picked me specifically.
>>
>> Because I'm trying to work out how much credibility to
>>assign to your
>>radical and jarring ideas for the project.
>>
>>
>>
>>>>Do you in fact edit on Wikipedia at all?
>>>
>>
>>
>>>Does it matter? I cannot understand why you ask this
>>
>>question. Are your
>>
>>>mailing lists restricted only to your members? I don't
>>
>>think so, because it
>>
>>>was very easy for me to register (if that's not the
>>
>>intended behaviour, you
>>
>>>need to configure your Mailman installation).
>>
>>
>>It matters in terms of how seriously your suggestions are
>>going to be
>>taken. The reason I ask is to know whether you  have
>>*any* experience of
>>this wiki, the one you're advancing the ideas for. Your
>>messages so far
>>seem to indicate you don't actually understand much of
>>Wikipedia culture;
>>with a username, it would be possible to see what your
>>edits are like, what
>>you do and so on and get more of a handle on where you're
>>coming from.
>>
>>
>>
>>>You can find me in many mailing lists or fora,
>>
>>including FSF-GNU/GNOME/CC/AMD,
>>
>>
>>It's not a True Name thing (that being no secret), but
>>your persona within
>>Wikipedia - if any.
>>
>>The essential point I'm trying to get across is that
>>you're starting from a
>>position of no credibility. If that's fine by you, then
>>continue as you
>>are; however, if you wish to be taken seriously and (as I
>>tried to explain
>>before) your ideas gain traction, I suspect it won't be
>>adequate.
>>
>>
>>
>>>and I am lurking on many other mailing lists and
>>
>>communities, while I have
>>
>>>also joined projects such as Drupal.org and
>>
>>OpenFormats.org and very soon I
>>
>>>will join KDE. Slashdot has published stories written
>>
>>by me (KDE/FSF's
>>
>>>WIWO...) and my karma there is Good. My university
>>
>>dissertation is on wikis.
>>
>>>I notice some people refer to me as "he/she" and I
>>
>>wonder whether they have
>>
>>>noticed who am I.
>>
>>
>>Then surely you see what I meant about the phenomenon
>>that although an
>>outside perspective is good, you need to be able to
>>explain it in insider
>>terms for traction. Per project. This being not just any
>>wiki, but the
>>biggest by a long shot. Ask [[User:Kate Turner]] about
>>the difference in
>>feel between a small wiki and Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>>
>>>participate in your mailing lists as a representative
>>
>>of a friendly website
>>
>>>which seeks to have relations, cooperation and
>>
>>knowledge sharing with
>>
>>>Wikimedia. But if WMF does not wish to cooperate or
>>
>>thinks I am a
>>
>>>"competitor", then you can just say so and I will
>>
>>leave.
>>
>>
>>I wouln't say that at all (speaking only for myself).
>>
>>
>>
>>>Finally, I would like to know how we can implement
>>
>>interwiki links to each
>>
>>>other and whether WMF is interested in this kind of
>>
>>linking.
>>
>>
>>That would be a nice thing. At present it's largely
>>hackable through
>>templates in the 'External links' section of articles.
>>you go brother,fight the good fight
>>
>>- d.
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> http://www.webmail.co.za the South African FREE email service


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Day and month names

body:
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:27:12 +0100, James R. Johnson
<modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
> I think something similar has occurred on the Anglo-Saxon wiki.  Sometimes
> while editing a page, I'll find the interface is completely modern English,
> without the changes I've already made, and sometimes it's normal.

Yes, I noticed this too.  I assumed it was some weird glitch, but I've
seen it a couple of times.

I figured it was something like a file I/O error or an overloaded
database; I don't know in what way the MediaWiki names are dynamically
queried, but I'm sure it's more complicated than just running the
LanguageFoo.php file and assigning to some arrays.

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Day and month names

body:
> [...] moving everything into
> special pages and the MediaWiki namespace, as we have been doing.

Sure, but three points here:
* People who downloads MediaWiki right now cannot use Czech for the
interface, as their LanguageCs.php is just plain terrible.
* As a special case, this is also true about other Wikimedia projects,
e.g. Wiktionary. If you take a look at cs:Wiktionary: you can see
English messages mixed with (bad) Czech.
* Recently, we have repeatedly experienced switching between
MediaWiki-based and LanguageCs.php-based messages on cs: Wikipedia.
The LanguageCs.php-based messages are really terrible to look at.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Day and month names

body:
I think something similar has occurred on the Anglo-Saxon wiki.  Sometimes
while editing a page, I'll find the interface is completely modern English,
without the changes I've already made, and sometimes it's normal.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Petr Kadlec
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 2:10 PM
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Day and month names

> [...] moving everything into
> special pages and the MediaWiki namespace, as we have been doing.

Sure, but three points here:
* People who downloads MediaWiki right now cannot use Czech for the
interface, as their LanguageCs.php is just plain terrible.
* As a special case, this is also true about other Wikimedia projects,
e.g. Wiktionary. If you take a look at cs:Wiktionary: you can see
English messages mixed with (bad) Czech.
* Recently, we have repeatedly experienced switching between
MediaWiki-based and LanguageCs.php-based messages on cs: Wikipedia.
The LanguageCs.php-based messages are really terrible to look at.

[[cs:User:Mormegil|Petr Kadlec]]
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: make user pages uneditable

body:
I have watched over a period of months while the number of protected
user pages has grown.  Recently, I requested that a number of them be
unprotected and Guanaco and several others were willing to do this.

There has been a backlash.  Apparently there are a number of wikipedians
who believe in the patently non-wiki notion that they "own" their user
space and should be able to lock it up so that other users can't edit
it.

Others have taken the step further and there is (I'm not making this up
folks) a suggestion that we change the software to disallow all edits
to user pages except by their "owners."  Discussion, including calls
for a "vote" on this change can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Protection_policy

There is also discussion there of the lesser measure of changing policy
to permit any admin to protect their own user pages indefinitely for no
reason other than personal whim.

UninvitedCompany


body:
Right, since I've requested SO MANY new Wikipedias.

Oh wait, no, that's not true!

A few months ago I requested sc:

Since then, I have requested two Wikipedias explicity: scn: and fur:
(not sure about the Friulian iso code, but I know it exists because I
looked it up in the past)

This is because I learned from the creation of sc:. I have invited
people, but all I got was one response in French from a guy who's head
of the Office for the Sardinian Language in the province of Nugoro,
basically outlining how the orthography of the existing contributions
was not that which he favored and why that made him pissed. I sent him
a polite e-mail in the best French I can write telling him that I
favor his orthography too, since it's the standard, and that I don't
know Sardinian so I can't fix it, but that he's welcome to change it.

Had I had a more successful experience, perhaps I would've requested
many many many different new Wikipedias, but I have not.

I have not requested Wikipedias for any languages without ISO 639
codes. All the languages I have requested have ISO 639 codes.

The thing is that right now, all I want to see created is the Friulian
Wikipedia and the Syriac Wikipedia. This is liable to change.

mark

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 12:23:51 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Nov 2, 2004, at 10:57 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> [etc]
>
> Mark, what I think people are not saying explicitly is that there's a
> "boy who cried wolf" syndrome in effect here. Because the constant flow
> of requests _comes from you_, those individual requests are not being
> treated with the interest or respect they might be if they came from
> other people.
>
> Guilt by association is not cool, but the effect is real and it is
> there. It's an ugly cycle, and we need to break out of it.
>
> Instead of everybody flooding the mailing lists with a lot of petty
> back-and-forth over many separate things, node could you please put
> together a single list of the languages you'd like to see added? I'll
> be happy to add those with individual ISO 639-1 or ISO 639-2 codes, as
> is our traditional policy. Anything else needs to be looked at on a
> case by case basis.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>