from_name: Peter van Londen

subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

body:
2007/1/6, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
>
> Teun Spaans wrote:
> > 3) The people considered fanpedia as one of the most promising ideas,
> > as it would solve several problems at once. First, wikipedia is known
> > and rightly mocked for its endless series of articles on Star Wars,
> > The Lord of the Rings, We Just produced Our First Albums bands, and
> > the favourite soap-of-the-day. The wikis could still have articles on
> > the major ones, but all articles of the bandmembers, the actors in the
> > soap, the separate articles of TLotR characters could all be moved to
> > fanpedia. It would raise the prestige of wikipedia.  Second, most of
> > the images which get routinely uploaded and removed are fanstuff. The
> > english wiki is rightly trying to get rid of them, and on the Dutch
> > wiki they are always listed as a copyvio (though we do have a backlog
> > of stuff from before 1-9-2005). But there is a desparate need among
> > the others to illustrate their articles, something which currnetly
> > simply can not be done. A fanpedia could solve both problems. You did
> > not comment on this idea, could you please let us know what you think
> > of it?
>
> * Much of what we have is fancruft, and it seems fairly popular. Move
> all fanstuff to a separate project, outside wikipedia. Call if
> fanpedia or something. Let this project be more liberal in its
> acceptance of media, and let this project accept advertisements. This
> could probably support all wiki projects.
>
> So... what you suggest is that the Foundation set up a website,
> primarily constituted of fan-oriented information, with mostly
> copyrighted images under fair-use doctrine, and put advertisement on
> this web site, and use the income generated by this mean to support
> other projects ?
>
> Errrrr. What do other think of that idea ???
>
> Ant
>

Some minor changes:
1) Not set-up a different website, but Fanpedia would be a wiki, sister
project of Wikipedia, Wikiquote and so on, it will also benefit from a high
google-ranking as have all wikimedia projects.
2) Fair use images: I hope not; I certainly hope that we get the fair use
matter solved for all wikimedia projects.
3) Advertisements on fanpedia will subsidize all other projects (there will
be a lot of trafic diverted to Fanpedia, so money will flow).

The thing is that a lot of people work on the fancruft, imho
non-encyclopedian, part of Wikipedia and that is OK. Prison Break is one of
the most visited articles on dutch Wikipedia. Most nl-Wikipedians are uneasy
with this kind of articles, which evoluate to a encyclopedia inside the
wikipedia in itself, and would be happy to move them to a different project.

I think you what you are saying is that you are afraid that the sysops of
this project would not be able to manage the project enough, as it will
certainly be people which might have a different view on wikimedia ideals?

This proposal will certainly help solve the money-problems, with an
acceptable compromise for adds on one of the Wikimedia projects.

Kind regards
Londenp


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

references:
<73f3ff1b0612281519pc62b47qce3e65246bdc3d87@mail.gmail.com>
	<45944D25.1000903@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<8fb899d70701020124n11a623een7d446b0eaf3ab545@mail.gmail.com>
	<endsel$vf5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<8fb899d70701021148k186dbe76ia2163eb55523fe28@mail.gmail.com>
	<enet2b$6hd$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<8fb899d70701050829s1008afd8mdab5a16fee06d472@mail.gmail.com>
	<enmrd8$g2k$1@sea.gmane.org>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Han Dao

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?

body:
MediaWiki is not low-tech. MediaWiki is one of the most advanced wiki
engine, if not the most advanced in the world.
I am not a web programmer...but....

What I think you're calling for need some javascripts. It might be really
difficult to get it look right in every browser, especially browsers like
IE.
Anyway, options are bad. It would be a bad idea to have many options. It may
allow for more bugs and make it harder for programmers and users in general.
The last thing MediaWIki need is tons of bugs interfering with the operation
of Wikimedia sites.

On 1/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>
> I understand the imperitive for maximal accessibility, but is it not also
> true that, these days, fewer and fewer people are using browsers that
> can't
> handle advanced features? The fact of the matter is that a website's
> *usability* is improved by taking advantage of the higher-tech
> architecture
> that modern browsers allow you to use. Can't MediaWiki default to its
> current state, but offer a per-user preference to turn on advanced
> options?
>
> Look at a site like Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com), for example,
> which
> is possibly one of the most beautifully constructed websites I have ever
> encountered. It is simple in layout and ridiculously easy to use on
> account
> of very good design, and the use of advanced code generating popups,
> immediate editing, etc. Furthermore their code is pristine; I have never
> seen an error, even in the advanced features, on any browser.
>
> The kind of MediaWiki advanced features I'm talking about could be
> something
> like instant editing. Think about if you're reading a long section of an
> article, and midway down there's a spelling error. There are so many
> reasons
> to not fix it: you'd have to scroll up to click the edit link on that
> section, you'd have to wait for it to load, you'd have to find the place
> again in the edit box, you'd have to wait for it to load again, and all
> this
> time you won't be able to continue reading your article, and you'll have
> lost your place. What if you could just click next to the relevant
> paragraph, turning it into an edit box on the same page - no loading -
> edit
> it, save it, and never once have to switch page. Something similar to the
> way you can edit posts in vBulletin without having to change pages. I know
> for sure that a feature like this would double the speed at which (and the
> likelihood of which) articles are improved.
>
> Obviously once you accept the usage of advanced elements like this there's
> no stopping how much easier you can make the site, and how user friendly.
> If
> the only grounds to not include this kind of feature are accessibility,
> just
> put each feature on a switch in user preferences.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: James Hare

body:
Well we have to remember that -not everyone- owns a Dell Dimension with a
3gHz processor and 1GB of RAM, or a high-end MacBook from 2006. While I own
both, not everyone does. Not everyone has the resources to run the latest
browser with all the greatest implements and support for seventy thousand
scripts. I wouldn't be surprised if a computer that was old by 1995 in the
US is considered industry standard in Somalia.

On 1/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
>
> I understand the imperitive for maximal accessibility, but is it not also
> true that, these days, fewer and fewer people are using browsers that
> can't
> handle advanced features? The fact of the matter is that a website's
> *usability* is improved by taking advantage of the higher-tech
> architecture
> that modern browsers allow you to use. Can't MediaWiki default to its
> current state, but offer a per-user preference to turn on advanced
> options?
>
> Look at a site like Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com), for example,
> which
> is possibly one of the most beautifully constructed websites I have ever
> encountered. It is simple in layout and ridiculously easy to use on
> account
> of very good design, and the use of advanced code generating popups,
> immediate editing, etc. Furthermore their code is pristine; I have never
> seen an error, even in the advanced features, on any browser.
>
> The kind of MediaWiki advanced features I'm talking about could be
> something
> like instant editing. Think about if you're reading a long section of an
> article, and midway down there's a spelling error. There are so many
> reasons
> to not fix it: you'd have to scroll up to click the edit link on that
> section, you'd have to wait for it to load, you'd have to find the place
> again in the edit box, you'd have to wait for it to load again, and all
> this
> time you won't be able to continue reading your article, and you'll have
> lost your place. What if you could just click next to the relevant
> paragraph, turning it into an edit box on the same page - no loading -
> edit
> it, save it, and never once have to switch page. Something similar to the
> way you can edit posts in vBulletin without having to change pages. I know
> for sure that a feature like this would double the speed at which (and the
> likelihood of which) articles are improved.
>
> Obviously once you accept the usage of advanced elements like this there's
> no stopping how much easier you can make the site, and how user friendly.
> If
> the only grounds to not include this kind of feature are accessibility,
> just
> put each feature on a switch in user preferences.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
I hadn't had time to read ANI for the last 3 days, and just went and
started catching up.

It's not just me; everyone's pissed off and behaving badly right now.

We should put en.wikipedia on a one-week cooldown edit freeze....

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


list: foundation-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

body:
On 1/6/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Now what the exact relationship bewteen Wikia and WMF is right now...

The relationship is described at http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikimedia and
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ#What_is_Wikia.3F_Is_it_part_of_Wikipedia.3F_Is_it_one_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_projects.3F

Angela


subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives


from_name: habj

subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

body:
2007/1/6, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>:
> On 1/5/07, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > One problem I found on working with translators is that some of them
> > tend to prefer to translate "free knowledge" into "knowledge free of
> > charge"
>
> Perhaps we should write an authoritative version in a language which
> has reduced potential for this confusion and translate from that one?
> There are quite a few languages where this confusion is reduced.

OTOH there are many many fields where things can become wrongly
translated. IMHO it would be a better approach to think about writing
official things remembering that they will be translated, and
therefore weild out ambiguities and concentrate on clarity in the text
rather than on pretty English.

/habj


subject: [Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Foundation-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech? [snip]

I'm sure this kind of response will spark righteous indignation on the
part of every developer who has a clue on what's going on underneath
MediaWiki's hood. Plus, lack of AJAX does not mean "low-tech", which you
have so insinuated.

Furthermore, you've mixed up AJAX (which, while slow in coming, is being
implemented when appropriate) and inline-WYSIWYG editing (which poses
immense technical challenges due to the legacy baggage of our wikitext
format). If you want to see "state-of-the-art" MediaWiki work, please
check out: http://wikiwyg.net/
<http://demo.wikiwyg.net/wikiwyg/demo/standalone/>

Finally, the trouble of maintaining accessibility is probably the last
of our concerns. We don't /have/ the more advanced features implemented
in a stable manner yet, this is *open source*
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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeez (ANI)

body:
On 1/6/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/6/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I hadn't had time to read ANI for the last 3 days, and just went and
> > started catching up.
> >
> > It's not just me; everyone's pissed off and behaving badly right now.
> >
> > We should put en.wikipedia on a one-week cooldown edit freeze....
> >
> >
>
> No that is just normal WP:AN/I.

No, it's not.

It's been worse, but it's pretty bad right now.

Longtime experienced contributors / admins are going at it with each
other over what are fundamentally pretty trivial incidents.

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


body:
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Hash: SHA1

Note that this was crossposted to wikimedia.foundation.

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from_name: Yorian

subject: [Foundation-l] Back-up

body:
Hi everyone,

I am wondering for a while now how the Wikimedia-date is being
back-upped. Of course there are many servers around the world, but do
they all have all the Wikimedia data from all the projects? I believe
not? Is there an extern computer (or computers) to which all the
wikimedia data is uploaded, just to be safe? How is this arranged?

This question is asked just out of curiosity :)

Yorian


subject: [Foundation-l] Back-up


from_name: gwern branwen

body:
On 1/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why is MediaWiki so low-tech?
....
> The kind of MediaWiki advanced features I'm talking about could be something
> like instant editing. Think about if you're reading a long section of an
> article, and midway down there's a spelling error. There are so many reasons
> to not fix it: you'd have to scroll up to click the edit link on that
> section, you'd have to wait for it to load, you'd have to find the place
> again in the edit box, you'd have to wait for it to load again, and all this
> time you won't be able to continue reading your article, and you'll have
> lost your place. What if you could just click next to the relevant
> paragraph, turning it into an edit box on the same page - no loading - edit
> it, save it, and never once have to switch page. Something similar to the
> way you can edit posts in vBulletin without having to change pages. I know
> for sure that a feature like this would double the speed at which (and the
> likelihood of which) articles are improved.
>
> Obviously once you accept the usage of advanced elements like this there's
> no stopping how much easier you can make the site, and how user friendly. If
> the only grounds to not include this kind of feature are accessibility, just
> put each feature on a switch in user preferences.

You may be interested in ASM's QuickEdit Javascript program; it edits
in-frame by section and is very fast and nice. See
<http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer:ASM/quickedit.js>.

I've enabled it in my monobook.js thusly:
	/////Edit-in-frame. fast and fun!
	    document.write('<script src="'
	 + 'http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer:ASM/quickedit.js'
         +  '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"></script>');
         var qeEnabled          = true;  // Activate Script?
         var qeEnableSection0   = false;  // Enable QuickEdit link for
section 0 (introduction)?

--Gwern


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia jumps _into_ the top 10

body:
On 1/6/07, Keitei <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 6, 2007, at 15:46, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>
> > I guess I don't understand why Wikipedians would care about this,
> > apart from preening.
> >
> > Am I missing something?
> >
> > Will being in the top ten help us to write a better encyclopedia in
> > some way that being in the top 100 doesn't?
>
> Being popular shows that we're useful to a good number of people,
> which indicates that we are doing a good job. Other than that... I
> have no idea.

"Yay, we're a success...."

"Oh, Crap, we're a success..."

(everyone who suffered personally and professionally from the dot-com
boom's insane ramp-up, take a drink)

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


list: textbook-l

subject: No subject

body:
the best way to ensure inexpensive texts.

> Again, has competition in this sector led to lower textbook costs?

Go back to the drawing board and think about the difference between
commodity texts and proprietary texts.

> I can walk into Barnes and Noble today and purchase a trade version
> of a geometry text for $25. The very same (or similar) content in a
> commercial textbook will cost *three to four times* that amount. Soo
> where's your commercial 'efficiency'?

My commercial efficiency is demonstrated *right there*, in your hands,
that $25 book, as opposed to the $75-$100 book produced by a
politicized and *proprietary* process.

> You ar completely misunderstanding my proposition. Would you like to
> turn over the highways to private enterprise? How about medical care
> (look what a great job private enterprise has done there)? How about
> pharma (there's a really cool example of private enterprise creating
> something that only the wealthy can afford).

Yes, I think that all of those things should be privatized.  Next
question?

> What I am saying, is that we will see (counterintuitively), some
> price inefficiencies rising from that.

Which is why you propose a state takeover of the textbook business.

You say that you don't, but then you turn around and say that you do.

> Now, there might be ways to deal with those inefficiencies. Maybe we
> help the adopting states by finding our own publishers, who are
> willing to state (via contract) up front that they will not charge
> over a certain raw cost percentage of the content. There are many
> (hypothetical, at present) ways to deal with this.

Why do we need to do that, it doesn't make any sense to do that.

I don't think you've thought this through very well at all.

Consider: we create a textbook, call it "Wikimedia: 9th Grade American
History".  We get it accepted, as a paper text, by the committee.  If
the committee is corrupt (bribed) or whatever, and refuses to consider
it, then that's a big problem, and your lobbying should focus strongly
on that.

But once it's accepted, then the "Wikimedia: 9th Grade American
History" will easily outcompete all the other textbooks on price,
because it can and will be produced by highly competitive low cost
printers.  We've removed the proprietary 'edge'.  And if those
low cost printers make big profits, all the better!

> With due respect (and I mean that), you are illustrating a complete
> ignorance of the textbook publishing business. The "print" side of the
> business is very competitive, because the barriers to entry are very low
> (more economics).

Right, that's what I've been trying to explain to you.

> The content side is *not* competitive, because there is essentially
> a private content publishing cartel, owned by just a few publishing
> giants.

Right, and that's where we come in.

You see, I do understand this business, and I understand what open
source can do for it, better than you think.

I just don't think you've thought through the implications of what
you're advocating.

--Jimbo


subject: No subject

body:
constructing the conntent; 2) conventional approaches to constructing the
content, with a twist; 3) new (novel) approaches to constructing content;
and, 4) radical approaches - staying within the framework guidelines - that
set new standards, and stimulate completelt new ways to think about content.

In fact, a testbook project could "live beside itself", in parallel, as many
different potential 'products; and/or, once it gets going, begins to take on
a 'flavor' or demeanor' that resonates with certain contributors.

This is one beauty of open sourcing K-12 content, in that it permits conent
innovation around a basic structure, and can organically evolve in a way
that fills the needs of people beyond the original "textbook content"
intention. Really, a K-12 'textbook' in geometry, authored by wickipedia,
could be one part (or the core, whichever) of a massive project that fills
many needs, outside the initial mandate of the project.

University texts can be treated somewhat differently; there, one can
dispense with preceding structure, and 'go for it'. If the material is
compelling, people will use it. Unfortunately, this is not the case at K-12.
(but open source can slowly help to change that; in fact, *only* open source
can change that...certainly, the commercial publishers never will).

Sanford


subject: No subject

body:
source as a super viable alternative to the current way of doing things.

Sanford

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
To: <textbook-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] how to get attention

> Karl-
> > What can we do to bring more attention to this project ?
> > Are there ways to get it registered in online directories
> > more quickly ? What about submitting it for a Slashdot
> > article ? (Should we wait until more work has been done
> > before we get it Slashdotted, or do it in conjuction with
> > the announcement of the Wikimedia Foundation?)
>
> I think a big cool Wikimedia announcement would make sense:
>
> * Wikimedia foundation takes donations
> * Wikipedia reaches 150,000 articles
> * New logo
> * New spinoffs: Wikiquote, Wikibooks
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l


subject: placeholder entry

body: This is a placeholder due to old mailing list archive corruption.


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] [ADHESION WIKIMEDIA FRANCE] Rappel

body:
Salut ? tous,

Toute personne souhaitant pouvoir assister ? l'AG et ?lire les membres
du conseil d'administration doivent imp?rativement ?tre ? jour de leur
cotisation 15 jours avant l'AG. Ce qui doit fait : 27-15=12... bref
bient?t.

Tous les d?tails pour cette formalit? se trouvent ici :
http://www.wikimedia.fr/wiki/Devenir_membre

? partir de cette ann?e les adh?sions se feront pour une ann?e civile,
soit 2007.

Nous avons enregistr? un nombre faible de candidatures au conseil
d'administration. Un d?lai suppl?mentaire a donc ?t? accord? jusqu'a
demain soir. Afin de garantir une ?lection juste et un bon
fonctionnement de l'association, nous appellons donc toutes les bonnes
volont?s ? poser leur candidature.

Vous trouverez bient?t ces candidatures en ligne.

Toutes les informations concernant l'AG se trouvent ici :
http://www.wikimedia.fr/index.php/Assembl%C3%A9e_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_du_27_janvier_2007

Emmanuel Engelhart


subject: No subject

body:
and playing music.  Of course, since I work online, I will be able to
take my new laptop and work there as usual without missing a beat.  If
anyone's there who would like to get together, drop me an e-mail.  (I
still would like to meet with a few members who live here in Las Vegas,
but the best-laid plans...)

After that, I will be living in Izhevsk, Russia, an industrial city in
the central-western part of European Russia, for an indefinite period of
time, but probably about three months.  My Russian language skills are
sure to improve immensely.  I've lived abroad before and I enjoy the
experience.  I don't expect any disruptions to my connection, and while
I might be taking a few vacation days here and there, I generally should
be able to continue on in my present role in pretty much the same way I
always have.

Anyway, after that, I'm not sure where I'll be.  I might be in Russia
until the end of summer, though I don't quite expect that--and if so, my
next destination might be Ireland.  Otherwise I'll return directly to
the U.S.

Ah, the joys of working online.

Best to all!  Wish me luck!

Larry

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
 Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. ||   lsanger at nupedia.com
 Editor-in-Chief, Nupedia  ||  http://www.nupedia.com
 Ordinary Wikipedian       || http://www.wikipedia.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>


subject: No subject

body:
set of rights that is belonging to this particular publication. And
therefore all people who want to use material of others have to find out
what specific rights is belonung to a specific published work (and to them
having a copy of this).


subject: No subject

body:
like in nupedia for me seems robust enough to stand the tide.

mit freundlichen Gruessen
Stefan

StefanRybo in Wikipedia
apologies for any language errors (please correct)

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]Im Auftrag von Larry Sanger
> Gesendet am: Dienstag, 19. Juni 2001 07:51
> An: Wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Betreff: [Wikipedia-l] License question
>
> Re http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?25_Etudes_op.60
>
> I have a few questions:
> # What is the nature of http://musicaliberata.org/ 's license?
> # Did MarkVdB get permission from musicaliberata.org to get the images of
> the music from their server from our server?
> # Shouldn't we set up some protocol on Wikipedia whereby this constantly
> recurring issue can be systematically resolved?
>
> Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


subject: No subject

body:
What's he looking for?

Ah, now we see.  Unsatisfied with our offerings, he tries one last time,
searching in the wikipedia search engine for...

www.preteenxxx.th

No more clicks after that, so I guess Wikipedia didn't have what he wanted.

--
*************************************************
*            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
*      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
*************************************************


subject: No subject

body:
it appears that the search database has not been updated in a while. Could someone
with access to the server please check if there's a working cron script in place to index
the site daily?

Axel


subject: No subject

body:
were going to continue to allow subpages on personal
pages and ditch them on the regular wikipedia.  Are
there any plans to put them back in on personal pages?

Also, when are you going to give back privileges to
edit the Homepage to trusted users?  I made it my
responsibility to update the new language wikipedias
when they came in and now I can't.  I think an
unprotected homepage is better than a protected
homepage that only two people can edit... now that's a
cabal!

Thanks,
Chuck

=====
Come to my homepage!  Venu al mia hejmpagxo!
http://amuzulo.babil.komputilo.org/
====
Venu al la senpaga, libera enciklopedio
esperanta reta! http://eo.wikipedia.com/

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Informaci?n de Estados Unidos y Am?rica Latina, en Yahoo! Noticias.
Vis?tanos en http://noticias.espanol.yahoo.com


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that the upload function gets abused, while general Wiki pages do not.
In another Wiki, I added a quick input box at the bottom of each page,
where any reader could input a question that would be added to the end
of the page, without passing through the normal edit form.  That
feature got abused too (or maybe users mistook it for a search form),
so I had to remove that feature.  Seems there are some cases where
open contributions work and some where they don't, as if pressing the
"save" button makes people think twice.

Perhaps the uploads should be visible in the RecentChanges list?
Perhaps there should be a "view other versions" for each upload?
Perhaps a Wikipage in the upload: namespace for each uploaded object?

--
  Lars Aronsson
  <lars at aronsson.se>
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


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links like [[Winter Olympic Games|Winter Olympics]], since the
redirects are "invisible", while the pipe-linking is an ugliness
on the edit side (especially when they accumulate).

Another reason that redirecting is better is because it reduces
duplication of work--instead of everyone having to write
[[democracy|democratic]] every time they want to link "democratic",
a single redirect allows everyone to just write [[democratic]].

But I'd also like the REDIRECT functionality improved.

I'd argue for the compromise of letting users decide case-by-case
instead of have a rigid uncompromising technological solution, since
there are times where the piping is better, at least in the current
scheme.

> > 3. Marking [broken links]] and [[more broken links]
> > 4. Optimizing external links with too many [] (like
> > [[http://www.google.com]])

Both of those things are nice.

> > 5. Optimizing [[link|links]] to [[link]]s
>
> Please don't! Not only is the result very ugly, but it would lead to
> inconsistent link appearance for irregular and regular plurals
> ([[foot|feet]] vs [[hand]]s), never mind the issue of other languages.

The new software renders [[hand|hands]] and [[hand]]s the same
as a single link (try it!), so it would be a nice optimization on the
edit side to use the latter. Again, I like the reduction of pipes
as much as possible.

> > I am sure you can think of some more details that have always bugged you,
> > but that were (be themselves) not important enough to call for a function;)
> >
> > We could use this for rather fancy things as well:
> >
> > 7. In the preview, mark words (or word combinations) that are currently
> > plain text, but that do exist as a topic in the database (to find pages one
> > could link to).
> > 8. In the preview, mark all numbers that could be dates (more link
> > candidates).
> > 9. Automatically put the title phrase in bold if it appears in the first
> > paragraph.

I'd say instead of this being in the preview, it should be a separate
command of AutoText.


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"The status quo is a report on how far, right now, we have slid towards the
[[m:worst cases]].  It incidentally makes note of progress towards [[w:best
cases]], and may use terminology or commentary from [[m:threats]] or
[[m:visions]]."


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"The Militia, 20 users granted sysop status by Larry, defend the users
visions to the near-death (well, maybe a really drunken stupor with a head
injury or two from falling on the ground in drunken camraderie) and all of
these best cases are realized, and none of the threats come to pass."

	24 seems to be feeding on our inaction so far.

Also from [[m:Best cases]]

".....Wiki gradually evolves into the center of discourse on controversial
topics because of its vaunted fairness, and its commitment to evolving as
close to a [[m:natural point of view]] as the [[w:Neutral point of view]] of
the target [[m:three billionth user]] will permit.  Other encylopedias
gradually give up or are bought out by donors who like wiki - and wiki rather
than a search engine becomes the first stop for most researchers in the
world.  Gradually, universities kind of fade away as centers of research but
flourish as centers of ethical training, moral example, brainstorming, wild
and uninhibited art, and true creative vision.  Nobel Prize winners thank
wiki on the stand as they accept their rewards - and historians credit it
with breaking down barriers between academic, populist, and economic views of
the world - coming slowly to a consensus... "

Can anyone say CRACKPOT! This person seems to have MAJOR plans for the
'pedia. We all better bow down and kiss this person's feet before he/she  has
the "Anti-globalization movement .... flood [wikipedia] with 3000 versions of
[[m:natural point of view]] all at once." This is dangerous folks, I think we
have, as Larry recently pointed out on the meta, 'fed the troll' way too much
already.

24 has stated before that he/she has no ideology -- I would counter that this
person is one of the most ideological people that I have come across. Both
24 and mirwin want to subvert the project to their own purposes. Mirwin is
mostly harmless but 24 is most certainly not.

maveric149


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I'm not too sure if different namespaces will work with this syntax.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


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"Open content text and media are licensed by the copyright holder, Bomis,
Inc., to the general public, permitting anyone to redistribute and alter the
text free of charge, and guaranteeing that no one be able to restrict access
to amended versions of the content. "

concerning the "copyright holder" part:

Please, can someone tell me this is outdated nonsense based on the previous
OPL license? As I have come to understand the wikipedia copyright issue,
everything contributed is released under the GNU FDL, PERIOD. I never once
agreed to reassign copyright of my contributions over to Bomis or anyone else
for that matter. That is part of the power of this project (So I thought?) --
everyone who contributes owns their material and agrees to release it under
the terms of the GNU FDL -- making a non-free fork almost completely
impossible (since everyone who ever contributed would have to agree to the
change in license). Furthermore, the "guarantee" part read in context seems
to imply the Bomis is the one granting the privilege to freely modify or
redistribute all the material. Of course, if this wording is correct, then
Bomis can also revoke that right to future versions (i.e. a non-free fork).

Specifically, if Bomis is claiming ownership then they can, on a whim
overnight change the license to anything they want. Not that I believe Jimbo
Wales would do such a thing, but car accidents happen all the time and
liquidators don't care didly about the project. Yeah, I know; all the older
versions of the 'pedia would still be under the FDL. But one of the reasons I
contribute is because I have the knowledge that what I do here will forever
be free and there will never be an unfree version. I really don't know if I
would continue contributing without this knowledge. --maveric149, Wednesday,
April 10, 2002

LDC replies to maveric:

I'm sure it's just outdated.  From the discussions we've had about the topic
here and on the mailing list, it's clear that the intent is that Bomis hold a
collection copyright on Wikipedia as a whole, but that individual articles
are still copyrighted by their original author(s), who grant use of them
under the GFDL to Bomis and to the public.  Further, Bomis grants license to
use the collection under the GFDL as well.  Yes, there need to be clearer
statements of these legal positions here.  -- Lee Daniel Crocker

maveric then replies:

Thanks for the assurance LDC. BTW, I don't have much of a (if any) problem
with Bomis having a "collection" copyright und the FDL -- it is their right
for forking over the dough to pay the bills and providing a place for us all
to contribute (so long as individual articles will forever be free). I would
like to take this issue to the wikipedia mailing list though... Just so we
can all be clear on this issue. --maveric149

Jimbo what is the official position so the the text can be updated?

BTW, what, if any, plans are there for licensing the "collection" of
articles? Could this be done with a dual license that would enable a future
non-free publication of the collection of articles (although the articles
themselves would still be 100% free -- if this is can be done, then one
couldn't amass more than a certain percentage of the articles in any one
publication without permission - not sure if that is even legal with the FDL,
let alone practical)? Last two questions have no intent or direction behind
them.... just interested.

maveric149


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--

Karen AKA Kajikit

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


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select "Light Checks" or "White only" or whatever you fancy.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


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inaccessable or unusable for hours.  What's happing to cause that?

Fred Bauder


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Imran

--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


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> 2) The number of 'sysop's is rapidly rising, and the chances of
> somebody accidentally (or maliciously) performing a slow, complex
> query that tied up the database for a long time would increase.

It's pretty hard to do that with a SELECT, and it's only temporary.
I think it's handly for sysops to be able to find things out like how
many users use a certain skin, how many page titles contain a certain
word, etc., without having to provide special pages for every
possible query.


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But I think that in many cases the most natural wiki syntax
will simply be to copy directly the syntax of the HTML tag.
This will primarily be when the tag is reasonable to use
and has no security issues but will be used rarely.
If it's used often, then it's time to look for something simpler.
This is exactly what we're doing now on SourceForge for <table>
and on Jan's page for <var>, <sup> and <sub>; that's good.
But lack of < and > isn't inherently simpler;
any idea needs to be judged on its own merits.
And we shouldn't stop supporting a markup method that appears on our pages
(except when we're no longer supporting the HTML that it rendered as).

>As comfortable as all of us are with HTML, /we/ aren't the kind of
>people we want editing articles (except maybe those on computer
>subjects).  We want Bridge players writing about Bridge, and cat
>breeders writing about cats, and campers writing about camping--the
>kind of people who have never even heard of HTML are the kind of
>people we want most to attract and make use of.  We computer nerds
>are used to dealing with special syntaxes; it is we who should adapt
>to them, not the other way around.

I've argued that <b> is marginally better than '''
because more newbies (including some bridge players) will already know it.
Without that, I see minor arguments for both, but think that they're even.
(OTOH, I admit that '' is better than <em> when you ignore that
more people already know it, since <em> is hard to guess the meaning of.)
But I still don't see why it's wrong to have both,
written up on [[Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] for the uninitiated.
(And I wouldn't breathe a word of HTML on that page, BTW --
the origin of the markup used is of no relevance to the end user.)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


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(Of course, TeX is not known for being user friendly either.
But is there really a user friendly alternative?)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


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something through Google I'd like to find out what Wikipedia knows
about the given subject.

Would it be difficult to :
* implement Wikipedia toolbar
* prepare Wikipedia entry as a search engine for the Mozilla sidebar

Regards,
kpj.


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problems than they prevent. Better is case-by-case action, with
justification necessary. The establishment of common law based on precedent,
if you will.

> --In response to the obvious question, Cunc (because I know you worry about
> this type of thing), my assumption is that it would work this way.  I would be
> involved in (or witness -- I wouldn't feel comfortable locking a page without
> consulting anyway, but that's just me) an interminable edit war.  I would say
> to myself, "Self, I can see no contributions here, only angry reversions, I
> think this should be locked till tempers cool and people have something
> constructive to offer."  I would then write a note to the list "Attention
> sysops:  there is a flame/edit/revert war going on at article x.  I think it
> needs locking for a bit.  What do you think?"  Then, I would wait to see
> responses.  I wouldn't know in advance who would respond.  The second person
> to agree (unless someone disagrees) would perform the lock.

I'd just say we should never lock such articles. That makes the
decision-making process much easier.


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body:
Salomon is often taken as an example of Phoenician temple building by
historians.


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we use it? Because we want a mark-up that is easy to read, easy to
understand, easy to type and non-intimidating for people who know next to
nothing about HTML. When people see lots of nested tags such as on

  http://www.wikipedia.com/w/wiki.phtml?title=Duesseldorf&oldid=131461

they are not likely to add anything to it. On this page the mark-up has been
more wikified and if you now look in its edit page you will see a text that
is a lot more editor-friendly.

-- Jan Hidders


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> Wikipedia Plugin
> This plugin will give you integrated access to Wikipedia, an incredible, free encyclopedia.
> Downloads: Linux Intel RPM. Please select a mirror:
> USA1 - USA2 - EU

The mirror links show the version as xxxx1.0.2.1.i386.rpm so apparently
it is only available on linux.

Excellent PR!  :)

Regards,
mirwin


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Information on contributing to the current events page

"Current events is not a news page. We shouldn't be in the business of
writing articles about breaking news stories, unless indeed we can be very
confident, as in the case of the September 11 attacks, that in the future
there will be a significant call for an encyclopedia article on that topic.
One very significant danger is that news articles must be kept current in
order to remain accurate. Wikipedians might begin a news article and then
simply lose interest in the topic, whereupon the article becomes
inaccurate. In short, we aren't set up to be an amateur news organization,
and we shouldn't try to compete with professional news organizations."

In this case the significance of the stock market downturn is not yet
determined; the invasion may not happen at all but is sure to be
significant when it does. It is pretty clear that an article that does
doesn't attract participation is a loser. If an article does attact
significant participation it provides a record of contemporary views of the
event.

I think any event might be mentioned in current events with links to
existing or proposed background articles. The event itself might not be a
worthy article.

Fred Bauder


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both statements quoted above are equal. They are both expressions of their
ideosyncratic points of view.

Now, Jimbo and I might both think Marxist doctrine suitable for fertilizing
lawns; while nearly all Wikipedians (but me) might think that Unificationist
doctrine is great for wrapping fish -- but, each of the statements above
is written from the NPOV.

(I won't deny that I would LIKE to get some endorsment of my church's views, but ...)

Ed Poor (member of Unification Church since 1977)


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"Negative freedom means the lack of forces which prevent an individual
from doing whatever they want; Positive freedom is the capacity of a
person to determine the best course of action and the existence of
opportunities for them to realise their full potential.

The overwhelmingly dominant tendency in the history of bourgeois society
has been to open up negative freedom, by removing feudal and other
reactionary constraints on freedom of action.  ..."

I doubt the victims of genocide wanted to die, so clearly
they were not granted "negative freedom" to avoid being killed.

As I understand the article "negative freedoms" appear to
be freedom from coercion.  This was supposed to be one of the
first gains of the social evolution Marx was espousing.  The
KGB, Red Army, and others seemed to apply plenty of coercion.
Then their empire collapsed.  Just as Marx predicted for
coercive capitalistic societies.  Perhaps the issue is not
the organization of the means of production but the coercion
applied to create the organization.  Early capitalism was
pretty coercive, much less so now in the U.S. with mature
regulatory processes in place to "restrict" everyone except
Microsoft and other Bush Buddies.

China is a bit more perplexing.  Are the Chinese people
gaining more "negative freedoms" relative to where they
started when the Communist Party took over?

>
> My objection is that these articles are extremely and irreparably
> NPOV.

Well they are certainly written from a Marxist viewpoint.  The
terms seem fairly precisely defined and used.  Many of the
assertions and assumptions are explicitly stated.  To me this
would seem easier material to repair than much of what we
produce as a first draft to start with ourselves.  The "errors"
are fairly obvious as they clash with our own bias.

<snip>

regards,
Mike Irwin


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body:
"Wikipedia is a collaborative project, with a common goal shared by its
creators and most participants:

Our goal with Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia--indeed, the
largest encyclopedia in history, both in terms of breadth and in terms
of depth. We also want Wikipedia to become a reliable resource."

I am having some trouble understanding how we are to reconcile
breadth, depth, and reliability with concise "NPOV" summaries of
major areas of human activities.   I can understand that we might
want all major initial articles or subjects to start with an
"NPOV" summary and then get more specialized as greater depth
and detailed logical arguments or explanations are provided
in linked sub articles.

>
> > Communism was certainly a great experiment, the results of which generated
> > a great deal of knowledge, there is no point at all in throwing the
> > knowledge away.
>
> I'm not saying that we should throw this knowledge away. I am just questioning:
>  1. How much of it should be on Wikipedia, and

All of it that someone chooses to include which
can be edited into an NPOV presentation to interested
readers?

>  2. If it should be on Wikipedia, where

Good question.  I propose we use hiearchies starting with the most
general overviews and link to greater depth, breadth, and detail.
This would imply that "Marxist view of Freedom" would be linked from
somewhere under the "Freedom" hiearchy as well as from anywhere someone
wants to reference the Marxist view of freedom rather than the "American
blue collar union view of Freedom" (Collective bargaining
without fear of assault or retaliation) or the "Enron view of Freedom
to manipulate electricity futures markets" (Executives should not be
accountable or restricted).

>
> What I was arguing was that the answer on question 2 should be "either on
> the page on Marxism or on the subject page, NOT on a page called 'Marxist
> view of <subject>'".

The Marxist.org "Freedom" glossary article is quite lengthy
and detailed with a lot of nuances.  It is difficult for me
to see how we could include all nuances, add debunking or
countering arguments, add other POVs properly labeled and
transformed to facts of the form required by the NPOV and
compress this all into a single NPOV article of suitable
length for efficient serving to browser clients.

It seems to me that we might end up with hundreds of pages
called "Freedom from View X" before we get close to a complete
NPOV treatment of the concept "Freedom".  Each of these pages
will need extensive linking to vague concepts and data such
as Social Security and Trickle Down Reagonomics to support
charges of freedom to starve or be taxed, inappropriately
or appropriately according to some specific view.  Where
controversy exists various evidence and arguments for and
against various positions must be described and attributed.

The overview NPOV article "Freedom" is thus likely to require
many iterations of editing as various more detailed views
are created with augmenting details to categorize, summarize,
and lead the reader to links providing the more detailed
information as they become interested and choose to pursue
specific topics.

I agree that it may be possible to refactor these anticipated
hundreds of pages of draft contributed material discussing
"Freedom" as areas of agreement and disagreement are identified,
clarified and suitably chunked in NPOV articles suitable for
link referencing.   Much of the refactored material might end up
relinked away from the resulting article hiearchy of "Freedom" to
history article hiearchies or special topics such as "Politics
of the 20th Century" under the politics hiearchy or whatever.

I also agree with you in doubting that much of it should merely
be deleted or left out if a contributor is willing to write or
edit it responsibly according to our published guidelines.
In my view, this would be inherently non NPOV, approaching censorship
or rewriting history via omission.

This degenerates into a question of revision control.  How
do we manage draft material (in work or under construction)
vs. properly presented NPOV material suitable for serving
to the public at large as "reliable", in depth, broad treatment
of available human information or knowledge.

Detailed POVs properly labeled (thus fullfilling the NPOV requirement)
could be left as orphans, linked into lists of labeled POV, or
linked into NPOV articles as pertient labeled POV until
they can worked over sufficiently by diverse contributing editors.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


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body:
non-Jews towards Jews, with a great many of them directly caused by
NSDAP propaganda (and the whole Jews killed Jesus thing quite common in
both the Catholic and Lutheran churches of the time).   I'm all for
NPOV, but isn't part of the NPOV credo that minority views that confound
reality don't get included?  There is a Flat Earth society, but we don't
mention them in the article about Copernicus' theory as having a valid
minority viewpoint.

In the case of the Holocaust, there is a fairly large minority
world-wide of people who deny the Holocaust.  I am on an educator
listserve where a teacher SE Asia asked how to deal with the fact that
most of her high school students really thought the Nazi flag was cool
and whose general impression of Hitler was that he'd been a good leader
for the German people.  Most had not heard of the Holocaust, and those
who did thought reports were exaggerated.  Clearly, westerners are more
focused on the European Theater in WWII and the holocaust because it
directly affected our own history more dramatically.  Still I would hate
to think that, in the cause of NPOV, we put out articles that were
misleading.

I'll stop preaching for the moment.

Jules

Regards,

Julie Hofmann Kemp
253-638-1944
206-310-3461

------=_NextPart_000_0011_01C25059.E70681F0
Content-Type: text/html;
	charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">

<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Dus-ascii">
<META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"MS Exchange Server version =
6.0.4630.0">
<TITLE>Re: Helga again</TITLE>

Jimmy Wales =
said:

I think we could say: "Tensions =
between Jews and non-Jews in Germany had been growing for several years, =
as evidenced by thus and such actual facts that actually happened." =

-- Jimmy, even that kind of implies a =
some kind of mutual antagonism -- From everything I've read, the =
tensions were almost entirely  created by non-Jews towards Jews, =
with a great many of them directly caused by NSDAP propaganda (and the =
whole Jews killed Jesus thing quite common in both the Catholic and =
Lutheran churches of the time).   I'm all for NPOV, but isn't =
part of the NPOV credo that minority views that confound reality don't =
get included?  There is a Flat Earth society, but we don't mention =
them in the article about Copernicus' theory as having a valid minority =
viewpoint.

In the case of the Holocaust, there is =
a fairly large minority world-wide of people who deny the =
Holocaust.  I am on an educator listserve where a teacher SE Asia =
asked how to deal with the fact that most of her high school students =
really thought the Nazi flag was cool and whose general impression of =
Hitler was that he'd been a good leader for the German people.  =
Most had not heard of the Holocaust, and those who did thought reports =
were exaggerated.  Clearly, westerners are more focused on the =
European Theater in WWII and the holocaust because it directly affected =
our own history more dramatically.  Still I would hate to think =
that, in the cause of NPOV, we put out articles that were =
misleading.

I'll stop preaching for the =
moment…

Jules

Regards,

Julie Hofmann Kemp =

253-638-1944

206-310-3461

------=_NextPart_000_0011_01C25059.E70681F0--


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has denied that the Jews deserved it.  He may have been simply
(in his view, not mine) taking what he felt was the appropriate
action for the future benefit of the German Genome, Germany (the
nation, country, or both?) or the anticipated future glory of
the 3rd Reich. "Collateral damage."  German Jews may have simply
been standing or living in the wrong spot.

This could be similar to the prevailing views American Indians
encountered when U.S. Citizens wanted their land.   Likewise
the Japanese interned in California during World War II lost
a lot of economic assets but who (as Jimbo has pointed out),
were not exterminated in mass, although some died in the camps.
A lot of them ended up in Idaho and Eastern Oregon creating
new farms, their confiscated lands in California were never
returned.

Likewise, the 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 presumably
felt the "innocent victims" were either acceptable
"collateral damage" or "deserved" what they got.  IIRC,
some of them left messages implying that they thought Allah
would approve of their actions.  If this is the case then
this is a fact suitable for presentation within an NPOV
summary of the 9/11 incident and subsequent events.

An accurate presentation of facts involved in history
is going to require the presentation of various peoples
views, when they are known, can be determined or possibly
estimated with any reliability.  Stating they are "offensive"
and refusing to explore the details of the event merely
allows similar incidents in the future via ignorance as
well as design.

Such as the current internment of non U.S. Arabs
(and U.S. Citizens of Arabic descent? I have not been
following this closely) picked up for questioning in
the U.S.  Personally I can see no justification for this
in U.S. law yet they have been repeatedly denied any
relief by the U.S. courts.

Such as holding "terrorists" as POWs to claim that
no trial is appropriate or required while claiming
the Geneva Conventions do not apply because the U.S.
does not recognize the government it attacked.
The U.S. has never accepted other countries allegations
that our soldiers are terrorists or war criminals.
Very convenient that Al Quada troops captured in
Afghanistan turn out to be "terrorists" with no
rights requiring no trial as long as they are not
detained on U.S. soil.  Very convenient that Quantico
is not U.S. soil (as Cuba as been alleging for decades)
but is merely controlled by the U.S. military.

The Holocaust was deserved in the same sense that
people camped in the wrong spot in the promised
land aproximately 40 years after the Jewish exodus
from Egypt deserved what they got.   Somebody decided
destiny was on their side and wanted somebody else's
assets or needed a scapegoat or whatever.

It seems to me that in history, conflicts, etc.
that the losers (victims) typically feel this
was undeserved while the victors seem to have ways
to feel it was justified or they (losers) deserved it.

Thus deserved and not deserved would seem to be
inherently biased positions.  I think that we should
simply state what happened and who believed what (or
state what they claim to have believed or what they wrote
down as their beliefs and supporting and conflicting
evidence, etc. etc.) and let the future readers decide
for themselves what is "obvious" and "offensive".

I hope this clarifies matters regarding my
personal opinions and philosophies, which in my
view should be irrelevent to a discussion of "NPOV"
policy, since you seem to feel they may be relevant.

If the fact that I do not view Jewish lives
as inherently more valuable than other human
lives (or discussion of events surrounding their
death inherently "offensive") "offends" you or
others then I feel that this is unfortunate.

I hope we can find a way to coexist relatively
peacefully despite this little apparent or alleged
(By you, me, or someone else? I seem to have lost
track.) character flaw of mine.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


subject: No subject

body:
project of building a universal WikiWiki-based GFDL encyclopedia is what
I care about.

Obviously, I think Wikipedia(TM, R, All Rights Reversed, etc.)  is the
best-of-breed implementation of the project, at least for the English
language (with the best logo, too).

And if we all think of the project in these broad terms, then our
particular implementation will generally win out; embrace and extend.

Then again, if you want to do the scutwork of competing with EL instead
of working them back into the fold, then who am I to stop you? (Answer:
no-one.) Just seems like there are better things to do.


subject: No subject

body:
projects specific to individual languages and nationalities.

2. The procedural improvements I propose should be obvious from what I
consider to be problem areas.


subject: No subject

body:
Wikipedia as a single project that happens to have content in an
admixture of languages (much as the World Wide Web is a single network
that happens to have sites in an admixture of languages--the world does
much better with a single geo-neutral Web instead of an American Web,
Chinese Web, Polish Web. I am also troubled by the forces which are
trying to balkanize the Web).

I thank you for discussing this in my native tongue. My Polish is worse
than minimal.


subject: No subject

body:
without over-complifying things, and having UI kludge.

Lightning


subject: No subject

body:
Your user name or IP address has been blocked by PierreAbbat. The reason =
given is this:
Vandalized World Trade Center, William I of England. Removed large =
section of Napoleonic Code,=20

You may contact the administrator to discuss the block.=20

Return to Main Page.=20
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

I am new to Wikipedia.  The time I first saw this page, I had not yet =
registered a user name on Wikipedia.  I plead innocent to these crimes.

To accuse me or anyone else of "vandalizing the World Trade Center", is =
just fuckin [at a loss for words here].  Especially since I was born in =
NYC and now live in DC and am acquainted with people who collectively =
knew many of the victims of the WTC "vandals".  We are just now =
recovering from the "sniper" who shot up the DC area, apparently as part =
of a custody dispute.

We are far more likely to be victims than vandals, individually.  It =
seems that almost every month I am reading about some place that I have =
visited that was blown up or shot up in the name of someone's agenda =
(this includes the spot the sniper got his last victim, a bombing in =
Israel last week, the WTC, etc.).  Some day they may catch up with me.  =
Any one of us.

"Vandalizing the World Trade Center" may be an unfortunate, unthinking =
choice of words, but I am still deeply offended.  I apologize to anyone =
else who reads this flame.

(As for removing large sections of the Napoleonic Code: there are large =
sections of the IRS Code and the US Code I should like to delete and =
replace, but under our Constitution my opinion on this doesn=92t =
matter=97when we vote Tuesday, DC will once again choose a Non-Voting =
Delegate to Congress.)

To block my IP number is to tar me by guilt by association.  I still =
communicate with the outside world through modems hooked up to the =
public switched telephone network, as we called it back in the Bitnet =
days.  My ISP, Starpower/RCN, assigns me a dynamic IP address, which =
belongs to a server physically located in the Maryland suburbs.  I tried =
to logout from the Internet and login again, hoping that a different =
dynamic IP address would work.  No such luck.

You may be blocking many, perhaps all Starpower customers from the 202 =
area code, and at busy times from many other places as well.  =
(Apparently one Wikipedian agrees that the people of DC do not deserve a =
voice.  At any rate, his actions have this effect.)

I think you need to rethink the practice of blocking dynamic IP numbers. =
 Not everyone lives in an area served by cable modems or DSL.  Many of =
those who do cannot afford the additional expense of a high speed =
connection that is always on.

The message advises me to "contact the administrator to discuss the =
block."  This is nice.  It would have been nicer if a hyperlink to the =
administrator's "mailto:" address were included.  Unlike most websites, =
the Wikipedia home page offers no hyperlink to the webmaster.  This is =
why I joined and wrote to this list.  Probably there is a better place =
for this msg.  If so, please forward this, and tell me.

There are four things that need fixing here:  my access to Wikipedia, =
your handling of dynamic IP addresses, an easy way to contact the =
Wikipedia webmaster or administrator, and DC's voting rights.  I trust =
that someone on this list can deal with the first 3 problems.  Those of =
you who are US citizens should write to your Senators and Congressmen =
about the last one.

Please, someone, fix this.  Otherwise I will have to be a passive =
Wikipedian (if that is not an oxymoron).  As it stands, I cannot even =
write to my own user page.

Again, I apologize for sending such a long and personal msg to a List.  =
Please forgive.

   =97The Solo Owl

------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C28346.352287C0
Content-Type: text/html;
	charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">

<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Dwindows-1252">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=3DGENERATOR>

[Probably not the right place for this plea.  Please forward =
to the=20
right person.  (See next to last paragraph below for my reason for =
using=20
this forum.]

I am a new user of Wikipedia.  It seems like a great =
project. =20
Since about 1963, I have believed that the world needs a really big =
encyclopedia=20
to access all knowledge about everything (before the internet, I=20
estimated thousands of printed volumes).  In the '80s I =
learned=20
of the idea now called "hyperlink" and I knew, theoretically, how =
this=20
could work as a continually updated virtual book.  Nupedia and =
Wikipedia=20
promise to fulfill this vision.

But the very second time I tried to add a suggestion I was referred =
to a=20
page with this content:

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

User is blocked
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by PierreAbbat. The =
reason=20
given is this:
Vandalized World Trade Center, William I of England. =
Removed=20
large section of Napoleonic Code,

You may contact the administrator to discuss the block.

Return to Main Page.=20

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

I am new to Wikipedia.  The time I first saw this page, I =
had not=20
yet registered a user name on Wikipedia.  I plead innocent to =
these=20
crimes.

To accuse me or anyone else of "vandalizing the World Trade =
Center", is=20
just fuckin [at a loss for words here].  Especially since I was =
born in NYC=20
and now live in DC and am acquainted with people who collectively =
knew many=20
of the victims of the WTC "vandals".  We are just now =
recovering from=20
the "sniper" who shot up the DC area, apparently as part of a =
custody=20
dispute.

We are far more likely to be victims than vandals, =
individually. =20
It seems that almost every month I am reading about some place that I =
have=20
visited that was blown up or shot up in the name of someone's agenda =
(this=20
includes the spot the sniper got his last victim, a bombing in =
Israel last=20
week, the WTC, etc.).  Some day they may catch up with =
me.  Any=20
one of us.

"Vandalizing the World Trade Center" may be an unfortunate, =
unthinking=20
choice of words, but I am still deeply offended.  I apologize to =
anyone=20
else who reads this flame.

(As for removing large sections of the Napoleonic Code: there are =
large=20
sections of the IRS Code and the US Code I should like to =
delete and=20
replace, but under our Constitution my opinion on this =
doesn=92t=20
matter=97when we vote Tuesday, DC will once again choose a =
Non-Voting=20
Delegate to Congress.)

To block my IP number is to tar me by guilt by =
association.  I=20
still communicate with the outside world through modems hooked up to the =
public=20
switched telephone network, as we called it back in the Bitnet =
days.  My=20
ISP, Starpower/RCN, assigns me a dynamic IP address, which belongs=20
to a server physically located in the Maryland suburbs.  I =
tried to=20
logout from the Internet and login again, hoping that a =
different=20
dynamic IP address would work.  No such luck.

You may be blocking many, perhaps all Starpower customers from =
the 202=20
area code, and at busy times from many other places as well. =20
(Apparently one Wikipedian agrees that the people of DC do not deserve a =

voice.  At any rate, his actions have this =
effect.)

I think you need to rethink the practice of blocking dynamic IP=20
numbers.  Not everyone lives in an area served by cable modems or=20
DSL.  Many of those who do cannot afford the additional expense of =
a high=20
speed connection that is always on.

The message advises me to "contact the administrator to =
discuss the=20
block."  This is nice.  It would have been nicer if =
a hyperlink=20
to the administrator's "mailto:" address were included.  Unlike =
most=20
websites, the Wikipedia home page offers no hyperlink to the =
webmaster. =20
This is why I joined and wrote to this =
list.  Probably there is a=20
better place for this msg.  If so, please forward this, =
and tell=20
me.

There are four things that need fixing here:  my access =
to=20
Wikipedia, your handling of dynamic IP addresses, an easy way to contact =
the=20
Wikipedia webmaster or administrator, and DC's voting rights.  I =
trust that=20
someone on this list can deal with the first 3 problems.  =
Those of you=20
who are US citizens should write to your Senators and Congressmen =
about=20
the last one.

Please, someone, fix this.  Otherwise I will have to be a =
passive=20
Wikipedian (if that is not an oxymoron).  As it stands, I cannot =
even=20
write to my own user page.

Again, I apologize for sending such a long and personal msg to =
a=20
List.  Please forgive.

   =97The Solo Owl

------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C28346.352287C0--


subject: No subject

body:
then you're not participating fully in the Anglicisation debate.

-- Toby


subject: No subject

body:
please put the text "[flame]" into the subject line so the rest of us
can filter them out and get on to productive things? ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: No subject

body:
Zoe

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now
--0-247573954-1041017421=:76100
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

When I go to www.wikipedia.org, I get the following error messages:

Database error

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A database query syntax error has occurred. This could be because of an illegal search query (see Searching Wikipedia), or it may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

<TT>SELECT HIGH_PRIORITY cur_id FROM cur WHERE cur_namespace=0 AND cur_title='Main_Page'</TT>

from within function "<TT>LinkCache::addLink</TT>". MySQL returned error "<TT>1016: Can't open file: 'cur.MYD'. (errno: 145)</TT>".

Zoe

Do you Yahoo!?

Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now
--0-247573954-1041017421=:76100--


subject: No subject

body:
assist non-visual browsers is to ensure that the page content comes as
early as possible in the source code. Else on every page the user has to
wade through the same long list of navigation. This can be achieved via CSS
positioning. As a bonus, promoting the page content to the start of the
source code gives a considerable boost to search engine rankings!
As an example, try http://www.electec.co.nz/electrotec.mv - a site that
looks graphics heavy and uses DHTML menus etc. but remains accessible. Try
it in a screen reader, Lynx, or Opera with images and stylesheets off. Note
that I have used css to "hide" punctuation in the navigation and lists -
hence screen readers make a reasonable job of them.
Incidentally, all screen readers I've tried have a separate function to
read all the links on a page, so putting content first does not mean you
have to listen to the entire page before you can navigate anywhere else.
Most talking browsers are aiming to be useable with only half a dozen keys
to control them.

--
Richard Grevers


subject: No subject

body:
> I think this is more of a global (worldwide) policy
> issue, so
> discussion belongs on wikipedia-l, rather than an
> internationalization
> issue.

Ok, I subscribed today.  I guess I missed the mailing
list change while I was travelling...


subject: No subject

body:
> I agree with you, that it would be very stupid to
> make www.wikipedia.org the multi-language portal for
> all wikipedias.


subject: No subject

body:
most people did not think that having
www.wikipedia.org as a multi-language portal would be
stupid.  When I promote Wikipedia, I want to promote
the project *as a whole*, but I'm certainly not going
to promote www.wikipedia.org which goes to a webpage
in English if I'm promoting the in an Esperanto
magazine and I doubt people who are promoting the
German, Polish, Dutch, Spanish, etc would want to
point to that page either.

I know a lot of people who thought the Esperanto
Wikipedia was the only language that existed in the
project and I'd imagine that we're not alone in this.
I started promoting www.vikipedio.org because people
got confused when we promoted eo.wikipedia.org.

I also know a lot of people who don't speak English
who simply click off a page if they see that it's not
in a language they understand, thus they'd never get
past the English front page of Wikipedia.  Also, a
dropdown box like we use at www.tejo.org might work as
well, instead of the portal as planned, but I think
the multilingual portal at www.wikipedia.org is
necessary.

Also, what's wrong if people have linked to
www.wikipedia.org from their webpages.  It will still
go to Wikipedia, they don't need to change their
links!  The Wikipedia is a multilingual project, not
just an English project.  Plus, this is one of the
reasons why the Spanish project won't merge back with
us.

I'm crossposting this on Intlwiki-L and Wikipedia-L so
all can participate.  I recommend that we continue
this discussion on Wikipedia-L.

Thanks,
Chuck

=====
You just can't not learn Esperanto!  :-)
----------------------------------------
Just Learn It! - http://www.lernu.net/
My Webpage: http://amuzulo.babil.komputilo.com/
Enciklopedio: http://eo.wikipedia.org/

__________________________________________________________________

Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.de
Bis zu 100 MB Speicher bei http://premiummail.yahoo.de


subject: No subject

body:
manufacture and sell the merchandise, at no cost to you. You set the
prices; if you decide to charge more than their base price, you'll get
a check in the mail.

Should we go for it?

Axel

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: No subject

body:
the base prices are extraordinarily high.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: No subject

body:
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word bridge is the
English pronunciation of biritch, an older name of the game of unknown
middle eastern origin. The OED reports speculation that it may come
from a Turkish term, bir-uc which translates as "one-three" and is
said to refer to the fact that one hand is exposed and three are
concealed.


subject: No subject

body:
print Wikipedia as an 20-volume encyclopedia set and
start selling it tomorrow, without having any legal
problems.  Am I wrong here?  Perhaps a CD-format would
be more practical though.  ;-)

Also, could someone direct me to a page that
illustrates why being under the GFDL license is better
than simply being public domain.  I've pretty much
ignored all the discussions before about it, but now
I'm involved in a few projects and we're thinking
about our license policies, so...

Chuck

=====
Learn Esperanto! - http://www.lernu.net/
Enciklopedio: http://eo.wikipedia.org/

___________________________________________________
Yahoo! M?viles
Personaliza tu m?vil con tu logo y melod?a favorito
en http://moviles.yahoo.es


subject: No subject

body: signature.asc


subject: No subject

body:
It's not a big problem, (although I'm aware of the risks of opening
attachments of course).  Mostly I was just curious

Regards,

sannse


subject: No subject

body:
I've heard this as "Don't be a Foo!",
it is usually reinforced by a barrage
of expletives. It seems more common
in urban areas, although heard in rural areas
also where it is usually believed to
be used in imitation of typically violent
crime scene investigation dramas
in American television shows.

:-)))
Jay B.


subject: No subject

body:
SQL queries on the French database this morning, causing the site
to slow to a crawl for a while. They seem to be finished now, and
no harm done, but I'd like to suggest that if there are some
particular statistics you're looking for and you suspect that a
particular query might be expensive, ask about it on one of the
mailing lists. We might be able to help optimize it, or get the
statistics another way, or even ust suggest a better time to run.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: No subject

body:
Sandboxing), you seem sincere.  You took care of that vandalism done by your
friend to "Socialism"... Mmm.. weird friend. :-) But maybe the developer is
looking for more evidence.

Menchi Zh-En

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


subject: No subject

body:
Zeuslike interpretations of God, is where the original dislike for "pagan"
religion sprouted from.  Of course, these other notions were identical in
spirit to the monotheistic one -- but were judged by as "primitive" by other
primitives.

The point is, that if judged by the misuse -- the Western monotheist
tradition looks like a big pile of crud - such is politics.  But if you
understand it correctly - the legacy and importance of this particular
aspect of everyone's culture, theres a lot worth respecting -- and of having
some respect for.

-SV-


subject: No subject

body:
assumed that you were just being cantankerous -- you do have a bit of a
reputation ;)

But, from this last post you argue that skin design could be a way to
hide useful features from a whole class of users (those who have not
logged in for whatever reason).  If the original proposal suggested that
features would be hidden this might potentially be a concern.  But as I
see it nobody is suggesting that any features which are currently
available to anon users will be take away, just that they may be
available only from specific pages so that they don't clutter up every
screen.

But even if some features were only available to logged in users, I
would not consider it a violation of the wiki way as long as anon users
can "edit this page right now!!!".

--Mark
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: No subject

body:
1. It promotes elitism, by tending to say that some articles are more equal
than others.

2. Wikipedia is, by nature, a work in progress. Every article can be changed,
developed,  reassessed, and rewritten. The Sifter idea creates an illusion of
finality about particular articles--they are "good enough," so to speak.

3. Most articles will be ignored. We are now close to 150 thousand articles
on Wikipedia. I doubt anyone has read them all, and some have been long
forgotten. In many cases this is because they deal with some arcane subject matter
that doesn' t really foster mass interest or debate (more often debate). As the
intro to the BP page itself states: "we couldn't possibly keep track of all of
the brilliant prose here!" In other words, more potential Brilliant Prose
candidates will be left out than will be added.

4. It can promote factionalism. Some people might have an inordinate number
of articles in BP, so that when they write new articles, their supporters (and
yes, there are people here who think that every word typed in by some of their
Wiki-colleagues is divinely inspired) will immediately nominate it for BP.
Once the flame wars die down, it will be there and it will be even more
difficult to eliminate POV and other issues--after all, it is "brilliant prose," isn't
it?

5. There is so much left to be done yet. Maybe at a later date we can
consider this, but right now there are countless stubs, even more articles taken
directly from EB, and entire areas that are not covered. As an extreme example, if
we rise above the debate over America-centric vs. Euro-centric articles, we
will see how little there really is about Africa. Maybe we should be filling in
the gaps first, before we start patting ourselves on the back about how smart
we are.

6. Who are these so-called experts who will qualify material? From what I've
seen so far, being an academic expert in a particular field hardly protects
one from edit wars--Julie and 172 are two primary examples of this. Meanwhile,
the only qualification I have seen so far is that they have a B.A. Gimme a
friggin' break! (and before I get accused of academic elitism, I make it known
that I dropped out of college and spend an inordinate amount of time at work
correcting the BS from the BAs, MAs, and PhDs).

7. Maybe the question isn't so much "why shouldn't we?" but "why should we?"
Especially at this particular stage.

Okay, I've had my say. Flame away.

Danny

--part1_1cc.e6ddf26.2c559262_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hello,


subject: No subject

body:
1. It promotes elitism, by tending to say that some articles are more equal=20=
than others.

2. Wikipedia is, by nature, a work in progress. Every article can be changed=
, developed,  reassessed, and rewritten. The Sifter idea creates an ill=
usion of finality about particular articles--they are "good enough," so to s=
peak.

3. Most articles will be ignored. We are now close to 150 thousand articles=20=
on Wikipedia. I doubt anyone has read them all, and some have been long forg=
otten. In many cases this is because they deal with some arcane subject matt=
er that doesn' t really foster mass interest or debate (more often debate).=20=
As the intro to the BP page itself states: "we couldn't possibly keep track=20=
of all of the brilliant prose here!" In other words, more potential Brillian=
t Prose candidates will be left out than will be added.

4. It can promote factionalism. Some people might have an inordinate number=20=
of articles in BP, so that when they write new articles, their supporters (a=
nd yes, there are people here who think that every word typed in by some of=20=
their Wiki-colleagues is divinely inspired) will immediately nominate it for=
 BP. Once the flame wars die down, it will be there and it will be even more=
 difficult to eliminate POV and other issues--after all, it is "brilliant pr=
ose," isn't it?

5. There is so much left to be done yet. Maybe at a later date we can consid=
er this, but right now there are countless stubs, even more articles taken d=
irectly from EB, and entire areas that are not covered. As an extreme exampl=
e, if we rise above the debate over America-centric vs. Euro-centric article=
s, we will see how little there really is about Africa. Maybe we should be f=
illing in the gaps first, before we start patting ourselves on the back abou=
t how smart we are.

6. Who are these so-called experts who will qualify material? From what I've=
 seen so far, being an academic expert in a particular field hardly protects=
 one from edit wars--Julie and 172 are two primary examples of this. Meanwhi=
le, the only qualification I have seen so far is that they have a B.A. Gimme=
 a friggin' break! (and before I get accused of academic elitism, I make it=20=
known that I dropped out of college and spend an inordinate amount of time a=
t work correcting the BS from the BAs, MAs, and PhDs).

7. Maybe the question isn't so much "why shouldn't we?" but "why should we?"=
 Especially at this particular stage.

Okay, I've had my say. Flame away.

Danny

--part1_1cc.e6ddf26.2c559262_boundary--


subject: No subject

body:
Your mail to ?Wikipedia-l? with the subject QUERIES ABOUT A SPECIFIC ENTRY
is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:  Post by non-member to a members-only list

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator?s decision.


subject: No subject

body:
I have a few queries about an entry in your encyclopaedia.  Is this the
Email address to which I should send them?

Thank you in anticipation.

John.

_________________________________________________________________
Find a cheaper internet access deal - choose one to suit you.
http://www.msn.co.uk/internetaccess


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

Rob Church wrote:
> Better "low tech" than pumped full of AJAX all over the place. AJAX
> that's not been properly integrated, so we lock out blind people or
> those who don't have JavaScript because it doesn't degrade gracefully.
> AJAX that irritates the user causing them to disable said JavaScript.
> AJAX that hasn't been tested for security vulnerabilities. AJAX that's
> basically thrown into the software *for the sake of using a buzzword*.

Erm... was that directed at me? (and also, why isn't my reply showing up
on the newsgroup... hmm...)
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from_name: howard chen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Categories & Namespace?

body:
Hello,

Currently, wikipedia's categories seems to be a flat categories system
- no fixed common categories naming & inter relationship,

let me give an exampe,

consider you have to implement a function, on the wikipedia's data

// returns all places name (direct or indirect) under the place

Place[] function getAllPlaceName(Place) {

}

The expetced outcome would be,

['Manhattan', 'Brooklyn', ....] = getAllPlaceName("New_York_City");

['Manhattan', 'Brooklyn', 'New_York_City', 'New_Jersey', ....] =
getAllPlaceName("USA");

how would you implement the function?

hints: this should also work with other countries & languages.

after spending a few hours, my outcome is that is it not possible for
a truely automated solution!

Wikipedia Categories have no semantic relationship...


from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: Wikimedia Outreach

body:
I'd love to turn what's currently FundCORE into an interactive portal
for coordinating community relations. It could provide the kind of
services and information for Wikimedians that don't fit well into a
wiki-based system like meta.wikimedia.org.

FundCORE is runs on Drupal, and Drupal has many community-engaging
modules to do things like managing community calendars, Wikimeets, etc.
SpreadFirefox is also Drupal-based.

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I'd like to propose the setup of a central, multilingual portal at
> outreach.wikimedia.org. Similar to efforts like spreadfirefox.com, the
> purpose of this portal would be to allow Wikimedians to come together
> and discuss ways to
> - inform the general public about Wikimedia projects
> - pursue more specific outreach efforts, such as schools, libraries and academia
> - maintain a list of speakers about Wikimedia-related topics
> - address concerns and questions
> - generally think of clever ideas for marketing and promotion.
>
> This portal, like spreadfirefox.com, would emphatically _not_ be aimed
> at the general public, but at Wikimedians eager to help raise
> awareness and spread ideas. We would make a whitelist of actions that
> can be performed without permission (such as offering to visit a
> school or university to talk about Wikipedia), and a process for
> requesting permissions when needed (such as broader use of the logo or
> trademarks).
>
> Requests for permissions would generally go to the ED for now, but
> we'd probably want to delegate this to the Marketing subcommittee if
> we deem it sufficiently functional. The chapters, in the long run,
> could perhaps also give permission for certain uses.
>
> I see a very strong role of the chapters when it comes to coordinating
> speakers for events, and other regional actions. While
> outreach.wikimedia.org would be a public database of such speakers
> where anyone can offer to talk, the chapters would maintain their own
> private database of speakers they trust. The interface for third
> parties to request a speaker would be, first and foremost, with the
> chapters, not with outreach.wikimedia.org.
>
> The advantage of this approach is that we get a large number of
> volunteers, but at the same time each chapter can come up with its own
> strategy to identify trusted individuals. Insofar as private databases
> are maintained for this, sharing code and data across chapters should
> of course be encouraged.
>
> Time for some Q&A:
>
> Q: What's a typical outreach effort exactly?
>
> One of the most important feats we must accomplish is getting
> traditional institutions of education to understand how our projects
> work, and how they can make responsible use of them. Visiting a school
> and giving a workshop about Wikipedia is an example.
>
> Q: Why not just use meta.wikimedia.org?
>
> A: Like we don't just use one wiki for educational content, I don't
> think it makes sense to have only one wiki for Wikimedia-related
> activities and information. Having a dedicated wiki allows us to
> promote this effort independently, to structure it in a more
> user-friendly way, to monitor changes more systematically, and so on.
> It makes it more likely that a dedicated community will arise
> specifically for Wikimedia Outreach.
>
> Q: Won't this just encourage random people to abuse our trademarks and
> do things in Wikimedia's name?
>
> A: Actually, hopefully it will accomplish the opposite: the
> development of a standard framework of pages and policies for people
> to pursue activities that are clearly beneficial to us. Things might
> be a bit chaotic initially, which is why we should make it clear
> (perhaps even in the sitenotice) that everything requires explicit
> permission from the ED for now.
>
> Q: What would be the relation between the marketing committee and this effort?
>
> A: In my view, committees are given explicit organizational authority
> to act with in their given scope. They are the source of "official"
> activities from the Foundation, and as such, they are highly
> restricted in terms of membership. But unless and until an effort is
> official, there is really no need for it to be limited to a committee.
>
> Q: I still don't see why we should open this up to the chaotic wiki
> process -- an organization is not a wiki!
>
> A: There are literally thousands of groups we want to work with in our
> global strategy to spread free knowledge. This cannot be handled by a
> small committee or the staff of a chapter; it needs the support of a
> global community of volunteers. If these volunteers are restrained
> clearly in their actions, and must pursue proper processes of
> authorization for certain projects, then hopefully, the activities
> that result from this will be well coordinated with chapters and the
> Foundation.
>

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body:
I'd love to turn what's currently FundCORE into an interactive portal
for coordinating community relations. It could provide the kind of
services and information for Wikimedians that don't fit well into a
wiki-based system like meta.wikimedia.org.

FundCORE is runs on Drupal, and Drupal has many community-engaging
modules to do things like managing community calendars, Wikimeets, etc.
SpreadFirefox is also Drupal-based.

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I'd like to propose the setup of a central, multilingual portal at
> outreach.wikimedia.org. Similar to efforts like spreadfirefox.com, the
> purpose of this portal would be to allow Wikimedians to come together
> and discuss ways to
> - inform the general public about Wikimedia projects
> - pursue more specific outreach efforts, such as schools, libraries and academia
> - maintain a list of speakers about Wikimedia-related topics
> - address concerns and questions
> - generally think of clever ideas for marketing and promotion.
>
> This portal, like spreadfirefox.com, would emphatically _not_ be aimed
> at the general public, but at Wikimedians eager to help raise
> awareness and spread ideas. We would make a whitelist of actions that
> can be performed without permission (such as offering to visit a
> school or university to talk about Wikipedia), and a process for
> requesting permissions when needed (such as broader use of the logo or
> trademarks).
>
> Requests for permissions would generally go to the ED for now, but
> we'd probably want to delegate this to the Marketing subcommittee if
> we deem it sufficiently functional. The chapters, in the long run,
> could perhaps also give permission for certain uses.
>
> I see a very strong role of the chapters when it comes to coordinating
> speakers for events, and other regional actions. While
> outreach.wikimedia.org would be a public database of such speakers
> where anyone can offer to talk, the chapters would maintain their own
> private database of speakers they trust. The interface for third
> parties to request a speaker would be, first and foremost, with the
> chapters, not with outreach.wikimedia.org.
>
> The advantage of this approach is that we get a large number of
> volunteers, but at the same time each chapter can come up with its own
> strategy to identify trusted individuals. Insofar as private databases
> are maintained for this, sharing code and data across chapters should
> of course be encouraged.
>
> Time for some Q&A:
>
> Q: What's a typical outreach effort exactly?
>
> One of the most important feats we must accomplish is getting
> traditional institutions of education to understand how our projects
> work, and how they can make responsible use of them. Visiting a school
> and giving a workshop about Wikipedia is an example.
>
> Q: Why not just use meta.wikimedia.org?
>
> A: Like we don't just use one wiki for educational content, I don't
> think it makes sense to have only one wiki for Wikimedia-related
> activities and information. Having a dedicated wiki allows us to
> promote this effort independently, to structure it in a more
> user-friendly way, to monitor changes more systematically, and so on.
> It makes it more likely that a dedicated community will arise
> specifically for Wikimedia Outreach.
>
> Q: Won't this just encourage random people to abuse our trademarks and
> do things in Wikimedia's name?
>
> A: Actually, hopefully it will accomplish the opposite: the
> development of a standard framework of pages and policies for people
> to pursue activities that are clearly beneficial to us. Things might
> be a bit chaotic initially, which is why we should make it clear
> (perhaps even in the sitenotice) that everything requires explicit
> permission from the ED for now.
>
> Q: What would be the relation between the marketing committee and this effort?
>
> A: In my view, committees are given explicit organizational authority
> to act with in their given scope. They are the source of "official"
> activities from the Foundation, and as such, they are highly
> restricted in terms of membership. But unless and until an effort is
> official, there is really no need for it to be limited to a committee.
>
> Q: I still don't see why we should open this up to the chaotic wiki
> process -- an organization is not a wiki!
>
> A: There are literally thousands of groups we want to work with in our
> global strategy to spread free knowledge. This cannot be handled by a
> small committee or the staff of a chapter; it needs the support of a
> global community of volunteers. If these volunteers are restrained
> clearly in their actions, and must pursue proper processes of
> authorization for certain projects, then hopefully, the activities
> that result from this will be well coordinated with chapters and the
> Foundation.
>

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