from_name: Bogdan Giusca

body:
Hello Mark,

Monday, March 20, 2006, 11:52:07 PM, you wrote:

MW> 65% of total edits are by anon users.

You're trying to convince us that there's a community of anonymous
users ? Ha-ha.

Here's the top, according to that link:

61.248.143.2 -- Seoul, Korea -- Russ, not logged-in, 574 edits
  (Russ used to transliterate by hand articles from ro.wiki)
193.164.229.102 -- Strasbourg, France -- blanked articles, 78
81.11.225.209 -- Antwerp, Belgium -- reverted blanked articles, 66
24.251.243.233 -- Arizona, US -- Node_ue, 46
213.164.241.16 -- Cluj, Romania -- ro:Danutz, 37
24.201.83.39 -- Montreal, Canada -- en:Domnu Goie, 34
Home05149.cluj.astral.ro -- Cluj -- again ro:Danutz, 20
132.216.68.207 -- Montreal, Canada -- blanked articles, 10
211.186.6.105 -- Korea -- other IP of Russ, 12

These make 80% of the anon edits and none is involved in
the creation of actual content.

Almost all of the rest were involved in the endless
discussions of the status of mo.wiki. :-)

MW> Average article has 164.179104 words (193.75 for Romanian WP, not a
MW> huge difference)

Of course, since the articles are taken from it. :-)


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Etiquette, Civility

body:
On 3/20/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> We expect the users who are involved in a matter to maintain civil
> communication with one another. Like you, I would be at a loss to
> point to specific language. If someone is touchy about their talk
> page, use the talk page of the article or other matter you are
> concerned with.
>
> Fred

Yup. Well, for reasons I won't go into, I think the talk page from
whence the matter came is just as sensitive for the person in
question, so I've asked to move to my talk page instead. Like I said,
this user is quite new, so I'm just simply trying to encourage
conversation. And lest anyone go off and do their homework trying to
find out who this person is, let me say that it really doesn't matter
- for now at least. I'm just trying to get opinions and ideas here for
the moment.

Cormac

>
> On Mar 20, 2006, at 2:00 AM, Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
> > Hi all, as the title suggests, I'm writing about etiquette.
> > Specifically, whether it's ok to delete  valid questions or comments
> > from a talk page (in the particular case I'm talking about, deleting a
> > question from their own user talk page).
> >
> > Personally, I think this is highly uncivil. "Sorry, I am just going to
> > ignore you, no, in fact, I am going to pretend you never asked the
> > question in the first place" (without even the "courtesy" of saying
> > this). However, there is scant mention of this in policy or guideline
> > pages (admittedly, I've only looked at English Wikipedia and
> > Wikibooks). Why?
> >
> > Is it not considered rude to ignore someone? Is refusing to answer
> > questions not an ominous sign in a collaborative environment? (Ok,
> > when someone has just asked their umpteenth ignorant question, it
> > might be understandable, but this was my first contact with the
> > person.)
> >
> > For what it's worth, the only mention I found was on either project's
> > policy pages was on [[w:en:Wikipedia:Etiquette]], which says "don't
> > ignore questions". Etiquette isn't even a policy or guideline on
> > Wikibooks - I'm addressing that at the moment.
> >
> > So, has anyone else had a similar thought or frustration? And while
> > I'm asking about this, I'll also ask: what's the difference between
> > Etiquette and Civility? As far as I can define it (in Wikimedia
> > terms), etiquette is about specific instances of niceness or rudeness,
> > whereas civility is about a whole attitude, comprised of etiquette, no
> > personal attacks etc. Or what do you think?
> >
> > Cormac
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Etiquette, Civility


list: wikien-l

from_name: SPUI

subject:
[WikiEN-l] major groupthink on [[WP:CASH]] (California state
	highways)

body:
Another question - can someone tell me what in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Anyone_care_to_educate_Rschen7754_about_vandalism.3F
is a personal attack? I posted everything there in the hope that
Rschen7754 would learn what vandalism actually is; nothing was intended
as a personal attack. And I was blocked for assuming good faith - that
Rschen7754 was simply ignorant rather than malicious.


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] User page issue

body:
On 21 Mar 2006, at 00:01, geni wrote:

> On 3/20/06, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> To me this is a no brainer - from
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>> Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames
>>
>>    - Names that refer to symbols of hatred, including historical
>> figures
>>    who are widely associated with such
>>
>> Seems clearly to qualify - it is surprising that it took this long to
>> notice.
>>
>> Jim
>
> What symbol does it refer to? You might do better on the national
> slurs bit but blocking:
>
> Frog
> Frog One
> Frog lee
> Frog man
> Frog man45
> Frog man46
> Frog on a log
> Frog one
> Frog park
> Frog prince
> Frog queen
> Frog queen1995
> Frog-On-The-Pond
> Frog00
> Frog007
> Frog08un56
> Frog243
> Frog29
> Frog33
> Frog442
> RoastBeef

I would say it was more like Frog Merde, say. Which isnt on your
list, so presume doesnt
exist. Or Scheis Kraut. It clearly indicates non NPOV. If the edits
are good that great,
but if they cant be done under another name thats not so encouraging.

Justinc


body:
Something's majorly wrong with Nlu's actions now. First he says on my
talk page:
     By saying that he needed to be educated, you're attacking him. As
JDoorjam told you, behaving like this would make him look foolish for
trying to unblock you. Well, you're making him look foolish.
     Your unblock request is denied. Put that notice back and I'll
protect the page. The admins already know the situation, and it's
unacceptable to try to encourage a wheel war. --Nlu (talk) 06:00, 21
March 2006 (UTC)

Then, after saying he doesn't want to "encourage a wheel war", he does
exactly that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3ASPUI
# 01:08, 21 March 2006 Nlu blocked "SPUI (contribs)" with an expiry time
of 1 week (This condoning of SPUI's behavior without discussion is not
acceptable; enough is enough)
# 01:02, 21 March 2006 MarkGallagher unblocked SPUI (contribs) (I feel
this is an improper block; see ANI)
# 00:50, 21 March 2006 Nlu blocked "SPUI (contribs)" with an expiry time
of 1 week (Personal attacks (see WP:ANI); this user is clearly not
learning any lessons and does not deserve another break)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] exicornt switch

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/3/19, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
>>The current situation seems to be that all AOL users are blocked
>>pending cooperation from AOL in trying to stop vandalism. This seems
>>like a good approach to me.
>
>
> Not to me. It's not the IP's task to micromanage the online behaviour
> of their users. And why single out AOL? Why not block ALL users until
> their ISP starts to cooperate?

We single out AOL because they are the only ISP we know of that categorically refuses to append XFF
headers to proxy requests. Today, before I read this mailing list thread, I wrote this page on the
subject:

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

One of the ISPs on the trusted list (EscapeNet) is only there because I emailed them and asked them
to change their proxy configuration. Their response was fast and friendly. My hope is that other
ISPs will follow their lead, and that eventually the problem of shared IP addresses will be mostly
isolated to AOL.

As for AOL itself: sad to say, but we might need to put up some entry barriers. Bug 550 is an
extreme example of this: a feature which would let sysops restrict access to trusted users only.
Email confirmation with an aol.com address required would be better.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Minh Nguyen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
I'd suggest getting in touch with an admin at Wikibooks and asking them
to change "contact the site administrators" to "[[Wikimedia:Contact
us|contact the Wikimedia Foundation]]". Or something like that.

Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> So can someone set it up and add it?
>
> On 3/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/20/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "If you have problem seeing this image, or signing up in general,
>>> please contact someone at wikimedia.org with your account information,
>>> and we will assist you in creating an account"
>> That's pretty much the current text. Except no one has gotten around
>> to actually adding the email address. Which is what started this whole
>> thread.
>>
>> Steve
--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Varun Munjal

subject: [Wikitech-l] Question: CSS Formatting on Page

body:
Hello -

I am not sure how to include CSS formatting right on my Wiki page, and I
would like to include formatting like this:
|align="left" width="35%" style="background-color:#FFF7F7; border-top:1px
solid #AA8888; border-bottom:1px solid #AA8888; border-top:1px solid
#AA8888; padding-top:5px; padding-right:10px; padding-left:10px;
padding-bottom:10px;" valign="top"|

When I try to do so (without a template), it just shows up as text!  Is
there a plugin or directive that I can install/change to enable this?  Many
thanks,
vm2058 at gmail.com.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
Speaking of anglocentrism, I wonder if it'd be possible for the current
captcha software to generate captchas in other languages. I've seen some
generated captchas at the Vietnamese Wikipedia that would definitely
confuse Vietnamese-speakers (can't remember the words exactly), because
of things like r's and n's smooshed up right next to each other and
stuff. The user might have to /guess/ because the English words really
don't follow Vietnamese spelling rules.

An advantage to localizing the captchas would be that it might reduce
the impact of spambots at non-English projects. As far as I know, there
isn't yet a captcha-defeating bot that understands Vietnamese or Basque
or Quechua.

By the way, I'm only proposing localizing for most languages that use
the Latin alphabet, because requiring users to respond to a captcha in
Thai or Arabic would exclude a lot of legitimate interwiki users. And
users of other scripts tend to have the means of entering in Latin-based
characters. Also, for languages that use diacritical marks, we could
generate the words without the marks and modify
[[MediaWiki:Captcha-createaccount]], asking the user to enter in the
word without diacritical marks of any kind.

geni wrote:
> On 3/20/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 3/20/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Sorry i thought a catchpa was a wiggly word  _image_.  What I am
>>>> descirbing could easily be text.
>>> Invent one then ;) Bear in mind that if it's multiple choice, then the
>>> robot could just have a few goes.
>> A colour that's the opposite of black
>>
>> the number of days in a week
>>
>> A pet animal that goes woof woof.
>
> That has the problem of being anglocentric.
>
> You are going to need at least 1000 of these and you are going to need
> them in a lot of languages.
>
>
>
> --
> geni

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


from_name: Mak

subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
Beginning of Beethoven's third? They could at least say who that was by.
Makemi

On 3/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Forget eurocentric I suspect you would hit anglocentric. The number of
> > tunes known to everyone is so small the computer could just enter the
> > same answer every time and and get an account soon enough. Initialy
> > you could just use plain speach and rely on the issue that no one else
> > uses them so no one is going to bother makeing a bot. More advanced
> > aproaches could involve spoting male and female voices against
> > background noise.
>
> Beyond "happy birthday" I'm at a loss to think of *any* tune known to
> everyone. Maybe the Ode to Joy. Maybe.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ivan Krstic

subject: [Wikitech-l] CVS service is restored

body:
Heads up: SourceForge seems to have restored CVS service for the project.

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


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article violates patent?

body:
Jonathan (dzonatas at dzonux.net) [060321 02:25]:

> As I looked at slashdot.org today. I saw a message yesterday about the
> possible patent violation when  a lack of B12 to homocysteine is mentioned.
> Here is the wikipedia article that follow the claim:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_nutrition
> The quote is simple: "Vitamin B12 destroys Homocysteine, a neurotoxin
> the body naturally produces."
> The patent would make it invalid to include such claim without royalty.
> The news article is entitled "The essay breaks the law" by Michael Crichton.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/opinion/19crichton.html?ex=1300424400&en=9addb806498d2739&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I see nothing more suitable for us to do than directly ignore any such
patent.

- d.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
On 3/21/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...continuing masturbatory tech talk....
> What kind of audio captchas have people tried? I would think that asking
> people to identify a piece of music would be a pretty good captcha, although
> could be difficult to not make it Eurocentric. For instance, if you had a
> bunch of songs as universally recognisable as, say happy birthday, and then
> had a bunch of different recordings of those, it would be extraordinarily
> difficult for a computer to recognise the piece, since it could be in any
> key, in any tuning, with slight rhythmic diffences, but would still be
> recognisable to anyone who knew the piece. Yes, you would have to figure out
> what pieces to use and get the recordings, but it would still be cool. Of
> course, Carnildo/Mark's workaround would still be there.
> Makemi
>

Forget eurocentric I suspect you would hit anglocentric. The number of
tunes known to everyone is so small the computer could just enter the
same answer every time and and get an account soon enough. Initialy
you could just use plain speach and rely on the issue that no one else
uses them so no one is going to bother makeing a bot. More advanced
aproaches could involve spoting male and female voices against
background noise.

--
geni


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Foundation-l] Etiquette, Civility

body:
In this situation the user who is deleting other users attempts to
communicate with them is clearly in the wrong. Two metapolicies are
being violated, Assume good faith and our consensus decision making
policy. If they are not willing to negotiate they are apparently
trying to impose their will in other ways, reverting, etc. What we
have here is a failure to communicate. It's a shame that that line
was put into the mouth of a fascist in Cool Hand Luke. Talking things
over in good faith is one of our basic assumptions.

Fred

On Mar 20, 2006, at 5:16 PM, Cormac Lawler wrote:

> To repeat, with a bit more context, what
> I'm talking about is a situation where i noticed that two users were
> in an edit conflict, which provoked a question on this person's talk
> page, which this person deleted. I then made a similar comment that
> was more broad in scope, and the user then deleted this. I restored my
> question, asking to please discuss the matter with me. He deleted
> again.


subject: [Foundation-l] Etiquette, Civility


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Philosophical question re sources

body:
On 3/21/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that
> someone, somewhere holds that view.   Even if policy supports that (and I
> strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging the
> article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on
> Wikipedia.

The thing is that the article is about Paul Smith's organisation,
named "Safe Speed", and thus his organisation's claims and opinions
are definitively "on topic".  If it was a general article on road
safety issues, his organisation's claims might be removed as an
unsupported minority opinion given undue weight, but they can't be
here.

-Matt


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] User page issue

body:
On 3/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/20/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > I agree too, I raised my eyebrows when I first saw "Fenian Swine" appear
> > last year, but mainly because I would consider it a highly derogatory
> > term that some British people might use about the Irish, not the other
> > way round.
>
> That doesn't really matter, does it? We wouldn't accept any user
> calling themselves a name with the famous "n bomb" (rhymes with
> trigger...), regardless of whether they were a black American.

Actually it does matter who uses a word.  It's all about context - the word
"nigger" is acceptable when used by black people but not by white people
because it's one thing to mock yourself and another to be mocked by someone
else.  The level of offense is different when used by someone from another
oppressed/disempowered group.  Of course, Fenian isn't anywhere near as
offensive a term, as far as I know.

As for an insult turning into a badge of honour - you need only look at the
terms Tory and Whig

Ian


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

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

Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 3/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Forget eurocentric I suspect you would hit anglocentric. The number of
> > tunes known to everyone is so small the computer could just enter the
> > same answer every time and and get an account soon enough.
>
> Beyond "happy birthday" I'm at a loss to think of *any* tune known to
> everyone. Maybe the Ode to Joy. Maybe.

Possibly, but selecting the European (Pan-)National Anthem as an example
is a bit of a sop to the "eurocentric" charge. :-)

> > Initialy you could just use plain speach and rely on the issue that
> > no one else uses them so no one is going to bother makeing a bot.
> > More advanced aproaches could involve spoting male and female voices
> > against background noise.

That could work, though automated (unattended) text-to-speech synthesis
has not significantly improved in my lifetime. (Read: it's terrible.
Yes, even IBM's whizzo-prang stuff. Horrendously disjointed and
considerably more difficult to use as a "test" of something's humanity
than would be desired, I feel.)

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEH7Yjd7WnstdBQBkRAkooAJ9cUdLAz+JPBu0FivOSgaR2vPG+ygCfTOHY
JbLutPSRZ+qHzA+b17kV14U=
=zCfA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Free images and model releases

body:
On 3/20/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/20/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> > What is unclear about the picture is whether the subject is
> > identifiable.  She has a towel (or something) over her head which would
> > hide her identity.
>
> The woman in the back's face isn't obscured.

Yes, that's the woman I was talking about.

Anthony


from_name: Florence Devouard

subject: [Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Announce-l] Wikizine - number: 18]

body:
A little opportunity to make an advertisement for the wikizine (the
amount of stuff one may learn through the wikizine is amazing).
Plus a special thank you note for the comment on the Foundation and its
activity below -:)

I like this zine !

ant

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Announce-l] Wikizine - number: 18
Date: 	Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:07:38 +0100
From: 	Wikizine <info at wikizine.org>
Reply-To: 	readers-feedback at wikizine.org
Organization: 	Wikizine.org, an internal news bulletin for the members
of the Wikimedia community
To: 	announce-l at wikipedia.org

******************************************
 __    __ _ _    _     _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
\ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
 \  /\  /| |   <| |/ /| | | | |  __/
  \/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
                                    .org
Year: 2006  Week: 12  Number: 18

******************************************

An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community

//////////////////////////////////////////

=== Technical news (*)===

[Move page] Normal users can now move back a moved page. Seems to work
on all WMF wikis.

Example; [[user:Tom]] moves page [[Tom's page]] to [[Tom's moved page]].
 [[Tom's page]] is a redirect to [[Tom's moved page]].

Any user (non-sysop) can now move [[Tom's moved page]] back to [[Tom's
page]]. [[Tom's moved page]] is a redirect then. This only works if the
redirected page is not edited. If so you need to delete it first.

A sysop has a option to delete the target page directly when moving that
page.

[Blocked/edit] blocked users on the English Wikipedia can still edit
there own talk page. Seems to work only on the EN Wikipedia.

[renameuser] Bureacrats can change the user name of a user. But there is
a ceiling limit of the number of edits that a user can have done to be
able to change the username. That number used to be 6,800 edits. It has
been raised. Possibly to 20,000 edits. Because it is not sure that the
limit is really 20,000. Or even if it is so you can not trust that if
will not change without notice, it is best not to say to users with more
then 20,000 that the can not apply for a renameuser. Try it and you will
see of it works or not.

[SpamCop] the mail server of wikimedia has been blacklisted by spamcop.
The blocked made that emails send out by Wikimedia email handling system
OTRS where bouncing. According to SpamCop spam has been send by
Wikimedias systems. The block is now expired.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22368

[Weird] on Meta normal users get a "block"-link in RC for newly created
users. This block-link does not work. So far as know this behavior is
only on Meta.

(*) Remark: the meaning of the word "news" in the context of Wikizine
does not mean that it is really something new. It can be a new function
but also a function that is (not) widely known. So is the fact the
blocked users on EN Wiki still can edit there own talk page is many
months old. But if you are not from EN Wikipedia, it is news. Also can
it takes weeks before changes to the software are noticed so the report
of it is delayed.

=== Foundation ===

[Meetings] Wikimedia Polska is organizing a meetup at the end of April.
The big international Wikimania is at the begin of August 2006 in
Boston, SA. And the Chinese will hold a meeting in Hong Kong end August
2006. And also end of August or early September a meeting in the
Netherlands, Europe.

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6501
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chinese_Wikimania_2006_to_be_held_in_Hong_Kong
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6428
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCN

=== Community ===

[NW] The Chinese Wikinews starts. And the new Wiki seems already full of
live.
http://zh.wikinews.org

[Internal news] On the English Wikisource a local internal news section
is started in the spirit of the Wikipedia Signpost (EN wikipedia). On
the French Wikipedia the have since some weeks also a new internal
news-project. It is called "Wikizine". The seem to have discovered
Wikizine.org and are now voting for a new name.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikizine
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:News

=== New project proposals ===

[Proposal] New proposal: One encyclopedia per child.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#One_Encyclopedia_Per_Child_mainly_in_Simple_English

[Proposal] New proposal: Wikikernel, a new project incubator for new
Wikimedia project proposals.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikernel

=== Media ===

[Wikia] is the commercial company of Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. The
New York venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners is investing $4
million to help Wikia expand its Wikicities operation.
http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2006/03/13/story1.html?page=1

=== Did you know ...  ===

... that we are *all* volunteers?

The core-editors are the people who are sharing there time and knowledge
to work on the projects and really make the product; a encyclopedia, a
dictionary, a free textbook and so more. You have also sysops,
bureaucrats and stewards. The are working on different layers of
management of the projects. The need to take in to account a bigger
picture and take responsibility also in the function as volunteers.
Without the software developers and the system administrators to make to
fantastic software we are all using and keeping it online there would be
no Wikimedia projects. And the are also volunteers (mostly).

And the board of the Wikimedia foundation whit elected community
members, the committees of the WMF, we are all working on the same
project. But on different levels, whit different responsibility's.

>From the point of view of a blocked user a sysop can be seen as a
tyrant. But it is only a user, a sysop, who doing his job, his function.
Blocking user who hurt the project.  A steward can also not please
everybody and that is also not his function. Rules and policies are
there for a reason.

So can it be possible that the Wikimedia Foundation, who needs to deal
whit the real world, needs to take discussions  for the good of the
global Wikimedia family. Also when those actions can be unpopular. Do
not attack the Wikimedia Foundation for doing there job. The are also
volunteers working for us all. To keep the projects legally safe and
online. It is only that you can not vote about everything. Assume good
fiat.

=== MediaZilla-IRC Quotes ===

Doesn't "Votes for Deletion" mean we're deleting the votes?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe
is that it has never tried to contact us. [Just a note, that quote is
from Bill Watterson's 'Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip.]

//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 335
Editor(s): Walter, Shizhao
E-mail: ihavenews AT wikizine DOT org
//////////////////////////////////////////

Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of validity.
Wikizine.org is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Publisher:[[meta:user:Walter]]
_______________________________________________
Announce-l mailing list
Announce-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Google Finance is now online. 80% Humour inside. (at
 least in the "Wikimedia Foundation Inc." entry)

body:
http://finance.google.com/finance?cid=1668579

The "Company Summary" is content from Hoover's Company Directory (at
least I've seen that text before there).

"Related Companies" it's a joke.

"Management" seems to be from Hoover's as well.

The remaining parts come from news.google.com, blogsearch. and groups.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] User page issue

body:
On 3/20/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I agree too, I raised my eyebrows when I first saw "Fenian Swine" appear
> last year, but mainly because I would consider it a highly derogatory
> term that some British people might use about the Irish, not the other
> way round.

That doesn't really matter, does it? We wouldn't accept any user
calling themselves a name with the famous "n bomb" (rhymes with
trigger...), regardless of whether they were a black American.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
On 3/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Forget eurocentric I suspect you would hit anglocentric. The number of
> tunes known to everyone is so small the computer could just enter the
> same answer every time and and get an account soon enough. Initialy
> you could just use plain speach and rely on the issue that no one else
> uses them so no one is going to bother makeing a bot. More advanced
> aproaches could involve spoting male and female voices against
> background noise.

Beyond "happy birthday" I'm at a loss to think of *any* tune known to
everyone. Maybe the Ode to Joy. Maybe.

Steve


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Etiquette, Civility

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>In this situation the user who is deleting other users attempts to
>communicate with them is clearly in the wrong. Two metapolicies are
>being violated, Assume good faith and our consensus decision making
>policy. If they are not willing to negotiate they are apparently
>trying to impose their will in other ways, reverting, etc. What we
>have here is a failure to communicate. It's a shame that that line
>was put into the mouth of a fascist in Cool Hand Luke. Talking things
>over in good faith is one of our basic assumptions.
>
>Fred
>
>
Please keep in mind this is a user talk page, and the user who "owns"
the talk page is doing the deletion.  As has been pointed out, there are
other forums for expressing dissatisfaction, including this e-mail list.
 As to the ethics of removing that content may be debateable, it is
clear that the intended user did indeed get the message, even if they
are making a statement by removing that content afterward.  Just as I
delete stuff in my in-box for my e-mail account... even if it isn't
strictly spam.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Etiquette, Civility


from_name: Jonathan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed process pool

body:
Hello.

I did not realize the diversity in culture on wikitech-l..

pitchou jaures wrote:

>salut
>  excuse moi mais je nesuis pas anglophone
>


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
On 3/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Speed is the article in question.
>
> There now exists a groundswell of motorist activists who sincerely
> believe that Paul Smith has "proved" that speed cameras cost lives.
> How can we demonstrate that this is a false claim, as [[WP:NPOV]]
> requires we must, without straying into original research?
>

We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.

Ryan


from_name: Leif Knutsen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defense against personal attacks

body:
A content dispute on [[Anti-vaccinationist]] escalated over the last month
or so to a series of unpleasant recriminations. My adversary in this dispute
took to complaining about me to various admins and other places, but rather
than clutter up all these admin's talk pages with defense and continuing
debate, I decided to defend myself on one article in my own namespace, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Leifern/Accusations_by_Midgley

I linked to this page in talk pages where Midgley lodged complaints, but did
not advertise it any other way. Midgley promptly listed the page on MFD,
claiming it was a personal attack against him, part of an ongoing campaign
of such attacks. The MFD was closed with an inconclusive, suggesting
mediation. I'm thinking about my next course of action with respect to the
dispute.

The issue I'm bringing to this group, however, is this:

What is an editor to do when confronted with personal attacks by another
editor? Anyone who will read the page Midgley wanted deleted will see that
it contains not a single attack against Midgley but rather catalogues,
documents, and responds to accusations made by him against me, many of which
most definitely take the form of personal attacks.

There is, of course, the formal dispute resolution channels, but these are
a) an escalation in their own right, b) overworked, and c) pretty imperfect,
given the two other factors. It seems to me that the type of page I created
- provided it doesn't become a vehicle for retribution - is an informal
means for dealing with such problems.

But if it isn't, what works better? It seems unreasonable to deny editors
the right to defend themselves - with facts and logic - against attacks.

--
Leif Knutsen
(also responds to vyerllc at gmail.com and leif at vyer.net)


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
"Ben McIlwain" <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:441F19FC.3010801 at gmail.com...
> Fastfission wrote:
>> True, but I think one should consult secondary sources *first* for our
>> project, and primary sources *second*. You cannot consult a primary
>> source without an interpretative framework, and you should be deriving
>> that from a secondary source, in my interpretation of [[WP:NOR]].
[snip]
> Strongly agreed.  I'm doing mediation right now on some Islamic-related
> articles and one of the disputants is sourcing everything directly from
> the Quran :-(

Well...IFF the dispute is over what the Quran says on a certain subject,
then this is entirely justified.

OTOH interpreting the Quran seems to be a full-time job for near enough
every single Muslim, so if they're arguing over interpretation, they need to
be sourcing those different interpretations.

I know we have the Quran at Wikisource: do we have the various
interpretations that have appropriate licences also?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Phone calls

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 3/14/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Perhaps all pages in template space should be semi-protected by default:
>>templates are an advanced feature that probably does not make sense for
>>new users to experiment with, in any case.
>>
>>
>More complexity is probably less desired than more simplicity.
>
It follows that replacement of templates by real text should be e3ncouraged.

Ec


body:
On 3/21/06, Mikkerpikker <mikkerpikker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
> >
> > Ryan
>
> I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it
> satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy
> [[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact
> that there are no views cited to challenge it.

We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that
someone, somewhere holds that view.   Even if policy supports that (and I
strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging the
article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on
Wikipedia.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
On 3/21/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> Possibly, but selecting the European (Pan-)National Anthem as an example
> is a bit of a sop to the "eurocentric" charge. :-)

Not such a crime when you're talking about a language specific wiki
project, perhaps. It's also very popular in Japan!

Anyway we have established a nice algorithm for the bot to try:
1. Download audio captcha
2. Guess "Happy Birthday"
3. Guess "Ode to Joy"
4. Guess "Beethoven"
5. Give up.

Steve


from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] To Gerard re: Moldovan wiki

body:
On 3/20/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, Liviu, that's exactly what I said. Please re-read my e-mail.

True. Wasn't attentive enough.

Liviu

Mark
>
> On 20/03/06, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 19/03/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Note: '^' means "start of word", and "$" end of word, and the rules
> are
> > > > intended to be applied from top to bottom to reduce ambiguity.
> > >
> > >
> > > > ? = ? (all occurances of ? in a latin text can be treated as if they
> > > were ? during conversion)
> > > > ?? <-> ghiu
> > > > ?? <-> chiu
> > > > ?? <-> ghia
> > > > ?? <-> chia
> > > > ?? <-> ghe
> > > > ?? <-> ghi
> > > > ?? <- ?in
> > > > ?? <- ?im
> > > > ?? <-> iii$
> > > > ??$ <-> ii$
> > > > ? <-> ^ia
> > > > ?? <-> aia
> > > > ?? <-> iia
> > > > ?? <-> ?ia
> > > > ?? <-> uia
> > > > ?? <-> eia
> > > > ?? <-> oia
> > > > ?? <-> ?ia
> > > > ?? <-> ia$
> > > > ? <-> ^iu
> > > > ?? <-> aiu
> > > > ?? <-> iiu
> > > > ?? <-> ?iu
> > > > ?? <-> uiu
> > > > ?? <-> eiu
> > > > ?? <-> oiu
> > > > ?? <-> ?iu
> > > > ? <-> ^ie
> > > > ?? <-> aie
> > > > ?? <-> iie
> > > > ?? <-> ?ie
> > > > ?? <-> uie
> > > > ?? <-> eie
> > > > ?? <-> oie
> > > > ?? <-> ?ie
> > > > ??? <-> aio
> > > > ??? <-> iio
> > > > ??? <-> ?io
> > > > ??? <-> uio
> > > > ??? <-> eio
> > > > ??? <-> oio
> > > > ??? <-> ?io
> > > > ?? <-> che
> > > > ?? <-> chi
> > > > ?? <-> cea
> > > > ?? <-> ciu
> > > > ?? <-> gea
> > > > ?? <-> giu
> > > > ??$ <-> ce
> > > > ??$ <-> ci
> > > > ??$ <-> ai$
> > > > ??$ <-> ?i$
> > > > ??$ <-> ui$
> > > > ??$ <-> ei$
> > > > ??$ <-> oi$
> > > > ??$ <-> ?i$
> > > > ?$ <-> i$
> > > > ?? <-> ge
> > > > ?? <-> gi
> > > > ? <-> ci
> > > > ? <-> ea
> > > > ? <-> a
> > > > ? <-> b
> > > > ? <-> v
> > > > ? <-> g
> > > > ? <-> d
> > > > ? <-> e
> > > > ? <-> j
> > > > ? <-> z
> > > > ? <-> i
> > > > ? <-> c
> > > > ? <-> l
> > > > ? <-> m
> > > > ? <-> n
> > > > ? <-> o
> > > > ? <-> p
> > > > ? <-> r
> > > > ? <-> s
> > > > ? <-> t
> > > > ? <-> u
> > > > ? <-> f
> > > > ? <-> h
> > > > ? <-> ?
> > > > ? <-> ?
> > > > ? <-> ?
> > > > ? <-> ?
> > > > ? <-> ?
> > > >
> > > > End of table.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, that will leave a lot of words spelt incorrectly. For
> > > example, the word "crea" should be "????" and not "???" because of
> > > syllabification; same for a few other words. Another inconsitent rule
> > > is that "obiect" should be "??????" rather than "??????", also for
> > > quite a few other words again because of its pronunciation.
> >
> >
> > "Crea?ie" should well be spelled as "???????" and
> > not "??????". While "??????" is wrong.
> >
> > See, Cyrillic writing for Moldovan is very phonetic. How you pronounce
> > > something changes how you write it. Romanian writing, on the other
> > > hand, is a bit more loosely phonetic, and seems unconcerned with
> > > distinctions between the different "i" sounds for example, or with
> > > writing words differently based on syllable rules.
> >
> >
> > Another *huge* problem is names. Romanian and Moldovan names should
> > > convert just fine, but other names are a problem. What about "Mihail
> > > Sergheievici Gorbaciov"? That should be converted as "?????? ?????????
> > > ????????" (I think; it might be ~????). Or what about "chabad"? That
> > > should be "?????", not "??????".
> > >
> > > Mark
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Liviu
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Liviu


body:
On 3/21/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/21/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that
> > someone, somewhere holds that view.   Even if policy supports that (and
> I
> > strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging
> the
> > article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on
> > Wikipedia.
>
> The thing is that the article is about Paul Smith's organisation,
> named "Safe Speed",

Looking at this article, I think the main problem is that it is /not/ about
the organization, but about the organization's arguments. The whole "Safe
Speed's Claims" and "Opposition and Criticism" examples could be summarized
in a few sentences.

Imagine if someone wrote up a solitary article with all that content in it.
It would be AFD'ed in a flash, and rightly so. But by grandfathering it into
an article that is nominally about something else, they've succeeded in
getting a soapbox for advocacy. Kill it with fire.

Ryan


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
Minh Nguyen wrote:
> Speaking of anglocentrism, I wonder if it'd be possible for the current
> captcha software to generate captchas in other languages. I've seen some
> generated captchas at the Vietnamese Wikipedia that would definitely
> confuse Vietnamese-speakers (can't remember the words exactly), because
> of things like r's and n's smooshed up right next to each other and
> stuff. The user might have to /guess/ because the English words really
> don't follow Vietnamese spelling rules.
>
> An advantage to localizing the captchas would be that it might reduce
> the impact of spambots at non-English projects. As far as I know, there
> isn't yet a captcha-defeating bot that understands Vietnamese or Basque
> or Quechua.
>
> By the way, I'm only proposing localizing for most languages that use
> the Latin alphabet, because requiring users to respond to a captcha in
> Thai or Arabic would exclude a lot of legitimate interwiki users. And
> users of other scripts tend to have the means of entering in Latin-based
> characters. Also, for languages that use diacritical marks, we could
> generate the words without the marks and modify
> [[MediaWiki:Captcha-createaccount]], asking the user to enter in the
> word without diacritical marks of any kind.
>
Indeed it would be possible: what would be needed would be a word list
of about a thousand short words, for each language that needed its own
captchas, since the captcha software uses these to build its challenge
strings. It _might_ be possible to start with a set of common words in
English, and to use Wiktionary to choose the nearest equivalents in each
language.

However, I also think that it would be a good idea to have captchas in
non-Latin scripts as well: presumably many Arabic or Thai readers have
the same problems recognizing Latin characters that readers of Latin
scripts would have with Arabic or Thai characters. We could always offer
a Latin-script alternative as a fallback.

-- Neil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
Mak wrote:
> ...continuing masturbatory tech talk....
> What kind of audio captchas have people tried? I would think that asking
> people to identify a piece of music would be a pretty good captcha, although
> could be difficult to not make it Eurocentric. For instance, if you had a
> bunch of songs as universally recognisable as, say happy birthday, and then
> had a bunch of different recordings of those, it would be extraordinarily
> difficult for a computer to recognise the piece, since it could be in any
> key, in any tuning, with slight rhythmic diffences, but would still be
> recognisable to anyone who knew the piece. Yes, you would have to figure out
> what pieces to use and get the recordings, but it would still be cool. Of
> course, Carnildo/Mark's workaround would still be there.
> Makemi
>

"Happy Birthday to You" wouldn't be an option: it's still in copyright.
See http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp

Also, tune recognition is pretty much a done deal, thanks to the
[[Parsons code]] and similar techniques. There are a number of
commercial music recognition products available.

-- Neil


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] AOL (was Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 32, Issue 36)

body:
- Essjay - wrote:
> The problem is not what the users do from AOL IPs, it is the way AOL
> *assigns* IPs. Right now, if you are an AOL dial-up user, you will be
> assigned a new IP every 15 minutes, or every page load, whichever comes
> first. Literally *every time you load a page, you will have a new IP*. That
> makes blocking problematic AOL users *impossible*. By the time a sysop can
> discover and block a given address, the vandal has jumpted IPs at least
> once, potentially a dozen times. Additionally, no sooner than the block
> button is clicked, a legitimate AOL user with an account will be assigned
> that IP, and will be blocked. This is not as much of a problem on smaller
> projects, with fewer editors, fewer vandals, (and fewer AOL users as a
> result), but it is a serious problem on large projects like en.wikipedia,
> where there are thousands of AOL users.

That's certainly not the impression we gained when we researched this a couple of years ago. Has
something changed recently? AOL's information on this subject certainly hasn't changed:

http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html

My understanding on this subject is that in the US, AOL uses a proxy cluster with load balancing by
a hash of the destination URL. Thus if you block an AOL IP which edited a particular article, you
block all AOL edits to that particular article.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Fastfission

body:
But we can note, if it is true, that it is not currently adopted by
any authorities, that no tests of it have been done, and that it has
been soundly ignored by experts in the field.

It's not easy to define what is or is not a "consensus" in a field
(the lack of published controversy does not indicate consensus at
all), people with a reasonable familiarity with the literature of a
field can usually give a good sense of how something has been received
or ignored or what-have-you.

I think the fact that this hasn't been taken up by any recognized
experts in the subject is a verifiable fact, and telling enough for
most people.

FF

On 3/21/06, Mikkerpikker <mikkerpikker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
> >
> > Ryan
>
> I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it
> satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy
> [[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact
> that there are no views cited to challenge it.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
On 3/21/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well...IFF the dispute is over what the Quran says on a certain subject,
> then this is entirely justified.
>
> OTOH interpreting the Quran seems to be a full-time job for near enough
> every single Muslim, so if they're arguing over interpretation, they need to
> be sourcing those different interpretations.

The lack of a clear line between "fact" and "interpretation" is never
more evident than with scripture, but it is only an extreme variation
of the sorts of things one is involved with in most historical texts.
(And even scientific texts, with all of their attempts at
standardization and specialization of language, can be quite ambiguous
at times.)

Appealing to a primary source when the question is, "is the quote X or
Y?" is of course useful and a basic part of fact checking. But I doubt
that's the issue here (it rarely is, though in cases of translation
even that aspect can be difficult to ferret out).

There is an anthropologist whose work I enjoy who talks about the use
of scientific testimony in front of a jury and the ways in which
certain forms of testimony, when presented in certain ways, make
juries feel that they are cable of understanding a very difficult
concept when they are in fact not. For example, if you juxtapose two
brain scans which look very different, one which says "normal"
underneath it and one which says "the client's", most jurors will
think that it provides clear evidence to the client's brain
abnormality. An expert on brains though would know that superficial
analysis like this, relying only on two images at that (there are many
types of "normal"), is practically worthless, and certainly that
someone without training in neuroscience is not qualified to even make
sense of such images. The anthropologist calls this sort of evidence
"expert images," in that they give one the impression of being an
expert, though real experts find them unclear and contestable. Anyway,
I bring this up as just an analogy -- I think primary sources often
serve as "expert sources" or something along those lines for Wikipedia
users, which is why I am so cautious about people using them.

If we stick with secondary sources, then we dodge the problem
alltogether. Furthermore, if Wikipedia cites a secondary source, it
will never be "wrong" (viz. Nature) in a factual sense -- our greatest
sin would then be one of picking the wrong sources or giving too much
attention to marginal ones (which is a real question in and of itself,
of course).

FF


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] User page issue

body:
On 21/03/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/20/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > I agree too, I raised my eyebrows when I first saw "Fenian Swine" appear
> > last year, but mainly because I would consider it a highly derogatory
> > term that some British people might use about the Irish, not the other
> > way round.
>
> That doesn't really matter, does it? We wouldn't accept any user
> calling themselves a name with the famous "n bomb" (rhymes with
> trigger...), regardless of whether they were a black American.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I really do not think Fenian is remotely on a par with that n-word. Unless
one is from Northern Ireland. Even so, I suspect despite crying foul at
those who label Republicans with such a term, many Republicans are probably
proud to be called such.

Fenian has been used repeated as a self-describing term at various times in
history, right up to the present day, and with some pride too.

"Fenian Swine" is really more an ironic username than anything else in so
far as I can see.

Perhaps the only people really offended are those from the country whose
citizens use that term in a derogatory fashion, or those ignorant of the
term and just vaguely aware of some links with a derogation?

Just some thoughts as an Irishman.

Zoney
--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Minh Nguyen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> Indeed it would be possible: what would be needed would be a word list
> of about a thousand short words, for each language that needed its own
> captchas, since the captcha software uses these to build its challenge
> strings. It _might_ be possible to start with a set of common words in
> English, and to use Wiktionary to choose the nearest equivalents in each
> language.
>
> However, I also think that it would be a good idea to have captchas in
> non-Latin scripts as well: presumably many Arabic or Thai readers have
> the same problems recognizing Latin characters that readers of Latin
> scripts would have with Arabic or Thai characters. We could always offer
> a Latin-script alternative as a fallback.
>
> -- Neil

I've filed Bug 5309 <http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/5309> on this.

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia: Admins abusing their authority

body:
On 20/03/06, Gay Muslim <queeran at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do you have independently-verifiable logs backing up this claim?
>
> I have my own log. I have no doubt they will lie and claim that I altered
> it, because they banned me from speaking in the room and he then did it in
> private window.

So that's a "no", you don't have independently-verifiable logs then.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Vedant Lath

subject: [Wikitech-l] hosting problems

body:
hi,

My hosting provider is very crappy. One of the basic things, i.e. shell
access, is not available. This has many disadvantages because I cannot
run almost
any maintenance scripts. I found that I could use cron scripts to replace a
shell, (it does what I would do in a shell), but it is very tedious and has
been the cause of many problems. I had to import something to the wiki and
ran the scirpt through a cron script but forgot to remove it and it kept
importing it over and over till i saw that some pages that were deleted
again came up.

moreover, the server is in such a location that cvs update is
neversuccessful. In my computer, cvs update updates the code within 20
or 30
times, but in that server, it has never updated. I made a script to keep
updating it till it succedded and it updated only once in 24 hours. This
definately caused problems to the host, and they temporarily suspended my
account. So I see no way out of this except change my hosting provider.

Does anybody know a good hosting provider that suites my needs?

vedant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:

>On 3/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though.  Plenty of
>>>primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily
>>>verifiable, if not always reliable.
>>>
>>>
>>They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg,
>>Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would
>>invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded
>>England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.
>>
>>Steve
>>
>>[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932
>>
>>
>
>Which is only part of the picture, of course.  Certain primary sources
>are quite reliable (or as reliable as anything else we have, anyway)
>-- for example, Guicciardini's History of Italy is a primary source,
>but is generally considered to be a highly reliable one.
>
His memoirs and/or diaries would be primary, but his History of Italy
would be secondary.

Ec


from_name: wiki.pedia.WiseFool at spamgourmet.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overly lengthy blocks

body:
I've been blocked from editing Wikipedia from a university connection
for over three months now, since the IP block stops traffic from the
entire state of Maine's library/school system. Are four-month blocks
really an accepted part of policy, for a system that blocks
established users along with anonymous users from contributing?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>It seems to me to fall back in part on the nature of the claim.
>"Interpretation" often crossed over into original research, but
>quoting can go both ways. If the quotes selected are used to
>illustrate a point which can be found in secondary literature, that
>seems fine to me (i.e., quoting directly from _Origin of Species_ to
>explain Darwin's thoughts on some point in a way which would not be
>controversial to anyone), but cherry-picking quotations or using
>quotations to support points not in secondary literature is original
>research (i.e. quoting directly from _Origin of Species_ to support
>your own, idiosyncratic and unorthodox interpretation).
>
>If the source is published, quoting from it should be fine, as long as
>the point of the quoting is not problematic and one could ultimately
>find the same argument made about the source (implicitly or
>explicitly) in secondary literature.
>
It's hard to imagine a quotation from anywhere that isn't
cherry-picked.  Reviewing Darwin's work to differentiate between what
was used in secondary literature, and what is an original usage is
itself as much original research as the result.  Either Darwin is a
quotable author or he isn't; there's no point to creating a large amount
of weasel room that would allow us to opt out when what he says does not
conform to one's individual point of view.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
geni wrote:

>On 3/17/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 3/17/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It appears these notions are known in practice, but it isn't covered in
>>>depth on guidelines. I wonder if it is possible.
>>>
>>>
>>Unfortunately, the more is added to our guidelines, the less likely
>>they are to be actually read and understood.  The point is better made
>>on article talk pages or to particular editors, I feel.
>>
>>
>I think it has already reached the point where the only time I look at
>outr guidlines is when someone is trying to use them against me.
>
Indeed!  And when this can be honestly stated by people with opposing
views about what the guidelines should say, it doesn't say much for the
credibility of the guidelines.

Ec


from_name: EricJonah

subject: [Wikitech-l] export Spezial:Allmessages to language.php

body:
index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php&printable=yes
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 00:04:42 +0100
Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> ???:

> Rob Church schrieb:
> > 1. Special:Allmessages
> > 2. Click "PHP" view
> >
> > This produces the PHP for the messages file (1.6) or languages file
> > (1.5) which can be pasted in.
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
> >
> > On 16/03/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> >> Does there exist out there a solution for an export of
> >> "Spezial:Allmessages" to a language.php file?
> >>
> >> thx-Heinz
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikitech-l mailing list
> >> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >>
> thx. heinz
>
> tomatos on eyes ;-)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
EricJonah <ericjonah at gmail.com>


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] FYI: A program for evaluating WP articles

body:
I think the best idea is to keep this as an outside system and to encourage
people to come up with alternative metrics. An API that would allow people
to come up with different ranking systems (try to quantify best prose, best
copyediting, most interesting, etc..) would be great. The model of the
project that you've outlined sounds like a great start.

On 3/18/06, Ray King <raymondking at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On gaming: No matter what we do, the system will be gameable, but if the
> rewards for doing so aren't too high (which in this case I don't think
> they
> are) and we monitor the system, we can likely stay ahead of the
> gamers.  In
> the end, giving people the ability to quickly and easily see what other
> contributions an author has made gives the reader the chance to decide how
> credible the author is.
>
> On deletions:  The idea that deleting is also a valuable contribution is a
> very good point.  But that does open a gaming hole in that one can add
> with
> one account and delete with the other.  I suggest we leave that alone for
> now.
>
> On getting this going: I completely agree that we should define a narrow
> and
> do-able set of requirements for "Phase I".  To that end, I would greatly
> appreciate any help in separating Phase I, II and III features as well as
> any other thoughts and help in developing specs.
>
> Thanks for the thoughts! - Ray.
>
> On 3/18/06, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Steve Bennett wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >  Well it's certainly very interesting. I wonder how it can be gamed,
> > > and what the consequences that would be for Wikipedia? I also note
> > > that deletions don't seem to be covered anywhere. An author who
> > > deletes text could be making a valuable contribution...
> > >
> > > Steve
> > >
> > > On 3/17/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at rdrop.com> wrote:
> > >> Have a look at Ray King's essay:
> > >>
> > >> http://www.pint2.org/index.php/Contributor_Ranking_System
> > >>
> > >> Although this solution is aimed more generally at sites using
> Wikimedia
> > >> software, this is something I believe Ray has been talking with Jimbo
> > >> about. I happened to be present when Ray presented this the other
> > night,
> > >> & a known expert suggested an excellent way to grab some of the data
> > >> needed without causing a strain on the servers.
> > >>
> > >> And Ray is *very* interested in feedback. I hope he concentrates on a
> > >> simplified version of this proposal, rather than trying to write the
> > >> finished, with all of the bells-&-whistles version.
> > >>
> > I know that the possibility of "gaming" this tool has been raised -- but
> > if
> > we make the assumption that what Ray's Toolbar measures is based on the
> > version currently viewed, then the fact someone contributed "fnord" 100
> > times (which was quickly deleted) is factored out.
> >
> > As for negative deletions -- I think that should be handled in version
> 2.0
> > (where I expect the cross-Wiki feature will be implimented). What do you
> > think, Ray?
> >
> > Geoff
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Raymond King
> ray at aboutus.com
> 503.888.8808 (cell)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
An organisation exists which makes certain claims.  These claims are
at odds with informed opinion on the subject.  They are not published
in any peer-reviewed journals, and can be demonstrated to be false or
at best questionable by reference to primary sources.

Most credible authorities do not deign to reply to these claims,
because the organisation is mainly dismissed as cranks (or rather, a
lone crank) and many of the claims are considered absurd, but they
have a popular resonance among certain groups who desperately want to
believe them.  The person who runs the group is a talented
self-publicist and gets his claims in the news, but declines all
invitations to submit the claims for peer-review.  As unpublished
work, there are therefore no published rebuttals, and most reputable
authorities simply dismiss the group.

Some of the group's claims have a basis in published research, but
constitute an extreme interpretation of that research.  This
interpretation is, in some cases, strongly contested by the
researchers themselves.

Supporters of the group are vociferous; this is in many cases the sole
source for what they really want to believe, so they promote it
assiduously.

So: the group is notable by reference to news coverage.  The existence
of the group's claims come from reliable sources, the group's own
materials which are reliable in the context of documenting the group.
Rebuttals do not come from reliable secondary sources because the
secondary sources have published neither the claims nor the rebuttals.
Opposition to the claims is therefore denounced as uncited and "weasel
words" because the opponents are not named, although there is not one
single reputable authority which supports the claims.

How best to handle this?

I am personally involved in one side of a dispute on this, as is
patently obvious from the way I have phrased the above :-)  In the end
I want the article to be a good one because every article should be a
good one.  Another user, DeFacto, has been effective in challenging
opposition from me and others, and thus tightening up this and other
articles on subjects related to motorist activism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Speed is the article in question.

There now exists a groundswell of motorist activists who sincerely
believe that Paul Smith has "proved" that speed cameras cost lives.
How can we demonstrate that this is a false claim, as [[WP:NPOV]]
requires we must, without straying into original research?

This is also a problem because their claim that cameras cost lives has
now been repeated in other Wikipedia articles.  That is a serious
concern to me.  It is a claim which Smith actively refuses to put up
to peer review.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>On 3/17/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources in most
>>cases.
>>
>>
>No way. Aside from our lovely NOR policy, let me just say that the
>worst annoyance is some yahoo with a primary source who thinks that he
>now knows how to write history (and I am sure the specialists in other
>fields as well have run into this a million times over).
>
>A small example: periodically you get people quoting passages
>selectively out of Darwin's _Descent of Man_ to prove that Darwin was
>a racist (by modern standards). They appeal to the original and say
>that they are as good as anyone else at interpretting such things. In
>reality, Darwin's take on race (so says the historian) needs to be
>highly contextualized (he is actually considerably less racist than
>most of his anthropological contemporaries, though just racist enough
>to not be considered an ethnologist) and is considerably more complex
>than just reading _Descent of Man_ (you can't really understand
>_Descent of Man_ unless you read the works to which Darwin is
>implicitly responding to).
>
If Darwin was responding to the work of others than his book can no
longer be considered a primary source.

>But none of that depth, context, and
>richness is clear from the primary source alone -- the work of a
>historian is to draw all of these things together, to make the primary
>source more than the text it is printed upon.
>
>And so historians have done this, and so it is easy to write an
>article about _Descent of Man_ or Darwin's views on race, because most
>of that synthesis has already been done by others and can be easily
>found and referenced. Sure, pairing the synthetic approach *along*
>with the primary source is a great idea and for good effect. But in
>this case the primary source serves primarily to add luster and
>authenticity to the secondary interpretation, which is considerably
>harder to get than just reading the original.
>
I think you have it all backwards.  I do agree that reading the original
is often much more difficult, and that secondary works fulfill a
simplifying function.  But any secondary interpretation imposes
additional views, or creates distortions of the original material, or
begins the cherry-picking process.

>Perhaps I sound a little territorial, here (of course the historian
>claims that being a historian is not easy), but I suspect that other
>people with other backgrounds will agree a bit on this. I'd rather
>have people write an encyclopedia based on secondary accounts than
>primary accounts -- the former will prove to be a collection of the
>current state of the knowledge (an encyclopedia), the latter will
>prove to be a collection of off-beat, missing-the-point, and
>thoroughly unaware and uninformed amateurisms.
>
Oh!  It seems as though this approach only reinforces the socally
acceptable POV.

>I've run into this time and time again, when some self-styled
>researcher attempts to forge new ground on Wikipedia using their
>original sources, and refuses to acknowledge the difficulty of using
>primary sources, even after it being patiently explained more than a
>few times. I have to admit, it drives me a little batty -- as such I
>apologize for the lengthy reply!
>
What you are seeking is more than a simple acknowledgement of the
difficulty of using primary sources.  When you put this in terms of
patient explanations you are going much further and presuming him to be
wrong.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
zero 0000 wrote:

>>From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com>
>>On 3/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
>>>
>>>
>>I'm hoping you mean "unpublished oral accounts" when you say "primary sources".
>>
>>
>>Primary sources are *by definition* preferable to secondary sources
>>in most cases.
>>
>>
>There are important exceptions to this.  Some types of primary source
>need interpretation that requires expertise.  For example, diaries and
>autobiographies are often inaccurate and self-serving, and intelligence
>reports often include rumors and suspicions along with facts.
>
These are all valid observations

>In such a
>case, it can be better to rely on an expert who has examined the evidence
>and weighed it against other evidence and context.
>
In other words you believe that it is better to kiss the ass of the
secondary expert than to agree with the primary expert.  And who
establishes whether that secondary expert has in fact examined that
evidence?  There have been some disturbing cases recently suggesting
that the existing peer-review process is broken.

>At least one should
>check on secondary sources to see whether there is any dispute over the
>accuracy of the primary source.
>
Absolutely!  That's an important first step in any kind of critical
evaluation.

Ec


body:
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:15:16 -0500, you wrote:

>We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.

A good solution, but it is the single most notable thing about him and
has been repeated on news sources such as the BBC.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Access the Content of Wikipedia from extern

body:
G at B wrote:
> The constellation would be: Fill a Form (Text Area) with the Word I am
> searching for in my Website or a program or something like this. This
> Website, Program, etc.. connects (however) to the Wikipedia website
> and returns the content (if the word is specific enough) to the
> website, program, etc...
> I hope I formulate the case in a understandable way. Now the concrete
> questions are:
>
> - Is there a Wikipedia API-Specification in order to reach my goal?

Not at this time.

> - If no, which alternatives are there?

If you're a nice person: open a web browser and point it at Wikipedia.

If you're a very nice person: run your own mirror of the database and search &
format data however you like, see http://download.wikimedia.org/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060321/efb3455e/attachment.pgp>


body:
- Essjay - wrote:
> This has been my experience on en.wikipedia, as well as what we (the users)
> are told when we complain about AOL. It is certainly the case that within
> seconds of blocking an IP, a legit user is affected, while the exact same
> vandal is mysteriously on a new IP continuing his vandal spree. It seems
> awfully coincidental to me that the vandal would be able to get onto a new
> IP within seconds of the old one being blocked (I've had dialup, and I was
> never able to disconnect and reconnect in a matter of seconds) while at the
> exact same time a Wikipeida contributor dials in and is assigned the IP the
> vandal was using, as opposed to some non-Wikipedian being assigned it.
>
> Perhaps I'm completely wrong; I only know what a lot of vandalfighting has
> taught me, along with what I've been told by people who are supposed to know
> what they are talking about.

The proxy IP changes on every request, not the client IP. The client IP is stable throughout the PPP
session. The site I linked to in my previous post contains a discussion of the difference between
the two.

>>http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html

We can in fact determine the AOL client IP using a Java applet or ActiveX control. I once floated
the idea of serving Java applets to AOL users, but it met with a cold reception, for usability
reasons. And of course the results returned by an applet running on the client could be spoofed.

Maybe we could use an SSL web bug or redirect script. I imagine SSL requests wouldn't be proxied.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Phone calls in office

body:
geni wrote:

>On 3/14/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Ilya N. wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 3/12/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>1 phone call is from someone who perfectly understood she is at the
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>encyclopedia office, and want to know more about the cancer her sister
>>>>>in law just died from. Usually, the call is during the night; this is
>>>>>when people are scared by the dark and think of life and death.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>TODO: Explain to them that all the information we have is already on
>>>>the encyclopedia?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>A person who makes that kind of call is looking for a response with more
>>>human sensitivity than a computer.
>>>
>>>
>>Then how about a short "speed-bump" IVR session before they get put
>>through...
>>
>>  "Hello, you've reached the French office of Wikipedia, the free
>>encyclopedia!"
>>
>>   "Please listen to the following options:"
>>
>>  "For press enquiries, dial 1"
>>
>>  "For contact information, dial 2"
>>
>>  "For more information about Wikipedia and its mission, dial 3"
>>
>>  "To speak to a person at the Wikipedia France office, please hold on
>>the line..."
>>
>>  <15 secs of hold music>
>>
>>The intro message lets them know that they have not called the Red Cross
>>or the White House.
>>1 puts them straight through
>>2 and 3 play a short recorded message with the appropriate info,
>>removing the need for human intervention.
>>The next bit reiterates who they have called in case they didn't get it
>>the first time, and lets them know they are not going to be talking to a
>>helpline, again helping them to refocus their mind.
>>The 15 seconds of hold music are gently discouraging to crank callers, a
>>fair few of which will hang up...
>>
>>Once they've been through the pre-screening process, anyone who's
>>serious enough to have kept on the line gets put straight through.
>>
>>
>Replace the 15 seconds of hold music with the sound of nails scrapeing
>down blackboards. Should remove time wasters quite quickerly.
>
I thought we were talking about a call from someone who has just
experienced a personal tragedy.  You offer them automated responses from
Big Brother to emphasize the insignificance of what they are feeling.  I
would hardly want to live in a world that is so insensitive to the human
condition.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Jonathan wrote:

>If someone uses a primary source, should the context be quoted directly?
>If it is not, would that constitute original research? Another words, if
>someone takes the primary source and interprets it to his or her own
>need, it does seem like a re-creation of a primary source. It's like
>original research in an attempt to make the primary source a secondary
>source.
>
When you take a primary source and paraphrase it or interpret it it is
no longer that primary source.  It is original research, and you
interpretation may mean something entirely different from what the
source intended.

Ec


from_name: david at election.demon.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] User page issue

body:
Speaking as a Briton, albeit one with no strong feelings on either
side of the Irish question, I don't have a particular problem with
Irish nationalism. I might have a problem if User:Fenian Swine's user
page said "Up the 'Ra!" or something like that but it doesn't.

"Fenian" is an English corruption of the Irish word for soldier.
However this word has already been incorporated into the largest
Irish Republic political party, Fianna Fail ("Soldiers of Destiny"
in translation) and the term has become somewhat antiquated as the
original Fenians were operating in the mid-19th century.

I think when considering a politically POV username, regard should
also be had to the user's edits. If the user is in constant trouble
for highly POV editing then it's more appropriate to ask for a name
change, but that does not appear to be the case here.

David Boothroyd
[[en:User:Dbiv]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Jonathan wrote:

>Matt R wrote:
>
>
>
>>--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Primary sources are hard if not impossible to verify. Don't use them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Depends on the topic, I think. Lots of Wikipedia articles survive by citing
>>sources from contemporary news articles, for example. I'm not sure the
>>primary/secondary source distinction is particularly useful for us. I'd argue
>>we need only to make sure that A) the source can be verified to say what it's
>>claimed to say; B) we can have some reasonable basis to believe the source is
>>trustworthy; and C) we don't add any additional interpretation of our own
>>beyond what the source says.
>>
>>-- Matt
>>
>>
>>
>And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it
>is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in
>a primary source that says:
>    Joe said he saw the ghost.
>
>The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state:
>    Joe believes in ghosts.
>
>It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the
>possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in
>ghosts or not.
>
>
"Joe said" already removes this from the person who wrote the sentence;
i.e. someone other than the person writing up the incident is the one
who saw the ghost.  What did he mean by "saw the ghost"?  An early
experimenter in Roentgen Rays might see this differently from a
spiritualist.  If Joe is a sceptic attending a s?ance, he could very
weel say the first statement without actually intending the second.  I
arrive at this without even needing to address anyone's bad faith or lies.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 3/17/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
>
>
>>And point C seems like the hard one to determine. If it is not hard, it
>>is at least contentious. For example, let's say there is a statement in
>>a primary source that says:
>>    Joe said he saw the ghost.
>>
>>The article then uses that as a source and changes it to state:
>>    Joe believes in ghosts.
>>
>>It might be true, but it seems like an interpretation based on the
>>possibility that Joe might have actually lied despite his belief in
>>ghosts or not.
>>
>>
>
>This kind of interpretation is perfectly acceptable imho. If there's
>no particular reason to think that Joe lied (ie, he didn't say so the
>next day), then using words like "believes" or "thinks" is not
>contentious. Occasionally a little unclear, particularly if the
>person's current beliefs are unclear, but that's more a question of
>style than an application of NOR. Similar kind of deal if you say
>"Joe, angry about the lack of consultation, believed he had been
>misled", when your source says something like "Joe said yesterday,
>"Those bastards told me they weren't going to do anything without
>asking me, but they screwed me over".
>
>My example isn't very well worded, but I'm trying to show that you can
>deduce "angry" from the colourful language, and "believed" as a
>convention for "said that he thought".
>
"Believes" is always contentions because it presumes to know what is
going on in someone else's mind.  That use of "believed" as some kind of
convention only holds as long as we all accept that conventional usage,
and ignore other usages of the word.

Ec


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] User page issue

body:
On 3/21/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually it does matter who uses a word.  It's all about context - the word
> "nigger" is acceptable when used by black people but not by white people
> because it's one thing to mock yourself and another to be mocked by someone
> else.  The level of offense is different when used by someone from another
> oppressed/disempowered group.  Of course, Fenian isn't anywhere near as
> offensive a term, as far as I know.

My point is - it's not acceptable in a user name (or probably user
page either) by anyone on Wikipedia, regardless of their membership of
any particular group. We're definitely not into treating different
races differently!

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Captcha word quiz

body:
On 3/20/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Matt Brown wrote:
>
> >On 3/20/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>We already have a spam filter. And the nofollow proposal was rejected by
> >>the community.

So I see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Nofollow

61% voted for not using nofollow, 39% voted for using it, in Feb 2005.

Steve


from_name: ! Chris Sherlock

subject: [Foundation-l] Ta bu shi da yu is getting married

body:
Just a short note to let people know that on Saturday 18th March, 2006
Wikipedia administrator Ta bu shi da yu asked his girlfriend to marry
him, and she said yes!

To clarify (I've been pinged on this before) - obviously he did not
ask her in his capacity as a Wikipedia admin :-)

Chris
TBSDY


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, ! Chris Sherlock  wrote:

> Just a short note to let people know that on Saturday 18th March, 2006
> Wikipedia administrator Ta bu shi da yu asked his girlfriend to marry
> him, and she said yes!

I felicitate you heartily on your good fortune  :-)

> To clarify (I've been pinged on this before) - obviously he did not
> ask her in his capacity as a Wikipedia admin :-)

Yet I must ask, why not?  Does not the admin heart beat with passion?
Are not the rare administrative capacities -- to protect, to expunge
injury, to merge two different histories into one, and (with all due
bureaucratcy) to christen with a new name -- the very powers offered
to and expected of a spouse?

Warmly,
   SJ


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Phone calls in office

body:
> I thought we were talking about a call from someone who has just
> experienced a personal tragedy.  You offer them automated responses
> from
> Big Brother to emphasize the insignificance of what they are
> feeling.  I
> would hardly want to live in a world that is so insensitive to the
> human
> condition.

Wikipedia is not a support group for the distraught.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:26:31 -0500, you wrote:

>Looking at this article, I think the main problem is that it is /not/ about
>the organization, but about the organization's arguments. The whole "Safe
>Speed's Claims" and "Opposition and Criticism" examples could be summarized
>in a few sentences.

I agree.  The only problem is, I am not convinced that other editors
will accept my doing so.  I think I will engage in a Talk discussion
on this.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On 3/21/06, Leif Knutsen <vyerllc at gmail.com> wrote:
> But if it isn't, what works better? It seems unreasonable to deny editors
> the right to defend themselves - with facts and logic - against attacks.

There's that classic line about arguing with idiots - people might not
know the difference. Two people arguing with apparent facts and logic
are hard to distinguish without actually verifying those facts and
logic.

Bottom line: If there's any chance of ignoring it, that may be better.
And you'll have so much more free time!

This isn't really a Wikipedia-specific philosophy - it's just worth
bearing in mind that you don't actually have to respond to personal
attacks.

Steve


body:
On 3/21/06, Mikkerpikker <mikkerpikker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Right, but then the question is: are the cited views notable? I'm not
> sure, but from what JzG wrote, they do seem notable. In other words,
> if we grant the notability/importance of the view, we can't simply
> remove the statement.

My first reaction would be a short paragraph along the lines of "There
is at least one group, Speed Demons Inc, which claims that the above
research is false[1][2]. No research to this effect has been published
in peer-reviewed journals, however".

Or something. Their claims are notable. And it's true that they
haven't been published, right? (though how you cite that...)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:NOT

body:
On Mar 21, 2006, at 4:06 PM, Ben McIlwain wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Philip Welch wrote:
>>> I thought we were talking about a call from someone who has just
>>> experienced a personal tragedy.  You offer them automated responses
>>> from
>>> Big Brother to emphasize the insignificance of what they are
>>> feeling.  I
>>> would hardly want to live in a world that is so insensitive to the
>>> human
>>> condition.
>>
>> Wikipedia is not a support group for the distraught.
>
> Add that to [[WP:NOT]]

I don't think it's enough of a problem to justify that, but I suspect
"Wikipedia is not your plaything" would be a good addition too.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On 3/21/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> The thing is that the article is about Paul Smith's organisation,
> named "Safe Speed", and thus his organisation's claims and opinions
> are definitively "on topic".  If it was a general article on road
> safety issues, his organisation's claims might be removed as an
> unsupported minority opinion given undue weight, but they can't be
> here.

Then the right thing seems to be to stress that the claims have not
been published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. It seems
perfectly appropriate to explain the claims of a kook group on a page
about that kook group. By the same token, it's inappropriate to
misrepresent those claims as having any kind of validity or
acceptance.

Steve


from_name: Mikkerpikker

body:
> We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
>
> Ryan

I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it
satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy
[[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact
that there are no views cited to challenge it.


from_name: Jesse Nickles

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: WikiTimeline

body:
Hello, I'm proposing a new project called WikiTimeline
that focuses on simple timelines of key events. This
is due to the fact that most wiki pages do indeed list
some dates and years in regard to important
developements when relevant, but often in a very
disorganized or hard to decipher fashion. Visit the
proposal page here:

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

I'm not very experienced with Wikimedia but at least a
bit of light can be shed on this issue via this
proposal so that a discussion can determine how
feasible or necessary such a project is. Thank you,
Jesse

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: WikiTimeline


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> An organisation exists which makes certain claims.  These claims are
> at odds with informed opinion on the subject.  They are not published
> in any peer-reviewed journals, and can be demonstrated to be false or
> at best questionable by reference to primary sources.
>
> Most credible authorities do not deign to reply to these claims,
> because the organisation is mainly dismissed as cranks (or rather, a
> lone crank) and many of the claims are considered absurd, but they
> have a popular resonance among certain groups who desperately want to
> believe them.  The person who runs the group is a talented
> self-publicist and gets his claims in the news, but declines all
> invitations to submit the claims for peer-review.  As unpublished
> work, there are therefore no published rebuttals, and most reputable
> authorities simply dismiss the group.
>
> Some of the group's claims have a basis in published research, but
> constitute an extreme interpretation of that research.  This
> interpretation is, in some cases, strongly contested by the
> researchers themselves.
>
> Supporters of the group are vociferous; this is in many cases the sole
> source for what they really want to believe, so they promote it
> assiduously.
>
> So: the group is notable by reference to news coverage.  The existence
> of the group's claims come from reliable sources, the group's own
> materials which are reliable in the context of documenting the group.
> Rebuttals do not come from reliable secondary sources because the
> secondary sources have published neither the claims nor the rebuttals.
> Opposition to the claims is therefore denounced as uncited and "weasel
> words" because the opponents are not named, although there is not one
> single reputable authority which supports the claims.
>
> How best to handle this?
>
> I am personally involved in one side of a dispute on this, as is
> patently obvious from the way I have phrased the above :-)  In the end
> I want the article to be a good one because every article should be a
> good one.  Another user, DeFacto, has been effective in challenging
> opposition from me and others, and thus tightening up this and other
> articles on subjects related to motorist activism.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Speed is the article in question.
>
> There now exists a groundswell of motorist activists who sincerely
> believe that Paul Smith has "proved" that speed cameras cost lives.
> How can we demonstrate that this is a false claim, as [[WP:NPOV]]
> requires we must, without straying into original research?
>
> This is also a problem because their claim that cameras cost lives has
> now been repeated in other Wikipedia articles.  That is a serious
> concern to me.  It is a claim which Smith actively refuses to put up
> to peer review.
> Guy (JzG)

Though there may be no published academic papers that challenges
Smith's views directly, surely there are studies that attack his views
indirectly? That is, surely there are studies showing, say, that
driving over X km/h is intrinsically dangerous as it increases beyond
some threshold the probability of dying or sustaining serious injury
in the event of an accident. Moreover, I'd be very surprised were
there not academic studies linking speed with higher accident
incidence. (There are, after all, simple ways to test this: count the
number of accidents before and after cameras were deployed in a
certain stretch of road. So if A=accident, b=before cameras were
installed and a=after cameras were installed, then if A(b) > A(a) then
cameras improve safety. If A(b) < A(a) then cameras decrease safety,
and if A(a) = A(b) then cameras don't have an effect).

Citing such "indirectly" critical published studies will, I am sure,
go a long way towards improving the article.


body:
> We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that
> someone, somewhere holds that view.   Even if policy supports that (and I
> strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging the
> article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on
> Wikipedia.

Right, but then the question is: are the cited views notable? I'm not
sure, but from what JzG wrote, they do seem notable. In other words,
if we grant the notability/importance of the view, we can't simply
remove the statement.


from_name: Rich Morin

body:
At 2:28 PM -0800 3/21/06, Brion Vibber wrote:
> G at B wrote:
>> - Is there a Wikipedia API-Specification in order to reach my goal?
>
> Not at this time.
>
>> - If no, which alternatives are there?
>
> If you're a nice person: open a web browser and point it at Wikipedia.

That's approximately what I do in my web pages.  My text is rife with
links to WP (to the point that $WP is defined in the PHP code :-).  In
fact, the ability to use WP as a source of explanatory footnotes is a
very big win for me.

However, I can imagine situations where this would not be an optimal
solution.  For example, someone might wish to present the user with
tooltips, image-mapped diagrams for context and navigation, etc.  So,
the web site would display derived information (probably linking to
WP, as well).

This sort of analysis requires intimate familiarity with the structure
of the input data.  So, definitions, consistency, and stability are
important requirements.

At 11:25 PM +0100 3/21/06, G at B wrote:
> - If no, which alternatives are there?

Here are some possibilities I've considered:

  *  screen scraping

     UI design is hard enough without trying to keep things convenient
     for use by programs.  So, most developers (let alone contributors)
     won't optimize for this use.

     XHTML, if used, helps with some low-level syntax issues (XML
     parsers work :-), but the structure may still be chaotic and
     subject to unannounced changes.

     Nonetheless, I've suggested that Semantic WP (SWP) tags be part
     of the generated XHTML, to enable analysis (etc) by browsers.

  *  XML/SOAP/...

     Quite possible, assuming that WP will allow it and someone can do
     (or support) the necessary standardization and implementation.
     The SWP folks will be forced to do something like this, if nobody
     gets there first.  In any case, it won't be trivial to do right.

  *  RDBMS (eg, MySQL)

     Assuming that read access is available, a script can easily send
     off queries and evaluate the replies.  WP could, in fact, allow
     this, but caution would be worthwhile, as this level of access
     might create new openings for DDoS attacks, etc.  OTOH, if access
     were controlled, correct behavior could be enforced by fiat.

     Otherwise, you fall back to Brion's suggestion of keeping a mirror.
     The last time I checked, this was not a turnkey procedure, but the
     situation may be different now.  Is mirroring automated now?

  *  code-level (e.g., PHP) access

     If you have access to the MW code base, you can grab any data you
     like.  However, this puts you in the role of maintaining a forked
     version of MW.  Of course, if your changes are deemed useful and
     safe, you might get them into the MW code base.  In fact, putting
     XML access and/or SMW facilities into MW is an example of this.

  *  command-line access

     If you have command-line access on a machine where MW is running,
     and appropriate permissions, you can access data in a number of
     ways.  For example, you could look directly into the MySQL files
     or behind MW's back at generated files, etc.  (However, YMMV!)

In summary, there are a variety of options.  My own approach is to use
mediated database access (eg, via Perl's DBI module).  This shields me
from implementation details and reduces portability issues.  With the
exception of the DB structure, I can treat MW largely as a "black box".

Although I'm not sure I'll need it, DBI-Link provides a way to access
arbitrary databases via PostgreSQL.  So, if PostgreSQL can provide
facilities that MySQL (or whatever) does not, it can be used as a
"wrapper":

  ??? -> PostgreSQL -> PL/PerlU -> DBI-Link -> Perl DBI -> MySQL (etc)

I would be happy to hear of other possibilities, etc.  TMTOWTDI!

-r
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development