from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worthy admins? (was "The userbox fad")

body:
On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell <windrunner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to
> hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
>
>
This was rejected because currently, all Arbitrators must hear all cases, so
adding to Arbcom doesn't reduce the amount of work. Having a  low quorum, or
splitting the Arbcom into two panels, means you get an incoherent political
situation where the result of the RFA is determined by the randomly selected
makeup of the panel. What will happen when one Arbcom disagrees with the
other?

The idea that some people floated, that I picked up, was creating "lower
courts", probably made up of a single user, that would hear cases
originally; and Arbcom would only hear cases on appeal. I wrote up a
proposal (with some help from others) at [[User:Ryan Delaney/sandbox]], but
it seems the idea has been dropped. A pity, since it seemed like a rather
good one- it could solve all the problems we have right now.

Ryan


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ben Emmel

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I have not followed ANY of the discussion on userbox. Have no idea what
> is going on, no idea who supports what, no idea what is going on.
>
> However, I just speedy deleted {{User masturbation-left}}.
>
> It contained this image :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Masturbationsm.jpg
>
> Sorry if that appears like an admin abuse or whatever, but imho, this is
> just ***ridiculous***.
>
>
> ant

Oh my. This takes the cake. I think we're at the point where we can start
mass-deleting the little userboxes for the good of Wikipedia.

If we don't start now, crap like this will just spread. It's time to put out
the fire. In regards to the few useful userboxes, I'm afraid that sometimes,
good trees get burnt with the bad.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Userboxes and fair-use images in userspace

body:
On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:27:51 +0100, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "Redvers @ the Wikipedia" <wikiredvers at yahoo.ie> wrote
> in message news:20060105131743.68330.qmail at web26414.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
> [snip]
>> Perhaps we can prompt people a little better: the
>> boilerplates for {{fairuse}} {{albumcover}} etc could
>> be modified to include the words
>> "Note: This image must '''NOT''' be used on User
>> pages, Talk pages or Template pages. If used there, it
>> ''will'' be deleted from the page '''without
>> notice'''."
>
> Indeed, it should be possible for a bot to scan images marked "fair use"
> or
> similar, find usage in forbidden namespaces, and nuke them with extreme
> precision: it could even leave a little polite notice on the appropriate
> talk-page saying what happened to all the pretty pictures.
>
> I wonder if there's scope for a tweak of Mediawiki's handling of images?
> You
> could mark a given namespace as an "image-type" namespace, in that
> references to "articles" in that namespace actually work as images do
> now.
> You could then possible specify that this "transclusion" should only
> occur
> in certain namespaces, and anywhere else you would simply get a link.
>
> Maybe I should stop for lunch...;-)

That bot sounds like a good idea, at least for userspace, wich is where
people get most upset if you start "censoring" theyr stuff. At least no
one could blame a bot for playing favourites.

I fear the result might just be for more people to simply "invent" new
license tags that give them permission to use images for theyr userpage
anyway though. Case in point
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Mozilla> wich currently looks like
it might survive it's second run on TFD (at least if you just count the
"votes"). Hopefully a dozen "keep per IAR" votes won't be given too much
weight, as IMHO it's basicaly a fork of {{permission}} for one very
spesific purpose.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


from_name: SCZenz

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
I'm not opposed, although I think we could be a little more selective,
but I ask again: how?  We need either a consensus among administrators
or a ruling from Jimbo to do something that the bulk of users are
opposed to, or the results will be more chaos.

SCZenz

On 1/5/06, Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > I have not followed ANY of the discussion on userbox. Have no idea what
> > is going on, no idea who supports what, no idea what is going on.
> >
> > However, I just speedy deleted {{User masturbation-left}}.
> >
> > It contained this image :
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Masturbationsm.jpg
> >
> > Sorry if that appears like an admin abuse or whatever, but imho, this is
> > just ***ridiculous***.
> >
> >
> > ant
>
>
> Oh my. This takes the cake. I think we're at the point where we can start
> mass-deleting the little userboxes for the good of Wikipedia.
>
> If we don't start now, crap like this will just spread. It's time to put out
> the fire. In regards to the few useful userboxes, I'm afraid that sometimes,
> good trees get burnt with the bad.
>
> --
> Ben Emmel
> Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
> bratsche1 at gmail.com
> "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
> -- William Blake
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for rollback privileges

body:
Given the recent discussion about admins, and some thoughts about
raising the bar, I thought I might bring up an old proposal of mine,
which is to give rollback privileges to deserving users who request it.

The proposal is at:
  -->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_rollback_privileges

I'd be grateful for any comments on the proposal, and if you support it,
please leave a note on the talk page.

Thanks,
Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000
>
> On 1/5/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > . People of the same POV have always found each other on
> Wikipedia, &
> > Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool to accomplish this.
>
> But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two
> AFD's. The one for
> some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq article.

So what are you saying? It should be *hard* for Wikipedians to find others
with similar interests?

This whole argument seems to resemble others I've heard. It's like one put
up by firearm enthusiasts when attacked with the argument that firearms
should be banned because many are used to commit crimes. They retaliate by
saying that cars should be banned because so many are used to commit crimes.
People actually die in traffic accidents, they say. Cars are killers, they
say.

Userboxes aren't Wikipedia-killers. Maybe they are being abused. Maybe. But
if so, isn't the *real* problem the abusers, not the tools they use?

A few days ago, I raised the notion of Google or Microsoft creating their
own online user-edited encyclopaedia if we tried to get them to pay for
Wikipedia's expenses. Two or three people said that sure, they could do
this, but they wouldn't get the Wikipedia community.

The community aspect of Wikipedia is vitally important. In fact it's one of
the marvels of the Internet, to see such a grand project being constructed
as a co-operative effort. To my mind, anything that increases community
bonds without detracting from the main objective is something that should be
encouraged. If there is a problem with userboxes, then it should be
discussed and managed, rather than adopt the simplistic "ban everything"
approach.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use outside of mainspace

body:
On 1/5/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Fastfission wrote:
> >
> > >Mainly because a large deal of our feeling confident that our use of
> > >unlicensed copyrighted material is "fair" is that it is purportedly for
> > >"comment and criticism." This approach seems backed up by a number of
> > >informed sources, i.e.
> > >http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html#1which
> > >lists "Comment and Criticism" and "Parody" as the two primary
> > >categories of things which receive legal blessing for "Fair use" claims. I
> > >think most people have a pretty poor view of what counts legally as the
> > >latter (most seem to think it just means "used in a funny way" which is not
> > >at all how the courts interpret "parody"). As for the former, the Stanford
> > >page says:
> > >
> > >"If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work--for instance,
> > >writing a book review -- fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of
> > >the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism
> > >include:
> > >
> > >   - quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
> > >   - summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in
> > >   a news report
> > >   - copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or
> > >   student in a lesson, or
> > >   - copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use
> > >   in a related court case.
> > >
> > >The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public benefits from your
> > >review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material.
> > >Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples
> > >of fair use cases in Section C."
> > >
> > >Now whether we achieve this in the article namespace is of course often
> > >under discussion. In the User and Template namespaces media is primarily
> > >used for decoration and personalization. This would not seem to fall under
> > >the above descriptions even in a very optimistic approach.
> > >
> > >Unfortunately the Stanford Fair Use case summaries page has almost nothing
> > >relating to using images on webpages (only the "thumbnailing" case which is
> > >not quite the same thing) so it is hard to know what sort of precedent one
> > >would be fallnig back upon in either direction. I know a few cases offhand
> > >but I'm not a lawyer and it is hard for me to sort through what is most
> > >relevant and what would not be.
> > >
> > >This is, anyway, my understanding of what the policy is based upon, for
> > >better or worse. There is also a crude risk/benefit equation going on here.
> > >There is simply no compelling reason to allow unlicensed, copyrighted images
> > >in the user namespace, and a number of reasons to be suspicious of it.
> > >
>
> I think your last paragraph is the most convincing argument, actually.
>  There isn't much of a compelling reason to allow these images, at
> least not the ones which don't intend to ever be put into an article.
>
> I don't really buy into the whole "using these images is illegal"
> argument, but if removing the images pleases those who are copyright
> paranoid and it doesn't hurt anything otherwise, I guess it's the
> right thing to do.  It'd be nice if there was an easy way to undelete
> images, though.
>
> Anthony

For the most part we are not deleting images. We are simply remove
them from templates. Most still exist in the article namespace.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/5/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.wikidating.net

Looks like they have a serious spam problem

--
geni


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Trust metric Was: Userbox compromise proposal

body:
> It takes time to evaluate all this so mostly a through
> evaluation is done only for a handful of other editors one
> interacts with.
>
> But imagine that you had an assistant who could do this for
> you and come up with a number and insert that number whenever
> you see a signature or browse RC, RFA, RFC and all others?
>
> Just like it's impossible to spend minutes evaluating each
> seller on eBay.
>
> The big challenge is to come up with a system that doesn't
> bog down the servers and cannot be easily gamed. It doesn't
> need to be perfect the first time, just better than nothing.
> Slashdot's rating system for example evolved for several years.

I totally agree with the need for this. It's not about replacing human
judgment, it's about giving tools to improve human judgment. For any
proposal to work though, I think we need a way of indicating that an
edit was "bad" in some sense.  In eBay parlance, it would be like
negative feedback. But at least with that, you could start to count the
number of good/bad edits for a user. It would be incredibly handy to
know that a given user was +11,000 (56% good) (in other words, a very
active but controversial user - probably a pain in the arse), as
compared to +300 (99% good) - new, but doing a great job.

Any system can be gamed - you just have to make it not worth anyone's
time.  Google pagerank can be gamed, but it takes a lot of effort and is
very difficult to do cheaply.

Steve


body:
On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They
> consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up
> by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there.
> Although
> I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a
> good
> bureaucratic system.

Two points:

(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.
(2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from
the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main
point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the
situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court
system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible
drawbacks.

Ryan


list: commons-l

from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject: [Commons-l] How to change title style of wiki

body:
Hi,

Horvath Levente-Laszlo schrieb am 04.01.2006 10:59:
>    Could somebody tell me please how to change the
> style of my title in my wiki? I would like to have
> "index.php\Title" instead of "index.php?title=Title".
> I don't even know if this is a PHP/Apache
> configuration issue or does it come from a bad wiki
> setup. PLZ help and thanks in advance.

Well, you took not the best mailinglist for this question...
You should try mediawiki-l for this kind of questions.

A few thoughts:
i)  index.php\Title is impossible - it will be index.php/Title
ii) this kind of stuff is handled by apaches mod_rewrite, if I'm not
completly wrong

Bye, avatar.

--
Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by
legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid.
But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is
death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically
and without pity. - Lazarus Long/Heinlein
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000
> Sent: Thursday, 5 January 2006 21:25
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads
>
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000

> > > But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two
> AFD's. The
> > > one for some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq
> > > article.
> >
> > So what are you saying? It should be *hard* for Wikipedians to find
> > others with similar interests?
>
>
> No, but to find others with a simular POV is different. A
> userbox stating one person is an expert or has much knowledge
> on gay rights I don't mind.
> (Whether that user is pro or against them).  A userbox
> stating that person is against gay rights is different. The
> same counts for userboxes for "I am a republican" vs "I am a
> republican party expert", creationism/evolution vs ...., I
> hate Bush etc etc.

I appreciate the distinction, but this just moves my question up a notch.
Should it be hard for Wikipedians to find others of similar opinions?

Nobody expects us to be NPOV as private individuals. So long as the articles
are NPOV, that's the big thing.

And there are POV groups within Wikipedia already. Homosexual folk seem to
stick together and back each other up here. Presumably they all hold similar
positive opinions on homosexuality, but I cannot say that I have seen any
evidence that the articles they work on are POV as a result.

If there is any evidence that Wikipedia is suffering as a result of
userboxes, then I'd be keen to see it. But so far it all seems to be a
matter of potential rather than actuality, and may I suggest that if the
fear is that people are going to misuse AfD to skew consensus, then the
problem may very well be with the AfD process rather than with userboxes.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway
> Sent: Thursday, 5 January 2006 21:25
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads
>
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000
> > >
> > > On 1/5/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > > > . People of the same POV have always found each other on
> > > Wikipedia, &
> > > > Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool to accomplish this.
> > >
> > > But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two
> AFD's. The
> > > one for some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq
> > > article.
> >
> > So what are you saying? It should be *hard* for Wikipedians to find
> > others with similar interests?
> >
>
> Well it shouldn't be so absurdly easy that it fosters campaigning.

Campaigning for what, precisely?

> This is an encyclopedia, not a dating service.

It seems to me that Wikipedia is very good as an encyclopaedia compared with
everything else on the web, and very poor as a dating service, blog site,
chess-playing site etc when compared to other sites. Do people really come
here for these secondary reasons when there are other, better places
available?

Peter (Skyring)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Final Day Fund Drive Report

body:
Copied from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_21
--------------------------------------------------------------

The fund drive is officially over but donations are always being accepted and will be put to good
use.

This was the most successful fundraiser the Wikimedia Foundation's history! Over 12,000 people
gave $350,000 USD, which will enable the foundation to support Wikipedia and its sister projects
this quarter. A big 'Thank you!' to everyone who donated. A proper report for the whole drive will
need to wait until the final Dexia and mail donation updates have been received.

For '''Day 21''' a total of 1292 people gave a total of $33,741.07 through PayPal. There were no
donations made through MoneyBookers and no updates on mail or Dexia donations at this time.  The
average PayPal donation this day was $26.12.

:Grand total at end of day: '''$349,184.42'''

Breakdown of Day 21 PayPal donations:

 AUD     1,037.33    (778.51 USD)
 CAD 	1,445.78    (1,189.75 USD)
 EUR 	4,292.77    (5,214.38 USD)
 GBP 	1,448.43    (2,597.47 USD)
 JPY 	37,410.00  (338.00 USD)
 USD 	23,622.96
 Total 	33,741.07 USD

==Special thanks to those who gave large donations==
David Peterson gave the largest donation this day, $1,000.00. There were also many donors who gave
the equivalent of about $100 or more (listed in no particular order); Paul Kaufmann, G J Reid,
Anthony Zwarich, Iain Galloway, Robert Stoop, Stefano Perfetti, Gilles Volluz, Daniel Haertle,
David Reaven, Sebastian Mathews, D Neal, Robert Merritt, Jonathan Rosen, Steven Johnson, Robert
Caruso, Eric Rechlin, Raymond Bernard, Adam Shand, Michael Brumm, Wayne Slavin, terrence parker,
Davras Yavuz, Vivek Jetley, Rakesh Loonkar, richard marini, Craig Taverner, Timothy White, 	Adam
Smith, GURUPAL SANDHU, Daniel Armstrong, Travis McKay, Scott Marcus, David Fawcett, David
Hershberger, Harold Strain, and 46 anonymous donors.

:<small>Note: While large donations are great, it should be noted that about 70% of all the money
donated to the Wikimedia Foundation comes from donations that are the equivalent of $50 or less
and the average donation is about $25.</small>

==Selected donor comments==
Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.

:Full listing at: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2006-01-05/detail/

*"You can't put a price on Wikipedia." by  anonymous
*"Merci, merci pour tout" by S?bastien P?rier
*"A great extension of the original alturistic ideals of the internet" by Gavin Moodie
*"Wikipedia is an exceptional and visionary site." by anonymous
*"Eines der tollsten Projekte, die das Internet bis jetzt hervorgebracht hat. Riesen Dank an alle
Autoren!" by anonymous
*"Thank you for providing this free resource! It's great that you're trying to enlighten the world
and not profit from it! Thanks again!" by Katherine Pascucci
*"Rarely does knowledge have such great champions." by Sebastian Mathews
*"Anyone that has ever used Wikipedia understands the importance of the free flow of culture,
ideas and information that the site brings. But community is a two way process. Please give what
you can." by anonymous
*"I am a physics graduate student from China. I enjoy using Wikipedia!" by Meng Lu
*"I hope this small amount helps you make the world a better place for those who are not as lucky
as the rest of us." by anonymous
*Since I use it, I don't mind paying for that privilege so others can use this as well." by
anonymous
*"Your information is assisting me in putting together a program on fair housing law for the
apartment industry. Thank you!" by anonymous
*"This project has been helpful in my graduate studies." by William Myatt
*"Per la libera condivisione dei saperi" by Fabio Volpe
*"I have always found Wikipedia to be a thorough, unbiassed source for curious whims and real
concerns. I find this mission to be noble and important. Thank you Wikipedia." by Danielle Pearson

*"I want to thank you (and your daughter) for this site - I owe my 'A' grades this fall to
Wikipedia and I thought you should know. As a student, this is all I can afford! For now,
anyway..." by anonymous
*"Why are copyrighted gradeschool Math textbooks $50 when the paper and binding costs about $4?
The language of Math should not be copyrighted for ridiculous profits." by anonymous
*"for TimStarling's assistance tracking down my MediaWiki issues" by Jonathan Cary
*"I love Wikipedia! It has encouraged me to leave the corporate world to serve humanity. Keep up
the good work!" by anonymous
*"Who needs textbooks! Thanks Wikimedia!" by anonymous
*"Wikipedia is the epitome of freedom, the internet as it should have been - free access to the
sum of human knowledge. Keep up the good work!" by David McCormick
*"Die beste Enzklop?die." by Tobias Nopper
*"The posting of the financials convinced me. The funds are being used to expand Wikiprdia. Here
is my contribution toward that expansion." by Bernard Dombrowski
*"Information wants to be free; and I'm willing to pay for its freedom." by Mike Sollanych
*"I am happy to contribute to this historic endeavor !" by Marcello Rolim Coelho

Some of my personal favorites:
*"If my comment doesn't make it on to the daily report, can I edit it?" by N Lowey
*"A peaceful and prosperous future comes from knowledge, freedom, and action. Act now to keep your
knowledge free." by Michael Brumm
*""An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." - Benjamin Franklin" by Jonathan
Rosen
*"I am a first-year teacher and Wikipedia has been invaluable to the creation of my lesson plans.
Thanks!" by Philip Hart
*"Sterling stuff. If it wasn't for Wikipedia I'd have learned next to nothing this week about
norse gods, diamond mining, Rubik's cubes and Braille" by Chris Rae
*"Thanks for all those useful articles which saved me from hours of research!" by Manuel M?ssig
*"The price I would pay monthly to Britannica I'd rather donate to Wikipedia." by Piotr Przemyslaw
Karwasz
*"Stuart Brand said "information wants to be free." We have to pay its bail." by Bob McCoy
*"I see tremendous potential for Wikipedia books project for advancing rural education in
developing countries. I wish this entire endeavor best of luck!" by Aditi Sen
*"I strongly support the aims and methods of the Wikipedia Foundation - this shows how good the
world can be" by anonymous
*"For my children Francis and Maya, and their kids ...and all kids, who should have the right to
learn without limits in order to make the world a better place" by Ronald Savage
*"Stop Reading Comments - Donation box is in top right hand corner!" by Adam Cooper

-- Daniel Mayer

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Final Day Fund Drive Report


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> > Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 10:26
> > To: English Wikipedia
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
> >
> > On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> > > > Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:24
> > > > To: English Wikipedia
> > > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
> > > >
> > > > On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay < peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > > > > [mailto: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> > > > >
> > > > > > > There are better social clubs available on the net. If
> > > > > > socialising is
> > > > > > > truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere
> > > > soon enough.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There are no social clubs available on the net with the
> > > > prestige of
> > > > > > Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.
> > > > >
> > > > > Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that
> > > > there are 19
> > > > > more attractive ones?
> > > >
> > > > Not really, since the others don't allow people to do
> > this kind of
> > > > thing.
> > >
> > > Ah. So you see Wikipedia as a social club. A prestigious
> > social club.
>
> > Actually, I've been arguing the exact opposite.  Are you sure
> > you're reading my e-mails?
>
> You said: "There are no social clubs available on the net with the
> prestige
> of Wikipedia." That looks like a statement that Wikipedia is the most
> prestigious social club available on the net.

I was responding to *your* e-mail, in which you first introduced the concept
of Wikipedia as a social club, and suggested there were better ones around.

Are you all done playing games?

Jay.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They
>>consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up
>>by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there.
>>Although
>>I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a
>>good
>>bureaucratic system.
>
>
>
> Two points:
>
> (1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.
> (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from
> the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court

You seem to forget that you inherited that from the Westminster system :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
Nathan Russell wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>grm_wnr wrote:
>
>
>>Stick it on Uncyclopedia; they are non-commercial only, which makes
>>their fair use claims much stronger.
>
>
> Uncyclopedia is now hosted by a for-profit company.
>

That doesn't change their license.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Allow multiple entries for one topic

body:
Troas wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Inspired by the article about Wikipedia in Nature, I have recently made some
> contributions to Wikipedia in my field of expertise. Based on this
> experience with Wikipedia, I would like to suggest a change to the structure
> of Wikipedia. I'm not sure whether my suggestion has been discussed
> previously. I have scanned e-mails in the list from the last months and
> couldn't find anything related, but apologize if I simply reiterate an older
> discussion.
>
> Here's my suggestion: Allow multiple entries for one topic.
>
>

You seem lost; perhaps you were looking for http://wikinfo.org/ ?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: [HelpDesk-l] Copyright violation]

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:
>
> On 5 Jan 2006, at 05:54, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject:     [HelpDesk-l] Copyright violation
>> Date:     Wed, 4 Jan 2006 23:43:32 -0500
>> From:     Larry Bruce <ljbruce at comcast.net>
>> Reply-To:     Help desk for questions about Wikimedia projects
>> <helpdesk-l at Wikimedia.org>
>> To:     <helpdesk-l at wikimedia.org>
>>
>>
>>
>> Comic book image is a violation of copywrite law.  This is not fair  use
>> and this is not in the public domain.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gamaliel
>>
>
> hmm, so no complaint about the use of the same image on http://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
>

The message is clear: "fair use" images are not acceptable outside of
the article space, and then only the article(s) which the image depicts.
(A magazine cover with a car on it is only usable in the article about
the magazine, not the car.)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Redvers @ the Wikipedia

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Requests for rollback privileges

body:
From: Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org>
> Given the recent discussion about admins, and some
> thoughts about
> raising the bar, I thought I might bring up an old
> proposal of mine,
> which is to give rollback privileges to deserving
> users who request it.

Is the current system (of a rollback add-on for those
"in the know") broken?

If not, does it need to be fixed? I ask only for
information.

:"REDVERS"

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo http://uk.photos.yahoo.com


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> This is an excellent idea. Rather than try to cram all points of view
> into one article, how about loosening up and allowing several  articles
> with differing points of view or level of detail?
>
> This idea has been discussed before, but is worth another look.
>

Fred, you can keep SPOV on Wikinfo; Wikipedia is and always will be
NPOV. The "multiple levels of detail" is already covered by subarticles
(eg. Geography of Australia).

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Korean Wikipedia under National Security Law?

body:
Puzzlet Chung wrote:
> I am Puzzlet Chung, one of the administrators in Korean Wikipedia.

Hello Puzzlet,

Several points in your message

> User:WonYong (also in en.wp) in Korean Wikipedia claims that Korean
> Wikipedia should follow South Korean National Security Law so that the
> contents potentially able to threat the nation (i.e. South Korea)
> should be censored. He made National Security violation templates, to
> tag "anti-State" articles which should be deleted:
>
> http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Security
> http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Security2

You mention that WonYong is also an english editor.
Less than 2 weeks ago, I was informed on my en.wiki talk page of the
creation of a template, to be used apparently for similar reasons.

The template has been deleted since then :
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Security_Risk&action=edit

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthere#Dealing_With_Information_That_Presents_A_Security_Risk

it strikes me that the creation of the korean template, which seems very
similar to the english idea, was created just a few days later.

I presume the english template was deleted after a vote. It may be
interesting to find the discussion about the deletion...

In any cases, it seems generally a bad idea.

> WonYong insists that it is South Korea that try to conserve Korean
> language and protect it from extinction, hence both administration and
> contents of Korean Wikipedia should follow South Korean laws, and
> Korean language speakers who is not South Korean citizens don't have
> anything to do with it. He states that North Korea is not recognized
> by South Korea as a nation but a "band of mafias," (the statement of
> which is not true, since North Korea is a member of UN, and relation
> between two Koreas has changed), and doesn't deserve for Korean
> Wikipedia to reflect its POV.

The comment you report seems to me very rude.
But even though South Korea was not recognising North Korea as a nation,
most of the world do, and people living in North Korea do exist as
humans and have their own history, culture, opinion... no matter what
South Korea would claim, North Korea has a right of existence and a
right of participation to the korean wikipedia.

If WonYong does not agree with this, I think he just should not edit
Wikipedia. And if he insists on excluding other koreans pov, he should
be banned.

> The problem is that some users would agree to his point of view. Out
> of two Korean [[names of Korea]], some South Koreans relate "Chos?n"
> with North Korea and Communism. They think equal juxtaposition of two
> names, (juxtapose the names when they have to, of course), as not
> satisfying Natural Point of View as in South Korea, where the majority
> of the Korean Wikipedia users live in, and where the server is located
> as well. Although "Chos?nmal" is the name of Korean language called
> not only by North Koreans, but majority of Chinese Koreans and some
> Japanese Koreans, some find "Chos?nmal" aggressive and inappropriate
> to use it in some articles.

Yes. This is a common dispute on many wikipedia.
I have seen it many time on the english wikipedia as well, for american
and british do not always use the same word to qualify a thing.
I have seen it on the french wikipedia, between canadians and europeans.
We regularly hear similar issues on the portuguese wikipedia (between
the south american and the european portuguese speakers)
Same for some scandinavian languages...

*this* is unfortunately frequent, and difficult to handle, in particular
if one instance of language can appear "rude" to the speakers of the
other instance.

In most projects, the two general rules used are
* if one instance was used in an article, do not change it to the other
instance. Keep it as originally used. It is more polite to the original
author... does not make him feel as he wrote something "erroneous".
* if one instance is rather used in one country, and the article is
related to that country, keep the instance used in that specific country.

For example, French from France use the word gay to qualify homosexuals.
Canadians use gai.
If the article is about Toronto (Canadian city), we'd rather use gai. If
the article is about a famous french actor, we'd rather use gay.

Indeed, sometimes, some instances may appear aggressive or
inappropriate, but this is something we have to learn to live with.

You raise another very important point : the servers.
Yes, the korean wikipedia is served by the Yahoo servers in Korea.
This should absolutely NOT be an argument for Koreans in Seoul to push
their POV ! The location of the servers should not matter. This is just
a technical decision and should NOT imply any domination of one Korea
over the other ! Just as americans are not supposed to dominate the
british or the australians.

> I am a South Korean citizen myself, but as far as I understand
> Wikipedian policy of NPOV, WonYong's activity threats NPOV more than
> the "Evil Wikipedia" would threat the existence of South Korea, not
> like what he might think, as long as Wikipedia is not a some kind of
> Communists' propaganda. But I've started to seriously consider about
> moving DB server back to Florida and "foreigning" the site,
> contributed by so-called foreigns and South Koreans who's not afraid
> of South Korean laws.

We should try not to censor ourselves thinking of what our countries
could censor. This is something most of us have weaknesses in, I the
first. Best to wait until our government really complain about rather
than trying to comply to rules they never intended to inforce in the
first place.

Ant

> Regards,
>
> Puzzlet Chung


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Brian

subject: [Wiktionary-l] New huge missing entries list: over 300,000 entries

body:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Brian0918/Hotlist

I've created an "English Dictionary Hotlist" of over 300,000 entries as
part of [[Wiktionary:Requested articles]]. Please read the guidelines
before getting involved in the list. I have a lot of experience with
this from the Wikipedia equivalent at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles
.

If you are worried about copyright violations, don't be. Problems of the
exact same nature occurred on the English Wikipedia several months ago,
and the opinions of both juriwiki and the foundation were that indexes
of multiple encyclopedias, if mixed together, would not create a
copyright violation. Unless you are a legal expert, please investigate
the history of the other mixed lists (linked below) before coming to a
different conclusion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_encyclopedia_topics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/Hot

brian0918


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: How to delete History in MediaWiki? [before: Re:
 may I have "deletedhistory" permission only, please?]

body:
Rob Church wrote:
> The best it gets is:
>
> 1. Delete the article
> 2. Go to the undeletion page for said article
> 3. Uncheck all the revisions which aren't spam
> 4. Click the Restore button
>
> MediaWiki contains no functionality to permanently delete old
> revisions of any article.

5/ never do that on an article with a lot of revisions (aka 1000+), ask
a developer instead.

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: How to delete History in MediaWiki? [before: Re:
	may I have "deletedhistory" permission only, please?]

body:
I believe he was asking how to do it on his own wiki...we need a
Special:Deleterevisions page, actually.

Rob Church

On 05/01/06, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
> > The best it gets is:
> >
> > 1. Delete the article
> > 2. Go to the undeletion page for said article
> > 3. Uncheck all the revisions which aren't spam
> > 4. Click the Restore button
> >
> > MediaWiki contains no functionality to permanently delete old
> > revisions of any article.
>
> 5/ never do that on an article with a lot of revisions (aka 1000+), ask
> a developer instead.
>
> --
> Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
> IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >On 1/5/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> >>While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior,
> >>there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our
> >>interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most
> >>of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more
> >>from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills,
> >>knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going
> >>to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful.
> >>
> >>Stan
> >>
> >>
> >You could always turn Wikipedia into an exclusive club that people can
> >only get into if they can prove themselves worthy.
> >
> Hardly what he's suggesting. Filtering out the unhelpful means removing
> people from the "club" after they've proven themselves unworthy, not
> requiring them to prove worthiness before getting in at all. We already
> do the former, but optimizing the filtering process is a bit challenging.
>
Eh, I never said he was suggesting anything, I was the one suggesting
that the process be taken to it's logical conclusion.  If you're gonna
do it, do it right.

If you're gonna filter out the unhelpful(*), you might as well
establish a process by which people gain membership.  Sure, there has
to be a provisional membership too, but after someone has been around
for a while you can decide whether or not they're worthy of full
membership.  The only reason I see *not* to do that is that Wikipedia
was supposed to be an encyclopedia that anyone could edit.  But once
you've removed that, you might as well implement the same processes
that have been established by almost all the other exclusive clubs.

Frankly, I don't think it's such a bad idea, if you could somehow pull
the wool over the eyes of the editors who would strongly oppose it.

(*) And the implication was that this doesn't just mean people who are
*intentionally* unhelpful, as Stan was also talking about those "who
are simply not smart enough to be of
any help" in the previous paragraph.

> For similar reasons, we constantly struggle with the filtering process
> currently known as "Articles for deletion". Since this one deals with
> people even more directly, it should not be surprising that a happy
> medium is difficult to find.
>
> --Michael Snow

Keeping an article out of Wikipedia is completely different from
keeping a group of people out.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
I have not followed ANY of the discussion on userbox. Have no idea what
is going on, no idea who supports what, no idea what is going on.

However, I just speedy deleted {{User masturbation-left}}.

It contained this image :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Masturbationsm.jpg

Sorry if that appears like an admin abuse or whatever, but imho, this is
just ***ridiculous***.

ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Carbonite
>
> On 1/4/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:

> > What I'm concerned about is the attitude that seems to be taken by
> > some in this discussion is that userbox users are somehow
> less worthy
> > than other Wikipedians.
>
> Have you taken a look at the article space edits of some of
> the loudest defenders of userboxes? Would you like getting
> lectured about consensus and Wikipedia policy by someone with
> 20 article edits? If someone isn't here to actually
> contribute to the encyclopedia, then I suppose they would be
> less worthy.

That's *some* userboxers, not *all* userboxers, wouldn't you agree?

As for being lectured by people who don't know what they are talking about,
I usually find this an excuse for a good guffaw, rather than something to
grump about.

May I suggest that 20 edits from an unpaid volunteer is 20 edits that we
wouldn't have had otherwise, and that encouraging them to do more might be a
more productive avenue than lambasting them. But then again, you've been
around longer than I have, and who am I to lecture you?

Pete, most humbly


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
On 1/5/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work.  "In a
> court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of
> three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of
> the judges will participate in an en banc hearing."  [[United States
> court of appeals]]
>
> I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.

The advantages, as I see it, are:

(1) Nearly infinite scalability.
If we have more work to do, we can just add more magistrates. This would
mean that the arbitration process could, if needed, expand to cover a
greater range of subjects, including revoking admin privileges. Also, it
would reduce arbitrator burnout since each magistrate would choose how many
cases he or she would hear; and since each case would already have a
"findings of fact" and a ruling on it before it got to Arbcom, the Arbs
would have to de less work just to comprehend all the information and figure
out what is going on.

(2) Preserved accountability.
Right now, we worry that there aren't enough editors who are trustworthy
enough to be arbitrators. I share this concern. By appointing magistrates,
we have to worry less, since their actions could always be reviewed and
reversed by a higher panel of trusted users. Arbcom could let the good work
get done, and step in to issue corrections on appeals.

Possible disadvantages include:

(1) An increase in bureaucratic steps required to end the arbitration
process. It might complicate the arbitration policy. I don't think this is
much of a concern really, but you can see for yourself  what I think the
effect on the arbitration policy would be by looking at [[User:Ryan
Delaney/sandbox]] and decide for yourself.

Ryan


from_name: Peter Jacobi

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Record? (was: Userboxes and fair-use images
	in	userspace)

body:
jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
> In case anyone is interested, I came across this userpage when I looked
> at
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/userbox_templates_concerning_beliefs_and_convictions
>

See also:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~avar/ub

> ...and clicked on *one* of the 186 usernames that are now there voting
> keep.

When not regularly taking my dried frog pills
against paranoia, I see an unfriendly takeover
attempt here.

Regards,
Peter Jacobi
[[User:Pjacobi]]

--
Lust, ein paar Euro nebenbei zu verdienen? Ohne Kosten, ohne Risiko!
Satte Provisionen f?r GMX Partner: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/partner


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: userbox : insanity ?

body:
My position in short

We are here to write an encyclopedia. First before all.

Userbox are interesting if they are related to Wikipedia activity and
growth.

Wikipedians mood IS actually important to the community building and
interacting.
Which browsers are used is also an interesting information to know how
Wikipedia appears to readers, detect bugs...
Which language the user manage or which project he participates to is
also interesting for project management and editors daily interactions.

All this is well and good.

Which hand is used to masturbate self is of no interest within wikipedia
activity, except if one is actually masturbating himself while writing a
message on another user talk page. Is that related to Wikipedia ? Is
that helping the community ? No. So, it should go away.

Having a template stating something against our goals, such as {{User
allow fairuse}} has a name : it is trolling. Trolling has benefits...
sometimes. But if it disrupts the community too much (and generate
thousands of mails on a mailing list, huge loss of time), then, it
should just go away.

ant

SCZenz wrote:
> How about {{User allow fairuse}}?  That seems to be against pretty
> much everything Wikipedia stands for.  If we have so many users who
> think they can *vote* in an unreasonable copyright policy, maybe we
> need unilateral admin action after all.
>
> On 1/5/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>I have not followed ANY of the discussion on userbox. Have no idea what
>>is going on, no idea who supports what, no idea what is going on.
>>
>>However, I just speedy deleted {{User masturbation-left}}.
>>
>>It contained this image :
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Masturbationsm.jpg
>>
>>Sorry if that appears like an admin abuse or whatever, but imho, this is
>>just ***ridiculous***.
>>
>>
>>ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] The userbox fad

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Carbonite

>
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Carbonite
> > >
> > > On 1/4/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > What I'm concerned about is the attitude that seems to
> be taken by
> > > > some in this discussion is that userbox users are somehow
> > > less worthy
> > > > than other Wikipedians.
> > >
> > > Have you taken a look at the article space edits of some of the
> > > loudest defenders of userboxes? Would you like getting lectured
> > > about consensus and Wikipedia policy by someone with 20 article
> > > edits? If someone isn't here to actually contribute to the
> > > encyclopedia, then I suppose they would be less worthy.
> >
> > That's *some* userboxers, not *all* userboxers, wouldn't you agree?
>
> Of course. Any userbox that focuses on a user's skills (Babel
> boxes) or expertise should be encouraged.

A "userboxer" being someone who uses a userbox.

> > As for being lectured by people who don't know what they
> are talking
> > about, I usually find this an excuse for a good guffaw, rather than
> > something to grump about.
>
> They'd be more guffaws if a good portion of these users
> weren't trying to burn valuable contributors at the stake.

I'm not sure why you are treating them seriously.

> > May I suggest that 20 edits from an unpaid volunteer is 20
> edits that
> > we wouldn't have had otherwise, and that encouraging them
> to do more
> > might be a more productive avenue than lambasting them. But then
> > again, you've been around longer than I have, and who am I
> to lecture you?
>
> If they only made those 20 edits, then I'd agree, but many
> are making 10x that many edits complaining about their toys
> being taken away.

Again, why not encourage them to be more productive instead of lambasting
them?

> My comment wasn't about having an attitude
> of "I've been here longer, I know better!", it's about users
> who view Wikipedia primarily as a social club where they
> occasionally edit an article. In my opinion, someone who
> makes a vast majority of their edits to their user space
> probably is less worthy than those who actually work to
> improve the encyclopedia.

There are better social clubs available on the net. If socialising is truly
their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere soon enough. But so long as
they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their constructive
efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we make Wikipedia a
cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground, the better for
all concerned.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Jan

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: How to delete History in MediaWiki? [before:
	Re:	may I have "deletedhistory" permission only, please?]

body:
Rob Church schrieb:
> I believe he was asking how to do it on his own wiki...

Yes, correct ... 3 own wiki's, not many articles, but some have approx. 200
revisions :)

But thanks for the hint.
The workaround was successful, so I could delete the link spam (someone, i guess
a web-robot, registered an account and postet replaced my "current events" with
sex-links ... invisible for human by html-code).

Regards,
Jan


from_name: Kevin Mulligan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute

body:
Hi,
I've just received a block from Wikipedia of "indefinite duration" by
the user Essjay.  I was blocked for trolling on the user Cool Cat's talk
page[1] by leaving a joke userbox and then making a mildly offensive
comment as he proceeded to "feed the troll".  In this comment I admitted
to trolling and user Essjay saw this as grounds enough to ban me
immediately for an indefinite period.

Essjay left a comment[2] on my talk page stating that he had blocked me
"in line with the Arbitration Committee's ruling that simple vandals and
others who engage in overt, easily demonstrable vandalism can be blocked
immediately."

I accept that I did wrong by trolling on Cool Cat's page but what I did
was not vandalism but a very minor personal attack, which is, according
to Wikipedia's policy, to be treated in an entirely different manner.
In fact, it states clearly under on [[Wikipedia:Vandalism]], under the
"What vandalism is not" heading that personal attacks are not
vandalism.  The Wikipedia Blocking Policy itself states that for
personal attacks should only be considered in "extreme cases" and goes
on to note that the practice is always controversial.

The Blocking Policy itself goes on to say:
"Logged-in users that do essentially nothing but vandalism may also be
blocked for the same time periods. However, user accounts that perform a
mixture of valid  edits and vandalism should not be blocked in this manner.

Blocks should not be used against isolated incidents of vandalism."

I have had my Wikipeda account since early 2004 and have since made over
1200 edits[3], and my edits to Cool Cat's talk page are the first which
can possibly be considered as misconduct.

Considering all of the above I am very disappointed that I have been
treated this way by Essjay.  It seems to me as though he has acted in
gross violation of the Wikipedia policies as far as my ban is
concerned.  I should like it to be revoked or be given a reason why it
should remain there rather than the alternate avenues of resolution, as
suggested at WP:NPA, be explored.

Regards,
Kevin Mulligan

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Cat/Archive/2006/01#New_user_box
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AKevin_Mulligan&diff=34042009&oldid=34037875
[3]
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kate/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Kevin+Mulligan&dbname=enwiki_p&machread=1

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from_name: Andrew Gray

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Want to publish English version of Wikipedia on DVD
	and need help/advice

body:
On 05/01/06, Richard Seltzer <seltzer at samizdat.com> wrote:

> I understand (thanks to Lars Aronsson) that Directmedia Publishing
> in Berlin (www.directmedia.de) put the German Wikipedia on DVD
> (ISBN 3-86640-001-2).  It sells for $10 on www.amazon.de, and
> $1 of that goes to the German branch of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Euro not dollars, but yeah. Handily, ten euro is almost exactly the
$12 you mention below.

You might be interested to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia, where Axel Boldt has
given a short explanation of the various .de publishing projects.

It may be worth noting that the German publication wasn't a straight
copy of the "live dump", but rather was a slightly-filtered version -
a largish team had vetted the whole set of articles and then put it on
DVD. I'm not sure what level of quality you're looking at for this
DVD, but without a step like this you'd be leaving a lot of dross (and
a lot of potential copyright problems) in place. They also had some
home-brewed searching software, rather than just a webbrowser, IIRC.

As to producing static HTML versions, I believe Tim Starling was
working on tools to do just this, but I can't offhand find anything.
Searching the archives of this list might be worthwhile.

One final point - you mention donations to Wikimedia. I assume (since
it makes good business sense) you'd want to publicise this, and thus
use the Wikipedia/Wikimedia name - this may well be preaching to the
choir, but please contact the Foundation, to avoid running into
trademark issues and any associated unpleasantness. (I certainly don't
know what the status of using the name was in Germany...)

But all that aside, the donations are of course appreciated :-)

Best of luck,
--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Record? (was: Userboxes and fair-use images in
	userspace)

body:
On 05/01/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pretty much any user listed in
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Users_who_support_userboxes has
> a fair number . I'm currently explaining fair use policy to some of
> them.

Remember to be clear on the difference between Fair Use _Policy_ and
Fair Use _Law_. And just because we can use the latter does not mean
we can use the former...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Sam Spade wrote:
> See
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Cat/Archive/2006/01#New_user_box
>
> for an explanation for the mastrabating user box. It was ment to be a
> disruptive, offensive insult, and is in no way indicative of a larger
> trend toward increasingly unreasonable userboxes.
>
> Sam Spade
>
Sorry, but that's not the case at all.  I made that userbox after
stumbling upon Cool Cat's page and seeing the massive list of userboxes
there.  When I made it I was unaware of any controversy surrounding
them, I just took one look at that list which seemed to have a box for
everything and made the masturbation one as a parody of this whole
userbox thing.  So yes, it is indicative of a larger trend toward
increasingly unreasonable userboxes.

Kevin.
>
> On 1/6/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Taking away peoples user boxes is pointless and disruptive. Admins who
>> think they should defy consensus to delete peoples self labels are out
>> of line. I understand that discussing mastrabation is in bad taste. So
>> are ALOT of user pages. I have been very disturbed by users whose
>> pages tell me they are into Satanism, are a "perverted trannfag", or
>> have a giant che image or soviet star. The single most disruptive user
>> page I know is this one:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deeceevoice
>>
>> and it has no user boxes.
>>
>> If there are real objections, craft real policy to deal w them. Do not
>> persecute a popular trend in a disruptive manner. That just reinforces
>> rebellion and resentment against haughty admins.
>>
>> Sam Spade
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>

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from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Taking away peoples user boxes is pointless and disruptive. Admins who
think they should defy consensus to delete peoples self labels are out
of line. I understand that discussing mastrabation is in bad taste. So
are ALOT of user pages. I have been very disturbed by users whose
pages tell me they are into Satanism, are a "perverted trannfag", or
have a giant che image or soviet star. The single most disruptive user
page I know is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deeceevoice

and it has no user boxes.

If there are real objections, craft real policy to deal w them. Do not
persecute a popular trend in a disruptive manner. That just reinforces
rebellion and resentment against haughty admins.

Sam Spade


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Cat/Archive/2006/01#New_user_box

for an explanation for the mastrabating user box. It was ment to be a
disruptive, offensive insult, and is in no way indicative of a larger
trend toward increasingly unreasonable userboxes.

Sam Spade

On 1/6/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Taking away peoples user boxes is pointless and disruptive. Admins who
> think they should defy consensus to delete peoples self labels are out
> of line. I understand that discussing mastrabation is in bad taste. So
> are ALOT of user pages. I have been very disturbed by users whose
> pages tell me they are into Satanism, are a "perverted trannfag", or
> have a giant che image or soviet star. The single most disruptive user
> page I know is this one:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deeceevoice
>
> and it has no user boxes.
>
> If there are real objections, craft real policy to deal w them. Do not
> persecute a popular trend in a disruptive manner. That just reinforces
> rebellion and resentment against haughty admins.
>
> Sam Spade
>


from_name: Richard Seltzer

body:
Thanks for  your response.

Sounds like this could be very difficult. It's hard to imagine "filtering"
the entire Wikipedia.
I was hoping that the "articles only" version (without comments) would be
clean and reliable and free of potential copyright problems.
And I would not want to include search software. The basic search
capabilities within Windows could be used. And, of course, a customer could
install any other search program as well.  But, ideally, it should be
possible to simply navigate with links (as one does with the CIA World
Factbook).

Do you have an email address for Tim Starling?

I was  hoping that there would be a way to convert regularly updated
Wikipedia files to a format appropriate for DVD, so it would be possible for
me to offer regular frequent updates.

And is there an email address to officially contact the Foundation?

Thanks again.

Richard

Richard Seltzer, seltzer at samizdat.com, 617-469-2269, http://www.samizdat.com
A library for the price of a book http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
A summary of our book publishing projects
http://www.samizdat.com/orientation.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>; <seltzer at samizdat.com>
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 6:55 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Want to publish English version of Wikipedia on DVD
and need help/advice

On 05/01/06, Richard Seltzer <seltzer at samizdat.com> wrote:

> I understand (thanks to Lars Aronsson) that Directmedia Publishing
> in Berlin (www.directmedia.de) put the German Wikipedia on DVD
> (ISBN 3-86640-001-2).  It sells for $10 on www.amazon.de, and
> $1 of that goes to the German branch of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Euro not dollars, but yeah. Handily, ten euro is almost exactly the
$12 you mention below.

You might be interested to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia, where Axel Boldt has
given a short explanation of the various .de publishing projects.

It may be worth noting that the German publication wasn't a straight
copy of the "live dump", but rather was a slightly-filtered version -
a largish team had vetted the whole set of articles and then put it on
DVD. I'm not sure what level of quality you're looking at for this
DVD, but without a step like this you'd be leaving a lot of dross (and
a lot of potential copyright problems) in place. They also had some
home-brewed searching software, rather than just a webbrowser, IIRC.

As to producing static HTML versions, I believe Tim Starling was
working on tools to do just this, but I can't offhand find anything.
Searching the archives of this list might be worthwhile.

One final point - you mention donations to Wikimedia. I assume (since
it makes good business sense) you'd want to publicise this, and thus
use the Wikipedia/Wikimedia name - this may well be preaching to the
choir, but please contact the Foundation, to avoid running into
trademark issues and any associated unpleasantness. (I certainly don't
know what the status of using the name was in Germany...)

But all that aside, the donations are of course appreciated :-)

Best of luck,
--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The userbox fad

body:
jayjg wrote:

>On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
>>>Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 10:26
>>>To: English Wikipedia
>>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
>>>
>>>On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>>>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
>>>>>Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:24
>>>>>To: English Wikipedia
>>>>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
>>>>>
>>>>>On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay < peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>>>>>>[mailto: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>There are better social clubs available on the net. If socialising is
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere soon enough.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>There are no social clubs available on the net with the prestige of
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that there are 19
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>more attractive ones?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Not really, since the others don't allow people to do this kind of thing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Ah. So you see Wikipedia as a social club. A prestigious social club.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Actually, I've been arguing the exact opposite.  Are you sure
>>>you're reading my e-mails?
>>>
>>>
>>You said: "There are no social clubs available on the net with the
>>prestige
>>of Wikipedia." That looks like a statement that Wikipedia is the most
>>prestigious social club available on the net.
>>
>>
>I was responding to *your* e-mail, in which you first introduced the concept
>of Wikipedia as a social club, and suggested there were better ones around.
>
>Are you all done playing games?
>
>
I'm not suggesting the word-twisting should continue, but this entire
discussion seems to have been carried on in ignorance of the fact that
there is, in fact, a better alternative for people who choose their
online communities based purely on the amount of traffic they get.
MySpace currently ranks 13th according to Alexa, still quite a few spots
ahead of Wikipedia. I'm not sure that prestigious is the word you're
looking for (your average pundit would probably resort to the tried and
true "hip"), but whatever it is they've got, it was worth $580 million
to Rupert Murdoch.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute

body:
Part of the problem I see is that Cool Cat has been before the
Arbitration Committee. There were problems. We don't need more
problems. You are creating more problems. What you are doing is
destructive in that context. I blocked GNAA_Staos yesterday
indefinitely. He did a lot of stuff over a long period of time
including publishing personal information regarding his victim. See
Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Need_help What you did is
much less and does not deserve a block of that nature unless you are
doing a lot more than engaging in minor TROLLING. But it was
trolling, trying to stir up trouble. However, sounds like your block
was excessive.

On Jan 5, 2006, at 6:29 PM, Kevin Mulligan wrote:

> Hi,
> I've just received a block from Wikipedia of "indefinite duration"
> by the user Essjay.  I was blocked for trolling on the user Cool
> Cat's talk page[1] by leaving a joke userbox and then making a
> mildly offensive comment as he proceeded to "feed the troll".  In
> this comment I admitted to trolling and user Essjay saw this as
> grounds enough to ban me immediately for an indefinite period.
>
> Essjay left a comment[2] on my talk page stating that he had
> blocked me "in line with the Arbitration Committee's ruling that
> simple vandals and others who engage in overt, easily demonstrable
> vandalism can be blocked immediately."
>
> I accept that I did wrong by trolling on Cool Cat's page but what I
> did was not vandalism but a very minor personal attack, which is,
> according to Wikipedia's policy, to be treated in an entirely
> different manner.  In fact, it states clearly under on
> [[Wikipedia:Vandalism]], under the "What vandalism is not" heading
> that personal attacks are not vandalism.  The Wikipedia Blocking
> Policy itself states that for personal attacks should only be
> considered in "extreme cases" and goes on to note that the practice
> is always controversial.
> The Blocking Policy itself goes on to say:
> "Logged-in users that do essentially nothing but vandalism may also
> be blocked for the same time periods. However, user accounts that
> perform a mixture of valid  edits and vandalism should not be
> blocked in this manner.
>
> Blocks should not be used against isolated incidents of vandalism."
>
> I have had my Wikipeda account since early 2004 and have since made
> over 1200 edits[3], and my edits to Cool Cat's talk page are the
> first which can possibly be considered as misconduct.
>
> Considering all of the above I am very disappointed that I have
> been treated this way by Essjay.  It seems to me as though he has
> acted in gross violation of the Wikipedia policies as far as my ban
> is concerned.  I should like it to be revoked or be given a reason
> why it should remain there rather than the alternate avenues of
> resolution, as suggested at WP:NPA, be explored.
>
> Regards,
> Kevin Mulligan
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Cat/Archive/
> 2006/01#New_user_box
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%
> 3AKevin_Mulligan&diff=34042009&oldid=34037875
> [3] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kate/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Kevin
> +Mulligan&dbname=enwiki_p&machread=1
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.13/221 - Release Date:
> 1/4/2006
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Re: userbox : insanity ?

references:
<dpk9n6$v9f$1@sea.gmane.org>	<ce4d55b80601051548i155e2b7dw2651ca5a5de4958d@mail.gmail.com>	<dpkc7c$7vl$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ce4d55b80601051644v16303234l14fd54f21dcf4efa@mail.gmail.com>
	<dplhrl$cv3$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
I think so, Time spent policing userboxes  for fair use violations is
wasted time. but they are fun.

Fred

On Jan 6, 2006, at 3:47 AM, Anthere wrote:

> Technical idea : limit the number of templates on a page ?
>
> ant


from_name: Essjay -Wikipedia-

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute

body:
First, it would have been nice for Kevin to either email me, as the blocking
policy suggests, or leave a note on his talk page; however, as we all know,
it is much more satisfying to burn an admin at the stake via the mailing
list rather than try to resolve the situation directly. I  feel it such a
waste to have a dozen different ways to contact me listed on my talk page
and have none of them be of any use to him.

I issued the indefinnate block after Kevin trolled Cool Cat and several
other users, including Anthere, over a completely inappropriate userbox. I
settled on an indef block because he admitted that his intention in the
entire situation was to troll, and we all know that trolling is the last
thing Wikipedia needs, although it certainly receives more than its share. I
announced the block in #wikimeda, and no other admin saw fit to adjust it,
although there were several (including two Board members, and, if I remember
correctly, Jimbo himself) in the channel and actively discussing the matter.
Further, the block was recorded in the block log, as all blocks are, and no
other user saw fit to raise the issue on my talk page, AN/I, or elsewhere.

Given that several other users have been affected by the resulting
autoblocks, I'm willing to reduce the block to 24 hours (from whatever time
I set it) and be done with the matter, provided that, as Kevin asserts that
he has been a upstanding contributor for a long time, he gives up trolling
and goes back to making useful edits. If he intends to continue trolling,
however, I'm not inclined to reduce the block, as why would I unblock
someone so they can return to trolling.

I don't normally get the mailing list emails, so if another admin sees a
response from Kevin indicating that he has given up trolling and would like
to be unblocked, please feel free to unblock, and leave me a note on my talk
saying that it has been done. If one of you disagrees with the block (and
I'm sure there will be at least one), I invoke what I have written on my
userpage:
<quote>
I strongly encourage other administrators who feel I have made an action
inappropriately to take the appropriate action to rectify it and follow up
with a note to me.
</quote>

If, by some odd chance, Kevin would like to email me directly, instead of
involving the entire mailing list, he is welcome to do so. I'm also
available by the other twelve methods listed on my userpage.

As always, peace be with you all.

Essjay
---------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
www.wikipedia.org

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal on
	userboxdisagreement)

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg

> Ah yes, an editor who manages to devote only 6% of his edits
> to articles, who has apparently never felt the need to make
> even *one* comment on an article Talk: page, and who has 4
> times as many edits to his user page as to the encyclopedia
> itself.  Well, on the bright side, he appears to have only
> 26 userboxes on his user page.
>
> Um, what are these people doing here again?

Being demonised instead of guided, it would seem. If long-established
editors greet newcomers with hostility, they should hardly be surprised when
this behaviour is taken as the established norm.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg

> > There are better social clubs available on the net. If
> socialising is
> > truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere soon enough.
>
> There are no social clubs available on the net with the prestige of
> Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.

Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that there are 19 more
attractive ones?

>  But so long as
> > they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their
> > constructive
> > efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we
> make Wikipedia
> > a
> > cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground,
> the better for
> > all concerned.
> >
> When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
> something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are
> wasting the time
> and trying the patience of someone who is actually
> contributing to the goal
> of the project.

Did you try praising their constructive efforts before demonstrating to them
that the proper role of a longtime editor is to spend time haranguing new
editors?

Maybe that sounds flippant, but ask yourself how these people must view your
attitude and what sort of example you are setting.

Peter (Skyring)


body:
Excellent examples. Here's another:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_communism

Fred

On Jan 6, 2006, at 7:48 AM, Tomer Chachamu wrote:

> To give some examples,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete


from_name: Angela

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] New huge missing entries list: over 300,
	000 entries

body:
On 1/5/06, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you are worried about copyright violations, don't be. Problems of the
> exact same nature occurred on the English Wikipedia several months ago,
> and the opinions of both juriwiki and the foundation were that indexes
> of multiple encyclopedias, if mixed together, would not create a
> copyright violation.

There was never any Foundation decision made about this. Individual
members of the Foundation might have expressed an opinion one way or
the other (and as far as I know, the members of the board are not in
agreement about whether this constitutes a copyright violation), but
please don't present it as a Foundation opinion. The Foundation does
not give legal advice.

Angela


body:
On 1/6/06, Richard Seltzer <seltzer at samizdat.com> wrote:

> Do you have an email address for Tim Starling?

It's on his user page: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tim_Starling>.

> And is there an email address to officially contact the Foundation?

board at wikimedia.org is an address you can use if you need to
contact the board or people involved with the Foundation. For
non-board issues, the public mailing lists (like
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l>) are
preferable.

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
> slimvirgin at gmail.com
> Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 03:39
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
>
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > If they only made those 20 edits, then I'd agree, but many are
> > > making 10x that many edits complaining about their toys
> being taken
> > > away.
> >
> > Again, why not encourage them to be more productive instead of
> > lambasting them?
>
> With so many of them, the last thing you'd want is for them
> to become more productive, because they're terrible editors.

Newcomers in any field are rarely excellent. You might as well close down
the education system because the kindergarten children aren't as good as
those who have been around for twelve years.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: John McNeil

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to set window title in Special pages

body:
Michael,

Thanks much. It says it right there in the SpecialPage.php code.

For anyone else with this problem, I added the following line at the
top of the execute function of my SpecialPage subclass:
$this->setHeaders(); // you're supposed to call this method of the
super class to set the window title

Thanks again,

John


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal
	onuserboxdisagreement)

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:21
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was:
> Proposal onuserboxdisagreement)
>
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:

> > Being demonised instead of guided, it would seem. If
> long-established
> > editors greet newcomers with hostility, they should hardly be
> > surprised when this behaviour is taken as the established norm.
>
>
> They haven't been demonised, nor greeted with hostility; I'm
> not sure where you got that from.

Right here, brother. Step back and read your comments with the eyes of those
whom you are dunking in [[vitriol]].

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute

body:
Of course, you fail to tell us what your grievance is. What did you
do that earned you your ban or block or whatever? My feeling from
reading this is that it was well deserved.

Fred

On Jan 6, 2006, at 9:09 AM, MAURICE FRANK wrote:

> In sympathy.
>
>  Following common sense you cite Wiki's rules. But as a long line
> of us have found here, Wiki doesn't have any rules, that are for
> taking literally. Iit only has "spirits of rules" for interpreting
> in its overall interests not in yours. They will tell you here
> "You're not entitled to anything".
>
>  You were entitled to be told that before you ever joined, though.
> You would have preferred that. Most of the world would prefer that
> too. That's why most of the world is starting to write critical
> newspaper reviews of Wiki and accord it lightweight status as a
> source. Keep that bright in your heart + watch it happen.
>
> wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:
>
> Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:29:39 +0000
> From: Kevin Mulligan
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Message-ID: <43BDC803.6060606 at kebeol.net>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all
> new Yahoo! Security Centre.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
That's true and the article Criticisms of communism would not be
acceptable on Wikinfo as it is NPOV. We might keep it but it would be
entitled Criticisms of communism according to Wikipedia.

Fred

On Jan 6, 2006, at 9:14 AM, Pawe? Dembowski wrote:

> Fred Bauder napisa?u:
>
>
>>> To give some examples,
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete
>>>
>
>
>> Excellent examples. Here's another:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_communism
>> Fred
>>
>
> Of the three articles, only one is an article variant. The other two
> are actually subarticles. Article about criticisms of communism is one
> thing, a critical article about communism is another.
>
> --
> Ausir
> Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
> http://pl.wikipedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:24
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
>
> On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> >
> > > > There are better social clubs available on the net. If
> > > socialising is
> > > > truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere
> soon enough.
> > >
> > > There are no social clubs available on the net with the
> prestige of
> > > Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.
> >
> > Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that
> there are 19
> > more attractive ones?
>
> Not really, since the others don't allow people to do this
> kind of thing.

Ah. So you see Wikipedia as a social club. A prestigious social club.

I don't. I see it as having a community side, but it is not as heavily
oriented towards community as many other sites. And I must question just how
prestigious a social club is if it allows anybody to walk in off the street
and join.

But I suspect that we are playing with words now.

Wikipedia needs some sort of community space and tools if editors are to
co-operate on the project. It seems to me to be working very well in that
regard.

Sure, there are a few ants at one end of the bell curve and a few
grasshoppers at the other. But we are always going to get a bell curve and
whipping up a conflict between the two extremes doesn't strike me as
particularly helpful. Instead I think it would be better to encourage the
socialites to be a bit more productive. Encourage new editors, steer them
gently on the right path and so on.

Peter (Skyring)

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: userbox : insanity ?

references:
<dpk9n6$v9f$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ce4d55b80601051548i155e2b7dw2651ca5a5de4958d@mail.gmail.com>
	<dpkc7c$7vl$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ce4d55b80601051644v16303234l14fd54f21dcf4efa@mail.gmail.com>
	<dplhrl$cv3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<F8CAA2B8-A651-432B-AFE0-380BD41A7FEF@ctelco.net>

body:
On 1/6/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I think so, Time spent policing userboxes  for fair use violations is
> wasted time. but they are fun.
>
> Fred
>
>
> On Jan 6, 2006, at 3:47 AM, Anthere wrote:
>
> > Technical idea : limit the number of templates on a page ?
> >
> > ant

Good idea.  Is there some way this can be done on a per-namespace
basis, though?  A lot of Wikipedia: pages (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Template
messages]]) transclude a lot of templates; the use of {{tl}} has also
become quite pervasive, both in Wikipedia: and in Talk:

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute

body:
The "rules" are extremely liquid and not applied to the ideologically pure.
An atmosphere of intolerance pervades against dissenters who do not
genuflect before the privileged elite.  This lack of diversity, which allows
crusaders and jihadists a license to throw civility to the winds, threatens
Wikipedia's goal to write a credible encyclopedia more than anything else.  The
question is, like any large enterprise, can it reform itself?

nobs

On 1/6/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> Of course, you fail to tell us what your grievance is. What did you
> do that earned you your ban or block or whatever? My feeling from
> reading this is that it was well deserved.
>
> Fred
>
>


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I was responding to *your* e-mail, in which you first
> > introduced the concept of Wikipedia as a social club, and
> > suggested there were better ones around.
>
> Actually, that was Carbonite's phrase, not mine. I merely suggested that
> if
> people came here for socialising, there were better places to go. You
> responded, by appearing to disagree.

As was quite obvious, I explained why they might prefer to socialize on
Wikipedia, rather than on those other places.

There seems to be a problem with Wikipedia's community facilities, such as
> user pages, Village Pump, this mailing list and so on. They all help
> editors
> to co-operate, and a great many valuable editors take pleasure in dressing
> up their user pages, letting other editors know something about
> themselves,
> and personalising their own little space in a way that they can't do in
> article space.
>
> If all this stuff is provided and is widely used, then why start to attack
> people for coming here and using it? Surely the problem is not that some
> people are actually using the facilities provided, but rather that they
> are
> not doing a real lot of work in article space, and to my mind we are not
> going to have a great deal of success in forcing volunteers to work
> harder.
> They will either leave entirely, depriving us of potential workers, or
> they
> will respond in kind to the behaviour shown them by experienced editors
> who
> should know better.
>
> Is this plain common sense, or am I missing something here?

If they are here to build a great encyclopedia, and the social aspects of
Wikipedia assist in that, then that's great.  The issue I'm raising regards
the many editors who seem to have no interest in actually building the
encyclopedia itself, and instead focus their efforts almost entirely on
using the social and "webhosting" facilities that are, in reality, here only
to assist Wikipedia in its primary purpose.

Jay.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/6/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/6/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> > The point of these templates is that they are short and simple to use.
> > If they are subst:'d in, they become more complicated. Why do we need to
> > do this?
>
> Benefit to the servers.  Avoidable use of templates should be avoided,
> and substitution is an easy way of doing that.  Creating slightly ugly
> code is unfortunate but inevitable.

Is there template syntax to force a template to always subst: in?  If
not, it might be a good idea.

-Matt


from_name: Michael Keppler

body:
John McNeil schrieb:
> What is the proper way to set the Special page window title in  MediaWiki?

See SpecialPage->setHeaders().

Ciao, Michael.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute

body:
After your one year ban for personal attacks perhaps you can help.

Fred

On Jan 6, 2006, at 10:59 AM, Rob Smith wrote:

> The "rules" are extremely liquid and not applied to the
> ideologically pure.
> An atmosphere of intolerance pervades against dissenters who do not
> genuflect before the privileged elite.  This lack of diversity,
> which allows
> crusaders and jihadists a license to throw civility to the winds,
> threatens
> Wikipedia's goal to write a credible encyclopedia more than
> anything else.  The
> question is, like any large enterprise, can it reform itself?
>
> nobs
>
>
> On 1/6/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Of course, you fail to tell us what your grievance is. What did you
>> do that earned you your ban or block or whatever? My feeling from
>> reading this is that it was well deserved.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Justin Cormack

body:
On 5 Jan 2006, at 18:55, Richard Seltzer wrote:

> I publish books (mainly public domain) on CD and DVD. You can see
> my offerings at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
>
> I would like to publish a DVD that includes the full text of
> Wikipedia, peferably as a set of interlinked html pages (easy for a
> novice to use, and with no need for a database).  The DVD would
> also include dozens of other reference books.
>
> I understand (thanks to Lars Aronsson) that Directmedia Publishing
> in Berlin (www.directmedia.de) put the German Wikipedia on DVD
> (ISBN 3-86640-001-2).  It sells for $10 on
> www.amazon.de, and $1 of that goes to the German branch of the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> I would like to do something similar for the English version. I
> would sell it for $12 since it includes other works as well and
> also since I provide free shipping inside the US. I could also
> contribute $1 for each DVD sold to the Wikimedia Foundation (or
> whatever branch of that is appropriate). In addition, I would like
> to update the DVD about once a month.
>
> I downloaded 20051105_pages_articles.xml.bz2 823 Mbytes I
> uncompressed that file (using ZipZag) to 20051105_pages_artcles.xml
> 3.5 Gigabytes
>
> But what can I/should I do next?
>
> The xml file is too big to open in my IE browser (and too big for
> any customer to open either). I was hoping to get a set of inter-
> linked files (similar to the way downloads of the CIA World
> Factbook are presented), so anyone could open a home page and
> navigate to the the rest.
>
> Is there anything I can do (with my Windows PC) to convert the
> downloadable files to this format? Or could anyone out there in the
> Wikipedia community help me?

You need to install the mediawiki software, import the xml into the
database and then write a script to
generate the html pages. You probably want to find a tame hacker to
help set it up for the first time
(you will need some customisation, set up a look and feel etc; also
if you are not going to have the
pictures you may want to strip out the captions, and you need to work
out what to do with red links etc).

Suggest you mail the technical list to find someone who can do the
detailed work. Its not a huge amount
although getting it right may take a while as there is a lot to check.

Best wishes

Justinc


from_name: FxParlant

subject: [Wikitech-l] cookie css

body:
Hi,

I know some php, but the class system is not my speciality.

Can someone tell me how I could add some information in the cookie (the
one used in the remember me), and get this information back.

This would especially be usefull for css change, without being logged
(yes, you all know how visitors can be lazy :-))

A tip on this could become a nice tutorial for dummies like me who are
still a bit afraid when playing with the "this->setcookie()" or whatever.

Thanks for your help

Fran?ois
http://www.fxparlant.net/Main_Page


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/6/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/6/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good idea.  Is there some way this can be done on a per-namespace
> > basis, though?  A lot of Wikipedia: pages (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Template
> > messages]]) transclude a lot of templates; the use of {{tl}} has also
> > become quite pervasive, both in Wikipedia: and in Talk:
>
> {{tl}} should be substituted.

Does it work when substituted now?  I know there were some issues with
that before.

In any case, if we were to do this, we would need a bot to go through
and substitute the massively-used shorthand templates: {{tl}},
{{user}}, {{vandal}}, {{admin}}, etc.

Kirill Lokshin