body:
Never mind, Tim was kind enough to explain the code to me on IRC.
Basicly, yes there's mysql3 compatibility cruft in there, but it isn't
getting hit by the wikipedia servers.

On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 11:44:11PM +0200, Frank v Waveren wrote:
> Anyone?
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 12:38:45AM +0200, Frank v Waveren wrote:
> > I just had a look at the current version of CVS HEAD mediawiki and it
> > would appear to me that bug 1244[1] (block table access doing a full
> > scan of the block table) is back or has never left.
> >
> > I've forgotten most of the intricacies though, so perhaps I'm
> > mistaken. I seem to recall that even if the query was being run with
> > FOR UPDATE, a union (instead of OR) needed to be used to prevent the
> > table scan (which was only supported in mysql4).
> >
> > Was the solution to this problem moved off elsewhere, or is this
> > performance problem back?
> >
> >
> > 1: http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1244
> >
> > Here is what I thought was the relevant section of Block.php:load()
> > for your viewing ease:
> >
> > function load( $address = '', $user = 0, $killExpired = true )
> > {
> >    global $wgAntiLockFlags;
> >    $fname = 'Block::load';
> >    wfDebug( "Block::load: '$address', '$user', $killExpired\n" );
> >
> >    $ret = false;
> >    $killed = false;
> >    if ( $this->forUpdate() ) {
> >       $db =& wfGetDB( DB_MASTER );
> >       if ( $wgAntiLockFlags & ALF_NO_BLOCK_LOCK ) {
> >          $options = '';
> >       } else {
> >          $options = 'FOR UPDATE';
> >       }
> >    } else {
> >       $db =& wfGetDB( DB_SLAVE );
> >       $options = '';
> >    }
> >    $ipblocks = $db->tableName( 'ipblocks' );
> >
> >    if ( 0 == $user && $address=='' ) {
> >       $sql = "SELECT * from $ipblocks $options";
> >    } elseif ($address=="") {
> >       $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_user={$user} $options";
> >    } elseif ($user=="") {
> >       $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_address='" . $db->strencode( $address ) . "' $options";
> >    } elseif ( $options=='' ) {
> > # If there are no options (e.g. FOR UPDATE), use a UNION
> > #  so that the query can make efficient use of indices
> > $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_address='" . $db->strencode( $address ) .
> >          "' UNION SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE ipb_user={$user}";
> >    } else {
> > # If there are options, a UNION can not be used, use one
> > # SELECT instead. Will do a full table scan.
> >       $sql = "SELECT * FROM $ipblocks WHERE (ipb_address='" . $db->strencode( $address ) . "' OR ipb_user={$user}) $options";
> >    }
> >
> > ...
> >
> >
> > --
> > Frank v Waveren                                  Key fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
> > fvw at var.cx                                              5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
> > Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8
>
> --
> Frank v Waveren                                  Key fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
> fvw at var.cx                                              5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
> Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8

--
Frank v Waveren                                  Key fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
fvw at var.cx                                              5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
Yes, and look at the third archive of my talk page to see how well that works.

On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Phroziac wrote:
> > why are they invalid vfds, Cindy?
> >
> Because they don't establish deletability. There was a recent discussion
> on this list about that, but I can't seem to find it.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
he's blocked. You do it. I'm on a wikibreak

On 9/30/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
> > Phroziac wrote:
> >
> >> why are they invalid vfds, Cindy?
> >>
> > Because they don't establish deletability. There was a recent discussion
> > on this list about that, but I can't seem to find it.
>
> Please add these AfD pages to [[WP:RFC/AfD]]...
>
> --
> Alphax                      |   /"\
> Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
> http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
> _______________________________________________
> 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: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
geni wrote:
> On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The consensus of those that actually care about the subject is to keep
>>it. If we listened to the assholes we'd have killed all the Rambot stubs.
>
> I don't think there was ever even a straight majority to kill them.

I see there were enough on the side of good.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject:
[Foundation-l] Authoring on wikijunior : providing
	private	information.

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Nicholas Moreau wrote:
>
>> Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books,
>> the first
>> of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
>>
>> This message has worried many of us:
>>
>> "According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted
>> work, you
>> must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in)
>> and
>> the country you are currently residing in, if different.
>
>
>
> ??????
>
> Can you cite this piece of law ?
> Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect
> this one ?
> If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new
> territory ?
>
> I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will
> provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what
> our project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly
> put that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a
> book by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
>
>
> Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
>
> Anthere

I am not a "lawyer", but I have studied copyright law extensively and
feel competent to answer some of these questions.

U.S. copyright code does require this information if you are going to
formally "register" the copyrighted work.  The idea is that the author's
nationality directly influences what copyright laws apply to a given
piece of literature, even if it was originally published in a place that
is different from the nationality of the author.  For instance, French
law applies to French citizens for copyright even if the book was
originally published in the USA, with all of the gory details that go
with that issue as well.  This is information that is also required
under international copyright treaties as well.

For some more specific details of at least registration forms required
for U.S. publication and registration, see:  http://www.copyright.gov/

The information that I was requesting specifically when I wrote the
stuff in question at Wikijunior asking for the full complete name was
based on the registration forms from the above web site.  This is also a
matter of copyright law in the sense that we are asking for full details
from anybody that wants to make a copyright claim on something that is
found on Wikimedia content pages.  Other authors that may want to stay
anonymous can do so, but their ability to make a copyright claim later
is going to be much more difficult.  The U.S. copyright office does
require information about all potential copyright claims for a given work.

Although not specifically stated on all Wikimedia websites, there is an
implicit copyright applied to all content (except for older Wikinews
content that was previously public domain content).  We use various
"licenses" to permit redistirbution and duplication of the information,
but the copyright claim is still there.  If we want to enforce the GFDL
at some point due to somebody trying to abuse the content, at some point
we as a community will have to collect all of the information asked
above for each author in order to take the case to court and force the
copyright violator to comply with the GFDL (taking Wikipedia content and
claiming it as their own, for instance, under a propritary license).

BTW, if you buy a book all of that information can be found at the
national copyright registration office, even if it isn't specifically
provided inside the front cover of the book.  And that information is
going to be available generally through the internet anyway, but it may
be a little harder to find than simply a single click from the main page
of the on-line version of the book.

As far as being "very contrary to my idea of what our project is", I
don't see how asking for voluntary information about nationality is
contrary to the spirit of a Wiki.  It is not required if you don't want
to give the information, and as I pointed out is required if we want to
keep the information "free" and availble under a copyleft arrangement.
 As far as privacy, that is up to you to decide on how much privacy you
want to have in your life.  If you are going to make waves in public
(like trying to enforce your copyrights), you need to make claims to
what you have written in a public manner.  Authors throughout time have
done this, and goes with the public nature of the written word.  Yes,
some authors may go to jail because of what they've written, and you can
point to many people who have had that happen throughout all of time.
 That is what happens when you stick your neck out in public, and why in
general you as a citizen of whatever country you live in should try to
support free speech laws.

I tried to make a bug report on this earlier, asking for this
information to be collected as a part of the user record directly on
each Mediawiki project, but the bug report was squashed because the
developers felt this is something that should have been debated first
(presumably on Wikipedia by the comment of the one developer who opposed
the bug).  I still feel that this should be something that can and
should be collected for each user, on a voluntary basis.  From my
reading of the GFDL, this may even be required information if we want to
be able to enforce the GFDL.

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> One suspects they are at a loss as to why Wikipedia needs an article on a
> traffic circle which isn't even there any more, having been replaced by a
> set of traffic lights. Unfortunately none of the articles (except that for
> Flemington, which looks interestingly like "Hangar Lane" here in England)
> manages to establish just WTF is so interesting about these particular
> traffic circles.
>
They are local landmarks. People call them by those names even when they
no longer exist. Other things are named after them.

> To paraphrase something I read in a book somewhere (Miles Vorkosigan IIRC)
> you don't come to Wikipedia to learn about stuff you already know, you come
> to learn stuff you **don't** already know.
>
So you live in Freehold and want to know why an intersection is called
Freehold Circle. Too bad, the assholes deleted the article.


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proper response to "crap" AfD nominations

body:
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations
>
> I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened
> with a block:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/
> Freehold_Circle
> "Here is another nn traffic circle. Roadcruft. Delete --JAranda | yeah
> 02:40, 28 September 2005 (UTC)"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/
> Laurelton_Circle
> "I don't normally get into the road wars on AfD, but this is a former
> traffic circle, now converted to a traffic light. Its notability
> derives
> from the notability of the history of the traffic light. Delete. Chick
> Bowen 21:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/
> Flemington_Circle
> "This is one of three traffic circles in Flemington, New Jersey, a
> village of 4000 people. Pilatus 18:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/
> White_Horse_Circle
> "Oh cmon its a traffic circle nn Delete --Aranda56 01:26, 22 September
> 2005 (UTC)"
>
> What the fuck is with people?

If a nomination is crap, explain why in the AfD. If your explanations
are convincing, people will vote to keep. If nominators notice that
their nomination has been buried by a near-unanimous string of keeps,
they'll be embarrassed and stop making problematical nominations.
This procedure has the great advantage in that it works and that it
does not making people angry thereby provoking counter-responses
directed at your manner rather than at the merit of the topic.

In _any_ AfD discussion, it is much more helpful to address the
_particular_ article under discussion than to pass blanket judgments
on an entire class of articles. Nominations that say "oh cmon its a
traffic circle" and "roadcruft" are not helpful. Neither are
responses that say "all traffic circles are notable." Even if you
believe that all traffic circles should be deleted or that all
traffic circles should be kept, neither of these extremes is a widely
held opinion and repetitive, strident assertions of these general
principles are not going to create a consensus. (Neither do
repetitive, strident assertions that there _is_ consensus in areas
where there actually is not).

When nominating a traffic circle, give reasons why _this particular_
traffic circle shouldn't be kept. Two of the nominations mentioned
above do this, although not in a very coherent way. When arguing that
an article on a traffic circle should be kept, say why _this
particular_ traffic circle is worth keeping. Is the article
particularly good? Do traffic reports in the city reference it?

The reason for doing this has nothing to do with The Principle Of The
Thing. The reason for doing it is that these techniques _work_.

(Another technique that works for keeping articles is to improve them
a bit _before_ entering the nomination discussion).

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Authoring on wikijunior : providing private
	information.

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> And yes, your request was not a bug, it is something to be debated.
> Developers were correct in their answer ihmo. We should be very
> careful about that Robert.

I have tried to start the discussion about this issue in the past, but
most places I made the request about the topic it became a dead issue
with most people suggesting that it was a non-issue.  In this particular
instance with the Wikijunior Solar System (and moving on subsequently to
other Wikijunior books like the Big Cats volume) I decided to "BE BOLD"
and try to collect the information for that volume alone.  On the
Wikijunior Solar System side, there have been many contributions to this
information, and I've had the notice up there requesting comments for at
least two months now with absolutely no discussion what so ever.  In
this regard I am grateful that you are even asking about and questioning
the request for this information.  Seriously.  At least there is a
difference of opinion and now a serious discussion can take place rather
than a one-sided discussion where nobody seems to care.

All I'm trying to do is collect what public information is already
available for each of the authors listed.  That is a problem sometimes
with computer databases in that when the information is scattered around
and not collected you don't think anything of it to mention personal
details of your life, but when you actually see it gathered together in
an easily searchable form you start to question the rationale of having
that information widely available.  Information about you is currently
being kept by governments and private corporations all of the time, and
legitimate social discussions do need to take place about how much
privacy should we expect when we leave a public paper trail that can be
researched and have data mining performed on that information.

If this is going to turn into a general discussion about how much people
can do by trying to do data mining on Wikimedia projects, I welcome that
sort of discussion.  In this case, I'm doing data mining of authors on a
particuar Wikiproject, trying to get information about the authors
including their full real name, nationality, and other related
information.  Some of this I've been able to find through means other
than a voluntary contribution of this information, including searching
talk pages and user pages.  Should I stop that sort of searching, even
if I can find that sort of data in a "public" forum (like talk pages
generally are)?  Should the privacy policy be expanded to specifically
prohibit this sort of data mining?  I don't know the answers to these
questions, but at least I'm doing this sort of research out in the open
and in public.  There is nothing stopping anybody else from doing this
sort of research and keeping it for themselves either, or keeping it in
a private database for some purpose that you may not appreciate or like.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> If a nomination is crap, explain why in the AfD. If your explanations
> are convincing, people will vote to keep. If nominators notice that
> their nomination has been buried by a near-unanimous string of keeps,
> they'll be embarrassed and stop making problematical nominations.  This
> procedure has the great advantage in that it works and that it  does not
> making people angry thereby provoking counter-responses  directed at
> your manner rather than at the merit of the topic.

It also has great disadvantage - it doesn't work! People continue to
vote "OMG TRAFFIC CIRCLE DELETE".
>
> In _any_ AfD discussion, it is much more helpful to address the
> _particular_ article under discussion than to pass blanket judgments  on
> an entire class of articles. Nominations that say "oh cmon its a
> traffic circle" and "roadcruft" are not helpful. Neither are  responses
> that say "all traffic circles are notable." Even if you  believe that
> all traffic circles should be deleted or that all  traffic circles
> should be kept, neither of these extremes is a widely  held opinion and
> repetitive, strident assertions of these general  principles are not
> going to create a consensus. (Neither do  repetitive, strident
> assertions that there _is_ consensus in areas  where there actually is
> not).

How else would one argue from the basis that yes, all named traffic
circles are local landmarks and thus "notable"? The whole "notability"
thing just doesn't work, because there's no way to counter "nn roadcruft".

I wonder how people would argue their keep vote if I were to nominate a
small town of population 40-50 with the only edits by Rambot. What other
argument would apply to a generic small town than "all towns deserve
articles"?
>
> When nominating a traffic circle, give reasons why _this particular_
> traffic circle shouldn't be kept. Two of the nominations mentioned
> above do this, although not in a very coherent way. When arguing that
> an article on a traffic circle should be kept, say why _this
> particular_ traffic circle is worth keeping. Is the article
> particularly good? Do traffic reports in the city reference it?

Playing devil's advocate, traffic reports mention minor streets. Doesn't
mean they should be kept.
>
> The reason for doing this has nothing to do with The Principle Of The
> Thing. The reason for doing it is that these techniques _work_.

Unless it's "nn cruft". They they fall flat against an unstoppable
stream of assholes.
>
> (Another technique that works for keeping articles is to improve them  a
> bit _before_ entering the nomination discussion).

Someone did that for White Horse Circle. It didn't help:

#  00:21, 29 September 2005 . . Gpietsch (tweak)
# 00:18, 29 September 2005 . . Gpietsch (added enough to prevent this
article from getting deleted ;-))
# 01:25, 22 September 2005 . . Aranda56 (Placed VFD)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/White_Horse_Circle

The only argument that makes sense against "Oh cmon its a traffic circle
nn Delete" is "fuck you, asshole".

And I see that Calton continues to be an asshole:

I'll note that SPUI deleted the AfD tag in the article. He's getting
passionate and breaking rules over a traffic circle? --Calton | Talk
02:38, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> I'm not sure if WP:NPA applies to the mailing list, but calling people
> assholes is uncalled for anyway. If you want to discuss the deletion
> that's fine, but please don't resort to name calling.

They are assholes. What should I call them, upstanding citizens?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> No, just say nothing or critisize their actions rather than the people
> personally.
> Calling someone an asshole (regardless of whether it's true) is likely
> to cause anger and needless disputes.

So is this bullshit voting.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened
> with a block:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Freehold_Circle
> "Here is another nn traffic circle. Roadcruft. Delete --JAranda | yeah
> 02:40, 28 September 2005 (UTC)"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Laurelton_Circle
> "I don't normally get into the road wars on AfD, but this is a former
> traffic circle, now converted to a traffic light. Its notability derives
> from the notability of the history of the traffic light. Delete. Chick
> Bowen 21:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Flemington_Circle
> "This is one of three traffic circles in Flemington, New Jersey, a
> village of 4000 people. Pilatus 18:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/White_Horse_Circle
> "Oh cmon its a traffic circle nn Delete --Aranda56 01:26, 22 September
> 2005 (UTC)"
>
> What the fuck is with people?
> _______________________________________________
The majority of the votes on those articles is to delete them.
You can't just speedy keep and impose your opinion on others keep it
when there isn't even a remote consensus to keep the article.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as community service

body:
One thing to point out. Any Wikipedia user can become involved in any
arbitration case by trying to figure out which events and evidence
are significant and putting that information on the evidence page, or
commenting on talk pages about those issues. Often our  litigants
throw a blizzard of stuff at us which is difficult to process.

If there is activity on the workshop page, where propositions are
sometimes initially advanced, comment on those propositions are also
helpful as an indication of community opinion.

Fred

On Sep 30, 2005, at 12:57 AM, Finne Boonen wrote:

> On 9/30/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Concur.
>> On 9/30/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Arbitration assistants have been talked about several times before.
>>> Can't see how it would be a bad thing, although the Arbs would be
>>> obliged to at least spot-check the assistant's findings for accuracy
>>> before relying on them.
>>>
>
> What is the reason for the community service assignment? A lot of
> times you're supposed to do community service as a way to observe a
> group working together, or practice in working together. In just
> editing pages you don't see much of the inner workings of the group of
> core wikipedians, so helping out with arbitration might give you more
> of an insight.
>
> Finne/henna
>
>
> --
> "Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
> unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
> http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe
> app
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Authoring on wikijunior : providing private
	information.

body:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:

> Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first
> of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
>
> This message has worried many of us:
>
> "According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you
> must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and
> the country you are currently residing in, if different. It is also
> suggested by the U.S. Copyright office to include the year you were born,
> for identification purposes. They also ask for the year of death, and if you
> know of a Wikibookian who has passed away, this would also be useful. How
> exactly we are going to collect this information for users and contributors
> of this Wikibooks is totally unknown, and is going to be an interesting
> little ride. Please add comments in the discussion
> page<http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors&action=edit>if
> you have any reservations about giving this information out. This is
> moving into new territory here, so we don't know exactly what is going to be
> required or if new policies should or ought to be developed."
>
> (sample of the pages in question:
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors)
>
> We are going to publish formal credit to any contributor that provides their
> name, but the project's shot if we do indeed need everybodies' info, no
> matter what. Many don't feel comfortable revealing such detailed info, like
> their birth year, and we should respect that.
>
> Can anyone provide insight on the level of necessity to include everyone's
> info.
>
> Nick/Zanimum

??????

Can you cite this piece of law ?
Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect
this one ?
If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new territory ?

I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will
provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what our
project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly put
that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a book
by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.

Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?

Anthere


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> The consensus of those that actually care about the subject is to keep
> it. If we listened to the assholes we'd have killed all the Rambot stubs.

I don't think there was ever even a straight majority to kill them.

--
geni


list: textbook-l

from_name: rpenner at mail.utexas.edu

subject: [Textbook-l] Story for Daily Texan

body:
I am a reporter at the Daily Texan in Austin, and I am looking for somebody
involved with the site to interview for a story on wikibooks. Is there anybody
out there? Please reply to my email address with phone contact information.

Thanks,
Ryan Penner


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> While it may be annoying when a favorite type of article is listed for
> deletion, it's best viewed as a chance to argue your case to not delete it.
>
> Remember that the case for deletion needs a consensus, which is actually
> pretty hard to raise if an article has any merit.
>
So in other words, the traffic circle articles have no merit? Bull.

> In particular, the notability argument is extremely weak, and in most cases
> directly contradicts deletion policy.
>
> Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an article
> is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't merit an
> article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged to a
> more comprehensive article.
>
> This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for merging.

I'd honestly have no problem with merging into the town, as it is a
local landmark. It shouldn't break the GFDL even if the article is
deleted, as the revision history is now available to all for deleted
articles.


from_name: Finne Boonen

body:
On 9/30/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
> Concur.
> On 9/30/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Arbitration assistants have been talked about several times before.
> > Can't see how it would be a bad thing, although the Arbs would be
> > obliged to at least spot-check the assistant's findings for accuracy
> > before relying on them.

What is the reason for the community service assignment? A lot of
times you're supposed to do community service as a way to observe a
group working together, or practice in working together. In just
editing pages you don't see much of the inner workings of the group of
core wikipedians, so helping out with arbitration might give you more
of an insight.

Finne/henna

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe app


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
>>I'd honestly have no problem with merging into the town, as it is a
>>local landmark. It shouldn't break the GFDL even if the article is
>>deleted, as the revision history is now available to all for deleted
>>articles.
>
> Probably the best way, then, to work around the poisonous dysfunction
> of xFD is to make the deletion moot by merging it into the town
> article and making the name a redirect.

Lucky me - I'd already done that for the ones that have been deleted,
despite the guide to VFD warning against it! Ah, the joy of cheating the
system. Now all we need is someone complaining that it shouldn't be in
the town article, but at least that can't be brushed under the rug with
vfd, just a nice healthy revert war.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Multilingual error messages

body:
"Nikola Smolenski" <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote in message
news:200509292233.56739.smolensk at eunet.yu...
> On Thursday 29 September 2005 17:25, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
[snip]
>> Good job all. Maybe the Squid messages can be translated too ?
>> The french 404 show an english message:
>>   http://fr.wikipedia.org/this_is_404
> Squid's error messages have already been translated to a lot of languages,
> including French; see
> http://cvs.devel.squid-cache.org/viewcvs.py/squid/squid3/errors/ . But it
> seems that Squid can't send language which is appropriate to
> Accept-Language,
> but that one language must be set as default? If that is the case, maybe
> French servers could have French set...

Forgive me for butting in, but surely Accept-Language is irrelevant.

The message for FR.wikipedia.org should be "en FRancais".
The message for CY.wikipedia.org should be in Welsh (sorry, don't know the
Welsh for that :-).

Assuming there is at least one person for each ??.wikipedia.org who can type
in the appropriate language, it must be possible to translate a minimal set
of messages properly?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> It says *what*? Remove that promptly. If you don't want to, I will.

I would if I wasn't blocked for 3RR.

> That will have been put there by some idjit who feels a burning need
> to hamper the operation of Wikipedia for the sake of a
> higher-throughput deletion procedure.

No personal attacks :P


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
"SPUI" <drspui at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:433C9D3A.2030005 at gmail.com...
>I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened with
>a block:
[snip]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Flemington_Circle
> "This is one of three traffic circles in Flemington, New Jersey, a village
> of 4000 people. Pilatus 18:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)"

Not wanting to inflame the situation or anything, but of the four you
listed, only the above-mentioned article looks anything like a keeper.

One article has already gone, having pretty much established consensus, and
the others are approaching that: neither is actually a "traffic circle" any
more.

> What the fuck is with people?

One suspects they are at a loss as to why Wikipedia needs an article on a
traffic circle which isn't even there any more, having been replaced by a
set of traffic lights. Unfortunately none of the articles (except that for
Flemington, which looks interestingly like "Hangar Lane" here in England)
manages to establish just WTF is so interesting about these particular
traffic circles.

I have to admit the term "roadcruft" is calculated to stimulate extreme rage
in a targetted editor: it smacks entirely too much of "I never heard of it
so dump it". It's a "lazy bastard" phrase and should be stricken from the
record and replaced with something substantive.

To paraphrase something I read in a book somewhere (Miles Vorkosigan IIRC)
you don't come to Wikipedia to learn about stuff you already know, you come
to learn stuff you **don't** already know.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Joseph Reagle

subject: [Wikipedia-l] FYI:

body:
For your review and or comment! :)

[[ http://reagle.org/joseph/2005/06/neutrality.html

     * Is the Wikipedia Neutral? - an (early draft) extension of A Case
       of Mutual Aid: Wikipedia, Politeness, and Perspective Taking to
       tease apart what is meant by something being neutral, and is it
       the right term to describe Wikipedia efforts:

     Claims of neutrality and accusations of bias are common themes of
     contemporary discourse about the media, government, education, and
     technology. In this essay I extend earlier work on the
     collaborative culture of Wikipedia (an on-line and free
     encyclopedia) to specifically focus on the fundamental but often
     misunderstood notion of neutrality.... This essay is inspired by
     earlier debates on neutrality of technical standards, literature on
     bias in technical systems, my present fascination with this
     Wikipedia norm and a change in my belief that while an important
     concept, the label of neutrality was an unfortunate coinage in the
     Wikipedia context.

]]


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

body:
Ah ah,

I love that idea. I always thought that it would be great if wikipedia
could establish some sort of very vague partnership with teaching
institution so that students would use their work to complete wp.

Greg Andrews wrote:
> As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
> least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We are
> allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
> cause.
>
> My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.  Pledge
> to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
> and writing for Wikipedia.
>
> I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
> something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?
>
> -Greg
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] The AfD saga

body:
> About deletion: There's a simple way to avoid repeated
> run-ins with AFD. Write better articles that even hard-core
> deletionists wouldn't think of deleting. One or 2 lines more
> in a stub can make the difference between viable context or
> possible deletion candidate.
>
> --Mgm

Something else I just realized: if people want to turn your new article
into a REDIRECT or just delete it entirely, maybe it should merely be a
_section_ of another article.

Or you may have bitten off more than you can chew - as I did this week
with the evolution-creation controversy. At first I got mad and counted
off my reversions up to the 3RR limit - even started an RFC! But then I
realized that one of the 20th Century's top issues can't be summarized
so easily. It was like trying to eat an entire roast ox in one mouthful!

By the way, thanks to Guettarda and others who helped me see the size
(and some of the shape) of the topic.

Ed Poor
Former Bureaucrat
Former Developer
Uh, let's see ... Does that leave anything?


from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] More Wikibooks in the News

body:
Google Alert for: *wikibooks*

*Wikibooks* offers free text database
online<http://www.dailyorange.com/news/2005/09/30/News/Wikibooks.Offers.Free.Text.Database.Online-1004529.shtml>
The Daily Orange (subscription) - Syracuse,NY,USA
*...* Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be
accessed and edited by anyone, has introduced a similar project for
textbooks - *Wikibooks*. *...*

Wiki Project One for the
Books<http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2005/mft05092911.htm>
Motley Fool - USA
Thanks to this feature at News.com <http://news.com/>, yesterday I
discovered *Wikibooks*, an incredibly useful tool where textbooks, in their
entire digital form, can be accessed *...*

 ------------------------------
 This as it happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/White_Horse_Circle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SPUI#page_recreation

Fvw just speedy deleted the redirect I made, claiming it was a recreation.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 9/30/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> If a nomination is crap, explain why in the AfD. If your explanations
> are convincing, people will vote to keep. If nominators notice that
> their nomination has been buried by a near-unanimous string of keeps,
> they'll be embarrassed and stop making problematical nominations.
>

Well, kinda works. After only about five months of high school articles
being almost invariably kept, looks like we've moved on to elementary
schools. :/


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Terms for adminship

body:
On 9/30/05, Habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
> At one of the wikipedias, the one in Swedish, a discussion has arisen if it
> would be possible to elect admins on a term of, say, one year. Admins whose
> actions often are questioned would then have little chance of getting
> re-elected, and choosing not so perfect admins would not be such a big
> problem as it currently is.
>
> At a previous stage, soneome at svwiki said that this would simply not be
> possible, since it is so difficult to get someone de-admined. Today there is
> a functioning structure of stewarts, and I wonder - if svwiki started this
> system, where admins aren't elected forever but for a term of a
> predetermined time, would "the international" object? Would stewarts get
> tired of demand after demand from svwiki to take the admin rights from
> admins whose one year term run out, or would it be seen as OK?
>
> It is difficult to puch the question, as long as we don't know if the
> argument "it would not be allowed" is correct or not.

Considering that de, nl, and meta all currently elect admins for
terms, I should imagine that it would be permitted.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] The AfD saga

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Actually I don't think it can be fixed. I am convinced that it could be
> safely wound down provided a procedure for dealing with hoax/unverifiable
> articles was instituted along the same lines as
> Wikipedia:Copyright_Problems.
>
> Or we could leave it as it is. It's only processing an average of 112
> articles a day (based on a recent 3-month survey) and only around 70-80% of
> those are deleted. This is piddling compared to our site growth figures and
> utterly dwarfed by the immensity of the existing database. So it's no more
> effective at whatever it is people think it's for than if we had a script to
> randomly delete 100 smallish articles with low edit counts every day

And we come full circle... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RANDEL


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, SPUI wrote:

> Phroziac wrote:
> > why are they invalid vfds, Cindy?
> >
> Because they don't establish deletability. There was a recent discussion
> on this list about that, but I can't seem to find it.

I remember recently suggesting that any nomination that includes the
words "non-notable" or "cruft" ought to be treated as a speedy keep
(with the intent of making people work a little harder on explaining
why a nomination ought to be deleted), but I can't find my email on
the topic either. I also remember someone disagreed about treating
"non-notable" in this way, so that is as far as *that* proposal
went.

Assuming that there is a consensus concerning use/abuse of the word
"cruft", then only one of your Speedy Keeps would be justified on that
basis:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Freehold_Circle
> "Here is another nn traffic circle. Roadcruft. Delete --JAranda | yeah
> 02:40, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Was this deprecation of the word "cruft" pointed out?

Geoff


subject: [Textbook-l] Story for Daily Texan

body:
rpenner at mail.utexas.edu wrote:

>I am a reporter at the Daily Texan in Austin, and I am looking for somebody
>involved with the site to interview for a story on wikibooks. Is there anybody
>out there? Please reply to my email address with phone contact information.
>
>Thanks,
>Ryan Penner
>_______________________________________________
>Textbook-l mailing list
>Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>
>
>
>
Dear Mr. Penner,

    I am an "administrator" on Wikibooks and a participant on the
English Wikibooks website.  If there are some questions or some
information you would like to obtain from me, I would be more than
willing to talk with you.  Feel free to e-mail me or call me at my home
telephone number listed below.

--
Robert Scott Horning
218 Sunstone Circle
Logan, UT 84321
(435) 753-3330
robert_horning at netzero.net


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
I'm not sure if WP:NPA applies to the mailing list, but calling people
assholes is uncalled for anyway. If you want to discuss the deletion
that's fine, but please don't resort to name calling.

--Mgm

On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> > One suspects they are at a loss as to why Wikipedia needs an article on a
> > traffic circle which isn't even there any more, having been replaced by a
> > set of traffic lights. Unfortunately none of the articles (except that for
> > Flemington, which looks interestingly like "Hangar Lane" here in England)
> > manages to establish just WTF is so interesting about these particular
> > traffic circles.
> >
> They are local landmarks. People call them by those names even when they
> no longer exist. Other things are named after them.
>
> > To paraphrase something I read in a book somewhere (Miles Vorkosigan IIRC)
> > you don't come to Wikipedia to learn about stuff you already know, you come
> > to learn stuff you **don't** already know.
> >
> So you live in Freehold and want to know why an intersection is called
> Freehold Circle. Too bad, the assholes deleted the article.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: David Carson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
And rightly so, you reverted that article four or five times. If you
don't want a 3RR block, don't break the 3RR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Freehold_Circle&action=history

Cheers,
David...

SPUI wrote:

> SPUI wrote:
>
>> I have speedy kept the following vfd nominations, and been threatened
>> with a block:
>
>
> Make that have been blocked, as I forgot when I went to bed last night.
> 22:01, 29 September 2005 Fvw blocked "User:SPUI" with an expiry time
> of 24 hours (3RR violation on Freehold Circle)
> _______________________________________________
> 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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Fax: +61 (0)2 8218 1507
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from_name: MAURICE FRANK

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
>Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 06:38:26 -0400
>From: SPUI <drspui at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <433D15A2.2010605 at gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
>format=flowed

>So is this b------- voting.

It is when you can't access voting pages because of
being blocked.

- and then, if while you are still blocked and the
argument is progressing, so to keep up with it fairly
you announce your intentions on your userpage, there's
a chance it will offend an admin who for it will block
you further. Saying that announcing your intentions
consitutes making attacks on other users and defending
yourself constitutes making legal threats.

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
No, just say nothing or critisize their actions rather than the people
personally.
Calling someone an asshole (regardless of whether it's true) is likely
to cause anger and needless disputes.

--Mgm

On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > I'm not sure if WP:NPA applies to the mailing list, but calling people
> > assholes is uncalled for anyway. If you want to discuss the deletion
> > that's fine, but please don't resort to name calling.
>
> They are assholes. What should I call them, upstanding citizens?
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Afd nominations

body:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, SPUI wrote:

> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> > While it may be annoying when a favorite type of article is listed for
> > deletion, it's best viewed as a chance to argue your case to not delete it.
> >
> > Remember that the case for deletion needs a consensus, which is actually
> > pretty hard to raise if an article has any merit.
> >
> So in other words, the traffic circle articles have no merit? Bull.
>
Just a thought, SPUI: can you think of a traffic circle that you could
write an article worthy of Featured Article status? I ask this in a
constructive way, because a very irrefutable argument to anyone who
writes on AfD to the effect "This is only an X, & all X is non-notable.
Delete" is "Well, Y is an X, & it is a *FEATURED ARTICLE*!!!"[*]

I mention this because a few weeks ago, when you raised the same problem
concerning roads, I was about to say the same thing -- only to find
that there is an article about a road in California with FA status.
One would have to be stubborn to the point of being disruptive not to
see that a more thoughtful argument was needed to carry a motion to
delete roads between settlements at that point: unless a consensus was
created off on some obscure talk page stating otherwise, no article
should be deleted that does not have a reasonable chance of gaining
FA status. (Roads & streets inside a city may not be protected by
this precedent, though: which means we need another example in FA status.)

Geoff

{*] Although you will make your point more graciously without the caps,
asterisks, & fewer exclamation marks.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why am I being blocked?

body:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, geni wrote:

> On 9/30/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > I've made one possibily important discussion page easier to find by Admins.
> > Anyone else want to help collect these things?
> >
> > Geoff
>
> Nope. Anything really dodgey should turn up at AN/I. Otherwise learn
> to take responcbility for your descissions.
>
I try to. Unfortunately, I fear that I am not the only Admin who tries
to spend more time contributing material to Wikipedia than keeping up
on new policy decisions, & so I worry about some act of WikiLawyering
making a major change below my radar.

In other words: I'd like to be sure everyone else is taking
responsibility for her/his decisions, too.

Geoff


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Crap vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:
> Phroziac wrote:
>
>> why are they invalid vfds, Cindy?
>>
> Because they don't establish deletability. There was a recent discussion
> on this list about that, but I can't seem to find it.

Please add these AfD pages to [[WP:RFC/AfD]]...

--
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/30/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/30/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Sounds very like an obsessive deletionist who's more concerned with
> > > process than product. AFD seems to encourage that sort of thing.
>
> >  Have you tried visiting Votes for undeletion lately?  I did so recently and
> > argued for undeletion of an article.  I was asked if I was addressing the
> > content or the process.  Why the content, of course, I said.  I was then
> > told that this wasn't what VFU was for.  Sure enough, the phrase in the
> > undeletion policy that refers to Wikipedia being a better place with an
> > article than without was nowhere to be seen on the page.  I updated the
> > instructions *directly* from the undeletion policy.  This was reverted
> > several times.  Some people claimed that policy had been changed.  I pointed
> > out, by reference to the actual policy, that it hadn't.  Whereupon a
> > proposal to change policy was made--to exclude any reference undeletion
> > based ona judgement that the content was good for wikipedia.
> >  At that point I decided it was time to leave people who wanted to play
> > silly buggers to get on with it.
>
>
> That's really breathtakingly stupid behaviour. I suppose I'm going to
> have to look and find who these morons are.

I have a mild objection to referring to fellow editors as "morons".
Please try not to use name calling to make your point.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
>From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
>
>Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an article
>is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't merit an
>article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged to a
>more comprehensive article.
>
>This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for merging.

Sometimes information is so trivial that there is no merit in having it in
any article.  Remember, these are encyclopedia articles, not accumulations
of random facts.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
While it may be annoying when a favorite type of article is listed for
deletion, it's best viewed as a chance to argue your case to not delete it.

Remember that the case for deletion needs a consensus, which is actually
pretty hard to raise if an article has any merit.

In particular, the notability argument is extremely weak, and in most cases
directly contradicts deletion policy.

Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an article
is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't merit an
article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged to a
more comprehensive article.

This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for merging.


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] The AfD saga

body:
On 9/30/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/30/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/30/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Actually I don't think it can be fixed. I am convinced that it could
> be
> > > safely wound down provided a procedure for dealing with
> hoax/unverifiable
> > > articles was instituted along the same lines as
> > > Wikipedia:Copyright_Problems.
> >
> > Sorry I thought people wanted a system which worked. WP:CP is
> > improveing but it still has a long way to go.
> > --
> > geni
> Perhaps I'm completely oblivious, but WP:CP seems to work fine from
> where I'm standing. The only problem it has is the immense backlogs it
> gets every once in a while, but that can be resolved by encouraging
> people to maintain it. The process itself doesn't appear to "have a
> long way to go" or am I missing something.
>
> About deletion: There's a simple way to avoid repeated run-ins with
> AFD. Write better articles that even hard-core deletionists wouldn't
> think of deleting. One or 2 lines more in a stub can make the
> difference between viable context or possible deletion candidate.
>
> --Mgm

I agree with geni that WP:CP is improving a little, and I agree with Mgm
that it works fine. We should always be looking for ways to improve every
part of the project.

The biggest problem with CP is that the job sucks, and so not many admins do
it. We need more admins pitching in.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> >
> >Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an article
> >is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't merit an
> >article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged to a
> >more comprehensive article.
> >
> >This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for merging.
>
> Sometimes information is so trivial that there is no merit in having it in
> any article.  Remember, these are encyclopedia articles, not accumulations
> of random facts.

Wouldn't you agree that whether something is too trivial or not is
best determined by the editors who review the merge target?

Surely those who best know Clarendon Hills, IL, are the ones best
suited to know whether a specific intersection in Clarendon Hills is
notable or not.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
>From: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>
>
>On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> > >
> > >Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an
>article
> > >is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't merit
>an
> > >article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged to
>a
> > >more comprehensive article.
> > >
> > >This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for
>merging.
> >
> > Sometimes information is so trivial that there is no merit in having it
>in
> > any article.  Remember, these are encyclopedia articles, not
>accumulations
> > of random facts.
>
>Wouldn't you agree that whether something is too trivial or not is
>best determined by the editors who review the merge target?
>
>Surely those who best know Clarendon Hills, IL, are the ones best
>suited to know whether a specific intersection in Clarendon Hills is
>notable or not.

The counter-argument would be that people from Clarendon Hills are the least
likely to be able to objectively view whether something is important
information or trivia.  It's easier to throw out the junk in someone else's
house than it is to throw out the junk in your own.

Jay.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> Anthere wrote:
>
>> Nicholas Moreau wrote:
>>
>>> Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books,
>>> the first
>>> of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
>>>
>>> This message has worried many of us:
>>>
>>> "According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted
>>> work, you
>>> must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in)
>>> and
>>> the country you are currently residing in, if different.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ??????
>>
>> Can you cite this piece of law ?
>> Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect
>> this one ?
>> If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new
>> territory ?
>>
>> I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will
>> provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what
>> our project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly
>> put that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a
>> book by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
>>
>>
>> Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
>>
>> Anthere
>
>
> I am not a "lawyer", but I have studied copyright law extensively and
> feel competent to answer some of these questions.
>
> U.S. copyright code does require this information if you are going to
> formally "register" the copyrighted work.  The idea is that the author's
> nationality directly influences what copyright laws apply to a given
> piece of literature, even if it was originally published in a place that
> is different from the nationality of the author.  For instance, French
> law applies to French citizens for copyright even if the book was
> originally published in the USA, with all of the gory details that go
> with that issue as well.  This is information that is also required
> under international copyright treaties as well.
>
> For some more specific details of at least registration forms required
> for U.S. publication and registration, see:  http://www.copyright.gov/
>
> The information that I was requesting specifically when I wrote the
> stuff in question at Wikijunior asking for the full complete name was
> based on the registration forms from the above web site.  This is also a
> matter of copyright law in the sense that we are asking for full details
> from anybody that wants to make a copyright claim on something that is
> found on Wikimedia content pages.  Other authors that may want to stay
> anonymous can do so, but their ability to make a copyright claim later
> is going to be much more difficult.  The U.S. copyright office does
> require information about all potential copyright claims for a given work.
>
> Although not specifically stated on all Wikimedia websites, there is an
> implicit copyright applied to all content (except for older Wikinews
> content that was previously public domain content).  We use various
> "licenses" to permit redistirbution and duplication of the information,
> but the copyright claim is still there.  If we want to enforce the GFDL
> at some point due to somebody trying to abuse the content, at some point
> we as a community will have to collect all of the information asked
> above for each author in order to take the case to court and force the
> copyright violator to comply with the GFDL (taking Wikipedia content and
> claiming it as their own, for instance, under a propritary license).
>
> BTW, if you buy a book all of that information can be found at the
> national copyright registration office, even if it isn't specifically
> provided inside the front cover of the book.  And that information is
> going to be available generally through the internet anyway, but it may
> be a little harder to find than simply a single click from the main page
> of the on-line version of the book.
>
> As far as being "very contrary to my idea of what our project is", I
> don't see how asking for voluntary information about nationality is
> contrary to the spirit of a Wiki.  It is not required if you don't want
> to give the information, and as I pointed out is required if we want to
> keep the information "free" and availble under a copyleft arrangement.
> As far as privacy, that is up to you to decide on how much privacy you
> want to have in your life.  If you are going to make waves in public
> (like trying to enforce your copyrights), you need to make claims to
> what you have written in a public manner.  Authors throughout time have
> done this, and goes with the public nature of the written word.  Yes,
> some authors may go to jail because of what they've written, and you can
> point to many people who have had that happen throughout all of time.
> That is what happens when you stick your neck out in public, and why in
> general you as a citizen of whatever country you live in should try to
> support free speech laws.
>
> I tried to make a bug report on this earlier, asking for this
> information to be collected as a part of the user record directly on
> each Mediawiki project, but the bug report was squashed because the
> developers felt this is something that should have been debated first
> (presumably on Wikipedia by the comment of the one developer who opposed
> the bug).  I still feel that this should be something that can and
> should be collected for each user, on a voluntary basis.  From my
> reading of the GFDL, this may even be required information if we want to
> be able to enforce the GFDL.

I understand all what you read.

But I believe you are forgetting something in your reasonning.
And you make it doubly clear in your answer to me on wikibooks. You
suggest that
* either an author could leave his name in the list and add all the
information you are requesting OR
* the author can remove himself from the list of authors, and even
possibly go for anonymous editing;

Just above, you wrote "Other authors that may want to stay
 > anonymous can do so..."

You here completely neglect the fact that for many editors, having their
name amongst authors of a work offers a unique gift : being recognised
for what they did. At least here on our projects, or at least on the
printed wikijunior. Many will not have the desire of going to a tribunal
to enforce their rights. I know I would not. I am happy if someone
recognised that I wrote something. But would I spent money to ensure
that someone does not illegally claim authorship and ownership over
something I wrote, when this text is still free HERE ?

Putting all this information is ONLY REQUIRED if one wants to enforce
the copyright. If someone does not wish to get involved in this, he does
not need to put all this private information. If someone wants to
participate to building a free resource, he should have the right to get
the credit of his work, without being forced to provide private information.

What I find odd in the page you did on Wikibooks, and which is
reinforced by the comment you left in the talk page, is that it appears
as if there is no choice : either give private information, real name,
country of birth, year of birth and so on and be an author with ability
to enforce the copyright... or be just plain nothing. If some editors
are willing to provide this information, I have no problem with it. But
suggesting editors they should remove their name amongst authors or go
anonymous if they do not agree to provide this information... is imho
not good. I wish that our projects stay open, with some editors giving
their adress and their shoe size if they wish, others only known under a
pseudonyme, and others anonymous. We welcome it all. And everyone is worth.

I edited the page accordingly to clarify this to editors.

And yes, your request was not a bug, it is something to be debated.
Developers were correct in their answer ihmo. We should be very careful
about that Robert.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:

> I'd honestly have no problem with merging into the town, as it is a
> local landmark. It shouldn't break the GFDL even if the article is
> deleted, as the revision history is now available to all for deleted
> articles.

Probably the best way, then, to work around the poisonous dysfunction
of xFD is to make the deletion moot by merging it into the town
article and making the name a redirect.

- d.


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:

>
> I know I should be adding this to the articles (though it's somewhat
> unsourced and POV), but in general the traffic load got too high for
> the circles, and with the way New Jersey drivers drive a traffic light
> was safer. No land was saved because [[jughandle]]s were added.

This is starting to make me fear that AFD is becoming a tyranny of the
majority.

- Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
>From: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>
>
>If we were making paper encyclopedias, this inclusionism deletionism
>thing would make sense. Both sides would have a case. But unless the
>information is false, unusable, or otherwise profoundly
>unencyclopedic, it should stay, we have enough "room". Possibly some
>articles will never be used, but thats better than people failing to
>find what their looking for.

The "Wikipedia isn't paper" argument is just the first item in a long list
of  [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]], and that is well worth reviewing.
The guiding principle here is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".  Just because
there is room for something in an encyclopedia article doesn't mean that it
should be in the article.  We are *editors*, and that implies discretion in
what we do and do't include.

>The goal is for everyone to have access to the sum total of human knowlege.

Facts and knowledge are not the same thing.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:
>David Gerard wrote:

>> Probably the best way, then, to work around the poisonous dysfunction
>> of xFD is to make the deletion moot by merging it into the town
>> article and making the name a redirect.

>Lucky me - I'd already done that for the ones that have been deleted,
>despite the guide to VFD warning against it! Ah, the joy of cheating the
>system.

It says *what*? Remove that promptly. If you don't want to, I will.
That will have been put there by some idjit who feels a burning need
to hamper the operation of Wikipedia for the sake of a
higher-throughput deletion procedure. Bollocks to that - merging
content is always an option.

>Now all we need is someone complaining that it shouldn't be in
>the town article, but at least that can't be brushed under the rug with
>vfd, just a nice healthy revert war.

Let's see if it's started by someone who *just happens* to be a VFD habitue.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>
> >
> >On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> > > >
> > > >Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an
> >article
> > > >is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't merit
> >an
> > > >article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged to
> >a
> > > >more comprehensive article.
> > > >
> > > >This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for
> >merging.
> > >
> > > Sometimes information is so trivial that there is no merit in having it
> >in
> > > any article.  Remember, these are encyclopedia articles, not
> >accumulations
> > > of random facts.
> >
> >Wouldn't you agree that whether something is too trivial or not is
> >best determined by the editors who review the merge target?
> >
> >Surely those who best know Clarendon Hills, IL, are the ones best
> >suited to know whether a specific intersection in Clarendon Hills is
> >notable or not.
>
> The counter-argument would be that people from Clarendon Hills are the least
> likely to be able to objectively view whether something is important
> information or trivia.  It's easier to throw out the junk in someone else's
> house than it is to throw out the junk in your own.

What business do you have in someone else's house?  ;-)

But seriously, this boils down to the old "I never heard of it"
argument.  In my opinion, it isn't a good one, even in diluted form,
because it depends on POV to make decisions.  To me, the requirement
of verifiability and NPOV is enough travel along this path.

Wikipedia is revolutionary and important because the level of detail
captured is beyond that of any prior work.  This is why many here
enjoy Wikipedia more than any other reference.  This is also why
Wikipedia is gaining editors every day.  The dominant cultural message
is "Your knowledge is useful, please add it.  We'll help you sort,
organize, and present it."  Filtering the input stream is helpful, as
is merging data to appropriate locations, but to actively work against
adding verifiable NPOV information is a fool's errand that can only
lead to frustration in the long term.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
I hate those rambot stubs. So incredibly useless! I'm sure a lot of
these towns couldn't even be expanded much.

On 9/30/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The consensus of those that actually care about the subject is to keep
> > it. If we listened to the assholes we'd have killed all the Rambot stubs.
>
> I don't think there was ever even a straight majority to kill them.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Crap vfd nominations

body:
geni wrote:

>Even if you have a striaght majority to delete that isn't enough.
>
>
Thank god for that.

- Ryan


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Textbook-l] New domain name for Wikijunior

body:
Angela wrote:

>So, if there are any objections to moving the finished Wikijunior
>texts to Wikijunior.org and keeping the editing processes on
>Wikibooks.org, please raise those, either here, or at the Wikibooks
>Staff lounge (<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge>).
>
>Angela.
>
>
I think both are a poor place to request comments from Wikijunior
authors, but I don't know of many better places to make such a request
either.  More generally, the Wikijunior talk page on both Meta and
Wikibooks are slightly better places to request information, as is the
talk pages for each major project (especially Wikijunior Solar System)
that do seem to get quite a bit more attention lately, especially from
current Wikijunior participants that don't seem to be regular
participants at the general Wikibooks Staff Lounge.  This mailing list
is mainly old-timers and a few poor souls who have wandered in aimlessly
by mistake.  Still, it does get a little bit of attention and a small
amount of bandwidth, which is why I still read and respond to comments
on this list.

A week or two of notification is also clearly not enough time to get
community input from the Wikijunior participants, in part due to the
nature of the way things get accomplished on Wikibooks.  You need to be
quite a bit more patient on Wikibooks than comparible proposals on
Wikipedia, for instance.

On the whole, I don't think we are anywhere close to having any content
"moved" to a Wikijunior.org website at the moment.  There is an
organized effort to try and get the Wikijunior Solar System brought up
to some higher standards, and there are a couple of sections that are
perhaps "ready" for a public display on a seperate website.  The rest of
the Wikijunior pages are not nearly ready for anything like that, unless
you are ready to make it a full editable wiki domain instead as a full
Wikimedia sister project.  I don't think that is the purpose of what you
are proposing either.

In this proposal, I also don't see any discussion over the mechanics of
how content is going to be nominated to get moved over, who is going to
maintain the new website, and how the navigation of the content on that
website is going to be done.  These are not trivial requests or points
either, and from this alone I think the proposal is incomplete.  Having
admins from Wikibooks be in charge of this new Wikijunior site might be
useful, but I'm not convinced that is a good idea either.  The current
navigation and layout of Wikijunior is designed to encourage
participation and editing, as well as provides tools and resources for
people who are adding content.  Certainly that needs a major overhaul if
we move to a seperate website.

I also don't like the proposal that this turns into "Wikipedia-Junior"
where all of the articles from the seperate Wikijunior projects are
merged together into a general encyclopedia format.  That is not the way
they were written, and I would personally perfer the "Wikiproject"
portal format instead at the very least, with sub-page naming
conventions.  This is yet another issue that needs to be debated and
thought out in detail before this wikijunior site goes "live."

In short, this is not a proposal that has had anywhere near general
community input and some major details need to be filled in before this
proposal is accepted.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>
> >
> >If we were making paper encyclopedias, this inclusionism deletionism
> >thing would make sense. Both sides would have a case. But unless the
> >information is false, unusable, or otherwise profoundly
> >unencyclopedic, it should stay, we have enough "room". Possibly some
> >articles will never be used, but thats better than people failing to
> >find what their looking for.
>
> The "Wikipedia isn't paper" argument is just the first item in a long list
> of  [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]], and that is well worth reviewing.
> The guiding principle here is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".  Just because
> there is room for something in an encyclopedia article doesn't mean that it
> should be in the article.  We are *editors*, and that implies discretion in
> what we do and do't include.

In the paper days, editors were filters, using their discretion to
only let through what they thought was "important enough" because each
additional page had a definite cost far in excess of zero.  What they
also did was use their discretion to sort the information into useful
blocks, which became individual articles.

Now that we aren't restricted by the bounds of the printing press,
book weight, and shelf storage space, the first half of the editors'
jobs above are being deprecated in favor of the second.  It still
takes discretion and judgement to sort information into articles, so
the skill of an editor is still important.

> >The goal is for everyone to have access to the sum total of human knowlege.
>
> Facts and knowledge are not the same thing.

Of course they aren't but the "sum total" will always include an awful
lot of what looks like trivia, because what is trivia is *always* a
POV issue.  For example, for some, the KPCOFGS classification of
living beings is simply trivia, while for others, it's vital
information.  It depends on the POV of the reader.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Captcha in progress

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> I've just written some Python code which can do _this_ to text: is this
> the sort of thing you are looking for?

What's _this_?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
>From: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>
>
>On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >From: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>
> > >
> > >On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> > > > >
> > > > >Deletion policy states explicitly that if the only problem with an
> > >article
> > > > >is that it's on a branch of a subject so trivial that it doesn't
>merit
> > >an
> > > > >article, it is *not* a candidate for deletion, but should be merged
>to
> > >a
> > > > >more comprehensive article.
> > > > >
> > > > >This isn't only policy, it's also a pretty sensible argument for
> > >merging.
> > > >
> > > > Sometimes information is so trivial that there is no merit in having
>it
> > >in
> > > > any article.  Remember, these are encyclopedia articles, not
> > >accumulations
> > > > of random facts.
> > >
> > >Wouldn't you agree that whether something is too trivial or not is
> > >best determined by the editors who review the merge target?
> > >
> > >Surely those who best know Clarendon Hills, IL, are the ones best
> > >suited to know whether a specific intersection in Clarendon Hills is
> > >notable or not.
> >
> > The counter-argument would be that people from Clarendon Hills are the
>least
> > likely to be able to objectively view whether something is important
> > information or trivia.  It's easier to throw out the junk in someone
>else's
> > house than it is to throw out the junk in your own.
>
>What business do you have in someone else's house?  ;-)

They invited me to help them, because they knew they were too sentimental to
clear out the junk. ;-)

>But seriously, this boils down to the old "I never heard of it"
>argument.

No, it's really not. If an article, or a fact in an article establishes why
it is significant (though properly sourced material etc.) then it's going to
be kept.  If the information can't be cited from a reliable source, or it
happens to be pure trivia (e.g. the location of Harry Truman's favorite
booth at the Savory Grill in Kansas City), even if cited from a reputable
source, then it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article.

>In my opinion, it isn't a good one, even in diluted form,
>because it depends on POV to make decisions.  To me, the requirement
>of verifiability and NPOV is enough travel along this path.

It depends on judgement, which we are supposed to exercise. There is a
difference between the Wikipedia article on Harry Truman, and David
McCullough's 1120 biography of Truman.  Why not include every single fact
found in McCullough's book? And from Brian Burnes's and Margaret Truman's
and Ralph Keyes works, and Harry Truman's own autobiography as well?
Because it is an encyclopedia article, and 3,000 page encyclopedia articles,
even if broken up into hundreds of smaller sub-articles, aren't useful to
the audience we are trying to serve.

>Wikipedia is revolutionary and important because the level of detail
>captured is beyond that of any prior work.  This is why many here
>enjoy Wikipedia more than any other reference.  This is also why
>Wikipedia is gaining editors every day.  The dominant cultural message
>is "Your knowledge is useful, please add it.  We'll help you sort,
>organize, and present it."  Filtering the input stream is helpful, as
>is merging data to appropriate locations, but to actively work against
>adding verifiable NPOV information is a fool's errand that can only
>lead to frustration in the long term.

The level of detail we *can* capture, and the level of detail we *should*
capture, are two entirely different things.  This is still intended to be a
general purpose encyclopedia for a general audience.  We are writing
articles, not PhD dissertations, or multi-volume histories.  Again, there is
a reason why the History of England article does not contain the same amount
of information as Churchill's four volume "A History of the English Speaking
Peoples" that has nothing to do with "Wikipedia is not paper" and everything
to do with "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".

Jay.


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> Amen. The "cruft" argument just makes Wikipedia's coverage more biased
> than it already is. A traffic circle that thousands of people travel
> through everyday is cruft, while some strange insect that only < 100
> persons know about is notable. It's elitism and it is building an
> encyclopedia that noone wants to read. I find traffic circles
> interesting. I always thought that traffic circles were superior to
> traffic lights because they allow a larger throughput of traffic than
> an ordinary crossing can. But it seems like those traffic circles in
> the articles were eliminated. Why were they eliminated? Because of
> commercial development forced it because the area had a too high land
> value? Crossings are generally more space efficient than circles. Many
> traffic circles have some kind of artwork or other decoration on the
> island in the middle? Did any of these traffic circles have it?

I know I should be adding this to the articles (though it's somewhat
unsourced and POV), but in general the traffic load got too high for the
circles, and with the way New Jersey drivers drive a traffic light was
safer. No land was saved because [[jughandle]]s were added.


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bureaucrat rights messed up on RO-Wiki

body:
Special:Makesysop has been removed, you can no longer make sysops, see
previous messages to this list for why.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body: McCullough's 1120 *page* biography of Truman.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:
>David Gerard wrote:

>> It says *what*? Remove that promptly. If you don't want to, I will.

>I would if I wasn't blocked for 3RR.

Bah. *waves* I had a look at the paragraph in the page and it doesn't
make sense. It barely makes sense in context of the talk page. I can't
see what to remove, but it needs an addition because it is not tne
whole important bits of the story.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:

>I would if I wasn't blocked for 3RR.

I have just unblocked SPUI with the unblock message "Keep your goddamn
cool, OK? Go forth and sin no more." So NO MORE 3RR EVEN WHEN DEALING
WITH APPARENT COMPLETE DICKS, OK? THEY PROBABLY THINK YOU'RE ONE TOO.
Thank you.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> (stuff)
>
The problem with saying that "the reasoning is what's important" is that
it leaves in up to the discretion of the closing admin to say who had
good reasoning and who didn't. That means the admin is basically
deciding what the result will be, because anyone who disagrees with his
or her reasoning will have "bad reasoning" and their vote discounted.
You might as well close AFD and let admins speedy whatever articles they
want.

Which is something I'm not entirely averse to, as a system. It might be
better than this, where a few people who sit in AFD all day have power
over what lives and dies, and their decisions are regarded as final. At
least if an admin speedies an article, another admin can restore it. But
here, if 20 people vote to delete because of "roadcruft", that decision
is legitimated in the eyes of the community. This is why I'm in favor of
something like pure wiki deletion, or admin-only pure wiki deletion.
Deletion should never have this air of finality that AFD gives to it.

- Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>
> >What business do you have in someone else's house?  ;-)
>
> They invited me to help them, because they knew they were too sentimental to
> clear out the junk. ;-)

Jay, I respect your attitude and ability probably more than you
realize, but unfortunately it isn't very prevalent in AfD.  And in
AfD, there are no invitations to come into the house.  It's more like
writing your own warrant and then smashing down the door.  :-(

> No, it's really not. If an article, or a fact in an article establishes why
> it is significant (though properly sourced material etc.) then it's going to
> be kept.  If the information can't be cited from a reliable source, or it
> happens to be pure trivia (e.g. the location of Harry Truman's favorite
> booth at the Savory Grill in Kansas City), even if cited from a reputable
> source, then it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article.

Frankly, when we have an article about the Savory Grill in Kansas
City, I expect the location of Harry Truman's favorite booth, if cited
from a reputable source, to be an encyclopedic detail included in the
article.

> It depends on judgement, which we are supposed to exercise. There is a
> difference between the Wikipedia article on Harry Truman, and David
> McCullough's 1120 biography of Truman.  Why not include every single fact
> found in McCullough's book? And from Brian Burnes's and Margaret Truman's
> and Ralph Keyes works, and Harry Truman's own autobiography as well?
> Because it is an encyclopedia article, and 3,000 page encyclopedia articles,
> even if broken up into hundreds of smaller sub-articles, aren't useful to
> the audience we are trying to serve.

If all of these works are broken up into smaller sub-articles, good
editors will combine them into any number of different, useful and
comprehensive articles that include all the knowledge that all of
these works contain.  In other words, every verifiable fact from David
McCullough's book does not have to end up in the Harry Truman article,
but there's no reason every verifiable fact should not be included in
Wikipedia.

> >Wikipedia is revolutionary and important because the level of detail
> >captured is beyond that of any prior work.  This is why many here
> >enjoy Wikipedia more than any other reference.  This is also why
> >Wikipedia is gaining editors every day.  The dominant cultural message
> >is "Your knowledge is useful, please add it.  We'll help you sort,
> >organize, and present it."  Filtering the input stream is helpful, as
> >is merging data to appropriate locations, but to actively work against
> >adding verifiable NPOV information is a fool's errand that can only
> >lead to frustration in the long term.
>
> The level of detail we *can* capture, and the level of detail we *should*
> capture, are two entirely different things.  This is still intended to be a
> general purpose encyclopedia for a general audience.  We are writing
> articles, not PhD dissertations, or multi-volume histories.  Again, there is
> a reason why the History of England article does not contain the same amount
> of information as Churchill's four volume "A History of the English Speaking
> Peoples" that has nothing to do with "Wikipedia is not paper" and everything
> to do with "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".

See my reply above for why I believe this is a specious argument.  Our
software-based encyclopedia is capable of presenting the general
audience whatever level of detail that they choose to suit their
interest.  Just as there is a "History of Malta" link in the "Malta"
article, we're capable of splitting articles as they become too large
for the general "first view".  I see no reason why this cannot
continue to scale much further than it has.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Nicholas Turnbull

subject: [WikiEN-l] The AfD saga

body:
There definitely seems to be this ongoing argument over the way AfD is
handled, or whether or not it is being correct or accurate in its
judgements for articles to be deleted. This seems to get dredged up
once every, say, three months (along with arguments over RfA
standards) and as yet we haven't really done anything very firm about
it, except change the name of what seems to me to be a universally
hated procedure.

I think we should try to think of either how to fix AfD if it is
really as bad as we think, or if it is totally beyond repair replace
it with something better. Kim Bruning and I were discussing "pure
wiki" forms of deletion some time ago, which involved page blanking,
and Kim authored a series of experimental deletion procedures (which I
tried out for a few articles) at [[Wikipedia:Experimental deletion]].
Personally I am not so sure this is a great deal better, but it's a
start. If anyone can come up with a better process, please do add it
to the page.

To those taking issue with AfD deletions - forgive me for being an
arsehole, but {{sofixit}}. I think that rather than arguing over the
way that AfD operates, we should work towards fixing or replacing it,
using these cases where users have taken exception to AfDs as feedback
for the current process. Otherwise, we'll just be having this same
argument in three months time or so, in a sort of "Groundhog Day"
scenario. :-) And we all know how unproductive arguments can be on
Wikipedia.

Best regards,

-- Nick, [[User:NicholasTurnbull]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
geni wrote:

>
>We already have enough problems with admin burnout. Handing more
>responcibilty to admins is not a good idea.
>
>
>
Uhh, as it stands, closing AFDs is an enormous headache for admins that
can get them into controversies and RFCs for failing to close a 51%
delete vote as delete. What you're not noticing here is that /you still
need an admin to delete an article/. Pure-admin deletion would make
/less/ hassle for admins, not more.

- Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> AFD had a near unanimous concensus that the article should be deleted.
> I don't have anything against merging content during the discussion, but if
> the consensus is to delete such a merge must be undone.

If the data is useful where it was merged into, there is no reason to
arbitrarily undo the merge.  After all, even the deletion policy
doesn't preclude the recreation of the *exact same article*, provided
that there is sufficient new content included in the recreation.

We're building an encyclopedia, and if the merge supports that
mission, leave it, regardless of whether we've voted that the article
is unsustainable as a separate article.

Had SPUI not created a redirect, we'd simply be pleased with his
expansion of the township article, and this wouldn't even be
discussed.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
SPUI wrote:

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/White_Horse_Circle
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SPUI#page_recreation
>Fvw just speedy deleted the redirect I made, claiming it was a recreation.

I just recreated it, referring him here. Frank?

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
>From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
>
>  Saying "non-notable roadcruft" only shows the nominator doesn't find
>roads
>worthy of an article but doesn't explain why *the nominated article* should
>go based on policy.

Yes, but don't forget that "all roads are notable" or "Wikipedia consensus
is that they be kept" or "Jimbo approved keeping all roads" Keep votes are
equally useless.

Jay.


from_name: Worldtraveller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vfd nominations

body:
> I just recreated it, referring him here. Frank?

Certainly not lacking in candour...

WT


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> > While it may be annoying when a favorite type of article is listed for
> > deletion, it's best viewed as a chance to argue your case to not delete
> it.
> >
> > Remember that the case for deletion needs a consensus, which is actually
> > pretty hard to raise if an article has any merit.
> >
> So in other words, the traffic circle articles have no merit? Bull.

Actually I don't believe that the traffic circle articles have no merit. It
can be a pretty hard sell, though. I recommend a merge strategy. As I
understand it, traffic circles are relatively rare and tend to be much
larger than our European roundabouts. There are some of that style here, and
I'd have no hesitation in writing about, for instance, the Horsley Hill
traffic circle in Marsden, England because its status as a local landmark is
unquestionable. It's the large grassy circle in this aerial photograph.

http://www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?client=public&X=438500&Y=565250&width=700&height=400&gride=440744.921228904&gridn=563992.107698784&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&pc=&zm=0&scale=5000&multimap.x=422&multimap.y=158

This used to be a tram interchange, and then in the fifties it was an
interchange for trolley buses--buses that could run on expensive diesel fuel
or on cheap electricity generated by burning the abundant local coal,
provided through overhead wires.

For lesser traffic circles, one might provide regional articles such as
"traffic circles on North East England", and so on. By following a merge
strategy you could easily save useful information.

> I'd honestly have no problem with merging into the town, as it is a
> local landmark. It shouldn't break the GFDL even if the article is
> deleted, as the revision history is now available to all for deleted
> articles.
>

Is this a new thing? I didn't know. Is content also viewable? But beware,
the revision history of deleted articles is held in the archive table, which
has not historically been permanent (though that also may have changed).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> SPUI wrote:
>
> > I'd honestly have no problem with merging into the town, as it is a
> > local landmark. It shouldn't break the GFDL even if the article is
> > deleted, as the revision history is now available to all for deleted
> > articles.
>
>
> Probably the best way, then, to work around the poisonous dysfunction
> of xFD is to make the deletion moot by merging it into the town
> article and making the name a redirect.

Alas this isn't deletion-proof. I performed a merge not so long ago only to
have it reversed out as the article was *still* deleted (and on a second go,
too, because somebody decided the keep result wasn't to his personal taste!)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/30/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > SPUI wrote:

> > > I'd honestly have no problem with merging into the town, as it is a
> > > local landmark. It shouldn't break the GFDL even if the article is
> > > deleted, as the revision history is now available to all for deleted
> > > articles.

> > Probably the best way, then, to work around the poisonous dysfunction
> > of xFD is to make the deletion moot by merging it into the town
> > article and making the name a redirect.

>  Alas this isn't deletion-proof.  I performed a merge not so long ago only
> to have it reversed out as the article was *still* deleted (and on a second
> go, too, because somebody decided the keep result wasn't to his personal
> taste!)

Sounds very like an obsessive deletionist who's more concerned with
process than product. AFD seems to encourage that sort of thing.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crap vfd nominations

body:
On 9/30/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
> >
> >We already have enough problems with admin burnout. Handing more
> >responcibilty to admins is not a good idea.
> >
> >
> >
> Uhh, as it stands, closing AFDs is an enormous headache for admins that
> can get them into controversies and RFCs for failing to close a 51%
> delete vote as delete. What you're not noticing here is that /you still
> need an admin to delete an article/. Pure-admin deletion would make
> /less/ hassle for admins, not more.

Pure admin deletion turns the admin group from a service organization
to a cabal that you must belong to in order to perform certain
actions.  It also give people who are otherwise happy with simply
editing a tainted motivation to stand for adminship.

Aristocracies are *always* easier for the aristocrats.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 - host city contest, latest update

body:
Dear all,

The first deadline for Wikimania city is drawing to a close. As of
today, I count only 3 cities running officially, which will, I must
say, make it easier for the shortlist of 3 ;-), but which is sad
because the "unofficial locations sound pretty good.

See here at the bottom of the page for more info :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Official_requirements_for_potential_host_cities

Well, if we have only three cities entering the contest, we might
decide to shorten the last round to about a week and make a decision
sometime next week.

I am waiting to hear from the "jury" about a possible time on Sunday
2nd October to have a chat/meeting with everyone involved, so please
keep reading this list to know more about what time. It will be on irc
on the #wikimania channel. The idea is to gather to ask questions
about possible missing information, discuss difficulties and
opportunities.

Stay tuned for more wikimania adventures.

Delphine
PS. "Jury" will be composed of the Board of the Foundation, Elian,
Akl, JeLuF, Austin, Sj and myself.

Cheers,

Delphine
--
~notafish