from_name: Nurdan Isik

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
   Hi all,
   I would like to report a 'misunderstanding' and ask someone please
correct it:
   [[User:Netscott]] (Scott Stevenson) the most reputable, brilliant, nice,
intelligent and respectful editor of all times (before and after Wiki-times)
is mistakenly made an incorrect accusation about me. Based on that, an admin
[[AmiDaniel]] with high quality investigator skills jumped onto his claim
and blocked me for being a sockpuppet right away without any doubt about his
action, indefinitely. Should I add that I haven't violated any policies? Who
cares... He forgot to ask a checkuser if that accusation could be false.
That actually wouldn't change much, I guess, because the most reputable
checkuser Rev. EssJay decided that there is no reason even to check it and
made a decision right away, in parallel, relying solely on his years of
experience. He, Rev. EssJay, barely could stop himself from swearing at me
because there are some regulations like [[WP:NPA]]. I am not sure if we need
those rules but anyways...different issue.
   Now if there are some less reputable checkusers or admins around who
think the situation may deserve a closer look, I do appreciate for it. I
will love him/her forever, I promise!
   By the way, before I email a message here, I reported the case to the
(info-en at wikipedia.org) and still waiting for a reply. Sorry for taking this
unpleasant 'misunderstanding' situation here. Are the
same admins operating the info-en@ thing too?
   Are people talking about admin abuse here? Huh! It never happens in
Wikipedia.
   [[User:TheLightning]]
   A poor user without any power to misuse.

Links might be of some interest:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag

>From: "Scott Stevenson" <wikinetscott at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for admin-user relations
>Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 15:08:32 +0200
>
>Resid Gulerdem,
>
>As a permanently blocked user you are not in the correct position to
>be discussing policy. This is particularly true when you continue to
>utilize sockpuppets [[User:TheLightning]] to be edit disruptively (re:
>[[Fethullah G?len]] earlier today ).
>For interested parties please see Resid Gulerdem's Check User results:
>
>[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_CheckUser/Rgulerdem]]
>
>and corresponding block log:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Rgulerdem
>
>Due to your continued disruptive editing, you should at minimum step
>away from the project for a year and then come back to discuss policy.
>
>Thank you,
>-Scott Stevenson [[User:Netscott]]
>
>
>On 5/31/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > The comments were very useful in general. The most
> > important ones among them are the ones addressing
> > possible ways to fix the problem. Writing a proposal
> > for it was one of them.
> >
> > I was thinking on this problem for quite some time and
> > had already some ideas about the solution in mind. I
> > decided to post them here. I am a user who blocked
> > indefinitely (how do you think I know the
> > 'admin abuse' issue by heart?) so, I do not have a
> > chance to propose it in Wikipedia at this point. I
> > hope that the points raised below contribute to the
> > efforts towards a solution. Just a quick suggestion...
> >
> > I tried to express it using a semi-formal language.
> > Further explanations are given [in the square
> > brackets].
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Resid
> >
> > --------------------
> > [[WP:OURS]]
> > --------------------
> >
> > [[WP:OURS]] (sysOp User RelationS or Wikipedia is
> > ours) is a policy aimed to clarify the relations
> > between sysops and users.
> >
> > [This could be named as [[WP:AURS]] (Admin-User
> > RelationS) as well.]
> >
> > 1. '''Ethics and Standards'''
> >
> > 'Content disputes' are one of the main dispute type
> > encountered. To avoid that, users need to follow
> > well-established ethics and standards of Wikipedia
> > (e.g.
> > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rgulerdem/Wikiethics])
> >
> > [I think content disputes and the disputes around a
> > controversial issue are very important to address. If
> > the standards are applied strictly to everyone, that
> > would reduce the energy loss around these kind of
> > disputes.]
> >
> > [It is easier to write an article on a purely
> > technical matter ''in general'' (e.g. nose, motor,
> > etc). If the issue is controversial, that cause some
> > problems because sometimes (if not all the times)
> > admins are also part of the disputes. Their experience
> > and privileges then does not constitute a base for
> > neutralization of the article but -let me put it this
> > way- rather make them a target for
> > accusations. 'Wikilawyering' is not a term to explain
> > only ordinary user behavior. It is important to
> > realize that there is no stronger factor to polish the
> > reputation of Wikipedia than a neutral account
> > of the controversial issues.]
> >
> > [I referred to an updated version of a proposal I
> > started. I could not have a chance to put it to a vote
> > properly.]
> >
> > 2. '''Subject oriented study groups and committees'''
> >
> > Based on the area of specialization and interest,
> > experienced users (more than 6 months of editing
> > experience) may join the study groups. Study groups
> > work on the controversial articles categorized
> > as being related to their area of specialization and
> > can make recommendations on particular points. If
> > necessary, the study groups may also supervise
> > controversial articles until the dispute is
> > resolved.
> >
> > [Another way of eliminating disputes, I think, is to
> > form some study groups based on the area of
> > specialization of the users, say 'history of science',
> > etc. When disputes arise, the users may ask
> > the opinion of the related study groups. The group may
> > vote if necessary on the dispute and comes up with a
> > decision. It does not have to be a final decision
> > though, as usual. Many violations such as 3RR,
> > edit-wars, etc. can be diminished that way which may
> > result in a more friendly atmosphere between users and
> > admins who feel obligated to force the rules
> > consciously.]
> >
> > 3. '''Mentor-mentee program'''
> >
> > Each user is strongly encouraged to chose only one
> > admin mentor when s/he create an account in Wikipedia.
> > The users blocked by more than 3 admins are required
> > to have a mentor. Users can change their
> > mentor anytime they like before involved in a dispute
> > by the approval of the new admin chosen to be a
> > mentor. Anonym users are out of this program and these
> > accounts will be managed as before.
> >
> > [This will indicate the popularity of the admins and
> > will provide a dynamics measure of their success. This
> > dynamic approach might be better than reelecting them
> > periodically. There is almost no accountability of
> > admins in a practical way. They should be accountable
> > to the community. A periodic reaffirmation can be
> > added to this too, if someone thinks is of paramount
> > importance.]
> >
> > 4. '''Limited block policy'''
> >
> > A user can be blocked by only the mentor. In the case
> > the mentor is not available, an explanation should be
> > posted to the mentors talk page. The mentor can
> > unblock the user anytime s/he thinks is appropriate.
> > Anonym IP's will be managed as before.
> >
> > Indefinite block can only be decided by ArbCom, not by
> > an admin.
> >
> > [Admins know the rules better. If there is a concern
> > about a user's edits, they can discuss and get an
> > agreement on a block based on the rules. It should not
> > be hard to convince an admin about the applicability
> > of a specific policy. This approach put the discussion
> > of the validity of a block onto the admins involved
> > rather than to an admin-user dialogue which, not
> > surprisingly, results in a block. This part also gives
> > the flexibility to the admins who think a block is
> > unnecessary but do not want to step on another admin's
> > toe.]
> >
> > [And maybe for once, all users who are blocked so far
> > should be able to ask for an unblock, unconditionally,
> > after this policy gets approval, if it does. That may
> > bring some reconciliations and peace to the project.]
> >
> > ------------------------
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: George Herbert

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
	userbox

body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> > WP is NOT your dictatorship, unless your real name is Wales.
>
> That is a non-sequitur.  Please address the arguments.

I did.  You are substituting your judgement for process and consensus and
assuming executive powers and authority you don't have.

Jimbo has the authority to do that.  You don't.

Every time you push out and antagonize people needlessly, you disrupt the
actual end goal of getting things done.  You do that again and again and
again.  It's counterproductive and disruptive.

-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed bzip2

body:
On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 10:08:12PM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Even if I only did full snapshots a quarter as often, I'd still want them to
> take two days instead of ten. :)

Yeah, I was a little squeezy when I heard you were going to *shorten*
them by a day; that's like hearing they're going to give you $5000 off
the price of the car -- what does the car *cost*??

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> > On 6/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> WP is NOT your dictatorship, unless your real name is Wales.
> >
> > That is a non-sequitur.  Please address the arguments.
>
> You're both arguing at cross-purposes.  You keep explaining why
> what you did was necessary and important, while he keeps asking
> why you are doing it so high-handedly.  In fairness, you haven't
> addressed his arguments, either.

Thank you.

Please note that I am not disagreeing with why what Tony did is necessary or
important.  I support the religion userboxes going away, as a unified class,
together.  I object to deleting them one at a time and in an order
determined by how much Tony dislikes them.

-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Hoi,
You assume that people get to know the Wikimedia Foundation through
Wikipedia. A common assumption but it is wrong in that the Wikimedia
Foundation is there not only for Wikipedia but also for Wikipedia.

There are other project and when people consider things it is most
often seen in the light of what is good for Wikipedia must be good for
the rest. Well, suprise that is a fallacy.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 6/1/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Later we got closed wikis and private board chats
> > as a side affair. Recent
> > > statements like the ones quoted above give the
> > impression that both board
> > > members find the Wikimedia community has become a
> > pain in the neck at times,
> > > better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.
> >
> > No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an
> > open meeting about
> > the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on
> > (we created a
> > separate meeting specifically to discuss the
> > ExecCom). For arguing for
> > the open meeting, Angela and myself received little
> > but scorn from the
> > existing group of people who were likely to serve on
> > these committees.
> > (Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the
> > time.) The
> > community members from the outside who joined hardly
> > participated at
> > all.
> >
> > This wasn't a small number of people, something like
> > 70 in the main
> > meeting. See the logs at:
> >
> > http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open_meeting_log
> >
> > Note that to this day, the second log contains a
> > claim by Jimbo that I
> > "deeply misrepresented" him during the ExecCom
> > meeting, without any
> > actual elaboration of why or how that is the case. I
> > will not repeat
> > some of the other things that have been said.
> >
> > You will also note that in the end, it was mostly me
> > and another small
> > group of people arguing. I know you were there, but
> > there are many
> > people who are on this list who weren't. Now we are
> > given the usual
> > round of whining: "I don't like IRC!" "I wasn't
> > informed!" "My cat ate
> > my homework!"
> >
> > Participating in these meetings, for me, has not
> > exactly been an
> > exercise in gaining popularity or favor; rather the
> > opposite. Taking a
> > stand against a prevailing line of thinking strains
> > relations with
> > people, and that should not be done unless there is
> > a clear benefit.
> >
> > This was a crucial meeting where a case could have
> > been made, by the
> > community, for organizing and structuring Wikimedia
> > in an open and
> > participatory fashion. There are very few people who
> > were willing to
> > actually make that case.
> >
> > For the "inside people" this is easy to explain: as
> > we see with
> > adminship on Wikipedia, open and accountable models
> > are quickly
> > subjected to constant harassment by self-appointed
> > "accountability
> > activists". Having your private little clubs and
> > mailing lists (some
> > of which, as we have heard, even the Board doesn't
> > know about or have
> > access to) makes things so much easier. Why put up
> > with the hassle of
> > an open meeting when you can have a closed one?
> >
> > As for the outside people, perhaps their lack of
> > participation is
> > because they don't care about "organizational
> > stuff," perhaps it's
> > because Wikimedia has historically been so opaque
> > that people have
> > expected that it needs to stay that way. Whatever
> > the reason, people
> > like myself frankly lose the motivation to invest
> > time in a lost
> > cause.
> >
> > Just like Wikipedia has to deal with vandalism and
> > trolls for allowing
> > anyone to edit, an open organization would have to
> > deal with
> > incompetence and maliciousness in return for rapid
> > growth and network
> > benefits. Rather than invent the organizational
> > equivalent of wiki
> > processes -- something which would require a lot of
> > creative thinking
> > from the brightest minds of Wikimedia -- it's much
> > more convenient to
> > say: "wiki and organization are different things and
> > need to be kept
> > separate." And, guess what, the lawyers agree!
> >
> > There is virtually no active pressure or demand from
> > the actual
> > community for openness, participatory processes and
> > transparency
> > within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there
> > are very little.
> > The committees which have been formed are useful,
> > but they pick and
> > choose their members on a case by case basis (or
> > perhaps I should say
> > "face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership
> > application to
> > the Special Projects committee. At least during the
> > transitional
> > phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than
> > it was at the time
> > we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.
> >
> > A process whereby every committee holds open, widely
> > announced
> > meetings and where advisor status is granted
> > instantly without
> > bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not
> > seem to be practiced
> > by any of the committees.
> >
> > Even a trivial idea like putting a couple of new
> > community-elected
> > members on the Board has been proposed years ago but
> > never
> > implemented. But, then again, has there been any
> > pressure from the
> > community for such change to hapepn? Hardly at all.
> > When a couple of
> > "big shot" outside people are appointed to Board
> > positions and the
> > Board remains otherwise as it is, sure, there will
> > be the usual round
> > of whining. But during the processes that actually
> > matter, the people
> > who whine later tend to be conspicuously absent.
> >
> > So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the
> > very philosophy
> > that made WP a success is not applicable to
> > organizations. Wikimedia
> > will become a functioning non-profit with the usual
> > bureucratic
> > processes, some successful fundraising, a few good
> > partnerships here
> > and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of
> > infighting among
> > volunteers, etc. It will not become the open
> > platform for social and
> > technological change that it could be -- the wide
> > network of people
> > who are interested in building a free knowledge and
> > free culture
> > movement.  And who is to blame for that? Not the
> > people who made it
> > so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia
> > in mind and work
> > their ass of to do what they can to make it a
> > success. The people who
> > are to blame are those who did not participate in
> > turning Wikimedia
> > into something else, something larger, when it
> > mattered.
> >
> > Erik
> > _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> Without knowing the full history, or many details at
> all, I can understand both sides of this.  It is a
> difficult issue.  Right now, the people who will end
> up with access to the system, will simply be those who
> have made themselves known to the people with access.
> This is generally how the world works, and there has
> been some discusion about the problems with this in
> the Checkuser thread as well.  Within an organization
> like WMF, this leads to a few problems in my eyes.
> One you miss out on the qualified, experienced
> people's input who do not happen to have a political
> bent. And most importantly you skew the whole
> organization away from the diverse and global feel.
> That saddens me sitting here in the US, so I imagine
> is really upsets the more "diverse" people  around.
> This is also the reason there is the blurry line
> between en.WP and WMF that has been brought up here.
> Because most people only get access to the latter is
> through the former.
>
> That said it is much easier to get things done when
> they are kept closed.  I cannot imagine how a truly
> open system would work, and can easily believe it
> would not work well.  I am not so much of an idealist
> as I once was to insist on principles.  I understand
> the need for pragmatism.  However, I would like
> encourage everyone to take a minute to examine where
> we are.  Examine what are the criteria for information
> being put in a public area vs. a closed one.  Be sure
> things are pushed to open areas whenever it is
> practical.  Make a real effort to recruit more people
> in from smaller languages instead of just waiting for
> them to show up here.  I think more recruiting should
> be done period.  For needed skill sets, etc.  I have
> never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities
> for anything besides money and trust.  I believe the
> communities have much more to offer.
>
> Honestly I trust you all, I don't need to read all the
> discussions to feel comfortable here.  However, I
> think that by doing things as you are, you are
> overwhelming yourselves and missing out on the
> experience available in the wider communities.  I
> think anyone who reads this list must get the feeling
> many people are simply overwhelmed with what they have
> taken on.  The idea seems to be this will be fixed by
> hiring professionals, but the further that route is
> followed the more closed this will become.  Or else we
> will have major retention problems.  I can not imagine
> having my *job* open to the critique of all of you.
> The email where it was misunderstood that BradP was a
> paid employee is the tip of the iceberg.  I would
> suggest putting out a call for volunteers for specific
> tasks, and ask for resumes(which is a good example of
> something that *should* be kept closed).  Look for
> people with actual experience and that can work
> together so no one is overwhelmed.  And whenever
> possible people you do *not* already know well.
> Seriously on a wiki a through read of someone
> contributions can tell you most all the things you
> would learn from a solid acquaintance.
>
> I truly believe if there is not a effort made to keep
> everything as open as possible now, there will be when
> the chapters come into thier own.  So I am not too
> concerned.  Although it would be better from a
> practical standpoint, if the middle ground could be
> found now.
>
>
> Birgitte SB
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


list: textbook-l

from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Textbook-l] Use of this mailing list...

body:
Just wondering if this list gets very much use.  Any ideas?  Wouldn't
this be the appropriate place for the whole "game guides" discussion?
Thanks.
--LV


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] Announcing... CommonsTicker

body:
On Fri, 2 Jun 2006, Brianna Laugher wrote:

> Hello,
>
> CommonsTicker is a special tool created by
> (commons:,meta:,:de:w:)User:Duesentrieb to allow for greater
> communication and transparency between the Commons and local projects
> (all projects, all languages) that use the Commons. When it is set up,
> a log page is created and a bot posts updates about any critical
<
> CommonsTicker is completely translatable (if you provide a
> translation). All it needs to be set up is a project admin to
> "sponsor" it through the early days. Now taking requests! :)

This is my favorite tool development in a long time.  And *beautiful*.

SJ


from_name: Nick Boalch

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the	satanism
 userbox

body:
Steve Summit wrote:
> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no difference between
> saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a Satanist", you are either being wilfully
> ignorant, or disruptive to make a point.

Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between Christianity
and Satanism (whether Theistic or LaVeyan) is that Christianity was made
up longer ago...

Cheers,

N.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


from_name: Traroth

subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  Where we are headed

body:
You express my deep thoughts better I could do. Foundation's opaqueness and distance to the community are growing. Question is : and now what ?
Small principles reforms, like changing the board structure are only a plaster on a wooden leg. In my opinion, there is only one source of legitimacy here : The community. So, I think a reform should only start from there. All reforms organized by a small group of persons meeting in a corner will finish in a dead-end. Call me Stallman-zealot if you want...

Traroth

----- Message d'origine ----
De : Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
? : Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Envoy? le : Jeudi, 1 Juin 2006, 9h09mn 31s
Objet : Re: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

Well, Jimmy Wales has his vision for the future of Wikimedia, and it
doesn't really match with any of my views of what it should be.
However, he's in charge and has said in no uncertain terms that he's not
going to open up a majority of the board to community elections anytime
in the near future.  So, I don't see what can really be done about
that.  I'm pretty resigned to the fact that committees, lawyers, and
other random things seem to spring from nowhere without anyone,
sometimes even the two elected board members, having heard about them.
Clearly we aren't in control of the organization, and I don't see how
that's likely to change.

In general, this doesn't feel like a free-culture organization.  I don't
require Richard Stallman clones to be heading up all such organizations
(although at least then there'd be no doubts), but this place feels more
like, say, Red Hat---a commercial entity involved in free culture and
making concessions to maintain community support---than it feels like a
thoroughly free-culture organization like Debian.  For the most part the
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a fine ISP hosting Wikipedia, but I
certainly don't feel like they represent me or reflect my values,
besides the single value of "producing a copyleft encyclopedia", the
betterment of which strangely rarely seems to be among the various
proposals I've been seeing lately.  I don't really see what can be done
about that besides damage control or, if absolutely necessary, a fork.

Now as for damage control---you *do* see people get quite involved when
it looks like the beaurocracy is intruding into the reason we
free-content people are here in the first place, Wikipedia.  You'll
notice the series of WP:OFFICE interventions on en.* attracted
considerable community "participation".  Failing a WMF that represents
my interests, I'll at least work for a WMF that serves as an acceptable
ISP for Wikipedia.

Now perhaps it isn't completely impossible, but I think it'll be a
continual uphill battle without significant high-level change.  I would
feel much more comfortable, for example, with a board that consisted of
Jimbo, Anthere, Angela, and two other prominent community
representatives chosen by some reasonable election process.  In
principle, influencing things from the minority is possible (Jimbo
presumably doesn't want to run everything on 3-2 votes), but it colors
the whole process.

Which is, incidentally, my main problem with a paid staff.  If they do
only technical things like file paperwork, that's fine, but I'm quite
sure there will be a slippery slope there, judging from past experience
in this organization.

-Mark

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 11:37 AM, George Herbert wrote:
> This is politics 101.  The way you have done this has brought the whole
> effort to delete all the religious userboxes (which I agree with in
> principle) into disrepute.
>
> Like it or not, the current WP structure is in large part a political
> game,
> a large part of which is an engaged group of editors with less
> experience
> (both in WP and in online activities).  Complaining that it has come
> to that
> is one thing.  Acting in a manner which is antagonistic towards it is
> folly.
> Worse than folly, it is counterproductive and disruptive.

Very well said.  I strongly agree.  Everyone, *please* - don't act in
such a way as to harm the exact proposal you are trying to put in
place.

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lovely.

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>> One thing that I think editors should do is to make employers and
>> such aware of their WP activities as much as possible.
>
> It's probably also true that there is a fair number of people who are
> editing Wikipedia under circumstances their boss or supervisor would
> disapprove of, including *gasp* some members of the nefarious ruling
> class known as "administrators". For those who intend to continue
> doing so, using a separate account may be advisable. (Accountability
> activism strikes again! Let's stalk people so they tell us more about
> themselves!)
>

It's probably also true that there are a fair number of people who edit
Wikipedia in secret, because being associated with such "looney
left-wing crap" would be a Bad Thing.

> Do we have a guideline for dealing with off-wiki harassment?

[[WP:BLOODY]].

> We probably should, and link it from RfA.
>

Possibly.

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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 569 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060601/9f25f591/attachment.pgp


subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
 userbox

body:
Jeffrey Latham wrote:
<snip>
> Then again, some people just like using Wikipedia as a battleground.
> (I'm guilty, myself, of falling into this mindset)
>

Yes, as Mark Williamson wrote on Wikipedia-l:
> We're not magically endowed crusaders for truth and justice??!?!?!?!
> It should say that at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT
>
> Why didn't anyone tell me??? I have been putting that on my
> professional r?sum? ever since my one year anniversary as a
> Wikipedian!
>

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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 569 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060601/f002fd86/attachment.pgp


subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
Recently, legislation in the United States House of Representatives
has been introduced that may have an impact on Wikimedia. The bills in
question are H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417, and can be seen in their
entirety by searching for them on http://thomas.loc.gov/ .  The
aforementioned bills deal with "net neutrality", restricting phone and
cable companies' ability to control aspects of the Internet and its
distribution.

As this may have a direct impact on Wikimedia Foundation, I was
wondering if WMF had an official position on the matter.  "Internet"
companies such as Yahoo, Google, eBay, and others have made their
official positions known, so I was wondering if WMF had discussed this
issue.  If I am just way behind the times, would someone mind
directing me to the appropriate location?  Thanks.
--LV


subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
2006/6/1, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> You assume that people get to know the Wikimedia Foundation through
> Wikipedia. A common assumption but it is wrong in that the Wikimedia
> Foundation is there not only for Wikipedia but also for Wikipedia.
>
> There are other project and when people consider things it is most
> often seen in the light of what is good for Wikipedia must be good for
> the rest. Well, suprise that is a fallacy.

This reminds me of the attitude of the founders of the Dutch Wikimedia
chapter: "You are of the opinion that the Dutch Wikimedia chapter is
there for Wikipedia. We're not, we're for those other projects too.
And because of that we don't need to answer questions from people from
Wikipedia."

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:
> Recently, legislation in the United States House of Representatives
> has been introduced that may have an impact on Wikimedia. The bills in
> question are H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417, and can be seen in their
> entirety by searching for them on http://thomas.loc.gov/ .  The
> aforementioned bills deal with "net neutrality", restricting phone and
> cable companies' ability to control aspects of the Internet and its
> distribution.
>
> As this may have a direct impact on Wikimedia Foundation, I was
> wondering if WMF had an official position on the matter.  "Internet"
> companies such as Yahoo, Google, eBay, and others have made their
> official positions known, so I was wondering if WMF had discussed this
> issue.  If I am just way behind the times, would someone mind
> directing me to the appropriate location?  Thanks.

For those unfamiliar, the issue is that some telecommunications
companies have considered offering, for a fee, a service where operators
of internet services (like websites) can receive a guarantee of
higher-priority traffic.  So if, say, CNN paid a telecomm company a
bunch of money, CNN's traffic would get a higher priority than other
traffic over that company's wires, and therefore CNN would appear to
users to be faster.  There is some legislation proposed that would
prohibit that.

I personally don't think this is the sort of issue the Wikimedia
Foundation should be involved in--- It's a political and ethical
question that Wikimedians ought to be able to disagree on.  The
competing interests are a desire to keep the internet relatively
egalitarian versus a desire not to unduly restrict private companies'
rights to engage in whatever sort of commerce they wish to engage in,
with the right balance depending partly on how much of a monopoly a
particular company has in its market.  On the whole I would hope these
sorts of things don't become commonplace, but whether they ought to be
prohibited is a tougher issue, and one that I think is mostly depends on
non-Wikimedia-related political issues (like where you stand on
government regulation of utilities in general).

I think in the specific case of the Wikimedia Foundation, it'll have
negligible impact.  We're large enough and have little enough
competition that the power balance tips more our way than their way---if
Wikipedia is slower on one ISP than on one of their competitors, that
will reflect badly on that ISP.  And in any case, latency caused by
differential IP-traffic priority is likely to be negligible compared to
latency caused by things like hitting the database.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] H.R. 5252 and H.R. 5417


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request - Critique on administrators is no
	personal attack

body:
On 6/1/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
> I'd reckon the cartoons displayed on the Islamophobia article not
> to be an affront, because it would be clear, that "Wikipedia"
> considers the cartoons to be a sign for hatred towards Muslims.

And there, concisely, is how you're arguing that Wikipedia abandon its
core principles.

Thanks.

-Matt


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Are phone books reliable sources?

body:
On 6/1/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> No, it doesn't.  However, it does mean that a phone book isn't a
> *reliable* source.

I don't think it's ever been stated that Wikipedia only incorporates
material from known, infallible sources. Our minimum requirements are
much more vague however - words like "reliable" and "verifiable" get
used a lot, but with no clear definition.

Given that, providing the source of all information and taking steps
not to ridiculously misuse sources (eg, quoting speculative material
from a tabloid and presenting it as established fact), is what we
should be aiming for. So far, we're not even close.

Steve


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] User-specified JavaScript execution Vuln with two
	specific extensions

body:
> > There is a mouseover user-specified JavaScript execution vulnerability
> > affecting MediaWiki 1.6.6 when running with two specific extensions.
>
> Specifically this is with the experimental <sort> extension. Nobody should be
> using that one just yet, as it's still under development.

Superficially, yes, that's correct.

However, on a deeper level *maybe* it misses something. Specifically,
this problem wasn't found by automated testing.

Rather, it was found by noticing the automated testing was finding
problems with nested extension calls, and then suspecting that there
was a deeper problem with the interaction between nested extension
calls. The fact that such a problem was then found by hand leads me to
wonder whether this hypothesis is correct.

In other words, this seems like it *might* be systemic in nested
extension calls, rather than a one-off.

For example, suppose a site has extensions A and B installed.

Now suppose a user does something like this:

(i.e. Makes a nested call to extension B inside extension A.)

or this:

(i.e. makes a nested call to extension A instead extension A.)

Calls to extensions inside wiki text are special, and from the Parser
output it's clear they're treated specially, in that they seem to have
different precedence.

Currently extension A has to do lots of checking of the input to
prevent this kind of thing from being a problem. Example:
http://nickj.org/MediaWiki/Parser26 which abused a call to the ref
extension inside a call to the ref extension. Your fix is here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-cvs/2006-May/015379.html
; But the potentially worrying bit was that it only addresses that
specific extension.

So that was Ref + Ref.
Besides this problem, there are others:
http://nickj.org/MediaWiki/Parser31 , which is Inputbox + Math.
http://nickj.org/MediaWiki/Parser28-variant1 , which is Sort + Math.

And of course this one, which is Sort + something.

*Maybe* (and this goes back to the thing of formally specifying what's
allowed in wiki text) nested calls to extensions should be ignored by
the parser.

Or, failing that, maybe the inner call should have to complete, and
then the outer should be called - whereas I suspect *maybe* sometimes
the outer is called first, and then the inner is called second, which
potentially is where some of these things are coming from.

Either option would allow extension authors have to worry less about
bad input (by making it more the Parser's problem than the extension's
problem).

Of course, I could be wrong.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Evan Martin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed bzip2

body:
On 5/31/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Between other things I've been working on a distributed bzip2 compression tool
> which could help speed up generation of data dumps.

Alternatively, have you considered generating deltas?  (Sorry if this
has been brought up before...)

It seems to me there are two main consumption cases of the wikipedia data:
 - one-off copies ("most recent" doesn't really matter)
 - mirrors (will want to continually update)
If you did a full snapshot once a month, and then daily/weekly deltas
on top of that, you could maybe save yourself both processing time and
external bandwidth.


body:
> Either option would allow extension authors have to worry less about
> bad input (by making it more the Parser's problem than the extension's
> problem).

... which I think is kinda what you just said to me in private email.
That'll teach me to send outgoing mail before reading incoming mail,
so I'll shut up now.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: amgine at saewyc.net

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
> On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
>
> A process whereby every committee holds open, widely announced
> meetings and where advisor status is granted instantly without
> bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not seem to be practiced
> by any of the committees.
>

I don't know if anyone has pointed out to you, but the Communications
Committee holds weekly IRC meetings which are open to the public and
everyone is invited to participate.

These meetings are scheduled on the Meta comcom page,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee. I'm sure it was
simply an oversight on your part to use grand generalizations without
being certain of their veracity.

Amgine


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
>
> "I have never seen the WMF foundation asking the
> communities
>   for anything besides money and trust.  I believe
> the
>   communities have much more to offer. "
>
>
> You probably have limited memory. I remember
> explicitely calling loudly
> for help for many topics and various skills.
> Hell, I remember distinctly I called *you* Birgitte
> to help for setting
> up decent rules for new languages creation. Hardly a
> month ago. On this
>   list. After I asked you help, you basically
> answered "errr, not now.
> Sorry ".
>

Yes you did.  I was more thinking of asking across
projects not just asking people who already are in
contact with the mailing list.  A site-wide note
similar to fundraising, but a call for volunteers.
With a page asking for people with specific skills
sets or experience.  To bring in people who have not
already sought out the Foundation themselves

> I also remember distinctly I called for help many
> times for Quarto. We
> got a certain amount of help, but not sufficient to
> handle things. So,
> Quarto was closed. It was closed because, *YOU* the
> community, failed to
> answer calls for help.
>

> In the past month, I have taking care of answering
> all the questions on
> OTRS which were business related. Most of them, I
> can not answer alone.
> I need help. I need help to answer stuff about
> mobile phone. I need help
> to answer proposal related to trademarks use ...
>
> We received a proposition from a big firm that I
> will not cite here.
> This was a little bit discussed amongst the
> community volunteers
> lawyers. For the past three weeks, I have been
> asking for a contract for
> that deal. I got none. None, none, none. It is not
> exactly as if I asked
> not for help. I did, but got nothing. (And this is
> why we need
> hiring.... believe me, if someone were writing these
> contracts on a
> volunteer basis, we would not need to hire people).
>
> So, claiming that the Foundation never asked more to
> the community than
> money and trust is worse that *false*. That's an
> *insult*.
>
> There is something hugely upsetting in the comments
> I read in this
> thread. It is seeing people complain things are not
> publicly
> discussed... but who do not even comments when the
> issues are raised
> publicly. It is seeing people complain things are
> not done... but they
> do not do things themselves. It is seeing people
> complain we do not
> welcome their help... but they say no when we ask
> them.
>
> I am not gonna blame you because you refuse to help
> me on something.
> That's fine. You're a volunteer. But do not try to
> pretend we do not ask
> for help please. That's dishonnest.
>
>
> Ant
>
>
>

I am very sorry my email upset you.  I do not mean to
imply in any way that I felt my help was unwelcome, or
that my help was not asked for.  I was really not
talking about me or any one who's name you might
recognize from this list.  I meant a direct appeal to
all the people out there who do not know what the
Foundation is doing much less what it needs doing.  I
meant recruiting from the untapped reasource of people
who use thes projects.  Recruiting.  Not asking people
who have already show interest.

I am do not mean this to be taken so critically.
Trully it is impressive what so few people have
accomplished here.   And also did not mean that I
thought no one should be hired.  Just that hiring
professionals is not a panacea.  It will take a very
special sort of professional to work in this
enviroment.  I really want to see a middle ground.  I
am not against things being closed either.  It is just
a matter of degrees.

Birgitte SB

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:38 PM, Delirium wrote:
> I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their
> userpages what their religious beliefs are.
This is a semi-straw man argument.  Userbox templates *ARE NOT ONLY ON
USER PAGES*.  If they were, the conflict (while possibly still present)
would be vastly reduced.  Userbox templates are a number of other
places as well as being on userpages.  Specifically, they are 1) In
Template space. 2) In subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes.  I look forward
to your thoughts on the degree of problems (or lack of such) of having
people say what their religious beliefs are in the two places I
mentioned.  Thanks!

Jesse Weinstein


body:
I can hardly believe this hasn't already been said numerous times in
the discussion, but, hey, maybe some new user is reading wikien-l and
maybe this will help them.

On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:22 PM, Raphael Wegmann wrote:
> Matt Brown wrote:
>> On 6/1/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>>> I'd reckon the cartoons displayed on the Islamophobia article not
>>> to be an affront, because it would be clear, that "Wikipedia"
>>> considers the cartoons to be a sign for hatred towards Muslims.
>>
>> And there, concisely, is how you're arguing that Wikipedia abandon its
>> core principles.

> Which one?

WP:NPOV.  Specifically, (paraphrase) "Wikipedia does not *consider*
anything to be anything. Wikipedia reports that other people consider
things to be other things, and tries to take as few positions as
possible."

Jesse Weinstein


body:
Quick response you gave. Here's one back. ;-)

On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:51 PM, Delirium wrote:
> Jesse W wrote:
>> This is a semi-straw man argument.  Userbox templates *ARE NOT ONLY ON
>> USER PAGES*.  If they were, the conflict (while possibly still
>> present)
>> would be vastly reduced.  Userbox templates are a number of other
>> places as well as being on userpages.  Specifically, they are 1) In
>> Template space. 2) In subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes.  I look forward
>> to your thoughts on the degree of problems (or lack of such) of having
>> people say what their religious beliefs are in the two places I
>> mentioned.  Thanks!
> I guess I don't see those as "being" anywhere.  Template space and
> lists
> of templates are implementation details, not articles.
It's only important in that user pages have different customs than most
everywhere else on Wikipedia, and extending these customs to shared
little boxes creates various forms of endemic confusion and upset.
>   As far as
> neutrality goes, I don't see a particularly large problem with a giant
> list of all possible opinions anyone could hold.  In fact that seems
> like a pretty neutral way to do it!
That is a good point, and I thank you for reminding me of it.  Of
course, one of the general guidelines of Wikipedia is not to fork
subjects - to fight over one consensus narrative of a subject rather
than hosting lots of forks with different perspectives - but maybe this
guideline should not apply for shared bits of personal expression. (Of
course, that in itself might argue against the use of Wikipedia for
such things...)

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 6/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What wikipedia "is" is more important than what it is not. It is a
> neutral point of view area.

Quite.  All of these religious templates will go.
>
> BTW, "packing the polls" may just be a reflection of how many people
> are actually trying to show how much support (and hence not
> divisiveness) the "keep" side has.

It doesn't matter how many people vote to say that unencyclopedic
materia should stay.  It still has to go.  That's what the policy is
about.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Although there is another way to get there -- just type
> NOSTRADAMUS into the browser's address bar.

No good for accents, punctuation etc.

> Personally, I'd like it if the interface did a little *more*
> of that "primitive case resolving", because creating all those
> redirects seems like a waste of time, a task which could better
> be handled in software.  Some work has been done on this over at
> en.wiktionary, although in a somewhat ad-hoc way.

Yep, but there is a fundamental issue which is that in *some* cases
case is significant, and in others it isn't.

Without looking, do you know whether "Bell Tower" is the same thing as
"Bell tower"? (no, I don't either).

On the other hand, there are definitely cases where case should be
more significant: I noticed today that someone had linked to
[[foreland]], whereas [[Foreland]] came up. There is currently no way
to force [[foreland]] to give a redlink. You either have to unlink it
entirely, link it and hope that someone will realise that they're not
at the right article, or go to [[Foreland]] and add a red dablink (a
very weird concept). All bad solutions.

The best solution would:
a) be consistent between typing in the search box, and following a [[link]]
b) propose choices when the exact choice wasn't found, involving
diacritic and case allowances
c) allow some way to indicate in a link that you don't want name
resolving to take place

I'm sure we've all gone "name fishing" before - you don't know what a
thing is called, but hope to use the most canonical name by adding
(film) or (food) or something afterwards. In such cases you do
definitely want some name resolving. If a thing by that name existst
and it' sthe wrong thing...you'd like to turn it off somehow (triple
brackets? eep...)

Steve


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 6/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>> WP is NOT your dictatorship, unless your real name is Wales.
>
> That is a non-sequitur.  Please address the arguments.

You're both arguing at cross-purposes.  You keep explaining why
what you did was necessary and important, while he keeps asking
why you are doing it so high-handedly.  In fairness, you haven't
addressed his arguments, either.


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> > That is a non-sequitur.  Please address the arguments.
>
> You're both arguing at cross-purposes.  You keep explaining why
> what you did was necessary and important, while he keeps asking
> why you are doing it so high-handedly.

Speaking of which, this lovely comment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATony_Sidaway&diff=56396077&oldid=56368286

": Moreover you've seen that at least a dozen other editors see nothing
wrong with this kind of refactoring and think it improves the environment.
>From my conversations with others not involved in this infantile RfC, I'm
convinced that the claims of disruption are completely unmerited. --[[User
talk:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway]] 22:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)"

Infantile?

Tony, there are many, many other extremely active editors and admins who
never have a hint of an RFC filed against them, or other administrative
actions.  You are literally going around daring people to do it to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Tony_Sidaway_3&diff=prev&oldid=56316893

This is not the way to make positive contributions to WP.  Going around
pissing people off is not making effective positive contributions.  Just
because your WP friends aren't pissed off by all this doesn't mean that
other people aren't, and the record number of user complaints and RFCs
against you should be proof of this.

-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 6/1/06, Piotr Derbeth Kubowicz <derbeth at wp.pl> wrote:
> Dnia Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:38:23 +0200, Lord Voldemort napisa?(a):
>
> > Just wondering if this list gets very much use.  Any ideas?  Wouldn't
> > this be the appropriate place for the whole "game guides" discussion?
> > Thanks.
> > --LV
>
> No, such debate should be completely public, only a small number of people use this list. I see this list as place for perhaps some less formal discussions (like commenting important articles and blog entries about Wikibooks) and cross-project coordination (like informing about new MediaWiki features). Some of these topic should be forwarded to staff lounge or bulletin board, but there are many topics that are irrelevant for most users (like very specific software changes or discussing blog entries).
>

Seems fine.  I just know that for Wikipedia, at least, overall topics
not dealing with the encyclopedia, such as some policy work, is not
supposed to happen on-wiki.  That is what meta and the mailing list
was for.  I didn't know if it would be better to be having, at least
part of, the discussions there.  Oh well.
--LV


body:
On Jun 1, 2006, at 3:18 PM, Raphael Wegmann wrote:
> Jesse W wrote:
>> On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:22 PM, Raphael Wegmann wrote:
>>> Matt Brown wrote:
>>>> On 6/1/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>>>>> I'd reckon the cartoons displayed on the Islamophobia article not
>>>>> to be an affront, because it would be clear, that "Wikipedia"
>>>>> considers the cartoons to be a sign for hatred towards Muslims.
>>>> And there, concisely, is how you're arguing that Wikipedia abandon
>>>> its
>>>> core principles.
>>
>>> Which one?
>>
>> WP:NPOV.  Specifically, (paraphrase) "Wikipedia does not *consider*
>> anything to be anything. Wikipedia reports that other people consider
>> things to be other things, and tries to take as few positions as
>> possible."
>>
>
> That's a noble goal, but experience shows, that sometimes "Wikipedia"
> *has to* take a position.
OK.  That was why I said "as few positions as possible."  No argument
here.

Nevertheless, I continue to fail to see how displaying an image *on the
article about it*(i.e. J-P cartoons controversy) is taking *more* of a
position than displaying the image on an article about a general topic
of which the image is an (arguable) example. (i.e. Islamophobia)

But we've been over this before.  You have said nothing new.  This is
my last comment (or even reading) of this thread.  Have a nice day.

Jesse Weinstein


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
>
>>> On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> did not write:
>>>
>>> A process whereby every committee holds open, widely announced
>>> meetings and where advisor status is granted instantly without
>>> bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not seem to be practiced
>>> by any of the committees.
>>>
>
>> I don't know if anyone has pointed out to you, but the Communications
>> Committee holds weekly IRC meetings which are open to the public and
>> everyone is invited to participate.
>
>> These meetings are scheduled on the Meta comcom page,
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee. I'm sure it was
>> simply an oversight on your part to use grand generalizations without
>> being certain of their veracity.
>
>> Amgine
>
> Amgine, I'm sure it was simply an oversight on your part, but this quote
> isn't mine :)

Argh! the horrors of assuming the software remembered the right sender!
Mea culpa, it was Erik Moeller's response to you. And his oversight...

Sorry,


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Using Tony's argument about disrepute (possibly based around the
>> Christian American society view), if a general reader stumbled over "I
>> am interested in Satanism" on a user page they would be just as
>> disgusted.
>
> There's a difference, at least to the world outside Wikipedia, between
> an individual Wikipedian making that personal statement on a part of
> the site, and Wikipedia as an institution giving him a neat little
> badge for the purpose of making the proclamation.
>

... which is the exact problem of allowing templates to be used for such
boilerplate expression of personal opinions.

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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 569 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060601/07404692/attachment.pgp


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] autoloading classes

body:
Timwi wrote:
>> I have a small patch (2k lines) that eliminates most of
>> require_once() calls and uses require() in __autoload() handler.
>> Generally it makes things faster, as less require_once means less
>> stat(), as well as that might be more APC-friendly.
>
> Not questioning anything, but out of interest: I don't understand how
> this saves any stat()s? Surely multiple calls to require_once for the
> same file still require only one stat().

Apparently not, particularly if you're using relative paths (as we have
traditionally). As I've heard this explained, the stat()s here are done in
require_once itself so the opcode cache plugin can't avoid them.

Note that you can also tell APC to cheat and *never* itself stat for files that
have been cached: in this case you need to explicitly clear the opcode cache
when pushing updated files. If using require() this might get you totally
stat-free. (In theory.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060601/e6eacec7/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Wantedpages only once

body:
Plyd wrote:
> Special:Wantedpages doesn't mean anything now because it gives a too
> high value to links included in very-used templates.

What is a "too high value"?

Broken links in massively-used templates are *EXACTLY* the sort of thing you
want to know about!

> Is it possible to count template links only once ?

That would be very harmful, as it would under-report the actual impact of the
breakage.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060601/407ee8be/attachment.pgp>


subject:
[Wikitech-l] User-specified JavaScript execution Vuln with two
 specific extensions

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> The new one-pass tag stripping* is now in trunk and live on Wikimedia's sites.
> It passes all parser tests, and has additionally fixed bug 5384 (<!-- comments
> --> in <ref> tags).
>
> * Comments are actually done on a separate pass, but unstripped back into tag
> contents where they can be dealt with appropriately by the extension.

I've now folded the comments into the same pass as tags, fixing regressions with
a couple funny cases. Additionally I've fixed some old buglets with the pre-save
transform sometimes altering closing tags.

Note that an interesting effect of the one-pass tag stripping is that the order
tags are handled in is more predictable: tag extensions are executed in the
order they appear inline.

Previously if you had a document like this:

<ref>one</ref>
<gallery>Image:Foo</gallery>
<ref>two</ref>
<references/>

the system would render first the <gallery>, second all the <ref>s, and finally
the <references>.

Now, it renders the first <ref>, then the <gallery>, then the second <ref>, and
finally the <references/>. This actually becomes more interesting if you want to
do some legitimate nesting in tags supporting internal wikitext:

<ref>one</ref>
<gallery>Image:Foo|<ref>two</ref></gallery>
<ref>three</ref>
<references/>

Under the new system this can actually work correctly. The embedded second <ref>
gets rendered during the rendering of the <gallery>, which is between the
external first and third <ref>s. Since they're executed in the expected logical
order, they keep that order in the references list.

Definitely an improvement.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060601/c7ce0839/attachment.pgp>


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm quite proud of it, too. What I don't see is any excuse for your
> attempt  to turn it into the bases of a personal attack on me.

 You don't see what's wrong with calling the RFC infantile?

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Gavin Chait

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
A few years ago I developed a micro-enterprise project called The Thousand
Rand Challenge.  It set entrepreneurs the task of starting a business for
SAR 1 000 (US$ 150).  This sets limitations and constraints on what can and
cannot be done.  If you're a zealous believer in unrestrained thinking, you
may believe that I was deliberately holding entrepreneurs participating in
the project back.

However, all I was doing was admitting the very real constraints that
totally impoverished communities have as far as fundraising is concerned.
As soon as we admitted this then it was astonishing as to what ideas people
came up with that allowed enterprise to flourish.  Over the past few years
we have developed whole new development ideas based on these constraints.

I hear the fears that many people have expressed about the constraints that
will occur with set responsibilities, set functions for boards, professional
involvement and so on.  But you have to admit that a large number of
limitations exist already.

You can't just change the logo and layout of the various wiki websites.  You
can't simply change the content to anything you feel like.  You can't
discuss any topic - even from a neutral point of view (discussion addressed
in "Adult and Illegal content on Wikimedia projects" in April).  Not
everyone gets to have an opinion all the time.  At some stage a decision
must be made and debate must stop so that the organisation can move forward.

A constitution creates a formal framework in which debate can take place.  A
board can be composed of members appointed from the community as well as
from initiators (Jimbo, Anthere, Angela, as suggested by Mark).  And
professional staff appointed by the board, with a set of responsibilities
and tasks as set out by the board and community, can be responsible for
carrying out the objectives of the Foundation.  The professionals are
answerable employees of the Foundation.  If you don't like the direction
they're going in you can get rid of them.

Those tasks can be defined in a wiki - closed or open for participation, but
definitely open to community scrutiny.  This isn't the CIA, we can know
who's appointed to do what.

We admit what we know.  We admit what we don't know.  And this allows us to
move forward.

Many organisations do fail to adapt and change.  Their rules become more
important than the spirit that created the organisation in the first place.
With the level of activism obviously and clearly presented here I don't see
that as a concern that needs to worry anyone. You're always going to get a
hearing even if you don't have an official position.

None of this means that mistakes won't be made.  Making mistakes, admitting
them and fixing them is far less troubling than making no decisions at all
for fear of alienating those opposed.

This isn't old fashioned thinking - it's terribly modern.  Call it
orchestrated freedom if you like.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> george william herbert wrote:
> >  You don't see what's wrong with calling the RFC infantile?
>
> In point of fact, just about everything concerning that
> particular RfC is, if not "infantile", certainly dreadfully
> silly.

Tony is going around pissing people off badly enough that they RfC him over
it.

Whether they have, in the abstract, good or bad justifications for the
complaint, other WP admins aren't pissing people off that badly, even when
they do equivalent things.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Aww, so cute,
	a banned user is trying to take us down with a DMCA notice

body:
On 5/31/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> If our complainer is through some recursive slight of hand both
> contributor and infringer of something that was originally written as a
> part of Wikipedia he is in violation of the GFDL.  GFDL makes no sense
> unless the licensing is irrevocable in the first place.
>
The GFDL is automatically revoked when there is any copying or
distribution done which doesn't follow the terms of the GFDL.

Since Wikipedia doesn't follow the GFDL, its license is automatically
revoked every time it distributes a page.

> Does any Wikipedian living in the United States want to issue a counter
> notification giving jurisdiction to the Federal District Court where he
> lives?  I could file from outside the US, but I am having a problem
> interpreting the phrase "any judicial district in which the service
> provider may be found".  For me the most convenient district would be
> the one that includes the State of Washington, but it's unclear whether
> that choice is available to me.
>
> Ec

I certainly won't be issuing a counter notification, because I don't
think there is a very good defense against copyright infringement.
Sure, you could argue an implicit license, but surely that's not going
to hold up against an explicit revocation of any such license.

Anthony


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/2/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Tony is going around pissing people off badly enough that they RfC him
> over
> > it.
>
> George, if I breathe someone gets pissed off. This isn't normally
> regarded as a cause for concern.
>

No, actually, your day to day stuff only ruffles people's feathers.

Your attitude that it's ok to do that is annoying.

Your attitude that it's ok to move beyond that into actually pissing them
off, and doing things like rejecting RfCs out of hand merely because they're
silly, is a serious problem.

If people are actively pissed off at the way you're behaving it is a serious
problem.  You are the single most active visible WP admin a lot of the time,
and you're going around causing disruption and conflict throughout the
community, and acting proud of it.  What, exactly, do you think that sends
as a message to new editors?

It is not ok to go around pissing people off.  It is important to figure out
how to get things done without pissing them off.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Case inconsistency

body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > No good for accents, punctuation etc.
>
> No?  It tends to work for me -- must be a browser thing.
> (But I think I agree, the "Go" box ought to work just like the
> address bar.)

Heh, you're right - I never tried that. Firefox switches the accents
back to %52 type notation.

> > Without looking, do you know whether "Bell Tower" is the same thing as
> > "Bell tower"? (no, I don't either).
>
> Well, the simplistic answer (but I would think the answer to go
> with) is that if they both exist they're different, but if not
> they're probably the same.

Maybe [[Bell Tower]] is a redirect to [[bell tower]]? I still haven't looked. :)

> > On the other hand, there are definitely cases where case should be
> > more significant: I noticed today that someone had linked to
> > [[foreland]], whereas [[Foreland]] came up.
>
> But of course there, if nothing else, you're butting up against
> Wikipedia's special-casing (er, special uncasing) of the first
> character.

Yep.

> > You either have to unlink it entirely, link it and hope that someone
> > will realise that they're not at the right article, or go to [[Foreland]]
> > and add a red dablink (a very weird concept). All bad solutions.
>
> I see what you mean, although I have to wonder if perhaps this is
> a problem that's not worth solving (law of diminishing returns,
> and all that).

I never said all of this was a *big* problem. Though it is one of
those things that if it even affects 1 in 10,000 articles, that's 100
articles on the English Wikipedia...

> Strictly speaking there are at least four cases: the search
> box when hitting "Go", the search box when hitting "Search",
> wikilinks, and incoming external links (or, equivalently, users
> typing directly into the address bar).  At some point I want to
> sit down and map out exactly how these are the same and
> different, and exactly which sorts of fuzziness ought to apply
> where.  (It's tempting to suggest that three out of the four
> ought to be identical in every respect, but there are enough
> weirdnesses lurking nearby that I'm not ready to make that
> assertion yet.)

Sounds good. I've previously expressed my frustration that "search"
isn't even smart enough to return a direct match if it exists. The
response given on this list was "use the go button". We could start by
mapping out what kinds of fuzziness exist already.

> There are also nuances depending on how likely it is that the
> user is searching for something that ought to exist, versus
> preparing to create something that doesn't exist.  (This
> distinction is mostly aligned with wither the user is hitting the
> Noarticletext or Newarticletext page.)  For example, if you map
> case too aggressively in the case where only one variant exists,
> you can make it impossible for anyone to ever create the other ones.

That's a good way of describing my original problem.

> Well, when I go fishing in that way and get a false positive,
> it's always from the Go/Search box, and I just go back and hit
> Search instead of Go.

Oh, hadn't thought of that. Pleased to hear that Search's, uh,
limitations, have a use. But the ramifications are a bit bizarre:
"lyon metro" with Go button -> silent redirect
"lyon metro" with Search button -> no match found, blue (!) link to
"Lyon metro" which tells me that there's no article of this name, with
another blue link to "Start the Lyon metro article".
[[lyon metro]] in page text -> redlink to edit the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon_metro -> same effect as clicking the
"Lyon metro" link in the Search case given just above.

Four different behaviours for the four different ways of trying to get
to the same article with the same search text. Quite remarkable.

Steve


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for admin-user relations

body:
Resid Gulerdem wrote:
>    After my message ([[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for
> admin-user relations - below) the link to the updated
> version of another proposal [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]
> under my old user page is deleted for ''the good of
> Wikipedia''. I thought I should provide the ones who
> would like to see that proposal with the correct link.
> Earlier version can be found at
> [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]. It is tag'ed as 'rejected'
> but the truth is, I could never find an opportunity to
> put it to a vote properly. I also copy pasted the
> updated version below this message for the sake of
> completeness and for your convenience.

Fortunately I've made a backup of your last version here
[[User:Raphael1/Wikiethics]]
though I am not sure whether some administrator will censor
this too.

--
Raphael


body:
On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/2/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Your attitude that it's ok to move beyond that into actually pissing
> them
> > off, and doing things like rejecting RfCs out of hand merely because
> they're
> > silly, is a serious problem.
>
> Obviously not.  There comes a point at which one must simply recognise
> that a completely and utterly fatuous complaint is being made, and
> move on.
>

One RFC?  Sure.  One particularly upset complaintant?  Sure.

Your kickback from the community is far, far past that.

Again: Other editors and admins, even ones who do a lot of potentially very
controversial stuff, don't get a fraction of the community hostility that
you do.

It's not what you're doing.  It's how you do it.  Your attitude, displayed
above and elsewhere, is a problem.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Nick Boalch

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no difference between
>>> saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a Satanist", you are either being wilfully
>>> ignorant, or disruptive to make a point.
>>
>> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between Christianity
>> and Satanism (whether Theistic or LaVeyan) is that Christianity was made
>> up longer ago...
>
> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between you and a
> banned troll is that you're not banned yet...

Does [[WP:NPA]] apply to the mailing list?

If you really need me to make the implicit conclusion to my statement
explicit, here it is:

...so both userboxes, and indeed all expressing a religious bias, should
be deleted.

Cheers,

N.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


body:
On 6/1/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Please provide a citation for Satanism being disreputable.
>

No.


from_name: Peter Ansell

body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic wrote:
> > Either cut all religious userboxes or keep them all, don't start getting
> > selective. The box is just as useful as a "I am a Christian"-box. Disrepute
> > due to beliefs is only an issue if said editors consistently misbehave.
> >
> > People worry too much over userboxes.
>
> On the one hand, I agree, the ongoing train wreck that is the
> userbox "war" is silly and unnecessary.  On the one hand, I
> agree, all "I am a whatever-tian" boxes should either stand
> together or fall together.  Personally, I don't care if you
> proclaim yourself to be a Christian or a Satanist or a Democrat
> or a Republican or a vegetarian or a Martian or a pedophile or a
> Nazi; the only thing that matters to me is whether you can edit
> encyclopedia articles intelligently, cooperatively, and
> productively.
>
> But.  On the other hand:
>
> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no
> difference between saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a
> Satanist", you are either being wilfully ignorant, or disruptive
> to make a point.  And it's exactly this sort of wilfulness,
> disruption, and point-making that gives rise to big problems
> with those seemingly silly, unimportant userboxes.
>

So we can promote things only if they are not divisive and
inflammatory in American English Christian culture? Because saying
that you are a christian will be extremely inflammatory in some parts.
And non-religious people may not even take offense to the satanist
statement.

Your point of view is no better than any other point of view. Stop
revealing your biases in such a tangible way. Wikipedia should allow
editors no matter what background they come from. You are tailoring
wikipedia to your select group of editors, which will not ultimately
fulfill the neutral point of view policy.

Also, calling someone disruptive because they dont hold your point of
view is poor form.

Peter Ansell


from_name: mdd4696 at gmail.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Distributed bzip2

body:
> Many times, but that's not necessarily clear or simple. The generic
> delta-generation tools we've tried in the past just choke on our files; note
> that the full-history dump of English Wikipedia -- the one we're most concerned
> about having archival copies of available -- is over 350 gigabytes uncompressed.

Actually, I just downloaded enwiki-20060518-pages-meta-history.xml.7z
and when I did a "7za l enwiki-20060518-pages-meta-history.xml.7z" it
said that the archive would be 692686106434 bytes (645 GB)
uncompressed. Is that inaccurate?

~MDD4696


from_name: Rob

body:
On 6/1/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
> Nobody really believes, that anyone would be afraid of
> drawing a Mohammed picture at home.

I would be afraid of doing *anything* at home were I targeted by a mob
of violent religious fanatics.  (A cartoonist would of course have
nothing to fear from the sternly worded letters of non-violent
reasonable religious folks.)


from_name: Delirium

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 6/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>So we can promote things only if they are not divisive and
>>inflammatory in American English Christian culture?
>>
>>
>
>No, this is an encyclopedia.  We do not promote ANYTHING.
>
>However, if we're going to have to debate this issue thousands of
>times (roughly once per five userboxes removed, I suspect) then at
>least we can weed out the obviously absurd reviews.  Such as those
>that should be rejected on other grounds, even if people are prepared
>to pack polls and vote against "What Wikipedia is NOT".
>
I certainly agree as far as the encyclopedia goes, but user pages aren't
part of the encyclopedia proper.  I say on my user page that I live in
Atlanta, which isn't particularly encyclopedic, nor even very helpful
for writing an encyclopedia, but I don't see any harm in it either.

I think you're using the wrong set of criteria here.  The primary
purpose is indeed to write an encyclopedia, but that doesn't mean that
userpages must themselves meet the criteria for inclusion in an
encyclopedia.  I do agree that Wikipedia isn't a general
social-networking site, so if they actively harm the task of writing an
encyclopedia then they should go.  That's a different criterion than
saying they should go because they "promote" something.

I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their
userpages what their religious beliefs are.  Some (like "I'm a
Satanist") will offend people, but then so do a lot of things ("I'm
gay", for one), and I'm not sure proscribing them all helps the project
of writing an encyclopedia more than it harms it.

-Mark


body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
>>>>>> If you honestly believe, in this society, that there is no difference between
>>>>>> saying "I am a Christian" and "I am a Satanist", you are either being wilfully
>>>>>> ignorant, or disruptive to make a point.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between Christianity
>>>>> and Satanism (whether Theistic or LaVeyan) is that Christianity was made
>>>>> up longer ago...
>>>>
>>>> Well, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between you and a
>>>> banned troll is that you're not banned yet...
>>>
>>> Does [[WP:NPA]] apply to the mailing list?
>
> If it did, your attack on religious believers would eliminate the
> difference between you and a banned troll.

There's an awful lot of difference between attacking an individual and
'attacking' a belief system.

Cheers,

N.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


body:
On 6/1/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> On May 31, 2006, at 6:13 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> > If it were applied globally to the religious userboxes, I wouldn't
> > have objected at all.
> May I quote you on that?  Specifically, may I have your explicit
> permission and request (on this mailing list) for anyone with the sysop
> bit on the English edition of Wikipedia to speedy delete all the
> userboxes listed on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Userboxes/
> Religion&oldid=56262627 under the criteria CSD T2.  If you truly agree
> with this, it would certainly help.

Those who complain that the T1 speedy deletion criterion is being
applied unevenly are barking up the wrong tree.  They'll all go in
good time, but it would be wrong to delete them all at once, without
allowing time for discussion over the application of policy, which is
still ongoing.  The results of this slow, measured pace have been a
growing confidence and a steadier support for a broad application.
Although applications for deletion review are made more often for
templates than for any other type of deletion, there are relatively
few successful undeletions.  Wikipedia policy is being restored to
template space.


body:
Delirium wrote:

>I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their
>userpages what their religious beliefs are.  Some (like "I'm a
>Satanist") will offend people, but then so do a lot of things ("I'm
>gay", for one), and I'm not sure proscribing them all helps the project
>of writing an encyclopedia more than it harms it.
>
>
I should add, by way of making clear I'm actually on the other side of
the "userbox wars", that I *do* think deleting all userboxes except
possibly the babel ones might help the project of writing an
encyclopedia more than it harms it.  Not because some are
"disreputable", but because people can just as well write things on
their userpages without templates, and we can be free of this whole
distracting mess.

-Mark


body:
Jesse W wrote:

>On Jun 1, 2006, at 2:38 PM, Delirium wrote:
>
>
>>I can't say I myself see much problem with people saying on their
>>userpages what their religious beliefs are.
>>
>>
>This is a semi-straw man argument.  Userbox templates *ARE NOT ONLY ON
>USER PAGES*.  If they were, the conflict (while possibly still present)
>would be vastly reduced.  Userbox templates are a number of other
>places as well as being on userpages.  Specifically, they are 1) In
>Template space. 2) In subpages of Wikipedia:Userboxes.  I look forward
>to your thoughts on the degree of problems (or lack of such) of having
>people say what their religious beliefs are in the two places I
>mentioned.  Thanks!
>
>
I guess I don't see those as "being" anywhere.  Template space and lists
of templates are implementation details, not articles.  As far as
neutrality goes, I don't see a particularly large problem with a giant
list of all possible opinions anyone could hold.  In fact that seems
like a pretty neutral way to do it!

That's not to say I think userboxes serve any useful purpose, but I
don't think either #1 or #2 you list are good objections.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Moving the "test Wikipedias"

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
>> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
>> today and start moving things over.
>
> Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

Well, it's morning in Beijing at least... ;)

I've copied all pages from Meta beginning with 'Test-wp' or 'Test-WP', with
complete edit history, to:

http://incubator.wikimedia.org/

I'll also copy over the images they use and then replace the old pages with
temporary links to the new location. (In the long run they'll likely be removed
from meta; they're inherently temporary.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060601/f60a9494/attachment.pgp


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
>> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
>> today and start moving things over.
>
> Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

Well, it's morning in Beijing at least... ;)

I've copied all pages from Meta beginning with 'Test-wp' or 'Test-WP', with
complete edit history, to:

http://incubator.wikimedia.org/

I'll also copy over the images they use and then replace the old pages with
temporary links to the new location. (In the long run they'll likely be removed
from meta; they're inherently temporary.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060601/f60a9494/attachment-0001.pgp


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
>> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
>> today and start moving things over.
>
> Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

Well, it's morning in Beijing at least... ;)

I've copied all pages from Meta beginning with 'Test-wp' or 'Test-WP', with
complete edit history, to:

http://incubator.wikimedia.org/

I'll also copy over the images they use and then replace the old pages with
temporary links to the new location. (In the long run they'll likely be removed
from meta; they're inherently temporary.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060601/f60a9494/attachment.pgp>


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>> I'd like to create a separate wiki for these "test Wikipedia" pages so we can
>> keep Meta clean more easily. If there's no objection I'll set this up later
>> today and start moving things over.
>
> Since a bug fix took up my evening, this'll happen in the morning...

Well, it's morning in Beijing at least... ;)

I've copied all pages from Meta beginning with 'Test-wp' or 'Test-WP', with
complete edit history, to:

http://incubator.wikimedia.org/

I'll also copy over the images they use and then replace the old pages with
temporary links to the new location. (In the long run they'll likely be removed
from meta; they're inherently temporary.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060601/f60a9494/attachment-0001.pgp>


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 01/06/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There's a difference, at least to the world outside Wikipedia, between
> > an individual Wikipedian making that personal statement on a part of
> > the site, and Wikipedia as an institution giving him a neat little
> > badge for the purpose of making the proclamation.
>
> Wikipedia as an institution is not doing that (Don't know of any
> foundation created userboxes off hand). And:

The world outside Wikipedia, with which I have a great deal of contact
through the joy that is OTRS, generally fails to understand that the
Foundation does not write the entire damn encylopedia itself.

When the issue is perception from the outside world, quibbling about
whether something was created by a user or created by Danny is...
irrelevant.

Somewhere downthread, I notice the comparison to hospital staff
wearing tags describing their political affiliation. Yes, there is an
ethical difference between one of the nurses handing out boxes of
little badges they made at home to their colleages, versus an
administrator handing out packets of them to staff.

But patients will write angry letters to the newspapers when they see
them, regardless.

I'm not sold that userboxes "bring the project into disrepute" - I
wish we didn't have the damn things and that this never got started -
but pretending that they're magically exempt from doing so becuase all
our readers know that something prefixed with "User:" isn't part of
the encyclopedia is just plain silly.

Because, trust me, they don't know it.

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


from_name: Sam Pointon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin-driven death of Wikipedia: a diatribe

body:
Don't do it because it disrupts the flow of conversation, and takes
things out of context. There, I have explained it, probably by
violating WP:POINT, but I doubt I will be RfAr-ed for a malformatted
email.

--Sam

On 01/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I notice that throughout your extended grumblings you have never managed to tell me how on Earth I'm supposed to stop this thing called top-posting.
>
> Sorry to be uncivil, but I notice that throughout his extended
> grumblings, he has never explained *why* people should not top-post.
> It seems to me to be a question of taste, and both forms have their
> advantages and disadvantages. Someone is sure to point me to an RFC
> which proves that the unix community decided once and for all that
> top-posting is evil, but amongst the wider community of internet
> users, I don't think there is anything remotely approaching consensus.
>
> If top-posting is preventing people reading or following
> conversations, then by all means point it out in private mail. But
> these continued petulant "I have fixed your top-posting" remarks are
> actually more annoying than the supposed sin they're addressing.
>
> </rant>
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 6/1/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> On Jun 1, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
> > So we can promote things
> Could you expand on this?  AFAIK, the topic under discussion was a
> template, intended to be placed on user pages, containing the text:
> "This user is a Satanist" (IIRC).  Is this intended to promote
> something?  Is this intended to promote the improvement of some article
> in Wikipedia?  Generally, most things in the non-article space parts of
> Wikipedia are designed to assist in writing the encyclopedia, or
> reflect on such writing.  Unless I am mistaken, very few if any things
> on Wikipedia are designed to promote anything, except possibly
> Wikipedia itself.  I look forward to you expanding on what you mean by
> this.
>
> <major sniping>
>
> > Wikipedia should allow editors no matter what background they come
> > from.
> And (baring the Islamic issue discussed here ad nausaum), what evidence
> do you have that Wikipedia does not?  Deleting a template is not
> blocking anyone from editing the encyclopedia, unless I am seriously
> out of touch here...
>
> <further major sniping>
>
> Jesse Weinstein
>

You make it seem like the issue about templates and articles are two
totally different issues. I was pointing out that by putting forward
the "lets not offend" anyone argument just because a template is bad
while editors are encouraged to edit the article on the topic is not
consistent. The inflammatory argument is simply put down as someones
point of view. Calling my post major sniping seems very premature when
you didn't understand that. I wasn't talking about articles, I was
emphasising the irony between delete satanist templates and justifying
the deletion using NPOV, when they are infact not neutral themselves.

Peter Ansell


from_name: John Lyden

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 10

body:
> From: Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at>
> Rob wrote:
>>> On 6/1/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>>> Nobody really believes, that anyone would be afraid of
>>> drawing a Mohammed picture at home.
>>
>> I would be afraid of doing *anything* at home were I targeted by a mob
>> of violent religious fanatics.  (A cartoonist would of course have
>> nothing to fear from the sternly worded letters of non-violent
>> reasonable religious folks.)
>
>Surely, but why would you be targeted by a mob of violent
>religious fanatics?

Are you asking this rhetorically, or are you being obtuse? I'm sure
I'm not the only one who saw the firebombings and threats related to
the J-P cartoons.

--
John Lyden - rasputinaxp at gmail.com
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
time..." -Kerouac


subject: [WikiEN-l] General Eisenhower

body:
On 6/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> We were talking about potentially confusing names like Stallman, where
> it's conceivable that the actual person is editing. The objection to
> names such as General Eisenhower, on the other hand, arises not from
> fear of confusion, but from concerns that the name is inflammatory.
>
> I don't think it's a particularly inflammatory name, but maybe
> late-to-middle aged German person might disagree (though I doubt it).
> A name like "Saddam rules" might be different...
>
> Steve

I still dont understand why there are so many things on wikipedia that
try to emphasise that it is not there to inflame things when the very
processes behind the removals are infinitely more inflammatory than
any person ever discovering that an editor has a name they feel has
bad emotions attached to it for them, or for that matter someone
discovering for the first time that wikipedia is not a good christian
place where things like satanism are never discussed for fear they
will inflame editors pre-existing tensions.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/1/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this
> thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly
> discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised
> publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they
> do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not
> welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.

Well, my perspective on the above comments:

I complain about the Foundation to many people.  I don't do anything
about it because the structure of the Foundation is such that I am
disenfranchised from actually having any influence other than through
backchannel politicking.  The bylaws of the Foundation concentrate all
power in the Board, and further structured so that a majority of Board
members are not responsible to anyone but themselves.  This structure
makes the Board inherently resistant to change.  I am not sanguine
that the Board will ever even recognize all of the problems that exist
right now, let alone come up with a useful solution.  So I complain to
my friends and associates, and try to convince them to agree with me
(that the Board is going about the business of running the Foundation
in the wrong way) with the vague hopes of eventually convincing enough
of the Board members to put their personal interests behind their
fiduciary duty to the Foundation and, for once, start making decisions
that reflect what is best for the Foundation instead of what is best
for that individual Board member.  (No, I shall not name names.  If
you are on the Board, it's up to you to decide whether I'm talking
about you or not.)

As to being asked to help: The only representatives of the Foundation
who have ever asked me to help are Danny Wool and Brad Patrick.
(Well, except for when Jimbo asked me to serve on the enwiki ArbCom,
but he was doing that as Jimbo, not as CEO of the Board.)  Even when I
told people that I was ready and willing to help, I never got
requested to do anything.  So I've concluded that WMF doesn't really
want my help.  Either this is because the WMF has concluded that my
talents are of no use to it, or because the WMF has ignored me when
I've offered to help.

So, yes, you may be asking for help, but frankly I find it hard to
figure out what help you need or who to talk to about it -- and
besides, your volunteer coordinators should be working to match
volunteers with tasks that need doing, instead of making volunteers
hunt around to find something to do that fits their talents.  But then
again, that's yet another one of the myriad defects of the WMF: the
Foundation appears to have no clue how to manage volunteers, either.
(Does WMF even have a volunteer coordinator?)

I imagine I'll anger more than a few people with this email.  I hope
so; maybe out of that anger will come the desire for change (instead
of the desire to kill the messenger, which I fear is more likely to be
the result).

With regards,

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed