subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Your e-mail

body:
And I have to add to this that:
* We are talking here about mail forging, and slander.
* I have never, ever, ever posted such hate prose
(instead, I participate in discussions with other
Romanians, Moldovans, and Russians on the subject).

If this is not important, I don't see what could catch
your attention.

:en:Dpotop, :ro:Dpotop

--- Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> I am again pushed to post here by mark Williamson.
> He sent me the following message, pretending I sent
> him a message.
>
> I have never sent him any message whatsoever.
>
> I demand an investigation in the matter. What
> happens
> here is not acceptable.
>
> Yours,
> Dpotop
>
>
>
> --- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 13:27:55 -0700
> > From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue at gmail.com>
> > To: "Jacky PB" <dpotop1 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Your e-mail
> >
> > This is it. I have finally broken my silence and
> > have told others
> > about your nasty e-mail.
> >
> >
>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/c/c8/Dpotop1.png
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --
> > Refije dirije lanm??? yo paske nou posede pw???p
> bato.
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
> protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Your e-mail

body:
This is an absolute lie. He sent me an e-mail, a very nasty one at
that. You may see it in the image.

I do not think this is really relevant to Wikipedia at all. I do not
think this matter needs investigation.

I did not bring it up publicly except on Meta, whereas the message
that he says I sent to him was shouted by him from the rooftops.

This is irrelevant, really. You are in no position to demand an
investigation, and honestly there is nobody here with the authority to
conduct one -- this is e-mail we are talking about, not anything using
Wikimedia servers, so an investigation would be more difficult, and
really nobody has any good reason to conduct one. Your whinging
certainly isn't making anyone want to do it at all.

Mark

On 09/07/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I am again pushed to post here by mark Williamson.
> He sent me the following message, pretending I sent
> him a message.
>
> I have never sent him any message whatsoever.
>
> I demand an investigation in the matter. What happens
> here is not acceptable.
>
> Yours,
> Dpotop
>
>
>
> --- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 13:27:55 -0700
> > From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue at gmail.com>
> > To: "Jacky PB" <dpotop1 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Your e-mail
> >
> > This is it. I have finally broken my silence and
> > have told others
> > about your nasty e-mail.
> >
> >
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/c/c8/Dpotop1.png
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --
> > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p
> bato.
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Your e-mail

body:
It's simply not relevant -- this mailing list is about Wikipedia. Your
complaint was not.

Mark

On 09/07/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> And I have to add to this that:
> * We are talking here about mail forging, and slander.
> * I have never, ever, ever posted such hate prose
> (instead, I participate in discussions with other
> Romanians, Moldovans, and Russians on the subject).
>
> If this is not important, I don't see what could catch
> your attention.
>
> :en:Dpotop, :ro:Dpotop
>
>
> --- Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am again pushed to post here by mark Williamson.
> > He sent me the following message, pretending I sent
> > him a message.
> >
> > I have never sent him any message whatsoever.
> >
> > I demand an investigation in the matter. What
> > happens
> > here is not acceptable.
> >
> > Yours,
> > Dpotop
> >
> >
> >
> > --- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 13:27:55 -0700
> > > From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue at gmail.com>
> > > To: "Jacky PB" <dpotop1 at yahoo.com>
> > > Subject: Your e-mail
> > >
> > > This is it. I have finally broken my silence and
> > > have told others
> > > about your nasty e-mail.
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/c/c8/Dpotop1.png
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > --
> > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p
> > bato.
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
> > protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Your e-mail

body:
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Fri, 30 Jun 2006 04:26:51 PDT
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 04:26:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Jacky PB" <dpotop1 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Idiocy
To: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

You are a dumb bastard. You have inspired enough sterile discussions
on this matter. Kid, stop arguing complex subjects you don't know. You
have no credibility kid. You will be banned soon for this shit. You
are pissing me off. By the way, Moldova is a piece-of-shit country,
didn't you know Moldova is poorest country in Europe? Why do you think
that is? It is because all of the women are whores and all of the men
are degenerated Stalinist farmers too busy praising Mother Russia to
make economic progress.

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

On 09/07/06, Will Sceptre Noble <sceptre at tintower.co.uk> wrote:
> It is very easy to forge email headers. I once myself had a script on my
> website that forged the headers. Could you please post the original email
> (in gmail, it's "Show original")
>
> On 7/9/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 2006/7/9, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > > This is an absolute lie. He sent me an e-mail, a very nasty one at
> > > that. You may see it in the image.
> >
> > Could it not be the case that you are *both* right - dpotop that he
> > did not send the email, and Mark that he did receive it? Maybe someone
> > else sent it, forging the headers to make it look like it came from
> > dpotop?
> >
> > --
> > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -Sceptre
> http://tintower.co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
Hoi!

Well... It did not happen with pms, because we got there and had the
starting pms text imported from our own. So when it got redistributed it was
our stuff once again, and we manage all modifications ourselves.

It's nice to have a single interface in your language distributed all over
the different wikies, I use our pms version even in en:wiki and I find it
handy to have a constant UI environment, no matter what's the content
language. But no doubt it's unpleasant to loose things, especially if they
were elaborated in long years of work...

Maybe you could simply organise a better co-ordination level? The original
files can be imported into the central distro, AFAIK. So anyone downloading
mediawiki will have the best possible NL interface.

Tot ziens!
B?rto

----- ???????? ????????? -----
??: "Andre Engels" <andreengels at gmail.com>
????: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
??????????: 9 ???? 2006 ?. 2:35
????: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

> 2006/7/9, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com>:
> > I'm slightly confused, can you explain it further?
>
> There seems to be a project, on itself a very good idea, to translate
> the MediaWiki texts in various languages. However, apparently someone
> thought those were so good (and they definitely are not) that without
> any further discussion they should replace what we have put on
> WikipediaNL ourselves. We have been working on our current versions
> for 3.5 years. That might be a sign that they are not very bad in most
> cases.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/7/9, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com>:
>
>> I'm slightly confused, can you explain it further?
>>
>
> There seems to be a project, on itself a very good idea, to translate
> the MediaWiki texts in various languages. However, apparently someone
> thought those were so good (and they definitely are not) that without
> any further discussion they should replace what we have put on
> WikipediaNL ourselves. We have been working on our current versions
> for 3.5 years. That might be a sign that they are not very bad in most
> cases.
Hoi,
There is indeed a project to maintain the localisation of the MediaWiki
software. The great thing of this project is that it ensures that the
messages are maintained when changes to the software happens. When
things change, the messages are updated. It is my understanding that
when the message was already updated locally it will not update the
message.

It might be that one project thinks they are doing so well, it could not
be done better. In the past we had to update the messages for every
project individually. With the maintenance of the MediaWiki centrally,
we update the localisation of the user interface for ALL projects. This
is much better than one project doing adequately well and all the others
being left with an incomplete localisation.

As to the quality of the localisation in Dutch, it has been based on
work done by Galwaygirl done for her Kennisnet projects and it has been
expanded by many Dutch Wikimedians. This standard localisation is done
in such a way that it can be used on any project not just nl.wikipedia.
Concluding I would say, keep up the good work and keep on top of it,
that way messages will not be overwritten by messages that fit the
latest and greatest version of the MediaWiki software.

Thanks,
   GerardM


list: commons-l

from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [Commons-l] COA copyright policies and other legal stuff,..

body:
On 7/9/06, Rama Rama <ramaneko at gmail.com> wrote:
>  - A typical coat of arms is from the Middle Ages (say, the coat of
> arms of the city of Paris). There is probably no possible copyright on
> this (the notion of copyright did not exist), but there might be
> issues with trademarks.

Generally we don't concern ourselves with trademark issues, though.

-Matt


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Viral swarming teenage vanity spam

body:
On 7/8/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Jury nullification does not
> involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the decision
> of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to
> reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the court.
> Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a
> charge of libel as an example of this.

Exactly right, to the best of my knowledge.  The American legal system
and others like it treats this as an unfixable bug in the jury system;
despite all exhortations to the contrary, the jury can reach any
conclusions it likes for whatever reason it wishes.  Some activists
and others, however, try and push the idea that juries' ability to
ignore laws they disagree with is a feature, not a bug.

-Matt


body:
On 7/9/06, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
> > Generally we don't concern ourselves with trademark issues, though.
>
> Yes, we do. There's a strong bias against having trademarked logos on
> commons. This resulted from a lengthy discussion on this thread some
> months ago, and word from Jimbo.

My recollection of that (maybe inaccurately) was that that came down
to copyright issues, not trademark?  A photograph or redrawing of a
logo still infringes its copyright, after all.  I don't remember any
of the disputed logos being out of copyright.

I believe I am correct that Commons does not generally concern itself
that the appearance of a trademarked element in a photographed scene
may make a photograph unusable in some (but not all) commercial
contexts, however.

-matt


body:
On 7/9/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think this is one of many unresolved issues that continues to plague
> a standardised implementation of Commons policies.
> As I have said before, any guidance from the lawyer-folk would be welcome.

Lawyers hate giving legal advice, for good reason - they know the
unreliability of the law and thus that advice, and are unwilling to
make blanked proclamations about the legality or illegality of actions
without talking only about specific cases.

It's not just a legal issue, though, but as much (if not more) a policy issue.

-Matt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
On 7/9/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> This user has deleted hundreds of pages without even notifying anyone
> that he did so.

Perhaps because he thought that deleting these duplicated system
messages that were identical to the centralised, standard MediaWiki
messages was not harmful in any way - indeed, from the user experience
point-of-view, absolutely nothing seems to have been changed.  He
probably was under the impression that it was self-evidently,
obviously mistaken to have local versions that did not differ from the
defaults.

It sounds like an opportunity for discussion and gentle reminder of
the benefits of warnings even in such "obvious" cases, since no actual
harm to the project was done.

Since this had to have been done by someone already an administrator
on nl:, I think the paranoia about things being 'forced upon' a
project by those outside sounds a little overblown to me - and saying
more about the complainers than the complained-about.

-Matt


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ulisse Savi

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Warning: Unknown: open_basedir restriction in effect.
	File

body:
Yes. I' have installed MediaWiki 1.7 with PHP 5.04.
During installation i have not any error (all is O.K.) but, after i have moved LocalSettings.php in the parent directory i have the error :
http://encyclopedia.meta99.com/
Warning: main() [function.main]: open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/usr/share/pear/UtfNormalUtil.php) is not within the allowed path(s): (/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs:/tmp) in /home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/includes/normal/UtfNormal.php on line 36

Warning: main(UtfNormalUtil.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: Operation not permitted in /home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/includes/normal/UtfNormal.php on line 36

Fatal error: main() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'UtfNormalUtil.php' (include_path='/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs:/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/includes:/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/languages:.:/usr/share/pear') in /home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/includes/normal/UtfNormal.php on line 36

........................

To remove the error i have put a file vhost.conf

<Directory "/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/">
php_admin_value safe_mode 0
php_admin_value open_basedir /
</Directory>

to disable Open Base Dir but the error continue :

http://encyclopedia.meta99.com/
Warning: Unknown: open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/index.php) is not within the allowed path(s): (/) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: Operation not permitted in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed opening '/home/httpd/vhosts/encyclopedia.meta99.com/httpdocs/index.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in Unknown on line 0


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ken Lay's death prompts confusion on Reuters

body:
On 7/8/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think that's really possible unless we stop anon users from
> editing.
>
What do you not think is possible?  That Wikipedia remain 100% error free?

If so, you are correct.  But a lot can be done to make the version of
the article which is presented to the public much more accurate.

Anthony


from_name: Rama Rama

body:
It might be a little bit more subtle than this. Actually things happen
as if we had two copyrights :

1) the copyright on the design of the Coat of Arms
2) the copyright on the implementation of the Coat of Arms.

The question is mostly, "is 1) Free by our standards so that we can
make our own free implementations of the coat of arms".

 - A typical coat of arms is from the Middle Ages (say, the coat of
arms of the city of Paris). There is probably no possible copyright on
this (the notion of copyright did not exist), but there might be
issues with trademarks.

 - Then you might have more recent coats of arms, from times where
copyright existed. I have had problem with people uploading coats of
arms from Tolkien's universe. There, the design itself is clearly
copyrighted.

  -- Rama

On 7/7/06, bastique at bellsouth.net <bastique at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Paddy brings up something very interesting with regard to the newspaper's
> use.
>
> A coat of arms consists of two different things: the heraldic definition and
> the graphic representation.  Typically,  where a city has a copyright on its
> COA, it is only a graphic representation that the city or locality has
> copyrighted.  A heraldic definition may be artistically interpreted, thereby
> circumventing the city's copyright on the COA.  The legal definitions vary
> from country to country.
>
> For instance, in the United States, the graphical representation that most
> states use as seals are the copyrighted property of the US state in
> question, and therefore are not considered free.  However, a graphical
> representation of the seal may be used in its place as the "state seal".
>
> This, of course, will not satisfy a good many of our end users, who will see
> anything but what the state/city uses, to the exact pixel, as "wrong",
> thereby eliminating its use at any project that disallows "fair use" images.
>
> It also should be noted that an artistic representation of a COA is
> copyrightable, and therefore must be released prior to upload.
>
> Cary Bass
> "Bastique"
> >
> > From: "Zachary Harden" <zscout370 at hotmail.com>
> > Date: 2006/07/06 Thu AM 05:03:55 EDT
> > To: commons-l at wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Commons-l] COA copyright policies and other legal stuff,..
> >
> > Dear Paddy,
> >
> > I just think it depends on the nations that the coat of arms are
> registered
> > in. Some might have Public Domain status granted to them since Day One of
> > use, while others have to sit through the test of time. While I am not
> > familiar with Slovak law, I would wait and see what it says before we take
> > any action.
> >
> > Rgds, Zach
> >
> >
> > >From: Patrick-Emil Z?rner <paddyez at yahoo.de>
> > >Reply-To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l at wikimedia.org>
> > >To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l at wikimedia.org>
> > >Subject: [Commons-l] COA copyright policies and other legal stuff,..
> > >Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 09:01:00 +0200 (CEST)
> > >
> > >Since Eric was posting a hint on all common admins talk pages I use
> > >this opportunity to talk about a subject I strongly feel about.
> > >
> > >BTW I am subscribing to this ML and have been since the beginning. The
> > >reason I have not been reading the ML or making posts here is a
> > >completly differnt one.
> > >
> > >When I was trying to go through the deletion tags to dispose images
> > >that are against the commons policy I found the following:
> > >
> > >http://commons.wikimedia.org//wiki/Template%3ASlovakCityCOA
> > >
> > >Concerning COAs my believe always was that we have to care about:
> > >
> > >1) Copyright(, Urheberrecht,...) whatever it may be in your country
> > >2) It must be commercial.
> > >3) People must be able to modify it.
> > >
> > >To 1) in most cases we do not need to care about that dealing with
> > >COAs since they are ooooooooooold.
> > >However the points 2) and 3) make me feel uneasy and I know there was
> > >a long discussion on de WP.
> > >
> > >Concerning point 2) some of you might know that the german newspaper
> > >"Die Zeit" was using the COA of the federal state and city Hamburg and
> > >needed to change the COA on the front cover because of a senat
> > >decision in Hamburg. Personally I think that such a behaviour is
> > >silly. I mean it is not like they have been printing toilet paper with
> > >the COA of Hamburg and selling the stuff. Even printing the COA of a
> > >town on t-shirts and selling them could cause legal trouble IMHO.
> > >
> > >To 3) the Brockhaus Multimedial (a germen encyclopedia on DVD) uses
> > >stylised COAs. I totally do not get why they did that. What I am
> > >saying is that this could be interpreted as a modification plus
> > >commercial use. Modifing a COA and selling the stuff on some
> > >merchandising items could cause legal problems too IMHO.
> > >
> > >Summary: I do not think that COA go 100% with wikimedia project
> > >policies concerning points 2 and 3. Personally I even think that COAs
> > >as a picture in an encyclopedia are nice to have but not necessary.
> > >But since they seem accepted in the Wikimedia projects commons should
> > >keep them all and without exception since they are PD with some legal
> > >framework attached to them. Therfore I suggest that in cases like the
> > >slovak COA we ignore the terms of use and leave it up to the one that
> > >uses these images to read the terms of use. The slovak terms of use do
> > >not even seem very strikt as far as I can understand the language.
> > >
> > >Last but not least I think that the wikimedia projects had the wrong
> > >approach dealing with COAs. They should IMHO have waived using them.
> > >Only COAs that had 100% leagal permissions from the city/country
> > >should have been used. While the WM-projects were growing there could
> > >have been an open window to leagaly enforce WM-projects to use the
> > >COAs because the cities would have wanted us to use them because
> > >without saying the WM-projects make even the smallest town known in
> > >the internet.
> > >
> > >What do you think?
> > >
> > >greetings
> > >
> > >Paddy
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


body:
On 7/8/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/9/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Why is it that Wikipedians seem to have so much trouble accepting
> > legitimate criticism?
>
> Legitimate criticism should be welcomed, but when the headline says
> "Wikipedia" as a whole has "confusion" and was "reeling," then that's
> sensational.
>
Sensationalism is what US newspapers (generally) do.  Of course, I
think the headline that "Ken Lay's death prompts confusion on
Wikipedia" is perfectly accurate.  The headline doesn't even say that
Wikipedia is confused - it says that there was confusion "on
Wikipedia".

> Academics and reporters who know that I've published about Wikipedia
> ask me - "So, how is that crisis on Wikipedia on Ken Lay?" One even
> requested to do a TV interview about it.
>
> I've written a response on my blog to these folks, explaining the
> lifescycle of a Wikipedia article:
> http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2006/07/05/wikipedias-ken-lay-problem/
>
Criticising the news media has its place.  But I think there's a lot
more to learn from this than that the news media engages in
sensationalism.

> > Wikipedia should be getting its facts *more* correct than the news
> > outlets, not less.  I remember a similar mess after the death of
> > [[Jean Charles de Menezes]].  Wikipedia articles repeated
> > unsubstantiated rumor as though it was fact.
>
> Since Wikipedia depends on the first-hand reporting from news outlets,
> it can only be as good as the ability of human editors to converge on
> the best version of "the truth" using those sources.
>
And if those sources aren't rock solid, they should be cited and
attributed.  Even to this day I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that
"Kenneth Lay died from coronary artery disease" without attributing
that fact to the coroner.

What can be done about this?  Well, as was pointed out by mboverload,
one possible thing is to "stop anons from editing".  But there are an
infinite number of other, less harsh tweaks, both technical and policy
based.

This assumes, of course, that there's a problem in the first place,
other than the fact that newspapers sensationalize.

Anthony


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 7/9/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Why is it that Wikipedians seem to have so much trouble accepting
> legitimate criticism?

Legitimate criticism should be welcomed, but when the headline says
"Wikipedia" as a whole has "confusion" and was "reeling," then that's
sensational.

Academics and reporters who know that I've published about Wikipedia
ask me - "So, how is that crisis on Wikipedia on Ken Lay?" One even
requested to do a TV interview about it.

I've written a response on my blog to these folks, explaining the
lifescycle of a Wikipedia article:
http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2006/07/05/wikipedias-ken-lay-problem/

> Wikipedia should be getting its facts *more* correct than the news
> outlets, not less.  I remember a similar mess after the death of
> [[Jean Charles de Menezes]].  Wikipedia articles repeated
> unsubstantiated rumor as though it was fact.

Since Wikipedia depends on the first-hand reporting from news outlets,
it can only be as good as the ability of human editors to converge on
the best version of "the truth" using those sources.

-Andrew


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
2006/7/9, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:

> There is indeed a project to maintain the localisation of the MediaWiki
> software. The great thing of this project is that it ensures that the
> messages are maintained when changes to the software happens. When
> things change, the messages are updated. It is my understanding that
> when the message was already updated locally it will not update the
> message.

I apologize for my message; I should have kept this internal tot the
Dutch Wikipedia, since, as you write, it does not seem to be part of
general policy to remove local translations. Rather, this was
something of a single-person action. I am now therefore starting a
procedure to de-admin this specific person on nl:.

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


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On Jul 9, 2006, at 5:34 AM, Matt Brown wrote:

>> Jury nullification does not
>> involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the
>> decision
>> of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to
>> reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the
>> court.
>> Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a
>> charge of libel as an example of this.
>
> Exactly right, to the best of my knowledge.  The American legal system
> and others like it treats this as an unfixable bug in the jury system;
> despite all exhortations to the contrary, the jury can reach any
> conclusions it likes for whatever reason it wishes.  Some activists
> and others, however, try and push the idea that juries' ability to
> ignore laws they disagree with is a feature, not a bug.

Juries under the American legal system cannot be held accountable for
their decisions in any way. (As I recall, this may be a holdover from
English law.) There was one case in colonial America where a colonial
journalist, Zenger, was tried for sedition and libel for certain
things he published about the governor of New York Colony. In
addition to establishing the American precedent that truth is a
defense to libel, this trial was also an early example of jury
nullification--the laws as written and established by precedent led
to a guilty verdict, but the jury refused to convict.

Jury nullification also reduced the effectiveness of the American
prohibition of alcohol. Similarly, juries in African-American
communities have apparently been known to acquit black defendants of
certain crimes (particularly drug crimes) in response to perceived
racism on the part of the police.

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


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Jul 9, 2006, at 5:17 AM, Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Jesse W wrote:
>> On Jul 8, 2006, at 4:01 PM, mboverload wrote:
>>> The only way to stop dubious edits by anon users is to not allow them
>>> to edit.
>> Again, you don't clarify whether you mean: 1) Wikipedia editors who do
>> not associate their editing with their legal name, or 2) Wikipedia
>> editors editing without logging in.
>   [snip]
>
> I'm sorry, but I think you missed mboverload's point.  I suppose the
> reference to "anon users" was an unfortunate red herring.  Let me
> restate the point without it:
>
> "The only way to stop dubious edits is to not allow people to edit."
I did suspect that might have been his "point", but if so, it's
effectively a tautology - neither obvious, nor interesting, nor
meaningful.  One might as well say - "The only way to stop stop people
from being Jews is to cause there to be no people-who-are-Jews."  This
doesn't really address any particular point.

In any case, considering the metaphor I used above - I call [[Godwin's
Law]] on myself.  I think this dead horse has been beaten into the
ground.  I'm going to stop, now.

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Your e-mail

body:
It is very easy to forge email headers. I once myself had a script on my
website that forged the headers. Could you please post the original email
(in gmail, it's "Show original")

On 7/9/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2006/7/9, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > This is an absolute lie. He sent me an e-mail, a very nasty one at
> > that. You may see it in the image.
>
> Could it not be the case that you are *both* right - dpotop that he
> did not send the email, and Mark that he did receive it? Maybe someone
> else sent it, forging the headers to make it look like it came from
> dpotop?
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


from_name: Finne Boonen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
On 7/9/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> Recently, one person deleted a lot of MediaWiki pages on nl: because
> there was now a general translation. Apparently doing the same thing
> that others do is more important than doing the thing we ourselves
> think is best. I very much OPPOSE what is being done here, and would
> ask anyone to STOP FORCING US TRANSLATIONS WE DO NOT WANT!!!!!
>
> WikipediaNL has had MediaWiki software for over 3.5 years now, and we
> have changed things with good reasons. Don't undo that without good
> reasons yourself!!!

As far as I know what has happened is the following:
1) The dutch translation wich comes with mediawiki has been
initialised from the translations made at nl.wikipedia
2) The translation has been finished and references specific to
wikipedia have been removed
3) on the Dutch wikipedia messages wich where the same as the standard
translated messages have been removed

Finne/henna
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"


list: foundation-l

from_name: Shlomi Fish

subject: [Foundation-l] The Perl Wiki

body:
Hi Mr. Irwin!

On Sunday 09 July 2006 08:00, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > snip
> >
> >
> >Actually, my Perl for Newbies series of Presentations is not part of
> >wikibooks. I wrote it before I was aware of wikipedia and possibly before
> >wikibooks existed. It was written using Quad-Pres, which is a sort-of home
> >grown HTML slides generator.
> >
> >Like I said, the text and code in the slides are public domain, so they
> > could be integrated into separate works. Part of them were already
> > reformated into tutorials or howto's as part of http://perlmeme.org/. [1]
> >
> >I have some ideas for a 5th or 6th presentation or perhaps I need to beef
> > up my 4th presentatio, but I'll have to start writing them.
>
> Hi Shlomi,
>
> You might consider developing some lesson plans or placing your slide
> presentations into the public commons under an FDL at an appropriate
> location in Wikiversity.    http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity

The presentations are under the Public Domain (as defined by Creative Commons
and as I and most other people understand it.) As such they can be converted
into any other licence, including the GNU FDL. I'd prefer that people who
redistribute and make modifications to them keep them under the PD, but they
are naturally allowed to.

What do you mean by "lesson plans"? Also what exactly is the wikiversity? I
could not understand what it is from the description on the homepage.

>
> We do not have formal approval to proceed yet but an administrator at
> Wikibooks (Robert Horning) has articulated an excellent plan to
> duplicate the Wikibooks wiki at the en.wikiversity.org domain and then
> delete or modify inappropriate materials and link structures in both
> wikis to minimize rework once we have authority from the Wikimedia
> Foundation Board to proceed with Wikiversity on Wikimedia Foundation
> infrastructure.

I see.

I should note that one thing that may be missing from my Perl slides are
exercises for people to perform by themselves.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      shlomif at iglu.org.il
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

95% of the programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the
bottom 5%.


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] The Perl Wiki


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: Your e-mail

body:
2006/7/9, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> This is an absolute lie. He sent me an e-mail, a very nasty one at
> that. You may see it in the image.

Could it not be the case that you are *both* right - dpotop that he
did not send the email, and Mark that he did receive it? Maybe someone
else sent it, forging the headers to make it look like it came from
dpotop?

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
2006/7/9, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com>:

> That's a bit harsh. Wouldn't it be easier to inform and educate them
> about their mistake and co-ordinate future translation efforts?

This user has deleted hundreds of pages without even notifying anyone
that he did so. Several people have made comments about this; he still
does not seem to be of the opinion that what he did was wrong. How do
you educate someone who doesn't want to be educated?

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/7/9, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com>:
>
>
>> That's a bit harsh. Wouldn't it be easier to inform and educate them
>> about their mistake and co-ordinate future translation efforts?
>>
>
> This user has deleted hundreds of pages without even notifying anyone
> that he did so. Several people have made comments about this; he still
> does not seem to be of the opinion that what he did was wrong. How do
> you educate someone who doesn't want to be educated?
Hoi,
When a message has nothing specific about the nl.wikipedia, and both
messages are good. It makes absolute sense to remove the local messages
because this allows for upgrades when they happen for a message. I do
not agree that he necessarily did wrong, quite to the contrary, I see
ample room for it having been a great piece of work. Now, what does it
take for people to first learn about the why, what and how WITHOUT
feeling this need to start "educating"? Please assume that things are
done in good faith.

The fact that several people comment does not necessarily imply that
something is wrong.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Philip Welch wrote:

> On Jul 9, 2006, at 5:34 AM, Matt Brown wrote:
>
>>> Jury nullification does not
>>> involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the  decision
>>> of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to
>>> reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the  court.
>>> Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a
>>> charge of libel as an example of this.
>>
>> Exactly right, to the best of my knowledge.  The American legal system
>> and others like it treats this as an unfixable bug in the jury system;
>> despite all exhortations to the contrary, the jury can reach any
>> conclusions it likes for whatever reason it wishes.  Some activists
>> and others, however, try and push the idea that juries' ability to
>> ignore laws they disagree with is a feature, not a bug.
>
> Juries under the American legal system cannot be held accountable for
> their decisions in any way. (As I recall, this may be a holdover from
> English law.) There was one case in colonial America where a colonial
> journalist, Zenger, was tried for sedition and libel for certain
> things he published about the governor of New York Colony. In
> addition to establishing the American precedent that truth is a
> defense to libel, this trial was also an early example of jury
> nullification--the laws as written and established by precedent led
> to a guilty verdict, but the jury refused to convict.
>
> Jury nullification also reduced the effectiveness of the American
> prohibition of alcohol. Similarly, juries in African-American
> communities have apparently been known to acquit black defendants of
> certain crimes (particularly drug crimes) in response to perceived
> racism on the part of the police.

When I pointed out the real meaning of jury nullification I certainly
had no intention of starting a racially charged digression. While the
possibility of disparate enforcement of the law along racial lines is
certainly a serious issue, I've never heard that African-American juries
regularly acquit criminals on the basis of race. The only case I know of
is O.J. Simpson, assuming you believe him to have been acquitted in
contradiction to the facts, and even then there's a significant
celebrity element to consider in addition to race. (Please note, a hung
jury because of one recalcitrant juror is *not* an acquittal, the
defendant can easily be retried. The primary reason jury nullification
would be effective is because double jeopardy prohibits appeals or
retrials from an acquittal in a criminal case.)

Otherwise, to find actual examples of racial jury nullification I think
you have to look at the *white* juries, during the early years of the
civil rights movement and going back to Jim Crow times, that acquitted
whites of various violent acts against African-Americans and their
allies. The problem has subsided and recently it has been possible to
secure convictions for some long-ago atrocities, but this explains why
some of jury nullification's most ardent advocates are found in the
political fringe where white racists, survivalist militia groups, and
radical "constitutionalists" meet.

That's all I'll have to say about this, since the discussion no longer
directly relates to Wikipedia.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
2006/7/9, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:

> Hoi,
> When a message has nothing specific about the nl.wikipedia, and both
> messages are good. It makes absolute sense to remove the local messages
> because this allows for upgrades when they happen for a message. I do
> not agree that he necessarily did wrong, quite to the contrary, I see
> ample room for it having been a great piece of work. Now, what does it
> take for people to first learn about the why, what and how WITHOUT
> feeling this need to start "educating"? Please assume that things are
> done in good faith.

Bad things can be done in good faith. A person who makes changes to
hundreds of system messages at once, should in my opinion first
consult the community to ask whether this is wanted. In this case the
community was not even *informed* in advance. If messages have been
changed on NL-Wikipedia, this might well have a good reason. And even
if it is not, then at least some discussion before doing things like
this on a large scale rather than on a few pages requires discussion
first.

WikipediaNL, like the great majority of non-English Wikipedias, has
strong feelings about its independence. Whether that's right or not,
forcing things onto a local wiki is not the way things should work
within Wikimedia.

> The fact that several people comment does not necessarily imply that
> something is wrong.

The fact that one person does it does not necessarily imply that it is
right either.

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


from_name: Daniel Kinzler

body:
>
> Generally we don't concern ourselves with trademark issues, though.
>
> -Matt

Yes, we do. There's a strong bias against having trademarked logos on
commons. This resulted from a lengthy discussion on this thread some
months ago, and word from Jimbo.

-- Daniel

--
Homepage: http://brightbyte.de


from_name: SJ

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania notes : early registration ends,
	writing & media contest

body:
Dear all,

Early registration for Wikimania ends today; after which the community
rate for the conference tickets will go up.  The preliminary program
and proceedings are available from the conference site :
  http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/
  http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program

Scholarship applications are being reviewed and responded to over the
next two days.

Other notes related to the conference schedule : There will be some
outings on Thursday, before Wikimania begins.  SIGGRAPH is taking
place in Boston before Wikimania, during Hacking Days (Tuesday through
Thursday); we're trying to arrange a tour of their exhibit floor.  A
Citizen Journalism event in the same building on Monday, the day after
Wikimania ends :
   http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Journalism
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGGRAPH

Finally, don't forget the Wikimania awards  -- a t-shirt contest, and
a media and writing contest.  Nominations of great media (any free
format) and writing (any language) are wanted; more information to
come :
   http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_awards

Warmly,
   SJ


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
2006/7/9, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>:

> Perhaps because he thought that deleting these duplicated system
> messages that were identical to the centralised, standard MediaWiki
> messages was not harmful in any way - indeed, from the user experience
> point-of-view, absolutely nothing seems to have been changed.  He
> probably was under the impression that it was self-evidently,
> obviously mistaken to have local versions that did not differ from the
> defaults.

I have no indication that he kept himself to those that had not
changed. Although I have found no case where this did not happen, he
has not said that he did, whereas there would have been ample chance
to do so (for example, to the proposal to "replace the messages and
then adapt those on which we agree to the new translation" he did not
react with "None have changed in this new translation", but with
"Great! Do it all again!"

> It sounds like an opportunity for discussion and gentle reminder of
> the benefits of warnings even in such "obvious" cases, since no actual
> harm to the project was done.

He has been reminded of that, to which his reaction was:
"I really am not going to discuss 1400 times about 1400 messages that
change in minuscule of larger amount."

> Since this had to have been done by someone already an administrator
> on nl:, I think the paranoia about things being 'forced upon' a
> project by those outside sounds a little overblown to me - and saying
> more about the complainers than the complained-about.

As far as I'm concerned, he won't be an administrator for long.

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikimania notes : early registration ends,
	writing & media contest

body:
Dear all,

Early registration for Wikimania ends today; after which the community
rate for the conference tickets will go up.  The preliminary program
and proceedings are available from the conference site :
  http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/
  http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program

Scholarship applications are being reviewed and responded to over the
next two days.

Other notes related to the conference schedule : There will be some
outings on Thursday, before Wikimania begins.  SIGGRAPH is taking
place in Boston before Wikimania, during Hacking Days (Tuesday through
Thursday); we're trying to arrange a tour of their exhibit floor.  A
Citizen Journalism event in the same building on Monday, the day after
Wikimania ends :
   http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Journalism
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGGRAPH

Finally, don't forget the Wikimania awards  -- a t-shirt contest, and
a media and writing contest.  Nominations of great media (any free
format) and writing (any language) are wanted; more information to
come :
   http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_awards

Warmly,
   SJ
--
SJ Klein  |   617 529-4266
Wikimania 2006 : wikimania2006.wikimedia.org


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikimania notes : early registration ends,
	writing & media contest


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Jesse W wrote:
> On Jul 8, 2006, at 4:01 PM, mboverload wrote:
>
>>The only way to stop dubious edits by anon users is to not allow them
>>to
>>edit.
>
> Again, you don't clarify whether you mean: 1) Wikipedia editors who do
> not associate their editing with their legal name, or 2) Wikipedia
> editors editing without logging in.
  [snip]

I'm sorry, but I think you missed mboverload's point.  I suppose the
reference to "anon users" was an unfortunate red herring.  Let me
restate the point without it:

"The only way to stop dubious edits is to not allow people to edit."

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
To clarify: I'm not sure trademarks apply to coats of arms at all. The
Paris Convention explicitly exempts at least national insignia from
trademark protection (and, by extension, possibly from copyright).

Most countries have separate laws for protecting insignia from misuse -
which we do indeed not concern ourselves with (see {{insignia}}), as
long as the use on commons itself is legal, and it's possible to legally
use them on some Wikimedia project.

> My recollection of that (maybe inaccurately) was that that came down
> to copyright issues, not trademark?  A photograph or redrawing of a
> logo still infringes its copyright, after all.  I don't remember any
> of the disputed logos being out of copyright.

As far as I remember, we decided not to have any trademarked logos,
copyrighted or not. Many logos could be considered PD because they are
trivial - in fact, the German WP allows such logos, and is quite liberal
with the interpretation... a dangerous course, IMHO.

> I believe I am correct that Commons does not generally concern itself
> that the appearance of a trademarked element in a photographed scene
> may make a photograph unusable in some (but not all) commercial
> contexts, however.

Yes - logos appearing in a larger context are OK. Just *how* large that
context must be is subject of interpretation... a street scene that
contains some logos somewhere is probably ok. A picture showing nothing
but a Coca Cola can? Not sure about that.

-- Daniel

--
Homepage: http://brightbyte.de


body:
Relevant thread from september 2005:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2005-September/thread.html#103

--
Homepage: http://brightbyte.de


subject: [WikiEN-l] Time 100 footage

body:
On 5/14/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
> Amanda Congdon (rocketboom.com) was gracious enough to be our press
> representative at the recent Time 100 party in New York.  She got a lot
> of footage of the guests, which was quite a group of famous people,
> probably at least 100 people at the party already have wikipedia
> articles, many with no photos or fair use photos.
>
> As a condition of being invited, I asked that she release her footage
> and photos under a free license.

What's the current status on this? It really would be great to have this.

And otherwise to Jimbo, could this image
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbo_wales/143261674/ be released under a free
license? :) Since there are only fair use images on [[Ann Coulter]].

Garion (currently doing some fair use replacement)


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting debate over reliable sources

body:
I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some
meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and
There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for
these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable.
We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to
reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Sarah

references:
<ba92b2hntptaiff3aumtf1g4n2ktgu8jji@4ax.com>
	<f3fedb0d0607090924w6c603a15vd3eff8310083fd17@mail.gmail.com>
	<6a8d9d700607091408q79facb45lecdaf17c9641b093@mail.gmail.com>
	<b80736c80607091453w76dee158rac0fd7dcf35dc04a@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> I always find it mildly amusing -- and disturbing -- how conservative
> and, dare I say it, naive Wikipedia can be when it comes to comparing
> old media with the Internet. Every printed source is held up as a
> symbol of journalistic integrity, and a guy in Ohio hacking up a
> moderate article about some website 2 hours before the deadline is
> considered, per WP:WEB, to make the thing more notable than a hundred
> blogs with thousands of readers, because he's a "reliable source."

Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest
have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal
problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the
processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But
Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call
"reliable sources" who do.

Sarah


from_name: jayjg

body:
On 7/9/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/07/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some
> > meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and
> > There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for
> > these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable.
> > We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to
> > reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
>
> (Surely these can be cited from the Jargon File?)
>
> Someone, a while ago, claimed that anything posted on Usenet could
> never ever ever be a reliable source; and, indeed, they modified WP:RS
> to say so:
>
> "Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs,
> are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources. This is because
> we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them."
>
> On my questioning them on IRC, their original aim seemed to be to say
> that you couldn't use blogs, usenet posts, etc. as *primary sources*
> (ie, to indicate the existence of frenzied discussion about
> $astroturfed_topic), which makes sense, but it did seem to throw the
> baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, I was tired, and forgot to
> do anything about this...
>
> Fundamentally, it's meaningless for anything with value. I want to
> cite a post by, oh, Henry Spencer to clarify some erudite aspect of a
> topic? Of course I can tell he posted it, and I can tell he's a
> reliable source. Refusing to accept that Usenet posts can be reliable
> is about as useful as saying "a letter published in a newspaper isn't
> a reliable source because we have no way of telling the guy signing it
> was actually the author".

Letters to the editor are checked for authenticity by the newspapers
printing them; in fact, the fundamental thing making a source reliable
is fact-checking. Usenet posts do not have fact-checkers.

Jay.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 09/07/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some
> meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and
> There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for
> these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable.
> We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to
> reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.

(Surely these can be cited from the Jargon File?)

Someone, a while ago, claimed that anything posted on Usenet could
never ever ever be a reliable source; and, indeed, they modified WP:RS
to say so:

"Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs,
are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources. This is because
we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them."

On my questioning them on IRC, their original aim seemed to be to say
that you couldn't use blogs, usenet posts, etc. as *primary sources*
(ie, to indicate the existence of frenzied discussion about
$astroturfed_topic), which makes sense, but it did seem to throw the
baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, I was tired, and forgot to
do anything about this...

Fundamentally, it's meaningless for anything with value. I want to
cite a post by, oh, Henry Spencer to clarify some erudite aspect of a
topic? Of course I can tell he posted it, and I can tell he's a
reliable source. Refusing to accept that Usenet posts can be reliable
is about as useful as saying "a letter published in a newspaper isn't
a reliable source because we have no way of telling the guy signing it
was actually the author".

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


from_name: stevertigo

body:
--- poore5 at adelphia.net wrote:
> Almost without exception Media sources outside the Internet have well established
> codes of ethics and other standards that the individuals and institutions must
> follow.

If by "ethics" you mean fulfill the role of flooding the airwaves with Ronco
commercials, crime dramas, and celebrity news shows, then yes, what you say is true.
If by "ethics" you mean local newspapers which are 80 percent ads, serve the public
only as promotional sustitute for the reportage on news events, then what you say is
true.

Otherwise... nonsense! Do not confuse media (aka. "the trade") with journalism (aka.
"the profession").

Stevertigo

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


body:
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/10/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest
> > have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal
> > problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the
> > processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But
> > Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call
> > "reliable sources" who do.
>
> Our own history is an example. Virtually all of it is documented
> through electronic mailing lists and edits to the wiki. It is possible
> to fake mailing list posts just like it is possible to fake them on
> Usenet. So, are we going to dispute that Larry Sanger wrote the "Let's
> make a wiki" post on those grounds?
>
> We need to be very careful that dogma does not take the
> place of common sense.
>
The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter
to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name,
address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can
check that you really did send it. Nothing like that exists for
Usenet. It's all very well to say that if X didn't write the post, and
we quote from it, X will tell us soon enough. But what happens if X
claims that, in purporting to quote him, and in leaving that unchecked
quote on Wikipedia for months until he spotted it, we have damaged him
in some way? Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this
scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We
have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other
people's, by using only material that has already been checked.

Sarah


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
On 7/9/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> Apparently, some people don't like the GNU drawing in the GFDL
> template and so, for esthetic reasons, a new template was born:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:GFDL-nologo
>
> The reason given, on the edit summary, was:
>
> "some people were annoyed by the cartoon"
>
> Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
> taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?

It doesn't really matter. As long as it carries out the same function.
--
geni


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Protest!!!!

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/7/9, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
>> There is indeed a project to maintain the localisation of the MediaWiki
>> software. The great thing of this project is that it ensures that the
>> messages are maintained when changes to the software happens. When
>> things change, the messages are updated. It is my understanding that
>> when the message was already updated locally it will not update the
>> message.
>
> I apologize for my message; I should have kept this internal tot the
> Dutch Wikipedia, since, as you write, it does not seem to be part of
> general policy to remove local translations. Rather, this was
> something of a single-person action. I am now therefore starting a
> procedure to de-admin this specific person on nl:.
>

That's a bit harsh. Wouldn't it be easier to inform and educate them
about their mistake and co-ordinate future translation efforts?

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
On 7/9/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> >> Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
> >> taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?
>
> g> It doesn't really matter. As long as it carries out the same function.
>
> Oh, cool. Then, I'm preparing a flower-power GFDL template, one art-nouveau,
> hm... maybe even some stuckist templates!
>

Fine may make cheaking images more interesting.

> Then, we'd need some guidelines for do-it-yourself custom GFDL templates,
> just like for userboxes. Of course, we'd need a directory for them, too.
>
> I wonder whether anti-Iraq War-themed GFDL templates would be allowed...
>

No they interfere with the template's funtion.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
On 7/9/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> <WP:BEANS> {{GFDL-goatse}}? </WP:BEANS>

Copyvio images will be deleted.

--
geni


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
Apparently, some people don't like the GNU drawing in the GFDL
template and so, for esthetic reasons, a new template was born:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:GFDL-nologo

The reason given, on the edit summary, was:

"some people were annoyed by the cartoon"

Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?


from_name: Austin Hair

body:
On 7/9/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> the page on the above says:
>
> > We've extended the registration deadline, so there's still time to take advantage of the pre-registration rate: $90 (USD) per day ($240 for all three days); Wikimedia contributors who provide a project username pay $30 per day ($70 for the entire conference).
>
> > Beginning July 16th, admission costs $100 per day (still $240 for the full pass), or $40/$90 for Wikimedians. Register soon!
>
> ...
>
> So people seem to have enough time register themselves after getting
> an answer, if it comes in two days?

In fact, the deadline has been extended to July 16th.  That's the one
and only extension, however, so don't wait too much longer.

Austin


from_name: poore5 at adelphia.net

body:
---- Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/10/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest
> > > have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal
> > > problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the
> > > processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But
> > > Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call
> > > "reliable sources" who do.
> >
> > Our own history is an example. Virtually all of it is documented
> > through electronic mailing lists and edits to the wiki. It is possible
> > to fake mailing list posts just like it is possible to fake them on
> > Usenet. So, are we going to dispute that Larry Sanger wrote the "Let's
> > make a wiki" post on those grounds?
> >
> > We need to be very careful that dogma does not take the
> > place of common sense.
> >
> The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter
> to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name,
> address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can
> check that you really did send it. Nothing like that exists for
> Usenet. It's all very well to say that if X didn't write the post, and
> we quote from it, X will tell us soon enough. But what happens if X
> claims that, in purporting to quote him, and in leaving that unchecked
> quote on Wikipedia for months until he spotted it, we have damaged him
> in some way? Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this
> scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We
> have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other
> people's, by using only material that has already been checked.
>
> Sarah

Almost without exception Media sources outside the Internet have well established codes of ethics and other standards that the individuals and institutions must follow.

For example: when a media outlet publishes or broadcasts some new piece of information about a person or an agency, it is expected per ethical and industry standards that some one will make contact and get a response before publication/broadcast.

Wikipedia has no way to verify information, seek clarity, or simply get a response.  For this reason it is essential that we stick with reliable third party sources and sparingly use primary sources to fill in details for already verified incidents.

Sydney Poore aka FloNight
Georgetown KY


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] How does the localisation of MediaWiki work (using
	Beta-wiki)

body:
Hoi,
Because of some misunderstanding let me try to explain how the latest
method of localisation works.

History:
There used to be a situation that the localisation was done using a PHP
message file. This file needed to be updated when new messages came
about or when existing messages were changed. This happened because of
work done on the MediaWiki software. In practice this worked not that
well and there was also a need to have some messages changed to reflect
a policy or whatever that was specific to a project. Because of this the
messages exist. You can change and localise the messages in a project.

The challenge:
The bigger projects with the exception of the en.wikipedia have a lot of
messages adapted for its language. For people for whom the project
language is a foreign language, the PHP messages are used because it is
all the information that is available to help. When a new project
starts, it does not benefit from the localisation work done elsewhere.
When a message is changed, it needs to be fixed for that language in ALL
projects.

The work being done:
Nikerabbit and Gangleri have done absolutely great work by setting up a
wiki that is there to manage the localisation of MediaWiki. The result
of this project is that for many languages a proper localisation exists.
In the process of getting as far as we are, many issues with right to
left languages have been fixed both in the messages and in the core of
the MediaWiki software.. Many messages now make use of the Plural
construct; this allows for the correct phrasing of singular of plural
forms of text in the messages. The messages are platform agnostic; they
will however indicate the correct name of the project.

The current issue:
In order to make use of the standardised messages, it is important to
use the standard messages and not have project specific messages that
say the same thing. Deleting /these /messages ensure that when a message
is changed, it will be part of the next update of the software. For the
project specific messages, it is important that someone who maintains
these messages is subscribed to the mediawiki-i18n at mail.wikimedia.org
mailing list. This list is used to inform about the messages/issues that
are of interest with respect to internationalisation. Wikimedia uses the
MediaWiki messages in all its projects and in all the languages the
message Outside the WMF there are many, many more wikis that will
benefit from us doing a better job localising the software.

The challenge:
I have set myself the challenge to find more people to help with the
localisation for more languages. MediaWiki is great software is excels
because it has already been localised in so many languages. For those
languages where it did not yet happen, we find that the projects are not
doing that great. By finding interested people and organisations
MediaWiki will become more usable. It will become not only more usable
because it will become easier to start a project in languages like Akan
or Xhosa it will also become more easy to read projects like the
en.wikipedia as the user interface will no longer be a distraction.

The question:
What if any are the practical issues with this strategy. From my
perspective there are only winners. * Project specific messages are
unaffected * All other messages benefit from an effort designed to
provide a timely and improved service.

Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 7/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some
> meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and
> There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for
> these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable.
> We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to
> reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.

It would seem to me that Usenet sources should ONLY be cited in the
case of Usenet phenomena (ditto with blogs, etc.), and that the
prohibition should be on citing them for anything BUT Usenet
phenomena.

So you could use a Usenet source to report on something that happened
on Usenet, or a blog source to report on something which happened on a
blog. But you couldn't use them for anything else.

As for the question of why something printed "on paper" becomes
authoritative, there are two obvious answers to this:
1. it is a holdout from an age which is quickly passing us by. As
newsjournalists well know, the monopoly of the mainstream media over
mass information has been attacked by electronic sources for some time
now, and blogs and wikis and the like have been dramatically changing
the relationship between journalism and "the readers." But three
hundred years of print journalism monopoly over information still has
some clout for most people, and the truth status of blogs et al is
still viewed with some suspicion.*
2. being printed by a respected newspaper means that at the very least
the newspaper has put their own capital and respect on the line for a
story. This of course does not guarantee truth *in the slightest* but
does get closer to accountability of information than you have
elsewhere on the internet (where there is generally no real
accountability).

FF

*As it should be. The problem is not that people view blogs and wikis
with suspicion, but that they do not view all journalism with
suspicion. I think Wikipedia has actually worked wonders in this
department: it trying to assess the accuracy of WP, it has become very
clear and widely publicized that though it is often inaccurate, it is
not usually any MORE inaccurate than mainstream sources.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Israel News Agency

body:
It's back again, after being deleted by Danny and protected by me
(ZOMG! Wheel war!).  Having seen Ombudsman among the list of
contributors (actually restarted it after the last deletion) does not
fill me with confidence...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Israel News Agency

body:
On 7/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> It's back again, after being deleted by Danny and protected by me
> (ZOMG! Wheel war!).  Having seen Ombudsman among the list of
> contributors (actually restarted it after the last deletion) does not
> fill me with confidence...
>
> Guy (JzG)

DRV undeleted it. The new AFD has some pretty strong anti sock
measures. Lets finish this.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Israel News Agency

body:
On Sun, 9 Jul 2006 19:53:45 +0100, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>DRV undeleted it. The new AFD has some pretty strong anti sock
>measures. Lets finish this.

We'll see, I guess.  My impression of the organisation's credibility
is heavily coloured by Leyden's apparent overreaction to the first
deletion.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 7/9/06, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
> Yes - logos appearing in a larger context are OK. Just *how* large that
> context must be is subject of interpretation... a street scene that
> contains some logos somewhere is probably ok. A picture showing nothing
> but a Coca Cola can? Not sure about that.

Trademark, being a lot more context-dependent than copyright is except
for fair use / fair dealing, makes things complicated here.

For example, many everyday objects have on them the trademarked logos
of their creators.  Sometimes very prominently.  In addition, the
shape of a designed object can be trademarked under some
circumstances, and in addition can carry some copyright as well, in
addition to such concepts as "design rights".

Thus, pretty much any photograph of a human-made object is not
completely free - there are always things that could be protected, and
in a world where people increasingly seek legal protection for things,
this is going to come up more and more.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
>> Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
>> taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?

g> It doesn't really matter. As long as it carries out the same function.

Oh, cool. Then, I'm preparing a flower-power GFDL template, one art-nouveau,
hm... maybe even some stuckist templates!

Then, we'd need some guidelines for do-it-yourself custom GFDL templates,
just like for userboxes. Of course, we'd need a directory for them, too.

I wonder whether anti-Iraq War-themed GFDL templates would be allowed...

:-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:
>>>Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
>>>taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?
>
> g> It doesn't really matter. As long as it carries out the same function.
>
> Oh, cool. Then, I'm preparing a flower-power GFDL template, one art-nouveau,
> hm... maybe even some stuckist templates!
>
> Then, we'd need some guidelines for do-it-yourself custom GFDL templates,
> just like for userboxes. Of course, we'd need a directory for them, too.
>
> I wonder whether anti-Iraq War-themed GFDL templates would be allowed...

<WP:BEANS> {{GFDL-goatse}}? </WP:BEANS>

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
On 7/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some
> meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and
> There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for
> these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable.
> We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to
> reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.

What count as reliable sources depends very much on the subject matter.

-Matt


body:
On 7/9/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter
> to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name,
> address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can
> check that you really did send it.

I've had letters published in many different newspapers and other
publications.  While all or almost all require such information, I
have never, ever had any of them check back.

I'd imagine if I was claiming to be a well-known individual, they
MIGHT check it, but even then, I have my doubts whether they would do
so every single time.

> Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this
> scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We
> have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other
> people's, by using only material that has already been checked.

I think it's a huge amount of faith you have in the press that they
check stuff at all well.  My experience is the opposite.

They DO tend to fact-check things that look like they might get them
in trouble - e.g. the famous and influential. Otherwise, most
publications are much slacker with the fact-checking.

Newspapers are also, IMO, much less reliable outside of the sphere of pure news.

-Matt


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an
> excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of
> notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop
> is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
>
One problem with citing "blog X" when saying that "blog X said Y" is
that the blog might very well not exist in a few years.  A copy of a
New York Times story, on the other hand, will certainly exist for many
years.

The other problem is one of original research.  Sure, blog X might
have said Y, but if that's an important enough point to be made in an
encyclopedia article, then someone else will have discussed it.  As I
see it the purpose of barring original research is not so much to bar
unreliable facts as it is to bar original arguments.

It's to bar stuff like this, taken from the current [[George W. Bush]] article:

"The Commission found no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein
possessed stockpiles of WMD. On December 14, 2005, while discussing
the WMD issue, Bush stated that "It is true that much of the
intelligence turned out to be wrong."[35] However, Bush would remain
unwavered when asked if the war had been worth it, or would he have
made the same decision if he had known more."

Anthony


body:
On 7/9/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mistakes in newspapers cost them money, sometimes a lot of money, so
> they're highly motivated not to get things wrong.

What I generally find is that newspapers are highly motivated to get
things right in areas where they feel likely to be sued if they get
things wrong.  In other areas, not so much - especially when it comes
to factual errors that are not likely to be libellous or otherwise
actionable.

In other words, I'm very inclined to trust a newspaper to have
fact-checked an accusation against someone that if wrong would be
grounds for a lawsuit.  I have less confidence in them, for example,
reporting accurately on a technical or scientific matter.  I trust
them less as well when they're merely passing on the word of someone
else - e.g. the New York Times passing on what the police told them
about a suspect doesn't make it any more trustworthy.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
I dislike such a POV-fork of Wikipedia-space stuff, almost as much as
I do an article one.

-Matt


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 7/9/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> > And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an
> > excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of
> > notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop
> > is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
> >
> One problem with citing "blog X" when saying that "blog X said Y" is
> that the blog might very well not exist in a few years. A copy of a
> New York Times story, on the other hand, will certainly exist for many
> years.
>
> The other problem is one of original research. Sure, blog X might
> have said Y, but if that's an important enough point to be made in an
> encyclopedia article, then someone else will have discussed it. As I
> see it the purpose of barring original research is not so much to bar
> unreliable facts as it is to bar original arguments.
>
> It's to bar stuff like this, taken from the current [[George W. Bush]] article:
>
> "The Commission found no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein
> possessed stockpiles of WMD. On December 14, 2005, while discussing
> the WMD issue, Bush stated that "It is true that much of the
> intelligence turned out to be wrong."[35] However, Bush would remain
> unwavered when asked if the war had been worth it, or would he have
> made the same decision if he had known more."
>
> Anthony

And it is *exactly*  transience problems like this that show that we
need to be working more closely with the Internet Archive people (more
closely that is than simply letting ourselves be spidered by 'em and
letting'em d/l database dumps); I've suggested several times that when
a valid ext. link is submitted, it be discreetly tagged with an IA
link (assuming it exists), somewhat like how we're *supposed* to be
validating ISBN links
(http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2391; I really wonder
about this bug- it should be pretty simple and useful, but you know
the devs... got other fish to fry). Or at least a robot to go around
adding links (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1500288&group_id=93107&atid=603141)
if the original is gone.

I mean, c'mon, there's a lot of ways we could use them and they us; is
the current low level of cooperation the best we can do? Wikicommons
alone should be fairly valuable to them- they seem to be packrats for
free content.

~Maru


from_name: Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania notes : early registration ends,
 writing & media contest

body:
SJ wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Early registration for Wikimania ends today; after which the community
> rate for the conference tickets will go up.  The preliminary program
> and proceedings are available from the conference site :
>   http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/
>   http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program
>

Yees.. and people who applied for travel scholarship still do not have
the answer, so they are waiting with registration, as it doesn't make
sense to pay for registration and then do not come to Wikimania.

--
Tomasz "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Polimerek
http://www.ceti.pl/kganicz/poli
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/pl/TomaszGanicz.html


from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
On 09/07/06, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
> >
> > Generally we don't concern ourselves with trademark issues, though.
> >
> > -Matt
>
> Yes, we do. There's a strong bias against having trademarked logos on
> commons. This resulted from a lengthy discussion on this thread some
> months ago, and word from Jimbo.
>
> -- Daniel

I think this is one of many unresolved issues that continues to plague
a standardised implementation of Commons policies.
As I have said before, any guidance from the lawyer-folk would be welcome.

Brianna


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sun, 9 Jul 2006 17:08:19 -0400, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:

>Letters to the editor are checked for authenticity by the newspapers
>printing them; in fact, the fundamental thing making a source reliable
>is fact-checking. Usenet posts do not have fact-checkers.

I have a friend who is one of several people who have had letters
published under their name and address but which they did not write,
and which caricatured their well-known views to cast them in a bad
light.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Sarah

body:
On 7/9/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/9/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter
> > to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name,
> > address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can
> > check that you really did send it.
>
> I'd imagine if I was claiming to be a well-known individual, they
> MIGHT check it, but even then, I have my doubts whether they would do
> so every single time.
>
> > Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this
> > scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We
> > have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other
> > people's, by using only material that has already been checked.
>
> I think it's a huge amount of faith you have in the press that they
> check stuff at all well.  My experience is the opposite.
>
>
Matt, many newspapers do make checks for every letter they're going to
publish. The point is that you have to supply your details so they can
check in principle.

As for fact-checking processes, all decent-sized newspapers will have,
first, an editor who assigns the story to a reporter and who may check
it periodically while it's being written; then it'll be edited by a
copy editor who'll look for obvious factual errors and legal problems;
and then finally by a page editor. That's the bare minimum and that's
only if no problems are picked up. If there are problems, more people
are involved (senior editors, maybe lawyers), and many newspapers and
serious magazines have much more elaborate basic processes. In
addition, all these people are trained researchers/writers/editors.

Mistakes in newspapers cost them money, sometimes a lot of money, so
they're highly motivated not to get things wrong.

We have none of those things. The only thing we have is a policy that
says we have to use halfway decent sources who DO have them.

Sarah


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 7/9/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/8/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/9/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > Why is it that Wikipedians seem to have so much trouble accepting
> > > legitimate criticism?
> >
> > Legitimate criticism should be welcomed, but when the headline says
> > "Wikipedia" as a whole has "confusion" and was "reeling," then that's
> > sensational.
> >
> Sensationalism is what US newspapers (generally) do.  Of course, I
> think the headline that "Ken Lay's death prompts confusion on
> Wikipedia" is perfectly accurate.  The headline doesn't even say that
> Wikipedia is confused - it says that there was confusion "on
> Wikipedia".
>
> > Academics and reporters who know that I've published about Wikipedia
> > ask me - "So, how is that crisis on Wikipedia on Ken Lay?" One even
> > requested to do a TV interview about it.
> >
> > I've written a response on my blog to these folks, explaining the
> > lifescycle of a Wikipedia article:
> > http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2006/07/05/wikipedias-ken-lay-problem/
> >
> Criticising the news media has its place.  But I think there's a lot
> more to learn from this than that the news media engages in
> sensationalism.
>
> > > Wikipedia should be getting its facts *more* correct than the news
> > > outlets, not less.  I remember a similar mess after the death of
> > > [[Jean Charles de Menezes]].  Wikipedia articles repeated
> > > unsubstantiated rumor as though it was fact.
> >
> > Since Wikipedia depends on the first-hand reporting from news outlets,
> > it can only be as good as the ability of human editors to converge on
> > the best version of "the truth" using those sources.
> >
> And if those sources aren't rock solid, they should be cited and
> attributed.  Even to this day I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that
> "Kenneth Lay died from coronary artery disease" without attributing
> that fact to the coroner.

In the last year, I have seen Wikipedia articles use much higher
standards in attribution and referencing, so at least it's moving in
the right direction. I encourage folks to use {{citeneeded}}
liberally.

> What can be done about this?  Well, as was pointed out by mboverload,
> one possible thing is to "stop anons from editing".  But there are an
> infinite number of other, less harsh tweaks, both technical and policy
> based.
>
> This assumes, of course, that there's a problem in the first place,
> other than the fact that newspapers sensationalize.

Garbage in, garbage out? :)

-Andrew


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 7/9/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Letters to the editor are checked for authenticity by the newspapers
> printing them; in fact, the fundamental thing making a source reliable
> is fact-checking. Usenet posts do not have fact-checkers.

I always find it mildly amusing -- and disturbing -- how conservative
and, dare I say it, naive Wikipedia can be when it comes to comparing
old media with the Internet. Every printed source is held up as a
symbol of journalistic integrity, and a guy in Ohio hacking up a
moderate article about some website 2 hours before the deadline is
considered, per WP:WEB, to make the thing more notable than a hundred
blogs with thousands of readers, because he's a "reliable source." Con
artists like Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair must have been evil
geniuses to pass through the firewalls of fact checking built by the
New Republic or the New York Times.

It turns out that when the New York Times actually writes about us,
they do a crappier job at it than the average blog. But, they are
printed on paper and sold on newsstands. It is almost like the
physical manifestation of news on paper carries with it some magic,
transcendental moment in the age of rapid, electronic distribution.
Those who wikify the 1477th revision of an article about a minor pop
celebrity look to the profession of The Journalist with the awe of
devout altar boys.

Take it from a published author and journalist: the process of
actually taking an article from submission to print is much messier
than you might think, especially in newspapers. Fact checking is often
a luxury; as a writer, I had my articles messed up more than once by
an editor who thought he knew what he was doing -- and my byline ended
up on them. In one case it was so bad that I completely severed my
connection to the newspaper, and had to publish a correction online.

So, let's get back to the case of people posting on Usenet. If you
have a group regular participating again and again in the same
newsgroup, and you want to cite a particular post from that group that
was _not contested_, you can pretty safely assume that it was posted
by the same regular. Sure, you might be dealing with an elaborate hoax
dating back several years. Then again, the newspaper you are citing
might be subject to the very same kind of elaborate hoax. At some
point, you have to start making _reasonable assumptions_.

And if you want to verify that it was really written by person X, then
take off your WP:NOR hat for a moment and send the guy an e-mail.
Problem solved. The assumption that anything posted on Usenet is not
reliable is not reasonable. The assumption that an _isolated_ post
that does not match an established pattern needs to be treated with
caution is much more reasonable. The assumption that, if an author
contests the authenticity of a post, we need to believe them, is
generally reasonable.

And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an
excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of
notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop
is the blind worshipping of printed paper.

Erik


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
On 7/9/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> Apparently, some people don't like the GNU drawing in the GFDL
> template and so, for esthetic reasons, a new template was born:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:GFDL-nologo
>
> The reason given, on the edit summary, was:
>
> "some people were annoyed by the cartoon"
>
> Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
> taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Gee, as  the creator, I think I have some say here. I did it in order
to deprecate and replace GFDL-small, which was on TFD and was deleted.

This was in order to get rid of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:GFDL-small&oldid=41582744
which ws an attempt at minimizing the most possible the display of the
GFDL notice.

So I got rid of it, but then people complained, so I opted for a
smallr and simpler version of GFDL as a compromise on both issues
(noral tempalte is huge, but -smalll was almost afootnote)

See my talk and TFD archives for the discussion.

Ask first, shoot later.


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL Templates

body:
On 7/10/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/9/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> > Apparently, some people don't like the GNU drawing in the GFDL
> > template and so, for esthetic reasons, a new template was born:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:GFDL-nologo
> >
> > The reason given, on the edit summary, was:
> >
> > "some people were annoyed by the cartoon"
> >
> > Should we have many copyright templates, one to fit everyone's
> > taste or just one standard, vanilla-flavored template?
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> Gee, as  the creator, I think I have some say here. I did it in order
> to deprecate and replace GFDL-small, which was on TFD and was deleted.
>
> This was in order to get rid of this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:GFDL-small&oldid=41582744
> which ws an attempt at minimizing the most possible the display of the
> GFDL notice.
>
> So I got rid of it, but then people complained, so I opted for a
> smallr and simpler version of GFDL as a compromise on both issues
> (noral tempalte is huge, but -smalll was almost afootnote)
>
> See my talk and TFD archives for the discussion.
>
> Ask first, shoot later.
>
my talk being [[User talk:Drini]]


body:
On 7/10/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest
> have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal
> problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the
> processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But
> Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call
> "reliable sources" who do.

Wikipedia has quite a lot of processes to detect errors, though it
doesn't have the traditional notion of publication. Wikinews does, by
the way. But let's not go there.

The question is: a reliable source for what? A reliable source that
person A said B? Person A tends to be a reliable source for that, and
there are other indicators that he is indeed person A than some
imagined process of verification. The more important question is
whether the statement is relevant to the article, and whether it
speaks for itself or is used to support an original speculation. If
not, we need a secondary source that establishes the context -- but
very often, a primary source is more than sufficient (and in some ways
preferable).

Our own history is an example. Virtually all of it is documented
through electronic mailing lists and edits to the wiki. It is possible
to fake mailing list posts just like it is possible to fake them on
Usenet. So, are we going to dispute that Larry Sanger wrote the "Let's
make a wiki" post on those grounds? Are we going to argue that a
mailing list is not a "reliable source" and we need to wait until some
piece of paper picks up the same information from the same source,
with the added magic pixie dust of print, to turn it into an eternal
truth?

No, because if someone had faked Larry's post, Larry himself would
have pointed it out quite quickly. The situation needs to be looked at
in context, rather than reducing it to a simple formula of "reliable
sources." We need to be very careful that dogma does not take the
place of common sense.

Erik


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 7/9/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've had letters published in many different newspapers and other
> publications.  While all or almost all require such information, I
> have never, ever had any of them check back.

The San Francisco Chronicle called me back the first couple of times
they printed my letters to the editor, and once after I moved from
that address to a new one to verify that I was still me.

Someone cares...

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