from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy

body:
It's very sad to see a really nice person (Rhobite)
abused like this.

I was involved in an earlier RFC with Rhobite and saw
nothing but polite and constructive efforts on his
part.

It is not right that ill-intentioned users can prey on
other user's (nearly) infinite patience and respect
for due process.

Duk

> uc, thanks for the support. I don't know how the AC
> works but I also
> wouldn't be surprised if they found some fault with
> me - I admit I
> have used confrontational language with Reithy, but
> only after he
> started revert warring on my talk page and
> complaining loudly about
> "Rhobitegate" and "The Dying Days of Rhobite's
> Administration." I'll
> own up, he pissed me off a little bit.

> Rhobite

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: make user pages uneditable

body:
Jens Roper wrote

> Sorry for asking what are possibly some horrendously daft questions,
> but I'm seeing some "top-post aversion" reference for the second or
> third time now.

See [[top-posting]] on Wiki-en, [[de:TOFU]].

Charles


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy is a problem

body:
I agree. As someone who has the [[United States Libertarian Party]]
article on my watchlist, I can attest Reithy has been trying to push his
POV for the past few weeks, albeit becoming more stealthy since the RFC
and RFAr. In the most recent example, he placed the results for Michael
Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for US President, in the lead
section, noting that he did "poorly". Such an addition biases the
article by emphasising the party's weaknesses from the start, and was
completely irrelevant in the lead in the first place (does the
Republican party's article have Bush's results for the election in the
lead section?). Reithy's been extremely rude to anyone who disagrees
with his ideas about the Libertarians, and has publicly accused
Wikipedia of pushing Libertarian POV.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Rhobite wrote:

>I apologize if this is the wrong place to go with this. The user
>Reithy is becoming a real problem in terms of edit warring, locking
>articles, and harassing users on talk pages. He pores through my edits
>looking for ways to nitpick, his latest act was a veiled legal threat
>on a fair use image I uploaded:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Image_talk:Doughty_Rockity_Roll.jpg&diff=7114277&oldid=7113911
>
>The image is a low-res album cover, clearly fair use, but he said "I
>will send an email to the record company, if you like to ask whether
>they agree with you." I take this as a legal threat.
>
>He is of course the user who repeatedly vandalized libertarian-related
>articles a couple weeks ago. He has since become more stealthy about
>flagrant violations, but continues to harass me on my talk page. He
>has a current open request for arbitration. No offense, but I'd like
>to get things moving here. He's a troll. Everything he does is acting
>in bad faith. He has even removed charges from his own RFAr, and
>removed links from his evidence page. In my opinion, he should be long
>gone.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Paul (User:Rhobite)
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Yann Forget

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] gu.wiktionary is now off first character
	capitalisation

body:
Hi,

So is the Gujarati Wiktionary (http://gu.wiktionary.org/).

Thanks to Hashar for doing it.

Yann

Le Thursday 4 November 2004 21:29, Yann Forget a ?crit :
> Hi,
>
> So is also the Kannada Wiktionary : http://kn.wiktionary.org
> So that makes 3 today.
>
> Yann
>
> Le Thursday 4 November 2004 18:46, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :
> > Hoi,
> > I have asked for the tr:wiktionary to be changed to have first character
> > capitalisation turned off . Shaihulud was happy to do it for you. New
> > articles can be created with the proper case.
> >
> > This is the second wiktionary today to change over :)
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     Gerard

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Jens Ropers

body:
On 5 Nov 2004, at 14:32, Tim Starling wrote:
> ARRGGHH TOP-POST KILL KILL

On 5 Nov 2004, at 16:49, Charles Matthews wrote:
> Jens Roper wrote
		   ^^-- Jens Roper'''s''' wonders how people can pay more attention
to non-issues such as "top-posting" than to getting each others' names
right. ;o)

Charles Matthews wrote:
> See [[top-posting]] on Wiki-en, [[de:TOFU]].
Ah.
It appears that this is yet another proxy fight for the old "M$ vs.
Open Source software" war.
For the record:
I use Mac OS X Mail. I don't use Microsoft email clients.
Thank you.
Please go easy on the death threats now.

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


from_name: Rhobite

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy

body:
On Fri,  5 Nov 2004 14:52:39 -0700, uninvited at nerstrand.net
<uninvited at nerstrand.net> wrote:
> Sadly, Rhobite is, for the most part, right about Reithy; though I agree
> with Jimbo that threatening to write to a record label regarding album
> art hardly rises to the level of a "legal threat."
>
> Reithy joined us three weeks ago and has made over 500 edits.
>
> The edits have been to roughly a dozen articles, most of them related to
> [[United States Libertarian Party]], to talk pages of these articles and
> those who oppose his edits, and to RFC/RFA related pages where he has
> answered (after a fashion) various complaints about his behavior.
>
> There really is no reason we should have to go through the slow,
> deliberate [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]] process with someone who
> has never been a good-faith contributor to the project.  The safeguards
> present therein are intended to provide a means of cooling off for
> Wikipedians who have contributed in the past and are likely to do so in
> the future.
>
> The present arbitration framework is serving to do nothing but give this
> joker another soapbox.  Rhobite is being subject to undue scrutiny as a
> result of his conflict with Reithy, and I imagine that the AC will, in
> an effort to be evenhanded and "fair" find a bone to pick with one or
> another of his comments or edit summaries.
>
> If Reithy is banned, as seems likely to occur at some point, I imagine
> he'll return with an army of sockpuppets, and those admins who seek out
> fairness to accused sockpuppets will revert any attempts to block them.
>
> This isn't some obscure corner of the 'pedia, folks, like [[Iridology]]
> or [[Instructional capital]].
>
> This is about the article on one of the largest minor political parties
> in U.S. politics, on the 300th largest web site in the world.
>
> Is it time to do something about bad-faith users yet?
>
> UninvitedCompany
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

uc, thanks for the support. I don't know how the AC works but I also
wouldn't be surprised if they found some fault with me - I admit I
have used confrontational language with Reithy, but only after he
started revert warring on my talk page and complaining loudly about
"Rhobitegate" and "The Dying Days of Rhobite's Administration." I'll
own up, he pissed me off a little bit.

The copyright thing may not have been a legal threat but it's just one
instance of insinuation by Reithy which establishes a pattern of
threats. This dispute also involves [[User:Chuck F]], who
unfortunately has edited from two IP addresses. Reithy ran a WHOIS on
the IPs, and has taken to editing articles about the institutions who
own the IPs. He believes Chuck lives at one of these institutions, and
has posted its name a couple times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Chuck_F&diff=7051486&oldid=7048057

AdamBishop did block Reithy last night for 24 hours, after he
repeatedly edited my user page. This marks the second time he has been
blocked for vandalism.

Rhobite


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] was: Reithy; now: POV warriors generally

body:
>>This isn't some obscure corner of the 'pedia, folks, like [[Iridology]]
>>or [[Instructional capital]].
>>
>>This is about the article on one of the largest minor political parties
>>in U.S. politics, on the 300th largest web site in the world.

Ec wrote-
>Your POV is showing.  The second part is true in itself, but the
>comparison with two other ideas merits mentioning.  Controversial as it
>may be , iridology does have a certain following.  Many of these might
>place the Libertarian Party in an obscure corner.  It is a matter of
>pure speculation for the followers of the one to say that the followers
>of the other are in an obscure corner.

>Instructional capital is probably less well known, but that is probably
>only because econo-social theories in general attract less attention.

My ignorance is showing, perhaps, but not my POV; I have never
been much of a supporter of the Libertarian party or of third-party
movements in general.  I chose the other articles as examples that
have been the targets of POV warriors.  Wikipedia lacks hit counters
so we have no objective way of knowing which of these articles is
the most frequently visited, though I still suspect that the Libertarian
page has had more views, particularly with the election and its
aftermath stimulating interest in U.S. politics.

In any case, my point remains: that with Wikipedia's continuing surge
in popularity, we have an obligation of service to our readers.  And
POV warriors are making trouble on articles that, IMO, are now widely
read.

Two years ago it didn't make much difference if *any* article was
protected
for a week on [[m:The wrong version]].  Now it does, at least in some
cases.

UninvitedCompany


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Deactivate Cache for a site

references:
<418694BB.1070105@secuserv.ch>	<418A04FA.7090107@physics.unimelb.edu.au>
	<cmf72t$6r3$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Joel Wiesmann wrote:

> Of course I will publish the results under the GPL - no question ;-). At
> least if the code is good enough! If not, I'll do a mediawiki-section in
> my homepage with some hacks so people with low-hit-wiki's could
> implement the calendar.

cool :-)

If you feel ready, please create a page on http://meta.wikimedia.org for
it and sort it in the
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mediawiki_Extensions
so that it can be found by other people.

Maybe we can integrate the calendar one day as an extension in mediawiki
and getting rid of the ugly temporary solution I set up at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Calendar

greetings,
elian


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

body:
I've been on USENET since 1989, and nobody ever fussed about
top-posting until the very late 1990s. People did whatever they chose.
(People did fuss about not trimming down quoted material from previous
posts, because bandwidth really was an issue). In the late 1990s
someone invented some nonexistent netiquette rule about top-posting,
and people wanting to feel like members of an ingroup began to lambaste
newbies about it.

If you do a Google Groups search on "top-posting" from 1981 to 1996 you
will see that there are only 52 hits and _none_ of them refer to
top-posting as we know it. The hits are on things like
"way-over-the-top posting" and "I had been given some kind of top
posting overseas" and "On our system the FAQ was the top posting."

In 1997 we start to see entries like "You can get in a lot of trouble
in the Netscape newsgroups for 'Top Posting'" and "First, please stop
'top-posting'." In 1998, "I know some groups prefer 'top' posting, but
I think they've got it bassackwards, don't you?" There is an exchange

   > If the quoted text is included at the end of your messages instead
of
   > the beginning, it will significantly increase the speed of reading
   > news.  If you are a fast reader, it might even double it.

     I had a long argument on this with the folks in the NetScape
newsgroup
     a while back. While I agree with your position in general, they
     argued that it was an issue for `newsgroup standards' (i.e. each
     newsgroup adopts its own practice).

     It seems to me that the `core' issue is whether Newsgroup
circulation
     is reliable and timely enough so that you usually have the earlier
     messages to which some response is directed. If you do, then Top
     posting makes the most sense, while if you do not, Bottom posting
     wins.

     As News delivery gets more timely and reliable, we would then expect
     Top posting to become more and more `the rule'...

If it originated in the Netscape groups, I don't know why. Maybe, when
replying to a post, Netscape Communicator's "Collabra" pre-positioned
the insertion point below the quoted text and perhaps Outlook Express,
or whatever AOL was using, pre-positioned it at the top? That could
explain why it became such a bone of contention

By 2000, the level of discourse has become quite elevated: "Now you
have all become top-posting fjuckheads with no direction at all" and
"Oh, here we have a member of the top-posting newbie faggot fan club."
By 2003, "STOP top posting.  That is WHY YOU ARE retarded.  Got clue?"
and "Hands up who isn'ta top posting fuckwit" and "Good illustration of
why top posting is only done by noobs."

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


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: top posting

body:
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
   I've been on USENET since 1989, and nobody ever fussed about
   top-posting until the very late 1990s. People did whatever they
chose.

I've been on USENET longer than that and can say you are quite wrong.
Apart from a few maverics who were idiosyncratic on principle, or
novices who were quickly educated, everyone followed the practice
of inserting replies AFTER quoting what they were replying to.
Not doing it like that, or getting the number of ">" symbols wrong,
was sure to bring complaints.  You can go to
http://groups.google.com and do a quick survey to see that I am right.

I think (but I'm not sure) that the practice of putting replies at the
top
began when some popular software (Microsoft, I bet) made that the
easiest option.  That's when the real wars started, maybe in the late
1990s as you say, but the reason for the wars was that it violated
prior practice, not because nobody cared before.

Zero.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Enotif (E-mail notification for changed pages and
 user_talk pages and more)

body:
On the main documentation page http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif , I
opened a section "Reference list ..." where users, who actually use my
patch, ***can place their comments and their name as references for my
patch***.

Please take note, that there are more pages such as one for reporting
bugs. This should not go to the main page.

Moreover - and this as a suggestion to all developers - my pages (at
least) try to show a framework, how a good documentation can look like
from the very beginning (Enotif is still in the beginning phase): a
bugzilla listing for tracking, _and_ a meta-wiki documentation for
reading and shameless editing for improvements.

Tom


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Some errors in nl: ?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Yann Forget wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I think I found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary (wrong language):
>> * http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalee (not Marathi)
>> * http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/????? (not Tamil)
>> * http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catal_Ke (not Bihari)
>> * http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Denmark (not Malayalam)
>> * http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/air (not Malayalam)
>> * http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ingraji (not Marathi)
>>
>>
> This seems like an awfully difficult problem to police.  We are
> basically at the mercy of the person who puts up this kind of
> material.  Although I'm very active on the English Wiktionary I seldom
> touch the translations except for matters affecting formatting.  This
> is because I have absolutely no idea whether most of these are
> correct.  Often these translations are imported from some other source
> without any attempt at fact checking whatsoever; some people seem to
> take pride in having the longest possible lists of translations.
> Having persistently dead wrong information can affect credibility even
> more than rampant POVs.  At least with a POV issue there is a
> recognition that there is more than one way to look at a subject.
>
> A possible solution might be to forbid the inclusion of translations
> unless
>    1. There is an active Wiktionary in that language, or
>    2. A source has been cited for a particular translation.
> Are there any other fairly easy ways for us to fact-check this kind of
> information?
>
> Ec

The problem here is not that we need to POLICE it, this is a situation
where we meet our strengths and our weaknesses. The model that we use is
one of collaboration; the more people work on the same data the better
the quality. Our problem is that to a large extend we do not work
together as much as we could; we all have our own little wiktionaries
and we hardly notice what happens outside our view. This increases the
likelyhood of errors. The proposal to come to one integrated wiktionary
is a way of solving many of these problems.

I am happy with the increased cooperation between many wiktionaries, I
see it as one of the prerequisites of the maturation of the Wiktionary.

The idea of forbidding translations is contrary to what wiktionary aims
to be. With Wiktionary content it is simple; it is correct or it needs
improvement. The idea that errors are persistent is wrong as the idea is
to correct any and all errors. The conclusion should be to increase any
means that will improve cooperation and not restrict the inclusion of
new data that is believed to be correct.

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Logos switch (got scn zh)

body:
Hello,

Logos for got: scn: and zh: wikipedia have been switched to the
image:wiki.png system :o)

Post logos and switch request on:
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_logos

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Downloading archives of en.old

body:
uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:
> Recently I downloaded the old table for en.  I would like to keep a
> reasonably up-to-date copy of it around for history queries.  You can
> see [[Wikipedia:Another list of Wikipedians by date of arrival]] for
> the sort of stuff that interests me.  I think it helps the project.
>
> Anyway, I know the subject of incremental updates has come up in the
> past, and has been ignored because it's fiddly to do and no one cares
> much.
>
> It would, however, be extremely helpful to me if even the minor measure
> of splitting the files before compression rather than after were taken.
>  That way I could download the last file or two, and cut and paste the
> files based on oldid.  Please....
>
> Thanks
>
> UninvitedCompany

Hello,

It might be faster to generate that list using a sql query directly on
one of wikimedia database server, additionaly tt will save some bandwith.

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


from_name: Robert Jones

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Editing mediawiki so only certain users can edit
	certain pages

body:
If anyone can solve this, I'll happily pay. I've posted it as a question in
Google Answers and would buy something of similar value on someone's (e.g.)
Amazon wish list if it was answered elsewhere. Thanks for your help thus
far, I will also continue to try to solve it myself.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=421607

Regards.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jones
> Sent: 04 November 2004 21:06
> To: 'Wikimedia developers'
> Subject: RE: [Wikitech-l] Editing mediawiki so only certain
> users can editcertain pages
>
>
> Clarification:
>
> Basically I want to prohibit editing in two circumstances,
> and deal with whether it is allowed or not it as per the
> normal rules other circumstances.
>
> 1) if the username contains a colon AND the page name doesn't
> contain a colon then editing is prohibited.
> 2) if the username contains a colon AND the page name
> contains a colon AND the text before each colon doesn't match
> then editing is prohibited.
> 3) otherwise the existing rules apply.
>
> I'm trying to do this by editing includes/Title.php
>
> Many thanks.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Locking small wikis

body:
--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Inactive wikis, with few articles, very sporadic edits, no community
> and no users dedicated to editing them, accumulate spam and vandalism
> and waste much time of those users who check these small wikis for
> such edits.
>
> It is possible for a steward to lock an inactive wiki to prevent it
> from being edited whilst not removing any existing content. Locking a
> wiki is not permanent and can be undone by a steward at any time.

This sounds like a good idea to me.

--mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Locking small wikis


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Jens Ropers wrote:
> I would favour giving every user a preferences ''option'' where they can
> choose whether or not to protect their own user page.
>
> This in part for the reasons Tim gave (below). Also, views about whether
> or not others should be allowed to edit someone's own user page tend to
> differ, so introducing such an option respects and reflects such
> differing views. I don't think non-abusive users who feel that their
> user page is "for them to control" should be ''forced'' to keep it open
> for community editing.

That's arguable...

> Finally, as was observed previously, user page
> vandalism is a bigger problem with some users (and less with others), so
> leaving that one up to the individual user just makes sense.

I agree with that one though.

> * Users should NEVER be allowed to protect their Talk page.

This brings up an interesting point. If we protect user pages, we can
expect vandals to vandalise talk pages instead. That's a lesser evil, to
be sure. However I can see a possible partial technical solution. Users
could enable a moderation queue for their user page. When an anonymous
user makes a change, the software uses a cookie match to display the
unmoderated page to them after they hit save, but to everyone else, the
last approved version is displayed.

Logged-in users get the advantage of a message telling them that their
edit is being held for moderation.

Just a techno-fantasy, I'm not actually planning on coding this.

>
> a still ailing
> -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>     www.ropersonline.com
>
> On 5 Nov 2004, at 17:24, Tim Starling wrote:

<snip>

ARRGGHH TOP-POST KILL KILL

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Pirelli INTERNETional Award

body:
We have been contacted by the assistant to the Manager
of Pirelli INTERNETional Award.

Website : http://www.pirelliaward.com

The Pirelli INTERNETional Award call for contributions
to the diffusion of scientific and technological
culture, with an overall budget prize of 135,000 Euros
(about US$ 170,000), plus 25,000 Euros for this year's
Pirelli Relativity Challenge, a special prize for the
centenary of the publication of the Special Relativity
Theory: http://www.pirelliaward.com/einstein.html

Submissions to the Pirelli INTERNETional Award must
be:

1. a multimedia work
2. for the spread of scientific and technological
culture
3. of maximum 150 Megabytes in size
4. in the English and Italian language

Applications should be done online
http://www.pirelliaward.com/ch5_intro.html and work
submited via FTP by December 31st, 2004.

---------

I made a page on meta :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_Relativity_Challenge_2005

Please, note that there are already articles in
english AND italian.

I think work is needed to get the best of the two
versions to make one common great article. And if
possible (in particular if WE WIN the award) to have
this article translated in many languages.

Of course, editors of all languages are welcome to
work on this challenge.

Berto, from it, has agreed to work on this, and help
provide a common best article.

Danny is also very excited by the idea, and will
coordinate the submission.

There is an issue on how it should be presented.

------

I also think this is a great opportunity for two
languages to cooperate, so I hope we can do this well
and in peace.

What do you all think ?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_Relativity_Challenge_2005

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pirelli INTERNETional Award


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Locking small wikis

body:
Inactive wikis, with few articles, very sporadic edits, no community
and no users dedicated to editing them, accumulate spam and vandalism
and waste much time of those users who check these small wikis for
such edits.

It is possible for a steward to lock an inactive wiki to prevent it
from being edited whilst not removing any existing content. Locking a
wiki is not permanent and can be undone by a steward at any time.

I would like to see whether there are any objections to this being
done for the inactive Wikipedias, and other projects. I have proposed
a procedure for this at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis
and would appreciate any comments on it.

To see the message that would be shown when someone tries to edit a
locked wiki, please see
http://ba.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&action=edit

Thanks

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Locking small wikis


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Editing mediawiki so only certain users can
	editcertain pages

body:
After a lot of testing, I eventually solved the problem by adding these four
lines to "function userCanEdit()" in "includes/Title.php"

It's a bit messy and I think the "i"s are not necessary, but I hope this is
of use to someone.

if ( preg_match("/:/i",$wgUser->getName()) and
!preg_match("/:/i",$this->mDbkeyform) ) { return false; }
$pageprefixtext = preg_split("/:/i",$this->mDbkeyform);
$userprefixtext = preg_split("/:/i",$wgUser->getName());
if ( preg_match("/:/i",$wgUser->getName()) and
preg_match("/:/i",$this->mDbkeyform) and $pageprefixtext[0] !=
$userprefixtext[0] ) { return false; }


body:
Rick wrote:
 > Do you people not understand how much disgusting (pornographic,
 > name-calling) vandalism goes on on User pages?  It's one of the main
 > reasons for blocking anons.  The Talk page is for editing.  The User
 > page is for a person's philosophy, who they are, what they are.  Why
 > do you feel the need to do that?  What's wrong with just editing the
 > Talk page and leaving the User page alone?

I admit I was being flippant, there's certainly a good argument in
favour of protecting user pages. There's certain cases where editing
someone else's user page would be desirable, but it's rarely done anyway
for philosophical reasons. Two French users, Anthere and Hashar, were
kind enough to respond to my post by editing my user page, and I
responded in kind by correcting mistakes in their English on their en
user pages. Head did the same for me once, correcting my
machine-translated German at
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Tim_Starling . These actions could
only be considered to be a good thing.

However, it's perfectly clear that the vast bulk of user page edits, say
99%, are malicious. That's partly because good users don't fix mistakes
on other peoples' user pages out of courtesy, but vandals wishing to
make a personal attack are not so inhibited.

So maybe 90% of edits to articles are made in good faith, but only 1% of
edits of other peoples' user pages. There's an argument to be had for
reducing that 1% of good edits by putting up barriers, in exchange for
removing the need to revert the other 99%.

Despite what I said in my hasty first post, I'm actually undecided.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
I support this.  I wish that there was a "softer" way to do it, but as
their isn't at the moment, this is the best alternative I think.

By "softer" I mean some settings like "no external links" and "no anon
edits" and perhaps "new accounts require email confirmation" and "all
edits require captcha solution".  Also, something like "tiny wiki
combined RC" -- if people would enjoy keeping an eye on these.

Those sorts of measures would leave us be more aggressive about
leaving things open.

--
"La n??fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Some errors in nl: ?

body:
 --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Yann Forget wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >I think I found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary
> (wrong language):
> >* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalee (not
> Marathi)
> >* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/?????
???? (not
> Tamil)
> >* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catal_Ke (not
> Bihari)
> >* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Denmark (not
> Malayalam)
> >* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/air (not Malayalam)
> >* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ingraji (not
> Marathi)
> >
> >
> This seems like an awfully difficult problem to
> police.  We are
> basically at the mercy of the person who puts up
> this kind of material.
> Although I'm very active on the English Wiktionary I
> seldom touch the
> translations except for matters affecting
> formatting.  This is because I
> have absolutely no idea whether most of these are
> correct.  Often these
> translations are imported from some other source
> without any attempt at
> fact checking whatsoever; some people seem to take
> pride in having the
> longest possible lists of translations.  Having
> persistently dead wrong
> information can affect credibility even more than
> rampant POVs.  At
> least with a POV issue there is a recognition that
> there is more than
> one way to look at a subject.
>
> A possible solution might be to forbid the inclusion
> of translations unless
>     1. There is an active Wiktionary in that
> language, or
>     2. A source has been cited for a particular
> translation.
> Are there any other fairly easy ways for us to
> fact-check this kind of
> information?

Well there is always the talk page for each word. One
of the benefits of a distributed project is that
everybody can have their say and wandering experts and
native speakers are always welcome.

-- Hippetrail

> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>

=====
http://linguaphile.sf.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl    http://www.abisource.com

___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was
	Reithy is a problem)

body:
> From: Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 23:58:59 +1100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a
> problem)
>
> I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite
> accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it
> first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
>
> Firstly, there is no need to require a standard of evidence analogous to
> a criminal court. We're not sending someone to jail, we're attempting to
> exclude them from our community. I suggested, and still recommend, a
> standard of evidence analogous to a civil court -- that is, a balance of
> probabilities rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Actually we are requiring that they conform to our policies upon pain of
being excluded if they don't. As most evidence involves edits by
identifiable users, the evidence is plain, the question is what to make of
it; so it is not standards of proof which are involved but questions of
policy.
>
> Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by
> Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has
> something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a
> single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it
> thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along,
> within the bounds of community norms.

As now constituted, it would be difficult to get us together, prepared (this
is important--you have to have looked at the edits before you sit down) for
such a procedure. We have acted quickly in a few instances, but in general
most arbitrators move relatively slowly. Being elected and not being afraid
of controversy is a contradiction. I think we try to do what is best for the
community and when there is no explicit rule try to find a way to resolve a
dispute within expressed community norms.
>
> Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and
> get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will
> come back under a different name. But at least the community will be
> able to unite behind the AC ruling.

This was tried at first by one arbitrator but was overruled by the majority.
Unless the bulk of the arbitrators differ markedly from the users there is
little support for lifetime banning.
>
> The best way to deal with trolls is to unite the community against them,
> then put up with them until they grow out of it. It only took Michael 18
> months. Even adult trolls like 142 eventually get bored and go do
> something else, but you've got to expect it to take a year or two.
>
> If only trolling was an criminal offence by international treaty...

It proved impossible to ban obvious trolls who advertised it by
incorporating troll into their usernames. It was insisted that they should
be "judged by their edits" not their username. With respect to uniting the
community, when we were smaller that happened, now there are a number of
troublesome users that I only become aware of when a request shows up in
requests for arbitration.

May I suggest that when a serious matter arises that any user disturbed by
it engage in the dispute resolution procedure. Our failures to act in cases
which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.

Fred
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Great French invention

body:
On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 08:04:32 +0100, Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Yannf has added a category "language" to the categories that hold the
> words in a language. This gives you one list with all lists of words in
> a particular language.

What, like our Latin [[Category:Linguae]] ? ;)
http://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Linguae

(I realize I digress entirely with this next section here:)

A lot of Latin categories belong to other categories.  It keeps them all in order.  For example you can start at the list of names of animals in the family "Canidae":
http://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Canidae

and it is categorized under the order "Carnivora", which is categorized under the class "Mammalia", which is under the phylum "Chordata", etc., the whole tree under a taxonomy category.   I think it is a better system than other wiktionaries use.   Instead of being broad in domain but narrow in coverage (like en:'s "English mammals" or fr:'s "Lexique en fran?ais des animaux") it goes for narrow in domain but broad in coverage: entries are categorized by family, but contain words in all languages, which I think is a more useful kind of collection...

It does have the drawback of requiring many more categories, though: currently with 682 words we have 213 categories, which is even more categories than en: has!  ;)

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Some errors in nl: ?

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I think I found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary (wrong language):
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalee (not Marathi)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/????? (not Tamil)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catal_Ke (not Bihari)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Denmark (not Malayalam)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/air (not Malayalam)
>* http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ingraji (not Marathi)
>
>Yann
>
Hoi,
Thanks for the corrections. I made the necessary changes.
Thanks,
    Gerard


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Great French invention

body:
Hoi,
Yannf has added a category "language" to the categories that hold the
words in a language. This gives you one list with all lists of words in
a particular language. To make it really nice, he is adding links from
one list of words in a language to the same list on a different
wiktionary. This makes it possible to compare content between the
different wiktionaries.

A category displays how many entries there are on a list; I have used
this on the "nl:Hoofdpagina", the main page, to indicate how many
languages we may have words in.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Some errors in nl: ?

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>>Yann Forget wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>I think I found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary
>>>
>>>
>> .......
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>This seems like an awfully difficult problem to
>>police.  We are
>>basically at the mercy of the person who puts up
>>this kind of material.
>>
>>A possible solution might be to forbid the inclusion
>>of translations unless
>>    1. There is an active Wiktionary in that
>>language, or
>>    2. A source has been cited for a particular
>>translation.
>>Are there any other fairly easy ways for us to
>>fact-check this kind of
>>information?
>>
>>
>
>Well there is always the talk page for each word. One
>of the benefits of a distributed project is that
>everybody can have their say and wandering experts and
>native speakers are always welcome.
>
>
>
The real problems are very different instead:
1) co-operation
2) time
3) computer / internet literacy

1) co-operation
Many people don't "think global and act local" - they just would like to
see their name at top and that's all - whenever they have to contribute
it is hard to motivate them. Out of approx. 1000 translators I tried to
interest only three would contribute and not even one of those three online.
There are many, many small wiktionaries and only a small group is now
interacting (and this is great :-)

2) time
Not everyone of us has enough time to do everything he/she would like to
do. Many would like to do more and many do a lot on single wiktionaries
- the same work done could be quite easily used for all wiktionaries -->
database solution

3) computer / internet literacy
Like I said above: the few people that write me and who would like to
contribute have one huge problem: most of them are not used to wikis -
they send me glossaries to be included (and these glossaries often
represent years of work for a translator) - on one hand they just don't
have the time to restart from the beginning uploading one word after the
other (we have one of approx. 7000 checked translations) and on the
other: they just don't know how to do this. Many of my colleagues use
the computer just like a typewriter. As soon as they have to work with
something else but Word they indeed have difficulties. So the language
experts are there, but they are not willing/not able/don't have time to
care about online work. I know from others I talked to on the phone that
they just don't offer their help as they belive not to be able to do
anything online or that their work (very valuable glossaries made by
specialists) are not of interest.

I have been thinking about these themes for some weeks now, discussed
with colleagues, discussed with my former business partner (who is
always full of ideas and checks my Italian writings for wiktionary) -
the only real solution would be: a human interface between many language
specialists and wiktionary, but not every single wiktionary - a global
one - so every contribution would have immediate effect and only the UI
would be different. Yes, I know, some don't like this idea, but
witktionary is very different to wikipedia, wikisource, wikibooks etc -
it uses data that is interchangeable if prepared wisely.

There are many potential contributors that could and would help with
their expertise, but they need an interface (a human one), someone to
talk to and we should find the way to include their expertise, the
linguist one.

I'll write a second mail that centers on a small project (that hopefully
will become very, very huge) we are trying to achieve and includes some
other basic questions. Even this one depends on proof reading, new
entries etc. I am just coping with the above difficulties within this
project and step by step it becomes very clear what we need.

Ciao,

Sabine


from_name: Bill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: top posting

body:
zero 0000 wrote:

[...]

> I think (but I'm not sure) that the practice of putting replies at the
> top
> began when some popular software (Microsoft, I bet) made that the
> easiest option.  That's when the real wars started, maybe in the late
> 1990s as you say, but the reason for the wars was that it violated
> prior practice, not because nobody cared before.

Yes, Microsoft software has been a major contributor to this phenomenum.
  It also contributes to HTML posting on Usenet.

Another major turning point for Usenet was September 1993, also known as
"The September that never ended".  Up until that date, Usenet underwent
trauma each year in September when first year students came to U.S.
universities and began using Usenet for the first time.  Because they
were new to it, they violated the cultural norms that had been
established by the community.  But, until 1993 experienced Usenet users
were able to deal with the problem and acculturate the relatively small
number of newcomers.  But during that month in 1993 AOL gave it members
access to Usenet.  The massive number of new users overwhelmed the
system and September 1993 came to be called "The September that never
ended".  I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that "top-posting"
became permanently prevalent after this.

Bill


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Locking small wikis

body:
That looks fine to me.

I think the closing should be announced on the wiki main page, on meta,
and on this list.

The point I think would need discussion is "It will be unlocked if there
is interest in reopening it."

This require discussion on how we now open new languages projects.

Anthere

Angela a ?crit:
> Inactive wikis, with few articles, very sporadic edits, no community
> and no users dedicated to editing them, accumulate spam and vandalism
> and waste much time of those users who check these small wikis for
> such edits.
>
> It is possible for a steward to lock an inactive wiki to prevent it
> from being edited whilst not removing any existing content. Locking a
> wiki is not permanent and can be undone by a steward at any time.
>
> I would like to see whether there are any objections to this being
> done for the inactive Wikipedias, and other projects. I have proposed
> a procedure for this at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis
> and would appreciate any comments on it.
>
> To see the message that would be shown when someone tries to edit a
> locked wiki, please see
> http://ba.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&action=edit
>
> Thanks
>
> Angela.


from_name: Lars Alvik

subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Request for new Wikipedia: bokmål

body:
Ok, there are some basic facts, that the request didn't provide.

1. Most of the articles on no: is on either bokm?l or riksm?l.
2. The debate started on nn:, and is probably an attempt to claim (or
deny the other part use of the no; domain)
3. A split (practicaly a move) would give bokm?l (the dominant
language) a unfamiliar name.

mvh.

Lars Alvik


body:
I suppose we could ask for users to serve as "prosecutors, a few do now on
their own. We don't seem in mind in such cases that the offended parties are
not bringing the case but a third party who has marshalled all the offenses
together and made a case.

Fred

> From: Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 02:10:25 +1100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a
> problem)
>
>> May I suggest that when a serious matter arises that any user disturbed by
>> it engage in the dispute resolution procedure. Our failures to act in cases
>> which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.
>
> All I'm asking for is that every once in a while, we re-evaluate our
> dogma. You say "we do not initiate cases" as if that settles the matter.
> I don't know if your rule about not initiating cases is good or bad, I
> just wish we'd think about it critically every once in a while.
>
> Let me take the negative position. Why not act on cases that are not
> brought before you? Is this a serious balance to your power? If the 9 of
> you wanted to abuse your power and bend editorial direction to suit your
> philosophy, would you have trouble finding a single non-member to bring
> cases that you secretly ask to be brought? If you are aware of failures,
> trolls bringing stress and anger to honest contributors and damaging the
> quality of the encyclopedia, how can you sit by and do nothing in good
> conscience?
>
> -- Tim Starling


subject: [Wiktionary-l] How to receive help in a subproject - "Christmas"

body:
Some days ago Gerard and I talked about "what would happen if we start a
subproject with just one sentence to be translated/checked in as many
languages as possible". Really I don't remember how we started to talk
about "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year", but I myself did something
similar last year on my private wiki, just with "Merry Christmas" and I
am now adding the translations step by step to the Italian wiktionary.

You can have a look at this here:
http://wiki.wesolveitnet.com/wakka.php?wakka=MerryChristmas
and Gerard had a list of  "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year" in many
languages

For now the pages are present on the Italien wiktionary here:
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categoria:Terminologia_natalizia
(as you can note: from one sentence we are already on "some pages")

Babbo Natale = Santa Claus

Buon Natale = Merry Christmas

Bon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo! = Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Cristo = Christ

Natale = Christmas

albero di Natale = Christmas tree

presepe = crib

caldendaro d'avvento = advent calendar

calendario di Natale = advent calendar

avvento = advent

In the meantime I started to contact single people to ask for help
checking the translations that are already there. I am writing single
messages to people of that specific language - people who normally
contribute to wikipedia (checking out how they work on wikipedia and how
likely they should contribute). Two out of ten answered/checked/amended
things. The same percentage is valid for translators I contacted directly.

At this stage it is useless to transfer these long lists of translations
to other wiktionaries - they need proffreading first. Only after
proofreading we can really start to work on this theme everywhere. This
means that now I am concentrating on contacting people who could help me
writing myself some kind of logbook of what I did, who I contacted and
who answered. (and this means at least one e-mail for every single
language).

What would be quite urgent for proof reading "jobs" and for special
requests for single translations is a list of people we can ask for
certain language combinations.

Example:
English-Dutch: Gerard
English-German: myself
English-Italian: myself, my former business partner
German-Italian: myself, my former business partner
Italian-German: myself, my former business partner
English-Turkish: Funda
English-Bulgarian: Stanislav
English-Azerbaijani: Metin
(of course including e-mail addresses)

If we had a list like this made of only wikipedians/wiktionarists we
could send them a short mail without long explanations inserting the
link together with the language combination to check - they go there and
just do it and answer with "OK" as soon as it is done - so we don't need
to check if it has been done and if we did not receive an answer within
X hours/days we can send the same request to another person of the list.

In addition to those people who know how to work with wikis we should
think about a second list of people, outside wiktionary - they can then
try to insert things (and ask for help on how to do this) and this would
lead to new users and contributors or they just can send amendments to
be made by mail to the person who made the request (sometimes it would
be hard for someone to make amendments if the request e.g. is
English-Hindi and the amendment should be made on the Italian
wiktionary). Even this, over the time will result in more people
contributing as sooner or later these people will ask how to work
directly as we give value to them and their expertise.

But: these people should at least have the possibilty to show that they
are contributors for wiktionary - maybe adding them to a list online. I
am trying to do this for the Christmas project here:
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Utente:SabineCretella/Ringraziamenti
And if possible I would like to add a link to their homepage if you
agree - since they contribute (of course only if they would like to add
the link themselves).

Anyway I will create the list for myself if we don't want to do this
"for all" as I see it as the only reliable way to ask for help if we
create small subprojects. People can only contribute if they know where
their help is needed.

Of course there will be always those who come online, check the last
changes and add some parts, add new words etc. - and they are of course
more than welcome. But sometimes there is the need to contact single
persons to have checked things out and I find it a better way to ask
single persons instead of bothering many many people who potentially are
not interested through a mailing list.

So now my request: who on this list would be available for
checks/requests for single words in which language combination(s)?  I
need your help for the Christmas terms and a second subproject I already
prepared offline some time ago (I'll start adding this later on - all
this depends on other work to be done).

btw.: I just created a separate e-mail address for wiktionary - I am
going to use that one for term requests in order to have everything that
concerns terminology in one subfolder: wiktionary at wesolveitnet.com - it
will be available in approx two hours.

I know that basically what I wrote here is quite a lot of work (I am
doing it right now) but there's no alternative for now - we don't have a
database - we have wikis.

Comments, help, ideas are highly welcome.

Ciao, Sabine

--
Sabine Cretella
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
Phone: +39-340-18098278
Skype: callto://sabinecretella

Meetingplace for translators
www.wesolveitnet.com


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Great French invention

references:
<418C7780.4090005@myrealbox.com>
	<opsg1sbqjh2okkek@arcadia.attbi.com>
	<418CF9E5.1060200@myrealbox.com>

body:
On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 17:20:53 +0100, Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Yann, has improved the standard that several wiktionaries share. The
> Latin list is valuable and therefore I have created interlanguage links
> to the equivalents in other wiktionaries. To make communication between
> the wiktionaries easier, I also try to find where "the bar", "the kroeg"
> or however it is called in a wiktionary and create a link to it. The
> [[nl:WikiWoordenboek:De kroeg]] refers to:
> [[de:Wiktionary:Ich brauche Hilfe]]
> [[en:Wiktionary:Beer parlour]]
> [[fr:Wiktionnaire:Wikid?mie]]
> [[hi:??????????:???? ?? ????]]
> [[it:Wikizionario:Bar]]
> [[ja:Wiktionary:???]]
> [[la:O]]
> [[sv:Wiktionary:Bybrunnen]]
> [[zh:Wiktionary:???]]
>
> I would be happy to extend this list :)

It is not [[la:O]] !  I think that was an inline link someone (probably me) tried to make in the en:beer parlor either forgetting to preface the colon ([[:la:O]]) or before interwikis were turned on.  The Latin page is [[Wikipedia:Taberna]].  (Yes, Wikipedia, because the namespaces' translations are still unimplemented...)

> As to categories, personally I often fine them more a nuisance than a
> help. I have found that barbed wire was put into the category "building
> material" which to me is silly.

What else is it used for?  The only purpose I know of is building fences.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting

body:
The location of today's Foundation meeting will be changed from
#wikimedia to #meeting.wikimedia to ensure the meeting does not go on
forever.

As Anthere announced last week, this meeting is being held today to
brainstorm ideas related to the future plans of the Foundation. For
details, please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda

Date: Saturday the 6 November
Time: 20:00 - 21:30 UTC (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Timezone_conversion )
Location (*CHANGED*) : irc://irc.freenode.net/meeting.wikimedia

This meeting is open to everyone who does not cause a disturbance. A
log will be published on Meta tomorrow.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy
	is a problem)

body:
--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite
> accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it
> first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
> ...

Tim - we are having an election for several ArbCom seats in December. Please
run.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

body:
Related to this, I think that gmail and other advanced mail programs
have neutralized some of the sin of top posting, because they
intelligently hide the quoted text. However, the diversity of mail
programs now means a wide range of experiences for users (ie. it will
bother some folks immensely, while not bothering others).

For Gmailers, a 115 message thread is manageable, but for others, it
can be extremely aggravating.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 20:13:36 -0500, Daniel P. B. Smith
<dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> I've been on USENET since 1989, and nobody ever fussed about
> top-posting until the very late 1990s. People did whatever they chose.
> (People did fuss about not trimming down quoted material from previous
> posts, because bandwidth really was an issue). In the late 1990s
> someone invented some nonexistent netiquette rule about top-posting,
> and people wanting to feel like members of an ingroup began to lambaste
> newbies about it.
>
> If you do a Google Groups search on "top-posting" from 1981 to 1996 you
> will see that there are only 52 hits and _none_ of them refer to
> top-posting as we know it. The hits are on things like
> "way-over-the-top posting" and "I had been given some kind of top
> posting overseas" and "On our system the FAQ was the top posting."
>
> In 1997 we start to see entries like "You can get in a lot of trouble
> in the Netscape newsgroups for 'Top Posting'" and "First, please stop
> 'top-posting'." In 1998, "I know some groups prefer 'top' posting, but
> I think they've got it bassackwards, don't you?" There is an exchange
>
>    > If the quoted text is included at the end of your messages instead
> of
>    > the beginning, it will significantly increase the speed of reading
>    > news.  If you are a fast reader, it might even double it.
>
>      I had a long argument on this with the folks in the NetScape
> newsgroup
>      a while back. While I agree with your position in general, they
>      argued that it was an issue for `newsgroup standards' (i.e. each
>      newsgroup adopts its own practice).
>
>      It seems to me that the `core' issue is whether Newsgroup
> circulation
>      is reliable and timely enough so that you usually have the earlier
>      messages to which some response is directed. If you do, then Top
>      posting makes the most sense, while if you do not, Bottom posting
>      wins.
>
>      As News delivery gets more timely and reliable, we would then expect
>      Top posting to become more and more `the rule'...
>
> If it originated in the Netscape groups, I don't know why. Maybe, when
> replying to a post, Netscape Communicator's "Collabra" pre-positioned
> the insertion point below the quoted text and perhaps Outlook Express,
> or whatever AOL was using, pre-positioned it at the top? That could
> explain why it became such a bone of contention
>
> By 2000, the level of discourse has become quite elevated: "Now you
> have all become top-posting fjuckheads with no direction at all" and
> "Oh, here we have a member of the top-posting newbie faggot fan club."
> By 2003, "STOP top posting.  That is WHY YOU ARE retarded.  Got clue?"
> and "Hands up who isn'ta top posting fuckwit" and "Good illustration of
> why top posting is only done by noobs."
>
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
> "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
> Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
> Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
> Lots of people saying they are in favor

Holy crap - does this mean that we actually decided something definitively and
uncontroversially on the mailing list? I can't remember the last time that
happened.

Oh, I also agree. :)

-- mav

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


from_name: Giovanni

subject: [Wikitech-l] About links

body:
Mediawiki script is used for different kind of sites.
It could be a good idea to study a way to let links to have all characters including special characters.
This because could be necessary to create a link includind chars as +, #, etc. as discussed in a previous post.
Personally I use Mediawiki for a site about programming anda often happen that I need creating a ling as [[C++]], [[C#]] and other.
Is this a featur requested also by other people?
What do you think about?
Thanks.

Giovanni Putignano
Italy


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Pirelli INTERNETional Award

body:
Some editors questionned the fact we could be within the requirements of
eligibility due to the mention of "multimedia" work.

This is a relevant comment.

However, I would like to insist that Jimbo was contacted directly by the
organiser of the challenge, and that there should not be problems of
eligibility, as we were *specifically invited* to submit.

Anthere

Anthere a ?crit:
> We have been contacted by the assistant to the Manager
> of Pirelli INTERNETional Award.
>
> Website : http://www.pirelliaward.com
>
> The Pirelli INTERNETional Award call for contributions
> to the diffusion of scientific and technological
> culture, with an overall budget prize of 135,000 Euros
> (about US$ 170,000), plus 25,000 Euros for this year's
> Pirelli Relativity Challenge, a special prize for the
> centenary of the publication of the Special Relativity
> Theory: http://www.pirelliaward.com/einstein.html
>
> Submissions to the Pirelli INTERNETional Award must
> be:
>
> 1. a multimedia work
> 2. for the spread of scientific and technological
> culture
> 3. of maximum 150 Megabytes in size
> 4. in the English and Italian language
>
> Applications should be done online
> http://www.pirelliaward.com/ch5_intro.html and work
> submited via FTP by December 31st, 2004.
>
> ---------
>
> I made a page on meta :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_Relativity_Challenge_2005
>
> Please, note that there are already articles in
> english AND italian.
>
> I think work is needed to get the best of the two
> versions to make one common great article. And if
> possible (in particular if WE WIN the award) to have
> this article translated in many languages.
>
> Of course, editors of all languages are welcome to
> work on this challenge.
>
> Berto, from it, has agreed to work on this, and help
> provide a common best article.
>
> Danny is also very excited by the idea, and will
> coordinate the submission.
>
> There is an issue on how it should be presented.
>
> ------
>
> I also think this is a great opportunity for two
> languages to cooperate, so I hope we can do this well
> and in peace.
>
> What do you all think ?
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_Relativity_Challenge_2005
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
> www.yahoo.com
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiIT-l mailing list
> WikiIT-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiit-l


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
It's not uncontroversial; it's just that resistance is futile.

Mark

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 10:35:09 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Lots of people saying they are in favor
>
> Holy crap - does this mean that we actually decided something definitively and
> uncontroversially on the mailing list? I can't remember the last time that
> happened.
>
> Oh, I also agree. :)
>
> -- mav
>
> __________________________________________________
> 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
>


from_name: AV Dictionary Project

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Licensing Question

body:
I would like to use text from the English language versions of the Wikipedia/Wiktionary in a derivative work (an English language dictionary of audiovisual industry terms). The GNU Free Documentation License confuses me (and I'm trying to avoid having to hire a lawyer), so I am not sure if I can use the Wikimedia material as intended (since my intended use does not exactly follow one of the examples given). Would the following be acceptable?

* Various articles from the Wikipedia and Wiktionary would be used as the basis of a derivative work (specifically, individual entries in an audiovisual dictionary). This work will also contain original material and other materials licensed from third parties. Wikimedia articles would never be reproduced verbatim in their entirety. Articles based on Wikimedia material would represent a small fraction of the overall work (there are already in excess of 10,000 identified terms without making direct use of any Wikimedia materials).

* Rather than identify each use of Wikimedia material (either accompanying each derived entry or in an exhaustive list at the end, which the proposed format would not accommodate), I would acknowledge the Wikimedia origin of some of the dictionary's material in two ways:

    1. Citations in the bibliography indicating that Wikimedia material was used in the development of the dictionary (the traditional citation for fair use of copyrighted material in an academic work):

    Wikipedia, St. Petersburg, Florida: Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org.

    Wiktionary, St. Petersburg, Florida: Wikimedia Foundation, en.wiktionary.org.

    2. Entries in the section of the acknowledgements that identifies copyrighted material incorporated into the dictionary under license from the copyright holder:

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

? Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

GNU Free Documentation License, www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Wiktionary: a wiki-based Open Content dictionary

(en.wiktionary.org)

? Wikimedia Foundation, en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Copyrights

GNU Free Documentation License, www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

* Those portions of the work licensed from third parties and entries that do not contain Wikimedia material would not fall under the GNU Free Documentation License, but would remain under the ownership of the respective copyright holders.

* If the dictionary is made available online, it would be formatted using standard HTML and the URLs noted above would be presented as live links. Most likely, it will be published as a printed book.

So, can I use Wikimedia material under these conditions? If this is not acceptable, then I will limit myself to traditional fair use applications only.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

--Richard


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request to add ang to tracking

body:
On Nov 4, 2004, at 5:41 AM, James R. Johnson wrote:
>             I'd like to request that the ang wikipedia be added to the
> tracking that the other wikipedias now enjoy (users, pages, edits,
> etc.).

What does this mean?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20041106/86537869/attachment.pgp


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy
	is	a problem)

body:
At 11:58 PM 11/6/2004 +1100, Tim Starling wrote:

>I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite
>accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it first
>started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
>
>Firstly, there is no need to require a standard of evidence analogous to a
>criminal court. We're not sending someone to jail, we're attempting to
>exclude them from our community. I suggested, and still recommend, a
>standard of evidence analogous to a civil court -- that is, a balance of
>probabilities rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.
>
>Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by
>Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has
>something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a
>single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it
>thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along,
>within the bounds of community norms.
>
>Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get
>it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come
>back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to
>unite behind the AC ruling.

Hear hear! I usually avoid controversy but a little while ago as a sort of
experiment (and as a good deed) I grabbed a random page off the top of
requests for protection and, after protecting it, I stayed to participate
in trying to sort out what the problem was. I figured I could approach the
situation without stress since I didn't have any personal investment in the
article or indeed much in the way of knowledge about it. Anyway, the
situation eventually turned into a request for arbitration, and it took a
full month before the arbitration committee voted on whether to accept the
case. It's currently sitting in evidence-gathering phase.

The case isn't tremendously complex, it originated in a dispute over the
accuracy and NPOVness of two versions of one paragraph that said very
similar things and the subsequent accusations of policy violations were
confined to just the article's talk page and a survey page I later set up.
Perhaps there could be some way to fast-track such cases, a "lower court"
with a time limit of a week or two to resolution?


body:
On Nov 6, 2004, at 12:41 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> I think he wants it added to the stats.

Right, that makes sense. (tweak tweak) On the next backup+statistics
run (next week?) it should include all available wikis instead of a
large but incomplete subset.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20041106/a8efad27/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

body:
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
> I've been on USENET since 1989, and nobody ever fussed about top-posting
> until the very late 1990s. People did whatever they chose. (People did
> fuss about not trimming down quoted material from previous posts,
> because bandwidth really was an issue). In the late 1990s someone
> invented some nonexistent netiquette rule about top-posting, and people
> wanting to feel like members of an ingroup began to lambaste newbies
> about it.

It just annoyed me because I had to scroll down to find out what he was
talking about. Start reading, get confused, scroll down, cotton on,
scroll up. Lots of people on usenet top-post and I wish they wouldn't.

-- Tim Starling


body:
I think he wants it added to the stats.

Mark

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 12:34:35 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Nov 4, 2004, at 5:41 AM, James R. Johnson wrote:
> >             I'd like to request that the ang wikipedia be added to the
> > tracking that the other wikipedias now enjoy (users, pages, edits,
> > etc.).
>
> What does this mean?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: André Müller

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
Hope this doesn't seem like a dumb question... Does locking the small
Wikis mean that no one can access them at all until there is a request
in reopening it again? Or is it just that no one will be able to edit or
create entries anymore? OR is it that *only* logged in users are able to
edit/create the articles in it?

The latter seems like a good solution to me, if this is possible.

- Andr?


from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

body:
On 6 Nov 2004, at 02:13, Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:

> <snip top-posting related email />
>
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith

Thanks Daniel. :)
Your post explains a lot, "reaches out to the ostracized", rightly
ranks this issue as what it is (a matter of preference) and boldly
dares to criticize the intrepid proponents of "the right way".

While I have personally never been more than a fleeting usenet-visitor
(if at all), my long abstention from online activities (incl. BBS' and
Internet services, especially "old school" ones such as IRC, NNTP) had
more to do with German and Irish phone pricing than with any lack of
"techiness". Even local calls were NEVER free/flatrate, and way back
when there only was one calling plan and phone company. Which meant
that even FidoNet could easily cost yer a bleedin fortune. So it felt a
bit stupid to find myself on the wrong side of the fence.

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] (who'll try his best but can't guarantee
that he won't habitually top-post in the future, and who personally
actually mostly prefers "intelligent", limited history preserving
top-posting)
     www.ropersonline.com


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 14:58:14 +0100, Andr? M?ller <andrew1985 at gmx.de> wrote:
> Does locking the small
> Wikis mean that no one can access them at all

No, it doesn't. They remain fully readable, and the page history is
still available in the normal way. The only difference is that people
will be unable to edit. They will see a message like this one if they
do try to edit:

  This wiki was locked on November 6 as only one page had ever been created.

  It will be unlocked if there is interest in reopening it.

  If you would like to create articles in the Bashkir language, please
see how to start a new Wikipedia and then ask a steward to unlock the
database at requests for permissions.

  Angela, 6 November 2004.

Angela.


subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
> This isn't really a solution, as spammers and squatters (Zazaki, f.e.) don't
> hesitate to log in.

If you are referring to the article "Zazaki" on the Tibetan Wikipedia,
this was 1. not created (nor ever even edited) by a logged-in user; 2.
does not appear to be spam or squatting but rather a misplaced
English-language article with real encyclopedic content

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
Perhaps, as Andre suggested, we could limit them to editing by
logged-in users only?

In addition, I would be very happy to keep an eye on such an RC, an
example of one such arrangement already existing for all Indic
Wikipedias can be found at: http://www.bloglines.com/public/Wikimedia

Mark

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 04:33:14 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I support this.  I wish that there was a "softer" way to do it, but as
> their isn't at the moment, this is the best alternative I think.
>
> By "softer" I mean some settings like "no external links" and "no anon
> edits" and perhaps "new accounts require email confirmation" and "all
> edits require captcha solution".  Also, something like "tiny wiki
> combined RC" -- if people would enjoy keeping an eye on these.
>
> Those sorts of measures would leave us be more aggressive about
> leaving things open.
>
> --
> "La n??fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy
	isa problem)

references:
<cmihqt$q27$1@sea.gmane.org> <BDB2278F.8B94%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<cmiphb$a7s$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote

> Unity
> comes through leadership, it doesn't occur otherwise except by chance.

Come now.  One could describe the communal efforts of Wikipedians in quite a
few ways.  My own current version is that the technology is lean and
comprehensible, while the 'social facts' are labyrinthine.  In any case it's
an ant heap.

Charles


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
Hi,

I?support locking all wikis in the list made by Tim?S.

Also all wikis with less than 5 users and less than 50 articles should be
checked, even where there was some activity (say less than 100 edits in the
last 2 months).?Some of them might be squatted or spammed.

Le Saturday 6 November 2004 14:58, Andr? M?ller a ?crit :
> Hope this doesn't seem like a dumb question... Does locking the small
> Wikis mean that no one can access them at all until there is a request
> in reopening it again? Or is it just that no one will be able to edit or
> create entries anymore? OR is it that *only* logged in users are able to
> edit/create the articles in it?
>
> The latter seems like a good solution to me, if this is possible.

This isn't really a solution, as spammers and squatters (Zazaki, f.e.) don't
hesitate to log in.

> - Andr?

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Locking small wikis

body:
Andr? M?ller wrote:

>Hope this doesn't seem like a dumb question... Does locking the small
>Wikis mean that no one can access them at all until there is a request
>in reopening it again? Or is it just that no one will be able to edit or
>create entries anymore? OR is it that *only* logged in users are able to
>edit/create the articles in it?
>
>The latter seems like a good solution to me, if this is possible.
>
>- Andr?
>
Locking a wiki means that it is write protected; the point here is that
it is NOT to be a target for vandals and squatters. Squatters and
vandals can log on as users too, so when a wiki is locked, it is write
protected otherwise it does serve no purpose.

I am in favour of having a policy that is objective and measurable;
sysops/moderators are the front line against vandals and squatters.
Therefore I would have a project locked automatically when no sysop has
signed on for 14 days. I would leave a project on-line for 6 months so
that any active user can ask for it to be unlocked when he/she is
willing to take on the role of sysop for the project. When a project has
no edits for a period of 6 months I would also lock the project.
Inactive projects and projects saved of line are to be listed on Meta so
that when someone wants to revive a project the data is known to be
available.

There is a need for doing this. At least three projects have been used
contrary to its assigned purpose.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Great French invention

body:
Muke Tever wrote:

> On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 08:04:32 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> Yannf has added a category "language" to the categories that hold the
>> words in a language. This gives you one list with all lists of words in
>> a particular language.
>
>
> What, like our Latin [[Category:Linguae]] ? ;)
> http://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Linguae
>
> (I realize I digress entirely with this next section here:)
>
> A lot of Latin categories belong to other categories. It keeps them
> all in order. For example you can start at the list of names of
> animals in the family "Canidae":
> http://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Canidae
>
> and it is categorized under the order "Carnivora", which is
> categorized under the class "Mammalia", which is under the phylum
> "Chordata", etc., the whole tree under a taxonomy category. I think it
> is a better system than other wiktionaries use. Instead of being broad
> in domain but narrow in coverage (like en:'s "English mammals" or
> fr:'s "Lexique en fran?ais des animaux") it goes for narrow in domain
> but broad in coverage: entries are categorized by family, but contain
> words in all languages, which I think is a more useful kind of
> collection...
>
> It does have the drawback of requiring many more categories, though:
> currently with 682 words we have 213 categories, which is even more
> categories than en: has! ;)
>
>
> *Muke!

There is similarity between the Latin list and what Yann has achieved,
there is a difference as well. The category is only used in the category
that indicates that a word is in a particular lanuguage. This category
is added as part of the template that indicates that a word is in that
language.

Yann, has improved the standard that several wiktionaries share. The
Latin list is valuable and therefore I have created interlanguage links
to the equivalents in other wiktionaries. To make communication between
the wiktionaries easier, I also try to find where "the bar", "the kroeg"
or however it is called in a wiktionary and create a link to it. The
[[nl:WikiWoordenboek:De kroeg]] refers to:
[[de:Wiktionary:Ich brauche Hilfe]]
[[en:Wiktionary:Beer parlour]]
[[fr:Wiktionnaire:Wikid?mie]]
[[hi:??????????:???? ?? ????]]
[[it:Wikizionario:Bar]]
[[ja:Wiktionary:???]]
[[la:O]]
[[sv:Wiktionary:Bybrunnen]]
[[zh:Wiktionary:???]]

I would be happy to extend this list :)

As to categories, personally I often fine them more a nuisance than a
help. I have found that barbed wire was put into the category "building
material" which to me is silly. It is by exception that I think that a
category really adds value. One use in a wiktionary context is to
indicate that a word/phrase belongs to a particular glossary that is
incorporated in the wiktionary.


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is
	a problem)

body:
Tim Starling is right on all counts regarding the AC.

The AC began with a weak mandate, or at least, perceived that it had a
weak mandate.

It adopted rules that were designed, in a large measure, to be
absolutely sure it did not step on the community's toes, since it did
not want to lose what little mandate it has.  These rules have
outlasted the weakness of the mandate, which is now stronger, and now
there is no mechanism for the AC to change its own rules, which the AC
asked the community to "ratify."

The requirement to vote on whether to accept, reject, or recuse from
each case is something the AC has imposed on itself.

The use of legalistic procedures has been for the most part adopted by
the AC itself, with some encouragement from the "Member advocate" group
who have overall weakened the AC, which hardly needs to be weakened at
this juncture.  I respect Alex756 a great deal but this particular
initiative of his was most unhelpful.

The requirement to attempt mediation first was adopted by the AC itself
because it did not wish to weaken the mediation committee.

The requirement to sit "en banc," that is, with all arbiters rather than
one or two on each decision, has been imposed upon the AC by itself,
mainly because the arbiters themselves have widely varying approaches
to the matters brought to them.  This should be no surprise, because
Jimbo chose at least some of the members for this purpose to ensure
"balance."

I think that Tim's comment that the AC is not depriving anyone of their
liberty or property, and hence need not operate with the safeguards of
courts empowered to do just that, is particularly insightful.

There is no reason why the AC cannot assign a single arbiter to review a
particular case and deal with it.  Draw straws, take turns, ask for
volunteers -- it doesn't matter.  Most cases are clear.  In tough cases
involving established contributors it may make sense to involve the
other arbiters, informally or formally.

I would also like to draw attention to the growing problem with socks,
or more generally, bad-faith users who are smart enough to know to
create an account.  There is no reason why we cannot implement the
simple measures that every other web site in the world uses, like
requiring confirmation of new accounts through a valid email address,
and logging IPs of each edit in a way that is accessible to whoever is
responsible for dealing with problems.  The UBB software is an
excellent example of this being done correctly in a way that balances
privacy concerns and protection of the content.  It's really just a
modern-day picospan but still, its community-related features are
worthy of notice.  These measures are not foolproof, but they are
enough to create a practical barrier to trolls, socks, and other
troublemakers.

UninvitedCompany


from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons logo vote

body:
On 07 Nov 2004 02:13:00 +0100, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> There is an ongoing vote on the Wikimedia Commons logo at:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Logo/Vote
>
> You need an account on the Commons to vote. Some people complained that
> not enough people have had an opportunity to hear about this. I disagree -
> it's a project-internal vote - but I've nevertheless extended the deadline
> by another week. I've also contacted the designer of the currently winning
> logo regarding copyright transfer to the foundation.
>
> Jimbo: The "This vote should be regarded as an inconclusive, unofficial
> informal poll with no particular weight" comment on Commons:Logo is not
> helpful. Please remove it at your discretion or clarify what else needs to
> be done.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

Do we even know that it's really Jimbo? It doesn't sound like
something he would say, especially without even voting, but I could be
wrong.

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


from_name: Olve Utne

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for new Wikipedia: bokmål

body:
At 20:35 06/11/2004 +0000, Lars Alvik wrote:
>Ok, there are some basic facts, that the request didn't provide.
>
>1. Most of the articles on no: is on either bokm?l or riksm?l.
>2. The debate started on nn:, and is probably an attempt to claim (or deny
>the other part use of the no; domain)
>3. A split (practicaly a move) would give bokm?l (the dominant language) a
>unfamiliar name.

Hello Lars & everyone else,
As an active Nynorsk / Norsk Bokm?l / Swedish Wikipedia writer,
I find your list of "basic facts" a bit skewed, Lars.

I can assure you that there is no conspiracy to claim the no: domain
for another non-exclusive language of Norway (be it Nynorsk,
Norsk Bokm?l, Norsk Riksm?l, H?gnorsk, S?megiella (Northern Sami),
other Sami languages, languages of national minorities or whichever).

As for the no: articles being mostly in Norsk Bokm?l/Riksm?l (and
near 100% of the user interface), that is true -- and you seem to wish
to use this argumentatively against the Nynorsk Wikipedia people.
The logical consequence of that would in fact be to also admit that
the use of no: as a language code for our Norsk (mainly Bokm?l)
Wikipedia is linguistically inappropriate.

Here is an alternative list of "basic facts", for the case of balancing
the arguments:

1. "Either Bokm?l or Riksm?l" makes little sense,
    since the two are part of one orthographic/morphologic
    continuum officially (but not amongst the Riksm?l proponents)
    known as "Bokm?l" -- a continuum with a difference magnitude
    roughly equivalent to the difference between UK and US English,
    minus (!) the clarity of norms.
2. The Bokm?l name is unfamiliar partially because its proponents
    prefer, for political reasons, to call it (incorrectly) simply "Norsk"
    (Norwegian).
3. The majority of the Norwegian population write Bokm?l
    but speak dialects that are closer to Nynorsk than Bokm?l.
4. The Nynorsk Wikipedia people are definitely not interested
    in taking over the no: domain.
    (Rebuttal of your "basic fact" #2 -- which I find suspicious
    that you included in a "basic facts" list at all....)
5. The discussion most likely takes place on Nynorsk
    because the debate culture there is easier on its participants
    than the one on no:.
6. The logical name for a nb: Wikipedia would probably be
    "Norsk Bokm?l" rather than simply "Bokm?l".
    That is what the code nb: stands for anyway --
    and it is as familiar as Norsk, but more precise.
    (Rebuttal of your "basic fact" #2.)
7. The domain name no: as such transcedes: nb or nn:,
    and should, logically speaking, be a common site with
    contents and/or links reflecting both Nynorsk and Bokm?l.
8. In the hypothetical event of a separate Norsk Bokm?l Wikipedia,
    the no: domain could either
    a) remain as a mixed entity, as it is to some degree now
       (which is a basic assumption within the nn: discussion);
    b) be used as a common portal to nb: and nn:,
       and possibly also the national minority languages of Norway;
    c) or be a disambiguation link page.
9. The reasons for the wish of a separate Norsk Bokm?l Wikipedia
    may vary for the various users. My personal view is that a
    separate Norsk Bokm?l Wikipedia may be a better strategy for
    the work towards a future common-Scandinavian interface
    with parallel articles in the four main written forms of Scandinavian
    (defining Bokm?l and Riksm?l as one, since there is no single
    definite linguistical trait that defines these as separate codes
    rather than a socio-linguistic continuum).
10.I know that the sometimes fiercely high-profile POV from
    some central people on no: serves to scare some people away.
    This has already been referred to in the wikipedia-l debate
    as part of the reason why some people who wish to keep
    writing in Norsk Bokm?l may wish a separate Wikipedia
    as a way to "come clean".

I personally do not have a strong preference either way,
but I do think that it is important to try to keep the discussion
on a factual level.

Best regards,

Olve

___________________

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting

body:
A full transcript of today's meeting has been published on Meta.
Please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_Board_meeting%2C_November_2004

Further discussion of the points raised there, and also the points we
did not have time to cover today, will continue on Meta or on this
mailing list.

A summary of the topics covered during the meeting are shown in the
agenda at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting


from_name: Rhobite

body:
On Sat,  6 Nov 2004 18:49:56 -0700, uninvited at nerstrand.net
<uninvited at nerstrand.net> wrote:
> I would also like to draw attention to the growing problem with socks,
> or more generally, bad-faith users who are smart enough to know to
> create an account.  There is no reason why we cannot implement the
> simple measures that every other web site in the world uses, like
> requiring confirmation of new accounts through a valid email address,
> and logging IPs of each edit in a way that is accessible to whoever is
> responsible for dealing with problems.  The UBB software is an
> excellent example of this being done correctly in a way that balances
> privacy concerns and protection of the content.  It's really just a
> modern-day picospan but still, its community-related features are
> worthy of notice.  These measures are not foolproof, but they are
> enough to create a practical barrier to trolls, socks, and other
> troublemakers.

I agree that this is a problem. It's a dependable pattern - someone
with a very strong opinion lands on Wikipedia, makes an account, and
promptly begins messing up articles, causing page protection, tying up
editors in talk pages and causing good-faith editors to say things
they regret later. The [[Circumcision]] edit wars (still taking place)
are one example, Reithy, and now the ciz thing with [[Zoophilia]] is
just ramping up. If ciz doesn't leave voluntarily, he'll tie up an
article and waste a lot of time until his eventual banning. A
committed POV warrior can cause problems for months before the
community is able to act decisively. It really is the same problem,
replayed over and over again. It's a very predictable pattern, and
Wikipedia should be able to recognize it and deal with it.

Rhobite


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms

body:
uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:

>There is no reason why the AC cannot assign a single arbiter to review a
>particular case and deal with it.  Draw straws, take turns, ask for
>volunteers -- it doesn't matter.  Most cases are clear.  In tough cases
>involving established contributors it may make sense to involve the
>other arbiters, informally or formally.
>
There is a very good reason why the Arbitration Committee cannot
randomly or otherwise assign a single arbiter for each case. It is that
quite a few of the current arbitrators are not at all active
participants in the process. Assigning cases to arbitrators who don't
deal with the case is sending them to even more of a black hole than the
current system.

As Fred Bauder put it: "It is not what you propose or what you vote for
that holds things up but failure to either propose or vote." I have
posted a summary about the level of participation (or lack thereof) in
arbitration cases at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee
Based on this, I believe that five of the current arbitrators need to be
replaced.

It has been noted that we will soon have another arbitrator election. We
need to start preparing and planning for this - I think it would be best
to hold the election during the first half of December, rather than
waiting until the second half when many people will be preoccupied with
holidays and vacations. If so, we should probably publicize it very soon
so that people can consider whether to run and declare their candidacies.

Our two recently elected arbitrators seem to have taken their
responsibility to their "constituency" seriously and proven to be quite
active participants in the arbitration process. I strongly encourage
those arbitrators whose terms expire at the end of the year to stand for
re-election. In addition, I think we need to open the election to
include the positions of the five arbitrators I mentioned.

--Michael Snow


from_name: JAY JG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (wasReithy is
	a problem)

body:
>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (wasReithy
>is a problem)
>Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 07:02:40 -0700

> > Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by
> > Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has
> > something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a
> > single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it
> > thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along,
> > within the bounds of community norms.
>
>As now constituted, it would be difficult to get us together, prepared
>(this
>is important--you have to have looked at the edits before you sit down) for
>such a procedure. We have acted quickly in a few instances, but in general
>most arbitrators move relatively slowly. Being elected and not being afraid
>of controversy is a contradiction. I think we try to do what is best for
>the
>community and when there is no explicit rule try to find a way to resolve a
>dispute within expressed community norms.

Abuses are generally obvious, and arbiters takes weeks or months to even
review the evidence, much less rule on it.  This is a cop-out.

> > Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and
> > get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will
> > come back under a different name. But at least the community will be
> > able to unite behind the AC ruling.
>
>This was tried at first by one arbitrator but was overruled by the
>majority.
>Unless the bulk of the arbitrators differ markedly from the users there is
>little support for lifetime banning.

Proof that the process is broken.  We all know what a troll is.

> > The best way to deal with trolls is to unite the community against them,
> > then put up with them until they grow out of it. It only took Michael 18
> > months. Even adult trolls like 142 eventually get bored and go do
> > something else, but you've got to expect it to take a year or two.
> >
> > If only trolling was an criminal offence by international treaty...
>
>It proved impossible to ban obvious trolls who advertised it by
>incorporating troll into their usernames. It was insisted that they should
>be "judged by their edits" not their username. With respect to uniting the
>community, when we were smaller that happened, now there are a number of
>troublesome users that I only become aware of when a request shows up in
>requests for arbitration.

Awareness doesn't seem to be enough, since action is glacial, and good
editors have been driven away by the time the ice age actually arives.

>May I suggest that when a serious matter arises that any user disturbed by
>it engage in the dispute resolution procedure. Our failures to act in cases
>which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.

The issue is that you don't act when the evidence has been brought, as my
examples have shown.

Jay.


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au <http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>> wrote:
>> I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite
>> accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it
>> first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
>> ...
>
>Tim - we are having an election for several ArbCom seats in December. Please
>run.
>
No, no, Tim's a developer and is needed far more urgently for other
important projects, like setting up all the new language Wikipedias
we're going to need!

Seriously, I'm sure Tim would be great, but I don't know whether
arbitration would be the best use of his time. I suppose we can let him
decide that.

--Michael Snow