subject: [Wikitech-l] EasyTimeline and WikiHiero enabled on all wikis

body:
Thats really really cool. I love the timeline. It might not be really
"pretty" at the moment, but this is obviously just the start. As
graphic libs evolve these will just get better and better looking. I
wonder what they would look like if they could be made into PDF.. text
anti-aliasni just makes things so much prettier most of the  time

Lightning

On May 30, 2004, at 8:36 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> EasyTimeline by Erik Zachte is an extension for creating graphical
> timelines with clickable links. WikiHiero by Guillaume 'Aoineko'
> Blanchard
> is for rendering hieroglyphs. Both are now enabled on all Wikimedia
> wikis.
>
> As per our earlier extension syntax vote, EasyTimeline uses the
> <timeline>
> syntax, WikiHiero uses the <hiero> syntax.
>
> You can read more about them here:
> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyTimeline
> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiHiero
>
> To my knowledge, MediaWiki is the only wiki software which supports
> such
> functionality. It should make our wikis interesting even in the highest
> academic circles.
>
> Although EasyTimeline can generate SVG output, only PNG output is
> currently supported. In the future, we hope to offer SVG as a user
> preference.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Klingon Wikipedia

in_reply_to:
<c9c50m$5k5$2@sea.gmane.org> (timwi@gmx.net's message of "Sun,
	30 May 2004 09:11:21 +0100")

body:
>>>>> "T" == Timwi  <timwi at gmx.net> writes:

    Me> It's just too easy to start a wiki on your own. There are a few
    Me> Wiki farm providers who give free or paid service.

    T> That's a very lame excuse to support a fork.

    T> (OK, it's not really a "fork", but the Walloon Wikipedia has
    T> shown how undesirable such a situation can become.)

Well, if the goal of Wikimedia is to host _all_ wikis, I think things
are going to get reeaaaal hard.

As someone who participates in a number of non-Wikimedia wikis, and
sysadmins for one, I'd say that there's a vibrant, interesting world
out there beyond the walls. I'd highly recommend that anyone
participating in Wikimedia projects take some time and work on other
wikis, too.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://wikitravel.org/en/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [Wikipedia-l] contributions to HU wiki

body:
>>>>> "a" == apogr  <info at apogr.hu> writes:

    a> Could you tell the s.o.b. that despite his memorable
    a> contributions in general, he is no GOD almighty disguised as
    a> peter gervai?

Sure, no problem.

    a> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message including
    a> attachments, if any, is intended only for the person or entity
    a> to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and /or
    a> privileged material.

Oops. Apparently not.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://wikitravel.org/en/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Furthermore, if we allow Klingon to be created in this way - without
> consensus, clear rules or a vote - Elvish, "Modern Egyptian" and other
> nonsense languages will follow

We've already been through this. It is not up to you to decide that a
language is "nonsense". In fact, it is quite impertinent of you to pass
such unjustified judgement, especially seeing as you base it solely on
the fact that it is constructed.

> I *am* an avid Star Trek fan.

That is irrelevant to the discussion.

> I do, however, recognize that there's a difference between the goal of
> creating a *useful*, multilingual encyclopedia and the goal of personal
> entertainment. I find it regrettable that many people seem to be unable to
> make that distinction.

Personal entertainment is the driving force that makes us create a
useful, multilingual encyclopedia. I find it regrettable that you seem
to be unable to comprehend that.

> This notwithstanding, I have offered compromise
> solutions and a vote.

Many people have already told you why that kind of solution is neither
fair nor just. If 3 people object and 100 people say they DON'T CARE,
you are going to tell us the vote's result is "we will not have a
Klingon Wikipedia", when in reality the result shows that THE VAST
MAJORITY DOES NOT OPPOSE IT and hence there is nothing wrong with simply
having it. You fail to see that an abstention in this kind of thing is a
completely different thing from an abstention in an election. You seem
to think that in order to counteract an opposition to having the wiki,
there would have to be a majority of people actually wanting it. Out of
the people who do not oppose the Xhosa Wikipedia, I wonder how many
actually want it! By your logic, if I were to oppose to the idea of a
Xhosa Wikipedia because I think it's a nonsense language, that would be
enough to suspend it. This is the flaw in your logic.

> It seems quite clear to me who in this debate is
> acting tyrannically.

You have as yet not convinced me how letting someone have something that
is never going to affect you, your work, your life and your future, is
in any way "tyrannical".

You have also as yet failed to explain why Toki Pona still exists and is
not being shut down for the same reason, and is thus being treated with
favouritism. That kind of thing is what I call tyrannical.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Neil Harris wrote:

> Just for the record, I am against creating any conlang wikipedia, unless
> it can be shown that the conlang is currently used by a very substantial
> community, or some other compelling argument can be made for its creation.
>
> At the moment, Klingon does not appear to me to pass these tests.

And what makes you think that it doesn't?


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> and I'm open to compromises.

I have offered the compromise of allowing the Klingon Wikipedia, but
disallowing any links to it from any other Wikipedia. You have never
responded to that.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> There had been prior
> objections, and there was no dictatorial decree nor a vote which justified
> its creation.

There was no dictatorial decree nor a vote which justified the creation
of Toki Pona. There would have been prior objections, had the idea been
brought up before its creation.

This is NOT a strawman argument. It is an argument in favour of treating
Klingon and Toki Pona fairly and equally (as opposed to being an
argument in favour of having a Klingon Wikipedia).

> If you are correct and so many people support Klingon, why don't you set
> up a vote? The result should be obvious soon.

Yes, the result will be that 3 people object and 100 people "don't
care", and then you will falsely infer from that that you have reason to
keep tlh.wikipedia.org suspended.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> It's also clear that you seem to be unable to have a
> reasonable discussion on the topic

It is interesting that you always think this of other people.

And then you blindly stick to your own opinion and completely dismiss
without consideration any arguments or points brought forward that might
contradict it.

Personally, I'm thinking of that as unreasonable.

Now, I'm sure we'll both agree that there is no objective measurement of
"reasonability", if that word exists at all. All we can do to discuss
something is bring forward arguments. This is what I am doing, as well
as other people who do not oppose a Klingon Wikipedia. You are not
refuting any of the arguments, nor have you ever replied to my suggested
compromise.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: contributions to HU wiki

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> apogr wrote:
>
>> I wonder why Grin, who seems to be in charge of
>> editing/revising/censoring wikipedia in Hungarian, has been given the
>> privilege and the courage to disqualify any entries that
>> a) are not direct translations of a similar entry in the En Wiki
>> b) he is not familiar with, as he does not seem to be knowledgeable in
>> everything, save GNU technology and practising paranoia.
>
> Everyone has such "privilege", as it's a wiki. Please talk to him yourself.

If, as I understand it, Grin is a sysop on HU, then "ordinary users" are
pretty much helpless against him.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles
	from	an outside GFDL source?

body:
"Ulrich Fuchs" <mail at ulrich-fuchs.de> schrieb:

> Exactly - our only way out of the license issues we currently have is to
> persuade the FSF to change it - a new license would apply to all *existing*
> articles without requireing an additional statement from the authors.
> However, if I remember correctly, we had some discussion in Germany some
> yeras ago that this particular point of the GNU Licenses (that the author
> license it's wark under whatever license the FSF will change it's current one
> into) would not be legal according to german law. I don't know if and how
> this was settled and if that's still an issue; I just wanted to mention that
> we possibly could run into difficulties here. But it's a very minor risk in
> my opinion, so it should not stop us from these talks with the FSF.

Well, if you want an even worse legal problem: In the Netherlands it seems
creating a published work cooperatively in the Wiki way is illegal - a writer
cannot sign away their right to object to their work being published in a
changed fashion.

Andre Engels


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: John Robinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] My Ip Address has been blocked

body:
You won't post your IP address here, but will
point to where it can be found.  This is a bit
odd.

I have every bit of sympathy for people who won't
discuss convoluted issues with IP addresses. Yes
many of our edits have been made anonymously
through IP, and we appreciate that.  However, the
vast majority of these edits are
non-controversial. When controversy erupts, it is
necessary to discuss it, and it is near
impossible to do that with an IP. Either make an
account or let it go.

>Hi,
>my ip address has been blocked by user RickK.
>The reason was given as "repeated vandalism".
>
>I read your blocking policy carefully and it
>seems to me that this user is either
>overreacting, or misusing his power assuming
>that I wouldn't complain. If WikiPedia is truly
>a place for everybody to discuss and edit pages
>responsibly I expect someone higher to correct
>this user's irresponsible use of his power.
>
>I will not post my ip address here, but it looks
>like the issue is related with my edit on
>Ataturk's page and  Serdar Argic's page so I
>believe you can figure out my ip address from
>there. I tried to discuss the issue in both
>cases, but people who are editing these pages
>simply do not want to discuss with anonymous
>users!
>
>Thanks
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ?
>get it now!
>http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/


from_name: sannse

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Also for the record - I support the (re)creation of the Klingon Wikipeida

(If a vote is taken for this, please be sure to announce it well and I will
add this vote)

--sannse


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

references:
<99rqZj8CpVB@erik_moeller> <40BA342B.1070302@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<c9dfai$u03$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> Just for the record, I am against creating any conlang wikipedia,
>> unless it can be shown that the conlang is currently used by a very
>> substantial community, or some other compelling argument can be made
>> for its creation.
>>
>> At the moment, Klingon does not appear to me to pass these tests.
>
>
> And what makes you think that it doesn't?

Perhaps I am uninformed, but I'm not aware of a substantial number of
people who use Klingon for the purpose of practical communication. If
I'm wrong, perhaps you can enlighten me.

-- Neil


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Timwi-
> Irrelevant. They have not been abolished, therefore they are in effect.

Wrong. Any guideline needs to have rough consensus support at any given
time to be in effect, *especially* when the situation to which the
guideline is to be applied changes substantially as is the case here.
Otherwise we would never be able to get rid of stupid guidelines that have
been thought up at some ancient point in Wikipedia history. There is
clearly no consensus to apply principles that have been devised for
natural languages to obscure conlangs.

My position stands. It's also clear that you seem to be unable to have a
reasonable discussion on the topic, so this is my last message in this
thread. We can settle this through a vote or a compromise. Any attempts to
subvert a fair, well-publicized and open process will not be tolerated.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Timwi-
>
>
>>I have offered the compromise of allowing the Klingon Wikipedia, but
>>disallowing any links to it from any other Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>
>That's an interesting solution, I missed that. If we can make this a
>general policy for small conlangs, I for one would be reasonably happy.
>Just to clarify, that should include both links from the Main Pages and
>interlanguage links.
>
>
>
At last! This is a good compromise. This is a "compelling argument" that
addresses my previous worries. If we can have this, I see no reason why
we shouldn't accept recreational conlangs with ISO codes, and if Klingon
is one of them, why not?

-- Neil


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Yes, of course. The hypothetical sentence above would be in that article.
> In an encyclopedic biography, one single event in a person's life will
> often be just one sentence. A Wikinews article on that same event, on the
> other hand, could be very detailed.

But we have a whole article concerning the death of Nick Berg. Would that not
be allowed any more if Wikinews existed?

>....
> "On March 11, after meetings with Democratic superdelegates in Washington
> and with former opponents Howard Dean and John Edwards, Kerry accumulated
> the 2,162 delegates required to clinch the nomination."
>
> This one sentence in the article would be a fairly long article on
> Wikinews: [[Kerry meets with Dean, Edwards; clinches nomination - March
> 11, 2004]]. This would include concession quotes, details on recently
> finished contests, photos from the events etc. If you already think the
> article about the campaign is overloaded now - imagine if all that other
> stuff would be added, too!

I can see that.

> > So while original reporting would probably start on a
> > Wikinews project soon after it is started, I fear that that would draw too
> > many people away who are now working on keeping Wikipedia up-to-date.
>
> I see your point, but I think this fear is justified only in the sense
> that some Wikipedia contributors may choose to spend their time on
> Wikinews instead of Wikipedia; this argument can be used against any new
> project. The tasks themselves are very different - and, if we use fully
> compatible licenses (which of course I also would hope for if at all
> possible), any useful information can be copied back and forth.

I'm glad we agree - at least in part. I think that the major difference between
our positions is on the timetable and some particulars which relate to
licensing issues.

>...
> The difference here is that while we have clear rules against original
> research/reporting on Wikipedia, the *pressure* to do it regardless is
> much lower and will probably always remain so.

I'm not convinced of that - there are pressure groups all over the English
Wikipedia at the moment. If people feel that the way in which they want to
participate is being suppressed, then I'm confident that they would be working
to either change Wikipedia or start a new project. But please ask them to find
out.

> For every new project, we should answer a few questions:
> - Is this within our mission to educate?
> - Can this be usefully done using a wiki?
> - Will we be able to reach a critical mass?
> - Can this be better done within an existing project?
> ...

I think this is a good set of criteria. However, I would add "At this time," in
front of "can this be better done within an existing project?" This would help
prevent us from starting projects prematurely.

> The question "Is there pressure from an existing project to do this?"
> serves to underscore the project priority, but even if there was pressure
> from our existing projects to do something like, say, build a Micronation
> Wiki, that doesn't necessarily mean that we would want to do it (although,
> given the example of the conlangs, this seems to be increasingly the
> case).

Well pressure isn't the only thing. Whether or not the project falls in our
mandate is very important as well.

> ....
> Any overlap with existing projects is important. And the question
> whether Wikinews should be launched may be a first test case for a newly
> defined voting process for new projects.

Differentiation and not starting a project too early is key to the overlap
issue (we can agree to disagree whether or not Wikinews is ready yet). I agree
that a Wikimedia-wide vote is eventually in order, but would like to see some
more development of the idea and seeking of potential participants first.

> > And those people who are being stopped from doing original reporting will
> > clamor for either letting them do so in Wikipedia
>
> Therein lies your fallacy. I - and others, I believe - would never
> advocate original reporting in Wikipedia because I do not want to harm
> Wikipedia.

I appologize if you thought that my statement was direct at you - it was not. I
most *certainly* do not think you are trying to harm Wikipedia.

>...
> > Then advertise the idea for Wikinews to see if there are enough people to
> > start such a project.
>
> I will do this as soon as the Wikimedia Commons is launched (unless
> someone else preemtps me, of course). One project at a time..

Fair enough. But is there enough interest in the Wikimedia Commons idea yet?

> My goal is to find a good balance between building free educational
> content and exposing people to said content. Obviously each of these
> components is important. The best way to serve this goal may be a copyleft
> license, but in an instance where we can gain tenfold exposure by adopting
> a non-copyleft license, this is something I think we must consider.

We can agree to disagree on this point as well. I'm still hopeful that we can
work out the license issues with the FSF.

> > We are, by far, the largest user of the GNU FDL so I for one am willing to
> > work with the FSF
>
> So am I, of course, and I believe everyone else in this discussion as
> well. A new version of the FDL or an FCL has the potential of tremendously
> improving our current situation. There are reasonable people in the FSF
> and I hope they will listen to our side of the story. Let's just not
> assume the FCL will become a reality and prepare for the case that it
> won't. A free content license migration clause for new projects would be a
> good start - we can get rid of that clause if it turns out to be
> unnecessary.

Well, we are both contingency planners - we both, however, have a different
plan A. Let's just leave it at that.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/


from_name: Peter Danenberg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
> Although I must admit that I am biased against Klingons
> [...].

     Indeed,  Erik;  anti-Klingon  ressentiment  touches the
very root of the matter.

     Loud appeals to consensus may nevertheless  harbour  an
all-too-personal bias.

     Best, Peter


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Poor Zwinger

body:
Please don't run disk-intensive processes on zwinger, especially while
we've got the crappy disk performance. The apaches slow to a crawl when
somebody decides they've got to munge a few gigs of log files or
whathaveyou and they can't get to the files on NFS.

I've disabled the webalizer job (again) and updatedb (which were
scheduled to run at about the same time, making things extra bad).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] parser trouble

body:
Hello,

As shaihulub told me on irc, it seems the parser using tokenizer.php
have been disabled. It looks like we are now using an old parser instead.

Lot of the recent bug reports on sourceforge are related to this swicth:
lot of features and bugfixing are no more implemented / fixed :-(

It seems there is a performance issue on the tokenizer, so should we :

1/ get ride of the tokenizer (current situation) and fix bug /
reimplement features

2/ improve the tokenizer performances

;)

--
Ashar Voultoiz
[[w:fr:Utilisateur:Hashar]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> schrieb:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >>It looks like this is an impasse only for you Erik. From
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_coordination#Starting_a_
> >>new_language_wikipedia
> >
> > These guidelines were written in 2001
>
> Irrelevant. They have not been abolished, therefore they are in effect.

Read the exact text.

It does NOT say, "A language that has 5 to 10 people should be created."
It does ALSO NOT say, "A language without 5 to 10 people should not be created."

It JUST says, "IF you start a language, try to get 5 to 10 people."
It MIGHT also say, "IF you don't have 5 to 10 people, reconsider whether you
want to create the language."

Given that these guidelines do not say anything, or at least do not say much,
about which languages should or should not be created, their relevance in this
debate is trivial at best. These are not guidelines on what languages we do or
do not want. These are guidelines on how to best set up a language.

> Rubbish. It is perfectly fair and correct. Other than your artificial
> distinction, there is no intrinsic difference between a natural language
> and a constructed language other than being natural and constructed,
> respectively. You seem to be assuming that constructed languages have
> some sort of lesser status or little validity. Stop thinking that. It's
> ridiculous.

It's not. A language is in the first place a means of communication, and
a Wikipedia is in the first place a means of distributing knowledge.
Something is clearly won by getting an article that exists in one
language in another language as well (or a different article on the
same subject) - it provides the information for those who speak the
second language while not speaking or being less fluent in the first.
I'm not convinced that the same holds for a language to Klingon. Is
there really interest in people to get their information in Klingon?
Or is it just there for fun, because one wants to write or read
'something' rather than something specific in Klingon?

Andre Engels


body:
Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:

> Timwi wrote:
>
>> If, as I understand it, Grin is a sysop on HU, then "ordinary users"
>> are pretty much helpless against him.
>
> It is correct what you say.

Right.

Brion, your answer didn't help much in that case. ;-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> schrieb:

> There was no dictatorial decree nor a vote which justified the creation
> of Toki Pona. There would have been prior objections, had the idea been
> brought up before its creation.

Actually, the idea _was_ brought up before its creation, and there _was_
a prior objection from yours humbly, although not worded as strongly as
the objections after creation were.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Timwi-
> I have offered the compromise of allowing the Klingon Wikipedia, but
> disallowing any links to it from any other Wikipedia.

That's an interesting solution, I missed that. If we can make this a
general policy for small conlangs, I for one would be reasonably happy.
Just to clarify, that should include both links from the Main Pages and
interlanguage links.

It might be a better idea to follow Brion's suggestion and move the
conlang wikis to a separate project altogether. That's because a Klingon
wiki would likely not be just about encyclopedic subjects, but also a
dictionary, a general history of the language and fictional culture, etc.
The "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" rule is not very applicable to
conlangs. While I'm not too fond of using Wikimedia resources for people's
pet projects, there seems to be a significant conlang community within
Wikipedia and we could honor that fact through a separate wikiproject.

In both cases, I think a well-publicized vote would be a good idea
regardless just to get community backing.

Regards,

Erik


body:
"Ralesk Ne'vennoyx" <ralesk at livejournal.com> schrieb:
> Timwi wrote:
> > If, as I understand it, Grin is a sysop on HU, then "ordinary users" are
> > pretty much helpless against him.
> >
>
> It is correct what you say.

I would not say that that is true. Sysops should use restraint in
using their sysop-powers in such a matter. If he does so, being
a sysop does not put him above non-sysop regulars. Whatever the
situation is, the first thing to do would be to discuss this with
Grin, and with the other people on the Hungarian Wikipedia. If
you have tried this and failed, please at least give us an overview
of who is saying what, and do give Grin the possibility to react to
your claims.

Andre Engels


from_name: Ralesk Ne'vennoyx

body:
Timwi wrote:
> If, as I understand it, Grin is a sysop on HU, then "ordinary users" are
> pretty much helpless against him.
>

It is correct what you say.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: English grammar (was: We need your advice!)

body:
Timwi wrote:
A sentence like "Trolls and vandals are
> something to look out for on Wikipedia" seems pretty simple and standard
> for English speakers, but is actually quite hard for learners to parse.
>
> Timwi

"look out" and any sentence using a verb like
*get
*put
*look
*...

with something like after the verb
*off
*out
*in
*out
*with
*...

is something to avoid as much as possible

evil


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Personally, I think this whole thing is silly. I don't think there
should be a Wikipedia in Klingon, or Ferengi, or Pig-Latin, or any
other pseudo-language. (In the immortal words of William Shatner,
"Get a life!") If a few Trekkies want to start up a Klingon wiki,
they can download the MediaWiki software themselves and install it on
their own server. That's how I started the Disinfopedia. I didn't
need to ask anyone else for permission, because I didn't use anyone
else's resources (other than the software, which I thank the
Wikipedia community for giving away free).

Having said this, though, perhaps a few folks here will enjoy taking
a look at Google's language tools, which enable users to "Use the
Google Interface in Your Language," with choices including "Elmer
Fudd," "Pig Latin," "Esperanto," "Hacker," "Klingon" (of course), and
something called "Bork, bork, bork!" The URL is:

http://www.google.com/language_tools

Can we have a Wikipedia in Bork, bork, bork!, please? :-)

--Sheldon Rampton


from_name: kartik at townisp.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Error on quadratic formula page

body:
Dear Wikipedia,

I love your encyclopedia and I use it a lot.
One day when I looked at the quadratic formula page, it mentioned another
quadratic formula I had never seen before:

x= 2c / b {+-}sqrt(b^2-4ac)

I tried it out and found out that it had a mistake. It needs a negative b
(-b) in the denominator instead of a positive b. It should read:

x= 2c / -b {+-}sqrt(b^2-4ac)

If you would like me to send you the proof, just ask.

Please reply promptly.

Sincerely,
     a 13 year old


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
>I have been put words in my mouth here that I never said. I was only
>reacting to Mav who claimed that free meant copyleft, thus claiming
>that CC-BY or PD is _not_ free, or at least _less_ free than copyleft.
>NEVER did I claim that copyleft was NOT free. All I claimed was that
>things that are NOT copyleft can still be free.

I am not sure which words you mean.

You did NOT say that a copyleft licence like CC-by-sa or GNU FDL is NOT free,
but you DID say that such a licence is LESS free than CC-by.
At least I'm pretty sure that you said this, as follows:

>>>"You may do with it what you want, provided you mention my name" is
>>>more free than "You may do with it what you want, provided you mention
>>>my name and give others the same rights and obligations".

In other words, CC-by is more free than CC-by-sa.

And I agree with you!

The FSF, as far as I can tell, would not agree with you and me,
because they draw a strict line between "free" and "not free".
They (or at least RMS) see the issue in black and white, no grey.
Thus I wrote of the FSF:

>>They would say that CC-by and GNU FDL ''are'' free, period.

(Here, "period" -- or "full stop" -- has a colloquial meaning
which implies that there is nothing further to be said on the matter.)

This is in contrast to what I would say (and what I think that you said above),
which is more nuanced:

>>GNU FDL and CC-by-sa are more free than an unlicensed copyright,
>>and CC-by is more free than GNU FDL and CC-by-sa.
[I paraphrased the original a great deal here.]

(I should also mention that I may be being unfair to to the FSF here.
For one thing, the FSF isn't the same this thing as Richard Stallman;
there are many, many members of the FSF -- including me, after all.
And RMS's position may be more nuanced than what I'm getting
from reading his stuff on the GNU web site.)

Mav's position, as he is stating it, is more extreme (and simply wrong IMO),
since he is claiming (I believe) that a noncopyleft licence like CC-sa
is not free to begin with.  Still, mav does have a point, as I said here:

>>There are ''reasons'' for each of the restrictions,
>>including reasons that the restrictions may increase freedom overall.
[I've corrected a typographical error in the original here.]

So mav can reasonably argue (along with the FSF) that a copyleft licence
increases freedom overall, because it enforces freedom for derivative works.
But it does not increase the freedom of the ''original'' document --
as even the FSF would agree -- and could only decrease ''that'' freedom.
(And that was your point, Andre, which I agree with.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] System is down

body:
The system appears to be down.

Error message:

*Warning*: main(extensions/wikihiero/wikihiero.php): failed to open
stream: No such file or directory in
*/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-new/includes/Parser.php* on line *6*

*Fatal error*: main(): Failed opening required
'extensions/wikihiero/wikihiero.php'
(include_path='/usr/local/apache/common/php-new:/usr/local/apache/common/php-new/includes:/usr/local/apache/common/php-new/PHPTAL-NP-0.7.0/libs:/usr/local/apache/common/php-new/languages:/usr/local/apache/common/php-new/templates:/usr/local/apache/common/php-new/extensions/wikihiero')
in */usr/local/apache/common-local/php-new/includes/Parser.php* on line *6

*


subject: [Wikitech-l] System is back up...

body: The system appears to be back up... presumably an upgrade in progress.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
"Toby Bartels" <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> schrieb:

> So perhaps the solution is to launch it ''without'' great fanfare???
>
> Let's be very clear that founding the blank wiki now is a trial run,
> with problems that we expected all along and have plans to fix.
> This is very much in the spirit of Wikipedia's own founding,
> so I believe that folks will understand.

Whether I agree, depends on what you mean by 'without fanfare'. If
'without fanfare' means that people are not really informed that it
is made at all, then no. If 'without fanfare' means that people are
warned that it's just a first try, that changes should and will
be made in the coming months, and that an important part of the
announcement is a repeated call for people to help Erik get his
features in, then I give you a resounding yes.

Andre Engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Erik Moeller wrote in part:

>Patience. This week we will formulate the Commons roadmap together. Maybe
>we can move up the creation of a wiki to a point when not all but only the
>most essential features exist; perhaps not a fully working version of
>single sign-on yet and just very basic image sharing. If the final version
>is ready in 3 months, maybe we can get a beta version up and running in 2
>or 3 weeks. How does that sound?

For me, the faster it goes, the better it sounds, I guess.
Since you are the developer that is doing the work here,
I really don't have a basis for insisting that you rush things.

I'm looking forward to a central repository for images,
so that I'll have a place to search for them when I need some.
And I'm looking forward to being able to share those images directly,
rather than having to copy them over when I decide to use one.
And I'm looking forward to a single username system
(although that is not as big a deal for me as the earlier items).
And I'm looking forward to many more things in the pipeline.

So on the one hand, I don't want to see one of these things (X) delayed
just because another of these things (Y) is not ready yet --
even if this means that X is clunky until Y comes along.
But on the other hand, you and the rest of the developers
need to programme these features in a way that works for you.

You know, in one or three years, I will be done with my PhD;
and depending on just what sort of teaching jobs I can find,
I hope to have a lot more free time in my evenings and weekends.
If so, then I plan to start doing some work on MediaWiki
(as well as, obviously, getting back to a good rate on articles).
Maybe ''then'' I will be in a position to demand that development speed up,
if I am actually doing some work to help with the development! ^_^

-- Toby


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] A question to all board candidates...

body:
Hi all,

Le Saturday 29 May 2004 17:52, Angela a ?crit :
>
> > A user from a rather minor wikipedia contact the
> > foundation mailing list, to ask for help on setting
> > a local association ...
> > Question : what do you do ?
>
> I would suggest she read [[m:Starting up a local
> Wikimedia chapter]].
>
> Oh... except that page doesn't exist yet. :)
>
> It would be great if those who have been working on
> starting up the French and German associations could
> help to create such a page. It could be a record of
> their experiences and a collection of advice for all
> future users wanting to set up chapters in their own
> local area.

I started such a page.
Help welcome. ;o)
I am probably the one most interested by setting up a local chapter of the
foundation in France.

Yann

> I don't yet know how much influence the board will
> need to have in setting these up. Should they have
> rules on exactly what the associations are allowed to
> do? How can these be enforceable? Perhaps a discussion
> on this list on what the relationship between board
> and association should be might help such a page to
> develop. The [[m:Starting up a local Wikimedia
> chapter]] page also needs to include the Foundation's
> principles and advice on what associations need to do
> to meet those. How detailed should these be? I would
> not like to see the board have an undue amount of
> influence over these. I see it more as something to
> support them where needed rather than being there to
> determine exactly what a chapter should do.
>
> Have the people working on the French and German ones
> got any views on whether board input would have helped
> them? Or is it felt that the board should just be
> there to officially approve them after the details
> have been finalised on the local Wikimedia project?
>
> Angela.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela

--
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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
Ray-
> How will the Esperantists feel about being treated this way?

We were talking about small conlangs, maybe a 10,000 speaker cutoff.
Esperanto has about 2 million speakers.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Idea regarding CSS, taxoboxes, etc.

body:
Hi.

I've played around with the /User:xyz/monobook.css feature today. It's
incredibly cool. Not just because I can customise the look of the site
for myself, but also because it's pretty damn flexible.

However, almost all formatting for infoboxes like the taxoboxes and
article series boxes (ignoring for a second the question whether we
still want them, with the categorisation system in place now) is in the
markup for those tables themselves.

It should instead be in a Wikipedia-global CSS file.

So my idea would be to have a [[Wikipedia:monobook-global.css]] or
something like that, which contains the CSS for these boxes, and which
is also wiki-editable, so as to allow users (or at least sysops) to
define new classes for new kinds of elements as they are invented.

Then
(a) we can keep the styling out of the table mark-up
(b) users can customise these things with the same flexibility as
     everything else!

Thoughts?

While we're at it, please could someone casually add a class="..."
attribute to the table row in the TOC that contains the words "Table of
Contents"? Thanks ;-)

Timwi


body:
"Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> schrieb:

> > What is the difference between free and copyleft?
> > Fundamentally, a document is free if ''it'' may be used freely:
> > freely read, freely copied, freely modified, and freely distributed
> > (see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>
> > or <http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines>).
> > A document is copyleft if ''its derivatives'' may be used freely.
>
> When I say 'free' I mean free as in cost and free as in freedom.

Well, then the non-copyleft free licenses should fall under that
definition as least as much as copyleft ones. There's no difference
in cost (the only difference would be non-commercial licenses, which
neither of you seem to be advocating), and in freedom they're more
free.

> >...
> > We can have this argument, but let's be clear about what we're arguing over.
> > AFAIK, ''nobody'' is advocating that Wikimedia publish non-free articles.
> > (There is the issue of incorporating fair use items ''within'' articles,
> > such as quotations and images, but that is a different discussion.)
> > The question is whether their freedom must be protected by copyleft.
>
> I'm advocating the full use of the word free (no cost and copyleft).

Then you have a strange meaning of 'free'.

"You may do with it what you want, provided you mention my name" is
more free than "You may do with it what you want, provided you mention
my name and give others the same rights and obligations".

Andre Engels


body:
Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:

>Andre Engels wrote:

>>Mav wrote:

>>>I'm advocating the full use of the word free (no cost and copyleft).

>>Then you have a strange meaning of 'free'.

>It is just the foundation upon which the free software movement is based.

This is really not true!

The Free Sotware Foundation takes a specific principled stance
that one CAN charge money for free software code and free documentation
(see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html>).

>It is also the meaning we have been operating on since day one.

I wasn't here on day one, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't true either.
For as long I've been here (now 2 years), there's always been talk in the air
about making distributions on compact discs or cheap newsprint
and selling them at prices that are quite low -- but still large enough
to recoup the investment in the materials and the printing.
I am confident that Jimbo -- a true believer in capitalism --
is looking forward to the day when distributing Wikimedia content
starts making some far-sighted printing companies a good profit.

>We in fact make our
>content more free by not allowing invariant sections.

Yep!  And if you believe Nathanael Nerode
(see <http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html>),
it is only through doing this that we become free at all. ^_^

>If we are serious about leading a revolution in how content is distributed and
>controlled, then we must continue using the full sense of the word 'free'
>(gratis and libre). Negative feedback loops will not get us there.

I don't see how the ?gratis? bit prevents irreversible forks.
On the other hand, you need a ?copyleft? bit to prevent these,
and that is simply not included in the accepted meaning of the term "free".

-- Toby


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> There was no mention of abuse of sysop privileges. Any user *can* blank
> and suppress others' work (which may well be crap, junk, pseudoscience,
> biased tripe, etc). Without specific information, there's nothing to be
> done or said.

I see.

Apogr & Ralesk, I suggest you supply "specific information".

(Although I think I might mention that I disagree with Brion; although
Apogr was a little vague in his original posting, he did give "specific
information" in the sense that what he described clearly constitutes
sysop privilege abuse.)

Timwi


body:
Thanks all :-)

I am foreseeing, with a pinch of anxiety, how blurry
we should make our bylaws to include all povs... Erik
sentence appears fine to me, but I am troubled by all
the interpretations offered.

--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Erik Moeller (Eloquence) wrote in part
>
> >Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:
>
> >>??? wrote:
>
> >>>There is even the
> >>>question if we really want to force Wikinews
> users to copyleft their
> >>>content, or if the public domain or an
> attribution license wouldn't be
> >>>more practical in this instance.
>
> >>Then that project would not be free content.
>
> >By the definition of the Free Software Foundation,
> that is correct.
> >However, that definition is not the only one. In
> fact, most people have an
> >entirely different understanding of "free content."
>
> Actually, mav is not correct even by the FSF's
> definitions.
>
> The FSF doesn't even use the term "content" in the
> first place
> (see
>
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content>),
> but they do use the phrase "free documentation".
> They don't define that phrase specifically, but say
> "The criterion
> for a free manual is pretty much the same as for
> free software [code]."
> (see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html>),
> and for code they say "The simplest way to make a
> program free
> is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted."
> (see <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html>).
> So the public domain is free, even according to the
> FSF.
>
> What mav ''intends'' to say, I believe, is that
> Wikinews should be COPYLEFT.
> There are certainly arguments to be made for that
> position.
> But public domain and CC-by documents ARE FREE
> documents.
> As such, even the FSF would be willing to use them
> in GNU documentation.
> PD and CC-by just are not copyleft.  (CC-by-sa is
> copyleft,
> while CC-by-nd, CC-by-nc, CC-by-nc-sa and
> CC-by-nc-nd
> are not even free, at least not by the FSF's
> standards.)
>
> What is the difference between free and copyleft?
> Fundamentally, a document is free if ''it'' may be
> used freely:
> freely read, freely copied, freely modified, and
> freely distributed
> (see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>
> or
> <http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines>).
> A document is copyleft if ''its derivatives'' may be
> used freely.
>
> For example, the Brothers Grimm published a story
> "Schneewittchen",
> and their work ended up (through the passage of
> time) in the public domain.
> As such, it was free: freely usable, copyable,
> modifiable, and distributatble.
> In 1938, Walt Disney took advantage of the latter
> two freedoms
> to create a derivative work "Snow White", which is
> still copyright today.
> The Disney movie is not free, even though it's based
> on the free Grimm story.
> This was possible because the Grimm story, while
> free, was not copyleft.
>
> Now, anybody with a soul hates the Walt Disney
> Company (I joke somewhat),
> so this gives an indication of the argument in
> favour of copyleft.
> But there's also the argument that this doesn't
> apply to Wikinews.
> (There are also arguments against copyleft in
> general,
> the Disney problem notwithstanding.)
>
> We can have this argument, but let's be clear about
> what we're arguing over.
> AFAIK, ''nobody'' is advocating that Wikimedia
> publish non-free articles.
> (There is the issue of incorporating fair use items
> ''within'' articles,
> such as quotations and images, but that is a
> different discussion.)
> The question is whether their freedom must be
> protected by copyleft.
>
> >>Public domain and non-share-alike attribution
> licenses encourage mutually
> >>incompatible content forks where improvements that
> create derivative
> >>works cannot be re-incorporated back into the
> original - meaning there
> >>is no positive feeback loop.
>
> >Indeed, and the main question of copyleft vs.
> public domain / attribution-
> >only licenses is "What is more important to me -
> enlarging the body of
> >content available under a free license, or making
> sure that as many people
> >as possbile will be exposed to the content in
> question?"  The possibility
> >that we may want to answer this question
> differently for some Wikimedia
> >projects than for others should not be discounted
> out of hand.
>
> Does anybody disagree with Erik's final sentence
> here?
> This discussion was sparked (at least in today's
> incarnation)
> by a Foundation rule referring to licences "like"
> the GNU FDL.
> We should continue to discuss and refine our ideas
> about
> what copyleft protection Wikimedia should use for
> our free documents;
> but as far as ''that'' rule is concerned, I believe
> that all we need to do
> is to clarify that by "like" the GNU FDL, we mean
> ?free?.
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
> Can we please move this Klingon discussion elsewhere.

     It  involves  foremost,  Richard,  the establishment or
disestablishment of a domain  (technical  enough);  but  the
implications are broader, I agree.

     ~Peter


body:
Andre Engels wrote:

> "Ralesk Ne'vennoyx" <ralesk at livejournal.com> schrieb:
>
>>Timwi wrote:
>>
>>>If, as I understand it, Grin is a sysop on HU, then "ordinary users" are
>>>pretty much helpless against him.
>>>
>>
>>It is correct what you say.
>
>
> I would not say that that is true. Sysops should use restraint in
> using their sysop-powers in such a matter. If he does so, being
> a sysop does not put him above non-sysop regulars. Whatever the
> situation is, the first thing to do would be to discuss this with
> Grin, and with the other people on the Hungarian Wikipedia. If
> you have tried this and failed, please at least give us an overview
> of who is saying what, and do give Grin the possibility to react to
> your claims.
>

I have not commented on Grin?s (ab)use of power or the lack of it.
Consider re-reading my statement.  Your suggestions are nevertheless not
bad.


from_name: Pablo Saratxaga

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 08:44:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:

> Wikimedia is not a set of isolated projects. Once the Klingon Wikipedia
> exists, people will add interlanguage links to it on *all* 50+ Wikipedias.
> Articles like [[Holocaust]] or [[Abu Ghraib]] will have links to Klingon
> translations, with the associated risk of causing offense to unsuspecting
> readers.

And they won't for links to Volapuk, Tokipona or Latin?

> Klingon will be part of our press releases. It will show up in
> the language directory on our Main Pages. There will inevitably be Klingon
> editions of Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikiquote, and any other
> Wikimedia project. This is a significant use of our resources and has a
> significant potential to negatively affect our reputation.

You think that there is a so huge speaker community that it will harm
the wikipedia ressources, and use that as an argument against???
It would be the most proeminent argument in favor (if that were true,
I mysefl strongly doubt that there would be 10.000 articles a year
on a Klingon version)

> Furthermore, if we allow Klingon to be created in this way - without
> consensus, clear rules or a vote - Elvish, "Modern Egyptian" and other
> nonsense languages will follow, all with the exact same associated
> effects.

You don't like them, we can see it; however liking or disliking should
not be taken in account at all.
What should be the key is wether or not a collaborative encyclopedia
on that language could be viable; or in other words, if there is a big
enogh community of speakers that are willing to create and use it (that
is, write and read articles).

The only way to know is to test.

So I propose a framework like this:

- create test wikis on demand (eg: tlh.test.wikipedia.org, not
  tlh.wikipedia.org )
- test ones are not linkable to from other wikipedias
- there is viability test to pass; maybe something like being able
  to create some 500 articles (true ones, not stubs) after som months
  (the observation period could be shortened if there is huge activity,
  if the first 3 months show 10 new articles created a day, then it is
  clear the wikipedia is viable)
- then, if the test passes:
  1. change in the DNS and web server so that a normal domain
     name is used (eg: tlh.wikipedia.org ),
  2. and make the old domain display a warning about the change for some
     10-15 segonds then redirect. (the old domain could be dropped after
     some time)
  3. enable interwiki links to the new domain
- if the test doesn't pass:
  1. some weeks before the time limit, print red warnings about it
     (in the same way as messages for shutdowns etc)
  2. then disactivate the wiki, and make for all urls on that domain
     display a page explaining it failed the test and the wiki was
     shutdown (maybe with a link to an sql dump of the data and
     to a meta: page with infos on how to run one own's mediawiki site)

The decision would then be very easy: a new wikipedia will pass or fail
solely on its own merits.
A failed one could not reapply for some time (2 years maybe? more?).

And I'm for applying that to any language.

Note that I did something similar for Walloon language; yes I created
it on my own server also because there was no wa.wikipedia.org back
then; but also I didn't request for the creation of one because I was
not sure it would work or not, I wanted to try it and see if that
interested other people.
There were problems when migrating to wikipedia.org, but they were due
to the fact that different program versions and environment were
involved; in the above proposal mechanism the environment and programs
will be exactly the same.

> Everyone working on Wikimedia is affected once we open the
> floodgates. The isolation which you suggest does not exist.

I propose to isolate during test period (so if the test fails it
doesn"t have consequences on others).

> The risk to our reputation is increased by the fact that many people
> *know* what the Klingon language is.

Do they know what "thlinqan" (or whatever it is written, but
definitively not "klingon") is?

And a lot of people also know the word "Volapuk" and see it exactly
the same way as you see klingon; yet vo.wikipedia.org is there.

Without clear, *NEUTRAL*, and previously decided rules, there will
be disputes forever; doing an exception for Klingon is not neutral at
all, and it is even against the spirit of wikipedia (it's NPOV,
remember?)

> I do, however, recognize that there's a difference between the goal of
> creating a *useful*, multilingual encyclopedia and the goal of personal
> entertainment.

And that is the *ONLY* criterium that should be used.
So, stop arguing about how much you dislike klingon and how much
you think it is futile, and start arguing on the usefulness of a Klingon
wikipedia.

If people are willing to use a tlh wikipedia, then it is usefull,
period.
If there is not enough tlh speakers to care about it, it is not usefull.

My proposal above would allow to test just that.
And you know what? I don't think tlh would pass the test, simply because
there courrently seems not to be any real world exemple of communication
in Klingon language (no weblog sites exclusively in Klingon, no personal
pages written in Klingon about any kind of topics, etc).
Yes, there are things available in the language, but most often they are
proof of concept, not anything "real"; some people may be thrilled about
the possibility to use tlh to translate something, but after a while
they lost interest, simply because they don't usually use the language
to communicate, to live their everydays life.

Google is translated in Klingon while the native language of Wallonia
is not (just because Google decided to freeze any developpement on the
translation of their interface at a time when people from the US where
years long accostumed with the internet while on my own land internet
for the common people was just starting...); but Google is easy, it is
a quite small thing to translate, and need no following to keep it
up to date (well, not much).
I don't know of any people using a klingon localized operating system,
nor of any people using klingon to speak with their childre, companions
and relatives (well, there has been one (*1*) try, and it more or less
failed, the fact that the language seems to be quite poor on vocabulary
for human's life was a reason, and it is poor on that because people
don't use it to communicate).

So, to summarize:
# decision should be based on objective criteria, not on personal
  likings or dislikings
# using a test framework would allow easily and objectively to see
  if a given language can have a wikipedia or not
# I don't think tlh would be able to make a living wikipedia

> I find it regrettable that many people seem to be unable to
> make that distinction.

But you are failing to make the distinction between the utility
for *you* and the utility for the community of speakers of a given language.
If it is usefull for tlh-speakers, it should be allows; it if itsn"t
useful for them, then not.
That it is not useful for you and for me is totally irrelevant.

> This notwithstanding, I have offered compromise
> solutions and a vote. It seems quite clear to me who in this debate is
> acting tyrannically.

A very bad idea to cast a vote on the current situation, as
the vote is more like "pro or agains xxxx language" and opens
a very bad precedent.

The best would be to set a test framework and let the xxxx language
speaker community decide by themselves, by their work or lack thereof,
if it is worth or not to support it on wikipedia.

Whithout the possibility to carry such test it is impossible to know,
and in doubt I will vote in favor, despite the fact that I have no
special interest on tlh at all, and despite the fact that I believe
it doesn't desserve a wikipedia; becuase currently I only *belive*
tlh wikipedia won't be useful, I'm not *sure* about it.

> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
Ki ?a vos v?ye b?n,
Pablo Saratxaga

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/		PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466
[you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or Esperanto]
[min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj lingvoj]
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from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: A question to all board candidates...

body:
Anthere wrote:

>I propose a real-life case to all Foundation Board
>candidates. I expect that all candidates are on this
>mailing list naturally.
>
>--------
>
>Say, you are on the board of Wikimedia Foundation.
>
>A user from a rather minor wikipedia contact the
>foundation mailing list, to ask for help on setting a
>local association. This user is currently working on
>the status of the future association with her peers,
>and naturally should set status that are in coherence
>with the Foundation principles themselves.
>
>Now, it so happens that when you were a candidate a
>while ago, and while candidating, you indicated as
>PART of your platform, that indeed helping smaller
>wikipedias were an issue to you, and that you would
>HELP set local chapters.
>
>Indeed, the user of the minor wikipedia is VERY
>encouraged by the fact you put local chapter
>considerations in your plateform, so that she knows it
>is IMPORTANT to you, so of course, she is confident
>you will answer and bring help.
>
>So, here she is, bringing the issue on the mailing
>list, and asking help...
>
>------
>
>Question : what do you do ?
>
I apologize for not responding more quickly, and for resurrecting the
topic so late, but since Anthere addressed the question to me among
others, I feel I should respond. I have family visiting this weekend, so
I haven't been able to devote much time to the discussion here. The
penalty I pay is that everyone has said much of what I would say already.

First of all, having some information on Meta is definitely needed, and
I'm glad to see that Yann started a stub at the page Angela suggested.

Also, I would ask this person some additional questions, to determine
what kind of help they need. For instance, right now I don't necessarily
know what kind of association this person has in mind. Are they looking
to do some fundraising at a local level, and do they need non-profit and
tax-exempt status for this? Are they trying to create an organization
that will be able to interact with other institutions, such as media
organizations? Are they trying to form a body to have some sort of
governing role in this "minor" Wikipedia? Or are they thinking of an
association primarily in terms of a group that meets together on a
social basis? Also, do they know of anyone else that is interested and
wants to participate in the proposed association? Would the association
be related to a location (e.g., a Moscow chapter for the Russian
Wikipedia), or would it be universal for that particular Wikipedia?

Part of the purpose of these questions is to evaluate whether this needs
to be an official chapter of the Foundation, or whether they could do
just as well as an unofficial body. A social networking group probably
doesn't need official status (which is not to say that I wouldn't be
willing to assist them in getting started). But if the association wants
to raise funds for a particular project, or represent the Foundation in
an official capacity, it should have a more direct connection. We can
have different models for official chapters, depending on which of these
functions are needed. Naturally, the guidelines for creating official
chapters should allow the community on that Wikipedia to make as many
organizational decisions as possible, as long as basic principles and
the relationship to the Foundation are clearly established.

It may not be quite fair to answer a question with a bunch more
questions, but I don't have a glib answer to give this hypothetical
person. I would rather find out more about the situation, so that I know
what guidance the person needs, and how I can best help out.

--Michael Snow


body:
--- Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Le Saturday 29 May 2004 17:52, Angela a ?crit :
> >
> > > A user from a rather minor wikipedia contact the
> > > foundation mailing list, to ask for help on
> setting
> > > a local association ...
> > > Question : what do you do ?
> >
> > I would suggest she read [[m:Starting up a local
> > Wikimedia chapter]].
> >
> > Oh... except that page doesn't exist yet. :)
> >
> > It would be great if those who have been working
> on
> > starting up the French and German associations
> could
> > help to create such a page. It could be a record
> of
> > their experiences and a collection of advice for
> all
> > future users wanting to set up chapters in their
> own
> > local area.
>
> I started such a page.
> Help welcome. ;o)

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starting_up_a_local_Wikimedia_chapter

Sorry Yann, but the page in that condition is not
gonna help a lot. And just starting it and waiting for
people to fill it will not solve the problem easily.

> I am probably the one most interested by setting up
> a local chapter of the
> foundation in France.

Please, explain to the foundation list, exactly why
*you* want to start an association. Those who want one
have various reasons to do so (see Jeff comment on les
amis de Wikipedia), so I would like that you explain
the best you can what your goals are :

Please, explain what is your vision of what the french
association should be in the short term (immediate
needs it will fullfil)

Explain then what you think it should become and aim
at (say in the 5 years or 10 years)

And explain what you intend to do in the association
(what your role is, which position you wish to hold)

And finally, explain which other positions or
abilities are needed to complement your ow abilities,
and should absolutely be necessary to have for the
association to work properly

Anthere

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from_name: Makoto & Guillaume

subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiHiero

body:
I would like to active WikiHiero (runing on test.wikipedia) on Wikipedias or at least on fr:
Any oppositions ?

Aoineko
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body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> >It is just the foundation upon which the free software movement is based.
>
> This is really not true!

Yes it is. *EVERYTHING* licensed under the GNU GPL can be used free of charge -
whether or not you have access to it is a separate matter. You can charge money
for the service of providing the software (even getting a profit from that) and
also charge for the service, but you are not buying a license to use the
software (which is the proprietary model).

> The Free Sotware Foundation takes a specific principled stance
> that one CAN charge money for free software code and free documentation
> (see <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html>).

That is talking about DISTRIBUTION! Just because the software *itself* is free
as in cost and freedom, does not mean that it has to be distributed free of
charge. Same for free/copyleft content.

> >It is also the meaning we have been operating on since day one.
>
> I wasn't here on day one, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't true either.
> For as long I've been here (now 2 years), there's always been talk in the air
> about making distributions on compact discs or cheap newsprint
> and selling them at prices that are quite low -- but still large enough
> to recoup the investment in the materials and the printing.
> I am confident that Jimbo -- a true believer in capitalism --
> is looking forward to the day when distributing Wikimedia content
> starts making some far-sighted printing companies a good profit.

Again you are missing the entire point and confusing access with what something
actually is. Our text has been free in both senses of the word from day one and
will remain libre until its copyright has expired (then it will only be
gratis). Distribution is a different matter - we could charge a high fee for
people to even view it on the Internet, but somebody else could charge nothing
(as we do now and for as long as I can help it). THAT makes the content free -
anybody can do whatever they want to do with it so long as they preserve those
rights for others and follow a few simple rules.

So there would be nothing wrong for charging a fee for a CD or book that
contains our content. We are *free* even to make a profit on that. What we are
not free to do is claim exclusive distribution rights on that content.

See what I mean when I say that the content *itself* is free? It, itself, is
free from most types of control. In a sense it has been liberated has and
almost has a life of its own. Even selling your copyright to a copyleft text
will not change that fact (such a sale would be, for practical reasons, useless
due to the fact that the content has been liberated).

> >If we are serious about leading a revolution in how content is distributed
> and
> >controlled, then we must continue using the full sense of the word 'free'
> >(gratis and libre). Negative feedback loops will not get us there.
>
> I don't see how the ?gratis? bit prevents irreversible forks.
> On the other hand, you need a ?copyleft? bit to prevent these,
> and that is simply not included in the accepted meaning of the term "free".

The English language word 'free' isn't the best one for this. I will use gratis
and libre from now on.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] tarball of wikipedia 1.3?

body:
Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> On http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34373 I could
> only find 1.2.6, does anyone know where I can download the currently
> installed version on en.wikipedia.org which seems to be 1.3?

I'll put out a beta package shortly.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Mav's position, as he is stating it, is more extreme (and simply wrong IMO),
> since he is claiming (I believe) that a noncopyleft licence like CC-sa
> is not free to begin with.  Still, mav does have a point, as I said here:

If CC-sa = Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license, then I think you
are confused (or at least made a typo). The CC by-sa is in fact more
libre/copyleft than the GNU FDL since it does not have provisions for invariant
sections. Thus its copyleft status is more permanent. The CC-by license is
merely gratis with the only real requirement being attribution.

> >>There are ''reasons'' for each of the restrictions,
> >>including reasons that the restrictions may increase freedom overall.
> [I've corrected a typographical error in the original here.]
>
> So mav can reasonably argue (along with the FSF) that a copyleft licence
> increases freedom overall, because it enforces freedom for derivative works.
> But it does not increase the freedom of the ''original'' document --
> as even the FSF would agree -- and could only decrease ''that'' freedom.
> (And that was your point, Andre, which I agree with.)

Decrease that freedom? How when anything from a derivative work can be
reincorporated back into the original? In what way does that decrease the
freedom of the original document?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >I propose a real-life case to all Foundation Board
> >candidates. I expect that all candidates are on
> this
> >mailing list naturally.
> >
> >--------
> >
> >Say, you are on the board of Wikimedia Foundation.
...
> >So, here she is, bringing the issue on the mailing
> >list, and asking help...

> >Question : what do you do ?
> >
> I apologize for not responding more quickly, and for
> resurrecting the
> topic so late, but since Anthere addressed the
> question to me among
> others, I feel I should respond. I have family
> visiting this weekend, so
> I haven't been able to devote much time to the
> discussion here. The
> penalty I pay is that everyone has said much of what
> I would say already.

There is no reason to apology. Chapter settings is not
something one should do in a hurry, and taking time is
required anyway :-)

> Also, I would ask this person some additional
> questions, to determine
> what kind of help they need. -l

All what comes below are *very good* questions
Michael.

I'd like our hypothetic user to answer to this case
experiment.

Yann ? What do you think ? Can you help Michael
understand what we need ? I think answering these
questions will be very useful to all of us.

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from_name: Jim Kork

body:
Hi,
my ip address has been blocked by user RickK. The reason was given as
"repeated vandalism".

I read your blocking policy carefully and it seems to me that this user is
either overreacting, or misusing his power assuming that I wouldn't
complain. If WikiPedia is truly a place for everybody to discuss and edit
pages responsibly I expect someone higher to correct this user's
irresponsible use of his power.

I will not post my ip address here, but it looks like the issue is related
with my edit on Ataturk's page and  Serdar Argic's page so I believe you can
figure out my ip address from there. I tried to discuss the issue in both
cases, but people who are editing these pages simply do not want to discuss
with anonymous users!

Thanks

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/


subject: [Foundation-l] EasyTimeline and WikiHiero enabled on all wikis

body:
EasyTimeline by Erik Zachte is an extension for creating graphical
timelines with clickable links. WikiHiero by Guillaume 'Aoineko' Blanchard
is for rendering hieroglyphs. Both are now enabled on all Wikimedia wikis.

As per our earlier extension syntax vote, EasyTimeline uses the <timeline>
syntax, WikiHiero uses the <hiero> syntax.

You can read more about them here:
http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyTimeline
http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiHiero

To my knowledge, MediaWiki is the only wiki software which supports such
functionality. It should make our wikis interesting even in the highest
academic circles.

Although EasyTimeline can generate SVG output, only PNG output is
currently supported. In the future, we hope to offer SVG as a user
preference.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
Toby-
> I was saying earlier that it'd be nice to have the thing around,
> even before it really gets the software features that it needs.
> But I agree that it would be rather anticlimactic to advertise it,
> just to have people discover that it really isn't that neat (yet).
> Erik, your stories of disaster awaiting us make more sense now.

> So perhaps the solution is to launch it ''without'' great fanfare???

Well, this doesn't address my technical concerns - makes single sign-on
more difficult to add when an account database already exists, existing
images will have to be duplicated again - and I fear that in terms of
policy, it would make things even worse when only a small group of people
sets the initial project policies.

Patience. This week we will formulate the Commons roadmap together. Maybe
we can move up the creation of a wiki to a point when not all but only the
most essential features exist; perhaps not a fully working version of
single sign-on yet and just very basic image sharing. If the final version
is ready in 3 months, maybe we can get a beta version up and running in 2
or 3 weeks. How does that sound?

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Chinese wikipedia in the news

body:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116323,00.asp

This story makes me insanely happy.  For me, this is what Wikipedia is
all about.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] PhatNav: "A Wikipedia"

body:
This is excellent news indeed!  Angela, you are a hero!

I tried calling them myself several times, but I was never able to get
anyone to answer.

Angela wrote:

>  --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> > It is very poor form, at the very least,
> > for them to call themselves "A Wikipedia".
> > They may be a Wiki, they may be a Wiki Encyclopedia,
> > but they are not "A Wikipedia".
>
> I have some excellent news. After contacting the
> Diagonal Media Group, the parent company of
> PhatNav.com, they have replaced the claim that they
> are "A Wikipedia" with a more appropriate title for
> their pages. Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation,
> are, of course, still linked to at the end of each
> page.
>
> Angela.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> >From:	"Diagonal Media Group Service Desk"
> <service at diagonalmediagroup.com>
> >Subject: Trademark violation
> >Date:	Thu, 27 May 2004 21:00:54 -0400
>
> >Thank you Angela.
>
> >I'm forwarding this to my engineer.
>
> >The wording on the top of the pages was to have
> >changed. I'm sure he can make this change.
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping"
> your friends today! Download Messenger Now
> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: PhatNav: "A Wikipedia"

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> trademarks. There remain, of course, the questions of whether, when, and
> where to register those trademarks, an issue I expect the board will
> take up once it is fully constituted.

I have from Alex the US trademark application, which I will be filing
today.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] representation and official positions

body:
Anthere wrote:
> I'd like to remind you Yann, that everyone on fr;
> trust you for your PR activities. If you had an urgent
> need for official support, Jimbo would publicly
> brought it I think.

I agree with this, even though I also support the creation of local
associations where a significant group of people desire it.

The issue of official titles is a complete non-issue though.  Titles
are cheap and easy to generate -- just tell me what you want to be
called, and you can be called that.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] DMA

body:
Camille Constans wrote:
> On Sun, 30 May 2004 04:49:33 -0700
> Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
>>As I understand it, on the apaches when I do this, it will be more or
>>less seamless for website users.
>>
>>But for other machines (zwinger, for example) it's more complex.  What
>>should I do?  Can someone help me?
>
> For zwinger, we could move the nfs stuff to will, as we have to do.

We're setting up for this now, hopefully will be done by the time Jimmy
gets down there... :)

Poor little zwinger...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Klingon Wikipedia

body:
A proclamation

I support the continuation of the Klingon Wikipedia, because it seems
that a (very rough) consensus has been reached.  It's worth noting,
too, that Klingon is a "special case" in many ways in the geek culture
where we all live, and that my own confusing remarks caused it to be
created, and then deleted, causing hurt feelings which are fully my
own fault and much regretted.

In short, this is a unique historical situation that ought not to be
viewed as creating a precedent.  I feel the same way about the sep11
wiki, a project that we likely would not have undertaken or continued
to support, except for a set of unique historical facts about how our
project has evolved.

I'm not really ready to declare an _exact_ policy for future cases,
and it would be inappropriate of me to do so until we have more
consensus building, but I think that we can easily recognize the broad
outlines of a reasonable policy...

1. We ought to use some external source or sources to determine what
we will count as a language for the purposes of creating new projects.

2. Based on those external sources, we ought to have a mechanical
rule that generates a default answer.  For example, Klingon has a 3
letter ISO 639-2 code, so the default is "accept".  "Toki Pona" has no
such code, so the default is "reject".  (However, I have been
convinced by sound argument that the ISO 639 codes are often drawn
along political lines rather than real linguistic lines, so a more
sophisticated rule is likely needed than in this simple example.)

3. In cases where there is significant community support or opposition
to the result given by the "rule" we should use some additional
procedure, such as a vote, or better yet a discussion with an eye
toward reaching some compromise, followed by a vote.

4.  Reasons for overriding the "rule" could range from the rule being
wrong to historical precedent.  For example, we might decide
ultimately to keep 'toki pona' even though in other cases, we would
not.  While consistency is a value, special cases can be made as a
courtesy when a significant community has grown up.

----

I think almost everyone can agree with the outline above, but mostly
because it's an abstract procedure that leaves us with no concrete
guidance.  ;-) I'm good at that.  But I freely admit that the hard
part is settling on a "rule" for the future.

Some things that I think people can agree on about what the rule should
look like:

1.  The rule should not tell us to have separate wikipedias for
British English and Australian English and American English.  (Nor for
"African-American Vernacular English", popularly called "ebonics", nor
for "Southern American English", my own native dialect.)

2.  The rule should provide some means of exclusion for vanity
projects and extremely small (and thus unlikely to be successful)
groups.

3.  The rule should be external to Wikipedia, based on some other
official standards.  The reason for this is that this is only our
default, and the whole purpose of the rule is to give us one less
thing to argue about.  Let some international body make the decision,
and then we follow it unless we do something unusual.

--Jimbo


body:
Daniel-

>> Such developments, in Wikipedia, would often be summarized down to one
>> paragraph or even one sentence ("Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai was killed by
>> unknown assailants on May 30, 2004 [1]"), where the Wikinews article would
>> contain as much detail as possible, quotes from all relevant parties
>> (which we can freely copy from outside sources), speculation about the
>> future impact etc.

> Wouldn't Wikipedia want an article on Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai so that we
> could give a detailed summary about him?

Yes, of course. The hypothetical sentence above would be in that article.
In an encyclopedic biography, one single event in a person's life will
often be just one sentence. A Wikinews article on that same event, on the
other hand, could be very detailed.

> But I concede that many of our other articles which cover current history
> are overloaded with what I consider to be needless detail on current events

Yes, but even in these cases, the individual news items are much shorter
than the respective Wikinews articles would be. The [[John Kerry]] article
is a good example:

"On March 11, after meetings with Democratic superdelegates in Washington
and with former opponents Howard Dean and John Edwards, Kerry accumulated
the 2,162 delegates required to clinch the nomination."

This one sentence in the article would be a fairly long article on
Wikinews: [[Kerry meets with Dean, Edwards; clinches nomination - March
11, 2004]]. This would include concession quotes, details on recently
finished contests, photos from the events etc. If you already think the
article about the campaign is overloaded now - imagine if all that other
stuff would be added, too!

> So while original reporting would probably start on a
> Wikinews project soon after it is started, I fear that that would draw too
> many people away who are now working on keeping Wikipedia up-to-date.

I see your point, but I think this fear is justified only in the sense
that some Wikipedia contributors may choose to spend their time on
Wikinews instead of Wikipedia; this argument can be used against any new
project. The tasks themselves are very different - and, if we use fully
compatible licenses (which of course I also would hope for if at all
possible), any useful information can be copied back and forth.

> When the pressure on Wikipedia to start including dictionary entries reached
> a certain point ..

Yes, I fully realize where you're coming from. Our past is however not
necessarily representative for our future. While pressure alone is a good
reason to consider starting a spin-off project, it is not the only reason
for the Wikimedia Foundation, with its focus of creating free educational
content. The reason it *was* the only reason in the past is that the
organizational identity of Wikimedia is developing as we write this.

The difference here is that while we have clear rules against original
research/reporting on Wikipedia, the *pressure* to do it regardless is
much lower and will probably always remain so.

For every new project, we should answer a few questions:
- Is this within our mission to educate?
- Can this be usefully done using a wiki?
- Will we be able to reach a critical mass?
- Can this be better done within an existing project?
...

The question "Is there pressure from an existing project to do this?"
serves to underscore the project priority, but even if there was pressure
from our existing projects to do something like, say, build a Micronation
Wiki, that doesn't necessarily mean that we would want to do it (although,
given the example of the conlangs, this seems to be increasingly the
case).

> Doing so at the right time will ensure that the aspects of that project we
> want to have in existing projects will remain viable. Doing so too early, or
> creating a project with a very limited scope (such as the Sep11wiki), will
> either result in the failure of that project, or the harming of that aspect
> of Wikipedia. So yes, I do see any new project through the prism of what it
> will do for Wikipedia and other existing projects. I see this as being
> prudent, not as being "very, very dangerous."

It is prudent, and it is not what I was referring to as dangerous. What I
refer to as dangerous is a position where we *only* start a project when
the pressure from existing projects is too high. Perhaps one should
substitute "pressure from existing projects" with "pressure from the
community". I absolutely agree with you that there should be a clear and
visible interest from the larger Wikimedia Community in a Wikinews
project. Any overlap with existing projects is important. And the question
whether Wikinews should be launched may be a first test case for a newly
defined voting process for new projects.

> And those people who are being stopped from doing original reporting will
> clamor for either letting them do so in Wikipedia

Therein lies your fallacy. I - and others, I believe - would never
advocate original reporting in Wikipedia because I do not want to harm
Wikipedia. Plausible arguments can be made that dictionary defs, source
documents, quotations etc. belong in an encyclopedia. Encarta has a source
library, for example, and it has a built-in dictionary. But no plausible
argument can be made that an encyclopedia should do original reporting a
la CNN, the New York Times or Linux News.

Thus, while I am actively advocating a news project, I would *never* use
Wikipedia as my platform of advocacy. It is not closely related enough to
justify that. This ties in to my point above that pressure from an
existing project alone may often be sufficient, but it is not *necessary*
to start a new one.

> Then advertise the idea for Wikinews to see if there are enough people to
> start such a project.

I will do this as soon as the Wikimedia Commons is launched (unless
someone else preemtps me, of course). One project at a time..

> Starting small is fine, starting too early is not. We need to determine
> if now is a good time to start such a project.

I agree that we need to gauge if there's interest before we do it.

> My goal is to help put a representation all human knowledge under terms that
> ensure its freedom. That goal is not served when we use licenses that allow
> for non-free derivative works.

My goal is to find a good balance between building free educational
content and exposing people to said content. Obviously each of these
components is important. The best way to serve this goal may be a copyleft
license, but in an instance where we can gain tenfold exposure by adopting
a non-copyleft license, this is something I think we must consider.

I am not opposed to copyleft per se. I just don't want to subscribe to a
dogma. The copyleft vs. attribution-only debate is older than this thread,
and there are good arguments on both sides.

> We are, by far, the largest user of the GNU FDL so I for one am willing to
> work with the FSF

So am I, of course, and I believe everyone else in this discussion as
well. A new version of the FDL or an FCL has the potential of tremendously
improving our current situation. There are reasonable people in the FSF
and I hope they will listen to our side of the story. Let's just not
assume the FCL will become a reality and prepare for the case that it
won't. A free content license migration clause for new projects would be a
good start - we can get rid of that clause if it turns out to be
unnecessary.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Mav's position, as he is stating it, is more extreme (and simply wrong IMO),
>>since he is claiming (I believe) that a noncopyleft licence like CC-sa
>>is not free to begin with.

>If CC-sa = Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license, then I think you
>are confused (or at least made a typo).

Yeah, call it a typo.  I had written CC-by-sa (the copyleft one) before,
and then I meant to remove the letters that added the copyleft bit.
This should have left me with CC-by (the free but not copyleft licence),
but I removed the wrong letters.  Sorry about that!

>>So mav can reasonably argue (along with the FSF) that a copyleft licence
>>increases freedom overall, because it enforces freedom for derivative works.
>>But it does not increase the freedom of the ''original'' document --
>>as even the FSF would agree -- and could only decrease ''that'' freedom.

>Decrease that freedom? How when anything from a derivative work can be
>reincorporated back into the original? In what way does that decrease the
>freedom of the original document?

No, ''that'' doesn't decrease the freedom of the document --
it's other effects of the copyleft that do so.

I'll give a specific (albeit still hypothetical) example:

Suppose that there are two free documents that I like,
one of which uses the GNU FDL licence, one of which uses CC-by-sa.
I want to combine these two free documents into a single modified one.
Even though both of them are supposed to be free, I can't do this!
But if either of these documents uses the noncopyleft CC-by instead,
then I am able to do what I want to do with the documents.
The CC-by licence is more free; it gives me more freedoms.

This is not to say that I'm completely out of luck;
CC and GNU are working more closely together,
and Wikimedia may well yet put the pressure on RMS
that's needed to make the GNU FDL compatible with CC-by-sa.
But right now, the fact remains that I have more freedom --
more ability to modify a document that I rightfully possess --
if that document uses the noncopyleft CC-by licence.

That said, it may still be true that the world is more free in the end
if the documents use the copyleft licences -- that all depends
on whether they would be coopted by proprietary writers if they're CC-by.
But the documents themselves are still less free if they're copyleft.

-- Toby


from_name: Angela

body:
 --- Jim Kork <jim_kork at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, my ip address has been blocked by
> user RickK. The reason was given as
> "repeated vandalism".

You have been blanking articles without explanation
(Serdar Argic), removing facts from articles (Armenian
Genocide) and writing rude statements on other
people's user pages (User:PMelvilleAustin). I'm not
terribly surprised you were blocked. If you are
willing to contribute, I strongly advise you to read
the following policies first:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral point
of view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks

It would also be easier to people to communicate with
you if you created an account
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_create_an_account).
This gives you a more permanent talk page where people
can discuss things with you, and makes it less likely
you will be blocked.

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

____________________________________________________________
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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Klingon resurrected

body:
Tim-
> Firstly, I'm disappointed Erik chose to characterise my stated
> motivation as "false pretenses"

Sorry, it was a poor choice of words. What I meant was that the reasons
for creating the wiki were shown to be in error.

Again, as I said, I would have preferred a more open discussion before
relaunching the site. A couple of people on wikitech-l have agreed to some
solution which the people on the Klingon Wikipedia are supposed to follow;
or, the other way around, the people who hate Klingon now have to tolerate
our compromise. Of course we can still have this discussion (any further
comments about Klingon should go to wikipedia-l) but it will be made more
difficult by the current reality.

Regardless, if this compromise prevails, the same solution should be
adopted for all <10,000 speaker language wikis.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Mav wrote

>>>It [the combination of free as libre + gratis]
>>>is just the foundation upon which the free software movement is based.

>>This is really not true!

>Yes it is. *EVERYTHING* licensed under the GNU GPL can be used free of charge -
>whether or not you have access to it is a separate matter. You can charge money
>for the service of providing the software (even getting a profit from that) and
>also charge for the service, but you are not buying a license to use the
>software (which is the proprietary model).

I am at least in part misunderstanding you.
If what you mean by the ?gratis? bit is that the ''licence''
(which provides the ?libre? bit) is provided free of charge,
then you are certainly correct that this is essential to free software.

That said, I still don't think that it's really accurate
to say that ?libre? + ?gratis? is the foundation of the movement.
The foundation is purely ?libre?; ?gratis? is only a means to that end.

>The English language word 'free' isn't the best one for this.
>I will use gratis and libre from now on.

So are you explicitly including ?copyleft?
as part of the meaning of your term "libre"?
If so, then that still might be confusing,
since there are other free/open people that say "libre"
in order to avoid confusion with ?gratis?,
but they usually mean the same as the FSF does by "free",
which does not require ?copyleft?.

-- Toby


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Klingon

body:
On Sunday 30 May 2004 19:27, Erik Moeller wrote:
> up a vote? The result should be obvious soon. I regret to say that so far
> the advocacy for a Klingon Wikipedia has been on the level of Klingon
> diplomacy.

A proof of Sapir-Worf? ;)


from_name: Tomos at Wikipedia

subject: [Foundation-l] Case - Sensitivity for Wiktionaries

body:
Ronny Raschkowan wrote:

>>So I went here to ask you, what you would think about an case sensitivity
>>for _all_ Wiktionaries.

I solicited opinions on this matter at japanese wikipedia. So far, all
people said case sensitivity is good. Because it is too early to tell if
that is the concensus, I will post a follow-up if this discussion will be
active for a while and needs further input from various wiktionaries.

Regards,

Tomos

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from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs

body:
"Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> schrieb:

> Well, this doesn't address my technical concerns - makes single sign-on
> more difficult to add when an account database already exists, existing
> images will have to be duplicated again - and I fear that in terms of
> policy, it would make things even worse when only a small group of people
> sets the initial project policies.

I don't see why single sign-on should be easier to implement on 300 existing
Wikis and 1 new one than on 301 existing ones. Duplication is going on anyway,
and waiting to start this up until there's a significant number of people
sounds self-defeating. Besides, policy has been discussed for months already,
and practice at other projects is that it's formulated by the few people
who start it anyway.

Andre Engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia Communs


subject: [Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects (fwd)

body:
I have been put words in my mouth here that I never said. I was only
reacting to Mav who claimed that free meant copyleft, thus claiming
that CC-BY or PD is _not_ free, or at least _less_ free than copyleft.
NEVER did I claim that copyleft was NOT free. All I claimed was that
things that are NOT copyleft can still be free.

Andre Engels

"Toby Bartels" <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> schrieb:
> Andre Engels wrote in part:
>
> >Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:
>
> >>I'm advocating the full use of the word free (no cost and copyleft).
>
> >Then you have a strange meaning of 'free'.
>
> >"You may do with it what you want, provided you mention my name" is
> >more free than "You may do with it what you want, provided you mention
> >my name and give others the same rights and obligations".
>
> The Free Software Foundation would argue that the final condition
> is not a significant restriction on the downstream user's freedoms.
> Thus they would say that CC-by and GNU FDL ''are'' free, period.
> And certainly the latter condition makes it more certain
> that future derived works will in fact be free at all.
>
> I think that it's healthier to take a less absolute stance.
> There is (or was, I don't know the latest developments)
> a big debate in the Debian project about whether the GNU FDL
> is free when it's combined with Invariant Sections.
> (For example, the FSF's own GNU emacs manual has an IS.
> Certainly the FSF believes that this is free,
> but many people in the Debian community disagree.)
> What they ''should'' be able to agree on, to get started,
> is that the GNU FDL is ''less'' free when used with an IS;
> then they can start discussing whether it's free ''enough''.
> But since most debaters take an absolutist position
> on the criteria for freedom, they can't even get started.
>
> So an unlicensed copyright is less free than GNU FDL with an IS,
> and GNU FDL with an IS is less free than GNU FDL without an IS,
> and GNU FDL without an IS is (arguably [*]) less free than CC-by-sa,
> and CC-by-sa is less free than CC-by, and CC-by is less free than PD.
> But on the other hand, there are ''reasons'' for each of the restrictions,
> including reasons that restrictions that may increase freedom overall.
> So the question for any project (GNU, Debian, Wikimedia, etc)
> is not "free or not free" but "how free is free enough"?
> GNU and Debian are answering this differently, and that's OK.
> Within Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Wikinews may answer this differently too!
>
> [*] This has to do with the "overbroad DRM clause" in the GNU FDL.
> It is a subtle point that only the extreme anti-FDL people care about;
> but even so, people should be able to agree that it makes a difference
> to ''relative'' freedom.
>
>
> -- Toby
>