subject: [Commons-l] Commons SumItUp

references:
<44E5BB8A.2030700@web.de>
	<op.tehewoq516vp41@uk-richardc.mathworks.co.uk>
	<op.tehe8rdt16vp41@uk-richardc.mathworks.co.uk>

body:
This should be a multilingual list.People are welcome to write in
whichever language(s) they choose.

Brianna

On 18/08/06, Christian Richardt <cr333 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'd like to apologise for my German post to everybody. I didn't check the
> "To:" in my email client and this mailing list is configured to send
> replies to back to the list -- I didn't intend that and would like to
> apologise for it.
>
> Christian
>
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:39:50 +0100, Christian Richardt <cr333 at cam.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Hallo Markus,
> >
> > Das ist eine wirklich gute Idee, die du da umgesetzt hast.
> >
> > Ich h?tte nur eine kleine Anmerkung: Wenn ich dein Tool mit "en:Soup"
> > bef?lle, zeigt es auf der Ergebnisseite "{{de|----}}" an, weil der
> > Artikel
> > mit einer Vorlage und einer horizontalen Linie beginnt. W?re toll, wenn
> > du
> > das beheben k?nntest.
> >
> >
> > Sch?ne Gr??e,
> >
> > Christian
> >
> > On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:07:22 +0100, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I've worked some more on my SumIrUp tool [1], which can generate a list
> >> of language templates with one-line descriptions for a new article. All
> >> it needs is a starting point, namely this article in any language. From
> >> there, it will spider all the language links, and gather the initial
> >> paragraph/sentence of each article. It then generates a
> >> copy-and-paste-ready text, including language links.
> >>
> >> I was wondering - why not link to this tool in the instructions text for
> >> new articles? There could be a link to this tool using the name of the
> >> page to be created, and en.wikipedia as default. If an article with that
> >> name exists on en.wikipedia, it will generate said list of one-line
> >> descriptions which can be copied into that article. As this is exactly
> >> what commons articles/categories *should* contain, it might be a huge
> >> help.
> >>
> >> Magnus
> >>
> >> [1] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commons_sumitup.php
> > _______________________________________________
> > Commons-l mailing list
> > Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-19

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy hypothetical

body:
On 8/18/06, jahiegel <jahiegel at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Sam's comments surely invite the question around which, relative to BLP, we
> often dance: ought ethical or moral impulses ever to affect our editing?

I'd argue that the only reasons I edit Wikipedia are ethical and
moral, so a resounding yes :-)

> Consider a situation in which unsourced criticism appears in a biography.
> Assume arguendo that we can be certain that the subject will not essay a
> legal claim against the Foundation and that we can be relatively certain
> that bad press will not entail (an issue that, for the purposes of this
> discussion, we set aside in any case).  Should, then, we treat that
> unsourced negativity in a fashion different from that in which we'd treat
> unsourced comments in, to pick the first three random articles I find,
> [[Mancor de la Vall]], [[Sherston Software]], or [[Danzig III: How the Gods
> Kill]]?

Ideally, no, we should not.  Ideally, we apply WP:V and WP:NPOV
equally to every edit.  What's more, we'd ideally apply WP:AGF equally
to every edit.  *However*, living people are significantly different
to your example by the very fact that people are more likely to insert
damaging and embarassing "facts" about them than about your examples.
>From a purely pragmatic approach, it is not difficult to see that
articles concerning living individuals are a high target for vandals
and thus need to be scrutinised especially carefully.

> Concerns w/r/to prospective legal liability and bad press aside (which
> concerns can be, I think, persuasively allayed), a certain "do no harm"
> motivation tends to underline BLP.  In view of the failure to command a
> consensus of either [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]] or [[WP:NOT EVIL]], and of the
> disfavoring by the community of Jimbo's "human dignity" formulation with
> respect to deletion, I cannot abide the suggestion that the community writ
> large truly believe, legal/publicity concerns aside, that we ever ought to
> concern ourselves with the external consequences of our editing.

I have outlined my pragmatic reasoning for taking special
considerations above.  I also feel there is a very powerful moral
argument.

We don't ask people if they want a Wikipedia biography about them.
They have no say in the matter (ask, for example, Daniel Brandt or
Angela).  They get them, like it or not.  I believe that, in writing
articles about them, we have a duty to get our facts right.  This
applies across the encyclopaedia for the sake of editors, but
especially on articles about living people for the sake of the
subjects themselves.

>
> Such consideration is plainly, IMHO, unencyclopedic; not only ought we to
> edit with dispassion (NPOV), but so too ought we to edit with disinterest,
> such that we ought not to care whether the Googling of a biographical
> subject returns results that contain inaccurate and defamatory material (I,
> fof course, cannot comprehend why any individual editor, in view of
> other-than-project-related concerns, would ever care).
>
> To say that BLP is necessary because, even as it may infrequently forcelose
> an editor's adding encyclopedic information, it prevents the project from
> incurring costs related to defending the Foundation against legal action or
> helps the project to avoid bad publicity, from which might follow the
> departure of editors, the departure of readers, and/or the departure of
> donors, is one thing; to say that the moral concerns of editors, legal/bad
> publicity concerns notwithstanding, is quite another.
>
> Cordially,
>
>
> Joe
> [[User:Jahiegel]]
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sam Korn" <smoddy at gmail.com>
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 2:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy
>
>
> > On 8/18/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> In the context of WP:OFFICE, as well as more recently, Jimbo and others
> >> have
> >> written somethings about "hurt feelings," as if it was a policy (
> >> WP:CODDLE
> >> maybe) which could circumvent even important policy ( WP:NPOV maybe).
> >> Could
> >> you explain this?
> >
> > No. No no no no no.  That is not the aim at all.  NPOV can never be
> > compromised.  All that is different between a biography of a living
> > person and, for example, an article on the geography of southern
> > Brazil is that it is more likely that the article on the living person
> > will have potentially defamatory information added.  This may or may
> > not lead to legal action, but it most certainly is likely to lead to
> > bad press for Wikipedia.
> >
> > All that is required is a more *rigourous* application of our
> > verifibility policy for these more sensitive articles.  That is not a
> > bad thing; indeed it is the real essence of NPOV.
> >
> > We don't live in some cloud-cuckoo land where our mistakes don't have
> > consequences.  They do.  The answer is to make sure that our mistakes
> > are quickly corrected and that the damage does not continue.
> >
> >> I agree with the idea of treating bios with care, but that does not
> >> necessarily
> >> necessitate the use of an entirely different methodology than any other
> >> wiki
> >> page - including censoring talk pages.
> >
> > No, an "entirely different methodology" is not needed.  All that is
> > needed is a more rigourous application of our current policies.  These
> > rely upon (yes, rely upon, not just use as a bonus) the use of common
> > sense.  Most unsourced claims do not need to be blitzed into oblivion.
> > Yet some do, and it is this balance that WP:LIVING must attempt to
> > measure.  It is better to be cautious in this area, because it is
> > reckless and thoroughly unacceptable to say "Oh, don't blame us that
> > our encylopaedia accuses you of being a repeat sex offender, it just
> > happens because of the wiki process.  It's your problem you're getting
> > so upset."
> >
> > --
> > Sam
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Sam


from_name: Dabljuh

subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE

body:
On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:36:28 -0700 (PDT)
stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Your perceptions are both insightful and funny, but there are
> a couple problems though with making such exagerrations.
>
> For one, where does collective truthiness fit into your
> perception of things?
>
> -Stevertigo

Exaggeration? Hell no. That was NOTHING man, NOTHING!

But to your question: Apart from going seriously offtopic
there, how exactly to you believe 'collective truthiness'
does not fit into that scheme? The psychological cost
of adapting the views rather than the perception is even
higher when groupthink and peer pressure come into play.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] References

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/15/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>Why? I can't think why. Of course, the software would have to
>>automatically renumber them if references get deleted or moved around.
>
> Can you elaborate on that? What exactly is your proposal, because
> anything that involves typing in numbers manually sounds like a
> terrible idea, at first glance.

The proposal is that a new reference is added the same way as now, but
replaced at save-time with a number. All references are re-numbered at
save-time so they start at 1 and don't skip numbers.

Currently, if you want to re-insert a second link to an existing
reference, you have to hunt down its name (or worse, first assign one
yourself, for which you would potentially have to know the other names
in use so yours doesn't clash with them). Ideally you should only need
to look at the (rendered) References section to get the number, and then
type something like [1] to insert it.

I find your statement "anything that involves typing in numbers manually
sounds like a terrible idea" amazing -- does that mean you find "<ref
name='blah'/>" easier to type than "[1]"?

>>That's another possibility, of course -- although I would still contend
>>that something like [1], or even if it needs to be [ref:1], is much
>>better (easier to read, easier to ignore, easier to type, easier to type
>>without mistakes) than <ref name="ref1"/>.
>
> Still a problem if you have to add the references to a references
> section (bad if you're doing section editing).

As explained above, you never need to /add/ a reference to the
references section (unless you want to add one without a link inline in
the text; which, by the way, the current system doesn't allow, which
makes for extremely ugly formatting in many References sections).
However, one should be able to /edit/ the references in the References
section, because that's where they are.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] $wgEnableScaryTranscluding

body:
Alex Powell wrote:
>
> $wgEnableScaryTranscluding = false;

Who comes up with such variable names, why isn't that person given a
lesson on code maintainability?

Timwi


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] $wgEnableScaryTranscluding

body:
On 19/08/06, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
> It sounds no worse then the classic netcat comile switch
> "-DGAPING_SECURITY_HOLE".

Grep MediaWiki's source for $marching_ant_of_doom. An absolute
classic, I feel...should be preserved forever in the hall of WTF. ;)

Rob Church


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] References

body:
Hi Tim,

> The proposal is that a new reference is added the same way as now, but
> replaced at save-time with a number. All references are re-numbered at
> save-time so they start at 1 and don't skip numbers.

Ok that's the bit I hadn't picked up on - automatic re-numbering. A
curious idea, combining static and dynamic numbering.

> Currently, if you want to re-insert a second link to an existing
> reference, you have to hunt down its name (or worse, first assign one
> yourself, for which you would potentially have to know the other names
> in use so yours doesn't clash with them). Ideally you should only need
> to look at the (rendered) References section to get the number, and then
> type something like [1] to insert it.

Your ideas have merit.

> I find your statement "anything that involves typing in numbers manually
> sounds like a terrible idea" amazing -- does that mean you find "<ref
> name='blah'/>" easier to type than "[1]"?

I was stuck on the idea of dynamic numbering. Inserting a new footnote
2 and having to manually renumber the others...you know...

> As explained above, you never need to /add/ a reference to the
> references section (unless you want to add one without a link inline in
> the text; which, by the way, the current system doesn't allow, which
> makes for extremely ugly formatting in many References sections).
> However, one should be able to /edit/ the references in the References
> section, because that's where they are.

Sounds pretty good.

Steve


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Sydney aka FloNight <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
>
> ---- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> =============
> On 18/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > So our "living persons" banner contains the following text:
> > "This article is about or directly concerns one or more living people
> > and therefore must adhere to the biographies of living persons policy.
> > Specifically, unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about
> > living persons should not be posted to this article *or its talk
> > page(s)*. Such material must be removed without hesitation. "
> > (emphasis in original)
> > I'm particularly concerned about the "or its talk page" bit. Is
> > someone just confused, or should we actually *not* move material from
> > the talk page like this:
> > I have removed the following text because it sounds defamatory and
> > probably isn't true: "John B Smith was busted twice for frequenting
> > prostitutes in the 1970s". Anyone have a source?
> > How can we realistically work with potentially defamatory statements -
> > eg, requesting sources for them - if we can't even repeat them on talk
> > pages?
>
>
> Who put that in, and what do they say?
>
> (A lot of stupid stuff in the living bio and verification policies -
> and in a lot of other policies - is because someone edit warred it in
> and no-one could be bothered arguing in a querulous fashion. And then
> it stays because it's POLICY rather than because it makes sense.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> David,
>
> The arbcom uses Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons in their findings
> and sanctions quite a bit. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough
> for me.
>
> Take care
> Sydney aka FloNight
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Folks,

Personally, I think it would be jawdroppingly stupid (to use those terms)
to  remove a potentially libellous accusation from the article and put it on
the talk page where people could still see it

If you put a message on the talk page to say that the article previously
contained unsourced or poorly sourced negative comments about the person
contrary to our policies and asking for such claims to have strong sources
if they are made, most people would have enough brains to realise that that
included claims about consorting with prostitutes.

It is much better to be safe than sorry in such instances.

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
We obviously need a defamation process to extend our defamation policy to meta policy examples so that Greg and other individuals accused of fucking up can not sue us for claiming they were responsible for alleged repetition of the allegedly stupid acts.  In addition, the International Web Design Association has stated that suggesting that one of their member firms would ever allow instruction creep has caused material damage to their sales justifying a lawsuit to recover said damages.

David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote: On 19/08/06, David Gerard  wrote:

> I do so wish people would stop trying to legislate cluefulness. Read
> [[m:Instruction creep]] until you understand why.

And I see someone has added a beautiful and oh so apposite quote to
[[m:instruction creep]]:

    Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity. When I was CTO
of a web design firm, I noticed in staff meetings that we only ever
talked about process when we were avoiding talking about people. "We
need a process to ensure that the client does not get half-finished
design sketches" is code for "Greg fucked up." The problem, of course,
is that much of this process nevertheless gets put in place, meaning
that an organization slowly forms around avoiding the dumbest
behaviors of its mediocre employees, resulting in layers of gunk that
keep its best employees from doing interesting work, because they too
have to sign The Form Designed to Keep You From Doing The Stupid Thing
That One Guy Did Three Years Ago.

    - Wikis, Grafitti, and Process, Clay Shirky, 2003-08-01

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Everyone is raving about the  all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 19/08/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I do so wish people would stop trying to legislate cluefulness. Read
>>[[m:Instruction creep]] until you understand why.
>>
>>
>And I see someone has added a beautiful and oh so apposite quote to
>[[m:instruction creep]]:
>
>    Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity. When I was CTO
>of a web design firm, I noticed in staff meetings that we only ever
>talked about process when we were avoiding talking about people. "We
>need a process to ensure that the client does not get half-finished
>design sketches" is code for "Greg fucked up." The problem, of course,
>is that much of this process nevertheless gets put in place, meaning
>that an organization slowly forms around avoiding the dumbest
>behaviors of its mediocre employees, resulting in layers of gunk that
>keep its best employees from doing interesting work, because they too
>have to sign The Form Designed to Keep You From Doing The Stupid Thing
>That One Guy Did Three Years Ago.
>
>    - Wikis, Grafitti, and Process, Clay Shirky, 2003-08-01
>
I like it!  However, talking about people brings its own problems.  If
admin Joe is particularly sensitive about his efforts, and is full of
self-righteous determination we avoid saying "Joe fucked up." because
Joe is likely to whine and complain so much about about personal attacks
that you would think that he's running Encyclopedia Britannica.

Ec


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/18/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you put a message on the talk page to say that the article previously
> > contained unsourced or poorly sourced negative comments about the person
> > contrary to our policies and asking for such claims to have strong sources
> > if they are made, most people would have enough brains to realise that that
> > included claims about consorting with prostitutes.
>
> "Guys, I have removed a potentially defamatory claim. Can someone find
> a good source for it?"
>
> ???
>
How about linking to the edit where you removed it?  When someone
paranoid goes in and removes that from the history, well, then we're
screwed, but at least until then someone can figure out what the hell
you're talking about.

Anthony


list: foundation-l

from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Unauthorized usage of the Wikipedia logo

body:
On 8/19/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:

> ... which can be contacted at <juriwiki-lATwikimediaDOTorg> (see
> [[m:Juriwiki-l]]).  If you're dealing with this in OTRS, though, you
> should take a look at the option/select field marked "change
> queue"?there's one called "legal" which is generally appropriate for
> this sort of thing.

After all the trouble I've gone trhough to make sure that this address
did not appear in clear anywhere, because it is spam ridden.

You just blew it!

/me cries heavily

In general, please *avoid* putting any of the wikimedia addresses in
clear in *any* of the public lists. Thank you.

Delphine

--
~notafish


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/18/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally, I think it would be jawdroppingly stupid (to use those terms)
> to  remove a potentially libellous accusation from the article and put it on
> the talk page where people could still see it

IANAL, but to me there is a difference between stating the claim *as
fact* in an *encyclopaedic article* (which most people, bless their
souls, will take to *be* fact), and discussing the claim *as a dubious
supposition* on a *discussion page*, where its validity is being
questioned. I agree that simply repeating a claim can still be
damaging, but by phrasing it in those terms "Is this true? Can anyone
back this up?" might be less so?

I strongly feel that if we can't discuss the claim openly on talk
pages, then our chances of getting a good source for *that specific
claim* are greatly reduced.
>
> If you put a message on the talk page to say that the article previously
> contained unsourced or poorly sourced negative comments about the person
> contrary to our policies and asking for such claims to have strong sources
> if they are made, most people would have enough brains to realise that that
> included claims about consorting with prostitutes.

"Guys, I have removed a potentially defamatory claim. Can someone find
a good source for it?"

???

Steve


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wmfcc-l]  Webaroo package of en: wikipedia?

body:
On 19/08/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ann Burgraff of Webaroo was at Wikimania 2006 in Boston, and she gave a very
> quick Lightning Talk about Webaroo and handed out DVDs of their product.
> Windows only unfortunately, but pretty neat.

So is it most/all of en:? Some of en:?

- d.


body:
On 8/19/06, jahiegel <jahiegel at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Consider a situation in which unsourced criticism appears in a biography.
> Assume arguendo that we can be certain that the subject will not essay a
> legal claim against the Foundation and that we can be relatively certain
> that bad press will not entail (an issue that, for the purposes of this
> discussion, we set aside in any case).  Should, then, we treat that
> unsourced negativity in a fashion different from that in which we'd treat
> unsourced comments in, to pick the first three random articles I find,
> [[Mancor de la Vall]], [[Sherston Software]], or [[Danzig III: How the Gods
> Kill]]?  I imagine that there are those who will say "yes", and I suppose I

If by "unsourced criticism" you mean "unsourced defamatory
accusations" then, yes, I think we should make more of an effort to
keep the articles of likely suers clean than other articles.

I don't think we're ever justified in adding trashy accusations about
anyone without a source, but it makes sense to focus our effort
wherever it's most needed.

> motivation tends to underline BLP.  In view of the failure to command a
> consensus of either [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]] or [[WP:NOT EVIL]], and of the
> disfavoring by the community of Jimbo's "human dignity" formulation with
> respect to deletion, I cannot abide the suggestion that the community writ
> large truly believe, legal/publicity concerns aside, that we ever ought to
> concern ourselves with the external consequences of our editing.

I do. For barely notable people, information in Wikipedia could have a
disproportionate effect on their life. We should be aware of that, and
behave accordingly.

Steve


body:
On 19/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do. For barely notable people, information in Wikipedia could have a
> disproportionate effect on their life. We should be aware of that, and
> behave accordingly.

That should be a consequence of doing a good editorial job, not a
driver of it - that way lies Sympathetic Point of View, not Neutral
Point of View. We must *avoid* implying SPOV.

A useful heuristic is to take notability down to the detail level,
i.e. is this fact really notable? The example in one of the many
versions of WP:LIVING was a minorly notable scientist who happens to
have had a messy divorce. Unless the messiness was itself notable,
it's not likely to make it a better article for the reader.

- d.


from_name: Any File

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Magic word parsing (was: Re: Dajoo: a Java-based
	offline editor/viewer)

body:
Simetrical wrote:
> > The most interesting revelation of the above tests, for those who
> > missed it, is that it *is* possible to link to a page named after a
> > URL, but [[http://foo.com]] won't do it (that generates a, what was

> Any reason that we explicitly ban pages from having titles that look like URLs?

I was not involved in devloping the program, so I can not say whay
this choose was take, but I can think at least to good reasons why
such ban my be an interesting thing:

1) avoid advertisment vandalism (it is not difficult to imagine that
if such name where allowed, many web site would want an article with
the name of tehir URL - well actually they may stil want an article
with the name of thei web site of with the name of their URL with the
beginning http:// stripped)

2) Since [http://www.example.com] is a standard way of inserting an
external link, a person who is to much used to insert internal link as
[[Foo]], may easely wrongly try to insert an external link as
[[http://www.example.com]]. If link and page name like this were
allowed, the wiki will be full of such sort of links and pages.

AnyFile


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> If the claim has a strong basis in fact, it shouldn't be hard to find a
> source/

Ok, can you explain how a person can find a source for a claim they
have never seen? You seem to be suggesting that the person removing
the claim from article is the one who should find a source for it.
Sort of a disencentive to remove the claim, no?

Steve


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Foundation-l] Operations report, Nov 2005-Aug 2006

body:
This hasn't been done for a while, so I'll try to sum up changes in
our operations since November, 2005.

There has been much less insane headless chicken run and we've seen
quite steady operation operation (except few hiccups) lately.
First of all, we could afford for a while ordering hardware before we
were completely overloaded - it was constant tune in previous years.
There were lots of system architecture changes lately too - the way
how we store data, the way how we serve and cache images, and text.

==Hardware==

One of good news is that we can still stay at same class of database
servers, which even are getting much cheaper than before.
Database server cost per unit went from $15000 in Jun, 2005 to $12500
in October, 2005, to $9070 in March, 2006.
We got four of these servers in March and called them... db1, db2,
db3 and db4.

For application environment we did a single $100000 purchase, that
provided us with 40 high performance servers (with two dual core
opteron processors and 4GB of RAM each).
This nearly doubled our CPU capacity, and also provided enough of
space for revision storage, in-memory caching, etc.

For our current caching layer expansion we ordered 20 high
performance servers (8GB memory, four fast disks, $3300 each), which
should appear in production in ~one month.
We're investigating possibilities of adding more hardware in
Amsterdam cluster. We might end up with 10 additional cache servers
there too.

We also purchased $40000-worth of Foundry hardware, based on their
BigIron RX-8 platform.
We will use that as our highly available core routing layer, as well
as connectivity for most demanding servers.
As well, this will allow flexible networking with upstream providers.

Our next purchase will be image hosting/archival systems, and now
there's still ongoing investigation whether to use our previous
approach (big cheap server with lots of big cheap disks), or to
deploy some storage appliance.

We reallocated some aging servers to search cluster and other
auxiliary, and still continue this practice, so that we'd end up with
more homogenous application environment.

==Software==

There were lots of improvements in MediaWiki itself, but additionally
Tim and Mark ended up in Squid authors list - changes made in it's
code were critical to proper squid performance.
We did split database cluster, with English Wikipedia ending up on
separate set of boxes.
Some of old database servers got their new life being slaves just of
few languages, thus compensating lack of memory or fast disk system.
Additionally revision storage was moved from our core database boxes
to 'external storage clusters', which are our application servers
utilizing their idle disks.

In optimization work multiple factors are being worked on.
"Make it faster" means not only having more requests per second
served, but also reducing response times, and both issues are worked
on constantly.

And of course, as always, team has been marvelous ;-) Thanks!

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Operations report, Nov 2005-Aug 2006


from_name: Austin Hair

body:
On 8/19/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> After all the trouble I've gone trhough to make sure that this address
> did not appear in clear anywhere, because it is spam ridden.

Believe it or not, address collectors know what
"somethingATsomethingDOTsomething" means.  Sorry for your spam woes.

Austin


subject: [Wikitech-l] $wgEnableScaryTranscluding

body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 02:25:48AM +0100, Timwi wrote:
>
>>Alex Powell wrote:
>>
>>>$wgEnableScaryTranscluding = false;
>>
>>Who comes up with such variable names, why isn't that person given a
>>lesson on code maintainability?
>
> The person who came up with it, Timwi, very clearly never ever wanted
> to have to deal with a moron who turned it on, had problems, and
> claimed they weren't sufficiently warned.

The person who came up with it doesn't know what comments are?

> Code maintainability is not the only thing for which large software
> systems must be optimized.

I'm afraid you're not going to achieve performance or efficiency this
way either. :-)

Timwi


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 13:46:23 -0400, Sydney aka FloNight
<poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:

>Who put that in, and what do they say?

As far as I recall the comment about removing unsourced negative
material from articles and talk pages came from Jimbo.  The sense of
it is, as others have pointed out, obvious.

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


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Webaroo package of en: wikipedia?

body:
On 8/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 8/18/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Even wierder, we don't have an article about Hercules the TV
> >> character! Which is very strange, since we have articles on basically
> >> all characters to appear in popular fiction (just look at [[Will
> >> Hunting]] fer chrissakes). We do have an article on the TV show, but
> >> isn't sorted first either alphabetically or chronologically.
> >
> > We have a couple of weird instances where characters are blended with
> > the show/book about them. See [[Asterix]] for a good example - the
> > article is mostly about the series (despite the dablink "This article
> > is about the comic book character"), and has very little about him -
> > less than the content of [[Obelix]], for instance.
> >
> > It probably comes down to editors blurring the two concepts in their
> > minds. Or maybe sometimes the concepts are blurry - what *would* you
> > write about Hercules the TV character? Mostly you would want to
> > describe the relationship between him and the "real" Hercules, but you
> > might as well describe the faithfulness of the whole Hercules TV show
> > to the whole Hercules legend. Dunno.
> >
>
> A good example of where it's appropriate to split a TV show from the
> title character is [[Doctor (Doctor Who)]] vs. [[Doctor Who]]. Something
> like Hercules just doesn't have the material to split the character from
> the show.
>

I don't think so, both [[Xena]] and [[Gabrielle (Xena)]] have their
own articles, both pretty decent (if crufty). I haven't seen more than
a couple of episodes of Xena and Hercules, but Herc-man should be able
to pull off a couple of paragraphs, right? To take another example
(from a show I have watched, religiously, and several times), [[Buffy
Summers]], [[Xander Harris]], [[Willow Rosenberg]], and, my personal
favourite, [[Tara Maclay]] all have their own articles (throw any
accusations at me, I'm proud of my Buffy obsession!). Going by that
precedent, surely My Man Hercfrey could have an article?

--Oskar


from_name: Jürgen Herz

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> This hasn't been done for a while, so I'll try to sum up changes in
> our operations since November, 2005.
> [...]
> And of course, as always, team has been marvelous ;-) Thanks!

Thanks to the team for all the work and for your summary.

Reading about so much new hardware and supposedly more free servers,
what about reenabling access statistics? The problem of also counting
requests from squids is still valid when using pure access logs.

But wouldn't an approach like the one from
[[de:Benutzer:LeonWeber/WikiCharts]] be the solution? There a short JS
snippet generates a short request to the toolserver which logs this.
In theory every request is logged, but because of limitations on the
toolserver only every 600th request is logged.

Having two or three dedicated servers for serving a one pixel image and
logging its request, wouldn't it be possible to reenable a reliable
article view statistics?

Regards,
J?rgen


from_name: Alex Powell

subject: [Wikitech-l] $wgEnableScaryTranscluding

body:
I rather like it, actually - it says "beware", hence my post. It also
says "I may not work properly" - which I also seem to be suffering
from. I'd like to be able to transclude news headlines from wikinews,
so I tried:

{{wikinews:{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}/Latest news}}

but it seems to just display it (with dates expanded)...

On 8/19/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 02:25:48AM +0100, Timwi wrote:
> >
> >>Alex Powell wrote:
> >>
> >>>$wgEnableScaryTranscluding = false;
> >>
> >>Who comes up with such variable names, why isn't that person given a
> >>lesson on code maintainability?
> >
> > The person who came up with it, Timwi, very clearly never ever wanted
> > to have to deal with a moron who turned it on, had problems, and
> > claimed they weren't sufficiently warned.
>
> The person who came up with it doesn't know what comments are?
>
> > Code maintainability is not the only thing for which large software
> > systems must be optimized.
>
> I'm afraid you're not going to achieve performance or efficiency this
> way either. :-)
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bollocks it does. This fallacious view seems to be held by many on AFD
> - where saying someone's deletion nomination was completely
> wrongheaded, misguided and stupid will get some idiot claiming that
> you have "assumed bad faith" of the nominator. No, I've assumed bad
> *judgement*, with the nomination as the evidence.

Completely agreed; AGF means, in a nutshell, assume well-intended
stupidity over malice.

Our policy of Civility requires that you make some effort to be
reasonably polite about telling them that you think they're being
stupid, of course.  It doesn't mean you can't say it.

WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL do not mean that you can't call peoples' ideas for
what they are.

-Matt


from_name: James Hare

body:
Yes. If you want to start getting REAL cryptic, you'll have to do it in
French:

something ? something point com.

On 8/19/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/19/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > After all the trouble I've gone trhough to make sure that this address
> > did not appear in clear anywhere, because it is spam ridden.
>
> Believe it or not, address collectors know what
> "somethingATsomethingDOTsomething" means.  Sorry for your spam woes.
>
> Austin
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 8/19/06, Any File <anysomefile at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) avoid advertisment vandalism (it is not difficult to imagine that
> if such name where allowed, many web site would want an article with
> the name of tehir URL - well actually they may stil want an article
> with the name of thei web site of with the name of their URL with the
> beginning http:// stripped)

We have plenty of articles about websites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixindex&from=www.&namespace=0
might give you some idea.

We're also pretty good at dealing with advertising...

> 2) Since [http://www.example.com] is a standard way of inserting an
> external link, a person who is to much used to insert internal link as
> [[Foo]], may easely wrongly try to insert an external link as
> [[http://www.example.com]]. If link and page name like this were
> allowed, the wiki will be full of such sort of links and pages.

Well, it's the difference between [[http://www.example.com]] showing
up as a redlink, or showing up as an external link with an extra pair
of square brackets, like this: [[1]] (where the [1] is the link).
They'd probably be more likely to notice and fix the red link...

(I'm not arguing for or against allowing pages to be named http://whatever...)

Steve


body:
On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> A useful heuristic is to take notability down to the detail level,
> i.e. is this fact really notable? The example in one of the many
> versions of WP:LIVING was a minorly notable scientist who happens to
> have had a messy divorce. Unless the messiness was itself notable,
> it's not likely to make it a better article for the reader.

Notability at the fact level is even harder to determine than
notability at the subject level. Ask a republican whether Bush's
alleged administrative adventures in the National Guard were
"notable". Ask a Democrat the same.

I agree with your basic point, but what would you do in the case of a
mathematician of whom we have 200 words on his career and
publications, and 200 words on him getting sacked for molesting a
student? We might easily find 30 news stories on the latter, and very
few news stories on the rest of his career. Applying our basic "if
it's verifiable, it's includable" guideline might distort the overall
impression we give...

Steve


body:
On 8/19/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think so, both [[Xena]] and [[Gabrielle (Xena)]] have their
> own articles, both pretty decent (if crufty). I haven't seen more than
> a couple of episodes of Xena and Hercules, but Herc-man should be able
> to pull off a couple of paragraphs, right? To take another example
> (from a show I have watched, religiously, and several times), [[Buffy
> Summers]], [[Xander Harris]], [[Willow Rosenberg]], and, my personal
> favourite, [[Tara Maclay]] all have their own articles (throw any
> accusations at me, I'm proud of my Buffy obsession!). Going by that
> precedent, surely My Man Hercfrey could have an article?

Yes, for me it's safe to say that once there is a single article about
another character in the show, there should be a separate article
about the title character. Given that the title character is
guaranteed to be in episode, and probably almost every scene, there
ought to be plenty to write about. Let's do a random survey:

[[Get Smart]] ([[Maxwell Smart]] is a redirect, although [[Agent 99]] exists)
[[Bilbo Baggins]] has his own article separate from [[The Hobbit]]
[[Inspector Gadget]] (no separate article, although [[Brain (Inspector
Gadget)]] exists
Jerry Seinfeld is a very special case: We have [[Seinfeld]], [[Jerry
Seinfeld (character)]] and [[Jerry Seinfeld]].

Drawing a bit of a blank for other examples...

Steve


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 19/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > respect to deletion, I cannot abide the suggestion that the community writ
> > large truly believe, legal/publicity concerns aside, that we ever ought to
> > concern ourselves with the external consequences of our editing.
>
> I do. For barely notable people, information in Wikipedia could have a
> disproportionate effect on their life. We should be aware of that, and
> behave accordingly.

Incidentally, one of the arguments occasionally surfacing wrt
notability is "if the Wikipedia article is going to help make this
organisation famous, they're not notable"

Perhaps a corrolary is "if the Wikipedia article can significantly
influence its subject compared to anything else written about them,
should we have it?"

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


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 12:08:33PM +0200, J?rgen Herz wrote:
> Domas Mituzas wrote:
> > This hasn't been done for a while, so I'll try to sum up changes in
> > our operations since November, 2005.
> > [...]
> > And of course, as always, team has been marvelous ;-) Thanks!
>
> Thanks to the team for all the work and for your summary.
>
>
> Reading about so much new hardware and supposedly more free servers,
> what about reenabling access statistics? The problem of also counting
> requests from squids is still valid when using pure access logs.
>
> But wouldn't an approach like the one from
> [[de:Benutzer:LeonWeber/WikiCharts]] be the solution? There a short JS
> snippet generates a short request to the toolserver which logs this.
> In theory every request is logged, but because of limitations on the
> toolserver only every 600th request is logged.

Is LeonWeber's talk page still the second most visited page?
The problem with these JS tools is that they are easily faked if they
use sampling (e.g. logging only 1 in 600 requests).

There's code the squid programmers are working on and which will very
likely be in the next patch set for the stable release of squid that
allows to specify a remote loghost, apparently using cheap UDP datagrams
to send the log entries.

> Having two or three dedicated servers for serving a one pixel image and
> logging its request, wouldn't it be possible to reenable a reliable
> article view statistics?

Not with pixel sampling, but with remote logging squids, yes. This is
being worked on. Give us some time, and enjoy Leon's statistics in the
meantime.

Regards,

	jens


subject: [Foundation-l] board elections: help wanted

body:
What exactly would the assistants of these election officials do?

On 8/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> It seems we have a shortage of help for election officials, at least for
> august. Could someone give a hand to Aphaia and assist her ?
>
> Thanks
>
> Anthere
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 19/08/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Incidentally, one of the arguments occasionally surfacing wrt
> notability is "if the Wikipedia article is going to help make this
> organisation famous, they're not notable"
> Perhaps a corrolary is "if the Wikipedia article can significantly
> influence its subject compared to anything else written about them,
> should we have it?"

That sounds useful as a rule of thumb, though I wouldn't like to make
it a solid rule. I'm thinking of articles that are more on the
synthesis side than the restated list of facts side. Though no
examples spring to my mind. Hmm ...

- d.


from_name: RONALD C LESTER

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
`The Stratton family could use some financial help if there is anyone out there who is able.  allester6 at msn.com<mailto:allester6 at msn.com>

> Stratton homestead to be lost to history
>
> I recently attended the final July 4th picnic at the
> historic 120-year-old Stratton Mill in the
> Highlands. I can't tell you what a sad occasion it
> was for me.
>
> Friends and family gathered and said their goodbyes
> to the mill and its surroundings.
>
> Some of us took small pieces of the mill building
> just for our own memories.
>
> As I walked through the grounds, I thought about the
> rare turn-of-the-century water-powered sawmill that
> supplied the lumber for the Butte mines. I thought
> about the historic significance of this ground
> beneath my feet. I thought about how soon there
> would be no trace that it ever existed. It sickened
> me.
>
> Then, as I sat watching everyone visiting and
> reminiscing, I couldn't help recalling how Sen.
> Conrad Burns had told Vadis Stratton (with a hug and
> a kiss) that she would never lose her home or the
> mill.
>
> I recalled the pleas, the phone calls, and the
> letters and e-mails sent to Burns, Max Baucus and
> Dennis Rehberg, which eventually all fell on deaf
> ears.
>
> I remembered how prime land in the Beaverhead County
> was offered as an exchange and refused, as well as
> petitions with over 4,000 signatures were unaccepted
> by the Forest Service.
>
> Vadis Stratton truly believed Burns would help her
> save her husband's family homestead. She believed
> that the historic 120-year-old structures would not
> be destroyed. She has clung to the hope that her
> senators and congressman would help her.
>
> An historic homestead has been taken away from a
> native Montana family that arrived in the Highlands
> by covered wagon. On Aug. 31, the Stratton's will be
> leaving their home and memories of over 100 years.
>
> The public voice was ignored when the Forest Service
> employees refused to accept the petitions from the
> Strattons.
>
> (They stated they weren't taking any petitions at
> that time.)
>
> The public voice was also ignored when all the
> correspondence fell on deaf ears by our Montana
> delegation. Don't believe this could not happen to
> you.
>
> I hope those 4,000-plus voters who signed those
> petitions will remember the fatal outcome of the
> Strattons. I still believe that more than 4,000
> votes could be powerful in an election.
>
> Readers...remember the Strattons when you step into
> that voting booth.
>
> Becky Benson Taylor
>
> 126 Bluebird Lane
>
> Whitehall


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


body:
On 19/08/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:

> > I agree with your basic point, but what would you do in the case of a
> > mathematician of whom we have 200 words on his career and
> > publications, and 200 words on him getting sacked for molesting a
> > student? We might easily find 30 news stories on the latter, and very
> > few news stories on the rest of his career. Applying our basic "if
> > it's verifiable, it's includable" guideline might distort the overall
> > impression we give...

> It comes down to a question of balance. See above.

More than that - and this is an important point that tends to sail
over the heads of those didactic about guidelines - it's a question of
*editorial judgement*. All these rules of thumb are only useful
exactly as far as they are applied with a clue.

I do so wish people would stop trying to legislate cluefulness. Read
[[m:Instruction creep]] until you understand why.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l]  Process is evil

body:
On 19/08/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do so wish people would stop trying to legislate cluefulness. Read
> [[m:Instruction creep]] until you understand why.

And I see someone has added a beautiful and oh so apposite quote to
[[m:instruction creep]]:

    Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity. When I was CTO
of a web design firm, I noticed in staff meetings that we only ever
talked about process when we were avoiding talking about people. "We
need a process to ensure that the client does not get half-finished
design sketches" is code for "Greg fucked up." The problem, of course,
is that much of this process nevertheless gets put in place, meaning
that an organization slowly forms around avoiding the dumbest
behaviors of its mediocre employees, resulting in layers of gunk that
keep its best employees from doing interesting work, because they too
have to sign The Form Designed to Keep You From Doing The Stupid Thing
That One Guy Did Three Years Ago.

    - Wikis, Grafitti, and Process, Clay Shirky, 2003-08-01

- d.


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On Aug 19, 2006, at 3:24 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> On 19/08/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> Funny enough, Talking about people is forbidden by process.
>> WP:NPA, WP:Civil, WP:AGF those policies prevent you from even
>> thinking loudly that "Greg fucked up" and force you to pretend
>> every screwball with a POV is a perfectly decent person with
>> a great, encompassing understanding of not only the subject but
>> also the whole concept of collaborative writing.
>
>
> Bollocks it does. This fallacious view seems to be held by many on AFD
> - where saying someone's deletion nomination was completely
> wrongheaded, misguided and stupid will get some idiot claiming that
> you have "assumed bad faith" of the nominator. No, I've assumed bad
> *judgement*, with the nomination as the evidence.

Speaking of which, did we ever change the capsule summary on AGF to
"Never assume malice when brain-searing idiocy will suffice?"

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

 >


body:
If I didn't imply it,

I'd be happy to help, too. But I'd really like to know what there is to do.

On 8/19/06, Jon Harald S?by <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > It seems we have a shortage of help for election officials, at least for
> > august. Could someone give a hand to Aphaia and assist her ?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Anthere
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> If there's anything I could do, I'd be happy to help. =)
>
> Best regards,
> Jon Harald S?by
>
> Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
> Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
> MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
> Skype - jon.harald.soby
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Actually, I would help, but I'm a partisan party so I don't think I should.

But I'm sure others are happy.

On 8/19/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If I didn't imply it,
>
> I'd be happy to help, too. But I'd really like to know what there is to
> do.
>
>
> On 8/19/06, Jon Harald S?by < jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 8/19/06, Anthere < Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > It seems we have a shortage of help for election officials, at least
> > for
> > > august. Could someone give a hand to Aphaia and assist her ?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > Anthere
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> >
> > If there's anything I could do, I'd be happy to help. =)
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Jon Harald S?by
> >
> > Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
> > Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
> > MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
> > Skype - jon.harald.soby
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/18/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Personally, I think it would be jawdroppingly stupid (to use those
> terms)
> > to  remove a potentially libellous accusation from the article and put
> it on
> > the talk page where people could still see it
>
> IANAL, but to me there is a difference between stating the claim *as
> fact* in an *encyclopaedic article* (which most people, bless their
> souls, will take to *be* fact), and discussing the claim *as a dubious
> supposition* on a *discussion page*, where its validity is being
> questioned. I agree that simply repeating a claim can still be
> damaging, but by phrasing it in those terms "Is this true? Can anyone
> back this up?" might be less so?
>
> I strongly feel that if we can't discuss the claim openly on talk
> pages, then our chances of getting a good source for *that specific
> claim* are greatly reduced.
> >
> > If you put a message on the talk page to say that the article previously
> > contained unsourced or poorly sourced negative comments about the person
> > contrary to our policies and asking for such claims to have strong
> sources
> > if they are made, most people would have enough brains to realise that
> that
> > included claims about consorting with prostitutes.
>
> "Guys, I have removed a potentially defamatory claim. Can someone find
> a good source for it?"
>
> ???
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Folks,

If the claim has a strong basis in fact, it shouldn't be hard to find a
source/

If it doesn't, it shouldn't be on the article or on the talk page. We
shouldn't have potentially defamatory material where it can be publicly
accessed unless we can be fairly certain that it stands up to close
scrutiny.

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/18/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Even wierder, we don't have an article about Hercules the TV
>> character! Which is very strange, since we have articles on basically
>> all characters to appear in popular fiction (just look at [[Will
>> Hunting]] fer chrissakes). We do have an article on the TV show, but
>> isn't sorted first either alphabetically or chronologically.
>
> We have a couple of weird instances where characters are blended with
> the show/book about them. See [[Asterix]] for a good example - the
> article is mostly about the series (despite the dablink "This article
> is about the comic book character"), and has very little about him -
> less than the content of [[Obelix]], for instance.
>
> It probably comes down to editors blurring the two concepts in their
> minds. Or maybe sometimes the concepts are blurry - what *would* you
> write about Hercules the TV character? Mostly you would want to
> describe the relationship between him and the "real" Hercules, but you
> might as well describe the faithfulness of the whole Hercules TV show
> to the whole Hercules legend. Dunno.
>

A good example of where it's appropriate to split a TV show from the
title character is [[Doctor (Doctor Who)]] vs. [[Doctor Who]]. Something
like Hercules just doesn't have the material to split the character from
the show.

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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 569 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060819/e61f6e19/attachment.pgp


body:
On 19/08/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It seems we have a shortage of help for election officials, at least for
> august. Could someone give a hand to Aphaia and assist her ?

What needs doing?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/19/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If the claim has a strong basis in fact, it shouldn't be hard to find a
> > source/
>
> Ok, can you explain how a person can find a source for a claim they
> have never seen? You seem to be suggesting that the person removing
> the claim from article is the one who should find a source for it.
> Sort of a disencentive to remove the claim, no?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I am suggesting no such thing. It is up to a person who is making negative
claims about a person to provide reliable sources for it.

We should not leave potentially defamatory claims on Wikipedia either in the
articles or on talk pages where they are still accessible without sources.
End of story.

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
Sam is a great wikipedian, with a very keen mind.  I think his
explanation of this point here is marvelous.

Sam Korn wrote:
> On 8/18/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> In the context of WP:OFFICE, as well as more recently, Jimbo and others have
>> written somethings about "hurt feelings," as if it was a policy ( WP:CODDLE
>> maybe) which could circumvent even important policy ( WP:NPOV maybe). Could
>> you explain this?
>
> No. No no no no no.  That is not the aim at all.  NPOV can never be
> compromised.  All that is different between a biography of a living
> person and, for example, an article on the geography of southern
> Brazil is that it is more likely that the article on the living person
> will have potentially defamatory information added.  This may or may
> not lead to legal action, but it most certainly is likely to lead to
> bad press for Wikipedia.
>
> All that is required is a more *rigourous* application of our
> verifibility policy for these more sensitive articles.  That is not a
> bad thing; indeed it is the real essence of NPOV.
>
> We don't live in some cloud-cuckoo land where our mistakes don't have
> consequences.  They do.  The answer is to make sure that our mistakes
> are quickly corrected and that the damage does not continue.
>
>> I agree with the idea of treating bios with care, but that does not necessarily
>> necessitate the use of an entirely different methodology than any other wiki
>> page - including censoring talk pages.
>
> No, an "entirely different methodology" is not needed.  All that is
> needed is a more rigourous application of our current policies.  These
> rely upon (yes, rely upon, not just use as a bonus) the use of common
> sense.  Most unsourced claims do not need to be blitzed into oblivion.
>  Yet some do, and it is this balance that WP:LIVING must attempt to
> measure.  It is better to be cautious in this area, because it is
> reckless and thoroughly unacceptable to say "Oh, don't blame us that
> our encylopaedia accuses you of being a repeat sex offender, it just
> happens because of the wiki process.  It's your problem you're getting
> so upset."
>


body:
jahiegel wrote:
> and of the
> disfavoring by the community of Jimbo's "human dignity" formulation with
> respect to deletion,

??? I rather think that my proposal met with overwhelming support from
the community, after some clarifications were made.

> I cannot abide the suggestion that the community writ
> large truly believe, legal/publicity concerns aside, that we ever ought to
> concern ourselves with the external consequences of our editing.

You are in the extreme minority on this issue.  Most of us do care
passionately about the ethics of what we are doing, and how it affects
people.  Indeed, for most of us, it is part of the very fabric of the
reasons we participate.  We are human beings, trying to do something
good, not automatons puking out soulless "content".

Your position seems to grudgingly admit that we ought not to libel
people, since it might cost the project money or put it at risk.  Most
of us take a different view: we ought not to libel people because we are
good, we are ethical, we are trying to produce something important in
the world that matters to the world, and we want to do it the right way.

--Jimbo


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Notability at the fact level is even harder to determine than
> notability at the subject level. Ask a republican whether Bush's
> alleged administrative adventures in the National Guard were
> "notable". Ask a Democrat the same.

Hmm, I might be convinced by what you are saying here, but this example
does not seem compelling to me.  I think, based on my limited
recollection of this case, that it more or less turned out that the
"alleged administrative adventures" were more or less cooked up, i.e.
that this was a non-scandal.  But I would suspect that reasonable
Republicans would take the same view that I do: the overall incident is
still notable, of course.

But I still might agree with your basic point, that notability at the
fact level is harder to determine that notability at the subject level.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Hello,

It seems we have a shortage of help for election officials, at least for
august. Could someone give a hand to Aphaia and assist her ?

Thanks

Anthere


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 19/08/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh at gmx.net> wrote:

> Funny enough, Talking about people is forbidden by process.
> WP:NPA, WP:Civil, WP:AGF those policies prevent you from even
> thinking loudly that "Greg fucked up" and force you to pretend
> every screwball with a POV is a perfectly decent person with
> a great, encompassing understanding of not only the subject but
> also the whole concept of collaborative writing.

Bollocks it does. This fallacious view seems to be held by many on AFD
- where saying someone's deletion nomination was completely
wrongheaded, misguided and stupid will get some idiot claiming that
you have "assumed bad faith" of the nominator. No, I've assumed bad
*judgement*, with the nomination as the evidence.

- d.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/19/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > How about linking to the edit where you removed it?  When someone
> > paranoid goes in and removes that from the history, well, then we're
> > screwed, but at least until then someone can figure out what the hell
> > you're talking about.
>
> Ok, so now we've moved from "I removed the bit where it claimed that
> John Smith slept with Mrs Robinson" to "I removed this defamatory
> claim - click here to see what it said".
>
> Materially, what's changed?
>
I'd phrase it as "I removed a possibly defamatory claim because it was
unsourced [link to diff]".  What's materially changed is that the
claim is a bit more hidden, and probably more importantly, that the
claim won't show up in a google search (as diff pages are under the
robots exclusion).

It's also just cleaner and easier (IMO).  Why copy/paste the claim
when you can just link to it?

Anthony


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
Austin Hair wrote:

> On 8/19/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
 >
> > After all the trouble I've gone trhough to make sure that this address
> > did not appear in clear anywhere, because it is spam ridden.
>
> Believe it or not, address collectors know what
> "somethingATsomethingDOTsomething" means.  Sorry for your spam woes.

In general, attempts to avoid spam going to an address that more than 5
humans have to know is laughably pointless. Spam is fixed by finding the
spammers (and, possibly, executing them), not by minor obfuscation (if
it's major obfuscation, most people won't be able to read it, which
rather violates the point).

BTW, I'm speaking with someone who gets more spam per day even than
Jimmy. (No, really, we discussed it at some point. Isn't the life of a
geek fun? :-)) Just go with it, there's nothing much that can be done.
Such is life.

Yours sincerely,
--
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


from_name: Dabljuh

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 09:31:29 -0700
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> I like it!  However, talking about people brings its own problems.  If
> admin Joe is particularly sensitive about his efforts, and is full of
> self-righteous determination we avoid saying "Joe fucked up." because
> Joe is likely to whine and complain so much about about personal attacks
> that you would think that he's running Encyclopedia Britannica.
>
> Ec

Now that you bring it up...

Funny enough, Talking about people is forbidden by process.
WP:NPA, WP:Civil, WP:AGF those policies prevent you from even
thinking loudly that "Greg fucked up" and force you to pretend
every screwball with a POV is a perfectly decent person with
a great, encompassing understanding of not only the subject but
also the whole concept of collaborative writing.


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dajoo: a Java-based offline editor/viewer

body:
On 8/18/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Yes, but those views *hit* the cache.

Touch?.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
Dabljuh wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:24:20 +0100
> "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Bollocks it does. This fallacious view seems to be held by many on AFD
>> - where saying someone's deletion nomination was completely
>> wrongheaded, misguided and stupid will get some idiot claiming that
>> you have "assumed bad faith" of the nominator. No, I've assumed bad
>> *judgement*, with the nomination as the evidence.
>> - d.
>
> Of course you are right - you don't "assume bad faith" by calling
> someone's misguided, wrongheaded and stupid action such. That's
> a matter of subjective perception (as you call it, evidence).
>
> It is however WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA that prevent you from calling it so.

It is not. "You're a fucking idiot" is both incivil, and a personal
attack. "I think that this was a mistake" is neither. Show me the idiot
(NPA applies to the wikis, not the MLs ;-)) claiming this, and I will,
*ahem*, have a word. :-)

> Hint: You can always call someone a troll. It looks like that's
> not a personal attack or anything incivil, but a constructive
> criticism of someone's editing habit.

Do that and I will personally block you. Calling someone a "troll" is
the most hurtful thing you can say - the equivalent of "all users must
assume bad faith on the part of this user in all actions". Calling
someone a "troll" is never, /ever/, "constructive criticism". "You're
being disruptive in doing <foo>, please stop" is the nearest you can get
along that tangent, and it's no-where close.

Yours sincerely,
--
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 15:29:30 -0400
Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> Speaking of which, did we ever change the capsule summary on AGF to
> "Never assume malice when brain-searing idiocy will suffice?"
>
> Best,
> Phil Sandifer
> sandifer at english.ufl.edu
>
> You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
> boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
>
>  >

I'm in favor of that, if you replace "Brain searing idiocy"
with "brain searing idiocy and/or utter lunacy"


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:24:20 +0100
"David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bollocks it does. This fallacious view seems to be held by many on AFD
> - where saying someone's deletion nomination was completely
> wrongheaded, misguided and stupid will get some idiot claiming that
> you have "assumed bad faith" of the nominator. No, I've assumed bad
> *judgement*, with the nomination as the evidence.
> - d.

Of course you are right - you don't "assume bad faith" by calling
someone's misguided, wrongheaded and stupid action such. That's
a matter of subjective perception (as you call it, evidence).

It is however WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA that prevent you from calling it so.

Hint: You can always call someone a troll. It looks like that's
not a personal attack or anything incivil, but a constructive
criticism of someone's editing habit.


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

body:
On 8/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It seems we have a shortage of help for election officials, at least for
> august. Could someone give a hand to Aphaia and assist her ?
>
> Thanks
>
> Anthere
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

If there's anything I could do, I'd be happy to help. =)

Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
Skype - jon.harald.soby


from_name: Minh Nguyen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Blank pages being delivered at en?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/18/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
>> Not seeing it here (Firefox 1.5.0.6, Win2K, RoadRunner).
>
> Actually I bet it's "Google Web Accelerator" being stupid. Sorry for
> the dud report.
>
> Steve

Actually, I've been getting these blank pages too, and I'm not using
Google Accelerator. Using Firefox on WinXP and MacOSX, ZoomTown (local
broadband ISP). I haven't been seeing this with any other website.

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 8/19/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> > On 8/19/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> > > Do that and I will personally block you.
> >
> > Are these threats by admins really necessary?
>
> It's not a threat, but a promise. :-)

Then get to work - I think you have a few hundred admins to block :)

Seriously, it was a use of "you" in the plural. Not a threat, more an
> observation.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> --
> James D. Forrester
> Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
> E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
> IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>jahiegel wrote:
>
>
>>I cannot abide the suggestion that the community writ
>>large truly believe, legal/publicity concerns aside, that we ever ought to
>>concern ourselves with the external consequences of our editing.
>>
>>
>You are in the extreme minority on this issue.  Most of us do care
>passionately about the ethics of what we are doing, and how it affects
>people.  Indeed, for most of us, it is part of the very fabric of the
>reasons we participate.  We are human beings, trying to do something
>good, not automatons puking out soulless "content".
>
>Your position seems to grudgingly admit that we ought not to libel
>people, since it might cost the project money or put it at risk.  Most
>of us take a different view: we ought not to libel people because we are
>good, we are ethical, we are trying to produce something important in
>the world that matters to the world, and we want to do it the right way.
>
You're preaching to the enlightened!  Those of us who believe in this
probably all did so before we ever heard of Wikipedia, and mostly gained
it through life experience.  Reading Aristotle's ethics would not change
this, just as reading Aristotle would by itself not produce an ethical
person.

Regret it as I may, I have to admit that the vast majority of society
have a great deal of difficulty coping without rules.  When you want to
build on ethics it can be painful watching those who can't get it, and
tempting to take over and give them the rules they want. But doing that
comes with a price.  The same contrast exists between a person with a
fifth grade education that builds a successful business empire and an
MBA that can't seem to rise above middle management.

An ethical person not only avoids putting others at risk, but he accepts
the personal risk of his own actions.  He knows  enough to take the risk
of breaking rules for a good cause.

Ec


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A useful heuristic is to take notability down to the detail level,
>> i.e. is this fact really notable? The example in one of the many
>> versions of WP:LIVING was a minorly notable scientist who happens to
>> have had a messy divorce. Unless the messiness was itself notable,
>> it's not likely to make it a better article for the reader.
>
> Notability at the fact level is even harder to determine than
> notability at the subject level. Ask a republican whether Bush's
> alleged administrative adventures in the National Guard were
> "notable". Ask a Democrat the same.
>

Here's a question: would a judge allow it to be raised in court?

> I agree with your basic point, but what would you do in the case of a
> mathematician of whom we have 200 words on his career and
> publications, and 200 words on him getting sacked for molesting a
> student? We might easily find 30 news stories on the latter, and very
> few news stories on the rest of his career. Applying our basic "if
> it's verifiable, it's includable" guideline might distort the overall
> impression we give...
>

It comes down to a question of balance. See above.

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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 569 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060819/96394717/attachment.pgp


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

body:
On 8/19/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> How about linking to the edit where you removed it?  When someone
> paranoid goes in and removes that from the history, well, then we're
> screwed, but at least until then someone can figure out what the hell
> you're talking about.

Ok, so now we've moved from "I removed the bit where it claimed that
John Smith slept with Mrs Robinson" to "I removed this defamatory
claim - click here to see what it said".

Materially, what's changed?

Steve


body:
On 8/19/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps a corrolary is "if the Wikipedia article can significantly
> influence its subject compared to anything else written about them,
> should we have it?"

If a Wikipedia article can't influence the public's perception of a
subject, why bother having it?

Steve


body:
On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> More than that - and this is an important point that tends to sail
> over the heads of those didactic about guidelines - it's a question of
> *editorial judgement*. All these rules of thumb are only useful
> exactly as far as they are applied with a clue.

I wish we had editorial judgment. Specifically, I wish we had a way of
determining which of our editors had good judgment, and empowered them
to do so.

There are lots of issues that come down to "editorial judgment", but
good judgment is really hard to apply by committee.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>    Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity. When I was CTO
> of a web design firm, I noticed in staff meetings that we only ever
> talked about process when we were avoiding talking about people. "We
> need a process to ensure that the client does not get half-finished
> design sketches" is code for "Greg fucked up." The problem, of course,
> is that much of this process nevertheless gets put in place, meaning
> that an organization slowly forms around avoiding the dumbest
> behaviors of its mediocre employees, resulting in layers of gunk that
> keep its best employees from doing interesting work, because they too
> have to sign The Form Designed to Keep You From Doing The Stupid Thing
> That One Guy Did Three Years Ago.

Cute. I think the solution is to write in the margin of the process
"This was instituted because Greg fucked up". Then, when Greg leaves
the company, you put the process into remission.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 8/19/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> > Do that and I will personally block you.
>
> Are these threats by admins really necessary?

It's not a threat, but a promise. :-)

Seriously, it was a use of "you" in the plural. Not a threat, more an
observation.

Yours sincerely,
--
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 8/19/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> Do that and I will personally block you. Calling someone a "troll" is

Are these threats by admins really necessary?

Steve


from_name: Austin Hair

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
On 8/20/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Listmods?

I did moderate him after his first post, and he did try to send
another e-mail on the subject, which I rejected.  I don't know if he's
a spammer or simply well-meaning, but this certainly isn't
appropriate.

Austin


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
On 8/20/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Funny how we're dignifying spam with all this discussion. :)

Which is why I didn't say anything about it when I did it, but now
that people are talking about it it's best to put the issue to rest.

Austin


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


from_name: Scott Zager

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
It might be helpful to send a quick message to the list when this type of
instance occurs that just lets everybody know the response to the issue.  It
both informs readers that the issue was handled and shows them more
specifically what type of messages get moderated.

--
-Scott Zager


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
On 8/20/06, Scott Zager <archmagusrm at gmail.com> wrote:
> It might be helpful to send a quick message to the list when this type of
> instance occurs that just lets everybody know the response to the issue.  It
> both informs readers that the issue was handled and shows them more
> specifically what type of messages get moderated.

I fired off a brief note to the other list admins, of course; in the
future, people should assume that (i) spam is something that will get
you moderated, and (ii) we're on top of it.

We're pretty easygoing admins, and there's really no list policy to
worry about?this is a civilized forum for discussion, and the things
that force an admin to take action are generally things that any
reasonable person would consider bad.  See
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l#Administrators_and_rules>.

Austin


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Funny how we're dignifying spam with all this discussion. :)

On 8/20/06, Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/20/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Listmods?
>
> I did moderate him after his first post, and he did try to send
> another e-mail on the subject, which I rejected.  I don't know if he's
> a spammer or simply well-meaning, but this certainly isn't
> appropriate.
>
> Austin
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


from_name: Wikimedia Foundation

subject: [Expunged message]

body:
This message has been removed from the mailing list archives by an
administrator.


subject: [Expunged message]


from_name: Eric R. Meyers

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Ticket#2006081710002066] Wiki / Jim... please
	help?

body:
Hi Everyone,

On Sunday 20 August 2006 02:53, Wikimedia Foundation wrote:
> I could not help giving you an insight of what we get on the board email.
>
> Enjoy

Boy Mr. Jim, do I feel like I've got some better insight now, Wiki-wiki!

Wikicommunities won't need Wikicondoms to protect us Wikiactive Wikipeople in
our long and dangerous Wikijourney along the merry Wikiway to the many
afterhours Wikibars and Wikinightclubs.  In every Wikidraining facility, or
Wikilavatory, the Wikivending machine will simply dispense a Wikithumbs "up"
or "down" on your latest Wikiprospect for a Wiki-wiki close Wikiencounter.

Who needs Wikiprivacy, when we'll have Wikidatabases to protect us all.

Wikis can do absolutely everything that we can imagine, so everyone line up
please, like all good Wikicitizens should do, and fill in your hopefully
little black Wikibooks, for the public good of the next great Wikivending IT
solution.

Just let me know, when it's my turn to begin contributing by sharing my
personal knowledge of other people.

Thanks for sharing.:)

Eric
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060820/95d3f5cd/attachment.pgp


body:
Hi Everyone,

On Sunday 20 August 2006 02:53, Wikimedia Foundation wrote:
> I could not help giving you an insight of what we get on the board email.
>
> Enjoy

Boy Mr. Jim, do I feel like I've got some better insight now, Wiki-wiki!

Wikicommunities won't need Wikicondoms to protect us Wikiactive Wikipeople in
our long and dangerous Wikijourney along the merry Wikiway to the many
afterhours Wikibars and Wikinightclubs.  In every Wikidraining facility, or
Wikilavatory, the Wikivending machine will simply dispense a Wikithumbs "up"
or "down" on your latest Wikiprospect for a Wiki-wiki close Wikiencounter.

Who needs Wikiprivacy, when we'll have Wikidatabases to protect us all.

Wikis can do absolutely everything that we can imagine, so everyone line up
please, like all good Wikicitizens should do, and fill in your hopefully
little black Wikibooks, for the public good of the next great Wikivending IT
solution.

Just let me know, when it's my turn to begin contributing by sharing my
personal knowledge of other people.

Thanks for sharing.:)

Eric
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060820/95d3f5cd/attachment-0001.pgp


body:
Hi Everyone,

On Sunday 20 August 2006 02:53, Wikimedia Foundation wrote:
> I could not help giving you an insight of what we get on the board email.
>
> Enjoy

Boy Mr. Jim, do I feel like I've got some better insight now, Wiki-wiki!

Wikicommunities won't need Wikicondoms to protect us Wikiactive Wikipeople in
our long and dangerous Wikijourney along the merry Wikiway to the many
afterhours Wikibars and Wikinightclubs.  In every Wikidraining facility, or
Wikilavatory, the Wikivending machine will simply dispense a Wikithumbs "up"
or "down" on your latest Wikiprospect for a Wiki-wiki close Wikiencounter.

Who needs Wikiprivacy, when we'll have Wikidatabases to protect us all.

Wikis can do absolutely everything that we can imagine, so everyone line up
please, like all good Wikicitizens should do, and fill in your hopefully
little black Wikibooks, for the public good of the next great Wikivending IT
solution.

Just let me know, when it's my turn to begin contributing by sharing my
personal knowledge of other people.

Thanks for sharing.:)

Eric
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060820/95d3f5cd/attachment.pgp>


body:
Hi Everyone,

On Sunday 20 August 2006 02:53, Wikimedia Foundation wrote:
> I could not help giving you an insight of what we get on the board email.
>
> Enjoy

Boy Mr. Jim, do I feel like I've got some better insight now, Wiki-wiki!

Wikicommunities won't need Wikicondoms to protect us Wikiactive Wikipeople in
our long and dangerous Wikijourney along the merry Wikiway to the many
afterhours Wikibars and Wikinightclubs.  In every Wikidraining facility, or
Wikilavatory, the Wikivending machine will simply dispense a Wikithumbs "up"
or "down" on your latest Wikiprospect for a Wiki-wiki close Wikiencounter.

Who needs Wikiprivacy, when we'll have Wikidatabases to protect us all.

Wikis can do absolutely everything that we can imagine, so everyone line up
please, like all good Wikicitizens should do, and fill in your hopefully
little black Wikibooks, for the public good of the next great Wikivending IT
solution.

Just let me know, when it's my turn to begin contributing by sharing my
personal knowledge of other people.

Thanks for sharing.:)

Eric
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060820/95d3f5cd/attachment-0001.pgp>


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> RONALD C LESTER wrote:
> <spam>
>
> Listmods?

someone moderated him (third listmod does not need to go look)

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


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Austin Hair wrote:
> On 8/20/06, Scott Zager <archmagusrm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It might be helpful to send a quick message to the list when this type of
>>instance occurs that just lets everybody know the response to the issue.  It
>>both informs readers that the issue was handled and shows them more
>>specifically what type of messages get moderated.
>
>
> I fired off a brief note to the other list admins, of course; in the
> future, people should assume that (i) spam is something that will get
> you moderated, and (ii) we're on top of it.

He did it. My mistake.
The message went to one of my minor email box and I only saw it after I
checked myself.
I just updated the admin to change that and mention my more usual email
address.

> We're pretty easygoing admins, and there's really no list policy to
> worry about?this is a civilized forum for discussion, and the things
> that force an admin to take action are generally things that any
> reasonable person would consider bad.  See
> <http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l#Administrators_and_rules>.

yes.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject:
[Foundation-l] Special Projects Committee open meeting : Friday,
	August 26, 2200 UTC

body:
Dear all,

The Special Projects Committee is holding an open meeting this Friday
at 2200 UTC on IRC (channel to be determined).  Please sign up on meta
if you are interested in attending, and add notes to the agenda
whether or not you can be there at that time:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Special_projects_committee#Public_meetings

The meeting is expected to last around two hours.  Note that there is
also a public mailing list, spcommittee-l, that you can subscribe to
discuss projects before and after.

Best,
  SJ


body:
Correction: that's Saturday August 26, not Friday.   Hope to see you
there.  :-)   SJ

On 8/20/06, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> The Special Projects Committee is holding an open meeting this Friday
> at 2200 UTC on IRC (channel to be determined).  Please sign up on meta
> if you are interested in attending, and add notes to the agenda
> whether or not you can be there at that time:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Special_projects_committee#Public_meetings
>
> The meeting is expected to last around two hours.  Note that there is
> also a public mailing list, spcommittee-l, that you can subscribe to
> discuss projects before and after.
>
> Best,
>   SJ
>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> Wikipedia is not therapy.  Wikipedia does note exist for the purpose
> of validating the feelings of our myriad contributors.  It is not our
> responsibility to make everyone feel loved.

But when we do make everyone feel loved, our work is much more pleasant
and effective... for them and for us.

This is why it is always better to try to find the best in what someone
has done, even when we disagree, and to try to disagree in a way which
rewards and supports the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the other
person.

This is a two way street, of course.  It takes two to tango.  If someone
says something harsh, which appears to assume bad faith or whatever, a
good response is to appreciate and support the elements of good faith in
_that_, and respond positively to that, without endorsing the assumption
of bad faith.

Like this:

Person A nominates something for deletion.  For the sake of argument,
let us assume this is completely brain dead.

Person B says "This nomination is wrongheaded, meritless, misguided, and
stupid."  Let assume that we, privately, think this is true.

What should A do?  What should C, D, and E do?

They can say "You are assuming bad faith!  AGF! AGF!" but this does not
seem helpful.

Better might be to try to find some kernel of usefulness in what the
nominator was attempting to do.  "While I agree with B that this
nomination ought not to succeed, I commend A for trying to deal with the
underlying issue of articles of this type.  While I do not think this is
the sort of example of things we should be deleting, I do agree that
there are problems with this article.  A, I wonder if you might consider
working with me on an alternative approach..."

Or whatever suits that moment.

The idea here is that Assume Good Faith is really important, and
WikiLove is really important.  Being harsh and feeling sanctimonious
about battling idiots is a temptation that all good people can fall
into, especially when tired.  But it dehumanizes others and causes them
to behave worse, not better.

--Jimbo


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process is evil

body:
On 8/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bollocks it does. This fallacious view seems to be held by many on AFD
> - where saying someone's deletion nomination was completely
> wrongheaded, misguided and stupid will get some idiot claiming that
> you have "assumed bad faith" of the nominator. No, I've assumed bad
> *judgement*, with the nomination as the evidence.

I recently said, on the Wiki: "I do not see how examining and
ultimately concluding that an offered opinion is meritless is in any
way a failure to assume good faith. I fully accept that a misguided
opinion can be offered in good faith; however, what matters is whether
the opinion has merit, not whether it is faithfully held."

This led to me being accused even more loudly of failing to assume
good faith.  Apparently "assume good faith" is now code for "speak not
ill of anyone, nor of their ideas, nor their contributions".

Wikipedia is not therapy.  Wikipedia does note exist for the purpose
of validating the feelings of our myriad contributors.  It is not our
responsibility to make everyone feel loved.

Kelly

Kelly


subject:
[Foundation-l] [Ticket#2006081710002066] Wiki / Jim... please
 help?

body:
Wikimedia Foundation wrote:

>I could not help giving you an insight of what we get on the board email.
>
>Enjoy
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Hello Wiki / Jim;
>My name is ..., and I am an Internet Engineer from New York.  I would like to give you a
>little bit of insight on a web service that I developed and released in April of 2005, which I have
>personally been financially supporting ? and I am looking for people and the media to help spread
>the word.  A unique, free, non-profit service like this should not be ignored when it can help so
>many people combat the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
>
<snip>

This will be heartwarming to those who believe that STDs can be passed
on by internet sex, notably other internet engineers.

In the past year I managed to watch a couple of episodes of American
Inventor on TV.  My observation about this lot, more than any other
reality show contestants, was prone to obsessiveness when they believed
in the worth of their invention.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Austin Hair wrote:
>
>
>>On 8/20/06, Scott Zager <archmagusrm at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It might be helpful to send a quick message to the list when this type of
>>>instance occurs that just lets everybody know the response to the issue.  It
>>>both informs readers that the issue was handled and shows them more
>>>specifically what type of messages get moderated.
>>>
>>>
>>I fired off a brief note to the other list admins, of course; in the
>>future, people should assume that (i) spam is something that will get
>>you moderated, and (ii) we're on top of it.
>>
>>
>He did it. My mistake.
>The message went to one of my minor email box and I only saw it after I
>checked myself.
>I just updated the admin to change that and mention my more usual email
>address.
>
Despite the most dilligent efforts to thwart them a few spammers will
inevitably make it through.  On the whole the admins are quite
successful about this.  It's no big deal when they miss one once in a while.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


list: commons-l

from_name: Fastfission

subject: [Commons-l] Copyrighted free use

body:
Perhaps what we need to do is to make some more translations of that
particular tag, then, as we have with some other tags? If a group of
non-English speakers are consistently mis-using a tag which is only
written in English then it would make sense to have someone translate
it...

(My Spanish is so awful that I wouldn't dare do it myself.)

FF

On 8/20/06, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
> I see that lots of people loads images and give them template
> {{Copyrighted free use}}. The funny thing about it is, that in most
> cases they are screenshots from TV, movies, movie posters, game
> covers, etc. So maybe we should make a large cleanup of images in this
> category, couse there can be tons of copyvios...
>
> AJF/WarX
>
> ps. why most copyvios is made by people talking in spanic langugage  ?
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>