body:
> From: "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:37:07 +0000
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
>
> On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless,
>> malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access
>> to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named,
>> accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
>
>
> Our big problem is not random hit-and-run anonymous vandalism; it's
> hard-working and malicious vandals who view trashing Wikipedia as a
> challenge. Technical barriers to entry will discourage sincere new
> contributors but not stop the problem children for a moment.
>
>
> - d.

David,

Thanks. Still learning. Still frustrated.

Marc

> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Teun Spaans

subject: [Foundation-l] New ideas for fundraising needed. Start here!

body:
I suggest that this call is posted in the village pump of all major wikis.

On 12/28/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 28/12/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/28/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 28/12/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > 6) Has there ever been an open call to all wikipedians to provide
> > > > suggestions to the foundationboard of ways to receive money?
>
> > > Does continuously saying "our traffic level is stupidly high and costs
> > > a fortune / everyone at our web ranking has an actual budget and
> > > income stream / we're operating on a shoestring / we're desperately in
> > > need of cash" count?
>
> > No.
> > Did I really have to say that? ;-)
>
>
> Then take it as read ;-)
>
> Perhaps we can get going on creative new ideas for fundraising!
>
> Post your idea below:
>
> --->
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Gatto Nero

subject:
[Foundation-l] "By electing some of the Board members,
	who are really few"...

body:
I'm sorry not to agree totally with you, but I think there's a
misunderstanding too.
I cannot explain which (headache doesn't help), but there's.

You said: 4 of 7 members, 5 of 7 members. Nice, but that's not 7 of 7,
and I think this is the first problem.
I really appreciate the contribution of Jan-Bart and Michael, but they
are "outsiders" (as you described them), and I cannot understand why
"outsiders" should be part of a board, then. They could be "outsider
helps".

Going on.
Jimbo is more simbolic. Yet he's *very* important and he *must* be
part of the Board, as far as I think. But he's not that representative
of... for example, Chinese Community or European Community.
This makes 4 members remaining.

Four members for *a lot* of editors. Quite few, proportionally.
Local communities are not represented: what about spanish community?
what about italian, or polish, or south-african community?
Don't get it as an offense or an attact, but I don't think you
represent me. I've no way to interact with you, to express my opinion.
I quite don't even know you.

I think there's a problem in the way the Foundation is organized: we
are *big*, and we should start to think bigger.
What does this means? For example, more voice to local chapters,
intended as an intermidiate organism between Foundation and local
communities...


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Foundation-l] This is not an Advertisement

body:
On 28/12/06, Dedalus <dedalus at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> In short, I believe Brad Patrick and his team are doing a perfect job to
> keep the WMF and the websites up and running.

I don't think anyone who has objected to the Virgin Unite notice has
claimed Brad Patrick and his team were doing a bad job. They certainly
are doing a very good job. It was their methods that were being
questioned. Since we're a community-based project, this seems healthy.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] More drama

references:
<jm18p2t8hfm63hc8puptblt559716ebsc2@4ax.com>
	<54f6f2050612281016i390ee0cbg446e55bf4989eeaf@mail.gmail.com>
	<uf48p25ofhvqa2r1mtf7s0tdpv6opctklu@4ax.com>

body:
On 28/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> What's the map symbol for a ghost ramp?  What's the USDOT definition?

Ghost ramps do not have distinct symbols, but within the context of
the roads around it the markings are clear. It would be nice to have
examples of ghost ramps listed on that page to have a second, written
source.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 12/28/06, Dedalus <dedalus at wikipedia.be> wrote:
>
> Tomorrow the Virgin Unite will not longer be present as a sitenotice.
> Today
> jeroen and others complained about that sitenotice. In his words the
> community would have been split. The current fundraiser raises today an
> additional several 100k US dollar, so that is gain one. Concerning the
> Dutch
> Wikipedia, today over 250 persons registered a username. So the Dutch
> Wikipedia today gains that many new users and maybe loose temporarily (I
> doubt definitely) one or two well known users.

For both numbers one can doubt if they are permanent. But the one swho have
gone are mainly old hands, experienced contributors who have the core values
of wikipedia at heart.

The new ones will mainly have arrived because of the 250,000 article
milestone, the press release hit the media today. Many of the new
wikipedians will never write even 1 article.

Somebody else mentioned the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It's in the
> press they would like to raise the level of primary and secondary
> education
> in the US. Wikiversity and or Wikibooks might be helpful in raising the
> level of education there and elsewhere. Suppose the Bill and Melinda Gates
> Foundation would like to grant some money to WMF on the condition that it
> would be for specific projects, e.g. Wikibooks or Wikiversity, would that
> raise any objections by anyone?
>
> In short, I believe Brad Patrick and his team are doing a perfect job to
> keep the WMF and the websites up and running.
>
> Dedalus
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
>
>
> I think there's a problem in the way the Foundation is organized: we
> are *big*, and we should start to think bigger.
> What does this means? For example, more voice to local chapters,
> intended as an intermidiate organism between Foundation and local
> communities...

The way the wikimedia is structured might indeed be a point of attention.
There has always been an sensitive area in this: wikipedians should not feel
inhibited or controlled in what they write. NPOV should be guaranteed. Free
(both ways) access for visitors and contributors should also be guaranteed.
On the other hand, wikipedians should be able to influence the board.

Perhaps indeed a system of local chapters could represent the local
wikipedians (and wikibooks, and dictionarists, and so on).
Perhaps a system of village pumps could be brought to work, though the
language.wikimedia.org sites are visited very infrequently.

teun


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> This is the first 'conversation page' (or whatever its called) I have
> participated in online, so I'm not familiar with the protocols involved.

This is your first mailing list?

*hands you helmet, ducks for cover*

> I
> would really like to bring it back to my original concerns, review all
> that's been said, collect my thoughts and start a new conversation focusing
> on a proposal I have. Is that the right way to go, or do I merely add my
> thoughts to this stream?

Summarising and starting a new conversational thread would be
productive and sensible :-)

OTOH, as well as all its other functions, wikien-l is actually the
official sewer of English Wikipedia. So anything that isn't really
stupid is probably a tremendous net plus.

- d.


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] More drama

body:
The name, "Ghost ramp", might not be well sourced, but the instances
are fine - a map is a perfectly good source for information about the
existance of a road. Perhaps the page should be moved (as someone
suggested on the AfD), but it shouldn't be deleted.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> Maybe what we should strive for is the
> standard that would be required in a good academic paper.

A good academic paper assumes quite a lot of prior knowledge.
Wikipedia is intended for the layman, so we can't do that.

In an academic paper all statements of fact will be either referenced
to another source or justified with logical reasoning/experimental
evidence. We can only use the first of those, as we do not allow
original research.

Those two differences mean that comparing Wikipedia to an academic
paper is of only limited use.


subject: [Foundation-l] new site notice now ready

body:
On 28/12/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/28/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> > > You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.

> > What a great idea.
> > When will you have your implementation of "distributed mediawiki" completed?

> It's already completed.  I just need you to transfer over the domain names.

whuh??? Project page?

Your post actually started me thinking on this. A Freenet (for
encryption and to avoid a [[:en:trusted client]] problem) or
BitTorrent (for convenient distribution with a program lots of people
have) method of distributing Wikipedia. A peer-to-peer network with
WMF as the only body supplying content files. The downsides that
spring to mind are (a) doesn't work through any old web browser (this
is a big one) (b) trusted client problem (how to ensure rogue clients
don't redistribute corrupted content in our name).

- d.


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] new site notice now ready


body:
2006/12/28, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> On 28/12/06, Gatto Nero <gattonero at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > You said: 4 of 7 members, 5 of 7 members. Nice, but that's not 7 of 7,
> > and I think this is the first problem.
>
>
> You are actually completely and utterly wrong here. You need outsiders
> on a board for perspective.

Sure, but we can talk of "external perspective" only when we have a
complete "internal perspective", that is what we have not.


body:
In addition, make a list of all major US and Uk charities and foudations.

make up a list of specific subjects which would appeal to them.

For example, I think it was George Soros who supported his native Hungary
with lots of grants. Perhaps he would be willing to fund an east-europe
server centre and bandwith for a few years, 2007-2009? From our statistics
at http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesRecentTrends.htm#T the sum of the
polish, russian, hungarian and cs wikis are 650Mb + 500Mb + 140Mb + 140Mb =
1,4Gb. Compare that with 1,8Gb for the german wiki, the largets wiki but
one. Not big but substantial nevertheless. Alas, statistics for en: are
absent.

It would cut down the load on our existing servercentra.

No doubt there are similar possibilities for the asian wikis, but we would
need input from them about charities from their continent. So let someone
please post a request for ideas in the chinese and japanese village pumps.

teun

On 12/28/06, Damian Finol <damian at igluve.org> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > On 28/12/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/28/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On 28/12/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>> 6) Has there ever been an open call to all wikipedians to provide
> >>>> suggestions to the foundationboard of ways to receive money?
> >
> >>> Does continuously saying "our traffic level is stupidly high and costs
> >>> a fortune / everyone at our web ranking has an actual budget and
> >>> income stream / we're operating on a shoestring / we're desperately in
> >>> need of cash" count?
> >
> >> No.
> >> Did I really have to say that? ;-)
> >
> >
> > Then take it as read ;-)
> >
> > Perhaps we can get going on creative new ideas for fundraising!
> >
> > Post your idea below:
> >
> > --->
> >
> Lobby the UN for Funds, I bet UNESCO might want to get involved given
> the nature of the projects..
>
> That's all.
>
> Damian
> >
> > - d.
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Gurch

subject: [WikiEN-l] How do "deletionists" find articles to delete?

body:
David Ashby wrote:
>> Anyone who thinks they're an "inclusionist" should do Special:Newpages
>> patrol some time. OH MY GOODNESS THE FIREHOSE OF CRAP!
>
> Tangent: so the banning of IP article creation has totally failed in
> its stated goal, namely to cut back on the "FIREHOSE OF CRAP"?
>
> Interesting.  Perhaps it's time for a re-examination of that policy.
>
> -David

The banning of article creation by anonymous users significantly reduced
the number of junk articles being created. Back then I was one of the
people tagging, not deleting, but I remember the decision.

But that was over a year ago. Wikipedia has grown quite a lot in that
time, and has become far, far more popular with people seeking to use
Wikipedia for promotional purposes. It wouldn't surprise me at all if
the rate at which unsuitable articles are being created now far exceeds
the rate at which they were being created a year ago.

I fail to see your point, however. Allowing anonymous users to create
articles again would result in yet more unsuitable articles. How does
that help anything?

-Gurch


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Virgin United creates article for Virgin Unite

body:
On 12/28/06, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
Re: User:Virgin United

> Let the OFFICE spin begin.

I'm not in the office, but here's my "spin".

So the account has been checked via checkuser and has been confirmed
to be another Wikipedian.

I don't fully understand why he would have done this, so I'm not just
going to step out and say it.

This subject has caused a huge amount of controversy and people are
using it as an excuse to antagonize endlessly on the wiki.

I think it would be beneficial to the community if the guilty party
would admit it here.


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 12/28/06, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it> wrote:
> I've just had a great idea.
>
> For the next fundriasing WMF says: "to run our projects we need to raise X$ in the next two weeks." Without doublings, ads, and stuff.
>
> If after 2 weeks the sum raised is less than the X$ needed, the Foundations says: "You didn't gave us enough money. Can we put ads?"
>
> If the answer is no, just shut the whole damn thing down.
>
Who gets to pick X?

Anthony


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
> From: Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:59:06 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
>
> Marc Riddell wrote:
>> Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless,
>> malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access
>> to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named,
>> accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
>>
> Yes, you are being naive. :-) Have you been back to look at the user
> login creation page? Did you see anything there to keep you from
> creating ten different user accounts, and pretending to be different
> people on each of them? Rumor has it that even the God-King has a few
> extra, so that he can move among his subjects incognito. :-)
>
> In fact, we do now require logins to upload files, and take a look at
> commons; every day there are a dozen logins created, each uploading a
> few copyvios (OK, sometimes legit images), and then never seen again.
> Pretty much zero accountability there.
>
> Vandalism by anons is a nuisance, but it's so easily and quickly
> countered that it's just not a major issue for maintenance.
>
> Stan

Thanks, Stan.

My reaction was & is a visceral one. The fact is real freedom is untidy -
and does require maintenance from time to time.

Marc

>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Beyond "ad" or "not ad"

body:
On 12/28/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 3) It can be considered common courtesy to indicate that Virgin was donating
> funds. That said, having a logo prominently displayed is a question that has
> its merits, and it should be discussed for future fundraisers.

Certainly.

> 4) This shows a need for greater community consultation by the Board;
> however, the Board cannot be all places at all times, so it would be nice to
> think of ways of getting more "rank and file" users to participate in
> foundation-level decisions. How can Wikimedia accomplish that?

There was a discussion on internal-l, though given how hurried this
fundraiser was, I don't feel the group that was consulted had much
influence on the outcome. In general I view the "internal-l / internal
wiki" group as the right one for influencing decisions which require
confidentiality, and the broader community as the correct one for
general consultations which do not.

There is an RfA like process by which people who are currently not
part of the internal group can be proposed to be given access, and use
of this process has increased significantly in recent weeks. In
general, the internal group consists largely of people from chapters,
committees, or those who have shown some other involvement with
Wikimedia.

I prefer this proceess to an elected council, because ideally, these
two groups are much more dynamic, much more inclusive, and access to
the smaller group is meritocratic in nature. We need to discuss the
procedures for internal-l and internal wiki more openly, though, so
people from the outside can comment on whether they are fair.
Currently, access to internal is governed by the following Board
resolution:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_chapters_committee/Access_to_internal
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] Beyond "ad" or "not ad"


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia

body: That rule would be completely unenforceable, and thus completely useless.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] OK, so DRV *is* broken

body:
On 12/28/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> It is always dispiriting when an article that reduces the average
> quality of the project is kept in this way...

It was one of our top few most popular pages by page views.

Steve


body:
On 12/28/06, David Ashby <humble.fool at gmail.com> wrote:
> Random button.

I use this one a lot.

Steve


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single,
> individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page.

Quite apart from the issue of anonymous contributors, your demand
introduces additional problems.

I operate two "bot" accounts; [[User:GurchBot]] and [[User:GurchBot 2]].
So I'm already in violation of all the above things, I have three of
everything (four, actually, as I have another account for testing blocks
and the like). Both these bot accounts are used for high-speed
maintenance work and so require a bot flag, which can only be set
per-account; separate accounts are the only way to achieve this.

So your demands would not only mean the end of anonymous editing (and a
sharp decline in the amount of information added to Wikipedia) but also
a complete rewrite of the bot policy and major changes to the way that
the MediaWiki software works. And I haven't even touched on username
changes, legitimate uses for alternate accounts, and a whole lot of
other stuff. Your suggestion simply isn't workable.

-Gurch


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> [snip]
>> I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single,
>> individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page. With this,
>> anytime a person makes an edit, creates a change, in the encyclopedia, their
>> User Name is recorded with that edit. Accountability. Trackability.

[snip]

> Of course, we could go further.. mail a copy of your government issued
> ID to the foundation before you can edit.

I know your suggestion isn't intended to be taken seriously, but *even
that* wouldn't work. You're forgetting we don't all live in the same
country; not everyone has one of these. In fact, given that users in
certain countries are actually breaking the law by accessing Wikipedia,
I'd keep the word "government" out of things altogether.

-Gurch


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 12/28/06, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I understand that new articles get close scrutiny but just how do
> deletable articles that have been around for a while come to the
> attention to those who regularly nominate articles for deletion?
> (especially if the article is otherwise well written)
>
> I ask this because recently I came across a fairly well written
> article about a computer term that had a prod tag on it for being an
> unsourced neologism. It probably was since all the google hits for it
> pointed to mirrors of its WP article but I still decided to replace
> the prod with a sources tag to give the original author a chance to
> add a source. However, I started to wonder why the person who first
> prodded it suspected it was a neologism as it couldn't have been the
> first term he ran across on wikipedia that he never heard about. Does
> he prod them all?

 If all the Google hits point to mirrors the article in question isn't
verifiable.
Even if they haven't heard about the term, they appear to have made an
effort to find evidence it exists.
A computer term that lacks Google hits probably lacks notability too.

The same could be asked about notability. Just what makes one suspect
> that a particular person/band/school/company/webcomic etc. is not
> notable? Please note that I am not saying that such articles should be
> kept but there has to be something in an otherwise well written
> article to cause someone to investigate the article's eligibility to
> be in wikipedia besides "I've never heard if him/it"

Lack of establishing notability according to the different notability
criteria at [[WP:BIO]], [[WP:MUSIC]], etc would be a reason to investigate
it further. A lot of people don't even mention what makes an article subject
worth being written about.

Mgm


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:59:41 -0500, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable"
>standards than a Wikipedia entry.

No, I don't think it does - or if it does it's not relevant.  We will
allow sources of varying degrees of reliability as long as overall
there are one or two really solid sources for the core premise of the
article (because, unlike academic papers, we don't allow original
research).  But as long as the subject itself is fundamentally
supported by good, credible sources, it's not necessary to cite
Britannica for every trivial fact.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] More drama

references:
<jm18p2t8hfm63hc8puptblt559716ebsc2@4ax.com>
	<54f6f2050612281016i390ee0cbg446e55bf4989eeaf@mail.gmail.com>
	<uf48p25ofhvqa2r1mtf7s0tdpv6opctklu@4ax.com>
	<38a7bf7c0612281227r7f88e14y9819c9e981f34520@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:27:35 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>I am against deleting articles which are accurate but not (yet) well
>referenced.  Fixing the references problem is a valid ongoing concern, but I
>don't see any reason to delete this article.

Last time, sure.  This time, when it's still not fixed?  I disagree.

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


body:
On 28/12/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off
> list.  This list isn't really the place to discuss the details,
> especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.

wikitech-l or mediawiki-l, OTOH, are quite definitely the right place.
Particularly the latter, which is largely non-WMF posters.

- d.


from_name: Ivan Krstić

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Your post actually started me thinking on this. A Freenet (for
> encryption and to avoid a [[:en:trusted client]] problem) or
> BitTorrent (for convenient distribution with a program lots of people
> have) method of distributing Wikipedia. A peer-to-peer network with
> WMF as the only body supplying content files.

Erik Garrison (CC'd) looked into this in detail (and I think even worked
on a prototype) for a class project. He'd be the person to talk to about
details, downsides, and so forth.

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: James Hare

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New ideas for fundraising needed. Start here!

body:
I have a couple of ideas...

1) WikiWorld -- we take the existing cartoons, plus Greg draws a few more
exclusive ones, plus personal commentary and autograph by him. Nothing
fancy, just a small pamphlet... then we can sell it. I'd buy one (and I
already donated $100).

2) Wikimedia Facebook is another possibility.

On 12/28/06, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > Perhaps we can get going on creative new ideas for fundraising!
> >
> > Post your idea below:
> >
> > --->
> >
> I know that including ads is not a good idea. I'm against that. However,
> what we have (and what costs money) is lots of traffic. Aside from ads
> or fund-raisers, how can we convert traffic into revenue? 'Tis a puzzle...
>
> -Rich
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jeroenvrp

subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement

body:
Op donderdag 28 december 2006 18:57, schreef Andrew Gray:
> But this? "... one company that will really do everything to own
> Wikipedia, it's Virgin."
>
> All I can say is: you wouldn't have said that this time yesterday,
> before people began making wild assumptions. Google would want to take
> us over, perhaps. Encarta or Britannica might want to take us over, at
> least to deal with a threat to the business plan. Any number of
> two-bit "online content" people would jump at the chance.
>
> But Virgin? Why on *earth* do you think Virgin, of all people, deeply
> care about controlling Wikimedia?

That line should read: "one of the companies". Off course I don't think Virgin
should be the only one, but one off the core businesses of Virgin is
multi-media. That's why... and yes if you would asked me which companies will
do everything to own Wikimedia, Virgin would be on that list.

Jeroenvrp


subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement


body:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia
> I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to
> wrestle with, what I see is a large problem.

When you started this thread, I assumed you were an old Wikipedia hand
who knew his stuff. That's probably a compliment ;-)

> But, I believe, with all of the
> human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can
> be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing
> that can be done".

Mmm. I think that you may be asking the wrong question: that is,
you're making the implicit assumption that a user page can be trusted
to ascertain whether a contributor to a page knows their stuff.

In practice, I don't think that's the case. On Wikipedia, the
contributors are listed in the history, and someone I don't know other
than a two-page detailed userpage is not necessarily a better writer
than an anonymous IP that puts in well-written statements of fact with
good checkable references.

When a reader views a Wikipedia page, they need to apply critical
thought to it, like they do to any web page. We can't take that
requirement away from the reader (and become a "trusted" source). But
with references, we can *enable* them to apply critical thought to
Wikipedia.

So it's all about the contributions themselves and the source material
that backs the contributions up. The contributors themselves are not a
focus at all. That's "no ownership of pages."

- d.


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Move page showing double redirects

body:
On 12/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or if we really want to go the whole hog, could the move page just fix
> the double redirects automatically?

Is there any reason we don't do this?

> Or maybe at least add them to some
> list that a bot is constantly monitoring?

Like Special:Doubleredirects?  :)  (Granted, that's cached, at least right now.)


from_name: Anthere

body:
Gatto Nero wrote:
> I'm sorry not to agree totally with you, but I think there's a
> misunderstanding too.
> I cannot explain which (headache doesn't help), but there's.
>
> You said: 4 of 7 members, 5 of 7 members. Nice, but that's not 7 of 7,
> and I think this is the first problem.
> I really appreciate the contribution of Jan-Bart and Michael, but they
> are "outsiders" (as you described them), and I cannot understand why
> "outsiders" should be part of a board, then. They could be "outsider
> helps".

"Outsider" is a bit strange a term actually.
During the board retreat (Frankfurt), the 20 or so people present (many
from local chapters) tried to brainstorm on what "community" was. And we
could come to no clear conclusion.

Is someone part of the community because he has at least 300 edits in
the past 3 months (but does not care at all about the infrastructure
supporting the projects ?)

Is someone part of the community when he is very involved, either by
being a very active editor, a sysop, a developer, an arbitrator, a
wikimania organiser etc...

Is someone part of the community as soon as he has made even one single
correction ?

Is someone using the content a community member ? the community of
humans finding information on our website ?

is a community member someone who *cares* and wants to help ?

It is very difficult to define what THE community is. There are numerous
communities of language/project. There is also a developer community.
And more and more, a foundation community. And each chapter is a
community in itself.

Very difficult.

I am using the term "outsider" to identify them with well-known, long
term "editors". There are not really outsiders. Michael has been
helping, with much dedication, for over 2 years. He shares our vision.
He was (and still is) an unvaluable asset.
Jan-Bart is new, but has known the projects for quite a while. He is
bringing anothe perspective and fresh air which is much needed.

You perceive these two guys as "outsiders". Just realise that in the
mind of board members, they are not "outsiders". They are part of a
team. Both will leave one day, and others will replace them, just as
community members will also be replaced. But meanwhile, they will have
brought their own qualities and input.

> Going on.
> Jimbo is more simbolic. Yet he's *very* important and he *must* be
> part of the Board, as far as I think. But he's not that representative
> of... for example, Chinese Community or European Community.
> This makes 4 members remaining.
>
> Four members for *a lot* of editors. Quite few, proportionally.
> Local communities are not represented: what about spanish community?
> what about italian, or polish, or south-african community?
> Don't get it as an offense or an attact, but I don't think you
> represent me. I've no way to interact with you, to express my opinion.
> I quite don't even know you.

In all democracies or republic, there is a "representation". And more
parliaments are not made of 10 000 people. There is never full
representation of all minorities. Never. We can not fully "represent"
all languages (250) and all projects. It is just impossible.

Beyond this impossibility, I think that it would be a big error to think
someone can only represent one community. You seem to consider that I
only can represent the french community, that Kat can only represent the
american community, Oscar the dutch community and Erik the german community.

But really... do you think even one individual can represent entirely
one language community ? And don't you think that in our organisation,
with projects actually trying to go BEYOND nationalities, we should try
to organize ourselves according to our nationalities ? I do not think so.

I can represent certain italians much better than certain french people.
You may not feel I can represent you, but perhaps all you need to do is
try to get to know at least one of the board member, select this one as
*your* representative and contact this person each time you want to talk.

Just as you do with parliament members.

Why do you say you have no way to interact with me, to express your
opinion ? This is precisely what we are doing. You give your opinion. I
listen to it. I *hear* it. I hear some people hear complaining about the
logo. I hear some people saying it is advertisement and that it is not
okay. I hear others saying that it is a decent compromise with "selling
us" or accepting advertisement. I hear all this, I read it. Other board
members hear it as well. And according to feedback, we'll think about
the best move, according to what we read here, according to many people
feedback, according to financial needs, according to other proposals.

None of the solutions is fully satisfying. We'll always have to make
compromise. If you have other good suggestions, please speak up. But
look, your proposition have to be feasible and reachable.

You have many ways to speak up and have your opinion heard. This list,
other lists, direct emails, wiki, irc. Even phone (though, I would
prefer to discourage that solution). There are few organisations where
representants can be so easily "reached" and interacted with. You can do
that everyday.

> I think there's a problem in the way the Foundation is organized: we
> are *big*, and we should start to think bigger.
> What does this means? For example, more voice to local chapters,
> intended as an intermidiate organism between Foundation and local
> communities...

Well no. Not really. First because some communities have no chapters. So
why would these ones be denied representation just because they have no
chapter ?
And second, chapters are generally self-organised. Not all members of a
community vote to elect chapter representatives. So, if we were saying
"from now on, the chapters are the intermediate organism between the
Foundation and the communities", the communities will rightfully complain.

We can consider adding a chapter representative to the board. But again,
according to you, this will not be fair representation.
We can make more meetings with chapters to interact more. I would have
loved to do so just a few days ago in Serbia. Instead, I spent the whole
day in an airport. I had a very boring and tiring day. It was saturday,
I would have preferred to be with my family. I was happy instead to go
and visit a chapter and many community members. Instead, I spent 8 hours
in a stupid airport, and possibly some people will think I refuse to
discuss with them :-)
We can also organise retreats. We can also meet in Wikimania.
Or we can discuss together on the lists.
That's a good start at least :-)

ant


body:
Damian Finol wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>On 28/12/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 12/28/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 28/12/06, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>>6) Has there ever been an open call to all wikipedians to provide
>>>>>suggestions to the foundationboard of ways to receive money?
>>
>>>>Does continuously saying "our traffic level is stupidly high and costs
>>>>a fortune / everyone at our web ranking has an actual budget and
>>>>income stream / we're operating on a shoestring / we're desperately in
>>>>need of cash" count?
>>
>>>No.
>>>Did I really have to say that? ;-)
>>
>>
>>Then take it as read ;-)
>>
>>Perhaps we can get going on creative new ideas for fundraising!
>>
>>Post your idea below:
>>
>>--->
>>
> Lobby the UN for Funds, I bet UNESCO might want to get involved given
> the nature of the projects..
>
> That's all.
>
> Damian
>
>>- d.

Yes.

I am all for getting a recognition by the UN for example.
Practically, I am trying to ask someone to get me in touch with someone,
who in turn will get me in touch etc...

Note that lobbying big organisations like this requires
* having good contacts. Usually implies previously meeting these good
contacts somewhere
* money. These people are not waiting for us. We need to call them, we
need to go and meet them. We need to participate conferences when they
hang around. Ey, we even need to pay ourselves good clothes to meet them.
* persistance. The people in charge of doing that need to dedicate a lot
of time. Meanwhile...

Do not get me wrong. Yes, it is a very good idea. The first step for the
recognition was the audit. In which a *lot* of effort was put, precisely
for this reason. The audit also took money and time.

Ant


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia
>> I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to
>> wrestle with, what I see is a large problem.
>
>
> When you started this thread, I assumed you were an old Wikipedia hand
> who knew his stuff. That's probably a compliment ;-)
>
>
>> But, I believe, with all of the
>> human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can
>> be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing
>> that can be done".
>
>
> Mmm. I think that you may be asking the wrong question: that is,
> you're making the implicit assumption that a user page can be trusted
> to ascertain whether a contributor to a page knows their stuff.
>
> In practice, I don't think that's the case. On Wikipedia, the
> contributors are listed in the history, and someone I don't know other
> than a two-page detailed userpage is not necessarily a better writer
> than an anonymous IP that puts in well-written statements of fact with
> good checkable references.
>
> When a reader views a Wikipedia page, they need to apply critical
> thought to it, like they do to any web page. We can't take that
> requirement away from the reader (and become a "trusted" source). But
> with references, we can *enable* them to apply critical thought to
> Wikipedia.
>
> So it's all about the contributions themselves and the source material
> that backs the contributions up. The contributors themselves are not a
> focus at all. That's "no ownership of pages."
>
>
> - d.

David raises a good point. Don't judge Wikipedia articles by the quality
of their contributors, but by the quality of the article - and the
sources in particular. Never trust an unreferenced article. An article
that provides a good number reliable, verifiable sources and is
well-written should be considered in the same light whether it's written
by anonymous users or long-time contributors. (Virtually all our
articles are a mixture of both).

-Gurch


subject: [WikiEN-l] More drama

body:
On 28/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:27:35 -0800, "George Herbert"
> > <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> > >I am against deleting articles which are accurate but not (yet) well
> > >referenced.  Fixing the references problem is a valid ongoing concern,
> > but I
> > >don't see any reason to delete this article.

> > Last time, sure.  This time, when it's still not fixed?  I disagree.

> I think we have a fuzzy-boundary problem with neologisms.
> I think that deleting this is not the ultimate right answer.

More generally, AFD/DRV are really bad tools to use as the quality
control department.

- d.


body:
3) Selling a book featuring The Best of the Mailing Lists

4) Likewise with BJAODN

5) Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource on DVD(s)

Any thoughts?

On 12/28/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a couple of ideas...
>
> 1) WikiWorld -- we take the existing cartoons, plus Greg draws a few more
> exclusive ones, plus personal commentary and autograph by him. Nothing
> fancy, just a small pamphlet... then we can sell it. I'd buy one (and I
> already donated $100).
>
> 2) Wikimedia Facebook is another possibility.
>
> On 12/28/06, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > David Gerard wrote:
> > > Perhaps we can get going on creative new ideas for fundraising!
> > >
> > > Post your idea below:
> > >
> > > --->
> > >
> > I know that including ads is not a good idea. I'm against that. However,
> > what we have (and what costs money) is lots of traffic. Aside from ads
> > or fund-raisers, how can we convert traffic into revenue? 'Tis a
> > puzzle...
> >
> > -Rich
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 12/28/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If we'd blocked the user and speedy-deleted the article when it was
> created, I can guarantee you it'd have been recreated in good faith by
> a community member later that day. Sometimes, kneejerk deletion
> reactions are somewhat futile.

Indeed. I'll use the same saying I used recently when discussing
whether all contributions of banned users should be deleted, because
it applies equally here: we shouldn't cut off our noses just to spite
our faces.

To illustrate what I mean, here's the article as it stood when the
account "User:Virgin United" started it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virgin_Unite&oldid=96734604

And here it is, 50-something edits later at the time of this mail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virgin_Unite&oldid=96916255

I checked it with History Flow and the only text remaining from the
original version is the external link to their official site. The rest
has been compiled by 23 other Wikipedians plus a couple of anonymous
users, who have made between 1 and 10 edits each.

There is nothing wrong with the article as it stands. The question of
whether we should have an article at all (or whether it should be
merged somewhere else, etc) is not so urgent that we need decide it
right at this very minute. Everyone come back in a couple of days and
we can discuss that question then.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Op donderdag 28 december 2006 21:42, schreef Brion Vibber:
> JeroenVP for instance has made clear that he does not care about the
> core values of Wikipedia at all (making knowledge available to the
> public as free content) but only cares about not ever seeing anything he
> perceives as an "advertisement".

I assume the above statement is a way to polarise the discussion ever more and
I will ignore these remarks.

> It's about free/open educational content. It's about making materials
> open and available for use by the public, including the creation of
> derivative works and redistribution.

Exactly, but you you miss the point completely Brion. It's advertisement at a
location where the free content is CREATED, not redistributed/mirrored.
Actually I don't care about if people make money with Wikipedia content, the
same applies for Linux distributions, but we are talking about advertisement
on the location where the content is created. That kills our reliability, so
far we have that allready. It's not about business-models, websites, but
about the source off the free content. Any connection to what kind of
company, religion, political party, government, whatever... will harm one of
the basic principles of this great project.

It really sadness me also to hear that you and the Foundation are
opportunists, that can endanger the projects.

> I do expect some people to leave; that's not because they're bad people.
> But some people are going to discover, sooner or later, that they've
> been chasing something *other* than free content, and that Wikipedia
> isn't really the project for them after all.

Hopefully it will be those people who endanger Wikipedia and such, like
selling us out and don't have any respect for the community. The community
who created Wikipedia and such.

> That's why we need to stop, to think.

That's what we do all the time, unfortunately we don't think the same.

I will ask the Foundation to make an official excuse to the community about
forcing these site notices and about not directly informing the communities.
I will also ask to stop any other actions like these in the future, until the
community at least can have a vote in this matter.

Jeroenvrp


body:
Stop trolling Anthony my dear.

If (when ?) you are nice, I'll show you where the budget is published
(publicly :-)).

Ant

Anthony wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Based on the financial reality of needing to raise more money, for hardware,
>>software, bandwidth and staffing (in broad strokes), what is the solution to
>>question of financial support?  Dig deeper?  Blame the community of editors
>>(as opposed to readers) for not donating enough?  Get the starving college
>>kid to give $3 instead of $2?
>>
>
> How about getting the starving college kid with the 300 gig hard drive
> sitting idly on a T1 connection in his dorm to lend some of that spare
> hardware, software, bandwidth, and staffing directly?
>
> Eh, I shouldn't waste my time mentioning this to you.  When the forks
> start coming, and it looks like that time is getting close, one of
> them will figure it out.
>
>
>>If one day of corporate matching brings us on the order of $60,000 per
>>company, that is an enormous advantage over asking the community for more.
>>Don't you think?
>
>
> Eh, right now it's just taking the money from one group of donors
> instead of another.  What would be the enormous advantage would be to
> not need the money in the first place.
>
>
>>If we have a $100,000 per month bandwidth bill later in
>>2007, it will still need to be paid.
>
>
> Is that your current estimate of bandwidth costs?
>
>
>>I will assume you would rather the
>>projects stay online than die.
>
>
> The projects will stay online no matter what happens to the Wikimedia
> Foundation.
>
>
>>If we buy another 300 servers, where should
>>the money come from?
>
>
> You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
>
>
>>It seems clear that the reality here is beyond some
>>level of understanding with at least a portion of the  people who read this
>>list.
>>
>
> Without access to the proposed budget, yeah, it's hard to know exactly
> where the money is being wasted.
>
> Anthony


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
Hi!

> Wikimedia servers would still have to do a
> tiny bit of work, basically sign stuff and boostrap the peer lists.
> It could be built, and for a lot less than 1.5 million.

Does anyone talking here about distributed mediawiki has ever
realized what tasks are being worked on in our application cluster?
Could you please stop speaking bullshit, packed as a "clever stuff",
and using foundation-l audience to support you in any way?

Serving a wiki isn't hosting an .iso file, where of course, bandwidth
is main cost, and it is easy to offload. ISO files don't change,
people don't care about how fast they start getting ISO file, because
the transfer is long enough to forget all startup costs.
Serving a wiki isn't looking for aliens. If someone turns off the
computer, or DSL will go down, aliens won't disappear, now the
request will. Nobody really cares about individual packet containing
alien information, because it is sent to multiple nodes. Some will
reply, some won't.
Serving a wiki isn't serving a personal website. It is not single
person editing, there's great deal of conflict resolution, possible
race conditions, versioning and metadata information.
Serving a wiki isn't serving a conventional media website, because it
is far more organic in terms of load pattern evolution, or accidental
surges. Content formats also come bottom->up, requiring agile
development of systems.
Serving a wiki means delivering user contributed content thousands
collaborated on in few tens of milliseconds. We do succeed this
mission and every time we increased responsiveness of the site, we
had more users coming.

Please, if you ever again suggest building some distributed
wikipedia at home, please please please, do some research. Sure you may
look cool and trendy, but... that doesn't help with our goals.

There're no big systems even little bit similar to wikipedia, that
are distributed. If you point me to any, I'd gladly review their
ideas. Now there are none.

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


body:
Hi!

> I really think that if Wikimedia wants to succeed, it needs to be more
> distributed.
> I wouldn't mind surrendering a few GBs of my computer to help host.

If you really want that, we can show how that would work.
It is very easy to demonstrate, just add the delay of a minute to
every pageload, then add few hundred of broken links, errors, save
time of ten minutes, and of course, lost saves.

There're no working models of any distributed collaboration system.
Storage is our cheapest part of operation. Efficient st

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


from_name: Michael Bimmler

body:
On 12/28/06, Jeroenvrp <wikipedia at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>e time, unfortunately we don't think the same.
>
> I will ask the Foundation to make an official excuse to the community about
> forcing these site notices and about not directly informing the communities.
> I will also ask to stop any other actions like these in the future, until the
> community at least can have a vote in this matter.
>
Maybe you want to start with defining the term "community". It proved
to be not so easy... (And no, the community is not just the
subscribers to foundation-l)
Michael


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Anthony schreef:
> On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 12/28/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>> (Yes, that was sarcasm.  A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it
>>> could be done for less than 1.5 million.  That's my belief and I'm
>>> sticking with it.  Just because something hasn't been done before
>>> doesn't make it impossible.)
>>>
>> Then don't let those who say it can't be done stop you from doing it.
>>
>
> As I've said, it *will* happen.  The forks *will* come, and one of
> them *will* pick up on the idea.  Why don't *I* do it now, today?
> Well, I don't have anywhere *near* 1.5 million, for starters.  I also
> don't have those all important wikipedia domain names.
>
>
>> Show us the code.
>>
>>
> If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off
> list.  This list isn't really the place to discuss the details,
> especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.
>
Hoi,
To help all those that believe like Thomas, I can testify that the
Wikimedia Foundation is interested in other ways of providing content.
This does include providing information using peer to peer
functionality. To me this is very much a long shot. But long shots can
become reality the right people are behind them. I have faith in this
project, I am not really involved. With P2P we may not need the bigger
number of servers as we increasingly do. It is exactly this reason why
the WMF is interested .. :)

Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: Gurch

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Gurch <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> David raises a good point. Don't judge Wikipedia articles by the quality
>> of their contributors, but by the quality of the article - and the
>> sources in particular. Never trust an unreferenced article. An article
>> that provides a good number reliable, verifiable sources and is
>> well-written should be considered in the same light whether it's written
>> by anonymous users or long-time contributors. (Virtually all our
>> articles are a mixture of both).
>
> That an article provides quality looking sources is not a good metric
> for article quality.

Indeed it is not. I said judge by the quality of the *sources*, not the
quality of the "References" section. Though even that can tell you
something, particularly when there isn't one at all.

> Unless the information is disputed or sounds far fetched, we make
> little effort to ensure that the material in the article can actually
> be found in the sources, even with inline references and
> web-accessible sources. ... and far less is checked for offline
> resources.
>
> It wasn't clear to me if you were saying that people need to go as far
> as checking the sources themselves if accuracy is important. If you
> were, I apologise for misunderstanding you.

Yes, that's what I was saying. Because material in a Wikipedia article
can come from literally anyone, anywhere, the only way to be certain
that anything an article says is correct is to look at the original
source. (And then decide if you trust the source itself, of course). If
there are no sources, or no source for a particular claim you're
interested in, the best you can do is assume it's "probably correct".

> What are you basing your 'virtually all' claim on?

Personal experience.

> Last I checked, a large portion of our articles were not formally
> sourced at all. So I don't see how virtually all could have quality
> that comes from a mixture of good contributors and well documented
> quality sources.

I didn't say that; I said that virtually all our good articles have been
put together by a mixture of anonymous users and long-time contributors.
In fact, the same is true for most of our mediocre articles and a good
many bad articles, too.


subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement

body:
Op donderdag 28 december 2006 18:50, schreef Oldak Quill:
> On 28/12/06, Jeroenvrp <wikipedia at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> > The road to daily advertisement has
> > been opened by a weak Foundation. Yes we need the money, but there are
> > other ways. Rather no money than sell the basis principles of
> > Wikipedia/-media to whoever has the money.
>
> Would you be less upset if the Foundation had consulted the community
> before agreeing to Virgin Unite's terms? I know this may not be a
> practical scenario, but I'm curious.

Yes off course I had be less upset, allthough I still would not agree and had
the time (like others) to discuss it with the Foundation and the local
community.

Jeroen


subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:16:09 -0500, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>>> Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable"
>>> standards than a Wikipedia entry.
>> No, I don't think it does
>At least in my experience it does.  Of course, YMMV, bt I wrote plenty
>of history papers that did quite well with "lower" standards than we allow.

Like I said, an academic paper positively encourages original
research, Wikipedia outright bans it.  So it's not surprising we
require sources which have passed the threshold of publication.  But I
don't think our standards are higher than for academic articles (as
in: articles in the academic journals), they are just somewhat
different.  Actually getting a paper published in the academic press
is non-trivial, after all, and we should certainly not confuse that
with the standards required of undergraduate papers, which are of
course a lot lower.

>> - or if it does it's not relevant.
>I think it's relevant.  We're putting otrselves ahead of academia and
>eliminating otherwise reliable sourcing as a result.

No, we're eliminating original research, which is positively
encouraged in academia.  Indeed, you'd be unlikely to get an academic
article published without at least some novel synthesis (although WP
articles are comparable with review articles, and in both cases the
threshold for sources is much the same).

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


body:
Op donderdag 28 december 2006 22:51, schreef Michael Bimmler:
> > I will ask the Foundation to make an official excuse to the community
> > about forcing these site notices and about not directly informing the
> > communities. I will also ask to stop any other actions like these in the
> > future, until the community at least can have a vote in this matter.
>
> Maybe you want to start with defining the term "community". It proved
> to be not so easy... (And no, the community is not just the
> subscribers to foundation-l)

That is very easy. The   "community" are the users who contribute on all
Wikimedia projects.

Jeroenvrp


body:
On 12/28/06, Jeroenvrp <wikipedia at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Op donderdag 28 december 2006 22:51, schreef Michael Bimmler:
> > > I will ask the Foundation to make an official excuse to the community
> > > about forcing these site notices and about not directly informing the
> > > communities. I will also ask to stop any other actions like these in the
> > > future, until the community at least can have a vote in this matter.
> >
> > Maybe you want to start with defining the term "community". It proved
> > to be not so easy... (And no, the community is not just the
> > subscribers to foundation-l)
>
> That is very easy. The   "community" are the users who contribute on all
> Wikimedia projects.
>
Okay. And sure you know how to get in contact with the whole
community? Because people tend to complain about not being informed,
although they just didn't read the relevant threads on foundation-l.
Should we make a notice on every little village pump (it will be
really cheap and easy to translate such a thing in every possible
language to allow non-english-speakers to participate)? Or shall we
send an email to every registered Wikimedia user (see translation
issue above)? Or do you know another way how *everybody* feels
included, asked and considered?
Michael
> Jeroenvrp
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's not call imperfections "broken"

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>> From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
>>
>> We deleted
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_big-bust_models_and_performers
>> due to sourcing issues.  It was overturned at DRV without the sourcing
>> issues ever being addressed.  It was relisted and speedy kept.  It
>> still has sourcing issues.
>>
>> What is "big"?  Where is the external source that defines "big"?  What
>> sources are used to include the individuals concerned?  No sources are
>> cited.  The lead of the article is original research and the contents
>> is "phwooooar! look at the tits on that!"
>>
>> It is always dispiriting when an article that reduces the average
>> quality of the project is kept in this way...
>
> I voted to delete this article. I think it's a steaming pile... or at
> least a wobbly mound.
>
> But please, I really, really, REALLY wish that people would ease up
> on the hyperbole. A case where one specific article or edit is
> handled inappropriately does not mean that the process is broken.
>

No, it just goes towards proving the point. If VFD wasn't broken, it
wouldn't have been deleted (and the servers wouldn't have come to a
screeching halt like they did). VFU got renamed to DRV after people
screamed "it's not a vote!" and has been held hostage by a few process
wonks since.

> "List of big-bust models and performers" is somewhere reasonably near
> the borderline. _I_ happen to think it's well outside, but, you know,
> pressure from groups of people can and does shift the borderline for
> articles where there are "special interests."

"List of women with silicon tits that we've seen in porn" doesn't have
the same ring to it, does it? Before the toolserver asploded, the "most
read" list of articles on Wikipedia was full of this and crap like it.

> There is also a
> consistent tendency to apply lower standards for articles that are
> "fun" and that invite casual participation by non-expert users.
>

However, [[Exploding whale]] is well-sourced and well-written. (For 10
bonus points, find article X that quotes "exploding whale" in an example
of a usage of X.)

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

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body:
On 12/28/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> This list isn't really the place to discuss the details,
> especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.

There was a brief P2P media and business hype in 2000-2001. In August
2000 I started infoAnarchy.org, which was one of the leading weblogs
on the phenomenon, and reviewed in detail applications such as MNet,
Freenet, The Circle, Gnutella(2), giFT, BitTorrent etc. I also
co-authored a 90 page business plan on such a P2P venture, which we
sadly started pitching shortly after the bubble burst.

I continue to be interested in P2P solutions, but I have seen too many
companies in this sector fail, in spite of millions of dollars of VC
investment, to believe that money is the solution to decentralizing
Wikipedia. These companies were pursuing much more humble ambitions
than something as fantastic as a truly P2P WIkipedia.

That said, we need to distinguish different approaches. Decentralizing
WP to the extent of using the highly asymmetrical and unpredictable
connectivity of everyday users is hopeless. Decentralizing it to make
intelligent use of a global network of servers with reasonably high
bandwidth and storage and good connectivity is perhaps less so. But
the issues of latency and distribution would necessitate quite a lot
of rethinking on all levels.

It's a goal worth pursuing, among a hundred others I could list. If
someone approaches us with a truly convincing model of how it could
work, then I'll be the first person to listen and consider to make it
part of our planning. But vague claims about what can be done with
money are completely unhelpful. Ideas are worthless without
implementation, but the power to implement is worthless without ideas.
Presently we have neither.

When it comes to decentralization, the greatest potential for
immediate cost savings seems to be in an area which we are currently
not even pursuing significantly, i.e. very large files (primarily
videos, but also speeches or really high resolution pictures). Here
we've got tried and tested technology like BitTorrent that would only
need to be integrated better. But if we want to go into large file
hosting, we must coordinate this with the Internet Archive, which is
leading the global efforts in this area.

I don't see how any talk about P2P has relevance to our fundraising
needs for the near future.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
Op donderdag 28 december 2006 23:03, schreef Michael Bimmler:
> Okay. And sure you know how to get in contact with the whole
> community? Because people tend to complain about not being informed,
> although they just didn't read the relevant threads on foundation-l.
> Should we make a notice on every little village pump (it will be
> really cheap and easy to translate such a thing in every possible
> language to allow non-english-speakers to participate)? Or shall we
> send an email to every registered Wikimedia user (see translation
> issue above)? Or do you know another way how *everybody* feels
> included, asked and considered?

I allready explained that. There a few mailing lists for the local communities
and there are village pumps. I'm not talking about informing every single
project, but the ones with a good amount of community members. Yes, the are
many of them, but it is 30 min. work to inform them. You can do it English,
there is always someone who can translate it and that is ten times better
than only informing this mailing list, that is not read by the average hard
working contributors.

Jeroenvrp


body:
Hi!
> (Yes, that was sarcasm.  A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it
> could be done for less than 1.5 million.  That's my belief and I'm
> sticking with it.  Just because something hasn't been done before
> doesn't make it impossible.)

I believe achieving world peace for 1.5 million is quite feasible too.
All you have to do is to redefine meanings for 'world' and 'peace'
somewhere.

Same with 'distributed Wikipedia'. It is very easy to distribute it.
It won't necessarily work as people are used to.

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


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Not to fan the flames, but I see [[en:Virgin Unite]] is up at AfD...
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Virgin_Unite
>
> Uncyclopaedia or the Wikipedia Review are going to love this one.
>
> 1) We ask for donations
> 2) Virgin Unite offers donations
> 3) Virgin Unite creates an article on itself, totally above board,
> using its own name
> 4) Virgin Unite gets blocked

Until a checkuser is run which shows that it *was* Virgin behind the
account, they were blocked under the all-reaching username policy.

(Welcome to Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia whose silliness rivals
Nationstates.)

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

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from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 12/28/06, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it> wrote:
>
> I've just had a great idea.
>
> For the next fundriasing WMF says: "to run our projects we need to raise
> X$ in the next two weeks." Without doublings, ads, and stuff.
>
> If after 2 weeks the sum raised is less than the X$ needed, the
> Foundations says: "You didn't gave us enough money. Can we put ads?"
>
> If the answer is no, just shut the whole damn thing down.
>
> Sometimes people needs a slap in the face to understand.

Yeah, that's a brilliant idea.

(Gak.)


body:
On 12/28/06, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not to fan the flames, but I see [[en:Virgin Unite]] is up at AfD...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Virgin_Unite

Uncyclopaedia or the Wikipedia Review are going to love this one.

1) We ask for donations
2) Virgin Unite offers donations
3) Virgin Unite creates an article on itself, totally above board,
using its own name
4) Virgin Unite gets blocked
5) The article about Virgin Unite gets expanded, then nominated for
deletion. (and, as noted, kept)

It's bad enough that an article about a major philanthropic foundation
got nominated in the first place, but that it happened to be the very
organisation that was that day giving *us* money. Jeez.

Steve


body:
Hi!

> What about just the images?  They take up a lot of storage space, and
> a lot of bandwidth.  How much could be saved just by distributing
> those?

'lots of storage space' for images isn't that true, just few
terabytes. they're pretty easily cached, and often live outside our
datacenter. so, not much could be saved. when we buy servers, we
usually end up buying application and db boxen, which are used to
produce the dynamic content.

> You seem to be coming at the problem with a defeatist attitude.  With
> that attitude yes, it is impossible.

"defeatist" and "realist" don't have that much of differences in
letters.
maybe I've spent too much time in industry :( I should try some
liberal arts, gardening, quantum physics, and then return to systems
with fresh insights.

say... we have lots of flowers.... :)

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


body:
Hi!!!!!!!

> As I've said, it *will* happen.  The forks *will* come, and one of
> them *will* pick up on the idea.  Why don't *I* do it now, today?
> Well, I don't have anywhere *near* 1.5 million, for starters.  I also
> don't have those all important wikipedia domain names.

It will be much easier by the time forks will happen. Speed of light
will be left behind by then, and efficient coding techniques will
allow to write software that will write software that writes software
that writes software.

> If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off
> list.  This list isn't really the place to discuss the details,
> especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.

We can always move to wikitech-l, which might appear as somewhat more
constructive environment, especially when 1.5m is involved.

>> there are folks at major database companies who will likely want
>> to pay you lots to
>> apply your solutions to their database products... and you'll lose
>> interest in this wiki stuff. :) )
> I doubt it.

But they're watching. Always always watching.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC

body:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:37:35 -0600, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org>
wrote:

>My big
>complaint is that when you do want to go and comment, you end up on a
>talk page with a million comments and no distillation of the issue.

Fair point.  A subpage or organisational template would probably help.

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


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD A7

body:
On 12/28/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> George Herbert wrote:
> >
> > I see people claiming this, but the fact is that the majority of PROD
> > nominations go uncontested and result in a deletion.
> >
> > PROD is working.  So is A7, but PROD seems to be far less controversial...
>
> Call me cynical if you like, but I rather suspect the main reason for
> this is that the waiting period is short enough that most "drive-by"
> article creators don't even notice the PROD until it's over and the
> article is gone.  So, in that respect, there's little difference between
> PROD and just speedy deleting the article outright.  (Other differences
> do exist, and are quite significant, of course.)
>
> Then again, maybe I should just be happy that it does work.  Never look
> a gift horse in the mouth, and all that...

Yeah.  I can think of all sorts of ways for aggressive bad people to
muck with WP within our policies, but PROD "just works" well enough,
it seems.

A lot of our stuff would break in the face of determined hostile
action.  PROD included, under current rules.  So far, so good, though.

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


from_name: Ron Ritzman

body:
On 12/28/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> Lack of establishing notability according to the different notability
> criteria at [[WP:BIO]], [[WP:MUSIC]], etc would be a reason to investigate
> it further. A lot of people don't even mention what makes an article subject
> worth being written about.

I would think that this one would be easy as not even going through
the motions of establishing notability is grounds for speedy. Come to
think of it I wonder if this has ever happened...

Someone writes an article about "Joe Shmoe".

Same someone fails to assert notability.

Article gets speedy deleted.

It turns out that "Joe Shmoe" actually is notable, just unknown to
those who speedied it.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-29

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.9alpha (r18627).
Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
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: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test Thumbnail image caption with a free URL... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A RFC with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A mailto link with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail- we don't render math in the parsertests by default,
so math is not stripped and turns up as escaped <math> tags.... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Image caption containing another image... FAILED!
Running test Bug 3090: External links other than http: in image captions... 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 Fuzz testing: image with bogus manual thumbnail... 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: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

Passed 463 of 490 tests (94.49%)... FAILED!


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives

body:
Hi all,

Lots of people are yelling and shouting that the current vision and policy
of the foundation is totally wrong. I would like to invite all these people
and others to think about alternatives. We won't get rid of these ugly
things (everybody agrees upon that, i guess) in the sitenotice without any
serious alternatives. I already asked this in the Dutch Village Pump, I hope
you will bring the question back to all your communities, to the places
where is discussed about the sitenotice. I have myself troubles to come up
with serious alternatives, so I hope you guys have one. And when you have
one, then you can ideed start a discussion about which solution is better. I
look forward to your ideas, and please keep the discussion about how bad the
current solution is for other threads.

Lodewijk / Eia


subject: [Foundation-l] alternatives


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 29/12/06, Jeroenvrp <wikipedia at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Op vrijdag 29 december 2006 00:41, schreef Brion Vibber:

> > > Exactly, but you you miss the point completely Brion. It's advertisement
> > > at a location where the free content is CREATED, not
> > > redistributed/mirrored. Actually I don't care about if people make money
> > > with Wikipedia content, the same applies for Linux distributions, but we
> > > are talking about advertisement on the location where the content is
> > > created. That kills our reliability, so far we have that allready.

> > How? Please explain.

> > > It's not about business-models, websites, but
> > > about the source off the free content. Any connection to what kind of
> > > company, religion, political party, government, whatever... will harm one
> > > of the basic principles of this great project.

> > How? Please explain.

> Come on Brion, must I really explain this to you. I don't go that way with
> you. You should know WHY?

No, really ... please explain. You're making these blank assertions on
a public mailing list, and even if you think Brion can read your mind
the rest of us can't.

> Nothing, so let stop us for now. I think everyone had made his/her point and I
> truly hope the communities are much better informed and involved the next
> time.

I suggest it would still help if we understood yours.

- d.


from_name: thomasasta at gmx.net

subject:
[Foundation-l] wiki search - new wiki project: JJ-wiki-search
	(a community space)

body:
Hi

it would be useful, if more users from the foundation list subscribe as well to the new project for wiki: wiki-search.

http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wiki

The mailinglist subscribe is here:
http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/search-l

The archive to read some good threads already is here:
http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/2006-December/date.html

Three comments.

1.) wiki search should be in cooperation with the foundation. Each wikipedia needs a search box. so subscribe to search-l.

2.) Google is quick and reads here as well, so we need not only open source but as well open strategy to enter the market. As there was already the idea to ship a bundled software packet and bundle it with the cspace messenger, google polished very quick the google software packet and as well the toolbar and announced today to make google talk "the" VOIP telephone and messenger... So.. be aware, that only the community sense of wikipedia will be the core competency, and not rating or human rating or open source algorythms or a few servers. This means the foundation is the part we need in this project and as well the wikipedia community, which means we need the name "wiki" in the name for the search engine of wikipedia for external sites.

3) if a name is requested, then as said wiki is needed. and: there was the thread to use the open source code of yacy.net p2p search engine and website indexer. As Yacy is Spoken like Jacky Onassis and Jim is the father of wiki search, we could call this whole project "Jim ?n Jack" or better "JJ". This means to built a JJ-Search or JJ-wiki. So please start early to register the domains.

"JJ" is better than Jah Jah or google and evern better than Stan and Oli.
JJ sounds like a Jojo, we all remember from days when we were young.

JJ is the new way to searc decentral and if p2p yacy is shipped as a deamon of a buddylist http://cspace.in , then we could have as well a messenger called "JJ"-Space. Not "my" space but a cspace clone caled JJ?s
place.

Well, this is not yahda yahda, this is the phrase of asking yopur JJ?s, which means your buddies in the cspace buddylist or the p2p engine jj-search, which will have as well a search-box in the friendslist window like icq, openeing the yacy search in the browser.

JJ is quite a good name for a p2p search engine and p2p buddylist? isn?t it
? its the JJ-Wiki-"C"(ommunity)space for all questions, the web can answer.

Ask the Wiki-Community-Space "jj"

What do you think (please answer to the search-list and subscribe there.)

kind regards tom

--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


body:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless,
> malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access
> to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named,
> accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.

Our big problem is not random hit-and-run anonymous vandalism; it's
hard-working and malicious vandals who view trashing Wikipedia as a
challenge. Technical barriers to entry will discourage sincere new
contributors but not stop the problem children for a moment.

- d.


from_name: Marco Chiesa

subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement

body:
Jeroenvrp wrote:

>It also creates a precedent to the future. The road to daily advertisement has
>been opened by a weak Foundation. Yes we need the money, but there are other
>ways. Rather no money than sell the basis principles of Wikipedia/-media to
>whoever has the money.
>
>
>
I agree that the main point here is that for the first time (well, as
far as I can tell), a company logo which is not related to the WMF has
appeared on all pages. I'm personally grateful to Virgin Unite for the
donation, in the same way as I'm grateful to all the other donors, known
and unknown, because without them we would be discussing about nothing.
Still, this is a precedent, it is hard to deny; I'm sure the Board and
whoever was involved in the decision is perfectly aware of this, and all
the fuss that would have followed. Whatever decision you take, there
will be someone unhappy with it; this is normal, that's how the world
goes. Personally I'm fine with the logo, it is definitely much different
from being a flashy banner or something that opens tens of popups. Is
Virgin making money out of it? Well, I hope so. If they gain and we
gain, we're estabilishing a virtuous circle, in the same way as some
contributors promote themselves beyond wikimedia by supplying excellent
contributions (which is very different from people only writing vanity
articles about themselves).

Cruccone


subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/28/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> Well, it is the wiki-pedia, and wiki implies anyone can edit.

No it doesn't.

Steve


from_name: Jeroenvrp

body:
Op vrijdag 29 december 2006 00:41, schreef Brion Vibber:
> It was meant to be a provocative opening statement, but it appears
> accurate based on your actions and words last night and you have not
> explained otherwise, so I continue to stand by these words.

Well, you did revert me on a Wikipedia where you are only a moderator because
of technical reasons and since this was NOT a technical issue, I assume you
also did not follow the book.

> >> It's about free/open educational content. It's about making materials
> >> open and available for use by the public, including the creation of
> >> derivative works and redistribution.
> >
> > Exactly, but you you miss the point completely Brion. It's advertisement
> > at a location where the free content is CREATED, not
> > redistributed/mirrored. Actually I don't care about if people make money
> > with Wikipedia content, the same applies for Linux distributions, but we
> > are talking about advertisement on the location where the content is
> > created. That kills our reliability, so far we have that allready.
>
> How? Please explain.
>
> > It's not about business-models, websites, but
> > about the source off the free content. Any connection to what kind of
> > company, religion, political party, government, whatever... will harm one
> > of the basic principles of this great project.
>
> How? Please explain.

Come on Brion, must I really explain this to you. I don't go that way with
you. You should know WHY?

> Perhaps you missed it, but the foundation came from the community and is
> made up of community members.

That's even worse.

> Perhaps you missed the last six years solid, where there have always
> been disagreements within the community and communications problems
> between different parts of it.

Yes, so we should have learned from the past.

> Me, I noticed. That's probably why I've been screaming for better
> organization and communication in this fundraiser debacle.

Good to hear that.

> Communication is the #1 problem facing us. Do you believe the best
> response to this is to engage in edit wars?
>
> I don't.

No I don't believe that, but sometimes things are more important than not
doing anything.

> That's probably why I'm posting here instead of dropping the nukes and
> blocking edit-warring sysops.

Well, that is one more credit for you.

> What good would it do other than piss people off?

Nothing, so let stop us for now. I think everyone had made his/her point and I
truly hope the communities are much better informed and involved the next
time.

Jeroenvrp


subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC

body:
On 12/28/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Is Requests for comments broken?  I'm curious as to how many people on
> the list have followed one and given comment recently, as I've had one
> up a while now and had no outside input.  It's frustrating because I

RfC is mostly used by primadonnas who want to waste experienced
wikipedians' time with their pathetically trivial moral dilemma like
whether the third section title should have an apostrophe before or
after the s.

Great in theory. Very big waste of time in practice. Though it did
once serve in beating some senseless editors over the head with
consensus. Renaming [[Cock]] to [[Rooster]] fwiw.

Steve


from_name: Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>>> It's about free/open educational content. It's about making materials
>>> open and available for use by the public, including the creation of
>>> derivative works and redistribution.
>> Exactly, but you you miss the point completely Brion. It's advertisement at a
>> location where the free content is CREATED, not redistributed/mirrored.
>> Actually I don't care about if people make money with Wikipedia content, the
>> same applies for Linux distributions, but we are talking about advertisement
>> on the location where the content is created. That kills our reliability, so
>> far we have that allready.
>
> How? Please explain.

Well. I think it would be interesting to take a very close look how this
    "non-advertisement" in sitenotice affects the content of the article
of "non-advertised" company or organization.

Take a look on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Unite

which was created first on 14:35 December 2007, and had almost 100 edits
till now. I am quite sure that it would have never be edited so
extensively if the logo of this organisation hadn' been used in
sitenotice. This is rather obvious that this logo indeed has quite
enormous effect on the content of this particular article. I am not
judging if this effect was good or wrong.

What we may be afraid of:
*The company "non-advertised" on sitenotice might be interested to keep
the article about itself in the shape they would prefer, and they may
expect that someone from Foundation will take care of it
*It may end-up in agressive edit war, which may result in blocking this
  article
*There will be more such articles, so the problem will grow soon.

This was not discussed yet, but if Foundation make a decision to put
some "real" advertisement on Wikipedia and other projects, how it may
affect the articles about advertised companies and organisation as well
as biographic articles about the people conected with these companies
and articles about products/services they provide?

It is really difficult to evaluate this without any experimental data,
but I think many people fell that it may create some sort of conflict of
interest.

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


from_name: ROSC

subject: [Foundation-l] Is the Wikimedia Foundation a ''Game''?

body:
Just because logo of Virgin Unite is on The Wikimedia Foundation websites, everyone has the make a big deal.

  Everyone who is in The Wikimedia Foundation wants money for the Foundation and always seems to ask or has new fundrasing tips or news.

  If the Foundation needs the donations, they would need listen to these fuckers to are in their 90's and has nothing better to do then play a "Game"!

  This is just a game! I will no logger support the Foundation if this happens!

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


from_name: rfrangi at libero.it

body:
I've just had a great idea.

For the next fundriasing WMF says: "to run our projects we need to raise X$ in the next two weeks." Without doublings, ads, and stuff.

If after 2 weeks the sum raised is less than the X$ needed, the Foundations says: "You didn't gave us enough money. Can we put ads?"

If the answer is no, just shut the whole damn thing down.

Sometimes people needs a slap in the face to understand.

Roberto (Snowdog)

------------------------------------------------------
Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom
http://click.libero.it/infostrada29dic06


from_name: Utente:M7 (M/)

body:
2006/12/29, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it>:
> I've just had a great idea.
>
> For the next fundriasing WMF says: "to run our projects we need to raise X$ in the next two weeks." Without doublings, ads, and stuff.
>
> If after 2 weeks the sum raised is less than the X$ needed, the Foundations says: "You didn't gave us enough money. Can we put ads?"
>
> If the answer is no, just shut the whole damn thing down.
>
> Sometimes people needs a slap in the face to understand.
>
> Roberto (Snowdog)

Agreed in full.

--
Ciao,
M/
[ http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:M7 ]


subject: [WikiEN-l] More drama

body:
On 29/12/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:

> Of course, this kind of thing does happen, often starting with a "delete
> or at least rename" nomination.  I've done it myself in the past: see
> [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinkadecimal]].  "Rename" is indeed a
> valid conclusion for an AfD debate, and may often be a good compromise
> solution.  I just wish more people would consider that option _before_
> taking the matter to AfD.

Such nominations should be speedy-closed as defective and the move
made if sensible.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
On 28/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

> Someone came on here, and after editors were stopping them from doing it on
> Wikipedia, trolled the list trying to make a section on [[Israel]] that's
> already troublesome into an even bigger violation of NPOV.

This is the sense in which wikien-l is the official sewer of en:wp, by
the way. This sort of thing is actually one of the purposes of this
list. (Not that it won't get short shrift as deserved.)

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 12/28/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>George Herbert wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Is there any agreement for there being a manner in which to demonstrate to
>>>
>>>
>>>the community's consensus satisfaction that a claimed source has been added
>>>
>>>
>>>fraudulently and either does not really exist or does not really say what
>>>the citation claims it does?
>>>
>>>
>>No.  The burden of proving that a source has been fraudulently added is
>>on the person making the claim of fraud.  Whether a source that is not
>>directly quoted says what is claimed is often a matter of interpretation.
>>
>>
>>>What I seem to have been seeing here is that there's an unreasonable
>>>tendency to assume that a citation is legitimate.
>>>
>>>
>>Why is that unreasonable?  Such a presumption (rather than assumption)
>>is consistent with assuming good faith on the part of the writer.
>>
>>
>We consistently see situations where obviously, someone involved in a
>dispute is not acting in good faith.
>
What makes them obvious?

>The ability of subtle vandals to, for example, edit "apparently reasonably"
>includes putting fake sources in, or making claims regarding sources which
>are difficult to verify (find a book in Library of Congress or Amazon, but
>which you can't locate in any convenient normal library catalogs, and then
>claim that it says so-and-so; simply fabricate a book name/ISBN).
>
Fake sources and ones that are difficult to track down are two different
things.  Finding the book in the Library of Congress catalog or on
Amazon sounds like good enough proof that the book exists.  Abebooks
would also be a good source.  How much more convenient would you want
it?  No bibliography for a written book mormally lists the libraries
containing those books.  Why should we pose such an extraordinary
demand?  I have a copy of Jeremy Collier's "Historical Dictionary"
printed in 1701, and I would be quite willing to cite in the right
circumstances.  I would have no obligation to track down other copies.

>It's easy to defend the first - someone can find a reference to the
>existence of the book with a little effort, but is unlikely to be able to
>find any copies to see what's really in it.
>
If you have satisfied yourself that the book exists there must be some
hint of where the book is located.  If it's not convenient for you, but
is nevertheless important because of strong suspicions that the entry is
fraudulent get somebody else to check it out.

>It's a little harder to defend the second if we have reasonable standards,
>such as "A reliable book source has to have some sort of verifyable
>bibliographic entry SOMEWHERE".  If the burden of proof is on the disprover,
>however, it's nearly impossible to ever meet that burden.
>
The first burden of proof that the information in an article is accurate
is indeed with the persdon submitting the material; there is no
obligation to disprove there.  That burden of proof is shifted when
there is a positive claim of fraud; such a claim introduces a dimension
beyond merely disproving the claims made by the writer.

>>I would prefer if there
>>
>>
>>>were a healthy degree of skepticism associated with citations - any citation
>>>
>>>
>>>that does not contain enough information for a reasonable researcher to
>>>locate the original source, or at least verify the existence of the original
>>>
>>>
>>>source, should be challengable in a reasonable manner.
>>>
>>>
>>If you doubt the citation you can always check it out.  There should
>>undoubtedly be standards for what a citation includes.  In the unusual
>>circumstances where you think you have a bogus citation you should start
>>by asking the contributor about it.
>>
>>
>Right, so I see citation X, saying so-and-so, and the contributor says "Oh,
>well, that's what it says."  I can't find any evidence that the reference
>book actually even exists.  "Please tell me where to find a copy of the
>book", I ask the contributor, who then either says nothing in return, or
>claims it's in the University of So-and-So library, where the University of
>So-and-So has plans to put its catalog online sometime in 2011 due to budget
>shortages.
>
I too would be suspicious of an apparently evasive answer.  If the
library does not have an online catalog it shoudl still have a card
catalog, or a catalog on microfiche which you can look up.when you go there.

Ec


body:
Gary,

  Your one of those people....

Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
  Don't troll. If you have suggestions, please speak up. Messages like
yours help no-one.

On 12/29/06, ROSC wrote:
> Just because logo of Virgin Unite is on The Wikimedia Foundation websites,
> everyone has the make a big deal.
>
> Everyone who is in The Wikimedia Foundation wants money for the Foundation
> and always seems to ask or has new fundrasing tips or news.
>
> If the Foundation needs the donations, they would need listen to these
> fuckers to are in their 90's and has nothing better to do then play a
> "Game"!
>
> This is just a game! I will no logger support the Foundation if this
> happens!
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Gary Kirk
_______________________________________________
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