body:
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> > Consider what happens if we make a print version of Wikipedia with
> > color images in black and white? Is that a derived work?
>
> Meh. Possibly a derivative work under some laws, I don't know.
>
> Though CC-BY-ND, for instance, explicitly allows transfer to different media,
> and modifications necessary for such.

CC-By-ND leaves a lot of things unanswered.. not as vague as NC, but
it's still ugly.

You didn't comment on my other examples. :)

> > > For starters it isn't mentioned in the copyright FAQ at all.
> > [snip]
> >
> > The copyright FAQ is mostly written for users of content in Wikipedia.
> > Not creators of Wikipedia content.
>
> Sorry, isn't that the case under discussion? By "user of content" we mean people
> including someone else's content in Wikipedia, rather than people using
> Wikipedia's content, right? Because the first question in the FAQ is, in fact,
> "Can I add to Wikipedia something that I got from somewhere else?"

By "users of content" I mean people who want to use Wikipedia content
elsewhere. I thought, reading the whole thing, that it was pretty
clear.. but it seems we need to make it more clear.

> The FAQ has a whole section on licenses. It even has a specific sub-section on
> Creative Commons licenses. There is a general prohibition on that page against
> non-commercial licenses, but nothing about non-derivative, not even in the
> specific sub-section.

Yes, because these are licenses that you'll see used and discussed in
wikipedia. Really the only part the covers adding things in Wikipedia
is "Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else?"
and it's woefully incomplete.

> > See [[Wikipedia:Image use policy]] which states "You can prove that the
> > copyright holder has licensed the image under a free license."
>
> I did in fact look at that page as well, and that is not the relevant section.
> That section is about whether you can upload the media. For example it also has
> the option "you own the rights to the image" and one for "fair use".

...

I'd like to know how you plan on getting a piece of -ND media into
Wikipedia without someone uploading it! :)

> You then go down just a bit further to find what "free license" is acceptable.
> Again, it explicitly forbids non-commercial use licenses, but is silent on
> non-derivative licenses. You then go to another page for "acceptable image tags"
> (WP:TAG).

I'll fix that so it doesn't create any impression of being a complete list.

[snip]

> But if the downstream users are doing something different, then they might not,
> and in any case a fair use claim is not a let to make derivative works
> (notwithstanding media transfers, which as I say is allowed anyway).

I think you misunderstand how fair use is supposed to be used on
enwiki because it is so widely misused.

Our intention with permitting fair use is so that we can excerpt from
copyright works in order to discuss them... which is the entire
purpose of fair use in any case.

As such, someone who copies our article would in almost all cases
carry the same argument.

See [[WP:FUC]].

It should also be noted that most language Wikipedias reject fair use as well.

> It seems to me that CC-BY-ND, therefore, is intermediate between a copyleft and
> fair-use. And we do, as you say, allow fair use, under some circumstances. We
> should therefore allow CC-BY-ND under at least the same circumstances, and
> probably more. No?

We should and do allow CC-BY-ND if we could legally claim fair use of
the material.

However, if we are claiming fair use we should make no mention of
CC-BY-ND because we do not want to make the impression that we are
using the work under CC-BY-ND, that we approve of the license, or that
we would encourage anyone to release content under it.

It's also worth mentioning that CC-By-ND prohibits cropping which we
may actually be required to perform to strengthen our case of fair use
(cropping to minimize our excerpting and avoid taking the core of the
work or to avoid impact on the commercial value of the work).


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 19/09/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:

>  To
> many people seem under the impression that Citizendium is written solely
> by experts, my impression is that the bulk of the work is still done by
> many authors together, with a major difference that only a 'finalised'
> version is approved and visible for the larger public.

(We should all keep in mind that Citizendium isn't written by anyone
at all as yet - it's still only a proposal.)

It's a useful idea, yes. I'm wondering, though, if their model
includes non-experts as important contributors (which is what you seem
to be saying), whether their initial publicity will prove problematic.
It's not so much pro-expert as anti-non-expert. I don't see why a
non-expert would bother with volunteering for it, what's in it for
them.

Expert review of Wikipedia content is already possible. It doesn't
even have to be done on Wikipedia - links to good versions of articles
would suffice, as the URL of a given revision is unchanging.

(This ties in with [[WP:100K]].)

- d.


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted
	on	Wikipedia?

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Yes. No argument that we currently distribute works that we could not
> distribute if we attempted to follow all laws, but your claim was that
> the project would fail because "nearly nothing is permissible to
> distribute" under a policy of expansive conformance.
>

It depends on what you mean by "expansive conformance".  Do you mean
solely conformance with copyright laws?  This discussion started with a
mention of laws about taking pictures of various Royal properties, which
is an extra-copyright restriction.  You seem to favor us honoring those
sorts of restrictions as well.  But there are *quite* a lot of those, if
we want to get into expansive conformance.  In some countries, it's
illegal to publish material that impugns the honor of a president, king,
revered religious figure, or some other such thing.  Should we ignore
these laws?  If so, how do we distinguish between the ones we follow
(apparently UK ones) and the ones we don't?

-Mark


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Memcached layer for revision text extraction

body:
On 9/18/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Hopefully it keeps up and doesn't cause any other problems; I've set it to cache
> for an hour, but this could be reduced or increased as necessary.
[snip]

Has memcached's allocator changed?   I'm somewhat surprised that that
widely varying size of the page text isn't causing us fragmentation
problems.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
On 9/19/06, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> B+Trees are not that good for intersections, now maybe fulltext
> indexing in general is more suitable for such task, that would mean
> us using external facility for lookups like that (well, that was
> discussed in frankfurt 2005 ;-), but it is far more complex than to
> throw few more queries at our core databases and expecting a miracle.
[snip]

Or another database engine which supports an index type which is an
inverted index with fast intersections.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

references:
<20060919112600.GUCF15733.aamtaout04-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@smtp.ntlworld.com>
	<450FDCE0.2070909@kimvdlinde.com>
	<fbad4e140609190510x5d30eec5s55edd878c1d7a334@mail.gmail.com>
	<450FE3E1.7050705@kimvdlinde.com>

body:
On 19/09/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:

> Sure, the difference, Citizendium provides that good version to its
> readers, Wikipedia provides the latest vandalized version. Another
> difference, at Citizendium, this would be an expert approved version, at
> Wikipedia an admin approved? Or is the idea to get experts to do that
> job? If so, in what way is that different from what Citizendium wants to
> do?

That last one is something de: is presently trying to address. See
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/010045.html
for current status.

- d.


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
> > from en: to become a steward these days?

> Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?

This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
found the message in question as easily as I just did.

- d.


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:

>On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>>In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you
>>have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial
>>use without permission.
>>
>>Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property
>>without consent, which is often refused or charged
>>for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
>>
>>Here's a link for more info:
>>http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/
>>uk_photographers_rights_guide
>>
>>
>OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright
>laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern
>skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are
>automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not
>know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old
>paintings.
>
I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has done an
excellent job of mireading and distorting the material.  The question of
old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go
into that.

The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar
Square have nothing to do with copyright.  In the case of British Rail
the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without
permission.  This alone does not make the pictures that you take while
there illegal.

For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of
restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes.  It
does not restrict amateur or personal photography.  Overtly commercial
photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs that are
subsequently used for commercial purposes.  The restriction applies to
the activity, not to the product.

Ec


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/19/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Try that one:
> > > http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikipedia&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
> > >
> > > Very different results aren't they?
>
> > Different but largely useless unless you can find out how many search
> > requests come from various areas. You also have the problem that you
> > have no way of knowing which language people are looking at.
>
> Errrr. Am I understanding it completely wrong when I read (on the
> explanation from Google):
> " When the Cities tab is selected, Google Trends first looks at a
> sample of all Google searches to determine the cities from which we
> received the most searches for your first term. "
>

Look at how they are normalized.

--
geni


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change language name...

body:
Not "Arm?neshce" but "Arm?neashce" (i forgot an a). Arm?neashti should be changed to Arm?neashce. Also Wikipedia should be moved to rup.wikipedia.org .

  Summary:
  Language name (english): Aromanian; Macedo-Romanian; Romanian, Macedo

  Language name (native): Arm?neashce

  ISO 639 alpha 3 code assigned for Aromanian (or Macedo-Romanian, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromanian_language ) is "rup"

Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> ha scritto:
  ro.wiki wrote:
> Can please somebody change the name of the Aromanian language ( http://roa-rup.wikipedia.org ) as it appears in Wikipedia's interlanguage links from "Arm?neashti" to the correct spelling form "Arm?neshce" ?
>
> Also I wanna ask, how can this Wikipedia be transferred to rup.wikipedia.org , the correct Wikipedia adress as per ISO 639-2 Alpha 3?( http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html ) When it was created there was no ISO code for this language, but one was created. It is anyway a small Wikipedia so there should be no problem in movin articles.
>
> Thanks
Hoi,
Do I understand correctly that Arm?neshce is the same as Macedo ? The
rup code is reserved for this language. If it is not, it is not
acceptable to call this wiki rup.wikipedia.org.
Thanks,
GerardM

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rup
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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Do You Yahoo!?
Poco spazio e tanto spam? Yahoo! Mail ti protegge dallo spam e ti da tanto spazio gratuito per i tuoi file e i messaggi
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from_name: mr wiggl3s

subject: [WikiEN-l] Help:infobox

body:
Is there a way so that the info box's dont over lap the info, not like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mr_wiggl3s
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Help%3Ainfobox-tf2301571.html#a6397075
Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: Anthere

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 18/09/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>*  Wikimedia Foundation is not about the English Wikipedia. If it was,
>>the other projects should get out of the Wikimedia Foundation asap
>>because it would make it the wrong place to grow their project.
>>* It would be good to discriminate against the English Wikipedia because
>>it gets too much attention. The alternative is that it cannot look after
>>itself. If this is the case the project should organise itself and not
>>be dependant on outside control.
>>* Even the Neapolitan wikipedia has had articles in the Italian National
>>Press. This is certainly true for all the bigger projects. If you think
>>that the domination of the English wikipedia is so self evident, think
>>again most of what happens around the other projects you do not know
>>about. Also the growth of the other projects is faster than the English
>>project. It will not take long and the other projects will be
>>substantially bigger.
>>If you choose a board member only because you think he or she is
>>"nice".. you might consider if he of she will also be effective and do
>>good for ALL the projects.
>
>
>
> Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
> from en: to become a steward these days?
>
>
> - d.

Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?

Ant


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images into
	PNG	on	MediaWiki 1.7.1

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKKEHIIOAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<450F34AA.3020209@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<eene3a$f3e$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<450F9A03.4010506@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 01:19:31AM -0600, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> [ regarding ESR's Smart Questions paper ]
> It may be construed to be rather tacky to use that listing for third
> parties as a statement that reflects on
> the MediaWiki project.
>
> >(b) If you'd read to the end, you'd have seen this:
> >http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#keepcool
>
> I am cool. I seriously doubt that someone who invests large sums of
> money in MediaWiki sponsored companies likes
> being pointed to text that refers to them as an "idiot". I am not upset
> at all -- just making an observation.

I'm sure they don't.

This doesn't, however, mean that they *aren't* idiots.  ESR is
certainly a polarizing individual, and that as much as anything because
he's blunt, and calls them like he sees them.

Whether how he sees them is reasonable is a-whole-nother argument, of
course, but I personally am one of those people who answers lots of
dumb questions from idiots -- idiots who *pay me* for the privilege,
and that's why I don't lay ASQ on them.  If they're asking me for
*free*?  You bet.  If they think it's calling them an idiot, then maybe
it is, and I might be so lucky as to have them ask someone else.

:-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted on
	Wikipedia?

body:
On 9/19/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> [0] Rumour has it, in France, it's no longer possible to claim copyright
>      over a photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night?
>

That would depend if the lights were switched on.

--
geni


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
Kim van der Linde wrote

> What is nicer than to
> work with some experts in that field to create good quality articles.

Before I even came to WP, in 2003, I had spent a year intensively (as it seemed at the time) editing another wiki (Sensei's Library, the go wiki). That has some special features, in particular that the centre of real expertise in the world is not at all anglophone. Still, although I edit there now, the experience left me with a distruct of quasi-wiki structures. (I even wrote a Meatball Wiki page about the set-up.)

Basically in go you have a grade, and the editor with the lower grade should defer. But it turns out that this is too static a system to really be satisfactory: not enough hard editing goes on. That wiki is dominated, to this day, by thread-mode discussion, and has never made it to 'encyclopedic' as understood at WP. There is plenty of good stuff, but the whole place is _insufficiently_ ruthless in hacking it about.

I do prefer WP, vexing though it may be. I bring this all up because if good manners were all there was to it, Sensei's Library would be a shining example.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa

body:
My 2 cents... Neapolitan is a particular language, is more than a
regional language.

Neapolitan has got a strong culture: music, poetry, literature.

In some parts of the world Neapolitan music is more famous than
Italian (i.e. "O' sole mio") and some words used in whole world
derive directly from Neapolitan (i.e. Pizza).

The difference is that Neapolitan has got a string culture as
pillar.

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Data: 19.09.06 0.15
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Copia: <public-afrophonewikis-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw at ciao.gmane.
org>
Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa

> Can you explain more about what is done in Neapolitan language ?
>
The Neapolitan language is a language that is considered by many to
be
inferior. People are not educated in it, while the Neapolitans are
a
proud people many sadly do not take pride in their own language.
In
order to promote the Neapolitan language, everything is done to
stimulate the recognition of the Neapolitan language. Stubs are
created
to create a tapestry of articles that are linked. Translation tools
are
used to generate content. There is a newsletter in Neapolitan to
people
who are interested. People living as far afield as the USA and
Australia
are contacted when they show their interest in the Neapolitan
language.
There have been articles in the press about the project.
Neapolitan
traditions are covered, local interest is sought.

As the Italian chapter now has a coordinator for the regional
languages,
it will be interesting to see how the chapter will be able to
facilitate
projects like the Neapolitan wikipedia.. I know for instance that
the
Neapolitan project would love to have a Neapolitan dictionary to
scan
and OCR as well as support for scanning original Neapolitan
literature
(most of is it in the public domain).
>>> 1.3. Identification of specialized press (make a list)


subject: [Foundation-l] Development in Africa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 19/09/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Basically in go you have a grade, and the editor with the lower grade should defer. But it turns out that this is too static a system to really be satisfactory: not enough hard editing goes on. That wiki is dominated, to this day, by thread-mode discussion, and has never made it to 'encyclopedic' as understood at WP. There is plenty of good stuff, but the whole place is _insufficiently_ ruthless in hacking it about.
> I do prefer WP, vexing though it may be. I bring this all up because if good manners were all there was to it, Sensei's Library would be a shining example.

This is also of interest in answering the perennial suggestion of
fixing edit wars by having article forks. It might stop the editors
from fighting (or it might not), but it's no way to produce something
good for the reader. IMO.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 19/09/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:

For most of your email, I have no idea - it's all a work in progress
on de: and may not work anything like that way on en:. But:

> But the main question, in what way would the preferred option (2b)
> differ from Citizendium, except that the current community structure at
> Wikipedia is way less inviting for those needed experts to join and the
> massive community resistance that can be expected against such a change?

You know, I really don't see the general expert-hating you speak of.
Lots of Wikipedia contributors are in fact credentialed experts in the
fields they edit in, I know a pile of such people personally.

As far as I can tell the main difference is that the Ph.D gets you
nothing by itself, you also have to be able to edit well and work with
others. Which is an entirely different skill: you have to be able to
cope with an environment with stupid people in.

What I'm wondering is why we have the quantity of experts editing
Wikipedia that we do. If we were as anti-expert as Sanger (and you)
claims, why would they be here?

- d.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 9/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Try that one:
> > http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikipedia&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
> >
> > Very different results aren't they?

> Different but largely useless unless you can find out how many search
> requests come from various areas. You also have the problem that you
> have no way of knowing which language people are looking at.

Errrr. Am I understanding it completely wrong when I read (on the
explanation from Google):
" When the Cities tab is selected, Google Trends first looks at a
sample of all Google searches to determine the cities from which we
received the most searches for your first term. "

"All Google searches". "Most searches". So unless you need exact
numbers, I think the trends are obvious. Wikipedia is not looked up
primarily in English speaking countries, but rather in non-English
speaking countries. Of course, one could argue that they're all
looking up the English Wikipedia. My little finger tells me they are
not, localized browsers tend to show results in their own language.

I am not saying that en is not the most visited, I know it is, I am
just saying that your conclusion which said:

"other than a brief appearance by de en dominates the search results"

was a quick and unfounded conclusion.

Delphine
--
~notafish


from_name: Luiz Augusto

body:
On 9/19/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/19/06, Jon Harald S?by <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Anyways, my point was that indirect elections _might_ turn out to have
> > inaccurate results (though that is a rather rare situation), and that
> > it would be especially hard to arrange this on Wikimedia projects.
>
> Indirect election of officials in voluntary organizations with large,
> geographically diverse membership is common and may actually be the
> norm.

{{citation needed}}

 (...)

Let's also not forget that direct democracy elected Hitler, and yet we
> still use it as well.

 [[Godwin's Law]] ?


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] KDE and Wikiversity

body:
On 9/19/06, A. ?zg?r Erdemli <dbl2010 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Wow sweet news.
>
> I think technical part won't be any important. I believe main topic will
> be
> learning through wikiveristy enviroment, methods etc. which is your
> profession, Cormac :) I am looking forward to hear after meeting updates
> from you.
>
> ?zg?r

Thanks :-). I'll keep you posted.

Cormac

On 9/18/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I just thought I'd let you know that I'm meeting (informally) with a
> > couple
> > of people from KDE [1] at their upcoming conference [2] in Dublin -
> about
> > Wikiversity. (Well, actually, we're meeting this Friday, the day before
> > the
> > conference officially begins, but that's the only day that suits.) From
> > what I gather, they're thinking of using Wikiversity as a training
> > centre/programme for their developers - which sounds like a very
> practical
> > application for Wikiversity (and applicable to MediaWiki development
> > also),
> > so we'll see what comes out of it. I'm really just there as a person to
> > explain to them what Wikiversity is and what it could be used for, but,
> > since I'm not very technically minded, any ideas or things to bear in
> mind
> > would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Cormac / Cormaggio
> >
> >
> > [1] http://www.kde.org/
> > [2] http://conference2006.kde.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>


subject: [Foundation-l] KDE and Wikiversity


body:
On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > David Gerard wrote:
>
> > > Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
> > > from en: to become a steward these days?
>
> > Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?
>
>
> This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
> someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
> else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
> Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
> two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
> and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
> found the message in question as easily as I just did.

These are facts, but they do not go to support your assertion, which was:
"It's almost impossible for someone from en: to become a steward".

The fact that :en stewards are not a majority in the current
composition of the pool of stewards does not give an explanation of
why you would say that it is "almost impossible".

Delphine
--
~notafish


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are destroying Wikipedia

body:
On 9/18/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 18, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Carl Peterson wrote:
> > Perhaps the slogan should be "verified truth" or "verifiable
> > truth." This
> > puts them both on an equal plane and requires both.
>
> I was thinking of something like "truth is ensured by verifiability,"
> actually.

What is truth?

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] I've Kicked the Process Habit

body:
On 18/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> > What are you trying to accomplish here?

> Either your withdraw from your current position or your resignation as
> an admin. Doesn't have to be permanent. As soon as you feel that you
> are ready to consider what process is again I would not oppose you
> getting them back and I believe the general policy is to give back
> powers to anyone who voluntarily agrees to give them up.

See, this is the bit you've noticeably failed to convince anyone else
of the need for.

Let's try asking a different question:

What is the imminent danger to the encyclopedia or its core policies
of Phil keeping his ops?

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 19/09/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:

> going than at Wikipedia with its inherent anti-expert attitude. If

Anti-expert or expert-neutral?

I'm wondering what your examples are. What was the interaction that
convinced you to leave, for example?

> In that context, we not even have a content ArbCom filled with open
> minded academics and related experts who actually know how to deal with
> content disputes, it is conduct based one; maybe we should start a
> separate thread about that, because I have some ideas about that.

I'm sorry, I can't actually understand this paragraph.

- d.


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sanger's first post to Citizendium-l

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 18/09/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In particular, the GFDL for images is pretty much a pretend
>> free-content licence and not effectively one at all. "Yes, you can
>> freely reuse our images in print if you print the entire text of the
>> licence next to it." Uh, yeah.
>>
>
> This is why I recommend to people who are anxious about releasing
> their images under free licenses to use GFDL. Yes, they are
> technically free, and can be used easily be web pages. But you'll
> probably never see any print sources bother.
>
> Our GFDL non-compliance goes beyond images, though. If you read over
> the GFDL very carefully there are all sorts of things that are
> impractical for a communal encyclopedia to do (i.e. modified versions
> of works are supposed to have different titles with every modification
> ? not exactly practical when you are all editing the same
> draft-in-progress).
>
> FF
>
>
Well, I think you could argue that the if the "full" title of an article
is taken to include its page name, source site _and_ revision ID, which
is certainly required for uniqueness, then the letter of the licence is
already met in current practice. See, for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fish&oldid=76478297

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Cite&page=Fish&id=76478297

Can anyone tell me whether Wikipedia has a formal DOI prefix and scheme
already set up?

-- Neil


body:
On 18/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/18/06, [[User:Unforgettableid]] <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:

> > OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright
> > laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern
> > skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are
> > automatically copyrighted to the author.

> That is somewhat open to question. While current case law that I know
> of points that way there is a fair bit of legal opinion (includeing
> the stuff in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp which does cover UK
> law). suggesting a future case would go the other way. Problem is no
> one on either side really wants to be a test case.

>  >On the other hand, I do not
> > know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old
> > paintings. Likewise, I assume France, where is not as strict regarding
> > filming.

> Depends if you include any buildings in your film and how old they are.

It may be relevant that Jimbo has told the National Portrait Gallery
"sue or be damned" and they've stopped sending vague legal threats.

i.e., if someone does bring a case directly affecting Wikipedia then
they should be very sure they want to do that.

- d.


from_name: Forbidden-Places

body:
Hi again,
Yeah I know Creative Commons pretty well, my brother is in the music field.

It is not possible for the moment, but I would agree on the principle.

Why not? Well the videos use commercial music currently. I am in the process
of re-doing them with a friend of mine doing electronic music. Anyway, I
find these videos crappy now, needed to re-edit them again.

Do you have an urgent needs for these videos?
Cheers!
S.

--
Photos, videos and urban exploration!
www.forbidden-places.be
Photos, vid?os & exploration urbaine!

-----Message d'origine-----
De?: [[User:Unforgettableid]] [mailto:unforgettableid at gmail.com]
Envoy??: mardi 19 septembre 2006 14:53
??: Sylvain
Cc?: Sean Barrett; English Wikipedia
Objet?: Re: [WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos posted on
Wikipedia?

On 9/19/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Ben McIlwain stated for the record:
> > [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
> >>>On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places <postmaster at forbidden-places.be> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Hi Jason,
> >>>>No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
> >>>
> >>>We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the
> >>>video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at
> >>>Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for
> >>>your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
> >
> > Who are you to say that we won't edit the video?  Maybe you won't, but
> > maybe someone else will, in a way that makes it more useful, and then
> > link that on Wikipedia.  That's the point of viral licensing and
> > ShareAlikes.  I'm afraid "you're not allowed to edit it" is a
deal-breaker.
>
> Emphatic agreement with Ben. The video ''will'' be edited -- I
> personally guarantee it.  Please ensure that Forbidden Places
> <postmaster at forbidden-places.be> knows that I have said so, and that you
> have no authority to revoke parts of the GFDL.

Hi Sylvain,

I was incorrect about editing. The video will be edited.

I believe that if the video is edited, the person doing the editing
must label it as a "derivative work" of your video and provide full
credit when they publish the edited work. I do not know the full set
of rules for the licenses; those are available at
www.creativecommons.org for the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike License and www.gnu.org for the GNU Free
Documentation License.

Is this a problem?

Cheers,
Jason


body:
On 19/09/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 19, 2006, at 10:12 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> > What is the imminent danger to the encyclopedia or its core policies
> > of Phil keeping his ops?

> You ask too many questions, citizen.
> /me bans David Gerard

OUT OF PORCESS ROUGE ADMNIN


body:
On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> See, this is the bit you've noticeably failed to convince anyone else
> of the need for.
>
> Let's try asking a different question:
>
> What is the imminent danger to the encyclopedia or its core policies
> of Phil keeping his ops?

If he continues to use them we have an admin acting not as a janitor
but as part of the executive. Users have can have no real idea how he
well use those powers. Thus he will be disruptive. He's already
deleted a load of stuff without giving a reason we could probably do
without that happening again.

Process has a tendency to exist for a reason. If an admin is not
prepared to find out what that reason is then they should not be
ignoring the process because they are very likely to make mistakes.
Wikipedia is not anarchy. and admin who isn't going to bother with
process is out of control of pretty much everyone. An admin who is out
of control is a problem.

--
geni


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another projetcs uses Mediawiki:sitenotice and Mediawiki:annonotice only if
>> it is REALLY necessary. The Portuguese Wikipedia community dislike to get a
>> warn every second to make donations (in any case, majority of editors in
>> Portuguese wikis are from Brazil and credit cart is a dispensable object in
>> that contry and mail donations is so very expensive).
>
> Taking that approach on en will get you de-admined.
>

... and as you're so famously good at doing, you haven't pointed out *why*.

The English Wikipedia is both the biggest and the oldest, and it's
always the one which dies under heavy load. In some ways it's because of
en: that continual fundraising is needed - mainly for hardware - and the
thought of *not* having the donations notice in there is, well,
unthinkable. Even the outage page has a link to the donations site.

However, I fully understand why people on other project wouldn't want to
see the donations notice all the time; but this is a difference of
culture and something we have to live with.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another projetcs uses Mediawiki:sitenotice and Mediawiki:annonotice only if
>> it is REALLY necessary. The Portuguese Wikipedia community dislike to get a
>> warn every second to make donations (in any case, majority of editors in
>> Portuguese wikis are from Brazil and credit cart is a dispensable object in
>> that contry and mail donations is so very expensive).
>
> Taking that approach on en will get you de-admined.
>

... and as you're so famously good at doing, you haven't pointed out *why*.

The English Wikipedia is both the biggest and the oldest, and it's
always the one which dies under heavy load. In some ways it's because of
en: that continual fundraising is needed - mainly for hardware - and the
thought of *not* having the donations notice in there is, well,
unthinkable. Even the outage page has a link to the donations site.

However, I fully understand why people on other project wouldn't want to
see the donations notice all the time; but this is a difference of
culture and something we have to live with.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another projetcs uses Mediawiki:sitenotice and Mediawiki:annonotice only if
>> it is REALLY necessary. The Portuguese Wikipedia community dislike to get a
>> warn every second to make donations (in any case, majority of editors in
>> Portuguese wikis are from Brazil and credit cart is a dispensable object in
>> that contry and mail donations is so very expensive).
>
> Taking that approach on en will get you de-admined.
>

... and as you're so famously good at doing, you haven't pointed out *why*.

The English Wikipedia is both the biggest and the oldest, and it's
always the one which dies under heavy load. In some ways it's because of
en: that continual fundraising is needed - mainly for hardware - and the
thought of *not* having the donations notice in there is, well,
unthinkable. Even the outage page has a link to the donations site.

However, I fully understand why people on other project wouldn't want to
see the donations notice all the time; but this is a difference of
culture and something we have to live with.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another projetcs uses Mediawiki:sitenotice and Mediawiki:annonotice only if
>> it is REALLY necessary. The Portuguese Wikipedia community dislike to get a
>> warn every second to make donations (in any case, majority of editors in
>> Portuguese wikis are from Brazil and credit cart is a dispensable object in
>> that contry and mail donations is so very expensive).
>
> Taking that approach on en will get you de-admined.
>

... and as you're so famously good at doing, you haven't pointed out *why*.

The English Wikipedia is both the biggest and the oldest, and it's
always the one which dies under heavy load. In some ways it's because of
en: that continual fundraising is needed - mainly for hardware - and the
thought of *not* having the donations notice in there is, well,
unthinkable. Even the outage page has a link to the donations site.

However, I fully understand why people on other project wouldn't want to
see the donations notice all the time; but this is a difference of
culture and something we have to live with.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> It would be nice to actually have others stats than those gathered by
>> Alexa. Do we have other sources of information ?
>>
>
> might be able to compare main page views through:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts
>
> but you would need one heck of a fudge factor to account for different
> usage patterns
>

That's one hell of an unreliable source.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> It would be nice to actually have others stats than those gathered by
>> Alexa. Do we have other sources of information ?
>>
>
> might be able to compare main page views through:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts
>
> but you would need one heck of a fudge factor to account for different
> usage patterns
>

That's one hell of an unreliable source.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> It would be nice to actually have others stats than those gathered by
>> Alexa. Do we have other sources of information ?
>>
>
> might be able to compare main page views through:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts
>
> but you would need one heck of a fudge factor to account for different
> usage patterns
>

That's one hell of an unreliable source.

--
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:
geni wrote:
> On 9/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> It would be nice to actually have others stats than those gathered by
>> Alexa. Do we have other sources of information ?
>>
>
> might be able to compare main page views through:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts
>
> but you would need one heck of a fudge factor to account for different
> usage patterns
>

That's one hell of an unreliable source.

--
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: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
--- Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:

> do so in the interest of some interesting Wikipedia
> analysis, and fair play
> (feel free to rip me a new one in the blog's Comments
> section).  Here is the
> blog post:
>
>
http://mywikibiz-com.blogspot.com/2006/09/gaping-void-in-wikipedia.html

You have a point about the lack of business/organization
depth as compared to the huge amount of fan articles,
relatively few of which qualify as either [[WP:NPOV]] or
[[WP:V]].

If, however, you (or another wiki business) are receiving
money to give a company/organization a presence on
Wikipedia, you are working as an agent of that company,
making it as much a conflict of interest as if they had
hired any other PR or ad firm to do it.

I don't know if this is fixable.  Businesses want to make
money.  And so do the businesses that report on businesses.
 So the people who are capable of filling in the gaps
actually have a motivation to decrease the amount of useful
information in Wikipedia.  Or, of course, not add to it.

That leaves it up to each business itself.  Does it want to
spend time and money including itself in Wikipedia or would
it prefer to spend it on search engine manipulation and
their own site.  There was a clear answer to what the
current preference is (i.e., not WP) elsewhere in this
mailing list recently.

I think Wikipedia needs to spend some time, and donation
money, on actively promoting users to go out and research
and add more business articles.  That or wait for market
forces (like Pokemon cartoons involving coal) and the
Associated Press to make each business an item of popular interest.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick

--spam may follow--

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


from_name: Delirium

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> The issue is that a British author entered into a contract made
> legally under British law to do something in Britain. This is by no
> means a bizzare or inhuman contract - "I will let you into private
> property, and let you take photographs, on the condition you don't use
> them commercially". Art galleries everywhere do much the same thing;
> it's nothing to do with copyright or draconian privacy laws, it's just
> a matter of a contract between an individual and an organisation.
>
> So regardless of any legal situation in the US, it is a breach of
> contract *on the part of the author* to release those images for
> commercial use, even if he does it outside the UK. US copyright law
> doesn't come into it, US freedom of speech doesn't come into it,
> because it isn't about either - it's about the fact that the author
> has made a contract which is legally binding and *he personally* would
> be breaking it if he released the work under a free license.
>
> Wikimedia is fine - we're not a party to the contract, and it's an
> open question as to what on earth the other party can do to us if the
> photographer decides to break his contract. But we should never be
> pretending we can get people out of their local legal constraints,
> unrelated to copyright, just because publishing in Florida gives us
> funky copyright possibilities.
>

I agree with all that, but the question remains whether *we* should
enforce those contracts.  We of course can't get the other person out of
their contract, but we don't have to police their contracts either.

In the World Cup example, at least, Commons seems to have decided that
it's not our job to enforce them---it's between FIFA and the
photographer whether the pictures were taken in violation of a contract,
and not really our job to pry into the matter, even if we suspect they
were probably not taken with permission.

I'm not sure that's a position we *must* take, but it does seem to be
the one we're currently taking.  There are problems with the opposite
position, too, that would at least require us to come up with something
more complex/nuanced.  For example, we'd probably want to reserve the
right to publish pictures taken illegally in complex political
situations---if somebody snapped a newsworthy photograph during a coup,
for example, which the government later declared illegal, we would
probably not want to take it down for that reason (or at least I
wouldn't want us to have such a policy).

-Mark


from_name: habj

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Change of namespace: who to contact?

body:
Most of the language files can be fiddled with at betawiki, as well as
locally on the wikis.(Betawikis is nice, since the changes there will
eventually be integrated into the MediaWiki software and used in every wiki
in your language that uses the MediaWiki software. Changing the actual name
of the namespace, however, can only be done by developers.

The recommended way, as I understand it, is to first have a discussion on
your wiki to reach a decision and then file a request to have the namespace
renamed at Mediazilla
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
You can also join one of the IRC-channels with tech folks in it and ask to
have it done, but you should be able to show a concensus on your wiki first.

/habj


body:
On 9/19/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> I haven't followed this whole thread, so this point may have been
> amply made already, but:
>
>         *Phil did not say he was going to violate policy.*
>
> He said he was going to ignore process, and there's a crucial
> difference.  The speculation is that simply doing the right
> thing, even in ignorance of process, will be in substantial
> accordance with it (or at least, with core policy) 90% of the
> time anyway.  And for the other 10%, the possibility that the
> process is misguided or incomplete, and the existence of IAR,
> ought to about cover it.
>
> (Phil didn't claim those 90/10 numbers; I just made them up.)
>

Problem is that did state he was going to ignore a number of policies.
[[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]] for example or [[Wikipedia:Deletion
policy]].

> Is Phil getting smeared now?  I can't say I'm surprised.  To the
> process wonk, process is the most important thing there is, way
> more important than the goals of the project it's supposed to
> support.  Denying or disavowing the sacred process is the most
> cardinal of sins.

Interesting strawman you've got there. It's either a strawman or an
irrelevance if you are making a general statement about a group you
have defined as "process wonks" you have failed to provide evidence of
their involvement. If you are talking about me (you know the guy who
was accused of smearing Phil) then the accusation would probably work
better if I hadn't at some point or another ignored almost every
process on wikipedia. I however generally had a pretty good idea which
process I was ignoring and why it existed.

>
> I don't deny that Phil's declaration was provocative.  It calls
> to mind Colonel Cathcart's objection to Yossarian's attitude:
> "What if everyone felt that way?"  But Yossarian's retort is
> equally apt: "Then I'd certainly be a fool not to."

Yossarian's retort appears to be an appeal to popularity logical fallacy.

--
geni


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l]Methods of electing an arbitration committée

body:
On 19/09/06, habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why did English Wikipedia choses to have secret ballots in the election to
> their arb com? Why have the other wikipedias chosen not to?

They didn't. The last election was an open and publicly visible vote,
and possibly the most acrimonious possible method of running it.

- d.


body:
On 19/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> If he continues to use them we have an admin acting not as a janitor
> but as part of the executive. Users have can have no real idea how he
> well use those powers. Thus he will be disruptive. He's already
> deleted a load of stuff without giving a reason we could probably do
> without that happening again.

What load of stuff was this? With full references, you're making an
accusation here that you consider serious enough to warrant
desysopping - don't just say "I alluded to it in passing somewhere up
there."

> Process has a tendency to exist for a reason.

Yes, usually an ad-hoc one. That it hangs around well past then and is
applied in situations it shouldn't be is a problem with that process
and with process in general.

>If an admin is not
> prepared to find out what that reason is then they should not be
> ignoring the process because they are very likely to make mistakes.
> Wikipedia is not anarchy. and admin who isn't going to bother with
> process is out of control of pretty much everyone. An admin who is out
> of control is a problem.

Whose control are you or I in?

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
> In that context, we not even have a content ArbCom filled with open
> minded academics and related experts who actually know how to deal with
> content disputes, it is conduct based one; maybe we should start a
> separate thread about that, because I have some ideas about that.
>
> Kim

Yes, new thread please for that. Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/19/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> What load of stuff was this? With full references, you're making an
> accusation here that you consider serious enough to warrant
> desysopping - don't just say "I alluded to it in passing somewhere up
> there."
>

The stuff he deleted on the 14th

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Phil_Sandifer

I assume that is was the content of [[CAT:CSD]] (must have been
unusaly empty). But from the logs that is rather hard to tell.

> Yes, usually an ad-hoc one. That it hangs around well past then and is
> applied in situations it shouldn't be is a problem with that process
> and with process in general.

Then you need to agressive prune process. No one is stopping you. I
killed an entire policy page (no one has complained yet) what have you
been doing to reduce process of late?

>
> Whose control are you or I in?
>

In theory the community through them telling us what they want cleaned
up or whatever.

--
geni


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Start with a cage containing five apes.

In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before
long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the
banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with
cold water.

After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result, all
the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several
more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs,
the other apes all try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace
it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the
stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another
attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he
will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new
one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous
newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a
third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs
and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea
why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are
participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes that
were sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape
ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?

Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's
always been around here.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Q: Magic 8-Ball, which e-mail
 sean at epoptic.com |    client should I use?
                  | A: Outlook not so good.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Methods of electing an arbitration committée

body:
I recently noticed at Meta - and was a bit surprised - that the BoardVote
extension has been used in elections to the Arbitration Committee att
English Wikipedia. Since several other Wikipedias also have arbitration
committ?es, but there is no note of these elections can be found on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_officials_2006 where the elections
to the English Arc Coms are listed along with the elections to the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees, I suppose the other arbitration committees
have been elected openly on the wiki, the way administrators are normally
chosen.

Why did English Wikipedia choses to have secret ballots in the election to
their arb com? Why have the other wikipedias chosen not to?

On the more general scale:
Why should votes for adminship be open, and votes to the Board of Trustees
secret ballot? Where on the scale between these two types of elections do we
find elections for an arbitration committee?

/habj


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, 2006-09-19 at 17:40 -0400, Gregory Kohs wrote:
> With some trepidation, I notify the WikiEN-l list about this blog post.  I
> do so in the interest of some interesting Wikipedia analysis, and fair play
> (feel free to rip me a new one in the blog's Comments section).  Here is the
> blog post:
>
> http://mywikibiz-com.blogspot.com/2006/09/gaping-void-in-wikipedia.html
>
> Kindly,
>
>     Gregory Kohs

This is completely off-topic, but did anyone else think of the numerous
goatse vandalism incidents upon seeing this message's subject line?
--
Christopher Larberg <christopherlarberg at gmail.com>
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from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No derivatives (was: Would you like one of your
	videos posted on Wikipedia?)

body:
> > > Consider what happens if we make a print version of Wikipedia with
> > > color images in black and white? Is that a derived work?
> >
> > Meh. Possibly a derivative work under some laws, I don't know.
> >
> > Though CC-BY-ND, for instance, explicitly allows transfer to different
> media,
> > and modifications necessary for such.
>
> CC-By-ND leaves a lot of things unanswered.. not as vague as NC, but
> it's still ugly.
>
> You didn't comment on my other examples. :)

Same answer, no? Sorry, I'm still not seeing the "downstream" argument. CC
licenses are meant to be valid for absolutely all media formats, including those
not yet conceived of, and even ND licenses make allowances for this. If a
downstream user really did have to make a modification to make it available in
some media format, then it would be explicitly allowed by CC-(*)-ND. The
"cropping for fair use" is not needed because we wouldn't have to rely on fair use.

> I think you misunderstand how fair use is supposed to be used on
> enwiki because it is so widely misused.

Quite possibly!

> See [[WP:FUC]].

I had seen FUC, and that was why I brought up fair use. I figured, if we allow
that stuff under these conditions, then surely a free license like CC-BY-ND
wouldn't be horrible, even if it is more restrictive than CC-BY-SA. CC-BY-NC-SA
is out, but I figured that was for downstream reasons.

> we do not want to make the impression that we are
> using the work under CC-BY-ND, that we approve of the license, or that
> we would encourage anyone to release content under it.

Well, this is a bit of a surprise. So, it's not just a legal issue for us and
our downstream users.

>
> > You then go down just a bit further to find what "free license" is
> acceptable.
> > Again, it explicitly forbids non-commercial use licenses, but is silent on
> > non-derivative licenses. You then go to another page for "acceptable image
> tags"
> > (WP:TAG).
>
> I'll fix that so it doesn't create any impression of being a complete list.
>

Well, if it is a fairly common case, then maybe it actually needs explaning and
justifying, like for NC. I'd like to say it's not an obvious point at all, but
maybe this is only because I like to think of myself as not being dense.

Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no point
adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case. If not, is there a pointer to
discussion somewhere?

Cheers,
Daniel


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images
	into	PNG	on	MediaWiki 1.7.1

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKKEHIIOAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<450F34AA.3020209@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<eene3a$f3e$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<450F9A03.4010506@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<20060919182646.GE15666@cgi.jachomes.com>
	<4510369A.8040409@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 12:27:38PM -0600, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> >This doesn't, however, mean that they *aren't* idiots.  ESR is
> >certainly a polarizing individual, and that as much as anything because
> >he's blunt, and calls them like he sees them.
> >
> >Whether how he sees them is reasonable is a-whole-nother argument, of
> >course, but I personally am one of those people who answers lots of
> >dumb questions from idiots -- idiots who *pay me* for the privilege,
> >and that's why I don't lay ASQ on them.  If they're asking me for
> >*free*?  You bet.  If they think it's calling them an idiot, then maybe
> >it is, and I might be so lucky as to have them ask someone else.
> >
> My first encounter with Eric Raymond was at a public conference
> several years ago. He got up and announced he was a "warlock" and
> other strange and bizzare nonsense. I note he was an author of that
> document. I guess that all speaks for itself.

Sounds like it was probably Dragoncon.  :-)

ESR isn't crazy, and neither is anything he wrote in that document.

And I speak as someone who's done tech support for about 15 years.

Cheers,
-- jr 'though not as a psychologist :-)' a
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


body:
Hi Stephen,

On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
...
> external linking
> of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
> couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.

Why is it being phased out?

Cheers,
Jason


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
Actually, geni is actually has it right (well, not about the
de-adminning thing, that's just silly). Look, there are tons and tons
of editors that edit wikipedia everyday and that write fantastic
articles without ever getting into much conflict, including me. I
mean, when was the last time you heard about [[User:Lord Emsworth]]
being critized on AN/I? The man has written 58 featured articles, fer
chrissakes! Why isn't he continually complaining about flawed process
on the mailing list?

Sure, some of wikipedias processes aren't perfact, in fact quite a few
of them are flawed. But you have to realise that the reason you are
burning out so much also has to do with your own behaviour, it's not
just because of evil little process wonks. You have to accept some
blame yourself. As I said, many, many of us don't feel the way you
feel about processes and policy, and we don't get involved in these
issues nearly as often.

I suggest you take geni's advice, and simply start editing a different
part of wikipedia. Find an obscure author or some nice little
wikiproject or something and just write. That's what I meant many a
mails ago when I wrote "Infact, it is how many of us use wikipedia."

As geni said: click edit, write a great article, and press submit.
It's really just that simple.

--Oskar

On 9/18/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 18, 2006, at 9:28 AM, geni wrote:
>
> > Perhaps but it was somewhat nicer than the full version.
>
> Geni, this may be news to you, but I'm a semi-active editor in all
> fields. I have a job and a life, and I don't have time to get
> involved with gaping idiocy that arises when one tries to edit
> Wikipedia on a regular basis. To say that I haven't made a lot of use
> of my admin powers of late misses the larger point - the paralyzing
> force of process has driven me away from virtually all aspects of the
> site. A combination of the absurd idiocy that is the CVU and a small
> mob of process droids who were disinclined to expend any time
> actually thinking about an enormously subtle sourcing issue brought
> me to the point where, as I saw it, the sane options were to just
> give up or to just go back to editing in the way that worked quite
> nicely two years ago when I got my adminship. I picked option two.
>
> Is the concept that enormous gunk of process that you appear to be so
> aware of might wear me down over the course of the last year or so
> that hard for you to understand? Or, for that matter, that offensive
> that you had to launch into such a bizarre attempt to smear me,
> including trying to re-air year old dirty laundry like when I blocked
> [[User:The Recycling Troll]], a user who turned out to be a
> sockpuppet the one person who was vocally complaining about that block?
>
> What are you trying to accomplish here?
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Aphaia

body:
On 9/19/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I don't think anybody needs to read everything by or about all the
> candidates.  For most of us there are some easy yesses and some easy
> nos; it's only the uncertain ones that we need to examine more closely.

Agreed, they can read whatever they want and can leave whatever they want.

And today's concerns are as follows:
All candidates have their presentation in language A (like as in
English, French ...)
Candidate D has a complete translation of his presentation in language B.
Candidate C has no translation in language B.
Language
# e.g. In Dutch, Arnomane has no presentation. Kim either, but I think
I need to worry about Kim at this point.

Same occured in Spanish, however Spanish translation team devotedly
improved the situation. However it is a glorious exception. The
situation I indicated on the above are the cases of Polish,
Portuguese, Chinese .... and many other languages.

And most of Wikipedia languages have no information about Election
even in the form of sitenotice. That is our reality. Language
division. And we are continuing to say our mission of free access to
knowledge in every language. Or not?

Before begining debate "A language community has so-and-so virtue"
"Not A has" alike, I think, we need to face the fact and accept the
reality either it looks alike what we want or not. Otherweise we won't
do less than what we want at the beginning.

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vox populi, vox dei *


body:
2006/9/19, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:

> They didn't. The last election was an open and publicly visible vote,
> and possibly the most acrimonious possible method of running it.

English Wikipedia has used a more or less modified version of the BoardVote
software at least once
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_July_2004
and as it looks to me actually twice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2004
Maybe someone who knows the whereabouts of elections to enwikis arb com can
tell us the story of how enwiki, as it seems, decided to have secret ballots
in elections to arb com, used it a couple of times and then abandoned it?

What are the conclusions after the last round of elections at enwiki,
regarding the method?

What are the experiences from French, German etc elections to their
arbitration committees?

/habj


from_name: Anthere

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 19/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>
>
>>>Would this sort of thinking be why it's almost impossible for someone
>>>from en: to become a steward these days?
>
>
>>Do you have facts and names to assert that claim David ?
>
>
>
> This question was answered on the comcom list a month ago, when
> someone asserted stewards from en: were a majority. To quote someone
> else's reply then: "There are 18 active stewards.  Four are from en.
> Four out of eighteen is not a majority.  (For the record, there are
> two from fr, two from nl, and one each from es, no, it, ro, zh, it,
> and ja.)" You participated in the thread in question, so could have
> found the message in question as easily as I just did.
>
>
> - d.

I still disagree.

Let me ask it differently.

How not being a majority of a group right now makes it almost impossible
for someone to join a group ?

Are they rules to prevent that from happening ? Is there a policy to
create this so-called discrimination ?

Anthere


body:
. Unforgettableid wrote:
> To: info at forbidden-places.be
>
<snip>

Please do NOT post such things here in the future. The correct place is
the permissions # wikimedia ! org (you can figure it out) OTRS queue,
where such things can be discussed IN PRIVATE and CLUEFULLY.

--
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: Gregory Kohs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
With some trepidation, I notify the WikiEN-l list about this blog post.  I
do so in the interest of some interesting Wikipedia analysis, and fair play
(feel free to rip me a new one in the blog's Comments section).  Here is the
blog post:

http://mywikibiz-com.blogspot.com/2006/09/gaping-void-in-wikipedia.html

Kindly,

    Gregory Kohs


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
On 9/19/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> I get the impression that it's not the only thing that's out of your league.

I deserved that.  :(

/me goes off to the corner to watch


subject:
[Foundation-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
	will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia

body:
On 9/19/06, Daniel Arnold <arnomane at gmx.de> wrote:

> One reason is: The ideas of Sanger are similar to the spirit of the fork of
> the german language Wikipedia and thus people have had some experience on
> such more "elitist" forks there. That de.wikipedia fork couldn't keep
> momentum although these people are highly skilled and knew exactly what they
> want to achieve and were really passionate about it. But despite the
> usual "we dislike us each other rantings" that fork did help de.wikipedians
> concentrating at least a little bit more on quality and content and not
> meta-discussions as the critics in themselves weren't completely fetched out
> of thin air but de.wikipedia started walking a completely different solution
> path than they did.

I think I knew the German folk you mentioned ... if so, interestingly
some editors who left dewiki and joined the folk have been still
staying on Wikimedia project as a whole, not nominal parts, but very
active members on some particular projects, either German other
projects or rather international ones including Wikimedia Commons.

Diversity and stimulation from it are always our source of energy
either inside or outside.

> So we should consider that Citizendium fork as helpful competition and not
> regard this as enemy or something we should ignore or even denying the
> Citizendium fork competence (this would be the most dangerous for us).
>
> Citizendium will help us focusing ourselves on *content* (!) and on quality
> improvements, although we have a different approach than they have.
>
> Let us start now happy competiting and keeping the momentum in Wikipedia,
> Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wiktionary...!

Agreed.
--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vox populi, vox dei *


from_name: Stephen Streater

body:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 12:58, Andrew Gray wrote:

> On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>> Would the original poster be liable in the UK
>> for each copy made though? I don't have a
>> clear answer on this yet. By releasing something
>> under a free licence, am I saying:
>> "you have the right to copy this"
>> or am I saying
>> "you have the right to copy this subject to applicable laws"?
>
> My interpretation is that you're saying "I have the right to copy
> this, and I'm giving you these rights subject to the following
> conditions..."
>
> If you don't have the right to make commercial copies (or whatever),
> you can't license the rights to do so. If you've attempted to license
> it under something like the GFDL without first possessing all the
> rights you're licensing, at the very least the license is invalid -
> and there's a nontrivial possibility you're liable for breach of
> contract. Even though you yourself haven't made commercial use of it,
> you've knowingly permitted people to do so...
>
> (It becomes more complex if you distribute it legally and then  *I*
> steal it and redistribute it under a free license - the license is
> still invalid, but you're probably no longer liable)

Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean
Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated
content which is available under non-commercial terms,
such as shots of a Royal Park?

It would be breaking English law to put it up under
a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking
of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.

Is there a way around this?


body:
Has anyone defined what it means to "come from en:"? Does it mean "to only
speak one language"?

/habj


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
Simetrical wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>>Yeah, but then surely you'd have to take the union of a potentially
>>>large number of tables to display a single-category view, which I
>>>suspect is going to remain a more common request than a
>>>category-intersection view.  Isn't that going to give you a
>>>substantial performance hit for large categories?
>>
>>I'm not sure where you get this idea that each intersection would be a
>>separate table. Obviously it wouldn't, it would still be one single
>>database table, containing everything. And this single table can be
>>queried for a single category, which (assuming proper indexes are in
>>place) would not be any less efficient than it already is currently.
>
> Yes, I see now.  But not only the table would be larger, you would
> have many more indices as well,

Yeah, like, maybe 4 instead of 2.

> and however you cast it you'd need to
> complicate queries for single-category retrieval.

Yeah, by adding the incredibly long and complex "DISTINCT" keyword and
nothing else.

> As to how much of a performance hit that would be, well, that's out
> of my league

I get the impression that it's not the only thing that's out of your league.

Timwi


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
Gregory Kohs wrote:
> http://mywikibiz-com.blogspot.com/2006/09/gaping-void-in-wikipedia.html

I suppose I should respond on the blog, but I'm a lazy bastard,
so I'll do it here instead.

| So, tell me, then... what is inherently so evil about the
| business model of MyWikiBiz.com?

Perhaps nothing, but I would counter with: "Is there anything
inherently wrong with the fact that Wikipedia's coverage of
individual corporate entities is not, as yet, as complete as
(for example) the coverage of those entities by media devoted
to the task?"  And I would say, "No, absolutely not."

(In other words, while there may well be a void, is it "gaping"?
I don't think so.)


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On Sep 19, 2006, at 5:51 PM, David Alexander Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Gregory Kohs wrote:
>> With some trepidation, I notify the WikiEN-l list about this blog
>> post.  I
>> do so in the interest of some interesting Wikipedia analysis, and
>> fair play
>> (feel free to rip me a new one in the blog's Comments section).
>> Here is the
>> blog post:
>>
>> http://mywikibiz-com.blogspot.com/2006/09/gaping-void-in-
>> wikipedia.html
>>
>> Kindly,
>>
>>     Gregory Kohs
>
> 'Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Promotional articles about
> yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles
> created as
> part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in
> accordance with our deletion policies. For more information, see
> Wikipedia:Spam.'
>
> In other words, your company's business model is inherently flawed,
> because any articles written as part of a promotional campaign
> (which is
> what your company does) will be immediately deleted.

Umm... see how your quote from policy says "may" be deleted, and then
the paragraph where you try to drive a contributor off jumps up to
"will be immediately deleted?"

That's the part where you got it wrong. In reality, deleting NPOV,
verifiable content on notable subjects because its creator didn't
touch third base is destructive to Wikipedia, and anyone involved in
it should be arbcommed. And if I'm ever made directly aware of it,
they will be arbcommed.

-Phil


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> > Consider what happens if we make a print version of Wikipedia with
> > color images in black and white? Is that a derived work?
>
> Meh. Possibly a derivative work under some laws, I don't know.
>
> Though CC-BY-ND, for instance, explicitly allows transfer to different media,
> and modifications necessary for such.

I'm not sure you realize how all-encompassing the definition of
derivative work is. Having a ND means that any use not directly
specified is going to probably put you into a "fair use" zone.

It is not a free license in any respect. It is really just a notice
which says, "feel free to print out some more copies of these and
distribute them if you want without charge." That's not within the
definition of free content at all ? it's the wrong type of "free."

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On Sep 19, 2006, at 6:16 PM, Steve Summit wrote:

>
> (In other words, while there may well be a void, is it "gaping"?
> I don't think so.)

Well, sure... but if we have someone willing to fix it, why would we
turn them away? Are we only allowed to fix the gaping holes?

-Phil


body:
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no point
> adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case. If not, is there a pointer to
> discussion somewhere?

The "free" in "Free encyclopedia" has always been in reference to
"free content." If you read our page on free content you'll see that
its very definition prohibits a ND license being within that scope.

"Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work,
artwork, or other creative content having no legal restriction
relative to people's freedom to use, redistribute, improve, and share
the content. Importantly, when free content is modified, expanded, or
incorporated within another work, the resulting work must also be
distributable as free content (see share-alike). To be considered free
content, a work must allow modification and redistribution."

This is probably why it doesn't come up much and isn't addressed
explicitly. I didn't think we needed to address it since it seems
obviously to fall outside of our use of "free".

FF


subject: [Wikitech-l] Category intersection

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> Timwi,
>
> Sure, now there's another issue - what happens (well, it already
> happens with Living People), when people use categories like tags.
> Simply, amount of big categories increases.

Obviously I know that, hence why I suggested to go for a three-way
intersection table right from the start.

> When you do an intersection of a small and big categories, you end up
> with nested loop starting on a small one, checking for entry
> existence in big one. Then you sort the small resultset. When you do
> an intersection of two big categories, you end up with nested loop
> going over two big tables, and a big resultset finally, with big
> resultset to sort. Right now we try to avoid sorting for categories
> at all - we use index-based sorts.

If you already know that having the proper indexes eliminates the need
for sorting, why did you first claim that any sorting was necessary?

Additionally, I'm sure you're aware that if you intersect two big
categories, you end up looping over only ONE big "table" (by which I
think you mean resultset) and looking each value up in the index for the
other (which makes its size irrelevant).

You haven't really explained to me where you see a problem :)

> B+Trees are not that good for intersections

Hence (again) why I suggested to store the intersections directly.

Allow me to repeat that I think the paranoia about the three-way
intersection table becoming too large is unfounded.

Timwi


from_name: Puppy

body:
Mark Wagner wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 18, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Carl Peterson wrote:
>>
>>> Perhaps the slogan should be "verified truth" or "verifiable
>>> truth." This
>>> puts them both on an equal plane and requires both.
>>>
>> I was thinking of something like "truth is ensured by verifiability,"
>> actually.
>>
>
> What is truth?
>
>
This bounced, message content type error. Re-sending as plain text.
--
Truth is inherently *subjective, not objective.

*To a Muslim, Jesus was just another one of God's prophets and Mohammad
was his final and greatest prophet; to a Christian Jesus was the only
son of God, the redeemer; to an atheist he is a myth that people like to
believe in. All of these views represent Truth to those who hold them.
If we allow Truth, we open the door to fanatics edit warring madly. And
it isn't just religion; it is everything from whether abortion is moral
to which musical artist was the greatest in their field to which episode
of SouthPark best highlights the political satire the series is known for.

Hence, "Verifiability, not truth". I can verify and state clearly, with
sources, different views from different groups, being careful to not
present the views in a biased fashion - per WP:NPOV#Undue weight - and
not presume to know Truth, because all I can ever know is my very
personal version of the Truth. The same is true for every human - you
may agree on some things, but you do not agree on the Truth about
everything with any one person.

One puppy's opinion.


from_name: David Alexander Russell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your videos
	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
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Stephen Streater wrote:
> Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean
> Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated
> content which is available under non-commercial terms,
> such as shots of a Royal Park?
>
> It would be breaking English law to put it up under
> a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking
> of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
> couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
>
> Is there a way around this?

Well, short of allowing noncommercial licences, no. Since Wikipedia
requires that all media is released under a 'free content' licence
(GFDL, CC-Att-SA, whatever), it by definition cannot include content
which cannot be licenced in such a way. In other words, because of the
legal restrictions the author does not have the legal power to grant a
commercial use licence, and therefore Wikipedia can never acquire a
valid commercial use licence.

Cynical
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body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> I've set it to cache for an hour, but this could be reduced or
> increased as necessary.

Do you mean that you have set each revision text to expire from the
cache after an hour? If so, out of curiosity, why? Doesn't memcached
already expire items from the cache when the cache is full, and doesn't
it already choose the least recently accessed item?

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On 9/19/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 19, 2006, at 6:16 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
> > (In other words, while there may well be a void, is it "gaping"?
> > I don't think so.)
> Well, sure... but if we have someone willing to fix it, why would we
> turn them away? Are we only allowed to fix the gaping holes?

Of course not. But I think there is good reason to be suspicious when
people contract Wikipedia entries to companies (for better or worse)
-- it looks like a path down a road to PR firms and people using their
full-time jobs towards editing agendas into Wikipedia. "Sure, there
are more of us than there are of them," one could say, but then again,
most of us only edit Wikipedia as a hobby.

The appeal to only the not-for-profit companies makes it sound very
innocuous but if we're talking about firms, politicians, etc. it
suddenly looks a little more questionable.

In the end, though, the money will find one way or another to work on
Wikipedia. If Wikipedia continues to have such a high pagerank and is
one of the few sites about sites that can be modified, it will no
doubt become part of a standard PR campaign to slip some edits into
Wikipedia, and no doubt people will be more subtle about their POV
pushing as time goes on. I doubt it will ever become a place to just
plaster advertisements?those are easy to spot and easy to kill?but I'm
sure some sort of edits-for-hire must already be going on outside of
MyWikiBiz and I'm sure there are more to come.

FF


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of your
	videos	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 18:24, David Alexander Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Stephen Streater wrote:
>> Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean
>> Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated
>> content which is available under non-commercial terms,
>> such as shots of a Royal Park?
>>
>> It would be breaking English law to put it up under
>> a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking
>> of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I
>> couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
>>
>> Is there a way around this?
>
>
> Well, short of allowing noncommercial licences, no. Since Wikipedia
> requires that all media is released under a 'free content' licence
> (GFDL, CC-Att-SA, whatever), it by definition cannot include content
> which cannot be licenced in such a way. In other words, because of the
> legal restrictions the author does not have the legal power to grant a
> commercial use licence, and therefore Wikipedia can never acquire a
> valid commercial use licence.

Doesn't this contradict Wikipedia's goal of
containing all human knowledge?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Gaping void in Wikipedia

body:
On Sep 19, 2006, at 6:29 PM, Fastfission wrote:

> I'm sure some sort of edits-for-hire must already be going on
> outside of MyWikiBiz and I'm sure there are more to come.

Of course there are. On top of using us to host an ARG, for political
campaigning, etc. Shit happens. The thing is, we've got all the
policies we need in place to deal with this - if you offer NPOV,
verifiable material, we keep it. If you don't, we scrap it. No matter
who you are. Thus we can stop worrying about why people are editing
and just assume good faith.

This seems to me almost necessarily easier than trying to divine the
intentions of all of our editors.

-Phil


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

body:
On 9/18/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/17/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I personally would like rather to provide equal amount of information
> > to "every" language communities. I don't welcome nor that only English
> > editors can access the information about the people they are voting
> > for nor that there is enouous different of amount which voters can
> > consider between editors having English competence and not. It would
> > mean the elected one cannot represent the community as a whole, but
> > not only a part of it, community of a certain language, in the worst
> > case, I am afraid.
>
> Actually, the translation issue is a very strong argument against
> direct election of Board members.  Indirect election, via elected
> delegates at each project (or other appropriate grouping), would avoid
> much of this issue.  It would also curtail the "popularity effect" of
> enwiki -- we could use a diminishing-returns allocation of delegates
> to minimize the "hulking gorilla" effect that enwiki otherwise has on
> popular polling within Wikimedia.
>
> Kelly

Indirect elections is a terrible idea. Indirect elections are used in
a certain North-American country. It is an election type that allows a
war-mongering cowboy who stands for less gun control, less social
welfare programs, and who doesn't give a rat's ass about the
enviroment ("there is no such thing as a human-created enviroment
changes" my ass) to become the President even though he gets fewer
votes than the other candidate. This should have taught people a
lesson about indirect elections.

Besides allowing for minority vote candidates to be elected, this
system would not work in Wikimedia because you would first need to
have elections on who should be electors from each
language/project/etc. It would become a bureaucratic mess.

(PS! The above is just meant as an example on how an indirect election
can go (very) wrong, and not meant to start a political discussion; if
you have very strong feelings on the issue, don't reply to it here,
but rather on my private mail, if at all.)

--
Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one of
	your	videos	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
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Stephen Streater wrote:
>
> Doesn't this contradict Wikipedia's goal of
> containing all human knowledge?

Wikipedia has never pretended to aim to contain all human knowledge
regardless of copyright law - after all, there is an awful lot of
'knowledge' out there that Wikipedia could copy illegally (e.g. the
entire contents of Encarta, for example). Wikipedia's aims can't
overrule copyright law.

Cynical
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body:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 15:43, dmehkeri at swi.com wrote:

>> Who are you to say that we won't edit the video?  Maybe you won't,
>> but
>> maybe someone else will, in a way that makes it more useful, and then
>> link that on Wikipedia.  That's the point of viral licensing and
>> ShareAlikes.  I'm afraid "you're not allowed to edit it" is a deal-
>> breaker.
>
> Eh, why is that anyway? I understand why we would dislike it, of
> course, but I'm
> not sure why, exactly, we would want to make it a deal-breaker.
> (We, english
> Wikipedia, rather than say, Wikimedia Commons which has slightly
> different goals.)

The idea is to encourage people to make more
free content. Some people (such as me) will do
this for some of their content. This free content will
accumulate over time.

I'm not sure this is so useful to content which
cannot be made free, though Kim Bruning was
keen not to have to check every piece of content
in Wikipedia before it could be re-used by only
allowing free content.

> At least, we could use some better documentation on this point.

I agree with this. Gregory Maxwell is almost
single handedly championing this idea which,
on reflection, is not so odd as it looks. It's all
about long term results rather than short term
expediency.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Would you like one
	of	your	videos	posted	on	Wikipedia?

body:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 18:43, David Alexander Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Stephen Streater wrote:
>>
>> Doesn't this contradict Wikipedia's goal of
>> containing all human knowledge?
>
> Wikipedia has never pretended to aim to contain all human knowledge
> regardless of copyright law - after all, there is an awful lot of
> 'knowledge' out there that Wikipedia could copy illegally (e.g. the
> entire contents of Encarta, for example). Wikipedia's aims can't
> overrule copyright law.

True. But by insisting that Wikipedia
be self-contained, there is knowledge
that Wikipedia has chosen to exclude,
even though links to it can be released
freely.


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert AfD close (Re: Citizendium)

body:
On 19/09/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
>
> > Or instead, we could try to keep up with growth by implementing some more
> > advanced soft controls of our own.
>
> I know I've seen some people stating on their userpages something to the effect
> that if you can produce verification that you are an expert in a field, they
> will kill an AfD on an article in that field on your word that it is notable.
>
> I'm curious if anyone takes them up on this?
>
> Dan

Im curious as to whether that goes against the typical ethic portrayed
by [[Wikipedia:Notability]] where things seem to be never notable
unless people _outside_ of a field say they are, which would trump
everyone interested in a topic, __especially__ experts.

Just to put it in perspective, you have experts on a number of topics,
sciences, history, and then there are experts on Star Trek... Why do
people distinguish between them? I dunno...

Peter Ansell