body:
On Tue, March 1, 2005 12:54 pm, Mark Williamson said:
> Indeed: Such a Wikipedia would be chaos.
>
> It does mirror the proposal from Meta however of a Wikipedia where
> Cantonese and Mandarin and English, in characters and in romanisation
> (any romanisation of your choosing, no specific one) are all mixed
> together in one Wikipedia... except even MORE confusing!
>
> Mark
>
OK, now I get your point.  You mean that Classical Chinese interpreted
by Chinese should not be mixed with kanbun (Classical Chinese interpreted
by Japanese) and other versions of Classical Chinese, don't you?

I am not sure about that.  My impression is that there was only one
written tradition.  However, because most people are not fluent enough
in it, actual writings in it could differ.  Do we have similar problems
with the Latin Wikipedia?

However, I have seen the different dialects of English coexist in en:
and the two scripts of Chinese coexists in zh:, I think if there is a
will, there is a way.  Say, we may collaborate to set a phonetic
transliteration guideline which everyone should follow.

I want to ask abc_root how many supporters do you expect to find for
that project.  I know some enthusiasts from a Classical Chinese forum
and I can ask them if they are interested in the project.  We can test
out the idea at Meta or Wikicities and see how compatible are the modern
Chinese and modern Japanese perception of Classical Chinese.

I am not for splitting the existing zh:.  I am just excited by new
ideas and enjoy the diversity of Wikipedia.

Felix Wan


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped

body:
Ah, OK. Sorry. Life stressful. Humor impaired. :(

-Snowspinner
On Mar 1, 2005, at 3:09 PM, geni wrote:

> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer
> <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the
>> Ambi
>> block...
>>
>> -Snowspinner
>
> Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably
> racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom
> members to make a case for questioning thier  nutrality.
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation

body:
Email discussion between myself and Tom about the Wikipedia 1.0 idea
and [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]], forwarded with his
permission. I've removed email addresses and some names (not secret,
just that the discussion in question is at the named page, not here).

Note that I've also created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]], a project
category which is pretty much for use as a working set of 1.0
documents, rants and so forth.

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:23:37 +0000
Subject: Re: Wikipedia reputation
To: Tom Haws

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:21:56 -0700, Tom Haws wrote:

> I noted with that same sinking feeling [XXX]'s response to your note
> at [[Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]].  It seems the
> conventional way of talking about 1.0 is to add an impossible burden of
> review work on top of the Wiki miracle.  But what you and I are thinking
> of is not much more than a programming effort to harness the miracle of
> the Wikipedia dilettantism mill to automatically tell us which articles
> (or article versions) are suspect/trusted, adult/family fare,
> fledgling/mature, or any of a selected group of qualifiers that could be
> used as selectors for various purposes.  As you, I am confident the wiki
> editing process would rate the entire encyclopedia on even multiple
> aspects within days or weeks.  This doesn't have to go on for months.

I've answered [XXX] trying to explain why editorial committees are
unlikely to scale. I can't see them working - I know how damned hard
it is to get *one* article past WP:FAC, in areas I'm a subject matter
expert in!

I think editorial committees are an exercise in futility, but the
people fond of such an approach can't be told otherwise. As such, I'd
probably leave them to it and see if they come up with anything
useful.

> Of course the first item of business is to discover the relevant forum
> to spread and build consensus on such a manner of thinking.  I would
> think Jimbo (having experienced it all) would be thinking in the same
> direction as us, but from all I have seen, he has been pretty
> tight-lipped.  I hopefully imagine that his silence (assuming I haven't
> simply missed the "right" places like the mailing list) is indicative of
> dismay with the conventional proposals.  I wonder if there perhaps is a
> way to get his honest ideas, which of course we would value highly
> without quoting him as an "authority".

I think Jimbo is waiting for others to get on with it ;-)

Presumably when it happens, it'll be simple and elegant and obvious in
retrospect.

Asking him really does work ;-) wikien-l is a good place to sound out ideas.

> Other than getting into Jimbo's mind, and dedicating my own front page
> to the issue (which I have done some time ago, and am willing to revise
> per your thoughts), I don't know where to go with this.  Who and what is
> relevant to this issue?

I've created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]]. Possibly others will add
stuff to it. e.g. their own userspace thoughts pages.

One thing: I really don't think our technical tools (MediaWiki
features) are up to the job.

URGENT:
- rating system. May scale, editorial committees don't.
VERY USEFUL:
- references syntax (many mooted, none implemented).

I should start a page on meta to this effect ...

> I see this issue as urgent because of the fund-raising implications it has.

I don't actually see it as urgent in that sense. I see it as something
to get *right*, because if we don't do that it's going to splutter
anyway.

> I hope we can discuss specifics in a wider forum soon.

I'll be taking it to wikien-l myself. Mind if I send this mail there?
Or you can :-)

> p.s.  Your response will be bounced by my server, but excuse and ignore
> the mistreatment.  I will let your mail through.

Ooooh, whitelists. Evil! I use Bayesian, of course, because
Thunderbird and gmail do ;-)

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Wes Mauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Changing copyright license question.

body:
I've looked around the site and through the archives, but I have not
found how you can change the license message from within WikiMedia.
What I am looking to do, is remove the GFDL text that appears in the
bottom of my Wiki, and replace it with a notice indicating that the
material (documents) is property of my employer. If anyone could point
me to some documentation on how to do this, that would be much
appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Wes


from_name: Tom Haws

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation

body:
I notice Jamesday <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jamesday> proposed
"...tagging based on quality metrics with no specific print or CD
target. Anyone else could then use those metrics to select articles for
any arbitrary target they desire, with only those selecting for
non-online targets being liable."  His context was legal concerns about
an Editorial committee producing a CD or Paper Wikipedia.

I think this is exactly the direction we need to go.  We need to develop
a Mediawiki mechanism for wiki-tagging metrics on all versions of all
articles.  Not weighted voting; that's anti-wiki.  Harness the
dilettantism (thanks David Gerard), and do straight Wiki-tagging of all
attributes except Trust.  Set trust according to known trust of saving
editor (anon, newbie, seasoned, admin, etc.).

Tom Haws
"And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I
do not know the meaning of all things."

David Gerard wrote:

>Email discussion between myself and Tom about the Wikipedia 1.0 idea
>and [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]], forwarded with his
>permission. I've removed email addresses and some names (not secret,
>just that the discussion in question is at the named page, not here).
>
>Note that I've also created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]], a project
>category which is pretty much for use as a working set of 1.0
>documents, rants and so forth.
>
>
>- d.
>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: David Gerard
>Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:23:37 +0000
>Subject: Re: Wikipedia reputation
>To: Tom Haws
>
>
>On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:21:56 -0700, Tom Haws wrote:
>
>
>
>>I noted with that same sinking feeling [XXX]'s response to your note
>>at [[Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]].  It seems the
>>conventional way of talking about 1.0 is to add an impossible burden of
>>review work on top of the Wiki miracle.  But what you and I are thinking
>>of is not much more than a programming effort to harness the miracle of
>>the Wikipedia dilettantism mill to automatically tell us which articles
>>(or article versions) are suspect/trusted, adult/family fare,
>>fledgling/mature, or any of a selected group of qualifiers that could be
>>used as selectors for various purposes.  As you, I am confident the wiki
>>editing process would rate the entire encyclopedia on even multiple
>>aspects within days or weeks.  This doesn't have to go on for months.
>>
>>
>
>
>I've answered [XXX] trying to explain why editorial committees are
>unlikely to scale. I can't see them working - I know how damned hard
>it is to get *one* article past WP:FAC, in areas I'm a subject matter
>expert in!
>
>I think editorial committees are an exercise in futility, but the
>people fond of such an approach can't be told otherwise. As such, I'd
>probably leave them to it and see if they come up with anything
>useful.
>
>
>
>
>>Of course the first item of business is to discover the relevant forum
>>to spread and build consensus on such a manner of thinking.  I would
>>think Jimbo (having experienced it all) would be thinking in the same
>>direction as us, but from all I have seen, he has been pretty
>>tight-lipped.  I hopefully imagine that his silence (assuming I haven't
>>simply missed the "right" places like the mailing list) is indicative of
>>dismay with the conventional proposals.  I wonder if there perhaps is a
>>way to get his honest ideas, which of course we would value highly
>>without quoting him as an "authority".
>>
>>
>
>
>I think Jimbo is waiting for others to get on with it ;-)
>
>Presumably when it happens, it'll be simple and elegant and obvious in
>retrospect.
>
>Asking him really does work ;-) wikien-l is a good place to sound out ideas.
>
>
>
>
>>Other than getting into Jimbo's mind, and dedicating my own front page
>>to the issue (which I have done some time ago, and am willing to revise
>>per your thoughts), I don't know where to go with this.  Who and what is
>>relevant to this issue?
>>
>>
>
>
>I've created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]]. Possibly others will add
>stuff to it. e.g. their own userspace thoughts pages.
>
>One thing: I really don't think our technical tools (MediaWiki
>features) are up to the job.
>
>URGENT:
>- rating system. May scale, editorial committees don't.
>VERY USEFUL:
>- references syntax (many mooted, none implemented).
>
>I should start a page on meta to this effect ...
>
>
>
>
>>I see this issue as urgent because of the fund-raising implications it has.
>>
>>
>
>
>I don't actually see it as urgent in that sense. I see it as something
>to get *right*, because if we don't do that it's going to splutter
>anyway.
>
>
>
>
>>I hope we can discuss specifics in a wider forum soon.
>>
>>
>
>
>I'll be taking it to wikien-l myself. Mind if I send this mail there?
>Or you can :-)
>
>
>
>
>>p.s.  Your response will be bounced by my server, but excuse and ignore
>>the mistreatment.  I will let your mail through.
>>
>>
>
>
>Ooooh, whitelists. Evil! I use Bayesian, of course, because
>Thunderbird and gmail do ;-)
>
>
>- d.
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation

body:
--- Tom Haws <hawstom at sprintmail.com> wrote:
> I notice Jamesday <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jamesday> proposed
> "...tagging based on quality metrics with no specific print or CD
> target. Anyone else could then use those metrics to select articles for
> any arbitrary target they desire, with only those selecting for
> non-online targets being liable."  His context was legal concerns about
> an Editorial committee producing a CD or Paper Wikipedia.

Ack! No more blasted meta tages (meaning templates). A smarter system is needed
that does not require an editor to edit or in any way change the content of an
article by using said system.

-- mav

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> Speaking as an arbiter (but only for myself -- not the Committee) I
> agree with Anthere.  Ed is a valued contributor, both for his edits
> and sometimes but not always ;-> for his peace-making activities.
> However, he does not need the ability to desysop people.

Unless there is an emergency, desysoping needs to be done via community
consensus and/or ArbCom ruling.

But it is very hard to get mad at Uncle Ed. :) Besides, the issue is moot now
that the purely technical mistake of Ed having the developer tag set has been
fixed.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

in_reply_to:
<4224CAEB.2080208@yahoo.com> (message from Anthere on Tue, 01 Mar
	2005 21:04:59 +0100)

body:
> I asked Jamesday to remove Ed developer flag.
>
> Explanation of the reason why is here :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Correct_use_of_admin_powers.3F
>
> Sorry Oncle. I love you, but you are not a steward so you should not
> desysop people. Only for urgent action would be okay for a developer to
> do so. I do not think Wikipedia was in danger.

Speaking as an arbiter (but only for myself -- not the Committee) I
agree with Anthere.  Ed is a valued contributor, both for his edits
and sometimes but not always ;-> for his peace-making activities.
However, he does not need the ability to desysop people.

--
 Sean Barrett     | Something broke on Daddy's
 sean at epoptic.com | spaceship. --Marilyn Lovell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding something you've said, but I'd like to ask:
> can you tell me a Wikipedian (admin or otherwise) who is 100% impartial
> and neutral on all matters?

Me -- and I'll ban anybody who says otherwise!


list: foundation-l

from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Foundation-l] Q1 2005 Fund Drive over

body:
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 03:52:34 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have noticed that cache is *badly* out of sync on the
> foundation wiki - often edits I would make were not viewable by me until I
> cleared my cache. That may be what you are seeing.

Yes, that was it, a forced browser reload and everything seems fine
now, but I believe the problem is on the other end (some squid
problems?); when I was testing those problems, I tried to look at many
languages including Hebrew (I believe :-) ), and they was out of sync,
too. I don't really think I looked at that language version before.

But it seems to work fine now, thanks.
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Q1 2005 Fund Drive over


from_name: BRIOSCHI Elfrida Consultant

subject: [Wikitech-l] Blocking an admin, expected behaviour

body:
I knew that you cannot block an admin because he can simply unblock himself.
There were some experiments on it.wiki (have a look to http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:Log/block), but I cannot understand if there's a problem or is the right behaviour.

Svante and Archenzo are both admins.

Svante blocked Archenzo:
	22:12, Feb 28, 2005 Svante bloccato "Utente:Archenzo" per un periodo di 2 hours (perch? ha votato per Berlusconi nelle elezioni politiche del '94, nel '96 e pure nel 2001)

Then Archenzo try to unblock himself, but he cannot succeed. Everytime he unblocked himself automatically began a new block on #xxx:
	22:23, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
	22:22, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
	22:21, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:#193" (test di autosblocco)
	22:21, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:#192" (test di autosblocco)
	22:20, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
	22:18, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)

Only another admin (in this case, the same Svante) succeded in unblocking him:
	22:48, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#195" (fine test)
	22:47, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#194" (fine test)
	22:47, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#199" (fine test)
	22:45, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#198" (fine test)
	22:44, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#197" (fine test)
	22:43, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#196" (fine test)
	22:40, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#200" (fine test)

But if Archenzo does everything alone (both blockin and unblocking himself), everything works:
	19:14, Feb 25, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:#186" (prova tecnica)
	19:13, Feb 25, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (prova tecnica)
	19:11, Feb 25, 2005 Archenzo bloccato "Utente:Archenzo" per un periodo di 1 hours (prova di autoblocco)

Does everything work in the right way?

Thanks.
Frieda

Elfrida Brioschi
Laser - Informatica e Servizi
Tel. 02 4143 2053 - 328 0731320


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
BRIOSCHI Elfrida Consultant said:
> I knew that you cannot block an admin because he can simply unblock
> himself. There were some experiments on it.wiki (have a look to
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:Log/block), but I cannot
> understand if there's a problem or is the right behaviour.

This is the expected behavior of the MediaWiki software.

Whether it's allowed is a matter for policy.  For instance the English
Wikipedia currently has blocks for users who revert an article more than
three times in twenty-four hours.  The policy on that particular Wikipedia
explicitly states that an admin should not unblock himself if blocked for
this reason.
Also blocking only affects editing.  A blocked admin on Mediawiki can
still use his admin powers (for instance rollbacks, to perform the
equivalent of reverts.)


from_name: Alex Brooks

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Blocking an admin, expected behaviour

body:
BRIOSCHI Elfrida Consultant wrote:
> I knew that you cannot block an admin because he can simply unblock himself.
> There were some experiments on it.wiki (have a look to http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:Log/block), but I cannot understand if there's a problem or is the right behaviour.
>
> Svante and Archenzo are both admins.
>
> Svante blocked Archenzo:
> 	22:12, Feb 28, 2005 Svante bloccato "Utente:Archenzo" per un periodo di 2 hours (perch? ha votato per Berlusconi nelle elezioni politiche del '94, nel '96 e pure nel 2001)
>
> Then Archenzo try to unblock himself, but he cannot succeed. Everytime he unblocked himself automatically began a new block on #xxx:
> 	22:23, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
> 	22:22, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
> 	22:21, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:#193" (test di autosblocco)
> 	22:21, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:#192" (test di autosblocco)
> 	22:20, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
> 	22:18, Feb 28, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Utente:Archenzo" (test di autosblocco)
>
> Only another admin (in this case, the same Svante) succeded in unblocking him:
> 	22:48, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#195" (fine test)
> 	22:47, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#194" (fine test)
> 	22:47, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#199" (fine test)
> 	22:45, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#198" (fine test)
> 	22:44, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#197" (fine test)
> 	22:43, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#196" (fine test)
> 	22:40, Feb 28, 2005 Svante sbloccato "Utente:#200" (fine test)
>
> But if Archenzo does everything alone (both blockin and unblocking himself), everything works:
> 	19:14, Feb 25, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:#186" (prova tecnica)
> 	19:13, Feb 25, 2005 Archenzo sbloccato "Utente:Archenzo" (prova tecnica)
> 	19:11, Feb 25, 2005 Archenzo bloccato "Utente:Archenzo" per un periodo di 1 hours (prova di autoblocco)
>
> Does everything work in the right way?
>
> Thanks.
> Frieda
>
>
>
> Elfrida Brioschi
> Laser - Informatica e Servizi
> Tel. 02 4143 2053 - 328 0731320

Even if it isn't right, it sounds like good behaviour in case of rouge
admins, but also takes into account account accidental self-blocks!

If it is unintended I say keep it.

Alex

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from_name: Violet/Riga

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiUser trying to spam me

body:
After the RfAr resulted in a one year block for WikiUser I started
getting numerous password reminders from Wikipedia.  The IP address
stated (217.204.65.210) is the same one used by WikiUser and it's
clearly him.

I wouldn't really mind but it's happened 30+ times now.  It's not
causing me any problems other than seeing my inbox fill up with the
mails.  Anyone know of any way we can stop him from doing this?
Perhaps a block from him even viewing Wikipedia?

~~~~ Violet/Riga


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Two small recommendations

body:
On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:30:14 -0500, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure where the most effective place to post recommendations
> is, but here are two I have:

The best place to post both software and website configuration
problems/suggestions is at the bug tracker:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org You have to set up an account, but only
so there's a confirmed e-mail address, to make sure people don't leave
a report and then "run away". Of the mailing lists, wikitech-l is the
most appropriate:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

> 1. If you currently click the "Search" or "Go" button without typing
> in a query, you get an ugly MySQL error.

There are various open "bugs" and previous discussions about the
search behaviour; you might want to search in the bug tracker and the
mailing list archives (add "site:mail.wikimedia.org" to a Google
search). But yes, that certainly seems like a bug, so if you don't
find one, it would be worth opening a bug report about it.

> 2. If you put in a Wiki URL without the /wiki/ you get an ugly Error
> 404 and then a 5 sec. redirect.

That was recently changed because the code that previously dealt with
it had a rather major bug. The main reason to encourage people to use
the extra "/wiki/" is that there are URLs that *don't* refer to wiki
pages, such as those that are part of the software (the graphics used
in the interface, for instance). So if people start thinking of
en.wikipedia.org/<page> as being a correct alternative to
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<page>, they are going to be confused when it
*doesn't* work like that - especially since there is no way of
predicting what URLs of that form will be needed for something else in
the future. That's Brion's justification anyway: see
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-February/027873.html

Of course, some people already *have* used URLs like that as though
they were correct, and certainly it's handy to be able to type them,
but I think it makes sense that as long as not all URLs of that form
can be used that way (and guaranteed to always work that way) it's
worth making people aware that they did the "wrong" thing.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Foundation-l] Day 10 Fund Drive Report

body:
Note: the fund drive is already over

On Day 10 (Sunday 27 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not
available in UTC) we made $4,062.10 (USD equivalent) through PayPal (completed
payments only; no updates available for other sources at this time).

This is a decrease of 30.79% from Day 9 and represents 6.19% of total funds
collected so far ($65,636.93 ; only counting full days) and 5.42% of our goal
($75,000). At the end of Day 10 we had reached 87.52% of our goal.

Day  10			Day 9 comparison
Breakdown:
PayPal		 USD equiv	USD equiv	%change
AUD	56.69	    $44.81	  $150.99	-70.32%
CAD 	191.76	   $155.38	  $217.95	-28.71%
EUR 	695.52	   $909.18	$1,503.15	-39.51%
GBP 	287.38	   $545.39	  $901.66	-39.51%
JPY	1850	    $17.54	  $153.99	-88.61%
USD	2389.79	 $2,389.79	$2,941.46	-18.75%
PayPal total:	 $4,062.10	$5,869.19	-30.79%

MoneyBookers	no data	            $0.00	 0.00%
Mail/Post	no data	            $0.00        0.00%

	TOTAL	$4,062.10	$5,869.19	-30.79%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days)

PayPal		   USD equiv	%GrandTotal
AUD	1675.49	   $1,324.47	 2.02%
CAD 	3148.76	   $2,551.44	 3.89%
EUR 	16107.59  $21,055.84	32.08%
GBP 	3637.44	   $6,903.13	10.52%
JPY	156008.00  $1,478.80	 2.25%
USD	31526.55  $31,526.55	48.03%
PayPal total:	  $64,840.24

Moneybookers:	     $426.69	 0.65%
Mail/Post	     $370.00	 0.56%

GRAND TOTAL   	  $65,636.93	100.00%

% toward goal         87.52%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 10:
See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_10

"Wikipedia has been invaluable as a ready source of concise, (usually) accurate
information. I only wish I had the means to give more." by Joe Vinson

"Continuemos, entre todos, por las licencias libres..." by Anonymous

"The most useful website of the net!" by Antonio Madonna

"Even though I've been pretty inactive, I'm still astounded at how Wikipedia
continues to grow and thrive!" by Brian Corr

"Vive auto-organisation" by Carlos Oliveira Reis

"The Wikimedia Foundation is a very worthy project and a great benefit to the
public. I'm honoured to contribute." by Casper Boden-Cummins

"This community project is a great example of how the internet should be used"
by Anonymous

"Wikipedia ist etwas vom besten das ich je im Internet gefunden habe! " by
Werner Kundert

"I really love this site" by Charles Reid

Some of my favorites:

"Knowlege and information are the only ways to avoid indoctrination, and this
right should be free to everyone." by Eric Portelance

"Wikipedia will soon make dictionaries and encyclopediae a thing of the past.
We must all nurture it in its fledgeling state!" by Jordan Borges

"Wikiversity is my passion" by Chris Burley

"Wikipedia is better than crack!" by Anonymous

"Education good" by Anonymous

"continuez !" by Anonymous

Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


subject: [Foundation-l] Day 10 Fund Drive Report


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 10 Fund Drive Report


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped

body:
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 13:56:18 -0600, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> But I've removed the RFAr. The matter is resolved to my satisfaction
> for now.
>
> -Snowspinner

So we don't get to find out what happens when every single member of
arbcom has to recuse?


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
I asked Jamesday to remove Ed developer flag.

Explanation of the reason why is here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Correct_use_of_admin_powers.3F

Sorry Oncle. I love you, but you are not a steward so you should not
desysop people. Only for urgent action would be okay for a developer to
do so. I do not think Wikipedia was in danger.

It seems you should not have developer flag anyway... so this is
technical clean-up

Sorry

Anthere

Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
> I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first
> Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too,
> and one of them's mad at me.
>
> I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in
> a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it.
>
> It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two
> of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town.
>
> Or is it Peyton Place?
>
> Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped

body:
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the Ambi
> block...
>
> -Snowspinner

Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably
racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom
members to make a case for questioning thier  nutrality.

--
geni


subject:
[Foundation-l] Day 11 Fund Drive Report ;
	we exceeded our goal so this is the final day!

body:
Note: the fund drive is already over

On Day 11 (Monday 28 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not
available in UTC) $19,926.59 (USD equivalent) was added to our running total.
This brings us well past our fund drive goal of $75,000 and thus Day 11 is the
last day of the fund drive.

$7,017.15 were added through PayPal (completed payments only) and $12,909.44
were reported from Wikimedia Deutschland (this includes donations from the 18th
to the 25th to Wikimedia Deutschland; actual amount reported was 9777.66
Euros). No updates were available for other sources at this time.

This is an increase of 390.55% from Day 10 and represents 23.29% of total funds
collected so far ($85,563.52 ; only counting full days). At the end of Day 10
we had reached 114.08% of our goal. Additional updates are needed before a
final grand total can be reported.

Day  11			Day 10 comparison
Breakdown:
PayPal		USD equiv	USD equiv	%change
AUD	 258.55	   $204.38	   $44.81	 356.08%
CAD 	 222.37	   $180.19	  $155.38	  15.96%
EUR 	1170.84	 $1,530.52	  $909.18	  68.34%
GBP 	 123.58	   $234.53	  $545.39	 -57.00%
JPY	50904	   $482.52	   $17.54	2651.57%
USD	4385.01	 $4,385.01	$2,389.79	  83.49%
PayPal total:	 $7,017.15	$4,062.10	  72.75%

MoneyBookers	no data	            $0.00	   0.00%
Mail/Post	no data	            $0.00	   0.00%
Wikimedia Deut.	$12,909.44

	TOTAL	$19,926.59	$4,062.10	390.55%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days)

PayPal		    USD equiv	%GrandTotal
AUD	  1934.04   $1,528.86	 1.79%
CAD 	  3371.13   $2,731.63	 3.19%
EUR 	 17278.43  $22,586.36	26.40%
GBP 	  3761.02   $7,137.66	 8.34%
JPY	206912.00   $1,961.32	 2.29%
USD	 35911.56  $35,911.56	41.97%
PayPal total:	   $71,857.39

Moneybookers:	     $426.69    0.50%
Mail/Post	     $370.00    0.43%
Wikimedia Deut.	  $12,909.44  100.00%

GRAND TOTAL	  $85,563.52

% toward goal 	    114.08%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 11:
See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_11

"Wikipedia is second only to Google for seeking information on the web" by The
MUD Companion

"Please accept this small donation as an appreciation of the excellent service
you provide. I sincerely hope you are able to raise the funds you need." by
Martin Giddings

"La connaissance c'est le pouvoir, la rendre publique et gratuite c'est donner
le pouvoir au peuple. " by Em Hunter

"this site has saved my butt on any number of academic occasions...the least i
can do is give back a little" by Anonymous

"Wikipedia ist eine geniale Sache!" by Rene Chelvier

"Wonderful site! I recommend it to all of my students." by Michael Richardson

Some of my favorites:

"Surpasses all expectations!" by Anonymous

"Not only is wikipedia an invaluable resource, but it has also spawned arguably
the best wiki software available." by Paul Fenwick

"Probably the best evolving source of general knowledge" by Marc van der Erve

"Wissen muss kostenlos sein!" by Anonymous

"It is an honor to do my part to see that Wikipedia has the resources it needs
to remain online." by Anonymous

"Simply because open content leads to better knowledge" by Anonymous

"stop buying servers that break down" by Anonymous

"Five bucks well spent." by Andreas Neukoetter

"I love you, Wikipedia!" by Anonymous

Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Day 11 Fund Drive Report ;
	we exceeded our goal so this is the final day!


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiUser trying to spam me

body:
Violet/Riga wrote:
> After the RfAr resulted in a one year block for WikiUser I started
> getting numerous password reminders from Wikipedia.  The IP address
> stated (217.204.65.210) is the same one used by WikiUser and it's
> clearly him.
>
> I wouldn't really mind but it's happened 30+ times now.  It's not
> causing me any problems other than seeing my inbox fill up with the
> mails.  Anyone know of any way we can stop him from doing this?
> Perhaps a block from him even viewing Wikipedia?
>
> ~~~~ Violet/Riga

I've had a couple myself, as has at least one other person involved.  I
suspect it's widespread.

I think the simplest solution is to block mail from the address
involved.  The block can quickly be removed if you ever do need to get a
new password, so it will cause no harm.  For anyone getting these that
doesn't know - you old password will still work so you don't need to
reset it, just ignore the mail.

--sannse

--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.4.0 - Release Date: 22/02/05


body:
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 15:30:35 -0600, Wes Mauer <wmauer at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've looked around the site and through the archives, but I have not
> found how you can change the license message from within WikiMedia.
> What I am looking to do, is remove the GFDL text that appears in the
> bottom of my Wiki, and replace it with a notice indicating that the
> material (documents) is property of my employer. If anyone could point
> me to some documentation on how to do this, that would be much
> appreciated. Thanks in advance!

As with pretty much all aspects of the interface, you can change this
by editing pages in the "MediaWiki namespace" - go to
[[Special:Allmessages]] in your wiki for a complete list, and search
for the text you want to change. In this case, the page to edit seems
to be [[MediaWiki:Copyright]] (you have to be logged into an account
with "sysop" status to edit MediaWiki: pages). See also
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:MediaWiki_namespace

There are also some variables relating to copyright in
LocalSettings.php / DefaultSettings.php, but if you can't work out how
those should be used, I'm pretty sure editting the MediaWiki namespace
will have the desired effect.

By the way, please try and avoid saying "Wikimedia" when you mean
"MediaWiki", as these terms have very different meanings - the former
is a non-profit organisation, the latter a piece of software. See
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Names for details. Note that this
mailing list has "Wikimedia" in its description because it is mainly
aimed at the people who maintain Wikimedia's servers; there is a
separate "mediawiki-l" list for admins of unrelated wikis and their
wider software issues.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Q1 2005 Fund Drive over

body:
a bit late, but please let me say

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 03:54:32 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> > I would like to give a big thank you to Daniel for the excellent work
> > he's done on this. The daily updates were very nice to read.
>
> Thanks :). Waerth also helped with updates while I was sleeping or otherwise
> away. This was a big help.

You did it ;-)

Anyway besides the cache synch problem, I suppose many of you visit
the site during the funddrive and found many 'tweak and conceive
possible improvement ideas. Your feedback (here?) or meta:foundation
site feedback will be very appliciated.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [Foundation-l] Q1 2005 Fund Drive over


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for classical Chinese

body:
Well, I meant it as a joke, with a true mixing of different languages.

But the problem you mention may exist too. There are slightly
different "dialects" of wenyan that developed in Japan, Vietnam,
Korea, China, and elsewhere where it was used.

In fact, in Japan sometimes special characters called "kanbun" were
used to assist in comprehension of the text. These would be nonsense
to most Chinese-educated readers and editors.

But in general I think that the differences are very small.

Mark

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 15:11:45 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan
<felixwiki at earthsphere.org> wrote:
> On Tue, March 1, 2005 12:54 pm, Mark Williamson said:
> > Indeed: Such a Wikipedia would be chaos.
> >
> > It does mirror the proposal from Meta however of a Wikipedia where
> > Cantonese and Mandarin and English, in characters and in romanisation
> > (any romanisation of your choosing, no specific one) are all mixed
> > together in one Wikipedia... except even MORE confusing!
> >
> > Mark
> >
> OK, now I get your point.  You mean that Classical Chinese interpreted
> by Chinese should not be mixed with kanbun (Classical Chinese interpreted
> by Japanese) and other versions of Classical Chinese, don't you?
>
> I am not sure about that.  My impression is that there was only one
> written tradition.  However, because most people are not fluent enough
> in it, actual writings in it could differ.  Do we have similar problems
> with the Latin Wikipedia?
>
> However, I have seen the different dialects of English coexist in en:
> and the two scripts of Chinese coexists in zh:, I think if there is a
> will, there is a way.  Say, we may collaborate to set a phonetic
> transliteration guideline which everyone should follow.
>
> I want to ask abc_root how many supporters do you expect to find for
> that project.  I know some enthusiasts from a Classical Chinese forum
> and I can ask them if they are interested in the project.  We can test
> out the idea at Meta or Wikicities and see how compatible are the modern
> Chinese and modern Japanese perception of Classical Chinese.
>
> I am not for splitting the existing zh:.  I am just excited by new
> ideas and enjoy the diversity of Wikipedia.
>
> Felix Wan
>
>


body:
This issue is okay. As I was suggesting, the writer could choose the way he
prefers, be it kanji with his own reading or katakana or hangul, etc. If
there is a possibility of confusion or he uses his own alphabet, he should
note down the original word (usu. in English).

--- Pablo Saratxaga <pablo at mandrakesoft.com> ?????????
> Kaixo!
>
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 05:31:42PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > In addition there was the old practice in Japanese of writing a
> > neologism descriptively in Chinese characters, and writing the
> > pronunciation (usually from English or French) right above it.
>
> A more problematic issue would be proper nouns, like place names
> or country names; while some of them (those in the area of influence
> of Chinese, eg: Vietnam, Thailand, China, Mongolia, Corea, Japan,
> etc)
> are identiqual in both Chinese and Japanese (at least in classical
> writting), others are not, for example in Chinese USA is the
> "beauty-country" while in Japanese it is the "rice-country";
> France is in Chinese represented by the hanzi meaning "law",
> while in Japanese the hanzi for "Buddha" is used instead, etc.
>
> --
> Ki ? vos v?e b?,
> Pablo Saratxaga
>
> http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/		PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466
> [you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or
> Esperanto]
> [min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj lingvoj]
>

> ATTACHMENT part 1.2 application/pgp-signature
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

__________________________________
Let's Celebrate Together!
Yahoo! JAPAN
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/so2005/


from_name: Kesava Mallela

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problems with Wikipedia's Interaction Design

body:
I thought this would be a good forum to bring up some interaction
design problems with Wikipedia.

These are some of the problems I found as an active contributor who
also happens to be an interaction designer.

    * Wikipedia shows only the last edit of an article in the watch
list. This leaves the writer no clue of the edits that took place from
his/her base lined version. (Base lined version will generally be the
user's last edit on the article.). Some kind of visualization
technique on all the edits only can give the writer a sense of the
course taken by the article. (I guess this is being discussed as LVR
in some of the recent threads.)

    * Too many entries in watch list make it very difficult to clear
them on a day. Some kind of prioritization needs to be done...like
ignoring the minor edits...or flagging
          o the articles which are more prone to vandalism or
          o an article where some real interesting edits are happening or
          o articles on which some of your trusted buddies are working on...

    * When you work on more than a few articles, it is very natural
that you might find a same set of people working on those or similar
articles. Wikipedia could encourage collaboration by allowing me to
watch any articles edited by my buddies. (Of course, only if my buddy
agrees to it, which I would think he would, for it is a chance for
both of us to write a quality article.)

    * When you start with an article, it is very probable that you
would be interested in editing related articles. e.g.: If you start
with Satyajit Ray, you might be interested in editing/reviewing the
articles for Bengali cinema, or Mrinal Sen or Italian Neo-realist
Cinema or the Apu Trilogy. One simple heuristic that could help meet
the similar goals would be to allow the user to watch all the articles
that link to a particular article or watch all the articles that have
been manually grouped as categories. The feature "Related Changes"
tries to do something similar, but lists the changes to the articles
listed only on your watch list.

I believe that encouraging people to collaborate better and giving
users better idea of how articles are changing over time would help
Wikipedia improve the quality of articles tremendously. These are not
just some _nice-to-have features_ but they'll become necessary as
Wikipedia grows in both size and popularity. With out controls like
the above, most of the articles will become just unmanageable as
people might giveup going thru their long watchlists paving the way to
spoilers.
--
Kesava Mallela
Interaction Designer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:kaysov


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject:
[Wikitech-l] $wgValidSpecialPages and function
	getValidSpecialPages()

body:
It seems $wgValidSpecialPages and the function that returns it,
getValidSpecialPages(), don't do anything anymore. This email is sent
to confirm that this is really true so that i can subsequently send in
a patch that removes it from the various language files.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
csherlock at ljh.com.au a ?crit:
> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first
>> Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too,
>> and one of them's mad at me.
>>
>> I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in
>> a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it.
>> It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two
>> of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town.
>>
>> Or is it Peyton Place?
>>
>> Ed Poor
>
>
> Out of interest, was their an RFC filed on this administrator before
> this action was carried out? Shouldn't there be a more transparent and
> formal process in place when it comes to desysoping admins?
>
> TBSDY

There is a clear process to desysop people; It is (ahum) on
*technically* possible to developers and stewards.

Developers can do it in case of urgency.
But normally it is done by stewards.
The current stewards are

     * Andre Engels (en, nl, de, fr, nds, ...)
     * Angela (en)
     * Anthere (fr, en)
     * ArnoLagrange (fr, eo, en, es, it, de, ...)
     * Daniel Mayer (en, es)
     * Fantasy (en, de, it, fr, es)
     * Karl Wick (en, es)
     * Looxix (fr, en, nl)

Stewards can set or remove status from anyone, on any projects. The
transparency is ensured through the bureaucrat log on meta. Requests for
status are also made on meta, publicly :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions

Stewards are not supposed to desysoped anyone just because they feel
like it; They do it after community agreement, and there is a sorta rule
that a steward avoid doing so in his own language project (for example,
Fantazy avoids desysoping people on german, and Mav would avoids on
en... when it is a community decision, not a personal request...).

We desysoped a couple of people in the past year. Some on en, a serious
lot on de, very recently on ja. And a good bunch of tired wikipedians in
need of a break.

In short, except for urgency, no desysoping should take place on the
english wikipedia without first arbcom decision.

Ed was able to do it essentially because he still had the developer
flag. But he was not really supposed to do so.

The flag is now removed - not as a punishment - as it is not me to judge
whether there was indeed urgency.
But as a technical clean-up, as Ed is now not a developer any more.

I might add that Uncle Ed had held that role for a long time before
stewards were elected : running sql queries to make people sysop or
remove this status. So, I really do not hold grunge against him. All
this is rather a mistake from us.

Anthere


from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
On Mar 2, 2005, at 7:09 AM, abc_root wrote:

> I hope in the kanbun wikipedia simplified Chinese(China) does not
> appear.
> Obviously those deviate a lot from the normal characters and only
> spoil the
> beauty of kanbun.
>
> As for phonetic transliteration, I personally prefer not to create any
> new
> words from transliteration using kanji. (I'll live with those that are
> in
> common use.) The ancient people did this because they did not think of
> creating an alphabet and that caused a lot of confusion in trancribing
> foreign words when speakers of different languages follow their own
> pronunciation. But now we have quite a few choices of alphabets to use
> and
> there is no need to do that again. If someone still prefers to do
> that, I
> can only suggest he note down the original word, too.
>
> For the procedure of starting a new wikipedia, I'm still not very sure
> and
> hope to hear suggestions from you guys.
>
>

Precedent would indicate that this should be allowed based on other
languages which have no native speakers (e.g. Anglo-Saxon).

While it is true that this proposed wikipedia could be blocked based on
some requirement of number of project members, given the nature of the
proposal, it would not be hard to accumulate any arbitrary number
fairly quickly. However, it would also allow the de facto sepearation
of traditional and simplified, as traditional users could capsize this
wikipedia relatively quickly if they so desired.

It is perhaps time to consider creating some category for "languages
with no native speakers" and placing all wikipedias in them.

Personally I believe there is a value to these kinds of project -
because it gets people to write in old languages, which is an essential
element of fluency and scholarship. However, the purpose of these
projects is, necessarily, different from existing languages, which have
a reader base looking for primary information.

Moreover, there is something that these projects detract from, which
needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure out
how to write about the java programming language, there is one less
latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and
so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that
exist as source text, then there should be some way of making
wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.


from_name: Tom Haws

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Ack! No more blasted meta tages (meaning templates). A smarter system is needed
>that does not require an editor to edit or in any way change the content of an
>article by using said system.
>
>
Well, mav, we can flag for Confidence without any editor intervention by
simply attaching our confidence in the saving editor to the article
version.  Anon saves get low confidence, newbies get a little higher,
etc.  But any other quality or other metric is going to have to be done
by humans.

I personally would be delighted to see nothing more than a Confidence
flag on articles so people could select for distribution or presentation
based on Confidence.  That solves at least the problem of burning a CD
with some percentage of vandalized articles, or articles that do not
represent "the best we can do at the moment".  We could even show anons
high-confidence articles only, and tell them when they click "Edit",
"Hey, you weren't really looking at the latest version.  Here's the
latest and the diff. Edit it.  If it's been trashed, go into History to
edit and save as the latest the version you were viewing."

Tom Haws
"And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I
do not know the meaning of all things."


from_name: Stephen Forrest

body:
On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:30:23 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:

[snip]
> Moreover, there is something that these projects detract from, which
> needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure out
> how to write about the java programming language, there is one less
> latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and
> so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that
> exist as source text, then there should be some way of making
> wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.

Part of the appeal of original composition is that the contributor
need not worry about copyrights.  Obviously the original source texts
(i.e. manuscripts) are public domain, but published editions are
copyrighted.

This is usually due to new material (commentary, footnotes, etc.) but
there may also be alterations or regularization performed on the
source text, so I don't think one can trust that even that is
unencumbered, unless you get your hands on a fully public-domain
version.  (Which, it should go without saying, does not mean something
grabbed from any old place on the Internet.)   I suspect this is easy
for well-known texts (e.g. Cicero, Virgil), but finding unencumbered
versions of more obscure classical authors might require some digging.

Steve


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172

body:
It's a shame that 172 has felt the need to leave, but
if he is unwilling to accept consensus norms, then
it's probably for the best.  He has repeatedly shown a
lack of interest in dealing civilly with those who had
different views from his, and now he has felt that he
is above the rest of us when it comes to accepting the
norms of the community (3RR).

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Apache rewrite rule missing

body:
Brion Vibber <brion <at> pobox.com> writes:

> For the meantime I've got it using a timed refresh plus a clickable
> link. Still relatively convenient for the lazy, without lulling people
> into a false sense of security thinking it's a legit URL they should be

Can the /wiki/ part not be removed removed completely form the url? The reason
why the short is used is because it is more easy to write and if you use it in
print, like on the English and Dutch leaflets or those Ads
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ads

a short url is much better.

Walter


body:
On Mar 2, 2005, at 8:42 AM, Stephen Forrest wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:30:23 -0500, Stirling Newberry
> <stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>> Moreover, there is something that these projects detract from, which
>> needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure
>> out
>> how to write about the java programming language, there is one less
>> latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and
>> so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that
>> exist as source text, then there should be some way of making
>> wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.
>
> Part of the appeal of original composition is that the contributor
> need not worry about copyrights.  Obviously the original source texts
> (i.e. manuscripts) are public domain, but published editions are
> copyrighted.
>
> This is usually due to new material (commentary, footnotes, etc.) but
> there may also be alterations or regularization performed on the
> source text, so I don't think one can trust that even that is
> unencumbered, unless you get your hands on a fully public-domain
> version.  (Which, it should go without saying, does not mean something
> grabbed from any old place on the Internet.)   I suspect this is easy
> for well-known texts (e.g. Cicero, Virgil), but finding unencumbered
> versions of more obscure classical authors might require some digging.
>
> Steve
>

Id est "work".

I'm not disparaging original writing in old languages, merely noting
that there seems to be a great deal more enthusiasm for it, and
therefore if we want to direct more of that energy to forms that
benefit readers more, then something needs to be done to make that work
more attractive to people who can do it. I must admit that I am guilty
- as a classicist, I haven't put any time in on wikisource in latin or
koine, even though I keep telling myself I should.


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped)

body:
> We desysoped a couple of people in the past year. Some on en, a serious
> lot on de, very recently on ja. And a good bunch of tired wikipedians in
> need of a break.
>
> In short, except for urgency, no desysoping should take place on the
> english wikipedia without first arbcom decision.

This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling.  172 should
have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself.  It is not
a difficult evidentiary matter, and desysopping is not as severe as blocking
someone,which any sysop is allowed to do.  After sysop powers are just
a privlege, an opportunity to serve.  It might even be a good idea to sunset
sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see
if the sysop can get elected again.

172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even
been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe),
but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition
to the discipline at that time.  It is not like sysop powers are some right.

           -- Silverback


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sollog's Wikipediasucks site

body:
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:44:49 +0600
>From: "Arno M" <redgum46 at lycos.com>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] A nasty and weird site

>Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its very critical.
>
> <a href="http://www.wikipediasucks.com/
">http://www.wikipediasucks.com/
</a>
>out 149 instead. And whats all this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine for
>"religious hate crimes"? Bizarre!

Take a look at the article on Sollog and all will become clear. He's widely regarded as... well, read the article and all will become clear. He tried to plant a self-promoting article, tried and failed to stop it from being NPOV-ed, boasted about how he was going to bring down Wikipedia, and created the wikipediasucks site in spite.

I don't think it's getting much traction.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Charles Fulton wrote:

>On the other hand, a fair point is raised. 172 has abused his admin
>powers as thoroughly as can be - and certainly moreso than anyone I've
>ever seen in my time here. He UNBLOCKED himself repeatedly, and his
>unblocking summaries ("no violation of the 3RR") and ("They did not
>look at the content of the last edit, just the edit summary. Now quit
>wasting my time. I have one reply to make on talk, then I will go
>away") suggest to me that he regards himself above the law.
>
Nothing wrong with setting the facts straight in the face of 3RR zealots.

>Are Featured Articles now functioning as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Cards?
>
There is some merit in that idea.

>Theresa Knott wrote:
>
>
>>>This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling.
>>>
>>>
>>You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference.
>>
True that would be an advocacy for elitism.  On the other hand there are
others who would be happier if ignorance deferred to ignorance.

>>>It might even be a good idea to sunset
>>>sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see
>>>if the sysop can get elected again.
>>>
>>>
>>I'm not sure that's a good idea at all.
>>
It's a horrible idea that would give the lunatics control of the asylum..

Ec


from_name: Matthew A Trump

subject: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow

body:
What's the status of the rel="nofollow" attribute following the
community vote?


body:
actionforum at comcast.net wrote:

>Desysoping is too minor an action and abuse of sysop powers is too serious an offense to wait for the arbcom or community all the time.  Any serious mistakes can be corrected later.
>
If the police had their way the kangaroos would be running the judicial
system.

Ec


from_name: Matthew Trump

subject: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow


subject: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow (corr)

body:
What's the status of the rel="nofollow" attribute on the English
Wikipedia following the community vote?


body:
actionforum at comcast.net wrote:

>-------------- Original message --------------
>
>
>>There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious,
>>particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles
>>(relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which
>>suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform.
>>
>>
>Desysopping does not mean he can't continue to edit articles, although it may lessen his powers to enforce his severe authorial territorialism through vendettas.
>
What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would be
to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that he
sought to have applied on the accused.  Thus if he seeks to have someone
de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the
person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month. etc.

It might put an end to all the whining. ;-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] nofollow status

body:
Can anyone provide an update about the situation of rel="nofollow" on
the English Wikipedia following the community vote?


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
geni wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>>Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the Ambi
>>block...
>>
>>-Snowspinner
>
>
> Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably
> racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom
> members to make a case for questioning thier  nutrality.
>
>

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something you've said, but I'd like to ask:
can you tell me a Wikipedian (admin or otherwise) who is 100% impartial
and neutral on all matters? Perhaps if you could we wouldn't need a
committee and we could just make that person the sole arbitrator on all
cases. A user such as this that shows no fear nor favour would be
excellent.

Incidently, should you find such an editor may I take you to my farm and
show you my latest pet? It's a pink unicorn. You might be interested.

Cheers,
TBSDY


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172

body:
Viajero wrote:

> 172 has announced on his user page he has left. I know that this is
> not the first time and I also know that not everyone on this list will
> necessarily find this unfortunate, but I think it is a pity as his
> contributions have been enormous.

Hmm, one of the farthest-gone of Wikipediholics quitting? I give
it a week, maybe two. :-)

>
> Over the past couple of years, I was using a pseudonymous account, and
> the name I was using in my Wikipedia email account was not my own.
> Given Wikipedia's sketchy reputation in some circles, I wanted to
> avoid any possible negative consequences in the "real world"; and I
> did not want the less-than-friendly environment on Wikipedia to come
> back to haunt me off-line. Unfortunately, when the community knows you
> as 'just a number,' you don't tend to be treated so well.

The irony is that he's left so many clues to his identity that
it would probably take a PI two hours to get him on the phone;
people on the net are just not as anonymous as they think.

The other irony is that he would probably experience less conflict
editing under his real name; on the average, WP editors are more
deferential to a known professional than to a bare pseudonym.

Stan


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons" will get you in trouble,
especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you
thought the other user "really was a moron". The two users were not treated
the same. There was no question that Xed had a problem. But carefully
reading the edits revealed the problems that Slrubenstein was having also.
It is just a case of going through the edits one by one and watching what
happened step by step.

Fred

> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:22:10 -0500
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"?
>
> Recently a Wikipedia editor e-mailed me regarding concerns she had about the
> ArbCom process.  In particular, she was looking at an ArbCom case brought up
> against an editor who (aside from a couple of articles) has added little in
> the way of actual content, copyedits, or housekeeping to the project, but
> who has long been noted for personal attacks, trolling, edit-warring, and
> who has been temp-banned more than once.  As seems to be typical in these
> cases, the person being brought before ArbCom created a "counter
> arbitration" defense against one complainant in particular  (a long time
> contributer of much valued content, though perhaps given to getting a little
> personal in disputes).  As a matter of policy, the behaviour of those who
> were bringing the complaint was examined with equal intensity.  As the
> person e-mailing me put it
>
> "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, which is
> silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like if I report
> someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all have to
> investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they charge one,
> they have to charge both."
>
> Is this a valid concern?
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
> Anthere wrote
>
> > So, I really do not hold grunge against him.
>
> Indeed, it is hard to see how Ed Poor can be held responsible
> for Nirvana.
>
> He does, though, seem to think he is in some kind of
> old-timer WP heaven, where procedures are at best tenuous.
> Accountability rocks.
>
> Charles

Darn it, you beat me to the punch with your "grunge" pun! :-)

But don't get me wrong: I really LIKE accountability. I didn't just
shoot from the hip, blow the smoke off mah trusty six-shooter and ride
off into the sunset.

I brought attention to the issue of Blocking Wars, and I wish that would
get as much attention as the WAY the issue came up. Our goal is not to
create an increasingly rigid and powerful bureaucracy, but to create a
free and open encyclopedia.

Everything that contributes to Wikipedia's goals should be classed as
"good" and encouraged (within obvious reasonable limits). Stealing
copyrighted text isn't good, because its unethical (oh, and against the
law, too, I guess). Having a GodKing like Larry Sanger (or a board of
GodPrinces) endorsing particular article versions isn't good.

But everything that detracts from Wikipedia's goals should be classed as
"bad" and discouraged. And we need something quicker than the cumbersome
"dispute resolution" process. Trying to cast rules violations as a "you
vs. him" dispute is a problem.

Having 415 deputy sheriffs and no marshalls is a problem.

I am not a loose cannon (although I admit to going off half-cocked
occasionally). I have always been accountable to the community. Jeez,
you guys would never have trusted me with root access to the server, or
allowed me to run SQL UPDATE queries directly on the database, if I
hadn't earned your trust. And don't forget, I'm the one who started the
tradition of Bureaucrats and above running for office. (Another
developer simply appointed himself and a few other "Bureaucrat"; I ran
for election and when I won it I refused to promote myself BECAUSE WE
NEED TO PROVE TO THE COMMUNITY THAT WE ARE TRUSTWORTHY AND ACCOUNTABLE
TO THEM.

Sorry for shouting and rambling, but it's been a rough 24 hours.

Uncle Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first
> Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too,
> and one of them's mad at me.
>
> I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in
> a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it.
>
> It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two
> of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town.
>
> Or is it Peyton Place?
>
> Ed Poor

Out of interest, was their an RFC filed on this administrator before
this action was carried out? Shouldn't there be a more transparent and
formal process in place when it comes to desysoping admins?

TBSDY


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: multilingualism (was Q1 drive)

references:
<20050301115136.85129.qmail@web41810.mail.yahoo.com>
	<d04umc$oan$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d2e8cfcb54325cecfc67df91778db2c3@xigenics.net>

body:
Stirling Newberry wrote:

> [...] there are signs of "poly-linguism", where the different
> languages are acting to support each other, where articles written in
> one language are being used as material or a basis for others. This
> will, again, serve to underline the advantages of wikipedia as a
> project. I know I have used German wikipedia articles at various
> times, and it might even be worth collecting some anecdotes about how
> wikipedia is forming a "research community" that is larger than any
> single language.

Amen - despite there being fewer articles, I've found plenty of
German WP pages that are superior to their English counterparts, and
someday I'd like to suck it:'s detailed data on the 8,000 Italian
comunes into en:, whose Italian town info is currently spotty;
still lots of red place-name links in English articles on Italian
subjects.

Commons is also getting to be a considerable resource - locals can
take more and better pictures of their own area than tourists
usually, so en: articles are now getting a variety of illustration
beyond what en: editors alone can muster.

Stan


body:
Stirling Newberry wrote:

> On Mar 2, 2005, at 8:42 AM, Stephen Forrest wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:30:23 -0500, Stirling Newberry wrote
>>
>>> Moreover, there is something that these projects detract from, which
>>> needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure out
>>> how to write about the java programming language, there is one less
>>> latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and
>>> so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that
>>> exist as source text, then there should be some way of making
>>> wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.
>>
>> Part of the appeal of original composition is that the contributor
>> need not worry about copyrights.  Obviously the original source texts
>> (i.e. manuscripts) are public domain, but published editions are
>> copyrighted.
>>
>> This is usually due to new material (commentary, footnotes, etc.) but
>> there may also be alterations or regularization performed on the
>> source text, so I don't think one can trust that even that is
>> unencumbered, unless you get your hands on a fully public-domain
>> version.  (Which, it should go without saying, does not mean something
>> grabbed from any old place on the Internet.)   I suspect this is easy
>> for well-known texts (e.g. Cicero, Virgil), but finding unencumbered
>> versions of more obscure classical authors might require some digging.
>
> Id est "work".
>
> I'm not disparaging original writing in old languages, merely noting
> that there seems to be a great deal more enthusiasm for it, and
> therefore if we want to direct more of that energy to forms that
> benefit readers more, then something needs to be done to make that
> work more attractive to people who can do it. I must admit that I am
> guilty - as a classicist, I haven't put any time in on wikisource in
> latin or koine, even though I keep telling myself I should.

Caton has been doing a tremendous job of including the French version of
many of these old texts on Wikisource.  Stephen's interpretation of
copyright law is far too restrictive and impractical.  A copyright
notice on a new edition of a classic is only copyright to the extent
that it can be copyright.  No publisher is going to go through the new
edition to identify which details are copyright and which not.  Common
sense needs to prevail.  The new commentaries and footnotes are indeed
protected, but the minor variations that Stephen suggests are not
copyrightable.  A totally new translation could be copyright, but nobody
is suggesting that we include those . . . unless some enthusiastic
Wikisourceror wants to create a new translation himself and contribute
it under GFDL.

Stirling, please don't suggest that people might need to work.  It
scares them away. :-)

I think that many more of these old texts are available than Stephen
would have us believe.  A lot of them are in back shelves of second hand
bookstores where few people ever look.  Many dealers would be glad to
get rid of them, and there is some support for keeping them inches away
from the garbage pail.  If that doesn't work, there's also ebay and
Abebooks.  In other words, there are very few that cannot be easily found.

I agree too that we don't just want a lot of trained monkeys copying
things from the internet.  If someone has already done the work and put
it on a reasonably stable site it is probably best left alone unless we
intend to add value to the work.  Adding something that no other site
has is worth a lot more, but that involves an even more tedious kind of
work: scanning and proofreading.

I prefer not to get into the arguments about whether we should have
Wikipedias in obscure dead languages.  I tend to take a
whatever-turns-you-on attitude.  The value in these old languages is in
their original texts, and not in some supposed reincarnation that will
see discussions of 21st century issues in languages where nobody
maintains a conversation.  The world is not well served by putting new
vinegar in old wine bottles.

Ec


from_name: Theresa Knott

body:
>
> This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling.

You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference.

>172 should
> have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself.

But _who_ do you want to decide if an admin should lose his
privileges? The community or one person (Ed Poor for example)

>and desysopping is not as severe as blocking
> someone,which any sysop is allowed to do.

Not permanently, sysops are only able to temp block people.

>   It might even be a good idea to sunset
> sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see
> if the sysop can get elected again.

I'm not sure that's a good idea at all.

>
> 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even
> been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe),
> but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition
> to the discipline at that time.  It is not like sysop powers are some right.

I agree that sysop powers are a privilege and not a right. But I do
think that the AC or the community (via a RFC) should be the ones to
make the decision.

Theresa


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I like to point out to people that the *German* version won in a blind
> test against two commercial encyclopedias, and we'd like to bring the
> English one up to the same standard. This points out that though en: is
> a remarkable achievement, at least one other language version has in
> fact tested even better!

Correction - the German version has been systematically tested, the English
version has not. So the conclusion that one is better than the other is unknown
at this time.

I would certainly like to see a similar test done on the English Wikipedia.

-- mav

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172

body:
Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone
doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you
wish".

(And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the
fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into
outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.)

-Mark


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"?

body:
Recently a Wikipedia editor e-mailed me regarding concerns she had about the
ArbCom process.  In particular, she was looking at an ArbCom case brought up
against an editor who (aside from a couple of articles) has added little in
the way of actual content, copyedits, or housekeeping to the project, but
who has long been noted for personal attacks, trolling, edit-warring, and
who has been temp-banned more than once.  As seems to be typical in these
cases, the person being brought before ArbCom created a "counter
arbitration" defense against one complainant in particular  (a long time
contributer of much valued content, though perhaps given to getting a little
personal in disputes).  As a matter of policy, the behaviour of those who
were bringing the complaint was examined with equal intensity.  As the
person e-mailing me put it

"It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, which is
silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like if I report
someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all have to
investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they charge one,
they have to charge both."

Is this a valid concern?

Jay.


from_name: Charles Fulton

body:
On the other hand, a fair point is raised. 172 has abused his admin
powers as thoroughly as can be - and certainly moreso than anyone I've
ever seen in my time here. He UNBLOCKED himself repeatedly, and his
unblocking summaries ("no violation of the 3RR") and ("They did not
look at the content of the last edit, just the edit summary. Now quit
wasting my time. I have one reply to make on talk, then I will go
away") suggest to me that he regards himself above the law.

It was always my impression that any sysop who had that kind of
arbitrary power would be in front of a firing squad in fairly short
order. Indeed, an arbitration case has been brought, but it's
currently sitting at 1-1, with two recusals. I find Ambi's reasoning
for rejection - and I respect Ambi very much - troubling:

"There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious,
particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles
(relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which
suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform. "
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration) Yes,
he's had articles featured, but he's clearly revert-warring as well,
something arbcom specifically asked him not to do. He's also abusing
his powers as an administrator. Is this not worth investigation, just
because he's had featured articles? Are Featured Articles now
functioning as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Cards?

Charles (Mackensen)

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:40:09 +0000, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling.
>
> You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference.
>
> >172 should
> > have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself.
>
> But _who_ do you want to decide if an admin should lose his
> privileges? The community or one person (Ed Poor for example)
>
> >and desysopping is not as severe as blocking
> > someone,which any sysop is allowed to do.
>
> Not permanently, sysops are only able to temp block people.
>
> >   It might even be a good idea to sunset
> > sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see
> > if the sysop can get elected again.
>
> I'm not sure that's a good idea at all.
>
> >
> > 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even
> > been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe),
> > but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition
> > to the discipline at that time.  It is not like sysop powers are some right.
>
> I agree that sysop powers are a privilege and not a right. But I do
> think that the AC or the community (via a RFC) should be the ones to
> make the decision.
>
> Theresa
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jack Lutz

body:
> I like to point out to people that the *German* version won in a blind
> test against two commercial encyclopedias, and we'd like to bring the
> English one up to the same standard. This points out that though en: is
> a remarkable achievement, at least one other language version has in
> fact tested even better!
>
>
> - d.

Do you have a reference on the test?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Boomerang Rule

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Ray wrote:
>
>
>
>>What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would be
>>
>>
>>to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that he
>>
>>
>>sought to have applied on the accused.  Thus if he seeks to have someone
>>
>>
>>de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the
>>person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month. etc.
>>
>>
>>It might put an end to all the whining. ;-)
>>
>>
>
>Now I don't know if Eclecticology was kind of joking around here, but if
>so it sounds like what we hackers call "ha, ha, only serious".
>
Perhaps there was only limited seriousness on that point.  The urge to
whine is bound to come out in other ways.

>I would be happy to adopt such a system and I volunteer myself as a test
>case. I thought a Blocking War should be stopped with temp desysopping,
>but the community said, "No." All right, de-sysop me for the same period
>of time (1.5 hours). Shucks, go whole hog and de-sysop 1.5 hours for
>EACH of the 4 users I de-opped. Let's see how the math works out for
>that:
>
>    4 x 1.5 = 6
>
>Okay, de-sysop me for 6 hours. I can handle that.
>
For you we could even make that effective at midnight in your local time
zone.

>Now for a more serious example. I'm on the verge of giving William
>Connolley or X a one-hour time-out for violating the "No personal
>remarks" rule. If the arbcom reviews my block and decides I was wrong, I
>got blocked and/or de-sysopeed for the same period of time. Fine with
>me!! I'll take the chance.
>
The real problem is not with those seeking momentary 1-hour timeouts,
but with those that are seeking punishments that are out of proportion
to the situation.  A remedial philosophy of criminal law would seek to
achieve a balance of rights.  Punishment that is rooted in revenge, or
that is used to impose a POV does not accomplish this.

>I think a lot of people would applaud a Sheriff who "puts his money
>where his mouth is".
>
>
Yep, but when dealing with a two-bit whore who is only putting her money
where her month is, you would probably agree that she should have the
same treatment as the owner of the McMadam chain.

Ec


from_name: Henry Tan-Tenn

body:
Mark Williamson sia-kong:

> When Danny or Jimbo or Eloquence or Angela or
> whomever presents the
> concept at a conference, as far as I know they
> either 1) don't mention
> languages except in passing, 2) mention that it's
> multilingual and
> that there are, for example, German and Japanese
> versions or 3)
> mention the fact that it is available in the
> national language.

Just now I listened Jimbo's interview by the NPR journalist Brian Lehrer
, who did mention that Wikipedia had some 160+ languages.  But not
surprisingly this was hardly a central aspect of the story.  I think one
reason is that the English edition has garnered the most attention due
to its age, size and activity, and the criticism specifically directed
at it by the Encyclopedia Britannica and others.  Another is the
assumption that should en: fail (or be judged to have failed), one can
safely assume smaller and less active editions will also fail.  So the
discourse ends up circling around en: as a test case, almost to the
exclusion of other innovative aspects of Wikipedia.  This is unfortunate
but probably unavoidable given the limited understanding and experience
the public has about how wiki works.  But I do agree that
"multilingualism" should be cited more often as a central
characteristics of Wikipedia, in the sense that Wikipedia is not merely
one edition replicated hundreds of times (though I imagine it may feel
that way to our developers), but rather the whole is more than the
individual languages put together.  That might sound a bit of a cliche,
but I think there's something there worth developing.


body:
>No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons" will get you in trouble,
>especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you
>thought the other user "really was a moron". The two users were not treated
>the same. There was no question that Xed had a problem. But carefully
>reading the edits revealed the problems that Slrubenstein was having also.
>It is just a case of going through the edits one by one and watching what
>happened step by step.

Fred, while the catalyst for the e-mail might have been a specific case, I
carefully did not state which one, as I was asking whether the policy in
general was a good thing, rather than looking for a defence for any specific
decisions.  I think this may be the symptom of a larger problem; there is a
concern among some editors about bringing obvious ArbCom candidates to
ArbCom, for fear that their own edit history will be put under the
microscope, meticulously examined for any whiff of policy violation.  If one
has been making thousands of Wikipedia edits over months or years, it is
almost inevitable that some edits or statements will seem questionable, and
there is a belief that ArbCom will feel the need to sanction both sides to
give the appearance of even-handedness.  I'm not saying this is actually the
case, but the belief is certainly out there, and the idea that "it's just
not worth getting rid of troublemakers" has been expressed more than once.

Jay.


body:
-------------- Original message --------------

> >
> > This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling.
>
> You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference.
>
> >172 should
> > have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself.
>
> But _who_ do you want to decide if an admin should lose his
> privileges? The community or one person (Ed Poor for example)

This sounds like something that can be automated, turn the unblock command into a desysop command when an admin is blocked, so effectively he would desysop himself.

> >and desysopping is not as severe as blocking
> > someone,which any sysop is allowed to do.
>
> Not permanently, sysops are only able to temp block people.

He could be reelected, unless the arcom also bans that.

> > It might even be a good idea to sunset
> > sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see
> > if the sysop can get elected again.
>
> I'm not sure that's a good idea at all.

I can agree with this, there is already enough of a burden on the community with all the votes already, so participation is low, and making every sysadmin go through re-election would overburden the system, and the quality of the voting decisions is already questionable.  However, desysoping should not have a high threshold, because presumably, just occasionally would there need to be another reelection.  Hopefully the admin him/herself would realize they are not admin  material and not even run.

> > 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even
> > been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe),
> > but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition
> > to the discipline at that time. It is not like sysop powers are some right.
>
> I agree that sysop powers are a privilege and not a right. But I do
> think that the AC or the community (via a RFC) should be the ones to
> make the decision.
Desysoping is too minor an action and abuse of sysop powers is too serious an offense to wait for the arbcom or community all the time.
Any serious mistakes can be corrected later.
            -- Silverback


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] How long can a title be? Database issue.

body:
In looking through the MediaWiki schema (both current and new), I've
noticed that page titles are given a max length of 255 chars. However,
it seems that in some cases, this title includes the namespace, and in
others it does not -- namespace is stored as an Int or is implied by
context (eg, categorylinks, imagelinks).

This sounds a warning klaxon in my head.  Is my concern misplaced?
Would it make sense to always use the namespace (as an int) plus title
(without namespace) to reference a page (again, unless implied by
context)?

Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
>>
>
> Just now I listened Jimbo's interview by the NPR journalist Brian
> Lehrer
> , who did mention that Wikipedia had some 160+ languages.  But not
> surprisingly this was hardly a central aspect of the story.  I think
> one reason is that the English edition has garnered the most attention
> due to its age, size and activity, and the criticism specifically
> directed at it by the Encyclopedia Britannica and others.  Another is
> the assumption that should en: fail (or be judged to have failed), one
> can safely assume smaller and less active editions will also fail.  So
> the discourse ends up circling around en: as a test case, almost to
> the exclusion of other innovative aspects of Wikipedia.  This is
> unfortunate but probably unavoidable given the limited understanding
> and experience the public has about how wiki works.  But I do agree
> that "multilingualism" should be cited more often as a central
> characteristics of Wikipedia, in the sense that Wikipedia is not
> merely one edition replicated hundreds of times (though I imagine it
> may feel that way to our developers), but rather the whole is more
> than the individual languages put together.  That might sound a bit of
> a cliche, but I think there's something there worth developing.
>

We should go further, that there are signs of "poly-linguism", where
the different languages are acting to support each other, where
articles written in one language are being used as material or a basis
for others. This will, again, serve to underline the advantages of
wikipedia as a project. I know I have used German wikipedia articles at
various times, and it might even be worth collecting some anecdotes
about how wikipedia is forming a "research community" that is larger
than any single language.


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious,
> particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles
> (relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which
> suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform.
Desysopping does not mean he can't continue to edit articles, although it may lessen his powers to enforce his severe authorial territorialism through vendettas.
          -- Silverback


body:
Stirling Newberry wrote:

> We should go further, that there are signs of "poly-linguism", where
> the different languages are acting to support each other, where
> articles written in one language are being used as material or a basis
> for others. This will, again, serve to underline the advantages of
> wikipedia as a project. I know I have used German wikipedia articles
> at various times, and it might even be worth collecting some anecdotes
> about how wikipedia is forming a "research community" that is larger
> than any single language.

I definitely do this as well, and I think it's one of the strengths.
Although some people seem to be promoting the view that the different
language editions should actually be different, and not just
translations of one another, I tend to think they should be as similar
as possible.  One useful thing, IMO, is to look at the articles on the
same subject in two languages you can understand reasonably well.  If
they differ, try to figure out which parts of each are better, and
integrate those parts into the other one.

-Mark


from_name: Arno M

subject: [WikiEN-l] A nasty and weird site

body:
Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its very critical.

http://www.wikipediasucks.com/

Some interesting popups appear when you leave the site which perhaps indicate what its worth.
Its claim that "There are now thousands of pages if you search for 'wikipedia sucks' in
any search engine." is wrong - the supplied does a google search for pages with the words wikipedia or sucks, which not surprisingly does yield thousands of results. But a search for the phrase brings
out 149 instead. And whats all this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine for
"religious hate crimes"? Bizarre!

However, I do feel compelled to ask : who are those cute young friends on the yacht with Jimbo?

--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?

body:
A member of the arbitration committee told an editor a few weeks ago
that the equal-treatment policy of the arbitration committee had been
adopted deliberately in order to discourage editors from bringing
cases. Wikipedia is so slow today that I haven't yet been able to find
the posts where this was said, but it was fairly unambiguous, and I'm
pretty sure I'm remembering it correctly.

Perhaps members of the arbitration committee could say here whether
the policy of symmetrical treatment has been adopted, officially or
otherwise, in order to cut down on the number of cases coming to
arbitration.

Sarah

> JAY JG said:
> > The  difference between the system here and that in the real world is
> > that here  the person making the accusation is also automatically both
> > the prosecuting  attorney and the defendant in an inevitable
> > counter-suit; this is a heavy  burden, and a serious disincentive to
> > "get involved".


body:
Rowan Collins wrote:

>No. As Brion rightly points out, there are, and always will be, URLs
>for things other than wiki pages. If, for instance,
>http://en.wikipedia.org/skins was the URL of a wiki page called
>"skins", where would the files (CSS, images, etc) for displaying the
>skin be stored? And even more so, if http://en.wikipedia.org/w
>referred to the article [[w]], all the URLs of the form
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=... would instantly break
>(in fact, they would point to pages called things like
>[[w/index.php?title=...]]).
>
>
In the long-term, why should there be such things?  If something is not
a wiki page, it shouldn't be using part of the public URL-space on
en.wikipedia.org.  Such things could be hosted at e.g.
skins.wikipedia.org, or skins.wikipedia.org/en/ if they must be
localized.  There already is such a place for images (Wikimedia Commons).

-Mark


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
>No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons" will get you in trouble,
>especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you
>thought the other user "really was a moron".

To be clear, I never claimed that my belief that the other user "really was
a moron" is a defense.

I stated that I knew that the fact that I believed this is not going to
help me (in other words, it is not a valid defense).

I stated that although I did believe this at the time, I no longer do and
regret that I used this word (which some members of the ArbCom seem to
think constitutes another personal attack).

I have not tried to offer any defense.  I have, however, offered mitigating
factors -- first, that I felt provoked by a nasty attack on Wikipedia, and
second, that the words I used are more mild than the words used against
others and against me.

Having made these two points, I then wrote that I nevertheless admit that
what I said was a personal attack and that I regret this.  I have also
posted more explicit apologies for these and other remarks.  Perhaps I was
mistaken to believe that others would interpret my apology as an admission
of wrongdoing, rather than a defense.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


subject: [WikiEN-l] Boomerang Rule

body:
Ray wrote:

> What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would
be
> to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that
he
> sought to have applied on the accused.  Thus if he seeks to have
someone
> de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the
> person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month.
etc.
>
> It might put an end to all the whining. ;-)

Now I don't know if Eclecticology was kind of joking around here, but if
so it sounds like what we hackers call "ha, ha, only serious".

I would be happy to adopt such a system and I volunteer myself as a test
case. I thought a Blocking War should be stopped with temp desysopping,
but the community said, "No." All right, de-sysop me for the same period
of time (1.5 hours). Shucks, go whole hog and de-sysop 1.5 hours for
EACH of the 4 users I de-opped. Let's see how the math works out for
that:

    4 x 1.5 = 6

Okay, de-sysop me for 6 hours. I can handle that.

Now for a more serious example. I'm on the verge of giving William
Connolley or X a one-hour time-out for violating the "No personal
remarks" rule. If the arbcom reviews my block and decides I was wrong, I
got blocked and/or de-sysopeed for the same period of time. Fine with
me!! I'll take the chance.

I think a lot of people would applaud a Sheriff who "puts his money
where his mouth is".

Uncle Ed   <=== Just rented "Hang 'Em High" last week


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

body:
On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 05:40:55PM -0000, Tony Sidaway wrote:
> JAY JG said:
> > "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole,
> > which is  silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like
> > if I report  someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all
> > have to  investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they
> > charge one,  they have to charge both."
> >
> > Is this a valid concern?
> >
> I don't think so.  Arbitration is part of dispute resolution.  The
> arbitrators must examine the behavior of all parties to the dispute in
> order to arrive at factual findings and remedies that will stick.

It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to report real abuses
because they did not want to be forced to defend themselves from unfair
or untrue accusations by the abuser.

If we're concerned about abusive users "gaming the system" with regards
to 3RR and other rules, it seems we should also be concerned about
abusive users perverting arbitration into a way of attacking those who
are trying to stop a problem.

Fairness doesn't mean that everyone gets treated the same.  It means
that everyone has to follow the same rules -- and that people who choose
to break the rules *don't* get treated the same as people who don't.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Boomerang Rule

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> I think a lot of people would applaud a Sheriff who "puts his money
>> where his mouth is".
>
> Yep, but when dealing with a two-bit whore who is only putting her
> money where her month is, you would probably agree that she should
> *not* have the same treatment as the owner of the McMadam chain.
>
> Ec

little correction - Ec