[Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies #2
Hello, I wasn't subscribed to this list, since I usually try to avoid the politics around. I was notified, however, that some interesting claims were made and some steps taken (again) without any discussion whatsoever. First, let me tell it here again - as I have told it on a different list - that I am extremely disappointed by the lack of discussion before someone from outside seriously interfere with other project based on, as it turns out, incorrect informations. In the past people with privileges (if we ever considered them that way instead of people with work to be done) were more cautious. I would like you all fast-handed guys to slow down and talk first, get informed, and act later. I already commented elsewhere on vls, in summary I miss the discussion and I do not believe the case actually breached any privacy, but this isn't my concern now (as I'm in a bit of hurry). Regarding huwp, it would have been pretty easy to find out who to ask. Apart from the obvious choice of anyone with any flags on huwp, it could've been easy to identify who made the changes, and ask them. Like, for example me. As far as I see, lots of wasted energies go around, like people planning how to block javascript, how to block counters, etc. It is the wrong way. The good way is, and I'm repeating myself again, is FIRST to get to know WHY these scripts are there in the first hand, what solution they have to solve. This is a crucial step, fellows, which you neglected to take. (And we all know that the reason is to create usage stats.) Next step should be examining whether there is anything this violates, like, Privacy Policy. In the case of Google this is debateable, since I don't know what is the scope of the data retention. However I completely do know about the Hungarian stats. Let me share the real information here, briefly, since I have to go soon, but I do not want to let you destroy something you're not aware of. The stats (which have, by surprise, a dedicated domain under th hu wikipedia domain) runs on a dedicated server, with nothing else on it. Its sole purpose to gather and publish the stats. Basically nobody have permission to log in the servers but me, and I since I happen to be checkuser as well it wouldn't even be ntertaining to read it, even if it wasn't big enough making this useless. I happen to be the one who have created the Hungarian checkuser policy, which is, as far as I know, the strictest one in WMF projects, and it's no joke, and I intend to follow it. (And those who are unfamiliar with me, I happen to be the founder of huwp as well, apart from my job in computer security.) If you would have gathered this knowledge (which means that the server is closed and run by an identified user to WMF), then you could have started the discussion. As it is obvious, don't make any interfering moves while discussing it for days, or even weeks, wouldn't change anything. What have you achieved with removing the code? You killed our stats, which provides us with the statistics originally WMF provided (same data content), but later killed off. We'll propose (huwp) some solutions on the problem, but I'll really have to go now. Tgr can help discussing it, and I'll thank him for his help in advance. :-) So, think about these in the weekend, I'm back on monday. I hop there can be an _useful_ discussion, with thinking people and not people acting on impulses. Peter Gervai Hungary ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia tracks user behaviour via third party companies #2
Just a few sidenotes now. 2009/6/5 Mark (Markie) newsmar...@googlemail.com: There are a few issues with this. Devs have access to logs on WMF servers, not random external servers. This is a good suggestion, basically you say that I should request the foundation to provide me a server inside WMF with developer access. I don't mind that (as long as it have Debian installed). This is a good (though a bit expensive) _temporary_ solution, since it only serves huwp. It is not impossible to provide service to other projects but definitely not for any wp above huwp size, since the current solution is a hack and do not scale. (And I could process squid logs, naturally, which is a better way to do it.) Final solution would be to create either a modified awstats to handle the stuff better or to write custom code to make it. I don't really have the time to do these just right now. The community cannot decide that Random_user1 and Random_user2 etc will agree with the communities view on the stats being passed to an external server. As you are aware it's not really random user, so what you write is more rhetoric and less facts. I debate your statement as I believe the community can pretty much decide anything unless it violates some higher level policy, and it's been told this predates the PP. And I tend to disagree in its violation, but it's an open debate. Also there *may* be issues with the security of that server that means it could be compromised and could probably be accessed by the web hosting company if they so wished. Sure, but I happen to be the web hosting company as well. You are guessing instead of trying to get informed, as others do around. As I told you the only person accessing the site is myself. And security-wise there is no 100% security, and it's well possible that wikimedia servers tunnel all the data to the chinese secret service. You may trust me to know my job as well. :-) I still fail to see how, at this point (not before when there was no policy) this can be considered to be acceptable. IP information etc is still being [...] Let me help. Release: Policy on Release of Data It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by Wikimedia volunteers or staff, in any of the following situations: It is not the server log, it is not database records, and it is not other non-publicly-available method by the staff. So the data was not released by the staff to us. (And we not happened to steal it from them either.) This complies with the policy. Now, let's see that volunteer part. We're volunteers, and some can debate that we are using a non-publicly-available method (even if the original intent was, in my opinion, clearly to cover methods used on the WMF servers, and _not_ covering this); in this case the policy requires us (the volunteers) not to release the identifiable data. And we comply, since we do not release any personally identifiable data. Do you see now? Except as described above, Wikimedia policy does not permit distribution of personally identifiable information under any circumstances. And it's great that you quoted that, since it shows nicely that we comply here as well since we do not distribute p.i.i. under any circumstances. But we - as huwp - don't stick to this server, as I mentioned, and I'd gladly put it up on WMF servers, even if this do not really mean or change anything. But I find it unacceptable that anyone kill off the stats which was running for plenty of years now, without even trying to look around. I see that it's pretty easy, since neither of you use it, it's somebody else's problem. Try to see for a moment like it's not. And since it was okay for the past 5 years I'd be glad if you would continue the discussion WHILE reverting your changes. I don't believe a few days would make a difference. And another sidenote: if a newspaper makes a few false statements, what is the correct way of actions? Telling them [kindly] that they're stupid or interfering with your own projects and fellow editors? And which is the easier? Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 17:26, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: It would be a simple matter of programming to have something that allows upload of encumbered video and audio formats and re-encode them as Ogg Theora or Ogg Vorbis. As a technical sidenote, it should be mentioned that recoding a lossy format to another lossy format results _always_ a worse quality output than the source lossy format. The amount of quality loss depends on countless factors and usually do not render the result useless, but the quality difference may be still audible/visible. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why don't we re-encode proprietary formats as Ogg?
On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 14:54, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: Well, yeah. But until cameras or phones start recording Ogg Theora natively, we're likely stuck with this. As another tidbit, I have a music player (mp3 player) which records and plays ogg (not Theora though). :-) But you're right, most users haven't even heard about vorbis and theora. And phone recordings won't show any quality loss anyway since, well... erm... g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] China Requires Censoring Software on New PCs
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 03:31, Chen Minqicnchenmi...@gmail.com wrote: AFAIK, the software [1] they may use, does not block Wikipedia yet. I think Doesn't seem to matter as it is told to be updated remotely. It may block anything in any minute for no reason whatsoever. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Google Translate now assists with human translations of Wikipedia articles
On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 00:54, mastimast...@gmail.com wrote: current level of sophistication of translation tools, especialy of languages that do not belog to the same group as english, german, french, etc. is completely useless. Let me disagree. Hungarian is not in the same group by far, and the results make it possible to understand more than 50% of the text (sometimes I'd say above 90%). While this is far from proper translation it is by no means _useless_, since its obvious use is to understand a completely foreign text to some extents. And I'd like to second that the quality has been really improving, whether the state of the art linguistic science backs its theory up or not. This is observation, and not theory. But I see this is an exaggeration contest, so I'll go back to the shadow. :-) grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Info/Law blog: Using Wikisource as an Alternative Open Access Repository for Legal Scholarship
On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 03:15, Platonidesplatoni...@gmail.com wrote: Although not trivial, downloading all images is in fact quite easy. You can find scripts to do that already made. You can also ask Brion to rsync3 them. But do you have enough space to dedicate? How many wikis do you want to mirror? Just commons is more than 3 TB... Well disks are cheap nowadays. If it's really just the question of asking, I may be interested. for example. The more complex question is the parameters of such usage, meaning what can I do with the images after I've got them. This is the main reason behind not publishing them in the first hand: the images itself aren't suggesting any particular license. Now that I wrote this, it would be possible (not sure if feasible, though) to publish CC-BY-SA pictures with author info in the comment of the image itself. Most image formats support sizeable comment blocks, and standardised templates make it possible to select media by license, and get author/copyright info to put into the file. That's the reason so few people were interested in the images when the image dump was available. People are interested, generally, but not in mirroring the whole shebang. :-) grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Issues about Copyright
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 15:01, Jimmy Xuxu.jimmy@gmail.com wrote: So that is, due to P.R. of China Copyright Law, text that published in newspapers, periodicals, radio and TV stations and other media reported the news of the simple fact are not copyrighted. But I cannot find these exception in US Copyright Law. Maybe it's only because my If it is legal to use them by PRC laws (and the material was authored in PRC) then it is legal to use anywhere in the world. At least I'd believe so, because this is the same case as US governmental materials, soviet era stuff and like, but IANAL. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia article traffic statistics - copyright?
On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 09:01, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: [1]. The Battle Over Who Owns Bus Arrival Times: So why should a local squabble cause such a paranoid panic? Cos they're living in the United States of Litigations? ;-) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No default codec for video and audio in HTML5
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 13:26, Amir E. Aharoniamir.ahar...@gmail.com wrote: But it's even better not to push OGG through a committee, but to make it the de-facto standard by just using it as much as possible and recommending Wikipedia readers to install a browser that supports it. And like it or not we may happen to be stonger than micro$oft on this field since we may very possibly have more influence on the webizens around than them. If we push people to use free codecs (vorbis instead of mp3, theora or dirac instead of h.264 and mpeg4 and divx) the world may actually follow suit. Not a decision which should be taken lightly. (And naturally I'm for free codecs, let's kill wmv, or vmw or whatever that pest called.) My 2 'cents. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution on small interactive devices and systems
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 01:32, John at Darkstarvac...@jeb.no wrote: Minimum attribution of «Terms of Use» from Wikimdia Foundations site would be http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/; That is 96 chars, with spaces, of 140 bytes available in a SMS. For some languages the attribution will take more than one message. Ooops... Tinyurl and like? It's, well, tiny. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution on small interactive devices and systems
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 21:45, John at Darkstarvac...@jeb.no wrote: There is a solution, and it is rather puzzling. The license talks about identification by an URI, and this can be defined several ways. We can simply define an URI like Wikipedia:My article or perhaps cc:nn Not very much different from an URL, it requires a net connection as well. Still I believe URL is a correct pointer to the license, clickable or not. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Slashdot] Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad
Ultimately the issue for professional photographers who might want to donate their work is copyright. 'To me the problem is the Wikipedia rule of public use,' says Jerry Avenaim, a celebrity photographer. 'If they truly wanted to elevate the image on the site, they should allow photographers to maintain the copyright.' Apart from the clueless phrasing (which may or may not be due to the news reporter instead of Mr. Avenaim) what he doesn't seem to understand is that the pictures are what they are BECAUSE HE does not want to release EVEN ONE of his photographs to make it better. Basically he says I do not like the look of it but I do not offer my work but you have to change your rules instead. And I'd basically say it is as bad as it is because YOU have the means but not the will to enrichen public content, and I may have added that calling those people names who offer their resources, time and money to make Wikipedia better while you don't is hypocrisy. But I guess they aren't really care. As a sidenote I always wonder what amount of money would a professional photographer lose to release only one quality photo for a topic. He must be credited, so his name would be still famous if the picture ever would find its way into the mainstream media; and I it doesn't s/he didn't lose money but the community wins. Usually I do not get it why people choose NC licenses all the time while there's usually a low probability to actually _lose_ money by making it public. But maybe I'm wrong and people get heaps of cash for these pictures, and every bit counts. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Slashdot] Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad
On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 17:43, Sage Rossragesoss+wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: Hold up! This is User:Jerry Avenaim, and he has contributed some of his low-resolution photographs, and even a higher-resolution one of Mark Marmon that is a Featured Picture on en-wiki. Thanks for the info, for I was able to actually check the discussion on the Hale Berry deletion page; so Jerry seems to be a good fellow because he actually considered the effect of the license and uploaded smaller pictures instead of removing them all. (Still some pictures he uploaded are below the usable size, like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phil_1.jpg which is 250 × 342 pixels, and not good for anything including illustrating an article apart from having a thumbnail. Most of his picture seems to be just perfect for use, around the 1-2 Mpixel range which is a good compromise to make them available for real use while preventing them to be used in real printed media, which I guess provide Jerry a living.) So it seems just what I have guessed: the reporter misinterpreting someone. Still if not, then Jerry isn't right, since IMHO 1-2 Mpx images aren't bad [instead of having no image at all], and he contributed to that pool. (If he'd believe these are bad then he's uploading bad mages, which is, erm... I won't repeat myself.) And in my opinion uploading a reduced resolution image, like 1-5 Megapixels is completely good and acceptable for our mission. These are already quite useful resolutions, while they still aren't fit for mainstream media. (Of course if people aren't worried about loss of profit, should it ever could have been existing, then the original, maximal resolution is preferred.) -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Slashdot] Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 21:05, wiki-li...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: Peter Gervai wrote: Usually I do not get it why people choose NC licenses all the time while there's usually a low probability to actually _lose_ money by making it public. This may come as a shock to you but its not about money. When I take photographs it is in my free time, and outside of the commercial system. If you have a personal use, want to illustrating an article or blog that is not Adsense rich, have an academic use, or a small scale fundraising non-profit fine take what you want. If on the other hand you are share cropping with Google Ads, using the images to tart up an otherwise tawdry commercial web site, are involved in online selling, are a commercial advertising or publishing house, then kiss my arse. The NC license serves very well. That's nonsense, to put it mildly. What you say is basically two things: 1) You do not release your work because you do not want other people to gain on them even that it does not mean any loss for you at all. 2) You do not release your work because you want to prevent certain uses you do not like. As of #1, it is often called envy. You cannot make money from them so nobody else should. Of course you have the right to be envious of others, but then editing WP must be pointless for you, since people may GET RICH (no, really) by your work. I can _sell_ your work for a million bucks on DVD. Anyone could. So, as you phrased: this may be come as a shock for you. This reasoning doesn't really fit to what we're doing here. #2 is even more logical, since by publishing anything online means your work could be used on porn sites, war crim sites, whatever you please, including ad-ridden pages. Your NC license wouldn't change a thing for those people who don't care about it. If you want to control your content WP is the NIGHTMARE for you, since anything could be used almost anywhere, really, legally. I can create copy of WP with an ad for every even line, plus the full sideborders, and it'd be legal and okay. So I think people never releasing anything free and sticking to NC lincenses aren't logical, thinking people. I can accept that there are people who make photos for a living, and they do not want to release all work, full resolution due to monetary reasons. But those people who made 50 photos of a person and reject to release any one of them freely just because whatever, well, these people aren't considered thinking enough by my not so humble self. (As a sidenote, a NC image can be used in really dirty pages if there's no commercial gain, like nazi propaganda pages, hate pages, etc. There are other long list of reasons why NC is of no use in the long run. Use full copyright and keep the picture rights. If you're lucky the images may be locked 200+ years after your hopefully late death.) And I release most of my better photos freely, not that anyone would be interested in them. ;-) -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Knol, a year later
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 21:02, Samuel Kleinmeta...@gmail.com wrote: It's hard to replace an open collaborative process, On the contrary. I believe most of us cannot concentrate working power (human resources) to, say, 5 full-fledged knowledge recording community. Most people tend to have a favourite project to aim attention at, and others get less and less time. If there was 3 equally successful projects mimicking Wikipedia it's very well possible that a significant amount of contributors would pick one project with 1/5th of the contributors (which would [or may] result inferior content due to lower community review) while others may lose interest altogether since they wouldn't be adventurous enough to re-learn the stupid habits of yet another community, or wouldn't want to contribute to a project fractional in size. This is not a linear, logical, easy to describe process. People cannot be moved or reassigned between communities, and by dividing them each project may get less than the proportional amount of contributors joined. Or more, if they'd be successful in specialisation and gather a better functioning community (which is not hard in the case of WP communities, mind you). As well as WP's current success this process is a mistery for future tellers. I'm not sure more wikipedia-like projects would be better, nor that it'd be worse. I guess time have the habit of coming up with new contestants all the time, and one is bound to succeed. All I want is that it should be a free content open project. The name doesn't really matter. Wikipedia or else. Because knowledge wants to be free, after all. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Knol, a year later
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 21:48, David Goodmandgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: The number of people available is not limited to the current number. As well as the current number isn't stable. :-) People come and go, sink in wikipedia or get wikistress and go away. There are many potential contributors to an encyclopedia who for one reason or another are unwilling to work at Wikipedia. I accept that. There are many more who would be attracted by the competition. That's a hypothesis. :-) It's well possible that a competition with wrong orientation would alienate more people from offering their time for free than not. I just wanted to comment that we cannot tell for sure beforehand. I do not worry about competition since it's bound to happen, as projects mature, then get old, then die (or rather go into oblivion). Wikipedia will surely not last forever, and great ideas born all the time, some with great possibilities. But it's important to see that some kinds of projects can cause more harm than good without any original bad intent, as community dynamics is way too complex to foretell. It's not wise to blindly welcome anything and anybody. I'd say, we watch, we learn and we'll see. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 22:57, James Forresterja...@jdforrester.org wrote: Oh, and someone told me to do this, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to say who instructed me so to do. Must've been The Voices. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation
...still, I have to acknowledge that money is the root of Evil, and it's getting harder and harder as these dollar bills start to pile up where do they go and why... ...the reports get more and more vague, the report items get more and more broad, and at the end we start to see hundreds of those bills go out for consultancy, administration and travel expenses titled items... But I don't necessarily talk about ourselves but successful NGOs in general. Pitiable world we live in. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] FlaggedRevs on Hungarian Wikipedia still not working
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 11:36, Marcus Buckm...@marcusbuck.org wrote: necessary steps in six weeks. Tisza/hu.wp have done what they needed to do: File a bug at Bugzilla. If the coordination would work properly that should suffice to get the job done. It didn't. He searched to directly contact people who can help about this. And that didn't help too. So it's not Tisza's fault, he did it all right. The problem lies at the foundation level. Some processes are broken. Actually he did many more than he ought to, since he spent quite an amount of time to try to contact people on several levels. My other problem is that fixing the problem really requires five minutes times two. I understand that 100 times 5 minutes are a lot, but the bug was opened on 2009-7-22, or two months ago, with priority HIGH and severity MAJOR. Other than that we cannot do, apart from that I offered (in private email) to get the config files, do the search and replace on my machine (takes 20 seconds) and send back the file. Either prioritising in bugzilla isn't working or we're understaffed. Both can and should be fixed. I'm not blaming anyone, by the way. I'm understaffed too. ;-) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday Our romanian language in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 04:10, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is fair to say that no language belongs to a country, it belongs to all speakers... what about the hundreds of thousands of people who write Moldovan in Cyrillic? According to Wikipedia (the enciclopaedia libre of the internet, did you know that? ;)) article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language: The standard alphabet is Latin (currently official in the Republic of Moldova). Before 1989, also two versions of Cyrillic had been used: the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet in 1940-89, and the historical Romanian Cyrillic alphabet until 1857. As of 2008[update], the former remains in use only in Transnistria. This suggests that 1) language identification 'mo' is written in latin, 2) it _is_ the _moldovan_ language, 3) it is used by 90% of the population (4 million+). This hints to me as well that there is a language, which is the same, but written in cyrillic script and used in Transnistria (400 000+ people), but: 1) I do not know its ISO code (definitely not mo), 2) I do not remember the policy to host the same language in different scripts, but if we support that, we should follow the already applied naming convention (I tend to remember something similar about serbian wp?) Also I'm curious what Geni feels about them - using mo to refer to Cyrillic Moldovan is not, in my view, inaccurate, although it is not as specific as perhaps it sh/could be. It discriminates 90% of the speakers against 10% of the speakers, so I would call it inaccurate as well. I can understand the frustration of the original poster, based on these facts. Especially since I'm well aware that that region is full of national pride, even if it ends in violence. Hot headed people. :-) -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday Our romanian language in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 08:59, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: When you say that _is_ the _moldovan_ language... how does Cyrillic writing make it not Moldovan anymore? On the contarary: latin script make it not Moldovan language anymore. It's like saying old english (non latin script) should be used on enwp instead of latin, and people may possibly be sent to latin script, because how does old english scripting make it not english anymore? (Yeah sure I know, it's probably not the very same language anymore, but you may possibly see my point about what's defined as official language with any given name, and its history. If it has been declared that THE Moldavian is written in latin then cyrillic script isn't today's Moldavian language anymore. It is a historical language, like many converted from national to latin scripts in the recent decades.) Also, there is a very clear notice at the top directing people to Latin-alphabet content - it's not as if anybody is actually deprived of being able to read in their preferred script or is difficult to find. I ain't no Moldavian but I'd guess here the priorities are exchanged. Default should be latin script and it may direct anyone to historical spelling by cyrillic. And if there's one-to-one relation betwen cyrillic and latin script then we should make it automagic. Peter ps: I'm not against preserving cyrillic writing, but as it's been mentioned: it doesn't match the language code. should be at least renamed. as far as I see, which is maybe not much. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday Our romanian language in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 09:08, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: If your language is called Romanian, As a sidenote I observe a strong tension between The Romanian People and others related to the country but separated from it, or got involved its history. Often I see violent desire to separate everything possible (often from both ends), including history, language and general culture. It is like Russian culture versus countries left Russian occupation: they try to get as far from it as possible. This will is _very_ strong, and usually not about some few individuals but the nations in question as a whole. Cannot, and probably should not just shrugged away. My 2 'cents. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday Our romanian language in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !
Mark, On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 10:01, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: You seem to believe that Cyrillic for the language is a purely historical artefact when in fact it is still used in textbooks for schoolchildren and learning to read in Transnistria. I acknowledge that, but what do you want to say: 1) cyrillic form is used by the majority of speakers of Moldavian? or 2) latin form is used by majority speakers but there is a small minority who still uses cyrillic? If first, I cannot see where that data come from. If second, then I see no reason to make it the main, default form. If Cyrillic script were no longer in use for Moldovan or used only as a historical curiosity this would be a dead issue and I doubt anybody would put up any debate. Thos whole thread isnt' about debate, but a repeated request for conversion for a long time now. For me it looks like IF it WAS a historical language but nobody would have wanted to change it. I know it isn't, it's just the same case for the original poster, and *we're* debating about his language. As it is stated in the article, it is still the official script according to the PMR. Whether you recognize them as a country or an occupying force, it's undeniable that they do have _de facto_ control over the vast majority of the land between the Nistru river and the Ukrainian border and that in the Moldovan-medium schools in that area, the Cyrillic script is mostly used (I believe there are 4 schools using Latin script?) As far as I see they're still minority speakers. As far as declarations and it being declared the Latin is the only script used to write Moldovan, that's pretty meaningless in my book. Governments over the centuries have tried to impose various linguistic changes. Laws regarding language are not so relevant in our context. You're the professional in this field so you ought not to leave unnoticed the fact that many languages tend to move towards latin script due to geopolitical reasons, and you cannot just say it's a short-term political movement. Somebody should look up the proper definition of the ISO code 'mo' I guess. As far as your second e-mail about people trying to erase Russian influence, it's not so simple as you've made it seem. In Transnistria, Please observe the fact that I made a general comment about separatism and not particularly about Transnistria. I happen to be Hungarian and I could tell you about erasing Russian influence for a week, 8 hours a day sessions. I guess most ex-occupied people around could educate you about this subject as well. Generally. As for Transnistria, I guess they're separated from Moldova because Moldova wants to get away from Russia while Transnistria doesn't and this quite explains both what you say and why Moldovans want to get rid of cyrillic script. I'd say it's not polite not to recognise the desire for Moldavian people (the majority speakers) in this case, unless I'm misinformed, which is a quite valid possibility in this case, since I do not know the opinion of the Moldavian people (excluding Transnistrian people). In (the rest of) Moldova, it's also not quite so simple. There are some who believe that Moldovans are Romanians and that Moldova and Romania should be united; there are others who believe Moldovans are an independent peopel and the country should have a Russia-oriented foreign policy; there are others still who believe Moldova should separate itself from both sides. Anyone ever provided some population percentage for these groups? Maybe the poster is in a minority opinion group, maybe not. That's an important question. As far as the Latin script goes that is considered a resolved issue outside of Transnistria however. So it seems to me, but then you talk against your opinion. :-) I don't think a decision of language should be made based on our personal feelings about the former Soviet Union or Russia or empires or colonism or socialism or Stalin, I agree. rather on the simple facts of the situation... which unfortunately nobody can seem to agree on either. For me it seems that majority of speakers use latin script, and the official language definition declares latin script, and that Moldavian people agree upon it as well. I cannot say anything about Transnistrian language *smirk* which is written in cyrillic script and used by majority of Transnistrian people. mo-tr? ;) Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday Our romanian language in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !
On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 07:04, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: I thought the previous consensus was that this project was to be moved to a different domain - although outright deletion has been suggested by quite a few people I can't see where that was ever agreed to. Stats briefing: 51 active, 850 registered editors, 401 content pages and total 2300 pages, 31 uploaded files. Looks like it's not really inactive, so I'd agree to move it to mo-cyr or something, there seem to be demand for it. grin ps: MarkGerard, thanks for the background! I guess then as a language it ought to go together with Romanian. The real problem is that I'm not sure whether the editors from this two region could work together at all, like obviously mo admins should be sysopped on ro wp, etc... Not sure whether any parties would like that to see to happen. :-P ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday Our romanian language in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !
On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 08:29, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: It certainly should, ideally, be the same Wikipedia - in my opinion the ideal situation would have a converter on ro.wp. However, I don't think most Romanian Wikipedians would approve of this (as I mentioned earlier in the thread). A worrying sidenote: cheking the page http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Moldovan_Wikipedia#Motion_to_end_discussion seem to reveal that most of the people go for deletion of the mowp are Romanians. Would they support to have old mowp admins as rowp admins, wouldn't they? g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Font support for our domains
By the way Hungary supports accented domains for some years now and the experience shows that they are not used at all. Penetration is so low that I couldn't even tell you one to test. (We have, for example http://wikipédia.hu/, but it's rather a test than a real usage.) Apart from that Wikipedia is large enough to create trends, so by no means take my comment as an opposition. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Font support for our domains
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 08:02, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: The Hungarian Wikipedia is written in the Latin script I'm kind of guessed that. :-] so the experience cannot be compared. It is not the same, but indeed they can be compared. Straight denial doesn't always helpful. And no need to debate, just acknowledge the fact that people's habit may be stronger than you guess. :-) regards, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] advertising craigslist
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 14:42, Domas Mituzas midom.li...@gmail.com wrote: The Craig Newmark banner is currently running at 20% on the English Wikipedia. How much known is Craigslist outside of US, in other English speaking countries, or countries where English is used as second/primary language on the web? :) Not at all? grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] video presentation on explicit images on WMF projects
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 01:00, private musings thepmacco...@gmail.com wrote: I'm more raising the issue that what could be child pornography remains available to wmf volunteers with 'oversight' op.s on commons - I don't think HHOKyou wanna get the only fun from poor oversights, naughty naughty/HHOK ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] sell wikipedia
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 14:01, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: I can second the WikiReader! But yes: we do not charge for access to our content. Both the sites and the database dumps are usable without any charges, and have been since inception. If people want to do things with that content--download, analyze, sell, create a business model around it--they're all certainly allowed to do that, as long as they follow the license and give credit where credit is due :) Apart from that dumps are often outdated, images aren't available, et cetera Or were there changes about that recently? g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Brion Vibber delete mo. as promised ! Please wake up
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 18:42, Cetateanu Moldovanu cetatean...@gmail.com yelled at Brion... You shoot yourself in the foot with style. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner, Erik Möller , Wi lliam Pietri: Where is FlaggedRevisions?
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 18:37, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: I hope it gets implemented as soon as possible because once it does maybe people can see its failure and start thinking about some real solutions. Are you aware of the fact that it's been used in non-English wikipedias for years? And it's been quite a successful feature. YMMV. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardner, Erik Möller , Wi lliam Pietri: Where is FlaggedRevisions?
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 21:36, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: Are you aware of the fact that it's been used in non-English wikipedias for years? And it's been quite a successful feature. Years is a bit of an exaggeration. German Wikipedia was first and that was May 6, 2008. That's a little under 2 years. I stand corrected. It's been used for more than a year now, ... Much better, you're right. ;-) I don't think anyone has actually done any objective review of its success. Which does not imply it's been a failure. But generally my measure would be a) bad mood/stress level of the editors doing patrolling (which by my educated guess went down), and b) the incidents of indecent/unwanted content appearing for the wide public (which by my observation definitely went down, my guess is close to zero). There are people who thought it's a miracle and now disappointed that it wasn't. It doesn't solve world peace, hunger, and article quality problems, among other things. But what it does is basically make usual vandalism pointless. At least on my home wiki, huwp. Still it's okay for me to have it implemented and let people to see _whether_ it's a failure. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Texas Instruments signing key controversy
On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 04:26, Dan Rosenthal swatjes...@gmail.com wrote: I think you're misconstruing who is doing what here. The Foundation is not the person required to send the counter notice, nor do they have the freedom or the obligation to involve themselves in a copyright dispute between TI and another user. It's not their determination to make whether the action is necessary or not. So they are not and not theirs. Who is and whose it is? :-) (Unobfuscating: I guess he wanted to know what to do to get the information back up.) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia is fun
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 03:03, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: That would require a Sanger/Wales collaboration. Hah! That'd be the day! ;-) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Texts deleted on French Wikisource
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 11:37, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: The only catch is that by filing the counter-notice you are putting your money where your mouth is and legally asserting that you have the right to post the work (so make sure that this is correct or you may end up in a lawsuit). Absolutely. If more people were to accept responsibility for these materials it would spread the risk most wonderfully. The main problem is that people edit WP on their free time as a hobby, and they do not possess large sum of money of their family budget to offer to nondeterministic amount of risk. People are not familiar with the legal process and risk, as you people said, which means they cannot measure the risk either. They most often doesn't even plan to privately pay a lawyer to tell them about it, since it's not a wee amount. So either we wait until people want to spend their private money to lawyers to define the risk and only accept mostly low risk counternotices, or to enroll to be crash test dummies. Both highly unlikely. Or we can reasonably expect them to ask for real legal advice from (or paid by) the WMF and _then_ accept the _known_ risk to file a counter-notice. I do not say we have to do that, only that I believe people won't do it any other way. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Texts deleted on French Wikisource
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 15:54, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: We run an encyclopedia, not a free legal clinic. (By comparison, when I worked for EFF, I was actually empowered to give free legal advice to people who called in for help.) Couldn't we then use EFF for this specific occasion? Aren't they willing? Peter Gervai writes: Or we can reasonably expect them to ask for real legal advice from (or paid by) the WMF and _then_ accept the _known_ risk to file a counter-notice. What happens if they follow the legal advice from WMF and then face liability anyway? (This sometimes happens even when the best advice is given.) I'm sure that the advice would've been detailed this possible outcome as well, weighting its probability. The problem is that average editor have close to zero knowledge about the chances; either it's 80% that you'll get sued successfully, 50% that it's gonna happen or 5% (or maybe 0%). WMF is not insured against the malpractice lawsuit that community members might bring in that case. I'm sure you have at least a dozen way to phrase your possible disclaimer. :-))) But I was mainly referred to the request to people to back up their claim with counternotices, and why this wasn't realistic. If nobody can give advice then I don't expect people to take undefined risks. And I do not expect WMF to be able to give that advice, acknowledged. We're clearly not equipped for that. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia trade mark misuse
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 17:25, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote many things. My sidenote is that if you believe in what you say then you imply Wikipedia, Wikimedia and everything we have with 'wiki' string in it, and every method we use which described as 'wiki-way of web publishing' violates Ward's intellectual rights since it was him who first used the word, who conjured up the method and made it known. He didn't, doesn't, and won't, and never intended to interfere, however please realise that wiki was _well_before_ Wikipedia, both the term and the method, and we just use them out of the kindness of Ward [courtesy of Ward - if it were a commercial thing :)]. Trying to claim rights on someone else's work is at best uncivilised. (But of course the legal way is that if you'd try to trademark it it would be nullified by prior art in five seconds.) I would like this thread to stop as it's now really just a waste of precious bits of ones and zeroes. I guess the original question was overanswered now. Let's move on to real problems. World peace, anyone? Thanks, [[user:grin|g]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Gmail - List messages flagged as spam
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 12:30, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: A few of us noticed this several days back. If you check some of the blacklists, lists.wikimedia.org seems to have some people's naughty list. Don't know if that's whats causing it or not though. It usually does, but right now I don't see it listed to any relevant lists. (last time I checked google doesn't care much about irrelevant ones) Of course the other reason might be lots of people pressing SPAM button in gmail g ps: backscatterer is a joke and sorbs useless due to payware removals. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Your abuse of moderator status
On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 17:50, Andre Engels andreeng...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not sure whether I am though. This message plus the discussion that was the base of it has cost me 50 Euros in things I broke throwing them through my room, plus a severe loss of feeling of self-worth. I don't think that's worth it. By the way I'm sure there are several of us who agree in Jefrrey being very much off limits, offending, and doing it at the wrong place, which is usually shortened as being a troll. Wikipedia, wikimedia and the people around here are working with, based on and most definitely agree with open content and other free licenses, the whole project lives of and based on them, so starting a propaganda against it _HERE_ is definitely a very unwise and offending move. Without much thinking it's obvious that it will generate strong emotions, harsh attacks, and lots of ad hominem debates, and nothing, really nothing good will be created as a result. Not accepting the fact that people who create open content are going to fight against businesses who try to destroy open content is a clueless thing to do. Debating it is similarly clueless act. You do not start debate someone's existence with him. I (among others) strongly agree in Jeffrey being moderated until he realise that his propaganda really does not belong here. It is against almost everybody's world view around here, and offending a whole community with reasons we consider at best baseless is extremely counterproductive. And, as a sidenote, we're not pirates, robbers, murderers or rapers. [And other artifically emotion-filled buzzwords supporting the closed-content based businesses, pick your favourite.] We _create_ open content. We _create_ copyrighted materials (and license them for free). Jeffrey, among others, is using our products, our content. That is what Creative Commons is about. To protect our interests, business or other. And who are you, or anyone, to attack our interests based on our own content...? And as a different sidenote: if you hate it, stop using it. Try to live your life without using open source, open content. Go on. First, stop using this list, because it is run on open source software, running on open source servers. Then you may well unplug your internet connection, since good chance is that you connect to one of such servers. You mostly better stop using the web, since the servers are open source by large. Stop email. You may even have to avoid some mobile phones, Tv set top boxes, DVD players, music players, and so on. Oh and avoid Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia content, and mostly all wikis. Fortuinately you can eat and drink and breath. But avoid computers since they'll surely pollute your business-based pureness with open content filth. *smirk* -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Your abuse of moderator status
On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 21:31, Rich Holton richhol...@gmail.com wrote: Please, someone confirm for me that he was not put on moderation because of his views, but rather because of his behavior! Definitely for his language. There are people with simlarly radical views unmoderated. :-) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] ASCAP comes out against copyleft
On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 08:17, Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.com wrote: As Andrew pointed out, this discussion has spiraled entirely outside the scope of this list. Discussions on the effects of copyright law with regard to Wikimedia and its projects are welcome. General discussions on copyright law and piracy that have little to do with Wikimedia should be taken elsewhere. Yes please! Guys! Self-restraint. Thanks, g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Increasing the number of new accounts who actually edit
On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 18:49, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: It would take a major effort to get individual wiki communities to And by that you mean communities on enwp? :-) People bite everywhere, and the reasons are the same as well, as you properly pointed out. Enpw is the largest so people bite there most often. (That's because there's ridiculous amounts of complete rubbish to sift through. I'm not saying it's simple or easily remedied negligence on the part of existing community members, because if it was it would have been trivially remedied by now.) But still I agree that the original topic is mostly non-problem. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 09:55, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: I also don't understand who would want a printed copy of a Wikipedia article. Me neither, but if some people want it, why not. Like: - to show non-internet people that that wikipedia thing is not another stupid homepage but look, it could produce a real, serious, reliable (no, really!) book - to use it as demo material - give it as an award - books look real and serious, phychologically have more value than a webpage - using a book means more focused attention and less possible deviations from the topic by clicking unrelated links It's just another media for the information to be shared. We should be happy to have the possibility, helps our goal. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 08:06, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: So the real issue here shouldn't be whether any other book binder is comparable, but rather whether any other book binder *wants* to be listed. Right on spot. Does any? Are there any others? I'm for listing them all. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Use Wikipedia as a Marketing Tool
On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 17:31, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: http://www.inc.com/managing/articles/201001/wikipedia.html It is not a bad article. Basically tells the company to establish their presence, to join the general work on Wikipedia, and start a short article and let the community to join. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 10:35, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: (Any cases I've missed there?) The madmen. Or is that overlaying both? :) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia, the Pedia that used to be a Wiki
2011/1/5 Виктория mstisla...@gmail.com: You can compare Flagged Revvs to Soviet Union, after all, Jaron Lanier is etc. I guess that the original poster has a point: we use external services which may or may not be trivial to change or update. It is not important which country, group or whatever entity runs them, and it is indeed useful to have them. What we maybe need is some standards regarding widely used externals. Don't think anything fancy: all service should have a page on the referenced wiki (or on tooldox.wikimedia.org or whatever) which defines the service, its authors, their contacts, and specified the data source, the updating process (if it requires more explanation, like waiting for a revision to be flagged), the refreshment interval and expected update of the data changed. So if anyone see a bad entry can look up how to change, and how and when the update goes live. Knowledge is power. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No rights to participate
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 18:44, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: My point Fred, is there is no such animal. So calling something a private website is redundant, since all websites are private, there are no public websites. Certainly there are websites owned by governments, but they are not public in the sense above that there is guaranteed access to *modify* their contents. Let's turn it the other way: there is hardly _any_ objects on the internet where anyone have the legal *right* to do anything at all. (Be that websites or other services.) Local governmental sites may offer local citizens services which they do have legal right to access and the provider have no right to deny them access, but I'm sure even these sites have terms of service which makes it possible to deny these rights for certain behaviours. I doubt anyone would provide an internationally accessible service usable by people's personal rights, ever. So, the original question was wrong and the answer was proper: nobody have legal right to use the Wikimedia projects (or, in fact, any websites), and no court could probably enforce that against the terms of the services of the given site. (Maybe not even beyond that, at all.) Every websites are private property, and you're either a customer using the service, or related to the owner somehow; in all other cases you're fobidden to utilise someone else's resources, and you may be offered legal charges for that. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Informing BLP subjects
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 16:46, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: Re the idea of informing BLP subjects that we have a biography on them. Most LPs would read such email as a request for editing, which is basically removing negative parts (regardless of its sourcing) and boosting positive parts, possibly include lots of irrelevant details. That is my _guess_, based on a specific LP I know [myself]. :) [[user:grin]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Elections 2009 ( 2011 ? ) Bots
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 14:37, Анатолій Гончаров ah...@wikimediaukraine.org.ua wrote: My bot was invited: user AHbot Does he (she?) have an opinion? :) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 13:56, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: use case for a project like Knol, which was advertised as Wikipedia killer once, but didn't grow much. Minor note: as far as I know, *no-one* from Knol/Google ever claimed it had anything to do with WIkipedia. The entire notion appeared to me to have arisen in the technical press in the week after Knol's announcement, apparently on the basis that both were written by unfiltered contributors, which was still a radical notion to the press at the time. The comparison stuck, but I know of no evidence that that was the intention. As a miscellaneous minor addition I'd say that in one point of view (where someone accepts the fact that google intends not to do evil) google hardly ever create a new feature to kill others but to satisfy their own needs to have it, either by technically or business-wise (eg. when they wanted to have the feature and the already existing technology owner don't want to sell it :)). So in that point of view I'd say there isn't really anything they release with the purpose of killing anyone in particular (much to the contrary of some of their rivals I'd prefer not to name here). However this doesn't change the fact that this may very well result the smaller, original service to stagnate, lose population or die entirely, just because the movement of interest of the people. This have happened by their search engine (anyone remembers the name Altavista? Excite?), and may well happen again in the future. Wikipedia is, however, a pretty strong feature, with large, active community and pretty well defined and working workflows (with their own problems, yes, but it is pretty good anyway). It requires something extraordinary to move such amounts of people over, probably along the way of grabbing the current database and make something very new out of it. I don't expect this to happen soon. Well regarding the original question, the mentioned policy is just a human readable translation of the license, or the effects of it. Creating free content means basically to disown it, to release modification rights, and to accept the fact that anyone can fork it, change it or incorporate it. In exchange of this you get free access to the work of OTHERS with the same freedom, and you act as a catalyser for more free content to be created. That is the deal, regardless of the phrasing of this or any similar policies. You release your rights to disallow others to use your content for (almost) whatever they please. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 15:24, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: In such cases, as an Israeli saying goes, i am right, but i am not clever. It hurts that person and it hurts the project, because that person may otherwise be a very valuable contributor and such things often make people resign. And every time it happens i spend months thinking how i could avoid it. I am not sure it is a valuable contributor who do not accept the base of the community work, who do not spend time to understand the legal license what is being used publishing and don't even take the time to listen to others. S/he may be a future valuable contributor after serious education. Time. Energy. So, are we doomed to experience such things every once in a while? Definitely. People fight WARS over ownership of nothings. We're a pretty stupid, stubborn race. You know that very well in Israel. ;-) Or does anyone have a bright idea about improving the balance between ownership and wiki-ness? Apart from starting their own projects, I don't think so. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] en.wp HACKED?
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:13, Domas Mituzas midom.li...@gmail.com wrote: What was it that lasted only a minute, Chris? Vandalism, probably. I've read an article that vandalism lasts about a minute! Impossible. I'm sure one minute has passed but I still see vandalism occasionally. :-) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 16:15, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: 2011/6/17 Peter Gervai grin...@gmail.com: On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 15:24, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: I am not sure it is a valuable contributor who do not accept the base of the community work, who do not spend time to understand the legal license what is being used publishing and don't even take the time to listen to others. Well, yes, but this solution is too easy. By no means is this a solution, I just clearing the meaning of the terms. :-) This can be a valuable contributor, because he has extensive knowledge about a certain topic and has the time and the skill to write about it. We have a community tradition of doing things wiki way, but people who don't like the wiki idea can still be excellent physicist, historians or engineers, and we should want them to write for our projects. This _could_ be a valuable contributor in the future. He is not at the moment, since not understanding the basic principles means continuous conflicts with _everyone_. Experts are great possible valuable contributors, right after they understand and accept the wiki way. See below. Experts with writing skills can find other venues to publish their writings. It is us who want to publish these writings more widely and with a free license - freely share in the sum of all knowledge. So we need them more than they need us. In my experience there are two kinds of experts, and both sets are nice persons, to note it as the first thing, and they have low amount of free time both, which they intend to spend productively. One kind loves to share knowledge, to correct others' mistakes and don't worry about copyrights. These people are usually already valuable contributors, only mildly annoyed by being corrected by amateurs (or worse, the lunatics). The other kind have vast experience, is very important person globally or in his/her fields (collected prizes, scientific degrees, etc.) and publishes extensively, possibly earning money on the way. This kind wants to share his knowledge but expects humble respect from the others, and understanding silence from the unskilled masses. They are usually very picky about publishing rights, and find it unacceptable that someone modifies their work, not to mention correcting it. This second kind is a very hard problem. Some of them will never be a wikipedia contributor, because they understand and reject free license. We have to respect their opinion and accept the decision, maybe try convincing them to change their view from time to time. But some of them are willing to publish but have to be educated about the way the free world works, about its pros and cons, whys and hows. I do not think educating a scientific genius about a community is outrageous; they usually willing to familiarize with new concepts. And we really have to spend time and energy to explain to them, to answer their questions and respond to their doubts. We - locally - have some editors who are willing to communicate with the scientific and literary people to help them get the point, and often it works out well, and sometimes it isn't be because they find it unacceptable to debate with an idiot or two, which occasionally happens. But if other editors willing to help to fend off idiots and let them concentrate on real talk between working editors then it could work. And be bold. :-) You're knowledgeable enough to teach anyone how free licensed content works. Most experts are oblivious about this topic. S/he may be a future valuable contributor after serious education. Time. Energy. Again, it's true, but in practice i feel too awkward to educate a person who is often older and much more educated than i am. Don't. The real smart people want to know new ways. Give them respect but be confident that you know the community better. Peter Hungary ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] It Is not Us
On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 16:03, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: The web itself is passé http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-facebook-vs-the-rest-of-the-web-2011-6 Actually, we missed the boat, but that ship sailed long ago. That is funny, I like statistics. Like, how can you compare a virtually contentless and worthless (in the sense of future-proofness) social network to a content carrying service network? Obviously they can. I mean, Facebook grows slower than bacteria in the Amasonas rain forests, I'm sure they're very worried about that. And the amount of snowflakes in the Arctic, it's much more than the number of FB profile pictures. Worrying. (I cannot just come up anything on facebook providing any value after a few hours it's been posted. Even likes for a business are of questionnable value, to put it in the mildest tone.) But I understand your long standing, almost traditional worry about Wikipedia's future. ;-) Peter ps: my 2 'cents. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] It Is not Us
On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 17:43, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Wikipedia should be more like a social network. It provides us with the well wikipedia is about to create value for long term - social networks are about to create worthless things for the moment. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Xmldatadumps-l] Wikipedia dumps downloader
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 10:12, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On 06/27/2011 01:07 PM, emijrp wrote: If you create a way to sync images partially (let's say, the base letters inside of the directory structure), a couple of dozens of Wikimedians could create a couple of dozens of backups. I could host on my personal computer ~500GB, which approximates one letter. Some chapters have servers with storage space, too. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] largest free content website
On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 08:26, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: 2. Million Books Project http://www.ulib.org/ LOTS of copyrighted and dubious content, by random checking. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] largest free content website
On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 13:04, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: The Million Book Project is a bit better, but they often don't include sufficient metadata and I've seen many works with a year of publication that is post 1950 yet pre-1923 is used as the public domain justification. Or they actually list that it's copyrighted and show only 15% of the content. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 12:46, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: This a serious and urgent problem; and the foundation need to look into it quickly. In no circumstances should Wikipedia users be receiving copies of other people's identity documents - it is a privacy nightmare! It is always pretty easy to form a strong opinion as an outsider about an external community and without examining the background. I belive that established, viable and useful methods have to be examined very thoughtfully and thoroughly before anyone form an opinion, ESPECIALLY when this someone is not involved in the said project. It is not just wise but a polite way to go. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 19:18, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: The next question becomesand what does this trusted person do with the information? If it is destroyed promptly, then there's really not much point; if it is retained, I'd like to see how this meets local and EU privacy policies. Well I don't know about your EU but in ours we have a method called collecting private data by agreement for a given purpose and it is completely legal. If I say to you that you have to provide this and that private data if you want me to do this and that and I will collect your private data for that very purpose, and you agree, then I am legally allowed to collect and handle it. You have the right to disagree and leave the agreement and not to use the given service. My 2 'cents. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns
Well I guess that people get blocked by good reasons and along with policies, and they would stay blocked. No need to send anything to anyone, they stay blocked, everything's normal. If someone want to have an extreme exception and want to show a good reason to be extremely exeptionaly handled s/he can choose this extremely exceptional way to have this _infinite_ block nevertheless removed. The whole process is exceptional and happens by the choice of the given person, I do not see any urge or need to use it. I'm sure that if the block was not justified it can be removed by normal process, right? g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 22:53, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 July 2011 21:28, Peter Gervai grin...@gmail.com wrote: We're not saying it's illegal. He just said that. I did not reply to your statements. :-) We're saying it's grossly unfit for Wikimedia and laughs at the privacy policy. Possibly, and you seem quite cautious forming opinion in strong words. Others, however, seemed to start by calling the firing squad. The current privacy policy is a good one, which doesn't mean that the dutch method originated in Satan's will. Identity verification and desockpuppetisation :-) seems to be a logical pairing to me, even if I find it a bit extreme, too. Seem to work though. And if the details of the handling of private data is well outlined and confined it could be a good thing to have. However, you say that pointing out that something ridiculously bad is ridiculously bad is impolite. So I guess that makes it all okay then. Not really what I said. I intended to say that calling something ridiculously bad without examining all the backgrounds and the way it's used and its effectiveness and its real life problems (if there ever has any) is impolite. It's like calling someone stupid without trying to understand his reasoning. I do not find it ridiculously bad, for example, but that is strictly my opinion. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 23:10, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: I'm thinking more of whether or not it is retained, and precisely how it is retained. Is it kept in a locked box somewhere? Sitting on someone's desk? Accessible to other individuals? Which is clearly the good way to ask the questions. It's how the process works, why this way, how is it effective? How the data handled, secured, used and destroyed? And what are the experiences, how effective it was, what problems it caused (apart from trolls coming to and fro complaining)? I do not know, I ain't no dutch, and haven't been banned so far. ;-) I'm an outsider. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We need to make it easy to fork and leave
On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 09:38, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: A comprehensive fork would probably need ad revenue more than the WMF unless it has deep pockets to get it going. I don't think this is a requirement. Wikipedia have to support enormous amount of traffic while a fork don't expect such. I'm sure I could easily fork enwp with just one machine, and handle a few hundred visitors a day, or even in an hour. I believe Fred Bauder have made a fork of a kind (yes I know it used a different method) and I guess he do see the traffic stats and resource requirements to do that. ;-) By the way someone asked about reasons to fork. A very possible reason could be when an established (senior) editor gets mass attacked and/or banned and/or having to work in a very hostile environment. (Not just a few editors avoid commons for the very reason that they feel images tend to disappear without warning. I try to handle these cases, nevertheless, but I know it happens. It happens on enwp often that religious/nationalist pressure drives editors away, and if someone is involved enough s/he may feel the need to fork and continue the work with a different ruleset.) -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter
On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 10:08, Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com wrote: A strong majority of 86% percent voted to not allow the personal image filter [2] , despite the fact that the board already decided to introduce the feature. I believe it is a fair assumption that we have voted for developing the feature, so wikipedias who need it can activate and use it, while those who do not want to use it will not request its activation, or will request its deactivation. I see no technical reason not to do that so I see no reason not to do it this way. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter
On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 11:23, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: I believe it is a fair assumption that we have voted for developing the feature, Citation needed. Well I am the universally official source for my own beliefs. But then you state that WMF will make it compulsory for all projects to activate the feature? (Citation is welcome, sure, but not required.) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter
On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 11:31, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 16 September 2011 10:27, Peter Gervai grin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 11:23, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: I believe it is a fair assumption that we have voted for developing the feature, Citation needed. Well I am the universally official source for my own beliefs. I mean the claim that we have voted for developing the feature, obviously. Please read what I wrote, you have quoted it. If I wanted to write we have voted as then I would have written just that. I didn't. If you have no evidence for this claim, say so. Well I do not have the original poll handy but as far as I remember it it was about what we think would be good to have, what to would like to see implemented. I do not remember any question about making it compulsory. Do you? I would also suggest, more generally, that a strategy of asserting that consensus was reached wanting the feature, when this is strongly not the case, is unlikely to convince people - particularly when the discussion is about strong evidence of consensus *against*. I am not sure what is the point debating this with _me_. (Apart from my person I mean.) I am not German. I am not active on DEWP. I voted for the feature, and I believe it's good to have it. You try to teach a lesson to me about your own troubles, but I really cannot help it. The only thing I can offer my views are the global poll about the feature, and yes, it wasn't a strong concensus. But even it it were I do not think we should change the otherwise very well working method of WMF *not* messing with local projects apart from the very basic principles like the five pillars. This feature isn't *that* important - this is my opinion, please save me from asking a citation. If you're so sure there's strong consensus in favour of it, I suggest we run a series of polls, similar to the de:wp poll, which I'm sure will show that lots of people want the feature. Ironically this was what I was talking about, and what you were rejecting. All I say is that if a local project vote not to use a feature then they shouldn't have to. If you disagree with that one you can simply say it, but do not try (and fail) to describe what I want to convince people about, please. g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] just wondering, are we going to take down en.wikipedia.org?
On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 04:05, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: as I did. We both spend a lot of time making sure Wikipedia is always up and available for people to read, so it's painful to see a small proportion of a wiki's users decide to take a whole wiki offline for everyone. But let's not forget that no matter how stable a cluster is the site could be brought down by a single paper from the law enforcement, politicians and alike. Life is not always as simple as make backups and you'll be safe for ever. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blackout notice errors (English Wikipedia)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 06:35, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: Can someone please correct the following errors in the English Wikipedia's blackout notice? Just a foreigner sidenote: we got the notice about SOPA and PIPA which does not start by defining, or even linking to what SOPA and PIPA is, what they are shorthand for, and background if anoone wants. It could be (should be) links on the same site, wikipedia style, as we always do. We raise awareness, so what about those who were not aware their existence at all? I barely know PIPA for example, but obviously I'm experienced enough to look it up in search engines, but not everyone can. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions
On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 03:35, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: By far the majority of people who come up and buck the system or challenge established knowledge in this manner are, in fact, kooks or people with an agenda. This started - as others have pointed out - with a few fields where this is narrowly but clearly established, but has been successfully generalized. Let us acknowledge some obvious truths here, that we had bad info in an article, that we had a scholar unfamiliar with WP process whose first attempt to correct it went somewhat (but not horrifically) wrong, that the engagement of a number of WP editors/administrators failed to identify the credibility of the scholar and wrongness of the info. To simply toss UNDUE in response seems a mistake. UNDUE is, every day, actively helping us fight off crap trying to fling itself into WP. Okay, I preacknowledge that this is not a solution but for me it seems that the problem is to differentiate kooks from experts in regard of not widespread information or selfmade but published research which is important for the articles etc. So far editors have a tool, UNDUE, to hush away kooks. I'd envision an IAMEXPERT template which would inform the editors that the expert in question considers himself an acknowledged expert (and therefore there are other experts who consider him one), the information was in fact peer reviewed and would kindly ask the editors to allocate a bit more consideration. What if the template is used by kooks? Well, they should somehow back up the facts, how are they acknowledged as experts, what kind of peer review happened, and most importantly establish why the minority fact is important. Do the kooks they fight against possessing proof of their expertise in the field? Do they have reviewed sources? If yes, this hack wouldn't even work. But if all the kooks are just selfmade evangelists of kookery they'll simply fail to prove their right. The template would be just a request for the editors to strongly consider the appropriateness of UNDUE. Could be nicely phrased and offer the background. A tool for the other side. grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions
On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 09:32, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.com wrote: Jokes aside :) the problem here is exemplary of what Wikipedia *doesn't* do well, which is to find ways to assess the legitimacy of not-yet-legitimised knowledge - whether the 'truth' is new analysis backed up by serious scholarship (as in this case), or things that have not yet made it to reliable print scholarship (knowledge that's circulated orally, whether in conversations or social media). The core of the problem would appear to be our insistence on the narrowest and smallest possible definition of 'legitimate knowledge'. And I'd imagine that the solution is to find a workable, sensible and cross-culturally translatable version of legitimacy that is a lot better, bigger and more generous than what we have. Thank you, that is a well phrased description of what I wanted to write. -- byte-byte, grin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] UK Parliament Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions
On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 03:52, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: The UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions is due to release its report shortly. Evidence submitted to it over the past months is now available online on the UK Parliament's website, at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/joint-committees/Privacy_and_Injunctions/JCPIWrittenEvWeb.pdf As far as I see someone aggressively tries to push his personal opinions as widely accepted facts. Nothing unusual. Peter ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
