Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's go gender neutral

[Marco Chiesa]

I kinda second this, as a non native speaker the singular they sounds
awkward/confusing/wrong/whatever. Maybe something like "the person's"
(I hope everyone would self-recognize in this), "one's own", no
adjective at all. It's a bit hard for me to understand that some
person does not self recognize in either "he" or "she", but in the end
it's always good to learn something new, and if something can be done
to make everyone feel welcome, let's try it.
By the way, I guess a few centuries ago the "singular you" would have
sounded strange as well...

Marco

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 6:04 PM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> As a non native English speaker, I positively hate this. When you want to
> say that a picture of a photographer whatever, you do not have to say "his
> or her", it suffices to say "when a picture of a photographer is to be
> used, prior permission has to be asked" or whatever.
>
> Yes, it may please you but this practise is not taught in schools and given
> the size of the non-native community ... don't do this
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Maps for Haiti

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> What the current state of play is that the WIkimaps people have it that it
> cannot be done. That it will be denied.

I don't understand your point. To be honest, I don't understand the
relation between Wikimaps (I understand it's this:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikimaps ) and
OpenStreetMap
>
> So no. Could we have it and if so, THEN we may ask he Haitian community if
> they want it. The same thing applies to other Wikipedias that want to show
> maps of Haiti.

On the Italian Wikipedia we can see OSM maps of Haiti (see
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti on the top right the link "Mappa"
will popup the OSM map of Haiti); I guess the community asked at some
point.
I don't know how it works on mobiles, and whether it would work on
Wikipedia Zero programs, but on a technical level it is definitely
doable.

Marco

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Cebuano and Waray-waray Wikipedias among Top 10

[Marco Chiesa]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Gerard Meijssen
gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hoi,
 When people do not edit Wikipedia we are talking about a situation that
 does not exist.

 I wholeheartedly disagree with you as you mistake the process with the
 product. Our aim is to produce a product and we should endeavour to provide
 it in a SMART way.  We lose out when we do not do the best we can. Our best
 is NOT sitting on our hands keeping information that is available to
 ourselves for secondary reasons. Yes, we can write articles and yes they
 may be better but as long as we do not provide information we do a half
 arsed job. A job that is qualitatively and quantitatively inferior.
 Thanks,

This is a kind of discussion that cyclically comes back, and I guess
there is no correct answer. Wikipedia was born on the internet, and is
designed to work on the internet, which means that as soon as it
provides good links and good connection between links, it helps to get
access to knowledge. It is not something that is supposed to be read
from the beginning to the end (it's simply too big), so it is
difficult to talk about the quality of the product as a whole. There
are good articles, bad articles, wrong articles, uncovered topics; so
the experience really depends on the reader's needs. Automatically
created articles generally offer a good base, they're as accurate as
their sources in providing basic data, and are often a good base to
build upon. In some cases no one will build upon them, but even thus
they do fulfill a need. Indicators are a simplification of a more
complex object, so they can only tell a limited amount of things. We
know that article count can be inflated by automatically creating
stubs on very specialistic topics, average page weight by adding
code-rich templates and so on, but as soon as people are aware of the
fact, I don't see the problem.

We are now at a stage where a huge number of articles already exist,
and where a big share of the creation content can be automated; if we
stop now building the encyclopedia, we still have a great product that
can help people; a lot of data could be kept up to date using only
automated tools, although it will eventually look old. At the end of
the day, classical Latin literature has had no active community for
centuries, and is still perfectly usable.

Marco (Cruccone)

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Works which can't be freely licensed

[Marco Chiesa]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 1:23 PM, Amir E. Aharoni 
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:


 Another example from the Free software world is TeX, which can be relevant
 here: It is released under a Free license, and modification is allowed, but
 modified versions cannot be called TeX. See
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#License


If I'm not wrong, cc-whatever specifies that the author of the primitive
work has no responsability on derivative works, and I think that a clause
that limits the name of derivative works is not in contrast with the
license. We are used to Wikimedia projects, where the last saved version is
the version, but actually any version is a derivative work of the
previous versions.



 Making it ND is a problem not just because of free licensing purism. Just
 for the sake of the example, let's say that this normative grammar is a
 book in four parts: pronunciation, spelling, morphology and syntax. I am
 teaching a course on Serbian morphology and I want to use the corresponding
 chapter, and no others. Printing all chapters would waste paper, but
 printing only one chapter would violate the ND clause. Of course, teachers
 all around the world do it all the time anyway, but we don't want to
 violate anything, right? :)


Teachers most often can invoke fair use; however, for our sake, we would
like to be able to go beyond that. Even without using ND clauses, we could
think of some superprotection way of ensuring that the reference work is
not modified (and whatever derivative work is something else).
Cruccone
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

[Marco Chiesa]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 12:07 PM, JP Béland lebo.bel...@gmail.com wrote:

 Russavia wrote To crop the
 logo out to appear as it does in your linked to image, it would be a
 copyvio.  Doesn't the free license we use is supposed to allow (and even
 force) any modifications of an image to be free also?


Not necessarily. Basically, you cannot release rights you don't have. A
simple example: let's say you have a free photo of politician A, and a free
photo of porn star B (in some explicit pose). If you crop the head of A and
paste on the body of B, it will probably considered illegal in quite a
large number of countries. In this case, it's still free copyright-wise...

Cruccone



___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

[Marco Chiesa]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Tim Davenport shoehu...@gmail.com wrote:



 Compare and contrast to the goal of illustrating an encyclopedia with the
 best images available, making use of American fair use law to which such
 illustrations are legally entitled.

 Tim Davenport
 Carrite on WP
 Corvallis, OR


Oh well, there's a lot of the world outside the US, not necessarily
speaking English, in case you forgot.
Cruccone
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons copyright extremism

[Marco Chiesa]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 6:02 PM, Katherine Casey 
fluffernutter.w...@gmail.com wrote:

 All sniping aside, it seems to me the problem (question?) here is whether
 Commons's interpretation of package copyright is legally accurate, or
 whether it is (like many of our projects' copyright policies) deliberately
 a bit overbroad. If their packaging policy is Just How Copyright Works,
 then there's not a lot we can do. Steven's points about feeling
 unappreciated/bitten are something that could be worked on, but we can't
 exactly change copyright law. If their packaging policy overreaches actual
 copyright law, then it would be a matter of trying to adjust the Commons
 policy to be more in line with real copyright law. Either way, neckbeards,
 toxicity, and whining really have nothing to do with the point of this
 conversation.


This starts to be interesting, I think Katherine is making a good point. Is
copyright law really so strict, or is Commons taking the strictest
interpretation? In this case, we are in a situation where the copyright
owner will probably prefer to have is rights violated by Wikipedia
showing its products than having them respected by deleting the file. But
we are the free encyclopedia, and respect of copyright law is one of the
principles we're based on, no matter how fair and convenient going round it
it can be.
Steven makes a good point when saying that it's more likely to be blamed
for a mistake than to be thanked for doing 1000 things well, but that's
happens everytime in life. Russavia is answering maybe too rudely, but he's
perfectly right. Really, when I read copyright claims based on I own the
object, that's nothing to discuss, RTFM is the best answer.
Now, we may wonder why our strict policies on copyright, which highlight
the absurdities it leads to, have no impact on copyright law (which
generally tends to change to more restrictive). EDP's may be partly
responsible for this, but probably not so much.

Cruccone



___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:40 AM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote:


 Our biggest issue is copyright infringement. We have had the Indian
 program, we have had issues with the Education program, and I have today
 come across a user who has made nearly 20,000 edits to 1,742 article since
 2006 which appear to be nearly all copy and pasted from the sources he has
 used.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DrMicro#Copyright_infringement
 This
 has seriously shaken my faith in Wikipedia.


Back in 2007 we found out a user on it.wp, a former sysop, with more than
40,000 edits that used to copy-paste from his sources, often outdated. He
was banned, and the community made a great effort to cleanup the articles
he contributed to (and damn it was hard, because those articles had a long
history after his edits). And in the following years, we had other similar
cases, you can find a selection here:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Cococo/Controlli_conclusi
There are bots that go and look whether a newly inserted block of text is
already present somewhere else, it doesn't find everything  (of course it
won't find things copied from a printed book), but sooner or later serial
copyviolers get caught, and the fall from hero to zero is sooo quick.

At the end of the day, I think copyvios have always been taken seriously,
so that I don't remember big problems with that, while there have always
been more problems with libel, privacy, and editor retention.


Marco (Cruccone)
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Hoi
 I know several authors who publish and use their original text to publish
 on Wikipedia as well.. This is another source of false positives because
 they have the copyright to the original source... To recognise this you
 have to be even more sophisticated.


Actually, we consider these as copyvios, we delete the text straight away,
and we tell the editor if you're the author write to OTRS. Of course, if
the text is already somewhere else under a compatible free-license, we
don't need this. Until you can't be sure that User:MrX is actually the
physical person MrX, we need to protect the author's right.

Marco
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org wrote:


 But an automated tool can not know whether OTRS verification has happened
 or not.

 We put something like {{OTRS verified}} in the article's talk page,
something saying: Part of the text comes from website X, ticket 1234567890.
And if the author wants to use his work for many articles, we tell him/her
to put the template in all his/her articles' talk page.
Marco
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant in the room

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org wrote:


 The problem isn't that we're waiting for perfection. We're waiting for the
 proportion of false positives and false negatives to fall to a level where
 don't overwhelm the true positives.


To avoid false positives from mirrors, the best option is to compare a text
as soon as it is saved. Also, you exclude certain websites from the
comparison because you know they're the mirrors, you exclude rollbacks, ...
Then, it is better to have a human checking that it is really a copyvio (it
could well be a public domain text, or another Wikipedia article).

Marco
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Office hours for VisualEditor

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:02 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:


 Yes, time designation are human conventions, but there is no more
 ambiguity about where  lies there than there is about where 7 lies
 amongst the integers.  If there are people who are confused and think
 that it comes after 11, they are simply in error and saying starting at
 8 when you mean starting immediately after 6 to placate them doesn't
 help anyone.


I guess we can keep discussing on semantics forever, or deciding that
whatever we were talking about would start at 00:01 UTC

NMarco
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Is the capability to delete usernames compatible with the CCBYSA license?

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote:


 While morality is a subjective matter, a more interesting question is:
 is this behavior compatible with the CCBYSA license? Say we have
 version A of a text, vandalised in version B and reverted in revision
 C. Then version C is a work derived from version B, shouldn't it
 credit the full author list of version B?


Actually, following the same philosophy, one should wonder whether the
person reverting from version B to version C should be kept in the
contributor's list. At the end of the day, version C is an exact copy of
version A (i.e. no creative input of editor C), and version B is a
derivative version of version A, but versions C+1 and following are not
derivative versions of B, only of A and previous.



 Going further, say that someone with an offensive username (or even
 just an username unaccepted on wikipedia, such as a company name)
 actually makes a valid edit, which is not reverted, but the name is
 removed from the history. Is it fine to ignore the license just
 because we find some usernames offensive? Shouldn't we instead credit
 the user *at least* with a pseudonym?


I guess a pseudonym is the correct way to deal with this situation

Cruccone
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] What community initiatives have made an impact on editor engagement?

[Marco Chiesa]

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Denny Vrandečić 
denny.vrande...@wikimedia.de wrote:

 Wait - removing the captchas lead to a decrease of reverted edits in terms
 of absolute numbers? Woot? Anyone has an explanation for that?



Maybe a CAPTCHA is effective at demotivating bona fide editors and
motivates vandal, which vandalize as a revenge for the CAPTCHA? That would
be interesting :)
Marco



___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thanks for all the fish!

[Marco Chiesa]

On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am leaving the movement. I thought to leave it quietly, with just a
 bit more than a few words to stewards and Wikimedia Serbia, but after
 the first question why I am leaving, I realized that I actually owe to
 many of you the explanation for leaving the movement after almost 10
 years.



It's a pity to hear that Millosh is taking a long WikiBreak. Wikimedia will
be more boring now.
Thanks for all you've given, I wish you all the best

Marco (Cruccone)
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

[Marco Chiesa]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 4:29 AM, James Forrester
jforres...@wikimedia.orgwrote:


 Unfortunately, some accounts are currently not unique across all our
 wikis, but instead clash with other users who have the same account
 name. To make sure that all of these users can use Wikimedia's wikis
 in future, we will be renaming a number of accounts to have ~” and
 the name of their wiki added to the end of their accounts' name. This
 change will take place on or around 27 May. For example, a user called
 “Example” on the Swedish Wiktionary who will be renamed would become
 “Example~svwiktionary”.


Why did you choose to insert the character  ~? Many keyboards do not have
such a key.
Cruccone
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l