Re: [Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books
On 14/03/12 13:17, Milos Rancic wrote: There is ~20 volumes Serbian Encyclopedia in progress, likely to be finished around 2050. I have no idea what would be the purpose of that Milos, please. It will likely be finished around 2025. paper encyclopedia at that time, but I know that it is getting significant money from Serbian authorities. Again, please. They only receive a quarter of million euros per year. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 22:27 +0100, David Gerard wrote: On 22 October 2011 22:23, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote: I wanted to say this for a long time, and now seems like a good opportunity. I see this as a tyranny of the majority. I understand that a large majority of German Wikipedia editors are against the filter. But even if 99.99% of editors are against the filter, well, it is opt-in and they don't have to use it. But why would they prevent me from using it, if I want to use it? Because a non-neutral filter would have to warp the project around itself to work at all, as has been detailed at length here (and I have to admit I haven't been following the entire discussion, but I don't see why would that have to be the case. Plus, it is my understanding that German Wikipedians are opposed to any implementation of the filter, even if one could be made that wouldn't warp the project around itself. A neutral all-or-nothing image filter would not have such side effects (and would also neatly help low bandwidth usage). And also be completely useless. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 22:56 +0100, David Gerard wrote: And, in detail, why is a hide/show all solution inadequate? What is the use case this does not serve? Are you even trying to pretend to be serious? Use case: me reading an article. It is my impression that you are pushing for this hide/show all solution because you know it will be useless and thus no one will be using it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 23:35 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Am 22.10.2011 23:23, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 21:16 +0100, David Gerard wrote: Both the opinion poll itself and its proposal were accepted. In contrary to the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, personal image filters should not be introduced in German-speaking wikipedia and categories for these filters may not be created for files locally stored on this wikipedia. 260 of 306 users (84.97 percent) accepted the poll as to be formally valid. 357 of 414 users (86.23 percent) do not agree to the introduction of a personal image filter and categories for filtering in German wikipedia. I wanted to say this for a long time, and now seems like a good opportunity. I see this as a tyranny of the majority. I understand that a large majority of German Wikipedia editors are against the filter. But even if 99.99% of editors are against the filter, well, it is opt-in and they don't have to use it. But why would they prevent me from using it, if I want to use it? Why? Because it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you No, it is intended to let people discriminate content themselves if they want, which is a huge difference. this judgment before you have even looked at it. Additionally it can be If I feel that this judgment is inadequate, I will turn the filter off. Either way, it is My Problem. Not Your Problem. easily exploited by your local provider to hide labeled content, so that you don't have any way to view it, even if you want to. Depending on the way it is implemented, it may be somewhat difficult for a provider to do that. Such systems probably already exist on some websites, and I am not aware of my provider using them to hide labelled content. And even if my provider would start doing that, I could simply use Wikipedia over https. And if providers across the world start abusing the filter, perhaps then the filter could be turned off. I just don't see this as a reasonable possibility. If you want a filter so badly, then install parental software, close It is my understanding that parental software is often too overarching or otherwise inadequate. your eyes or don't visit the page. That is up to you. That is your If I close my eyes or don't visit the page, I won't be able to read the content of the page. PS: If it wasn't at this place i would call your contribution trolling. It certainly isn't very helpful to good discussion that now I know you would call it trolling were we discussing it somewhere else. But feel free to read the arguments: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter/en#Arguments_for_the_proposal It seems to me that the arguments are mostly about a filter that would be turned on by default. Most of them seem to evaporate when applied to an opt-in filter. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sun, 2011-10-23 at 10:31 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Am 23.10.2011 08:49, schrieb Nikola Smolenski: On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 23:35 +0200, Tobias Oelgarte wrote: Why? Because it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you No, it is intended to let people discriminate content themselves if they want, which is a huge difference. If I feel that this judgment is inadequate, I will turn the filter off. Either way, it is My Problem. Not Your Problem. It is not the user of the filter that decides *what* is hidden or not. That isn't his decision. If it is the case that the filter does not meet his expectations and he does not use it, then we gained nothing, despite the massive effort taken by us to flag all the images. You should know Who is this we you are talking about? No one is going to force anyone to categorize images. If some people want to categorize images, and if their effort turns out to be in vain, again that is Their Problem and not Your Problem. easily exploited by your local provider to hide labeled content, so that you don't have any way to view it, even if you want to. Depending on the way it is implemented, it may be somewhat difficult for a provider to do that. Such systems probably already exist on some websites, and I am not aware of my provider using them to hide labelled content. And even if my provider would start doing that, I could simply use Wikipedia over https. If your provider is a bit clever he would block https and filter the rest. An relatively easy job to do. Additionally most people would not know the difference between https and http, using the default http version. If my provider ever blocks https, I am changing my provider. If in some country all providers block https, these people have bigger problems than images on Wikipedia (that would likely be forbidden anyway). And if providers across the world start abusing the filter, perhaps then the filter could be turned off. I just don't see this as a reasonable possibility. Well, we don't have to agree on this point. I think that this is possible with very little effort. Especially since images aren't provided inside the same document and are not served using https. Images should be served using https anyway. If you want a filter so badly, then install parental software, close It is my understanding that parental software is often too overarching or otherwise inadequate. Same would go for a category/preset based filter. You and I mentioned it above, that it isn't necessary better from the perspective of the user, leading to few users, but wasting our time over it. I believe a filter that is adjusted specifically to Wikimedia projects would work much better than parental software that has to work across the entire Internet. Anyway, I don't see why would anyone have to waste time over it. your eyes or don't visit the page. That is up to you. That is your If I close my eyes or don't visit the page, I won't be able to read the content of the page. That is the point where a hide all/nothing filter would jump in. He would let you read the page without any worries. No faulty categorized image would show up and you still would have the option to show images in which you are interested. If I would use a hide all/nothing filter, I wouldn't be able to see non-offensive relevant images by default. No one is going to use that. But feel free to read the arguments: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter/en#Arguments_for_the_proposal It seems to me that the arguments are mostly about a filter that would be turned on by default. Most of them seem to evaporate when applied to an opt-in filter. None of the arguments is based on a filter that would be enabled as default. It is particularly about any filter that uses categorization to distinguish the good from evil. It's about the damage such an approach would do the project and even to users that doesn't want or need the feature. That is absolutely not true. For example, the first argument: The Wikipedia was not founded in order to hide information but to make it accessible. Hiding files may reduce important information that is presented in a Wikipedia article. This could limit any kind of enlightenment and perception of context. Examples: articles about artists, artworks and medical issues may intentionally or without intention of the reader lose substantial parts of their information. The aim to present a topic neutral and in its entirety would be jeopardized by this. This is mostly true, but completely irrelevant for an opt-in filter. The German poll made clear, that not any category based filter will be allowed, since category based filtering is unavoidably non-neutral and a censorship tool. Who the hell are you to forbid me or allow me
Re: [Foundation-l] News from Germany: White Bags and thinking about a fork
On Sat, 2011-10-22 at 21:16 +0100, David Gerard wrote: Both the opinion poll itself and its proposal were accepted. In contrary to the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, personal image filters should not be introduced in German-speaking wikipedia and categories for these filters may not be created for files locally stored on this wikipedia. 260 of 306 users (84.97 percent) accepted the poll as to be formally valid. 357 of 414 users (86.23 percent) do not agree to the introduction of a personal image filter and categories for filtering in German wikipedia. I wanted to say this for a long time, and now seems like a good opportunity. I see this as a tyranny of the majority. I understand that a large majority of German Wikipedia editors are against the filter. But even if 99.99% of editors are against the filter, well, it is opt-in and they don't have to use it. But why would they prevent me from using it, if I want to use it? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Dead Sea Scrolls
On 29/09/11 04:12, Anthony wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: On 28/09/11 13:44, Anthony wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:52 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: The photograph does not constitute an origin or beginning. Sure it does. Is there any such thing as an original photograph? Yes there is, and this isn't it. Why not? What constitutes an original photograph, as opposed to whatever this photograph is? An original photograph is a photograph that fixes an original image. The photograph is not the first instance. The original photograph is the first instance of the photograph. This Copyright does not protect physical objects. The image that is fixed on the first instance of the physical photograph is not the first instance of the image. Sure it is. I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Sure it is not in this case. And if it isn't (which, you'll have to explain), can that be said about *any* photograph? No. The photograph is not independent or creative. Someone most likely selected the F-stop, the shutter speed, and the lighting. I doubt they just pointed the camera on auto and used the The fact that you can devise a creative method to create an image does not mean that the image itself is creative. No, it doesn't. However, I am contending that creativity most likely *did* go into creating the image. So then why are you mentioning F-stop, shutter speed and lighting, neither of which add any creativity to these images? built in flash. Someone most likely selected how to convert the raw image into a jpeg or png or whatever they're using. They may have How the hell is that creative? Have you ever converted a raw image into a jpeg? If you have, then I would think you'd know how the hell it is creative. For one thing, you're converting 12 or 14 bits of color data per pixel into 8. So you have to select what information to lose, and what information to keep. I would assume that in this case the goal of the conversion was to preserve the most data, and not to add a creative touch to the images. even done some significant post-processing. Someone definitely Post-processing could be creative, but the original photographs still are not. The original photographs (*) are not what are displayed on the website. (*) I thought you said these weren't original photographs. Now you're just trolling. The original physical photographs, as opposed to unoriginal images displayed on the photographs. selected which camera to use, how many separate photographs to tile This must be the worst pro-copyright argument of all times. You need to reread what I said. I was not making a pro-copyright argument. You need to rewrite what you wrote so that it reflects what you meant. You were making a pro-copyright argument. So I have two copiers in my company, and since I selected one of them the photocopies I made are *original* and copyrighted by me? They are not. And I didn't say they were. Yes you did. together, etc. This choice is limited by technical possibilities of the devices and not by someone's creative decision. Our choices are always limited by the technical possibilities of the devices we are using. So what? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Dead Sea Scrolls
On 28/09/11 13:44, Anthony wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:52 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: The photograph does not constitute an origin or beginning. Sure it does. Is there any such thing as an original photograph? Yes there is, and this isn't it. The photograph is not the first instance. The original photograph is the first instance of the photograph. This Copyright does not protect physical objects. The image that is fixed on the first instance of the physical photograph is not the first instance of the image. The photograph is not independent or creative. Someone most likely selected the F-stop, the shutter speed, and the lighting. I doubt they just pointed the camera on auto and used the The fact that you can devise a creative method to create an image does not mean that the image itself is creative. As an extreme example, I can devise an extremely creative false backstory for me in order to gain access to a document, then photocopy it. The fact that I was creative while devising my story does not give me copyright to a photocopy. built in flash. Someone most likely selected how to convert the raw image into a jpeg or png or whatever they're using. They may have How the hell is that creative? even done some significant post-processing. Someone definitely Post-processing could be creative, but the original photographs still are not. selected which camera to use, how many separate photographs to tile This must be the worst pro-copyright argument of all times. So I have two copiers in my company, and since I selected one of them the photocopies I made are *original* and copyrighted by me? They are not. together, etc. This choice is limited by technical possibilities of the devices and not by someone's creative decision. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Dead Sea Scrolls
On Tue, 2011-09-27 at 20:07 -0400, Anthony wrote: UK requires originality. But it's not at all clear that a photograph of something out of copyright is unoriginal (even if that something is two dimensional). By the common meaning of the word original, I'd say the photograph *is* original. OTOH, under US precedent it *probably* isn't within http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/original?show=1t=1317181660 1 : of, relating to, or constituting an origin or beginning : initial the original part of the house The photograph does not constitute an origin or beginning. 2 a : not secondary, derivative, or imitative an original composition The photograph is secondary, derivative and imitative. b : being the first instance or source from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is or can be made The photograph is not the first instance. 3 : independent and creative in thought or action : inventive an original artist The photograph is not independent or creative. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
On 22/09/11 10:12, Andrea Zanni wrote: when Sue presented us the Strategic Plan and Wikipedia was all over the pages, but none of the sister projects. I have to say, whenever I make a presentation of Wikimedia and mention sister projects, all I get is blank stares. It really makes sense to focus on Wikipedia in outreach activities. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
On 22/09/11 14:53, Michael Peel wrote: From: Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs On 22/09/11 10:12, Andrea Zanni wrote: when Sue presented us the Strategic Plan and Wikipedia was all over the pages, but none of the sister projects. I have to say, whenever I make a presentation of Wikimedia and mention sister projects, all I get is blank stares. It really makes sense to focus on Wikipedia in outreach activities. Um… no. That means it really makes sense to talk about the sister projects more than just mentioning them, as they are clearly in more need of outreach than Wikipedia with that audience… Of course I haven't meant that I just list them; I say a couple of sentences about every one of them. I often briefly describe the sister projects when I'm doing Wikipedia outreach - and quite often see people making comments on twitter etc. as a result about how they didn't know about a particular project, and were going to take a look at it (and hopefully go on to contribute to it…) Apparently we had different audiences. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] On Wikinews
On 16/09/11 20:59, Ray Saintonge wrote: Wikinews needs to redefine its role. Scooping the big news stories of the day isn't it ... not as long as Wikipedia can begin developing a I was thinking along the same lines. Science news that aren't dumbed down? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The systematic and codified bias against non-Western articles on Wikinews
On 07/09/11 09:33, pi zero wrote: I'm proud of Wikinews. We're so damn good at teaching how to write, a university journalism professor is assigning us to his students as homework. This is being done on Wikipedia regularly without any extra bureaucratic overhead. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sue Gardener, Wikipedia's leading editor - wikileaks
On 06/09/11 10:49, Marcin Cieslak wrote: Jimmy Walesjwa...@wikia-inc.com wrote: I was mentioned in a leaked US diplomatic cable - with my name spelled wrong! http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/11/08SANTIAGO1015.html Apparently you got confused with Johnnie Walker, but I'm not sure if that is a bad or a good thing :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The systematic and codified bias against non-Western articles on Wikinews
On 06/09/11 13:32, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 6 September 2011 05:53, Shiis...@shii.org wrote: I am an American Wikipedia administrator living in Japan. Recently, as you may have seen on the news (but not Wikinews), Japan got a new prime minister. I watched his press conference and decided to grace Wikinews with this breaking story within minutes after it happened. The review process might delay it a few hours, but as it was 4AM EST, I figured Wikinews would probably still scoop Reuters and the AP. Five hours later (hmm, 9AM EST...), a reviewer finally looked at my article and failed me on one count: THE FACT THAT THE EVENT TOOK PLACE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. No joke. He informed me that because the people at the press conference were not speaking English, and the reporting on the article was not in English, it was likely the article would not pass anyone's review. I asked for clarification on this astounding statement, requested another review for the article, and waited. While I agree this isn't a good situation to be in, I'm not sure what the alternative is. The reviewers need to be able to understand the I have been reading about this new wiki technology: http://c2.com/ Apparently, this wiki thing enables its visitors, even unregistered ones, to create new pages without any need for review! I therefore suggest that wiki is installed on Wikinews and that would solve all Shii's problems. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced
On 04/09/11 21:28, Kim Bruning wrote: On Sun, Sep 04, 2011 at 09:16:42PM +0100, Thomas Dalton wrote: The trouble is that at its edges, education is fundamentally disconcerting, upsetting and subversive. And that this is a matter only of degree, not of kind. I agree, and I would never turn on such a filter. That doesn't mean that other people shouldn't be allowed to if they want to. Right, but then they won't be educated. But, if they don't want to be educated, erm, why are they using an encyclopedia in the first place? Perhaps different people want to be educated about different things? For example, I might want to be educated about possible treatments for arachnophobia, but I don't want to be educated about how a large hairy spider looks in close-up? ___ 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 15/08/11 08:16, David Richfield wrote: It's not just financial collapse. When Sun was acquired by Oracle and they started messing about with OpenOffice, it was not hard to fork the project - take the codebase and run with it. It's not that easy for Wikipedia, and we want to make sure that it remains doable, or else the Foundation has too much power over the content community. I'm fairly confident it would be much easier to fork Wikipedia than OpenOffice. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia as seen through 1964 acoustic, 300 baud modem
On 07/15/2011 03:11 AM, Liam Wyatt wrote: Saw this today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9dpXHnJXaE It's a video of a guy demonstrating his 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem that still works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler and in order to demonstrate it still works he requests the mainpage of en.wp :-) The page starts loading at 6:40 of the video. Three cheers for open standards and and backwards compatibility! I would like to know if it is technically possible to edit a WP article through that system. Yes, it would be possible. Note however that the system does not access the Internet directly, but only has terminal access to another system that is on the Internet. The coupler is too slow to actually be on the Internet. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No tail-lights. What do we do now? (was Call for referendum)
On 06/30/2011 07:35 PM, David Gerard wrote: Further to your idea: people developing little specialist wikis along these lines, and said wikis being mergeable. This makes such wikis easier to start, without having to start yet another wiki-based general encyclopedia that directly competes with Wikipedia. Disruptive innovation starts in niches, not in a position where it'll just end up a bug on Wikipedia's windscreen. Some things I believe could be easily programmed: * Ability to surf through multiple wikis. For example, you could be reading article on a specialist wiki such as http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Darmok_%28episode%29 ; upon clicking the link Gilgamesh, you would be taken to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh ; when you further browse Wikipedia and click on Star Trek you would go not to Wikipedia's article but back to http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek . ** This could be more easily applied to multilingual wikis. For example, you could select which languages you know; and when you click on a link, you would be taken not to the current language but to the best article available in any of your languages. * Ability to view diffs between two articles on two wikis. I believe this would be very easy to do. * Ability to edit from diff (when you view a diff, you could select which differences do you want to insert into the article, and which differences do you want to discard). This could be very useful even within a single wiki. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No tail-lights. What do we do now? (was Call for referendum)
On 07/01/2011 09:15 AM, David Gerard wrote: On 1 July 2011 07:58, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: On 06/30/2011 07:35 PM, David Gerard wrote: Further to your idea: people developing little specialist wikis along these lines, and said wikis being mergeable. This makes such wikis Some things I believe could be easily programmed: Per HaeB's link, this is a perennial proposal. People like the idea, but in eighteen years - back as far as the Interpedia proposal, before wikis existed - no-one has made one that works. Why not? What's failing to go on here? Per HaeB's link, IMO no proposal was specific enough, and no proposal was actually done. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No tail-lights. What do we do now? (was Call for referendum)
On 07/01/2011 04:42 PM, geni wrote: On 1 July 2011 07:58, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: * Ability to surf through multiple wikis. For example, you could be reading article on a specialist wiki such as http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Darmok_%28episode%29 ; upon clicking the link Gilgamesh, you would be taken to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh ; when you further browse Wikipedia and click on Star Trek you would go not to Wikipedia's article but back to http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek . Already in the inventory. In practice on wikipedia we normally assume that when you click on an inline link in wikipedia you go to the wikipedia article on that subject. For non wikipedia wikis to inline link to wikipedia for more general background is pretty common though. Ah, but you don't return when you click on a link that exists both on Wikipedia and another wiki. ___ 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 06/19/2011 07:37 PM, Ryan Lomonaco wrote: I recognize that this is probably a touchy issue given the controversy on the English Wikipedia over flagged revisions (which I thankfully wasn't a part of), but maybe flipping flagged revisions on for everything in the template namespace would help the cause. Certainly most edits to templates Indeed. I believe that one of the main points against flagged revisions is that they will put off new users because their edits won't be immediately visible, however very few new users start by editing templates. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native...
On 05/23/2011 10:33 AM, Milos Rancic wrote: In Chinese writing a character shows a word, irrespective of how the word is pronounced. So if we would use a Chinese style writing system, you could write [your] [dog] [is] [dead], and a Frenchman would write exactly the same, even though he would pronounce [your] [dog] [is] [dead] as Votre chien est mort. Thus, different languages might write the same sentence the same in Chinese script. This does not mean that there are no differences - someone who spoke Latin would probably spell this line as [dog] [your] [dead] [is], and perhaps in yet another language this would be immensely crude, and the right thing to say would be [prepare for bad news] [honorific person] [your] [dog] [is] [not] [alive], but the mere difference of being in a different language with totally different sounds is not enough to conclude that in Chinese writing the actual written text will be different. Andre, that's not accurate explanation. Chinese script is not purely logographic, but logo-syllabic (or logo-phonetic). There are *phonetic* parts inside of the writing system. But different Chinese languages will still use the same character for different but related phonetic component. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native...
On 05/23/2011 10:33 AM, Milos Rancic wrote: In Chinese writing a character shows a word, irrespective of how the word is pronounced. So if we would use a Chinese style writing system, you could write [your] [dog] [is] [dead], and a Frenchman would write exactly the same, even though he would pronounce [your] [dog] [is] [dead] as Votre chien est mort. Thus, different languages might write the same sentence the same in Chinese script. This does not mean that there are no differences - someone who spoke Latin would probably spell this line as [dog] [your] [dead] [is], and perhaps in yet another language this would be immensely crude, and the right thing to say would be [prepare for bad news] [honorific person] [your] [dog] [is] [not] [alive], but the mere difference of being in a different language with totally different sounds is not enough to conclude that in Chinese writing the actual written text will be different. Andre, that's not accurate explanation. Chinese script is not purely logographic, but logo-syllabic (or logo-phonetic). There are *phonetic* parts inside of the writing system. But different Chinese languages will still use the same character for different but related phonetic component. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native language
On Sun, 2011-05-22 at 13:15 +0200, Milos Rancic wrote: * Jin Chinese, 45M, China * Xiang Chinese, 36, China, incubator * Min Bei Chinese, 10.3M, China, incubator Aren't these languages written with Chinese characters and thus their speakers can read and write the Chinese Wikipedia? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native language
On Sun, 2011-05-22 at 14:47 +0200, Milos Rancic wrote: On 05/22/2011 01:37 PM, Nikola Smolenski wrote: On Sun, 2011-05-22 at 13:15 +0200, Milos Rancic wrote: * Jin Chinese, 45M, China * Xiang Chinese, 36, China, incubator * Min Bei Chinese, 10.3M, China, incubator Aren't these languages written with Chinese characters and thus their speakers can read and write the Chinese Wikipedia? Chinese script is logo-syllabic. That means that other Chinese languages may be different from the standard one in syllabic and syntactic part. Yea, but how much is any of these different? They may be practically the same or possible to be added as a variant of Chinese. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native language
On Sun, 2011-05-22 at 14:32 +0200, Milos Rancic wrote: On 05/22/2011 01:28 PM, George Herbert wrote: Can you break this out by which languages we are missing, not just by country, as country isn't specific enough? Waiting for list admins to allow ~250k mail :) If only someone would make some website anyone could edit, you could make such a list there and send us the link :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native...
Дана Sunday 22 May 2011 19:53:20 wjhon...@aol.com написа: So if you are claiming that the sole differences are pronunciation, then this language should be removed from the list of ones lacking a project. I'm not certain however that that claim can be supported. Given that no one of us is particulary certain of anything, how about asking a Sinologist? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Fwd: Re: Do WMF want enwp.org?]
On 05/11/2011 12:32 PM, HW wrote: I think the advantage is that it would allow us to generalize the concept behind enwp.org, which is that we want short urls for all languages and all projects. I'm thinking along the lines of http://en.wp.w.org . From that Since I see this popping up repeatedly, if you have an URL shortener, you want to make the URLs as short as possible. en.wp.w.org defeats the point. w.org/wen would make more sense. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] For japan kids..
On 04/29/2011 11:59 AM, Lodewijk wrote: I'm not sure... is this supposed to be a real email or does everybody see a random string of characters? It's not random, it's misdisplayed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64 e-mail, and it's spam. You may use http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp to see what it says. 2011/4/27 widiyantojokarwilis2...@gmail.com jokarwilis2...@gmail.com Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:52:57 + Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252 MIME-Version: 1.0 SGkuLi5JIGxvdmUgamFwYW4gYnV0IGZvciBpbnRyb2R1Y3Rpb24gY2FuIHNlZSBteSBibG9nIGh0 dHA6Ly9zZGd1bnVuZzAzLmJsb2dzcG90LmNvbSB0aGlzIGJsb2cgaW4gYWN0aW9uIGZyb20gc2No b29sIGFuZCBhbnl3aGVyZS4udGhhbmtzDQpQb3dlcmVkIGJ5IFRlbGtvbXNlbCBCbGFja0JlcnJ5 rg== ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolution: Openness
Дана Sunday 10 April 2011 06:36:22 MZMcBride написа: featured article requirements or anything like that. They might be inundated with too many links in welcome messages (which I view as a largely separate issue from policy creep), but I don't think the vast majority of editors pay any mind to the details of policies and pages that even established users can't be bothered to keep up with. This is what some argue is the actual meaning behind ignore all rules. :-) I too loathe the wall of text displayed to new users and believe it is highly ineffective. Some possible solutions I thought of are: Perhaps each newbie could get a short welcome message from their experienced Wikipedian who will later mentor them with specific errors the newbie made. Perhaps it would be helpful if, when creating a new account, a user could write a short message about what would they like to do on Wikipedia (this would become their user page). It would give us an idea on what part of guidelines to present to the new user, and also very needed insight on why do people just create account and leave. And I believe the most helpful, but the most difficult, would be the ability of on-site chat. If I see a new user making a rookie mistake, I open a chat window, the user sees someone would like to chat with you message, and we could talk about the mistake. Bonus point: there is no good free software on-site chat that I know of so we give one to the world :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] How many articles have you created?
Дана Sunday 10 April 2011 08:53:58 Amir E. Aharoni написа: The Hebrew Wikipedia conducts no new articles days every now and then, where the editors are encouraged - not enforced - to improve existing articles rather than create new ones; unfortunately, i have no data about how well it works. I would be happy to hear about such efforts in other projects. On sr.wiki we had an extremely positive experience when we organized a competition in article cleanup where the user who would clean the most articles up received a wikireader that was donated to Wikimedia Serbia. This has resulted in some 30% (total 300) of articles in need of cleanup being cleaned up, no user dissatisfaction known to me, and one very happy Wikipedian. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wiki-revolution
Дана Sunday 03 April 2011 12:03:56 Dan Rosenthal написа: Your userpage claims you speak American English at an en-4 near-native level. Want to try again? My observation of the natives shows that they commonly commit errors of this magnitude :) On Apr 3, 2011, at 1:47 AM, Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote: When I misspelled the word intellectual I wasn't referring to certain people whose language skills revolve around being spell checkers. It is always a thrill to trample on somebody else's language, mostly when they can't utter a single word on any other except their own language, much less address you in your own language. Misspelling or mispronouncing any other language except my own? What, me worry? At 06:14 03-04-2011, you wrote: On Apr 3, 2011, at 1:02 AM, Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote: intelectual *cough* ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Message to community about community decline
On 03/29/2011 09:14 AM, teun spaans wrote: Quote:Many volunteers don't have a lot to write. This sounds like an opinion, not like a fact. Even on English wikipedia, we still have about two hundred thousand plant species to describe, and millions of animal species. And then I'm not talking about fungi and other kingdoms On of the perennial projects of Wikimedia Serbia is to try to reach out to various amateur organizations and show them how they could add to Wikipedia in their field. Examples include amateur astronomers, model railway collectors, Esperantists, birdwatchers... I do agree with some of your remarks about motivation. One way to motivate people might be to provide more information on the process that google maps uses to locate wikipedia artciles to its maps. It's much nicer if lots of people actually read 'your' article. Perhaps something as simple as prominently displaying the number of article views would be very encouraging to contributors? (Although, I shudder to imagine the edit wars it could spawn...) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Message to community about community decline
On 03/29/2011 11:40 AM, Theo10011 wrote: The second issue as I see it, we might not be approaching the sum of all human knowledge but we're running out of what the core non/semi-professional community can contribute. We are at over 3.5 million articles (go Pokemon) I strongly disagree. I see thousands of articles I could write outside of my profession if only I would have time and inclination. And I see missing articles even in well-covered topics like programming. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Message to community about community decline
On 03/29/2011 01:11 PM, Milos Rancic wrote: Let's say that there is Wikipedia in X language with just one editor. That editor is expert in, let's say, medieval history and has passion toward chess. That person would spend years in: (1) writing basic articles -- although he is not astronomer, he knows that it is important to have articles like Sun, Earth, Jupiter etc.; (2) writing articles in medieval history; (3) writing articles about chess; (4) and, finally, writing articles about surrounding areas of medieval history and chess (let's say, ancient history and go). If that person didn't stop because of lack of time or lack of satisfaction, it is reasonably to expect that he will at some point come to the situation where all articles are written according to his level of knowledge. (That's the ideal situation, but it also assumes I don't fully agree, because this person could continue editing in this way: 1. Read a book / watch a film 2. Write an article about it 3. Repeat Or in this way: 1. Buy a specialist encyclopedia or a biographical dictionary 2. Write anew a biography of every person featured in it 3. Repeat The problem isn't that all the articles will be written according to his level of knowledge, but possibly that: 1. All the articles that he was interested in and are at his level of knowledge he already wrote. 2. All the unwritten articles that he is interested in writing are above his level of knowledge. 3. All the unwritten articles that are below his level of knowledge he does not find interesting to write. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart
On 03/14/2011 11:50 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: Stovepiping is already a problem. Breaking up the project in this way would make a science of it, creating a plethora of petty tyrannies in the style of Wiktionary and Wikipedia Commons but even less responsive. How are Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons petty tyrannies? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay)
Дана Friday 25 February 2011 13:18:36 dex2...@pc.dk написа:
clean-up? Should we have a special welcoming staff instead of random
people or bots inserting {{welcome}}?
To my knowledge, no one has ever tried it, but why not? In reality, some
people don't do what they know to do, but choose to become teachers. Maybe
there are people who know how to edit Wikipedia and would want to teach new
users rather than actually edit.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Licenses' biodiversity : my big disagreement with the Wikimedia usability initiative's software specifications
2011/2/21 David Gerarddger...@gmail.com: No-one has ever worked out how to do derivatives of GFDL-licensed internet video that all agree is in full compliance with the GFDL. Display the full 23 kilobytes of licence text in video at the end? Perhaps we could learn something from medicine commercials :D ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Since Egypt has shutdown internet, should we too?
Дана Saturday 29 January 2011 01:39:26 David Goodman написа: A wonderful precedent for other approaches to press agencies--it will perhaps work best for those agencies that have an appropriate special concern for the area or subject. This seems like a good place to mention that the precedent was set by the Beta news agency ( http://www.beta.rs/ ) which gave permission for its news to be uploaded to Wikinews as CC-BY. On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 7:16 PM, aude aude.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 6:32 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 January 2011 23:28, aude aude.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 5:39 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Relevant to Egypt and WMF, it is important that Al-Jazeera has released a pile of photos and video as CC by-nd and CC-by-nc-nd: Already have contacted them and they are willing to give us permission. :-D :-D :-D This is BIG NEWS. A hearty HIP HIP HOORAY to everyone involved in this! Now we need permission from a *second* network ... They have posted one video now, and working on putting more up. http://cc.aljazeera.net/asset/language/arabic/footage-egyptian-protests-a l-jazeera-office It's CC-BY licensed. I'm pretty technical, but if someone better with video wants to help convert it to ogg theora format and get it uploaded to Commons, that would be awesome. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] H2G2 to be disposed of
On 01/24/2011 05:09 PM, Magnus Manske wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173 Anything worth salvaging? If released under a free license, it could find its place on Wikisource. I have found at least a few articles that could be used to improve Wikipedia ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/approved_entry/A592599 is much longer than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Word_%28radio_show%29 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/approved_entry/A76282158 doesn't seem to have the article on Wikipedia at all). It is a question however if per http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/help/entry_faqs#copyright and http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/#4 In certain circumstance the BBC may also share your contribution with trusted third parties*. would allow for such a release. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] excluding Wikipedia clones from searching
On 12/08/2010 12:46 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: The Google test used to be a tool for checking the notability of a subject or to find sources about it. For some languages it may be also used for other purposes - for example in Hebrew, the spelling of which is not established so well, it is very frequently used for finding the most common spelling, especially for article titles. It was never the ultimate tool, of course, but it was useful. With the proliferation of sites that indiscriminately copy Wikipedia content it is becoming less and less useful. For some time i used to fight this problem by adding -site:wikipedia.org-site: wapedia.mobi -site:miniwiki.org etc. to my search queries, but i hit a wall: Google limits the search string to 32 words, and today there are many more than 32 sites that clone Wikipedia, so this trick is also becoming useless. You may try -wikipedia -ויקיפדיה to narrow it down further, but I don't think there is any full solution. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] should not web server logs (of requests) be published?
Дана Sunday 28 November 2010 09:35:40 dinar qorbanof написа: another advantage of this is that people could create custom analysers of the logs. For now, see http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTT.htm and http://stats.grok.se/tt/201009/ . ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] should not web server logs (of requests) be published?
Дана Sunday 28 November 2010 09:53:06 Huib Laurens написа: Its againt the privacy poliicy to publish logs like that, and there is It should be possible to anonymyse the logs sufficiently so that no private information could be gained from them. really no good reason given why people should see al the ip information for all visitors on a wiki Well it would be possible to create custom analysers of the logs. 2010/11/28, dinar qorbanof qdi...@gmail.com: hello should not web server logs (of requests) be published? my native language is tatar and i would or i am going to write to tatar wikipedia and say other people to write to it. authors/managers/administrators of tatar texts are tatar people. for that i think it is correct if tatar people can see web server logs. i think this would not be bad for privacy of readers, because they would see that logs are published, and can access wikipedia through proxy to hide their ip address. ip-addresses of anonymous writers are already published. if anonymouse readers want to hide their referer or search keywords, they also can hide that by copy-pasting wikipedia article url, and this also should be said shortly on every page and in privacy page. another advantage of this is that people could create custom analysers of the logs. i think logs should be divided with directory structure by years, months, days, and probably hours. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] on fundraiser :)
Дана Saturday 27 November 2010 13:58:27 KIZU Naoko написа: On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Przykuta przyk...@o2.pl wrote: Hmm. Could we use better link in Sidebar (with WMF logo or another image)? Better than simple Donate Support for increasing visibility. I surprised many people when I told them donate link had existed all over year. Not sure if WMF logo is the best choice at this moment, people often don't know what it is. How about a tiny Jimbo? :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Looking for stories of readers affected by Wikipedia
On 11/11/2010 08:50 AM, John Vandenberg wrote: On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote: On 11/11/2010 07:31 AM, Sue Gardner wrote: * Ideally, they would be stories of people who pre-exposure-to-Wikipedia would have had circumscribed access to information. Because they grew up in a small town with no library, because their school didn't stock certain kinds of books, because materials in their language are of limited availability, because their government limits access to certain types of information -- in general, because their economic/political/socio-cultural circumstances somehow impede(d) easy access to information. I have an anti-story, about a critically useful information that was available in a home library, yet would not be allowed on Wikipedia per its policies. Anyone interested? I am. Back when we were under sanctions, it was impossible to buy antifreeze (or it was prohibitively expensive). So, my father remembered that in one of the books in our home library he once read that it it is possible to make antifreeze by mixing glycerine, alcohol and water in appropriate amount. It took him weeks to search through the home library, but he eventually did find the book and made his own antifreeze. Now, I have actually found a bit of the needed information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerol : The minimum freezing point temperature is at about -36 °F / -37.8 °C corresponding to 60-70 % glycerol in water.[11]. But the problem is, I would not feel comfortable with making my own antifreeze from a single sentence (for example, does it matter if you pour water in glycerine or glycerine in water?) but if more detailed instructions would be added to Wikipedia, they would be removed per WP:NOTHOWTO. The book also included a table with the freezing points of various ratios of glycerine, alcohol and water (the point was to make the cheapest mixture that would not freeze at the lowest temperature we could expect) and for this too I don't see where in Wikipedia it could be added. It sounds like it would be allowed on Wikisource. It probably would be allowed on Wikibooks. But for one reason or another, people simply aren't interested enough in working on Wikibooks; Wikibooks don't show high enough in Google because the articles are not highly interlinked; and the Wikibooks howto in the opposite fashion could not have encyclopedic information in it (for example the very important section Historical cases of contamination with diethylene glycol that is present in the Wikipedia article and that would obviously be very important to someone who needs to make his own antifreeze). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Glycerol information
On 11/11/2010 11:16 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs wrote:
Back when we were under sanctions, it was impossible to buy antifreeze
(or it was prohibitively expensive). So, my father remembered that in
one of the books in our home library he once read that it it is possible
to make antifreeze by mixing glycerine, alcohol and water in appropriate
amount. It took him weeks to search through the home library, but he
eventually did find the book and made his own antifreeze.
What is the year of publications of this book in your library?
It might be out of copyright, or out of print and the author (or their
estate) willing to release it into the PD early.
It would take me weeks to find it again :) Anyway, it's most likely not
out of copyright and not in English.
When was this first discovered? Glycerol was well known before 1923,
so it is quite likely that there are PD sources which cover this in
detail, and they can be added to Wikisource.
Wikisource texts could not be updated with new information and will not
be as well linked with Wikipedia articles as the articles are among
themselves.
It probably would be allowed on Wikibooks. But for one reason or
another, people simply aren't interested enough in working on Wikibooks;
Wikibooks don't show high enough in Google because the articles are not
highly interlinked; and the Wikibooks howto in the opposite fashion
could not have encyclopedic information in it (for example the very
important section Historical cases of contamination with diethylene
glycol that is present in the Wikipedia article and that would
obviously be very important to someone who needs to make his own
antifreeze).
Wikibooks is also an option. I don't see why Wikibooks can not
include this historical information. Once the Wikibook pages are
Because of WB:NOTWP.
reasonable quality, you can add {{wikibooks}} to the Wikipedia page,
allowing readers to easily find this information.
If by easily you mean at the very last place they would ever look,
hidden behind a link with a meaningless name.
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Re: [Foundation-l] naming of things in kosovo
On 11/11/2010 03:26 PM, Mike Dupont wrote: so I think there is a president for the english and albanian names in wikipedia. most of the names are in serbian, with strange characters that I cannot even type. this offends most contributors and prevents locals from contributing. also the serbs erase all albanian names from the referring links so I cannot even find what I am looking for. I would like to start to rename the articles to the albanian english spellings with normal typiable characters. Ideally we would use the albanian names and encourage the locals to edit. Right now there is a minority serb group that is making life unpleasant for the local contributors. You don't think that this would offend Serbian contributors? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Evil Book
Дана Tuesday 02 November 2010 02:57:10 geni написа: 2010/11/1 KIZU Naoko aph...@gmail.com: I see, thanks Mike. Personally I'm not for this kind of attempt, I'd rather agree with Ryan: if and only if they complies with CC-BY-SA deeds, is there any room for us to prevent them legally to spread it even in a surprisingly overestimated price? Thought? Sure. Find an article with a french author and bring moral rights into play. Doesn't have to be French, most of Europe has moral rights, if not most of the world. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Closing the Circle to Published Content (was Re: Evil Book)
Дана Tuesday 02 November 2010 00:48:06 Robert S. Horning написа: The problem here is that the publisher is being deceptive as to the origin of the content and how it was put together. Since I haven't seen the book itself and can only react to what is on the amazon.com. I guess this is a buyer beware in regards to whatever you purchase in this fashion. By the way, this seems to be limited to this publisher Betascript, who does give misleading descriptions: http://www.amazon.com/Ukita-Kokichi-Lambert-M-Surhone/dp/6131076278/ There's this Books LLC with more accurate descriptions: http://www.amazon.com/Tairo-Tokugawa-Tadakatsu-Kagekatsu-Masatoshi/dp/1155945018/ A similar problem is that they offer reprints of PD books, probably also of poor quality... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Editing is project number 832465
Дана Saturday 23 October 2010 22:44:52 Fred Bauder написа: Here's a new job offered on Freelancer.com: Description Wikipedia writer needed for historic building/hotel in a major city. The wikipedia page already exist but it is not too detailed to reflect its rich history. [snip] Is this an acceptable project? How should someone who gets this contract handle it? I'm not sure if I said this before, anyway: I don't see anything wrong with this in principle, but only in principle. If an editor follows all the Wikipedia policies, I see no principal reason to ban him solely because he is getting money for his editing. However, in practice, whenever I see an editor who appears to be financially connected to the articles he is editing, the edits do not follow Wikipedia policies. So, no. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Russian police probe Wikipedia for extremism
On 10/19/2010 02:24 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ensl=ruu=http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%BA_%D1%8D%D0%BA%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%85_%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2 Invokes Google translate. Quite remarkable; it is a list of Russian court decision putting them on the Federal List of Extremist Materials: 16. The newspaper I am Russian. Lower Volga region#8470; 1 and #8470; 2, 2005 (decision Znamensky City Court of Astrakhan region of 03.07.2007). 17. Brochure Cerberus freedom»#8470; 11, 2005. (Municipal court decision to the Sign of the Astrakhan region of 03.07.2007). It gets much more interesting: 510. Book What is the Bible actually teaching us? published by Watch tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. 2005 552. Quotes by user АК-47: since the beginning of the sentence Never... to the semicolon; since the beginning of the sentence Ize sukermaeru [?] to the last word; [...] on the website www.gorodsalavat.ru 640. L. Ron Hubbard Dianetics 55! (only a single copy?) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Expertise and Wikipedia redux
On Sat, 2010-10-16 at 18:23 +0100, Peter Damian wrote: A short piece here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/10/andronicus-of-rhodes.html You can read it, but the take-home is pretty brief. (1) Here is another of the many examples where proper encyclopedic content is plagiarised entirely from 100-year old sources. As I commented there: I don't see how can you call it plagiarism when at the bottom of the article it is clearly written: # This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870). # This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. (2) Suggesting the thought: if Wikipedia now is relying on century-old sources, what sources will Wikipedia be relying on in 100 years time? For Wikipedia has apparently made traditional sources obselete. Wikipedia is not entirely relying on century-old sources, however this still remains an interesting question. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Expertise and Wikipedia redux
On Sat, 2010-10-16 at 18:47 +0100, Peter Damian wrote: - Original Message - From: Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs I don't see how can you call it plagiarism when at the bottom of the article it is clearly written: This article incorporates text ... Unfortunately we don't have a better word to describe the effortless and thoughtless copying of something from something else, so I will use that How about copying? Copying in general is both effortless and thoughtless. word. Note 'incorporates' suggests that only parts of the material have been, er, 'copied and pasted'. This is wholesale 'plunder'. The etymology I don't see that it does. It is rather the other way around - parts or the whole of the 'foreign' material could be incorporated in the Wikipedia article - which is true in this case. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incorporate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Expertise and Wikipedia redux
Дана Saturday 16 October 2010 21:15:18 Peter Damian написа: - Original Message - From: wjhon...@aol.com IF you don't like what it says, change it. What really is the point, of pointing out that Oh gosh we don't have up to date articles when anyone who cares to, can simply edit the article? There is no one able to change it. It will be the same in a month's time. While I agree that there are articles that are impossible to actually change, I don't think this is one of them. A meaningful change of this article will stay. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Liu Xiaobo
Дана Saturday 09 October 2010 01:46:43 Fred Bauder написа: Well, do we actually prevent some viewpoint from being expressed adequately? How about a list? Well, it's not a promising start, but I have, for example heard a few complaints that the views of Lyndon LaRouche were not fully expressed, but of course, the problem is that some of them may not be notable. The views of the politboro of China are secret. I can't say we fall down there. Is there someone out there who is unable to edit due to having unpopular views? Is this sarcastic? Of course, there are plenty of such people, and plenty of such viewpoints. I am unable to edit due to my unpopular views. As for a list: - Viewpoints of the right, especially extreme right (viewpoints of the extreme left are tolerated). - Nationalist viewpoints that oppose US foreign politics, such as Russian or Serbian (nationalist viewpoints that are aligned with US foreign politics are tolerated). - Culturally-specific viewpoints not known about in English-language discourse, for example that sterilization of humans or animals is morally repugnant (although this is less of a problem with Wikipedia and more with the fact that such views are not well-studied). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
On 10/05/2010 08:28 AM, SlimVirgin wrote: On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 18:17,wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: Have you looked at the current version of that page? Every sentence has at least one ref, it looks like a spider has fallen into an ink well and then run backwards and forwards across the page. It's very distracting, and completely unnecessary. There are ways of bundling citations into one footnote at the end of each paragraph, while still making clear which citation supports which words. But it's It doesn't distract me at all, and I am not aware of any effective ways of bundling citations at paragraphs' ends. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Дана Saturday 02 October 2010 23:51:22 David Gerard написа: On 2 October 2010 22:44, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: The problem is how to avoid making rules against stupidity. Because you can't actually outlaw stupid. Experts already complain about uncitability. I suppose we could advise experts on how to use citation as a debating tactic. Experts complain about uncitability - they complain that common knowledge in the field doesn't actually make it into journal articles or textbooks, but is stuff that everyone knows. Perhaps what is needed then is a procedure for experts to cite such common knowledge in the field. I don't have a good idea on how exactly to do that however. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Kosovo Chapter? Re: Fwd: SFK100 Press Release
On Sun, 2010-09-26 at 18:29 +0200, Milos Rancic wrote: On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 14:58, Daniel ~ Leinad danny.lei...@gmail.com wrote: Look here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Step-by-step_chapter_creation_guide and here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Local_chapter_FAQ. Plus to convince voting ChapCom members enough that it is good idea to convince WM Serbia that it is a good idea. As a non-voting member of ChapCom and Board member of WM RS I can confirm that the harder task is to convince ChapCom. As a non-voting board member of WM RS, I am highly doubtful of such a confirmation. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] How bureaucracy works: the example
Дана Saturday 25 September 2010 17:53:05 Milos Rancic написа: So, I wanted to do that as I treat that as my responsibility. I filled the form once again and I had to spend next ~15 minutes while trying to upload the 20k logo: license is not correct, author is not correct, this is not correct, that is not correct. And I am using Commons from the time when it started to exist. Solution to your problem: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Uploaduploadformstyle=basic ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
On 09/20/2010 11:38 PM, Mark Williamson wrote: Peter, resorting to ad hominem does nothing to prove your point. It only makes people less likely to listen to what you have to say. That was not ad hominem. On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote: - Original Message - I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field. If this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungaryoldid=383882577 is anything to go by, the answer is, no you can't. Sorry :( ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A proposal of partnership between Wikimedia Foundation and Internet Archive
On 08/24/2010 03:57 PM, emijrp wrote: I want to make a proposal about external links preservation. Many times, when you check an external link or a link reference, the website is dead or offline. This websites are important, because they are the sources for the facts showed in the articles. Internet Archive searches for interesting websites to save in their hard disks, so, we can send them our external links sql tables (all projects and languages of course). They improve their database and we always have a copy of the sources text to check when needed. I wanted to suggest this for a long time. I see two more reasons for this: - We are often copying free images or text from various sites (for example flickr but other ones too). It happens that these sites go offline or change their licenses later. Having such an archive, archived by an independent organization, would be indisputable proof of copyright status. - Wikipedia often writes articles about current events, and these link to various news organizations as sources. It happens sometimes that these sources stealthily change their content for various reasons. Such an archive, if it would be able to quickly follow Wikipedia's new links, would be a strong deterrent against this Orwellian trend. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A proposal of partnership between Wikime dia Foundation and Internet Archive
Дана Tuesday 24 August 2010 21:05:05 wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk написа: Nikola Smolenski wrote: I wanted to suggest this for a long time. I see two more reasons for this: - We are often copying free images or text from various sites (for example flickr but other ones too). It happens that these sites go offline or change their licenses later. Having such an archive, archived by an independent organization, would be indisputable proof of copyright status. Personally I wouldn't rely on a flickr CC license as being in any way reliable. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Flickr_washing I've seen too many AP photographs cropped to remove the AP attribute and uploaded to flickr as CC-BY to accept a flickr CC license at face value. In most cases the person doing so is probably taking stuff already cropped, and probably believes that if it is on the internet its public domain. That is another issue entirely. And in order to determine if an image has been washed in such a way and who did it you have to know its origin. No university, publisher, or newspaper has used my CC licensed images either commercially or non-commercially without checking with me first that the work is actually CC licensed. They have always carried out some If the original website is gone, they can't even call to check. - Wikipedia often writes articles about current events, and these link to various news organizations as sources. It happens sometimes that these sources stealthily change their content for various reasons. Such an archive, if it would be able to quickly follow Wikipedia's new links, would be a strong deterrent against this Orwellian trend. If someone is making copies of web pages that is a copyright violation. Unless they have, in the US, specific exemption from the US Copyright Office, that can lead to some heavy legal issues. The internet archive It appears that so far this has not been a problem in practice, and anyway if they are willing to take the risk, who are we to stop them? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Comments about Wikipedia on Reddit
Not sure if this is the right list, however, at http://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/cxq4i/who_here_actually_contributes_to_wikipedia/ a number of people are reporting on their Wikipedia experiences, so I believe reading them may offer useful insights. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Umberto Eco's interview
On 08/05/2010 09:30 AM, Cristian Consonni wrote: 2010/8/4 Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.rs: Publish the interview in .ogg format, then if needed volunteers can transcribe it? Till now the interviews have usually been done with micro-cassette recorders (you know, tape... old school :P), this is the case for Jimbo's interview. You can directly connect the recorder's headphone jack with computer's microphone jack by a male-male TRS cable (example: http://www.discount-low-voltage.com/6ft3stca.html ) and record the output. Secondarily, in some case we give the interviewee the possibility to review what they have said before the final publishing. He could review the .ogg, or trusted volunteers could work in private. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Umberto Eco's interview
Дана Wednesday 04 August 2010 17:22:37 Cristian Consonni написа: I am really sorry about that and, in my opinion, this is a major problem with volunteer-driven interviews. Usually there are a lot of questions to ask and even if the interviewer make some (arbitrary) selection in my experience this results in long ( 1 h) interviews. We are used to report integrally what the interviewees have said (besides some style corrections to make the text readable), unlike newspapers we don't have problems of space and we think the best thing to do is to report things exactly as they have been said. So the main effort is the transcription and the editing of the interviews and for 1h/2h interviews this can take weeks. I really don't know if there is a solution for this. Publish the interview in .ogg format, then if needed volunteers can transcribe it? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation
Дана Friday 30 July 2010 02:31:44 Andreas Kolbe написа: Having tried it tonight, I don't find the Google translator toolkit all that useful, at least not at this present level of development. To sum up: First you read their translation. Then you scratch your head: What the deuce is that supposed to mean ...? Then you check the original language version. Then you compare the two. Then you start wondering: How did *this* turn into *that*? Then you shake your head. (Note: everything up to this point is unproductive time.) Then you look at the original again and try to translate it. As you do, you invariably end up leaving the Google shite where it is and writing your own text. In the end, you delete the Google shite, and then, as you do so, you kick yourself because there were two words in there that you needn't have typed yourself. Interestingly, I have had a completely opposite experiences. When reading a Google translation, it is easy for me to decipher what does it mean even if it is not gramatically correct. When translating, I often hang on deciding what sentence structure to use, or on remembering how a specific words translates. GTT solves both problems. My estimate is that I retain half and rewrite half of every sentence it produces. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Free translation memory
Дана Thursday 29 July 2010 10:38:20 Samuel Klein написа: There is definitely a free TM project waiting to happen. It would be nice to see translatewiki [for instance] incorporate such a tool, but it may be a nontrivial amount of work. At Project Rastko for years now there is the idea of building something called Global Translation Project, where volunteers could collaboratively translate texts in a manner somewhat similar to Distributed Proofreaders. To give some detail: the idea is to first parse the original text with a rule-based machine translation engine (of course this should be free software with free dictionary). The basic problem that these engines have is that they are unable to resolve ambiguities in the text (a classic example is sentence Time flies like an arrow: does it means that time is flying as fast as an arrow or that there exist some insects called time flies (like there are fruit flies) which like some arrow?). This often ends in a mistranslation. The crux of the idea is that it would be humans who resolve ambiguities in this step. For example, these two possible meanings of the sentence would in another language be translated to two completely different sentences. A human could then simply pick the correct one. After several people have done this for several independent languages, and their translations agree, the system would know what is the correct parsing of the original text. Then this parsing could be translated fully automatically to a large number of languages, and it will be highly likely that the translations will be close to correct. An offshoot of this is a crowdsourced dictionary project in GalaxyZoo style. Instead of doing battle with Wiktionary's or similar interface, volunteers could build a dictionary by solving various simple tasks (say, pick a word's gender, or verify that a word is correctly declined); if the supermajority of the volunteers gives the same answer, the word enters the dictionary. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?
Дана Sunday 25 July 2010 08:12:43 Shiju Alex написа: So what is the solution for this? Can we take lessons from Tamil/Bengali/Swahili wikipedias and find methods to use this service effectively or continue with the current article creation process. I was thinking about a website that would have static copies of all Wikipedia articles translated to all languages. That should dissuade people from using Google Translate to make Wikipedia articles, since the articles would already be online; and even if someone would do that, admins would have community support for deletion of such articles because they already exist online. And if someone would want to fix Google Translate translation and make a real article, they could do that too... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] WikiCite - new WMF project? Was: [Wiki-research-l] UPEI's proposal for a universal citation index
Дана Monday 19 July 2010 22:20:15 Brian J Mingus написа:
Feel free to provide your feedback on this idea, in addition to your own
ideas, in this thread, or to me personally. I am especially interested in
the potential benefits to the WMF projects that you see, and to hear your
thoughts on the potential of this project on its own, as that will feature
prominently in the proposal. Additionally, what do you think WikiCite would
eventually be like, once it is fully matured?
I was thinking about this too. Main advantages that I see are that citations
will become easier to use for editors while more informative for readers. Too
often I just link to something instead of properly filling a cite template
because it's just too bothersome. For example, instead of this crud:
{{cite book|author=Š. Kulišić |coauthors=P. Ž. Petrović, N. Pantelić |
title=Српски митолошки речник |origyear=1970 |publisher=[[Nolit]] |
location=Belgrade |language=Serbian |pages=161 |chapter=Јерисавља}}
we would have just:
{{cite|work=Српски митолошки речник |pages=161 |chapter=Јерисавља}}
Another advantage that I see: people will spend less time filling in the
citation templates and will thus have more time to make more precise
citations. This means more citations with exact page numbers or quotes.
Perhaps this could be tested on-wiki prior to creating a separate project,
perhaps through revival of Reference namespace. This could be done through
templates only, would require no changes to MediaWiki and few changes to
existing practices.
BTW1: it is my understanding that you imagined this for literature only, but
it could be expanded to all citable media (videos etc).
BTW3: for citing online stuff, this could eventually be combined with archive
of cited pages. If the original goes away we would still have the source for
the readers to verify. This would also help with some copyright concerns (for
example, using free images the source of which is later removed thus leaving
the images with no evidence of being free).
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Re: [Foundation-l] Ongoing FUD campaign against Wikipedia in Serbian
On 07/06/2010 01:15 AM, James Alexander wrote: It sounds odd to say that legal threats, court actions and press campaigns PROVE that the projects or company are notable but in many ways I think they do and the fact that this article is so important to Maybe, but imagine what these articles would look like: Foo Foundation is an NGO notable for legal threats, court actions and press campaigns about deletion of their Wikipedia article. They also organized some event once. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] encouraging women's participation
Дана Wednesday 23 June 2010 18:27:43 Nikola Smolenski написа: Anyway, I made this so anyone who would like to experiment, can. http://toolserver.org/~nikola/snrss.php I see that people who tried it either haven't written any new articles recently or have encountered a bug (on non-English Wikipedias). Write an article and/or try again :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] encouraging women's participation
Дана Saturday 19 June 2010 08:37:37 Milos Rancic написа: On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 7:40 AM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote: Дана Saturday 19 June 2010 07:37:18 Milos Rancic написа: On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 7:30 AM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote: Or perhaps we don't even have to build one, but just use the existing ones. [People are always against making Wikipedia a social network.] Have RSS feeds of articles you created/pictures you uploaded. These could then be connected to Facebook or wherever for your friends to see what are you working on. Then you are using Facebook, not Wikimedia. And Flickr is much better for private photos than Wikimedia. Then your Facebook friends will see that you are doing interesting things on Wikipedia projects and will want to do them too. I don't think that it is particularly interesting to see someone's edits. If you are not a passionate Wikimedian, of course. If your friends are so disinterested in Wikipedia that they aren't even interested in your contributions to it, why would they be interested in using Wikipedia as their social network? Anyway, I made this so anyone who would like to experiment, can. http://toolserver.org/~nikola/snrss.php ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again
Дана Wednesday 23 June 2010 10:13:39 Magnus Manske написа: On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 6:40 AM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote: On 06/22/2010 08:07 PM, Magnus Manske wrote: Here's a thought: Enter hobu into translate.google.com, leave source language on automatic and target on English, and it will happily translate it into horse. Could we offer a translation link in search? As in, translate my query into English and try again? I'm sure we can come to an arrangement with Google (or someone else). I already made something similar: http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php Nice! Now it needs language auto-detect, and Estonian for the example (unless I didn't see it), and, of course, integration into Commons... All done, and I leave the integration to someone who knows how to navigate the community's labyrinths. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again
Дана Wednesday 23 June 2010 16:34:26 Magnus Manske написа: On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Tisza Gergo gti...@gmail.com wrote: Again, I would suggest using Google (or an alternative with open data, if one exists) instead of trying to reinvent the wheel: http://translate.google.com/#auto|en|Pferd%20Schach http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#Detect It might support less languages then we have wikipedias for, but I'm pretty sure it would give better results for the major ones. Well, that's what I suggested a few mails ago in this very thread. However, people didn't seem to want it. This tool of mine does use Google Translate, so probably it could be done in Javascript fully, if someone knows how. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again
On 23 Jun 2010, at 16:23, David Gerard wrote: Reliance on Google for what is really an essential function for those who aren't native English speakers is problematic because it's (a) third-party (b) closed. Same reason we don't use reCaptcha. On the other hand, do we have to really _rely_ on reCaptcha? If their servers aren't working, use the ordinary captcha. Proofread books and still not rely on any external servers. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again
On 06/22/2010 08:07 PM, Magnus Manske wrote: I would consider this state as a poor reflection on Commons' accessibility. Especially as Google image search (imho, the likeliest avenue of searching for images) gives 130 000 pictures of horses on Commons if searched in English, zero if searched in Estonian (hobu), and while it gives 160 000 results for a Hungarian search (ló) on the first page only one of it is an image that resembles a horse. Here's a thought: Enter hobu into translate.google.com, leave source language on automatic and target on English, and it will happily translate it into horse. Could we offer a translation link in search? As in, translate my query into English and try again? I'm sure we can come to an arrangement with Google (or someone else). I already made something similar: http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] encouraging women's participation
Дана Saturday 19 June 2010 05:58:31 Milos Rancic написа: That means that we need games for women. While I think that we should build full social network, just a basic one would help. Ability to make other editors your friends, then you could watch their Special:Contributions jointly (see what are your friends editing). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] encouraging women's participation
Дана Saturday 19 June 2010 07:37:18 Milos Rancic написа: On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 7:30 AM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.rs wrote: Or perhaps we don't even have to build one, but just use the existing ones. [People are always against making Wikipedia a social network.] Have RSS feeds of articles you created/pictures you uploaded. These could then be connected to Facebook or wherever for your friends to see what are you working on. Then you are using Facebook, not Wikimedia. And Flickr is much better for private photos than Wikimedia. Then your Facebook friends will see that you are doing interesting things on Wikipedia projects and will want to do them too. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Did you say usability ?
On 06/15/2010 09:27 AM, Domas Mituzas wrote: On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:17 AM, Teofiloteofilow...@gmail.com wrote: What would you think about an automobile repair shop, when you discover after you try the car again that you can no longer remove the key and stop the engine ? that perpetuum mobile exists, I'd be grateful for it. there're some better ways to report problems though, like http://bugs.wikimedia.org/ I have reported this problem during the testing stage, and even gave the solution, but apparently no one paid attention to that. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
On 06/04/2010 08:24 AM, Michael Peel wrote: On 2 Jun 2010, at 22:51, Gregory Maxwell wrote: A tiny benefit to a hundred million people wouldn't justify making wikipedia very hard to use for a hundred thousand Can you justify that the change has now made it very hard for users of those interlanguage links? Given that it's now one click away (click on 'languages' in the sidebar) the first time, and then it stays there afterwards (this menu does stay expanded after the first time it's opened, right?), I wouldn't have thought that would make it very hard. No, the menu only stays opened until you close your browser. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2
On 06/04/2010 09:10 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: As far as the the dynamic hiding goes, I'd like to toss in my voice against that: Determinism is very important for usability. Guessing what the user wants is great when it works but terrible when it doesn't. Computers are often _stupid_ but at least they tend to be I'd remind here that at one point Microsoft added a similar feature to menus in Microsoft Office, not showing rarely used options by default. It was universally hated. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Along with Vector, a new look for changes to the Wikipedia identity
Robert Rohde wrote: Myself and several other people find the new Wikipedia logo to be rather disappointing. Specifically it seems too small (lots of empty white space), and the edges of the puzzle pieces lack definition when shown at the web scale. For a discussion of this, including possible tweaks to make it bolder, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#New_logo I have to say I agree. Another bad thing I don't see mentioned is gray on gray syndrome - dark gray letters on light gray background make for a very bland logo, and I believe this would be especially bad in print. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Дана Friday 07 May 2010 12:53:59 Milos Rancic написа: On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our future. Nice to see our resident futurist making some more predictions. This reminds me, we're almost halfway to May 29, 2011, the date by which the Google Wave client will be the basic component of a modern operating system, replacing the web browser. Unlike in prophecy, in speculative prediction will be means: It will be if: 1) Nothing cataclysmic happens. 2) Nothing radically different happens. 3) Matter of prediction goes through the most possible path of development. OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates
Дана Sunday 09 May 2010 10:53:23 William Pietri написа: On 05/08/2010 10:23 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: Editors are saying, with a straight face, that there is no implied sexual activity in BDSM images like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angel_BDSM.png and that images like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BDSM_Preparation.png are not pornographic. I'm going to stay quite thoroughly out of 99.9% of this discussion, but that last link is from a well-known local art gallery and performance space, Femina Potens, [1] that happens to be just a few blocks from my house. At least by local community standards, the event depicted was indeed not pornographic. San Francisco's long history as a home to both artists and people with different takes on sex and gender means that a lot of local art works with sex and gender as key themes. As they mention in their Just because someone says that their pornography is art doesn't make it so. Next thing you'll be telling us is that art[http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Mappleth/MappPg1.html] of Robert Mapplethorpe isn't pornographic. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Dan Rosenthal wrote: On May 6, 2010, at 10:24 PM, geni wrote: 3D objects could already be supported as .blend files although we don't at this point. But not the manipulation of them in a fully interactive physics based 3d environment with simultaneous interaction from thousands of other concurrent users. How about doing one thing at a time? Surely many Wikipedia articles would benefit from being illustrated with a 3D model, for example articles about molecules, or vehicles, or buildings. And when that is achieved we could think about how to add interaction, and when that is achieved we could think about how to add simultaneous interaction from thousands of people. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Copyrighted maps and Derived works
Дана Thursday 01 April 2010 20:30:10 Aude написа: There are differences in how data (incl.map data) is treated under US law and how UK/European law treat data and data collections/databases Wikipedia is operates under US copyright law, w/ servers and the foundation US based (not sure how the Amsterdam servers fit under laws). In the US, facts such as listings in the phone book and geocoordinates are not copyrightable. I think wikipedians deriving these facts from google maps or google earth is okay under us law On the otherhand, openstreetmap is based in the uk with servers in London, and operates under uk/european law. I know that databases and data collections do get some protection under law there. Thus openstreetmap regards databases of coordinates (eg google) as having protection and disallows google maps as a source for osm Although deriving geocoordinates from google maps for wikipedia (under us law) is okay, I would prefer not doing so and use osm, NASA This is so wrong on several levels. Databases can be copyrighted under US law, facts are not copyrighted under UK law, an image is not a database, deriving coordinates from Google Maps is OK under other laws and so on. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Copyrighted maps and Derived works from copyrighted sources.
Andre Engels wrote: The thought process (note: I do not agree with it) goes like this: * A map or a sattelite photograph is copyrighted material * Taking a location from a map or a photograph is getting a derivative work from it * You are not allowed to make a derivative work from a copyrighted source In US copyright law, A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works. Since a pair of coordinates is not a work, it can not be a derivative work, even if it is based upon one or more pre-existing works. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Copyrighted maps and Derived works from copyrighted sources.
By the way, this seems like a good time to mention http://www.google.com/moderator/#15/e=1d33t=1d33.40q=1d33.10309 and http://www.systemed.net/blog/?p=100 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Changes in Language committee practice: ancient and constructed languages
Milos Rancic wrote: A general test for having interface in MediaWiki in some language is: Would the translation of the word file [computer meaning] be understandable for native speakers or for those who are/were using that language as a medium for communication? (I didn't want to say would it be a neologism as all new words in all languages are neologisms, but, in fact, this is about neologisms. They are acceptable in a living language, but they are not in a dead language.) This is true for Latin, but not for Ancient Greek. At least, in this moment of time. A general test for having Wikipedia (and thus the full set of Wikimedia projects) in some language is: Would you able to write an article about thermodynamics in that language without using neologisms? Or about train? Again, this is true for Latin, but not for Ancient Greek nor Coptic. What with the living languages that can't pass this test? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] At school
Shlomi Fish wrote: In one of the open source conferences in Israel, the bureaucrat of the Hebrew wikipedia, came on stage and said How can you trust an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit? How can you trust an encyclopaedia that no one can edit!! I usually say: I admit it is counter-intuitive, but practice has shown that it works. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Money for the Prishtina Insight
jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote: I wonder if you know about : http://prishtinainsight.com/ They have a great newspaper that is very informative. Problem is: it is lacking funding. My idea is that we would raise funding from wikimedia to buy articles from them to put in the wikipedia. I'm not sure how feasible is that. In general, newspaper contributors retain their copyright, and they seem to rely heavily on contributors, thus it would be necessary to negotiate copyright with every contributor independently. Also, they don't have an on-line archive, which means that the texts would have to be (re)digitized first. ___ 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
Дана Monday 18 January 2010 16:33:00 Bod Notbod написа: somewhat taken aback by a few of the pics in that video... are we ever going to have an article called gay facial? Are you saying that you will be surprised if you find out that we have one? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA
Дана Saturday 16 January 2010 12:25:58 Nikola Smolenski написа: Дана Saturday 16 January 2010 10:40:06 Mark Williamson написа: It is not surprising to me that the English Wikipedia is so popular compared to any other in Kenya, but it is quite a bit more surprising that Korean, Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Iranian, etc. users prefer the English Wikipedia. Next thing to do: Wikipedia Page Views By Country - Breakdown Adjusted by Wikipedia Size. Erik, are you planning to do this one as well? :D Did it: http://smolenski.rs/blog/2010/01/wikipedia-page-views-by-country-breakdown-with-wikipedia-size-and-quality/ ___ 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
Дана Sunday 17 January 2010 22:13:28 private musings написа: Here's another concerning aspect of management of explicit media on WMF; It's been asserted that images of a 16 year old girl masturbating have been uploaded to commons; http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notic eboard/Incidentsoldid=338426080#User:Misty_Willows_problematic_images The image in question has been deleted from commons; http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Closeup_of_female_mastu rbation_pastel.jpgaction=editredlink=1 ..and I think it's also been oversighted. Lar, a commons oversighter, muses over on wikipedia review whether or not continuing to fight fires caused by systemic problems is the right thing to do; http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=showtopic=28221view=findpostp=216 072 The general issue is of course important, but I hope in the short term, that the image in question can be properly deleted - restricting it to oversighters only remains, in my view, likely to be illegal - it really would be best for that image to be removed by a dev. Maybe this is underway as I type? Hope so! This is an interesting case, but I don't see what it has to do with policies on explicit images on WMF projects. Even if the policies would be changed to be the strictest possible (for example, no explicit images allowed at all), the exact same thing could happen. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA
Дана Saturday 16 January 2010 10:40:06 Mark Williamson написа: It is not surprising to me that the English Wikipedia is so popular compared to any other in Kenya, but it is quite a bit more surprising that Korean, Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Iranian, etc. users prefer the English Wikipedia. I don't think that they would prefer it, it's just that it covers much more topics, and generally covers the topics in much more depth. I believe that I am fairly fluent in English, and yet I prefer to read Serbian Wikipedia, if I know that the topic is covered there and the article is better than the English one. Next thing to do: Wikipedia Page Views By Country - Breakdown Adjusted by Wikipedia Size. Erik, are you planning to do this one as well? :D ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA
Дана Friday 15 January 2010 23:39:38 Erik Zachte написа: R: Nikola Smolenski It is obvious why Slovene Wikipedia is highly visited in Sierra Leone, and Serbian in Suriname; URLs do matter :) Although, I don't understand why so much. I would expect this distribution by visitors, perhaps, but not by visits. A: Very interesting observation! So people from Sierra Leone try 'sl.wikipedia.org'. Why people from Surinam go to 'sr.wikimedia.org' is only slightly less obvious to me, but apparently is happens ISO 3166-1 code for Surinam is 'sr'. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from? QA
Дана Friday 15 January 2010 23:39:38 Erik Zachte написа: Here is a much more extended version of the breakdown report [1] (for this discussion only) It shows per country up to 50 Wikipedia's An extra column shows the total number of records for this country/language (for the 6 month period) on which the percentage is based. What exactly is this number of records? Thousands of visits? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from?
Erik Zachte wrote: Today I released 4 new reports, which all focus on: Where do our readers come from? http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j Excellent and extremely useful! A big thank you! :) A few questions: Could we get this for other projects? At Wikipedia Page Views Per Country - Overview, could you in future include number of Internet users (f.e. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users ) and number of views per Internet user? IMO, this is more useful than population and could identify countries where Wikipedia should be advertised. At pages Wikipedia Page Views By Country - Breakdown and Wikipedia Page Views By Country - Trends, could you include more languages (ideally all languages)? Perhaps by making a separate page for every country? For example, I'd like to know data for all minority languages of Serbia. It would also be interesting to somehow show this data together with size of the Wikipedia and number of language speakers per country but I don't see how exactly (and I don't know how to find the number of language speakers). Perhaps I will do some of this manually, but just this time! :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from?
Erik Zachte wrote: Today I released 4 new reports, which all focus on: Where do our readers come from? http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j Except for Australia-Japanese, there is also this: Sierra Leone (0.0007% share of global total) Russian Wp 44.9% English Wp 43.7% Portal 8.4% Slovene Wp 1.1% Other 1.9% Why would Russian Wikipedia have so many visits from Sierra Leone? As a sidenote, there is also this: Suriname (0.003% share of global total) English Wp 62.5% Dutch Wp28.2% Portal 4.1% Serbian Wp 1.5% Afrikaans Wp1.4% Other 2.3% It is obvious why is Slovene Wikipedia highly visited in Sierra Leone, and Serbian in Suriname; URLs do matter :) (Although, I don't understand why so much. I would expect this distribution by visitors, perhaps, but not by visits.) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
