WikiEN-l April 2006

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

175 participants
238 discussions

Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta
by Angela 02 Apr '06

02 Apr '06

(I'm copying this to wikien-l since the issue of whether the English Wikipedia needs its own "meta" is probably better discussed there. See <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-March/thread.html> for previous mails.) Alex Schenck <linuxbeak(a)gmail.com> wrote: > A.) It would be heavily based upon most of the policies from en.wikipedia. > Some things can change, but it will be a site designed with the purpose of > being an extention of en.wikipedia instead of an entirely separate project. > Meta2 will exist for Wikipedia instead of being a standalone project. Does the community on the English Wikipedia need or want to be expanded in this way? There has always been some opposition to moving anything to meta (though perhaps single login will alleviate some of the concerns). There is currently confusion about what should be on the English Wikipedia and what should be on meta. "Don't be a dick" is on meta, but "Wikipedia:Complete bollocks" is on Wikipedia. Recentism is on Wikipedia, deletionism is on meta. Is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_essays supposed to be different to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Essays ? Are chess, quizzes, and humor pages supposed to be on meta or en? (They're currently on both). Are you suggesting that all of this stuff would move to Meta2? Is there any advantage to that? Is there likely to be any agreement about it within the English Wikipedia community? Angela.

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Use of English
by Gordon Joly 02 Apr '06

02 Apr '06

I have just "discovered" the "Simple English Wikipedia" http://simple.wikipedia.org/ On the left, under "Navigation", I find >> Newest changes I am very surprised to find this phrase here, since it is very poor English! Gordo -- "Think Feynman"///////// http://pobox.com/~gordo/ gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///

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Fwd: unfair block
by MacGyverMagic/Mgm 01 Apr '06

01 Apr '06

I'm too busy right now to deal with unblock requests, so I've decided to forward this to the list so you guys can take a look at it. Mgm ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Zadil <muliben(a)walla.com> Date: Apr 1, 2006 12:21 AM Subject: unfair block To: MacGyverMagic <MacGyverMagic(a)gmail.com> it seems like user SlimVirgin is abusing his privilages in the midst of a discussion. please, note my follwoing complaints: 1)the above user has blocked me for no apparent valid reason. 2)He has used the block in the midst of a dicussion, and then took the freedom to revert my edit. 3)He has nominiate a new article by me for "speedy deletion" and indeed deleted it without any discussion. I'ts indeed a shame that I can not provide you any link to that article, but it was -in my humble opinion- a very useful article. 4)He has used threats against me and still use in the midst of discussion, a fact I've already complaint and was assured by Benon that they better should be ignored. (see my user page) 5)He has took to privilage of my block to "vandalise" my user page", a fact which is the most disturbing. Please, if you can, take the trouble to look my relevant edits and ublock me. It is really unfair to have such "discussion" on wikipedia. And may I suggest, that an administrator who constantly uses threants and indeed blocks other users in the midst of discussion, should be deprived from such privileges. Thank you Zadil bbb Muliben(a)walla.com

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Analysis of Request for Adminship
by uninvited＠nerstrand.net 01 Apr '06

01 Apr '06

I agree that the adminship process is broken and has been for quite some time. People become admins by making a sufficient number of edits over a span of some months without making a career-limiting mistake. It helps to participate in IRC and to be part of a mutually reinforcing group of people who are also seeking adminship, and there are certain purely mechanical requirements involving edit summaries, minor edits, and participation in various housekeeping tasks. The amount of time and number of edits requirements are now high enough that they have little to do with understanding Wikipedia. They are as high as they are just to be sure that potential admins have had sufficient opportunity to make a career-limiting mistake, if they are prone to that sort of thing by their nature. While RFA is more or less functional at a basic level of being effective in getting admins promoted that have received some sort of vetting, there are problems with the ill will it generates and the fact that the project could benefit from more admins than are being promoted presently. Though rare, there have also been some admins that have slipped through that were, in hindsight, clearly not suitable. The fact that RFA has become politicized is also a problem because it means that admins as a group are more predisposed to behave politically than was once the case. Tyrenius is an example of the problem we face. It's clear from the RFA page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Tyrenius) that he is unaware of the "RFA culture" which is rife with unwritten rules, such as the unwritten rule against attempted rebuttal of an oppose vote, the unwritten rule that you really ought to vote on a bunch of RFAs before nominating yourself, and the unwritten rule that self-noms in at least some peoples' minds must be well qualified. While I don't necessarily believe that Tyrenius should be an admin at this time, I do believe that he is justified in feeling unfairly treated by the project. The lack of consensus on a minimum number of edits, and the ever-growing minimum in the minds of many, is particularly a problem. We used to require 500 edits. I'm not sure what all the answers are but the two thoughts that come to mind are the sequenced granting of rights, which I've proposed in the past (in general, granting deletion, undeletion, and rollback first and the other privs more or less automatically after a six month or yearlong "apprenticeship" period), and a sponsorship and mentoring system where existing admins take responsibility for shepherding new editors through the process. uc

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Wikimania 2006 CfP - deadline extension
by Phoebe Ayers 01 Apr '06

01 Apr '06

Hello, The deadline for submitting proposals to the Wikimania 2006 conference has been extended, to April 15 for workshop and tutorial submissions, and April 30 for presentation submissions. For more information, visit http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org. The Call for Participation is attached below. ------ Call for Participation -- Wikimania 2006 -- Aug. 4 - Aug. 6, Cambridge, MA About Wikimania Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. It is both a scientific conference and a community event, open to the public. Wikimania is a place for users and editors of the projects to gather from around the globe, to meet each other, to exchange ideas, and to report on research and projects. This year's conference will be held from 4-6 August, 2006, on the Harvard Law School campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. See http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org for more information. We are accepting submissions for papers, posters, presentations, workshops, and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speakers and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities. Everyone is welcome to submit abstracts and ideas. Be bold in your submissions! ----- Important dates: * 15 Apr 2006 (extended): Proposal deadline for workshops and tutorials Notification of acceptance: by April 30 * 30 Apr 2006 (extended): Abstracts due for panels, papers, posters and presentations Notification of acceptance: by May 15 * 4-6 Aug 2006: Wikimania ----- Conference Themes Submissions should address one or more of the following themes: * Technical infrastructure -- Issues related to Mediawiki development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for development (including case studies from other wikis or similar projects). * Wikimedia projects and content -- Presentation of interesting projects and results; future aims of the projects and types of distribution; ways to improve content quality. New uses for project content: in education, journalism, research, &c. * Free knowledge and access to information -- Present and future free knowledge initiatives; related library and archival projects around the world and input from librarians and archivists; ways to gather and distribute knowledge. * Wiki social science -- The contributors and users (who are they? Where do they come from?); reputation and identity issues; conflict resolution and community dynamics; scaling digital communities. Languages and cultures and their interactions online; multilingualism via wikis. Linguistics studies on wiki communities. * Law and Policy -- Copyleft, collective copyright, special issues pertaining to communal editing and distribution; other legal areas for which Wiki[mp]edia is an interesting case study. Policy creation within individual projects. ----- Submissions Types of Submissions: * Panels (Suggest a group of 2-5 speakers on a specific subject) * Workshops (From 30-120 minutes) * Presentations (10-30 minute presentations/papers) * Posters (Printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own) * BOFs (Birds-of-a-Feather/discussion sessions - 45-60 minutes of group discussion) * We are also accepting artistic submissions, especially visualizations or other representations of some aspect of the projects. ------ Submission format * All submissions must include a title and an abstract of 100 to 300 words. They should also list the full name (and wiki name if appropriate) of the submitter, with contact information and affiliations. Special requirements for the presentation (equipment for a workshop or panel) should be noted. The abstracts should be provided as plain text, and not as file attachments. * Workshop submissions should include a 1-2pp overview of the areas to be covered or taught. * Speaker panel submissions should include short biographies of each suggested panelist. * Paper and Presentation submissions may include a link to a draft of the paper or slides, if available. State clearly whether the submission concerns a specific wiki project, and whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length. * BOF proposals should describe the significance of and community interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s). To process your submission, please see the Wikimania website - http:/cfp.wikimania.wikimedia.org. Send questions or suggestions to wikimania-cfp <at> wikimedia.org . ----- Final Submissions Final submissions must be provided in an open format (OpenOffice, LaTeX sources, HTML...) and licensed under a free content license (GFDL or CC-BY-SA). ----- Stipends A limited number of stipends will be available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Accepted presenters are encouraged to apply if assistance is needed. -- - phoebe s. ayers brassratgirl(a)gmail.com | 530-756-2551 http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org

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Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta
by David Gerard 01 Apr '06

01 Apr '06

>Sure, improve it, but that's no reason to lambaste its >community, or make false claims about it. (David, you still haven't >addressed my questioning of how historical pages make Meta unusable). Because you can't tell what on earth is active and what isn't. e.g. Is [[Meta:Babel]] active? It's supposed to be the Village Pump of Meta. I see tumbleweeds blow past. e.g. Is [[m:RFA]] checked at all on any regular basis? The bureaucrats were notable by their complete absence until Linuxbeak ran for bureaucrat, which appeared to cause a sudden flurry of activity and declarations that there were enough bureaucrats on Meta, even though there was visibly no-one minding the store. That sort of thing. I've given both these examples before on the wiki, though not here (my apologies). Note, by the way, that everyone listed on [[WM:OM]] are individuals - despite, e.g. Anthere answering one person [1] with a reply to what someone else said [2]. So, e.g., Linuxbeak's list of things he wants isn't mine (e.g. an en: only meta). I will note also that the incumbents have successfully driven out at least some of the "insurgents" [3]. Are you proud? If not, why? - d. (I'm giving references because people are too often claiming not to know what I'm talking about in this discussion.) [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta_talk:MetaProject_to_Overha… [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta_talk:MetaProject_to_Overha… - I do agree this was inappropriate, but it does help not to answer the wrong person, as if everyone involved is a single entity. [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta:MetaProject_to_Overhaul_Me…

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What to do?
by Guy Chapman aka JzG 01 Apr '06

01 Apr '06

There exists in the UK a small - politically insignificant at present - movement known as the traditional counties movement. The two largest groups are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_British_Counties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Watch There is zero news coverage of ABC that I can find. Looking at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_counties_of_the_British_Isles and its linked articles, you could be forgiven for thinking that: * the term traditional county is usually ascribed to these (it is not AFAICT actually generally used much at all other than by the traditional counties movement) * that they are the sole and indisputable historic counties (they aren't, boundaries have shifted a number of times and there have been a lot of legislative changes too) * that there is widespread recognition of these as the "true" counties (in fact most Brits don't actually care, and it's only really significant in some areas like parts of Yorkshire and former Rutland) I have a serious problem with the assertion that these are "traditional" counties, since there are other arrangements both before and after them; the ones the traditional movement claim existed from the 16th to the 19th Centuries, with some boundary changes - the only thing on which all sources appear to agree over time is the approximate locations, county towns and the names. There have been edit wars over the Scottish infoboxes re the wording: "traditional", "historic" or "former" county - deeply contentious here, as Fife for example was historically the Kingdom of Fife, as my friend Eric will tell you at every opportunity. Now, I don't really know much about this apart from what I've seen in the edit wars, but it does look to me as if some peer-review is necessary. Barrows are being pushed. So the question is: where is the best place to take this? Article RfC? Peer review? NPOV tags and the Cleanup Squad? What's likely to get the best and most informed result, I do not want to get into forum shopping. Thanks, Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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[Fwd: Reports of Wikipedia being blocked in Pakistan]
by Mathias Schindler 31 Mar '06

31 Mar '06

http://groups.google.com/group/AGABBIP/browse_thread/thread/bc3ab7dc86829ad… http://danial.pixelsndots.com/archives/386 "Pakistan Blocks Wikipedia After Blocking the dirty dozen, Pakistan bans Wikipedia. The Government has gone totally mad and someone needs to stop them from this crazyness. Atleast three different ISPs failed to open Wikipedia. "

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WikiEN-l April 2006