Forwarding this to wikien-l which is really the place for this. I
would be grateful if the discussion could ensue there, not here.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Everson <everson(a)evertype.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 2:21 PM
Subject: [Foundation-l] Trouble in Ireland
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
I don't know whether this is a reasonable place to put this problem,
but the articles on Ireland on en.wikipedia.org need a serious look by
people with a neutral view. Right now we've got a clique of about 10
editors filibustering and preventing any change to the article naming
conventions. It's driving us mad, and preventing the articles
themselves from being improved. Somehow I think we need binding
arbitration.
A number of us think that the most sensible proposal is to move
[[Ireland]] to [[Ireland (island)]], [[Ireland (disambiguation)]] to
[[Ireland]], and [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland (state)]].
That's a compromise over an alternative, which is to move [[Ireland]]
to [[Ireland (island)]], keep [[Ireland (disambiguation)]] where it
is, and move [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland]]. If any of you
would like to take a look, please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland_(disambiguation)#Proposed_move_to…
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland#Proposed_move_to_Ireland_.28islan…
.
At least I'd like advice as to how we can get out of this mess.
Michael Everson
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
--
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler(a)gmail.com
Wikipedia set for video explosion?
> Wikipedia's decision to increase its server capacity will herald a new era
> for the online encyclopaedia.
>
> According to Sun Microsystems, Wikimedia – the company behind the likes of
> Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikibooks – has bought in a lot of new servers.
>
> This will bring about the end of a 100 MB upload cap for Wikipedia,
> enabling video hosting and better picture support.
>
> According to CNet<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10103177-2.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlines…>,
> this could include picture editing software and allow users to modify images
> and see past revisions in the same way as they can the text.
>
> Wikipedia is one of the most visited internet sites on the globe, boasting
> 2.6 million entries in English alone.
>
> Currently the vast majority of WIkipedia is text based, and thus takes up
> very little room in terms of server space - despite its breadth of material.
>
> However, as media like video becomes more prevalent, the need for storage
> capacity rises. But that's progress for you.
Source:
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/11/20/wikipedia-set-for-video-explosion/
I'm sorry for being behind the curve on this, but could someone point
me to a discussion or policy explaining when & why the requirement to
be autoconfirmed in order to upload files was created? Doesn't this
just shift whatever problem it tries to solve to Commons, which
doesn't have that restriction?
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
When seeking to understand someone's statement there are two general
ways to go about it. The useful way is to
contact the person either firsthand or through a mutually acceptable
third party and ask them to explain it further.
The unhelpful way is to go to a forum where that person is not
present, construct straw man arguments, and broadcast
one's objections to the straws.
I've signed onto this list temporarily for the purpose of response.
Jonas, your request for unbanning has met with universal rejection.
Following up in this way is unlikely to hasten your
return. The fact is, you created a breaching experiment--which you
know is against policy--and you admitted
in your description of the breaching experiment that there were
additional circumstances some Wikipedians might
recognize but that you didn't want to discuss.
Well circumstances happen to be that both the subject and the timing
line up with a long term vandal, two arbitrations,
two desysoppings, and the siteban of a former administrator. Of all
the subjects on Wikipedia, you just happened to
choose professional wrestling biography merely by chance and that had
nothing to do at all with the fact it was also
JB196's favorite subject? And pure coincidence prompted you to create
the sock account that started a hoax wrestling
biography the day before the arbitration committee finished voting to
desysop Alkivar for helping JB's vandalism?
Of course I know you're not JB196. One of ways we caught him and
sitebanned him two years ago was because he
was evading an indef block on a sock account, using the sock account
to cite himself, and claiming on the sock to be
merely a fan--we caught that sock attributing a citation to his
'favorite author' even though the article itself had no byline.
The original account was too old to checkuser, but on the strength of
that connection we got a checkuser that uncovered
his growing sockfarm. I know his name, but I don't broadcast it when
it isn't necessary. I hope that fellow finally finishes
his book manuscript and gets it published.
What's also interesting, though, is that Jonas knows JB196's real name
even though the long term abuse page doesn't list it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse/JB196
And of course Jonas is shooting totally straight with us. That's all
just a massive coincidence. He's been mistreated and
I'm nuts.
-Durova
P.S. Reply by email or other means; I'm signing off the list again.
Life is too short for this.
I recently sent an unblock request to Tiptoety, asking him to post it on the
Admins' Noticeboard, as he said he would on IRC. Durova made a comment on
it, and then she wrote a long-winded addendum to it that I really didn't get
the point of, and am unsure of how to respond to. It seems to me that she
wasn't accusing me of anything, as I could make out no clear accusation, but
why did she write all of that? For nothing? I don't think that she was
accusing me of being JB196, because if she read the long term abuse page on
him, she would see that his real name is [redacted], and that he is a
wrestling commentator who promotes himself. Then again, she's accused me of
not being as young as I say I am, and she may think that I am a made-up
person. A Yahoo! search on my name can disprove this. Any connection between
me and JB196 is purely coincidental. I have never even communicated with
Alkivar and Eyrian (who have been accused of editing for JB196), let alone
JB196, and I surely didn't "proxy" for him.
I don't know what to say in response to her speech, except that I cannot
understand a word of it.
--
http://durova.blogspot.com/
> Anyone have any ideas how to set up a system like that cleanly and get
> it working on Wikipedia? The relatively poor spread of Persondata
> suggests that it is harder than it looks to get something like this
> going.
Pay MoS to make it standard, then it will be bots ahoy! and doing it
automatically on every article >.>
Maybe we could get it included in the infobox templates so when one is
used that its automatically included and uses the data from that?
Here are some areas on the English Wikipedia where the donation drive and
banner have been discussed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Bring_Back_Hide_Fun…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#.22Support_Wikipedia:_a_non-profit_project._Donate_Now_.3E.3E.22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F
It has also been discussed a few times on the #wikipedia-en IRC channel.
I don't know if other projects have had similar reactions, but I do know
that some projects have disabled the banner. It was for a time not available
on the Spanish Wikipedia, and remains unavailable (last I checked) at the
Russian Wikibooks. A quick survey of interwiki links on the en.wp Barack
Obama page suggests that most or all Wikipedia projects are displaying the
banner now.
My observation is that the comments have been almost universally negative,
and in fact a number of people - including long time administrators and
previous donors - have said that this year they will not be donating at all.
Reasons have included the banner itself, a sense that the foundation does
not use its money appropriately, or concerns related to allegations made by
Danny Wool last spring.
I don't remember this sort of strong negative reaction before - is it
expected? Are we seeing something a little different this year in terms of
reaction? Has it translated into any change in the pace of donations?
Nathan
In a message dated 11/12/2008 12:47:23 PM Pacific Standard Time,
charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com writes:
In what way is the history tab unusable? Are you saying you would
prefer an alternate view which lists users in descending order by
number of edits to the page (rather than listing edits by user and
timestamp)? There's something on the toolserver which does just that..>>
-------------------
That could fit the bill. If WP would make something like that an official
part of the system.
Then we could see at a glance, that an article was 90% by myself or only 2%
or whatever.
There could be a cutoff like "only list a person if they've contributed 10%
or more to the article"
That way it could only list 10 people maximum, and most likely would only be
ever listing four or less.
Will Johnson
**************Get the Moviefone Toolbar. Showtimes, theaters, movie news &
more!(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212774565x1200812037/aol?red…p://toolbar.aol.com/moviefone/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000001)
Hi ya'll,
You may remember way that back in mid-2006 user:Improv started up the
List Syndication Service:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS
This was an ongoing weekly summary of the mailing lists, particularly
Foundation-L. It was carried on for a good while by Improv and was
then taken on by BirgetteSB, but was dropped in early 2007 and not
picked back up.
I always thought this was a great idea that should be continued. And
so finally, I've taken a stab at recreating and rebooting LSS:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2008_November_2-15
This update covers from November 2-15 (two weeks, Sun. to Sat.) of
Foundation-L. I've made some changes from previous summarizers:
* summary by topic, not date; related threads grouped together
* no attempt to read and distill the content of posts -- instead
simply noting what topics were discussed. It was the heavy burden of
reading and understanding all the (quite complex) threads on the lists
that I believe led previous summarizers to burn out. For this summary,
if you want to know more, you have to read the threads yourself.
I hope that this will prove helpful in pointing out *what* was
discussed, particularly for people who don't have time to read the
whole list, even if the substance isn't there.
I make no promises, but will attempt to keep up with foundation-l for
a while. Suggestions, feedback, helpers, etc. all welcome.
best,
-- phoebe
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *