Hi, Le Friday 15 April 2005 05:33, Andrew Lih a écrit : I think that Jimbo refers to the French Wikinews which is still in beta with no real participant. There is still no consensus on what to do with this project within the French community. Some people proposed to close it untill there is a wider consensus. Regards, Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux

Jimmy- it is important to note that Wikinews is currently the *only* project that follows a strict language creation policy. There are: * 12 Wikinews editions * 87 Wikiquote editions * 121 Wikibooks editions * 173 Wiktionary editions * ~200 Wikipedia editions Suffice it to say that a very large number of these Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikipedia editions are dead or, worse, spam magnets. :-( The elaborate processes for Wikinews as well as the nature of the project have certainly put it in the spotlight of community attention. But the situation with Wikinews is much better. Of all the editions, only one (Bulgarian) is completely dead. It was launched according to the old, minimal policy. If nothing happens within the next couple of months, or if it starts attracting spam, I'd recommend locking it down. The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current events" summary style right on the Main Page: http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil This is unfortunate, as it duplicates the page "Actualités" on the French Wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualit%C3%A9s I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a spam magnet, and there is a small community there. The Swedish edition has seen no new stories since April 2, but was very active until then; I have heard rumors that this is related to a conflict on the Swedish Wikipedia. All in all, I think we are doing quite well. Thanks to a volunteer from the Romanian edition, Romihaitza, we now even have daily updates on the number of new articles in each language per day: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Statistics The new "Wikimedia regulars + start writing key pages on Meta" policy for new languages seems to work, and I see no reason for any substantial changes at the present time. Maybe the number of required regulars could be increased slightly. Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of the different languages. All best, Erik

On 4/16/05, Yann Forget &lt;yann(a)forget-me.net&gt; wrote: I created the Inactive wikis page (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis>) for this, but I'm not sure now whether I agree with what I proposed there. It was never clear whether one person requesting a wiki to be locked or unlocked was enough, or whether there ought to be more of a procedure for this. Very few wikis were ever locked as a result of this proposal, though I don't know how much of this was related to the objections to the procedure and how much was just due to a lack of motivation by the stewards to lock these wikis. Spam and vandalism at inactive wikis can be reported at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_reports>. Angela.

On 4/16/05, Walter van Kalken &lt;walter(a)vankalken.net&gt; wrote: This won't work when you have to deal with bots. In two to three days they could have created hundreds of thousands of pages. The worst is when there are existing pages which could have been edited and moved a hundred times where the only efficient way would be to restore the database.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 well, what about setting it up so you have to enter one of those randomly generated image sequences that supposedly can't be read by bots yet to keep them from spamming. I think another item that could help clean up some spam is to set up a limit of how small a post can become in one edit. What I mean is, if there is over 1,000 words, and all of a sudden it sinks to less then 50, it should be allowed, to stay in the (can't think of the word) of a wiki, but be flagged on a "spam check" page for other wikipedians to check and see if it is really spam, and then revert it. obviously it won't stop the problem, but it can help clean it up faster. Kyle - - check out wikimania.wikipedia.org, hope to see everybody there! Jimmy Wales wrote: _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Walter van Kalken (walter(a)vankalken.net) [050417 12:40]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha A captcha (an acronym for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart") is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. The term was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, and Nicholas J. Hopper of Carnegie Mellon University, and John Langford of IBM. A common type of captcha requires that the user type the letters of a distorted and/or obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen. Because the test is administered by a computer, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is administered by a human, a captcha is sometimes described as a reverse Turing test. Captchas are used to prevent bots from using various types of computing services. Applications include preventing bots from taking part in online polls, registering for free email accounts (which may then be used to send spam), and, more recently, preventing bot-generated spam by requiring that the (unrecognized) sender successfully pass a captcha test before the email message is delivered. By definition, captchas have the following characteristics: * They are completely automated. This avoids the necessity for human maintenance or intervention in the test, with obvious benefits in cost and reliability. * The algorithm used is made public, though it may be encumbered by a patent. This is stipulated so as to require that breaking a captcha requires the solution of a hard problem in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) rather than just the discovery of the (secret) algorithm, which could be obtained through reverse engineering or other means. - d.

In regards to adopting a wiki, I'll adopt the Gothic wiki. James -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Walter Vermeir Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 7:23 PM To: foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org Subject: [Foundation-l] Re: guarding a wiki Walter van Kalken schreef: Yes, I have done this for the Frisian Wikipedia. Now it is small but active. There can be made a list of Wikipedias to put up for adoption. This is the best way to get a dead wiki active. Walter /Walter _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Well..let us say that I have *tried* to translate a few policies, so as to make it a bit more "regulated" and ensure that I could delete/tag articles with some background for doing so. this said, it is too much work for one person, and having no-one to discuss those policies is not very motivating anyway. But thank you Jimbo for mentionning it. [snip] I believe when you write contributorS, you really mean contributor (as in one contributor). i invite you to take a look at the recent changes or Main Page history to see that there is mainly one person actually working on this wiki, who, as Anthere pointed out earlier, is not familiar with the projects and not exactly acquired to the cause of "NOPOV". See his intervention on the Village pump to see his standpoint about NPOV. This said, he is a good contributor in the sense that although he may not agree with all our views, he has so far kept his personal opinions away from the content as much as possible. Yes, small is the word. Apart from this one contibutor, Weather Bot,a few IP edits, another contributor who is (as I am) only working on the form and shape rather than the content, there is virtually no-one. Again, this will prove my point: http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges. Let us face it, with 35 articles and one contributor since the begining of the project, and this although it has ben advertized on the Village pump, put for a while on the Community Portal, and re-advertized not so long ago by yourself on the French Bistro (which, i must say generated a good 20 or 30 edits). and absolutely no reaction on your second intervention (a must for a French Bistro i must say). So I say it again, I strongly believe the French community is definitely not *ready* to undertake the Wikinews project at this stage. As long as it continues surviving as it does, with somone copy/pasting current events on to the main page, I guess I don't have an opinion about it. Close it, or don't. I might chage my mind with time if the situation does not improve. Wikinews.fr is , in my very humble opinion, a disgrace both to the Wikinews project as a whole and Wikimedia. But then again, it is MY opinion. [snip] I can only wish you good luck with it. And unlike Yann, I doubt that the 100 000 articles on fr will bring more contributors, but on the contrary I believe they will bring this dormant (not to say dead) project into the spotlights and enhance its failure as such. Too bad. Best, Delphine -- ~notafish

I am undecided as well about closing or not closing fr. There is one contributor to it. What worries me is that he is not a wikipedian, and seems to have strange ideas about npov. I tried to discuss it a bit with him... but basically, npov is not so much about "explanation", but rather more about "habit and precedent". Most learn and understand it by working with others. As he is alone.... I am dubious. But for now, content seems fine. It is essentially working along the same line that the french wikipedia current events. So, the main drawback of its existence is for now a bad image propagated to french journalists; But well.... Ant Jimmy Wales a écrit:

I even wrote part of one of those. Sigh :-( I was put under pressure by highly motivated Amgine :-) ant Erik Moeller a écrit:

"Angela" &lt;beesley(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote in message news:8b722b80050414211939302ff4@mail.gmail.com... [snip] Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry? -- Phil

On 4/15/05, Angela &lt;beesley(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: For what it's worth-- a recent Associated Press article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7501488/) mentions that China seems to filter on keyword and not domain, these days. -ilya

On 4/15/05, Angela &lt;beesley(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: That's gotta be the worst reason for not starting a project IMO