[[wikiboobs:]]? -Chad On Feb 6, 2008 4:36 PM, Waerth <waerth(a)asianet.co.th> wrote:

I suppose hunkapedia is out of the question? -------------------------------------------------- From: "geni" <geniice(a)gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 4:42 PM To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] hmmmmm

I propose a new WMF project ;-) -Chad On Feb 6, 2008 4:33 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Brianna Laugher wrote: I have been wondering if it was mediawiki. It feels like it, though it does not look like it. I looked for acknowledgements, and did not find them. Ant

2008/2/7, Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com>om>: That's quite easy to check: http://www.chickipedia.com/index.php/Special:Version -- Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

Well, they removed the "Powered by MediaWiki" and removed "Special:Version" from the list of special pages (http://www.chickipedia.com/index.php/Special:Specialpages), so the average non-MediaWiki-savvy user wouldn't know it. -Chad On Feb 7, 2008 10:08 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

Hoi, Sticks and stones ... Chickipedia provides a superior package. Their presentation is much less cluttered. For a reader it is clearly superior. Now if you can not look beyond the skin and perceive this, you miss what is in front of you. They have given more thought on how to present their material, they offer an attractive package. It is easy to argue that without it they will not do well, it is as easy to argue that with a cleaner/less cluttered skin we would do better. It has been said in the past that a new skin would be a good thing. These arguments are as good as ever. Thanks, GerardM On Feb 7, 2008 2:08 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hoi, The modern skin may be nice and clear, but it is not what we serve to our customers. When people test new functionality, it is tested against the ubiquitous monobook skin and I do know that some of the skins are broken with some of the later extensions. I do not have nor take the time for this. I am used to monobook, it is functional for me, but the whole experience can be improved. I find it really funny that this is a website abour skin and that for me the best bit is its skin. Thanks, GerardM On Feb 7, 2008 4:48 PM, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hello, The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to "collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally". The preservation of cultural diversity and of minority languages are noble missions, but not those of the Wikimedia Foundation (which does not seek to fulfill every noble mission in the world). < http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission > -- Yours cordially, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) On Feb 8, 2008 11:49 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter &lt;putevod(a)mccme.ru&gt; wrote:

One of the immediate implications would be that artificial languages, as well as small European languages, are ineligible since all their speakers are also proficient in other languages (Example: All Lower Sorbian speakers are also German speakers). Cheers Yaroslav

I didn't say we couldn't have the smaller languages. I said having them /for the sole purpose of preservation/ isn't in our goals. Preserving them because we have projects in them is a side effect, not the actual end goal. -Chad On Feb 8, 2008 3:05 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter &lt;putevod(a)mccme.ru&gt; wrote:

On Feb 8, 2008 11:49 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter &lt;putevod(a)mccme.ru&gt; wrote: The WMF really shouldn't get into this kind of thing because it's too much. As Pathoschild mentioned, the WMF cannot pursue every noble goal. However, if people are truly interested in preservation of language, a separate foundation could be set up for that purpose. Something like "Wiki Language Preservation Society". Likely, a deal could be brokered between such an organization and the WMF to share server resources, although the later group would be responsible for maintaining the preservation projects, the associated domain names, pay for the bandwidth, contribute to operating the servers, contribute to paying the technical staff, etc. Such a group could probably actively pursue grants to capture and preserve dieing languages, which means there wouldnt be a competition between WLPS and WMF for donations. forgive me for brainstorming out loud. But, if people want to pursue goals which are tangent to the WMF's goals, they should really consider creating a new organization to pursue them, instead of trying to tack them on to the WMF's mission statement. --Andrew Whitworth

Hello Gerard, What are you talking about? Nobody has suggested excluding languages that meet the language proposal policy. -- Yours cordially, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)

On 2/9/08, Yaroslav M. Blanter &lt;putevod(a)mccme.ru&gt; wrote: I think you are eliding a telling comment that geni made. Namely that we are as much about collecting information, as we are about spreading it. Please do understand that I for one am of the opinion that for reasons of comprehensivity, the english language wikipedia must remain a special concern, and for which reason the current swing away from an aspiration towards comprehensiveness on the english language wikipedia is to me a deeply regrettable developement. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

<REPAIRING TOP POSTING ERROR> Well, let me first note that it is somewhat amusing to me to note how you managed to personalise this matter, having previously complained about the negative tone on this mailing list. I was making a general point about the english wikipedia, without meaning to refer to any specific people on it. Just to make sure I do not engage in personalizing the matter, let me use as an example an article created by a person I have myself clashed with in the past (some people will know better than others how deeply) to show how there is a palpable chilling effect for article creation on the english wikipedia. The creator of the page is a long time wikipedian, who nobody in their right mind would consider a bleeding heart inclusionist. Or more correctly, nobody in their right mind *would* have called him that, in a more gentle era. Our article on the [[true Catholic Church]] (and yes, apparently the "true" in the name is not written with a capital "T"), which used to be a thoughtful and thorough analysis on the doctrines the church holds, is now a redirect to its leader, which is a bare biographical sketch. If you are interested in what the "debate" for its deletion was like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/True_Catholic_… Just to balance things out, wikipedia doesn't have an article on the Estonian led international movement to create a LaVeyan church explicitly disavowing all evil influences, known as The Order of the Black Venus. Both deletions are things that affect me personally not at all, but for the chilling effect they have on my perception of what is welcomed at wikipedia. But that chilling effect is real. If you want to know what article I personally have created, has been given the cold shoulder treatement, let me just say that I know fully well, that I could source an article on [[Karri Miettinen]] aka. [[Paleface]] right up the wazoo. He was a subject of a scholarly comparative article discussing artistic practises in movie subtitle translation, authored for a top level cultural European Union panel, and has had and will continue to have media exposure (just most lately landing a position as a regular on a television game show) and publish via a major label (EMI, who specifically - according to the scholarly article referenced above - gave great liberties to his translation of Eminems movie 8 Miles song lyrics in deference to his artistic credentials and standing). But you know, I prefer to work in areas where I *don't* have to fight over every articles existence and over every sentence. I prefer to work where I feel confident that my work will be naturally accepted as constructive. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

Hoi, The Wikimedia Foundation does not spend anything on the support of languages per se. What it supports is projects in many languages. It is people that invest in their language and culture. In the last two Wikimanias it has been said that we, the Wikimedia Foundation, want to promote Wikipedia particularly in Africa. It is only in 2008 that the first three exclusively African languages have the most relevant messages in MediaWiki localised. If the WMF has invested in African languages, there has not been much that can be observed that has a practical value. We are not talking about minority languages when we are talking about Swahili, Amharic, Igbo, Yoruba..... The WMF is not investing in languages; it supports projects. These projects can be in whatever language. The WMF supports what comes along and has sufficient relevance. It is the board that decides what languages the WMF supports and as a consequence is given this relevance, the most the language committee does is recommend to allow for a particular project. So in conclusion, it is *people *that invest in languages. It is the Wikimedia Foundation that provides them with a platform to make this happen. Thanks, GerardM On Feb 10, 2008 12:45 PM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) &lt;pathoschild(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

system messages on am.wp have been translated for a while now. I know you don't see a lot of value in project-level localizations, but please don't pretend the translations haven't been around in several African languages, including Amharic, Swahili. and I believe Zulu. On 10/02/2008, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

"completed on Betawiki" does not measure all existing localization. You said earlier: "It is only in 2008 that the first three exclusively African languages have the most relevant messages in MediaWiki localised." That's patently false - maybe it's only in 2008 that they have localisation on Betawiki, but Betawiki is not the world. I do think Betawiki is awesome, but I also think you tend to be focussed a little _too_ much on your pet projects - it used to be OmegaWiki, and now it's Betawiki. They're both great projects, but the world does not revolve around them. Mark On 12/02/2008, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

Also, I recognize this is off-topic, but if you are using localisations from all comers, it is important to realize that not all people are what they claim. Jose77, in particular, has become a sysop at many Wikipedias and added localizations. What are the chances that he is fluent in not only Hawai'ian, but also Uyghur, Tongan, Samoan, as well as tens of hundreds of other languages? When pressed, Joseph claims that he got these translations "from native speakers", but in the case of some of them, there have been complaints on-wiki about the translations. He also likes to push his religious agenda across many Wikis (if the main page of a Wikipedia is in a "directory" format, he will replace the different religions in the "Religion" category with topics related to Christianity; also, he has posted untranslated materials or poorly translated materials in many Wikis about his religion, the true Jesus Church). He also has dozens of sockpuppets, for confirmation you may ask User:Kahuroa, a sysop at mi.wp, who has dealt with many of them trying to exert influence there. In summary, I think it is important to check translations with a third party, and also to beware of people seeking to submit translations for more than about 3 languages (quadrilingualism is certainly possible, but in the case that somebody is doing this, their translations should be checked to confirm that they do in fact possess the skills they claim). On 12/02/2008, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

Hoi, Top posting is not an error it is obvious that you do, when it is how mail is best supported in the tooling that you use... Having said that, You do not answer the issue. You raised as a point the "swing away from comprehensiveness" in a thread about languages and a perceived need for concentration. I asked how and where this issue is applicable. I made it personal because I do not care for vague rants, I want to know how people are prevented from working on one Wikipedia as a consequence of what happens in other Wikipedias. This is not intended as a personal attack, it comes from a desire to have a practical understanding. I do not get this understanding from your reply as it is completely concentrated on something that happened in one Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM On Feb 10, 2008 11:30 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen &lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Feb 8, 2008 6:24 PM, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: It was a symbolic point. If other organizations want to share our servers, they can share in our costs. If people want the WMF to be pursuing all sorts of secondary goals, then they should be willing to pay, even if the price is only a pitance. And you do not see that the points of view of a culture can be expressed in any language. We can write about aboriginal POV in English, or Inuit POV in Spanish. We aren't restricted to "one language, one world view" per project. The true value of our projects is that we can communicate information about a culture in many languages. I have thought about this, and that's why I advocate that we do not create projects which are destined to become second class. A little bit of quality control at the beginning can prevent big PR disasters when those projects fail. In fact, if we are worrying about public perception of the WMF decreasing after a fork or a split, then we should increase our scrutiny and decrease the amount of new language projects we create in the first place. Instead of creating new projects, having them fail, and then be absorbed by some other nameless organization, I'm saying we proactively create that second organization, and task it with putting these small languages in the forefront. Turn small languages into the first-class citizens by having a foundation that caters specifically to them. --Andrew Whitworth

Hoi, When you consider that asking people who value, who treasure their language have to pay for the privilege of having a Wikipedia, Wikisource or whatever project "symbolic", then I do not care for your definition of symbolic. When living languages, living cultures are to pay their own way, it can be argued that they already do because they do not get much for free. There are things that cannot be expressed in any language, languages do not have the same terminology. With different concepts it is not possible to express the same point of view in the same way, often it is not possible to express a particular point of view about a different language. The true value of our projects is not that we CAN but that we TRY to communicate information about different cultures. The true value of our projects is that we have so far not discriminated that much against other languages and cultures. By exclusion of cultures and languages you lose valuable people and insights. This type of discrimination is the result of a lack of awareness and respect for the culture of others. If anything, it should be a goal of the Wikimedia Foundation to preserve cultural diversity and minority languages. It should not even be seen as a secondary goal; by making it a secondary goal it is implied that other things come first. The reality is that if a language is to prosper in the Wikimedia Foundation, it is for the people that care about their language to make it happen. They do this with a lot of energy, their energy. They do this without taking anything away from other languages or cultures or WMF projects. You cannot make them write in any other language because they are volunteers like you are. The only thing you can do is make them feel not welcome any more. It is not trivial to start a new language, a new project in the Wikimedia Foundation. You have to really care, and you have to really make an effort for your language, your project. When you analyse the localisation efforts it is interesting to see that Upper Sorbian and Seeltersk do a better job then Japanese or Turkish. When you consider the improvements in the localisation, you will find that it is these "second class" cultures and languages that do well. When you consider the relative merit of our projects, the Bangla Wikipedia provides a more vital service then the English Wikipedia. It is more vital because the Bengali Wikipedia is the only resource that is encyclopaedic in nature; it has no peer while in English there is the Encyclopaedia Britannica among several others. There are "only" 170.million people that speak Bengali. It is for these reasons that if the WMF is true to what some call the primary objective, it should spend more on languages other then English because the return on investment is not as good for English. When you then state that Wikipedia is a FREE resource, it can be safely argued that this is a secondary objective. When you think that our new projects will fail, you must have missed that the bar to entry has been raised considerably. The bar has been raised to make it easier for people to *use *a project in a language. It is this raising of the bar that prevents the request for a Turkish and Japanese Wikiversity to be approved at this time. It is not that we expect these projects to fail, it is just that they have to comply with the same requirements as any other new project. It is the language committee that has as one of its objectives to prevent new projects from failing. Any new project will start with a substantial level of localisation, it will have initial content and an initial community. It is for this reason that the Incubator is such a success; when an Incubator project does not reach sufficient maturity, it is allowed to wait until it does. I prefer to have a Wikimedia Foundation that is welcoming to people of all cultures. If this is an organisation that does not feel good to you, I would invite you to stay within your own little project and not bother or care about these other cultures and languages. There is room enough for us all as we are all volunteers and we all do our own thing. Thanks, GerardM On Feb 9, 2008 1:20 AM, Andrew Whitworth &lt;wknight8111(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I am so very thankful that you, Mr. Language Police, are not making decisions about new projects. This has been hashed and rehashed, and the answer is always something along the lines of: focus resources on larger languages, but don't block smaller languages who can afford the effort that is necessary. It barely costs the foundation a thing! Basically,Don't Be A Dick. On 09/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth &lt;wknight8111(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick I'm not just being vulgar. On 12/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth &lt;wknight8111(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

No, you're expressing your opinions with an air of authority, and now one of sarcasm. Every e-mail I have seen from you has made me want to link you to that page. On 12/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth &lt;wknight8111(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

Hey everyone! I mentioned a while back how we should have a Wikimedia census so, we can know more about who edits WMF projects. I have set up a mock survey at http://loopaustralia.com/survey/index.php?sid=54369&lang=en . One of the biggest problem is how we could send the census out - by its definition, everyone would answer it but, that clearly wouldn't happen. If there is a list of email addresses, we can send out unique url's or, we could allow users to sign up or, fill it out anonymously. Any ideas? -Deni _________________________________________________________________ New music from the Rogue Traders - listen now! http://ninemsn.com.au/share/redir/adTrack.asp?mode=click&clientID=832&a…

I think it would be wise for users to get it set up and running, then "hand the keys" over to the foundation to do what they see fit :) - Deni _________________________________________________________________ Overpaid or Underpaid? Check our comprehensive Salary Centre http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent%2Emycareer%2Ecom%2E…

I disagree with <21 - I believe there will be a lot of wikimedians under 21 - it would be like having a 20-35 range - far too wide. Since this is an optional census and nothing will be identifiable and, there will be no further contact with the users. -deni _________________________________________________________________ What are you waiting for? Join Lavalife FREE http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Flavalife9%2Eninemsn%2Ecom%2…

On 11/02/2008, Robert Rohde &lt;rarohde(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Can we at least ask a few questions of under 13's? At least to find out how many there are - not knowing would greatly reduce the conclusions we can draw from the survey.

Not asking for ages leaves a major hole in the survey - age is one of the key discriminators between different demographics.

Andrew Whitworth wrote: A sinister plan: as everybody the same questions, but don't actually collect responses from people younger than 14.

On 11/02/2008, David Goodman &lt;dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: That doesn't resolve the COPPA issue, though (I'm not sure it is an issue, of course, I would need to read up on it).

On 12/02/2008, David Goodman &lt;dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I certainly wouldn't buy that, and I doubt anyone else would. If someone is 13 or under, there is a very good chance that they are, in fact, under 13.

Deni Symonds wrote: This entire discussion is centered around the fact that, if that is done, kids will lie about their age in order to answer questions, thus rendering the results unusable. I suggested that the questions are asked, but the results are not saved anywhere.

Chad wrote: It's not about making them. They would still be allowed to answer the questions - only they won't know that the answers won't be used.

On Feb 10, 2008 5:30 AM, Angela &lt;beesley(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: You may also not be aware that a similar project is being run on Wikiversity: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikimedian_Demographics It's in an early stage still, but it's very similar to a census like what is being discussed here. --Andrew Whitworth

On Sun, Feb 10, 2008 at 7:42 AM, Deni Symonds &lt;symode09(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: it but, that clearly wouldn't happen. If there is a list of email sign up or, fill it out anonymously. Any ideas? If you want to make sure that everybody who answers is connected to some Wikimedia account, you're getting yourself into an amount of work you're not aware of... I also strongly suggest a security audit of the limesurvey software you are using. I found some sql injection points in older versions. They have fixed those, but their coding style is prone to such errors... Bryan