Wikipedia-l February 2009

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

19 participants
8 discussions

comment on wikipedia
by Optim 15 Aug '24

15 Aug '24

I was describing to someone how Wikipedia works: "anyone can edit" etc. He answered with this argument: "Wikipedia is the triumph of the average person! of the man in the street!)" (average meaning: not good, not bad, just OK) I asked "why?" His explanation: "Great brilliant works are built by individuals. Groups of people can only create average works. If someone writes something good in the wiki, other average persons will intervene with his/her work and turn it into an average work. If someone writes something bad in the wiki, the others will again turn it into something of average value. with your system (meaning: Wikipedia's system) you can be sure that you will never create something too bad but also never something too good. You can create only average articles." The idea behind his argument was that Wikipedia will be a good resource as long as it attracts good cotnributors. but it will soon become an average site/encyclopaedia because it allows anyone to join the project and edit, and most people are just average persons and not brilliant writers. Do you think it's true? and how can we answer this argument? --Optim __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS
by Daniel Mayer 18 Jan '23

18 Jan '23

On Sunday 28 July 2002 03:00 am, The Cunctator wrote: > What are the articles this person has been changing? For 66.108.155.126: 20:08 Jul 27, 2002 Computer 20:07 Jul 27, 2002 Exploit 20:07 Jul 27, 2002 AOL 20:05 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 20:05 Jul 27, 2002 Leet 20:03 Jul 27, 2002 Root 20:02 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:59 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:58 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:54 Jul 27, 2002 Principle of least astonishment 19:54 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:52 Jul 27, 2002 Trance music 19:51 Jul 27, 2002 Trance music For 208.24.115.6: 20:20 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker For 141.157.232.26: 20:19 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker Most of these were complete replacements with discoherent statements. Such as "TAP IS THE ABSOLUTE DEFINITION OF THE NOUN HACKER" for Hacker. For the specifics follow http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist and look at the contribs. --mav

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Language policy agreement in the Norwegian Wikipedia community
by Bjarte Sørensen 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

Dear all, Most of you would be aware of some of the discussions that have occurred around Wikipedia in the Norwegian languages. Since the last round of discussions on this list, there has been a lot of internal debate, as well as what seems to be a fairly widely accepted agreement following voting. This e-mail intends to, after a brief recap on Norwegian language and wikipedia issues, take those interested through the latest development and will stake out the road ahead. It is also intended to inform the international community about the current agreement on no.wikipedia, so as to prevent misunderstandings in the future. Finally, we will mention an unfortunate reaction to the vote by a small number of users at the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål (no:) wikipedia who want to disregard the result of the voting and are planning to create a _third_ Norwegian wikipedia with the sole mission of mixing the contents of the two current Norwegian versions. == A short language history of Norway == Spoken Norwegian ("norsk") (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "no") is in a fairly unique situation compared to most other languages of the world in that it has two widely accepted written standards, Bokmål (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "nb") and Nynorsk (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "nn"). By national legislation they are both regarded as official written forms of Norwegian. In addition, many people still make a distinction between Bokmål and its precursor which still is in use, Riksmål. Briefly speaking, Bokmål and Riksmål are descendants of the Danish written language. Until the 1800s, Danish was the only widely used written language in Norway as a result of four centuries of union with Denmark. With increasing independence came a wish to norwegianise the Danish standard, with Knud Knudsen at the forefront for changing parts of the vocabulary and orthographics. Thus, Riksmål, and later Bokmål, resulted. These forms together are today probably used by about 90% of Norway's population, or somewhere around 3,500,000 people. Parallel to this development, a new written standard was created by Ivar Aasen. He travelled extensively throughout Norway, and based his new language, landsmål, on the grammar and vocabulary of dialect samples from around the country. This was later renamed Nynorsk. Modern Nynorsk differs significantly from modern Bokmål, and may be linguistically looked upon as as different (or as similar if you like) as Swedish is to Danish. For English or Dutch/German speakers, the differences may be likened to those between (Lowland) Scots and English or Low German and Dutch. Today it is estimated that about 500,000-600,000 people have Nynorsk as their first written language. More information about the Norwegian language history can be found in English, German, French, Spanish or Portuguese on the website of the Norwegian Language Council: http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=653 == A short history of Wikipedia in Norwegian == The first Norwegian wikipedia started 26 November 2001 on the subdomain no.wikipedia.org. As most wikipedias, its contributor and article count started really picking up around the end of 2003. At the time, it accepted all written standards of Norwegian, although the amount of Nynorsk was minimal. There were already several debates about the feasibilty and appropriateness of keeping the two languages united on one Wikipedia. On 31 July 2004 a Wikipedia for Nynorsk was created. The creation of nn:, however, split the community at no: wikipedia. Many felt that given that Nynorsk now had its own wikipedia, no: should become a Bokmål/Riksmål Wikipedia only. Others disapproved and claimed that there was no need to change and that it should continue its language policy of accepting all and keep its interwiki link name of "Norsk". Nynorsk Wikipedia soon proved a success, as it within the next few months gathered several people who had felt uncomfortable in the (mainly) Bokmål environment at no:. The name displayed in interwiki links became "Norsk (nynorsk)" (languages are not spelt with upper case in Norwegian). To date it continues to be one of the fastest growing wikipedias, with a steady article increase, now at over 6000 articles and >50 editors with more than 10 edits since arrival. == Votes == The issue of no:'s language policy has come up time and again, and a vote was held in March ([[:no:Wikipedia:Målform]]) as to which policy to adapt. Independent of the method of the tally (whether or not to include new contributors etc.) there was a majority for switching to a Bokmål/Riksmål only language policy (50% for Bokmål/Riksmål, 43.2% for Bokmål/Riksmål/Nynorsk/Høgnorsk, and 6.8% for the official variants Bokmål/Nynorsk only). Following this result, there is now going to be a vote on which interwiki link name will most appropriately reflect the current language policy of no:. The result of this vote will most likely be either "Norsk (bokmål)" or "Norsk (bokmål/riksmål)". Understandably, there has also been a debate as to whether the subdomain should change from "no" to "nb", as this is the correct representation of Bokmål according to ISO 639-2. However, there is some resentment towards such a move and currently a general acceptance in letting the Bokmål wikipedia stay at "no". The alternative some have suggested is a server-side redirect from "no" to "nb", in the same way that "nb" today is a server-side redirect to the equivalent page on "no". == Summary of the problem == Unfortunately, a small group of users (who all write Bokmål/Riksmål) are ignoring the results from the vote, and are claiming they want to re-establish a wikipedia for all written standards of Norwegian. They claim they have been in touch with people centrally in Wikimedia (developers? stewards?) and that they have so far received positive comments. With this email, we would like to state the fact that there have been no official decisions about creating a third Norwegian wikipedia containing both Bokmål and Nynorsk, it is merely an unofficial initiative from a small group of users which started a sign-on list at [[:no:Bruker:Norsk_Wikipedia]]. A spontaneous list with signatures against this activity was immediately created at [[:no:Wikipedia-diskusjon:Fellesnorsk]]. The process of creating a third Norwegian wikipedia has not gone through a voting process in any of the two existing Norwegian wikipedias (no: and nn:) and can not be considered as a decision by the Norwegian Wikipedia community. We believe the creation of a third wikipedia under the Wikimedia foundation would have a serious and unfortunate impact on the existing wikipedias in Norwegian, no: and nn:, and would undermine Wikipedia's reputation in Norway. This being said, we are all for extensive co- operation between the four Scandinavian language wikipedias (including Swedish and Danish), as evident by the recent creation of [[:meta:Skanwiki]], the Scandinavian meta-pages, and the use of featured articles from neighbour wikipedias. == Conclusion == Hopefully, this letter will help people better understand the complicated language situation of the Norwegian Wikipedia community, so as to give a background on which discussion can take place on this list in the future, such as the inevitable debate following a possible request for a re-establishment of the common (and third!) Norwegian Wikipedia. >From the community of no.wikipedia.org and nn.wikipedia.org, Bjarte Sørensen [[:meta:User:BjarteSorensen]] (Administrator/bureaucrat on nn:) Lars Alvik [[:no:User:Profoss]] (Administrator/bureaucrat on no:) Øyvind A. Holm [[:no:User:Sunny256]] (Administrator on no:) Onar Vikingstad [[:no:User:Vikingstad]] (Administrator on no:) Jon Harald Søby [[:no:User:Jhs]] (Administrator on no:) Chris Nyborg [[:no:User:Cnyborg]] (Administrator on no:) Guttorm Flatabø [[:no:User:Dittaeva]] (Administrator on nn:) Gunleiv Hadland [[:meta:User:Gunnernett]] (Administrator on nn:) Jarle Fagerheim [[:nn:User:Jarle]] (Administrator on nn:) Øyvind Jo Heimdal Eik [[:en:User:Pladask]] (Administrator on nn: and no:) Kristian André Gallis [[:nn:User:Kristaga]] Vegard Wærp [[:no:User:Vegardw]] Nina Aldin Thune [[:no:User:Nina]] Thor-Rune Hansen [[:no:User:ThorRune]] Claes Tande [[:no:User:Ctande]] Arnt-Erik Krokaa [[:no:User:AEK]] Rune Sattler [[:no:User:Shauni]]

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adding a font on a wiki
by James Robert Johnson 17 Apr '09

17 Apr '09

I'm pretty new to the list, but an old Wikipedia administrator on ang, but how does one add a font on the wiki that a user can set in his user preferences? I'd like to add the Beowulf font on the ang. Wiki, as it's a mediaeval style font. We've had one user raise quite a ruckus about using mediaeval letters, and this looks to be the best way to accommodate him. Thanks, James

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Wikimania 2009: Call for Participation
by Casey Brown 22 Feb '09

22 Feb '09

Apologies in advanced for the cross-posting. :-) Please circulate this call among Wikimedia communities, researchers and other people that may be interested! This call is also online at http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation == Call for Participation == Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe (including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikiversity, Wikiquote, Wikispecies, and Wikimedia Commons). The conference is a community gathering, giving the editors and users of Wikimedia projects an opportunity to meet each other, exchange ideas, report on research and projects, and collaborate on the future of the projects. The conference is open to the public, and is a chance for educators, researchers, programmers and free culture activists who are interested in the Wikimedia projects to learn more and share ideas about the Wikimedia projects. This year's conference will be held from '''August 26-28''' in Buenos Aires, Argentina at '''San Martín Cultural Center'''. For more information, please visit the official Wikimania 2009 site at http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org. We are accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open space discussions, and artistic works related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. Please carefully follow the submission guidelines below. === Important dates === * '''Submissions will open on:''' March 1 * '''Deadline for submitting workshop, panel, and presentation submissions:''' April 15 * '''Deadline for submitting posters, open space discussions, and artistic works:''' April 30 * '''Notification of acceptance of workshops, panels, presentations:''' May 15 * '''Notification of acceptance of posters, discussions, and artistic works:''' May 31 * '''Conference dates:''' August 26-28 === Themes and tracks === There are two tracks for submission: the '''Casual Track''', for members of wiki communities and interested observers to share their own experiences and thoughts and to present new ideas; and the '''Academic Track''', for research based on the methods of scientific studies exploring the social, content or technical aspects of Wikipedia, the other Wikimedia projects, or other massively collaborative works, as well as open and free content creation and community dynamics more generally. Submissions to either track should address one or more of the following themes: * '''"Wikimedia Communities,"''' including the topics of conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multi-lingualism and languages and cultures. * '''"Free Knowledge,"''' including open access to information; ways to gather and distribute free knowledge, use of the Wikimedia projects in education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and usability. * '''"Latin American challenges,"''' centering on efforts and limitations for expanding the reach of Wikimedia projects in Latin America; promotion of projects in Native American languages; specific problems of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Wikimedia communities. * '''"Technical infrastructure,"''' including issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia's technical infrastructure; and new ideas for development. Papers should be of interest to members of the Wikimedia communities, and fit within one of the themes above. === Types of Submissions === We are seeking submissions for: * '''Presentations''' (10–30 minute talks with discussion afterwards) :* This type of submission is appropriate for presenting substantial research or community projects * '''Workshops''' (60–120 minute session with a discussion leader and more audience involvement) :* This type of submission is appropriate for sessions designed to teach a specific subject or explore it in depth * '''Panels''' (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss aspects of a topic with audience questions, 45-90 minute sessions) :* This type of submission is appropriate for discussions on a topic of wide interest among community members, with several participants who may be presenting their work. For less formal discussions of limited interest, consider an open space discussion instead. * '''Open space discussions''' (informal discussion on a specific topic; the discussion leader helps moderate the conversation but the session is open to anyone interested to join in) :* This type of submission is good for a topic that several participants want to discuss or brainstorm about in an informal setting * '''Posters''' (printed visual displays that can stand on their own, with no associated presentation) :* This type of submission is good for presenting research in progress, or smaller community projects * '''Artistic works''' (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, displays or other representations of some aspect of the projects) :* This type of submission is good for showing creativity or showcasing beautiful work about the projects. In addition there will be the chance to give lightning talks, which are 5-minute short presentations. Lightning talk sessions will be organized on the Wikimania 2009 wiki shortly before the conference begins, without any need to submit them via the submission system. These talks are best for those who want to quickly present an idea or project without giving a formal presentation. These are informal talks that are open to everyone to participate in. === Submission Guidelines === Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us minimize wasted effort by submitting via the submission system and following these guidelines. All submissions MUST include the following: # '''Event title:''' an English or Spanish title. # '''Abstract:''' a short English or Spanish abstract of your event in 50 to 100 words. The abstract will be used for the public schedule. # '''Themes and track:''' list the track you wish to submit to (Casual or Academic) and the single theme you think your submission fits in best (Wikimedia Communities, Free Knowledge, Latin American challenges, Technical infrastructure). Note that posters and artistic works have their own track in the submission system. # '''Information about the speaker:''' full name, email, and a short biography. # '''Submission file:''' A plain text, PDF or OpenDocument file, in English or Spanish, containing: #* '''A long description of the submission''', in English or Spanish that can be used for reviewing, not to exceed 1000 words. Please give an overview of the areas to be covered or taught. State clearly the relevance to the Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki project. You can also include links, Include graphics an diagrams if they do not exceed one page. #* '''Event type:''' please state if the event is a presentation, workshop, panel, open space discussion, poster, or artistic work; if a presentation or panel, whether the presentation is expected to be a certain length. #* '''For panel submissions only:''' name of a suggested moderator and short biographies of each suggested panelist #* '''Language:''' list the language you plan to present in. The conference will be bilingual in English and Spanish. #* '''Special requirements:''' list any special requirements, including any equipment. In the "Comments for conference director" field you should tell us whether you will attend to Wikimania (a) surely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted, or (d) only if we provide travel and/or accommodation. You can also add yourself to the public list of attendees at the Wikimania 2009 wiki: http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees Please note that all submissions must be dual licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later ''and'' the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 3.0! By submitting for Wikimania 2009 you agree to this condition. ===Submissions=== Once you are sure you have included all of the required information, please send your submission before the respective deadline through our '''submission system''': http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission If you have further questions, email wikimania-program(a)wikimedia.org (in English or Spanish).

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Flaggued revisions
by Florence Devouard 14 Feb '09

14 Feb '09

Hello, I am looking for some screenshots of how the system for flaggued revisions works. As far as I can tell, I do not have "access" to this tool on any of the projects where it has been switched on. Is there a page where some screenshots are available to explain how the system works ? Alternatively, is there a test wiki where the system is visible and testable by everyone ? I remember I tested it over a year ago, but no idea where... Thanks in advance Ant

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Wikipedia, Extremely Short Survey
by thom van der doef 08 Feb '09

08 Feb '09

Dear Wikipedians, We are 4 graduate students at IIT in Chicago, doing research on Commons-based Peer Production platforms like Wikipedia. You would do us a great favor if you could fill out the Extremely Short Survey listed below. It should take less than a minute or two. Thanks for your help. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kS7o9oNrRUKwrVc_2fuVHOxA_3d_3d Vince LaConte Jared Lavey Nikhil Mathew Thom van der Doef

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Looking for egyptian volunteers
by Florence Devouard 07 Feb '09

07 Feb '09

Hello A project could be started to include Egyptian Museum objects (images and data) into Wikimedia Commons. The professor in charge of this project is looking for volunteers to help her for that task. Is there anyone interested to get involved in such a project ? Can you forward this request as appropriate ? Thanks Ant

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Wikipedia-l February 2009