I've been told that Wikipedia is run by right wing libertarians,

so hwo do we know that the volunteer work put into a joint project won't be exploited by venture capitalists when they try to turn Wikipedia into an IPO?

Send Wikipedia-l mailing list submissions to wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to wikipedia-l-request(a)Wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at wikipedia-l-owner(a)Wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Wikipedia-l digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en (Henry H. Tan-Tenn) 2. Re: no:/nb:/nn:/etc. - modified suggestion (Bjarte Sorensen) 3. Re: Wikinews demo launches! (Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales) 4. Re: Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en (Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales) 5. Re: Wikinews demo launches! (Erik Moeller) 6. Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en (Henry H. Tan-Tenn) 7. Baseldytsch Wikipedia: Who can put it online? (cdamvvwgs(a)gmx.ch) 8. Re: [IMC-Tech] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikinews demo launches! (Chuck0) 9. Re: [IMC-Tech] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikinews demo launches! (jeff) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 16:24:28 -0500 From: "Henry H. Tan-Tenn" <share2002nov(a)lomaji.com> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en To: wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org Message-ID: <cnb6qe$knb$1(a)sea.gmane.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Personally (and with all due respect to Jimbo), I'd prefer that judgement be left to individual Wikipedias to decide, per their usual policy of banning users. Specifically, I personally wouldn't mind if Mark edit on zh-min-nan. Evidence suggests that he is not a fluent speaker or writer of Southern Min by any measure, but at the same time he has also shown some willingness to learn. That willingness may well just be curiosity or dabbling, but those tendencies are not themselves evil. Regardless of his ultimate attainment in proficiency (if any), a degree of "language exploration" might even be encouraged. In practice this could mean devoting more community resources to correcting the learner's sentences, but so long as the errors are made in good faith and not meant to disrupt, they will be corrected in the usual wiki way. Of course, if Mark were to engage in spamming (on zh-min-nan) or other actions based on bad faith, he'd become a candidate for censure, including the possibility of banning. Until and unless that occurs on zh-min-nan, I'd personally not mind participation from him (or anyone). > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> > Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 07:26:10 -0800 > Subject: Banned from editing except on en > To: Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> > Cc: Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com>om>,

------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:27:19 +1100 From: Bjarte Sorensen <bjarte(a)pingpingping.com> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: no:/nb:/nn:/etc. - modified suggestion To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Message-ID: <1100554039.41991f3724a01(a)www.pingpingping.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I agree fully with Olve Utne's solution. I don't think it matters that

redirect to nb:-links. They are for the most part pointing to articles

would stay on nb: anyway, and after a while most no:-interwiki links will

changed to reflect the move to nb:. When it comes to static links on say

or other search engines these will sooner or later be replaced by

ones from nn: and nb: and the no: links will slowly die away. So in other words, it will be a temporary "problem", and both wikis will soon enough

required fully equal status. Cheers, Bjarte Sorensen ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:25:05 -0800 From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikinews demo launches! To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Message-ID: &lt;20041115202505.GE21242(a)wikia.com&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Jama Poulsen wrote: I think that the culture clash would be substantial. Virtually all of their text content is completely unusable due to strong POV. I do think that Indymedia should use wikis, because I think that much of their reporting could be strengthened by having an open editing process. Most of their worst biases would not last 5 minutes in an open editing situation. Even activists should learn that neutrality is a powerful means to persuade people, as compared to radical ranting. --Jimbo ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:44:04 -0800 From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Message-ID: &lt;20041115214404.GC32013(a)wikia.com&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote: The problem is: he has been making annoying edits on wikipedias that do not have any current users. He removed all the interlanguage links from one, and replaced the standard boilerplate text with his own message and email address. When Angela fixed this, he reverted her. This is just one example of an ongoing pattern of difficult behavior. He is one of the main factors forcing us to pursue a policy locking or closing small wikis, which is of course ironic, since he is an activist for small language wikis. He and I had a partly constructive dialogue about these issues earlier today in IRC, and I am hopeful that some compromise can be worked out. I admire his energy and enthusiasm, and I find him to be very bright. But there have been several incidents that are just problematic to say the least (look up the unresolved issue of sockpuppets for example), and his hostility and personal attacks against people who are highly respected in the community don't help at all. I took this action at a global level rather than at an individual project level, because that's where the problem has arisen. If you want him to be able to edit at zh-min-nan, then that is enough for me. He can do that. If anyone wants to vouch for him anywhere else (in an active project), email me and it will be done. --Jimbo ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: 15 Nov 2004 23:30:00 +0100 From: erik_moeller(a)gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikinews demo launches! To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Message-ID: <9Kt$0Y8CpVB@erik_moeller> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Jimmy- I certainly would like us to cooperate wherever reasonably possible. Indymedia explicitly does not want to follow a neutral point of view, and that is good -- otherwise they'd be competing with us and we'd have to destroy them ;-). They can take Wikinews content and develop it from a lefty POV, if they want. I for one would be interested in some of their video and picture material. It's perfectly legitimate for Wikinews to cover the same protests Indymedia does, for example, but from an NPOV. I'll be talking to some of the Indymedia folks in the coming weeks WRT license compatibility. They have already expressed some interest. Regards, Erik ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:41:42 -0500 From: "Henry H. Tan-Tenn" &lt;share2002nov(a)lomaji.com&gt; Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fwd: Banned from editing except on en To: wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org Message-ID: &lt;cnbern$90t$1(a)sea.gmane.org&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Hi, Jimbo, You are quite right that the inactive Wikipedias are not being cared for, except by some dedicated Wikipedian admins from the outside. So if indeed someone has been a troublemaker (i.e. editing in bad faith) on those inactive WPs, he or she should be judged accordingly, and I think you and others have the trust of the larger community to make such a decision. But again, I am not comfortable with the idea of a global ban (except en:). I think each of the active WPs should consider the record in the context of actual edits performed in each edition. That is, assume he or she is on a "white list" for all WPs, and only ban him/her _locally_ for violating specific community policies (which could well differ). It could mean that a persistent editor would need to be banned by and from all WPs, one by one, but so be it. (It maybe enough, IMO, that all the WPs be notified that so-and-so is believed to have edited in bad faith on one or more WP, and leave it at that.) It was along this line that I proposed to remove Mark from a wide "black list" as regards zh-min-nan (to be confirmed or rejected by other editors there, of course). In that sense I was "vouching" for Mark, and only in that sense (given my limited attempt to follow the discussion). Anyway, I hope things work out for all. ~~~~ Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales ti 2004/11/15 EP 04:44 sia-kong: ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:58:10 +0100 (MET) From: cdamvvwgs(a)gmx.ch Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Baseldytsch Wikipedia: Who can put it online? To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Message-ID: &lt;31797.1100530690(a)www26.gmx.net&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello dear Wikipedians, I listed a proposal for a Wikipedia in Baseldytsch (a swiss-german dialect in Switzerland with its own dictionary and orthography, about one million speakers; see also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Request_for_new_language). I'm currently translating the interface (http:/ /meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Locales_for_the_Wikipedia_Software), but is there anyone who can put the Baseldytsch Wikipedia online under the domain http: //bsd.wikipedia.org/ ??? If yes, please do so! Or send me an e-mail how to do so. Thank you very much, CdaMVvWgS -- Geschenkt: 3 Monate GMX ProMail + 3 Top-Spielfilme auf DVD ++ Jetzt kostenlos testen http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail ++ ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:55:29 -0600 From: Chuck0 &lt;chuck(a)mutualaid.org&gt; Subject: Re: [IMC-Tech] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikinews demo launches! To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Cc: imc-tech(a)lists.indymedia.org Message-ID: &lt;4198DF81.6020201(a)mutualaid.org&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Jama Poulsen wrote: > On Sun, Nov 14, 2004 at 07:05:46PM -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote: > >>http://demo.wikinews.org/ >> >>After the successful wikinews vote >>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote >> >>the board has discussed and decided to move forward with this project! >>This will also give people more of a chance to discuss the proposed >>policies before the site goes live. > > I'm skeptical about this idea. What is the political orientation of Wikinews? Indymedia exists as an alternative media space for the political left (broadly defined). Is Wikinews apolitical, left-leaning, or friendly towards neo-fascists? I've been told that Wikipedia is run by right wing libertarians, so hwo do we know that the volunteer work put into a joint project won't be exploited by venture capitalists when they try to turn Wikipedia into an IPO? I'm opposed to this partnership until it can be determined how Indymedia would benefit from any partnership with a newly launched project. Chuck Munson Infoshop News ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 16:30:06 -0700 From: jeff &lt;jeff(a)indymedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [IMC-Tech] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikinews demo launches! To: imc-tech(a)lists.indymedia.org Cc: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org, Chuck0 &lt;chuck(a)mutualaid.org&gt; Message-ID: &lt;200411151630.06184.jeff(a)indymedia.org&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Chuck0 wrote: Wales wrote: My guess is that it would have the "Neutral Point of View". I've been impressed at how well wikipedia has been able to maintain this goal on controversial subjects. That's a bit harsh. Can you point to a single wikipedia article that has been friendly to neo-fascists? Indymedia is "left-leaning" but could certainly be an automated/semi-automated contributor to wikinews even if there are viewpoints on there that are generally not on Indymedia. Wikinews could have both, like news.google. Wikinews is probably more sympathetic to Indymedia than google as well. See the wikipedia entry on Indymedia--it's current & good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indymedia Or take a look at their entry on Anarchism (which nicely links to Chuck's infoshop.org): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism wikipedia is a non-profit and the articles are under the GFDL. I doubt it will ever go IPO... For more info, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Overview_FAQ#Who_owns_Wikipedia.3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home If it ever does turn commercial, you can download the /entire/ database and set up your own wikipedia and do whatever you want with the articles as long as you comply with the GFDL. See: http://download.wikimedia.org/ I wish Indymedia database dumps were publicly available! It could benefit by wider distribution of Indymedia content. Wikipedia has a huge audience, and deservedly so. In general, I'm in favor of collaboration between wikinews & indymedia. Chuck, stop dissing one of my favorite Internet projects. ;) Thanks, -Jeff ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l End of Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 16, Issue 31 *******************************************