Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2010-04

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in April 2010, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Problem with {{REVISIONDAY}}

Hello, I need help with {{REVISIONDAY}}. I want it to show the revision day of the TEMPLATE instead of the date of the site where it is included. The background is that I have a template and I want to show when it was changed the last time on every page I include it. Is this possible or must I hardcode the date in the template and change it everytime by hand? Thank you! --AndreR

See template:last edit and related recursively converted templates. Hillgentleman 14:25, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikiversity Open Letter Project to WMF concerning Jimbo Wales's recent out-of-process steward actions and threatening behaviours on Wikiversity

All are welcome to comment on or participate in the Wikiversity Open Letter Project to the Wikimedia Foundation concerning Jimbo Wales' recent out-of-process delete, block and desysop actions and threatening behaviours on Wikiversity. The goal of the project is to facilitate communication between the foundation and the community so as to clarify the situation. For backgrounds, here are some discussions: Wikiversity:Community Review/Wikimedia Ethics:Ethical Breaching Experiments/Summary and Leigh Blackall's blog; and on Meta: Talk:Wikiversity/Problems and Requests for comment/Remove Founder flag. Hillgentleman 14:20, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Help wanted for social action wiki

I've downloaded Mediawiki and started a website...beta version may be found at: yadabyte.org. I've been inspired by the collaboration present in all wiki projects, working on a masters, want to take it a step further than encyclopedic entries and collaborate toward apolitical social action. To get off the ground, I need to build a cadre of trustworthy people before opening it up to the world. The Wiki community is the obvious place to start.

So my question is, how do I obtain help for this project from members of the Wiki community without stepping on toes, appearing to try to steal from wiki...? We need templates built, admin help...you name, we need it.

Thanks in advance for any guidance or help.

Chad Stevens YadaWonk1 19:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You should explore the metapedia project: en.metapedia.org (I can't put the link correctly, it is blacklisted. Why?) Pronoein 16:20, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

sloppiness

it seems wiki has gotten quite sloppy and beauacratic, it took me 45 minutes to get to this subject entry option. my stupidity or preseverance ? the skinny: wiki sure don't make it easy to make an account, not that it was ever needed, i liked that the freedom of it all. some places want a life history to ask a question, i have no time for them. next the TRY BETA i gave up on after the fifth try. i'm glad it wasn't a fire in the building and this was the only contact. you would have all burnt. an annoyed and interested user, tom mcintyre p.s. the rest of this page is mind boggling, i hope i figure out how to submit this e-mail in a realistic lenght of tome, and it gets to someone that hopefully finds it of constructive value. whatever happened to user friendly, wiki needs to dig out from what seems a long ago lost and buried definition and original intention ? i'm sure going over everthing you'll arrive at millions of "why was that done, what were we thinking ? talk about over zealous editing." time for a MAKE OVER !

Could you give links and explanations to reproduce the sloppiness you experimented? I don't have this experience with wikipedia. Also remember to sign. Pronoein 16:00, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Relocate Wikimedia servers to a jurisdiction that does not enforce copyright laws, and then allow useful content to be added to the encyclopedia regardless of licensing

I propose relocating Wikimedia servers to a jurisdiction that does not enforce copyright laws, and then allowing useful content to be added to Wikimedia projects regardless of licensing. Copyright in general causes more harm than good and, if feasible, should be circumvented whenever it proves a hindrance; see Against Intellectual Property. To those who say that our goal is to provide free-licensed content, I respond that we already host "fair use" content on enwiki that cannot be redistributed freely in most countries. This is just taking it a step further. It is cumbersome having to obtain permission to redistribute images and such under the CC-by-SA 3.0, and to prove such permission, etc. Many pages that should have illustration don't because someone wasn't willing to release it under a free license.

So, what jurisdiction could we use? Somalia, perhaps? I hear their communication infrastructure is pretty good, despite anarchy. See en:Anarchy_in_somalia#Communications.

This proposal will of course require a change to Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy (which presently only authorizes very limited use of non-free content). Tisane 03:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

It would be violating copyrights in many countries then. Remember freedom of persona (for images). --Bsadowski1 03:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't take long under such a proposal for Wikipedia to start being blocked in many countries. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Is that true? What about all those Russian warez sites that are freely accessible? Tisane 03:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

You mean the ones that are constantly shut down every day or discontinue their links? I doubt WMF would be successful constantly having to change its addresses all the time to keep up with blocks. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Aassuming the jurisdiction in which the server is located doesn't enforce copyrights, who would block the sites? Governments outside that jurisdiction? What governments, other than the Chinese, block foreign Internet sites? (And the Chinese have other, non-copyright reasons for wanting to block Wikipedia, anyway.) I don't know of any governments that block foreign sites for copyvios, do you? Tisane 10:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

There are many websites blocked by US service providers. Didn't you stop to think that you probably wouldn't have been the first to come up with such an idea and that it obviously hasn't gone into effect for a reason? Furthermore, no search engine in its right mind would bother linking to such sites. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:24, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't service providers usually block sites for malware, phishing, etc., rather than copyvios? Programs like SiteAdvisor won't block copyvios, and sites like Napster and The Pirate Bay have not blocked by foreign service providers, at least not extensively. The service providers probably recognize that their customers wouldn't be happy with them blocking useful sites. Tisane 03:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Most of those programs were not hosting the illegal content but provided a service that allowed for P2P trading of any content. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

There's always abandonia; I think one of the main reasons you don't see more frequently see recent software distributed on warez sites is the higher cost of transferring the large files required for modern programs. Maybe there is a way to distribute copyrighted content p2p rapidly enough to display images and such for MediaWiki pages. Another extension idea! Tisane 04:45, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

There are three countries in the world which do not have any jurisdiction on copyright at all: Afghanistan, Laos and the Marshall Islands. Afghanistan is out for quite obvious reasons, and Laos' infrastructure can best be described as mediocre, so it's not a good location for WMF servers. Marshall Islands is the only viable location, however having Wikimedia servers there will not keep the site running for long because global warming will flood that country in just a few decades. -- Prince Kassad 17:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

We'll always have Dryland. Paradoctor 17:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Dollars to donuts, in 2040 people will still be predicting the Marshall Islands' flooding by global warming "in just a few decades." But even if flooding is going to happen, there's no reason they can't hire the Dutch to build them some dikes. Plus, by a few decades from now, there may be another copyright-free jurisdiction available. Tisane 04:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe the Dutch will be busy stacking up their own dikes. ^_^ Paradoctor 06:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you can't shine the olympinc flame of democracy and universal values with dirty hands. The western world has rules that most people trust, accept and believe. If you break them all, nobody will trust you nor accept you. Now trust is the building brick of wikipedia. It would be so easy to submerge the site with trials, accusations and bad reputation once it goes illegal.
This is not a technical issue but an ethical and strategical one. Though it seems easier to disregard the right of your "ennemies", you won't build trust and sympathy this way. Change the world from within the law - and change the laws - if you want to win the heart of people who abide by these laws. Pronoein 16:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

LiquidThreads

In the next few days/weeks, we might be be looking to expand our deployments of LiquidThreads, potentially to this wiki. Where do you think it would do good? Werdna 13:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

This would break Meta for Mobilephones? Since it was activated on strategy wiki I cant respond on messages anymore :( Huib talk 04:40, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have some concerns. I think LiquidThreads is a great software and it most certainly will be used soon, but imho it is not yet ready to be deployed on larger wikis. There are still some annoying bugs, for examples see my bug list. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 13:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm opposed to it as I think it causes far more problems than the current setup and I haven't found one improvement. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be redesigned to not create a new page for each reply. It tends to flood the search results, which can be a pain on sites like MediaWiki.org (and probably this one as well). Tisane 18:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is an option. The entire design of LiquidThreads is based on the concept of having one page per post. If you want to change that, write a new/better extension :)
Potential problems with search results can be addressed, as can the bugs I pointed out in the liquidthreads test wiki. We just need a little patience (or devs ;)) until everything works smoothly. Kind regards, --Church of emacs talk · contrib 19:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is really better for Babel since it is a Meta deal and this is really more for all of wmf (I know Werdna posted there but most of the conversation has been here). I'll post my thoughts there as well, I love the idea but to be honest at least so far it has frustrated me more then anything :( I'm not totally sure I'd want it here at the moment. James (T C) 10:25, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

must there be yelling?

so i went to my user contribution page on en.wikipedia.org. i noticed they have a new edit counter thingy with a nice link to 'opt in' by creating a page on meta.wikimedia.org.

the thing is, when i edit the page... it starts yellling at me in all caps about how i shouldnt be editing, this is not your sandbox, attention this means you.

now i understand the need to chase off clueless folks mucking up the site. but... is it necessary to yell in all caps?? thank you Decora 17:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

#newarticletext { display: none; }

or something like that in your monobook.css should remove it ;)

The warning has been added because apparently many people think this is their personal (test) wiki. I guess we could make it a bit less flashy, though. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 14:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

My bot can't login

Hello,

On mg.wikipedia, I have a problem : for unknown reasons, my bot can not login, this problem persists for days, and I can't determine the cause of this problem. Can anyone here could help me to find this problem and solve it eventually ? Thanks in advance. --Jagwar ^{交談 homewiki} 16:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You need to upgrade your software - more. Beau (talk) 16:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Which software should I upgrade ? I am using pywikipedia and I don't know exactly what file to change --82.120.41.216 17:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

pywikipediabot needs to fix their login code (not sure whether they did this already), after that you need to upgrade pywikipediabot to a version that supports the new login code. --Catrope 20:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Living People Task Force update

Hello, Wikimedians.

This weekend I plan on finalizing the timeline for phase two of the Living Person Task Force: a community findings recommendation.

What we are interested in is people from all size wikis participating in discussing common interests and problems on interpersonal and intrapersonal interaction relating to Wikimedia projects. This includes statistics gathering, examination of how projects handle OTRS complaints/issues, image use, quotation use, and sourcing. It is very important that we get participation in these areas, if anything just to received feedback on the wiki. I have subpages set up for these discussion on the Strategy site.

In six to eight weeks we'd like to develop recommendations from the Task Force that are more in-depth than the proposed recommendations to be submitted to the Board this month, to assist in developing projects identify and set up structures for the issues that come with societies.

If you have experience dealing with living people on any of our wikis, or if you have ideas on how policies can be established/improved, please participate in the discussions so that we can adequately asses the projects as a whole.

Thanks for your time, see you on the wiki!

Keegan 20:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it is called interwiki...

I did not know where else to turn to (besides the local wiki, which I have already asked, but the local knowledge base seems to be somewhat limited about the higher ideas) to get an answer to this question.
What it is that I am asking about is involving the transclusion process. Now I know you can edit subpages to not be included when being called from another page, and I have also read up on how you can have stuff only be shown on the calling page, but not on the local view of that transcluded page.
My question is, can you select, without changing the page you are getting the text and information from, only certain parts (sections) from that source page?

So, for example: Page 1 being the page that has the information you want on another page, and Page 2 being the display page of that information.

Page 1

== Section 1 ==

The section one text is here.
== Section 2 ==

The section two text is here.
== Section 3 ==

The section three text is here.

Page 2

This is the text of page 2, and collects information from other pages to display.

== Section 2 ==

The section two text is here.

I hope this makes it clear what it is I am asking.

Also, a related question, is it possible, using the above example as a guide, to transclude that information section from another wiki? Specifically, I am a GuildWars Wiki user, and I want to be able to show information (page chunks) from the metawiki or english wiki on the GuildWars wiki page, using the usual transclusion style re-posting of that information. I am not sure if you would be able to get a hold of me here on this wiki, so this is my talk page on GWW GWW 13eowulf Talk page

If anyone knows for sure one way or the other, please let me know. And if you could, please post the links you found your information on. It would be very helpful. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.182.174.55 (talk) diff, please sign discussions with --~~~~ (UTC)

Hello, I could think of making what You are asking for like this: You put on page 1, where it should only display the information the subpages as inclusions, then if someone clicks on the section of the subpage he will be redirected to it and edit only that subpage. Here is an example of how it looks:

page 1, which should not be edited

Could look like this:

the display page looks like:

{{Page 1}}
{{Page 2}}
{{Page 3}}

the page 1 with the exact name 'Page 1' looks like:

<noinclude>
This is the text of page 1, and collects information from other pages to display.
</noinclude>
== Section 1 ==

The section one text is here.

the page 2 with the exact name 'Page 2' looks like:

<noinclude>
This is the text of page 2, and collects information from other pages to display.
</noinclude>

Alternatively, you can use the following dpl

<dpl>
 mode=userformat
 title=page title
 includepage=%section number
 secseparators= ==%SECTION%==
</dpl>

Where the details in the italics are what you are wanting to transclude into the destination page. PuppyOnTheRadio

Number of sections on page

I have an idea relating to abbreviated pages that require a little mathemagical skill. I'm trying to find something that will return the number of sections on a page as a variable, so that a psuedo TOC can be created for a talk page on a separate page, or something similar. I'm not admin, just a bog standard User/coder, and as far as I can see no-one has done anything similar to this previously, so I have no examples to cite/steal from. PuppyOnTheRadio

My preference

Hi people, I got a question concerning the translation of messages. How can I translate the messages used in "my preference" I can not find them in Especial:allmessages. cheers, Adler.fa 07:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

About defamation

Administrator Yaroslav Blanter uses the Russian Wikipedia in order to spread defamation about me. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Адмнистратор Yaroslav Blanter использует Российский раздел Wikipedia для того, чтобы распространять клевету обо мне.

Administrator Leonst uses the Ukrainian Wikipedia in order to spread defamation about me. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Администратор Leonst использует Украинский раздел Wikipedia для того, чтобы распространять клевету обо мне.

If Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, then Wikipedia needn't use for spreading defamation. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Если Wikipedia – одна из энциклопедий, тогда Wikipedia не надо использовать для распространения клеветы.

Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 07:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

They are encyclopedias. There is no 'need' to use it to defame you. If people are doing this then they may be MISusing it, but not because they need to. This is a valid complaint to file but should be done in proper terms, which are of course understandable due to the language barrier. Ty 00:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I have stated the facts.

~\Leftrightarrow

Я изложил факты. Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 07:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

About disinformation

Bureaucrat Gutsul, administrator Leonst, user Friend use the Ukrainian Wikipedia in order to disseminate disinformation (false information) about me. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Бюрократ Gutsul, администратор Leonst, пользователь Friend используют Украинский раздел для того, чтобы распространять дезинформацию (ложные сведения) обо мне.

If Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, then Wikipedia does not have to be used for disseminating disinformation. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Если Wikipedia – одна из энциклопедий, тогда Wikipedia не должна использоваться для распространения дезинформации.

Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 11:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Employment Campus Interview

My son ( a student of BCA Computer Application ) is now studying in 3rd semestar. But he is suffering from depression due to a very strange situation. He got 69% marks in the Madhyamik Exam (Secondary exam), he got 55% marks in Uchya madhymik Exam (Higher Secondary Exam), now he is getting over 70% marks in all the semestar so far (3rd semestar completed)Pallabdutta 16:08, 17 April 2010 (UTC). But I came to know from various sources that when my son will complete the degree (6 semestar) he will not be allowed to sit in the Campus interview of any big well know companies( for employment) because he has got less than 60% marks in the Ucchya Madhyamik exam.. Is it an acceptable explanation ? Every body is telling me that to be eligible to sit in the campus interview of big companies it is compulsory to get 60% marks in the Ucchya Madhyamik exam.(Higher Secondary exam). The situation stands like this:- If any students get 60% marks in the Higher Secondary exam and after that if that students get only 50% marks in all the 6 semestar even then the student will be allowed to sit in the campus interview of big companies because that particular student has got 60% marks in the Higher Secondary exam. Is it not a very strange matter ? Is this matter true or false ? Is it an acceptable or justified condition ? Can you please clarify this point so that my son (student) may get rid of his present depression condition ?

Huffpost "breaking news" graphic in violation of WikiNews TM?

This graphic on The Huffington Post - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/images/splash/bnews.gif looks a little too close to the Wikinews Logo - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Logo what do you think? - Davodd | Talk 16:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is a copy IMO :) --WizardOfOz ^talk 16:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not exactly an original idea, and I think we have to assume that they came up with it themselves. Radio waves being broadcast from the Earth are very appropriate for international news, especially in an electronic medium, and I doubt they mean any harm. The banner at BBC News Online uses a similar concept, come to think of it. Dendodge 17:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Mmm, it's a bit close, but i'm not sure if it's enough to claim copyright infringement. A lot of news sources use radio waves being broadcast from Earth as part of their logos. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it's a bit close, but it's a commonly used logo for news websites and I think we should assume it is original. Pmlineditor ∞ 17:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Attached our actual breaking news logo. We don't have red ( ) . Otherwise it's a globe... that's kinda typical for news. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 19:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It is a little close, but for example our logo is probably closer to the UN logo than it is to their breaking news logo. Bawolff 20:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit close but not alike WN's one. --Diego Grez ^{let's talk} 21:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

About kompromat

Bureaucrats Gutsul and yakudza, administrators A1 and Leonst, users Movses and Drundia have used the Ukrainian Wikipedia in order to create compromising materials (kompromat) about me. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Бюрократы Gutsul и Yakudza, адмнистраторы A1 и Leonst, пользователи Movses и Drundia использовали Украинский раздел Wikipedia для того, чтобы создавать компроментрирующие материалы (компромат) обо мне.

If Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, then Wikipedia does not have to be used in order to create compromising materials. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Если Wikipedia – одна из энциклопедий, тогда Wikipedia не следует использовать для того, чтобы создавать компроментирующие материалы.

Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 07:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you give links to pages where they "done" it? In other case, please make a request to the uk.ArbCom. --WizardOfOz ^talk 09:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can. Compromising materials have been created in the page "My talk" (= "Моя сторiнка обговорення"). Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 12:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Make a link with [http://linknamefromyourbrowser] not that way. Have you contact the ArbCom? --WizardOfOz ^talk 15:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Користувач:Галактион/моя сторінка обговорення (if I understood you). I have no contact with the ArbCom. Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 18:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but page you linked is deleted. Try to contact ArbCom on the uk.wiki and to solve this matter there. All I can see is that you have been warrned (on your talk page) before block. --WizardOfOz ^talk 18:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your advise. I prefer to deal with those "human beings" who "are endowed with reason and conscience and" are able "to act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood" (see Article 1 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 07:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

English Wikibooks global sysops opt-in

Having gotten no additional replies in over a week to the discussion at English Wikibooks on whether to opt in to global sysops, I look at the results and do feel there is consensus. We have participation in that discussion from 5 of the 6 most active admins. There is one definite objector, but their solution to wait longer before inactive admins are removed won't increase the number of active admins. Two admins are definitely in favor, one admin is somewhat in favor, and another admin only had the objection that global sysops stick to noncontroversial actions, which is explicitly defined in the policy. A longtime contributor is also in favor to protect the section of the site geared toward children. I myself am in favor. While not a vote, that leaves it numerically at one opposed, one neutral, and five in favor, before factoring in arguments. I write all this to justify the call on consensus given that global sysops leaves the criteria for consensus up to the project. Suffice it to say that this level of participation is typical for the English Wikibooks and if we had more, the idea of opting in to global sysops would likely not gain traction on the project. I therefore request English Wikibooks be added to the wiki set for global sysops. -- Adrignola 00:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Pathoschild 18:31:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Statistical Data about Wikipedia administrator

Administrators of Wikimedia projects/Wikipedias, which hadn't been updated for most of the projects since 2007 is now up to date (as of 2010-04-17 / 2010-04-18). Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 04:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Global India Publications

Global India Publications is apparently publishing a copy/paste of wikipedia pages, then claiming copyright on those pages.

Example: http://books.google.com/books?id=3eua8cb24LAC

no mention of creative commons, no mention of wikipedia. just flat out copy/paste. Decora 01:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyright on Wikimedia logos

We are having a lengthy discussion on the Village pump of Swedish Wikipedia on whether to stop using the official Wikimedia logos in cross-project navigational templates. The reason for this is that those images (commons:Category:Wikimedia official logos, including sub-folders) are copyrighted. While we obviously are allowed to use them internally, that still means that third-party users of Wikipedia articles can not rely on everything in the article being free to re-use. This is the case anyway on many Wikipedias which allow fair use, but such use has been long banned on Swedish Wikipedia. This means that the logos are the only thing standing in the way of stating that all article content on Swedish Wikipedia is free, from a copyright viewpoint. (Obviously there are still infringements due to trademarks and personality rights.) One of the main arguments against banning the logos from the articles (not from the site framework, of course) is that they are used on all(?) other language projects, and since noone else have questioned their use, why should we?

I therefore have two topics for discussion. Please redirect me if there is a more proper place for these:

Has this discussion been held on other projects? If so, were there any convincing rationale for or against the use of the unfree logos?
Why do WMF claim the copyright in the first place? It seems to conflict with the philosophy of the project itself. Please note that the topic of discussion is copyright, not trademarking – obviously it is a good thing that the logos can not be used without any restrictions. /Dcastor 13:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

There was a discussion on the foundation mail list in 2007, summarised at LSS/foundation-l-archives/2007 week 6. /Ö 14:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thankyou. Unfortunately the summary seems only to post the problem and doesn't really discuss it. /Dcastor 22:26, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

You might consider a technical solution: on en.wikt we have a template that is used to wrap content that should only appear on the en.wikt site itself, and not on mirrors, derived copies, etc. You might wrap the logo references in the same sort of code? The magic is/would be:

{{#ifeq:{{SERVER}}|http://se.wikipedia.org| ... }}

I do realize this is non-responsive to the copyright question raised, but might moot it usefully in your case. Robert Ullmann 10:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Should srwn be shut down as abandoned?

(Originally posted to Wikinews-l. It was requested I post it here too)

This might seem a little callous against our SR brethren, but SRWN is dead. Take a look at Recent Changes - It is a serious fight to find anything happening that isn't a bot. Yes, the article count is increasing, scarily so... but that is only because news is being copied wholesale from other sites. In the end, 99.9% of their articles never get touched by a human.

Take a look at one history for example. One bot uploads it, another fixes it... that's the entire wiki.

The real truth in death I think comes from the Wikimedia Stats page. Take a look at the new reporters chart. The last new reporter they had was in December.

Sure, it is great they have a lot of articles, gaining at the rate of about 100 a day... but wow can we even say that this project NPOV when all the stories are bot imported, and never touched by human hands?

Food for thought. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 17:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to agree with this overall assessment of the project. From looking at sr.wikinews' recent changes list, it appears that the vast majority of edits are made by a single bot that creates articles and automatically places them on the main page - it would seem with almost no human oversight. This is particularly worrying, given that the sites it imports things from - such as VOA, Beta and other US gov't. news sources - have a reputation for frequent, pro-US bias. I've only occasionally seen a human-created article there. However, I'm not sure if there is enough (human) inactivity to warrant closure - I've seen wikis with fewer active editors that haven't been proposed for closure. Tempodivalse [talk] 21:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for support on one of our project. We are working very hard to achieve something and with coments like this above realy fill like continue to work even harder. Just as information for you that from couple days ago almost every news which came out from bot is veryfied by human hands, myself and another user Mickey. Also to not go further, only that our activities are extended to university level, Micky is holding classis about Vikinews and Vikipedia and we are expecting even more visitors. If you check out that in past couple of months we were had more than 800.000 visitors per month, last month 240.000. And even this last number is high for small comunity as ours. How many people understand and speak Serbian language? How many english? Think about, open your mind and before you come out and set a fire on somebodies effort try to be more openminded. I realy do not understand the reason of this request of yours and I am deeply dissapointed, so far... But more information is going to come very soon from Vikivesti members (users). Thanks--Laslovarga 23:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Please don't think that I'm trying to put down your project. Not at all; to the contrary, I can appreciate the effort it takes to run a wiki with a limited userbase. (And I wasn't the one proposing the project's closure either.) I just find this mass-importation to be somewhat disconcerting, and arguably against the WMF's overall goal of creating free, *original* content. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello everyone. :)))))) Topics that are downloaded from the Beta are highly professional news and do not need to be processed as it is one of the biggest and most important news agencies in South Eastern Europe. All news coming from Beta agency is proof read and altered several times before it is made available for us on sr.wn. The main sr.wn page is not changed by a bot, but by active users. We can easily say that the sr.wn page is updated more often than the en.wn page. I, as an active wikinews in serbian user have made over 4,000 changes in more than 1600 pieces of news, and have deleted over 700 pages.

Also, it is not true that Beta's news favours a pro-american outlook, nor is it biased towards any other nationality or group. Their neutrality has been proven through Beta's journalists which have been given several awards from all of Europe.

I'd like to add the fact that Wikinews has begun a project to enhance the education of students at the University of Media and Communication, which is among the elite private schools for journalism in all of Serbia. After graduation, we expect to assign a number of students to work for wikinews.

Also, I would like to add that Wikinews Serbia is the only wikinews that was able to come to an agreement with a professional and well renkowned news agency, which allows us to use their news.

SR.WN also has obtained many exclusive interviews. For example, the coverage of the Eurovision 2009 competition, amd Jimmy Wells, the founder of wikipedia, just to name a popular two.

These are just some of the facts which prove that SR.WN is alive and well, and that users are constantly active and enthusiastic participants within the Wikipedia community.--MikyM 00:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

@Tempodivalse SR.WN is not his project. It is not my project. It is our project. :) Any person of good will is welcome. Many projects of WMF use *not original works*. For example, a lot of pictures and texts taken from other sites. --MikyM 00:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Take looking all wikinews. The last new reporter by wn:

French - Feb
Spanish - Feb
Polish - Feb
German - Feb
Japanese - Feb
Italian - Feb
Chinese - Feb
Hungarian - Feb
Portuguese - Jan
Swedish - Jan
Arabic - Jan
Romanian - Jan
Catalan - Jan
Norwegian - Jan
Tamil - Jan

Serbian - Dec
Bulgarian - Dec

Dutch - Nov
Czech - Nov
Finnish - Nov
Ukrainian - Nov

Bosnian - Apr 09
Hebrew - Oct 2008
Sindhi - Oct 2008
Thai - Jul 2008

--MikyM 00:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Mm, well I take that partially back about original content (i wasn't thinking about things like Wikisource). Apologies if I sounded as though I was putting down sr.wn; that wasn't my intention. I'm just saying that it's still disappointing that the project has elected to basically be a mirror of other sites. I know you write exclusive stuff, but the problem is that it's completely drowned out by automated imported material. I looked through about thirty-forty articles displayed on the main page lists; I've only seen two or three that were actually written by a user here and only one "exclusive" piece. Seems to me like the whole point of having a Wikinews edition is to focus on writing things yourselves, not being complete copy of another news source. If the readers want to see news from Beta, why not just go to the Beta site instead?

Side note, I wasn't aware of whether Beta is considered neutral or not (I was mistaken about it being US-funded, I think i'm confusing it with another news service), but I've seen sr.wn copy things from Serbian VOA - which is largely funded by the US government. The english version of it, at the least, has a rather heavy pro-US bias, although I can't be certain about the Serbian edition.

Anyways, I hope there are no hard feelings; I totally appreciate the work you're doing there, but it seems like this particular aspect is worth wider input, i personally think it's a bit disconcerting. I certainly wouldn't want the wiki to be closed, in any case. Best regards. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

@Tempodivalse, thank you for understanding. And yes, we had some news taken from VOA (I think 10-15 in total), sometime last year, but we abandoned it almost immediately because of same reasons as you mentioned. And, as we told, more Wikireporters are coming and our base is going to growe, we are working hard on it. Just a note, all this information what we provide so far is more for person who started this up, but looks like he is somewhere behind and waiting for other to make a comments and than see with what are going to come out and than with new indictment...., for whatever reason he has....Best regards to you.--Laslovarga 01:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

As a designer of the model, I should say a couple of points:

Wikinews should be driven as a collaborative news source.
Collaborative news source needs community.
To have community, one news source has to build reader base first.
To build reader base, one news source actually has to have news. (Unless you are targetting ~0% of enthusiasts inside of the population, which English and Chinese editions can, but others can't.)
So, the purpose of bot-generated news is to build reader base, which purpose is to build community, which purpose is to make collaborative news source.

And sr.wn is doing that well. It already has significantly higher ratio of readers and contributors in comparison to number of speakers than any other Wikinews edition. --Millosh 20:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't, in fact, have any problem with bot-driven models so long as any article so imported is objectively examined by a human member of the community as to whether it meets all other community guidelines, including bias/NPOV, prior to publication. I'm not aware this is presently the case on sr.wn, but it certainly might be so. The key word in my statement is 'objectively'.

However, Millosh, there is a fundamental flaw with one of the concepts in your model. If you rely on the development of your community through the articles you mirror, that same community would form at the original source of the articles rather than on sr.wn. - Amgine/^{meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news} 16:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Please, give me an example of biased news (from Beta) or news which does not meet the guidelines or policies of Wikinews. Thanks. --MikyM 00:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Send a notification to specific users when a change is made?

Is there a way to notify specific users (users that you can determine on a case by case basis) when a change is made to a page within the wiki?

If so how would you do that?

Website blacklisted by bot

My Website ttp://shotgunsolutionpaytodie.blogspot.com has been blacklisted by a bot and I don't know why or how to solve this. I added it up on english wikipedia without having created an account first, so on IP basis. Is this why it blacklisted me? This account on metawiki doesn't work for the english wikipedia, should I create another account there? It's all kinda confusing....

A lot of websites are blacklisted for questionable reasons. Tisane 21:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Metapedia.org

Why is it blacklisted? I can't link to it. Isn't it part of the wikimedia foundation? Pronoein 16:32, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It is not a part of Wikimedia Foundation, it is not found in the Complete list of Wikimedia projects. --Ainali 18:20, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Metapedia is an extremely right-wing site and has nothing to do with the Wikimedia Foundation. It should not be confused with "Meta-Wiki", which is this wiki and a part of the Wikimedia Foundation wiki family. --Church of emacs talk · contrib 18:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it will probably be unblacklisted per en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Metapedia (white nationalist encyclopedia). Tisane 21:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

About bullying

I am a Russian. My name is Галактион Терёшин, and my IP-address is 94.26.144.199.

When I wrote and edited articles in the Russian Wikipedia (for instance, the article "Аксиоматика теории множеств" (= Axiomatic set theory)), some administrators and other users bullied at me. I bear in mind Zimin.V.G., Yaroslav Blanter, Ilya Voyager, Alex Smotrov etc. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Когда я писал и редактировал статьи в Российском разделе Wikipedia (например, статью "Аксиоматика теории множества" (=Axiomatic set theory)), некоторые администраторы и другие пользователи издевались надо мной. Я имею в виду Zimin.V.G., Yaroslav Blanter, Ilya Voyager, Alex Smotrov, ...
When I wrote and edited remarks and additions to articles in the Ukrainian Wikipedia (for instance, a remark to the article "Правило Лопіталя" (= L'Hopital's rule)), some administrators and other users bullied at me again. I bear im mind Gutsul, Leonst, Yakudza, Drundia, Movses etc. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Когда я писал и редактировал замечания и дополнения к статьям в Украинском разделе Wikipedia (например, замечание к статье "Правило Лопіталя" (= L'Hopital's rule)) , некоторые администраторы и другие пользователи издевались надо мной снова. Я имею в виду Gutsul, Leonst, Yakudza, Drundia, Movses, ...
I don't want to work with those persons who bullied at me. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Я не хочу работать с теми лицами, которые издевались надо мной. 94.26.144.199 10:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

1. Вам сюда - ru:Википедия:Заявки на арбитраж. --Igrek 12:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What for? 94.26.144.199 14:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you supply diffs? Tisane 21:50, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

What are diffs? Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 10:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Like this. The specific thing or things you are complaining about. Very few people can just skim through lots of Russian or Ukrainian text looking for the problems. Robert Ullmann 12:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

About psychological trauma

Some human beings get pleasure when they traumatize people. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Некоторые представители вида Homo sapiens получают удовольствие, когда травмируют людей.

According to my observations, in the Ukrainian Wikipedia some bureaucrats (Gutsul, and yakudza), some administrators (for instance, Leonst, A1, and IgorT), some users (for instance, Movses, Drundia, Friend, and Raider (= Рейдер з нiкчемного лiсу)) tried to traumatize me. $~\Leftrightarrow$ По моим наблюдениям, в Украинском разделе Wikipedia некоторые бюрократы (Gutsul и yakudza), некоторые администраторы (например, Leonst, A1 и IgorT) и некоторые пользователи (например, Movses, Drundia, Friend и Raider (= Рейдер з нiкчемного лiсу)) старались травмировать меня.

If Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, then the owner of Wikipedia does not have to allow its bureaucrats, administrators, and users to do harm those human beings who are endowed with reason and conscience. $~\Leftrightarrow$ Если Wikipedia – одна из энциклопедий, тогда владельцу Wikipedia не следует позволять своим бюрократам, администраторам и пользователям наносить вред тем представителям вида Homo sapiens, которые наделены разумом и совестью.

Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 13:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I looked into this a bit, as I have noted that bullies and bullying are coddled and encouraged on WMF projects, as if they are some sort of childish MMPORG where abusing people is normal and expected behaviour. However, this case looks different.

First, the IP-anon here is Галактион on the uk.wp. I'm not sure why he isn't using SUL, perhaps this should be explained to him. In Latin script, that is "Galakteon" which may be easier for those that don't read Cyrillic (I find it troublesome ;-). My apologies to Galakteon: I'm going to be referring to you in 3rd person, is the way English works.

Looking at his user page on the uk.wp: w:uk:Користувач:Галактион it starts by saying he doesn't speak Ukranian, but does speak and write Russian. Then that he wants to contribute to mathematics, so that shouldn't make that much difference (reading what he is apparently implying). (I recall reading Russian maths papers in school, with little knowledge of the language then, the math itself is universal.) The user page itself is in Russian.

In trying to contribute, he added (apparently) material to the article on the Trinity (Трійця) that was rejected, and collected by him into a user subpage: w:uk:Користувач:Галактион/Трійця. This page is very "interesting" material. You should go look. The first thing to note is that it is written in Russian, not Ukranian. It is a lot, and I don't want to spend time translating it; but you really should read it. So I checked out the Google MT of the page, and it is surprisingly good for MT! See [1]

Having read it, you can see why there might be some conflict.

Unfortunately, there was then some serious miscommunication, as he tried to discuss in Russian or "bad" Ukrainian, and acrimony and upset resulted. (for example, at one point he used a word for slander that apparently is much stronger in connotation in Ukrainian than in Russian, sort of the way "bloody" isn't offensive at all in US English, but can be very offensive in the UK. I have not, however, checked the specific word)

This resulted in warnings, and an eventual indefinite block. In turn leading him here looking for help.

Some careful explanation (beyond my small bit of investigating) might be helpful in this case. A native speaker of Russian would be a good person to do this. (IMHO) Robert Ullmann 14:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I have read your message. Do you want to continue it? Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 06:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Why does the Wikimedia Foundation bother having more than one wiki for each language? Wouldn't Wikipedia suffice?

Why is it necessary to have pages like wiktionary:Anime, wikiquote:Anime, wikisource:Romeo and Juliet, wikispecies:Chrysozephyrus birupa, etc.? Wouldn't it suffice to expand Wikipedia's mission and have Wikipedia articles entitled definitions of anime, quotes regarding anime, text of Romeo and Juliet, taxonomy of Chrysozephyrus birupa, etc.? And Wikinews could be a news portal rather than a separate wiki. If all these superfluous wikis were combined into one wiki, then we could also get rid of Meta-Wiki in favor of site discussion on Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons I think should stay, because it is useful for Wikipedias of all languages.

Almost none of the wikis besides Wikipedia has been particularly successful. The fragmentation of content among many wikis would not matter so much if there were better methods of integration, such as multi-wiki watchlists and cross-wiki page existence detection, but these functionalities have not been developed yet. Tisane 22:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker, CommonsTicker and related functionality

To me it seems that for proper and appropriate cross-functionality of the WMF projects we need to have both CommonsDelinker and CommonsTicker tools fully functional. The current situation where images are quietly deleted from Commons and affecting the broader wikis seems to be deleterious to the projects, and as the situation degrades is going to have people increasingly look to store more images on local wikis.

I believe that CommonsTicker functionality needs to be improved so that when any file is listed for deletion at Commons then the notification shall clearly be sent to the wikis where the file is in usage. At this stage it is not happening at all, and does not seem to be getting anyone's attention
Where the file is deleted that there is a more robust system for notifying the wiki of use of the deletion of the file. This is not happening sufficiently regularly.

billinghurst sDrewth 13:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I requested Siebrand to rewrite CommonsDelinker to be less dependent to the Toolserver DB. commons:User_talk:Siebrand#Please_rewrite_CommonsDelinker_for_independence_to_Toolserver. – Kwj2772 (msg) 08:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Interlanguage link

Hi, please help me to find the page of requests concerning interlanguage links. Wertuose 11:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

About defamation (II)

In one of the previous messages I have asserted that administrator Yaroslav Blanter and administrator Leonst use at least one server of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc in order to spread defamation about me.

Neither administrator Yaroslav Blanter, nor administrator Leonst refute my assertion.

Note

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attack upon his honour and reputation; everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks (see Article 12 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 07:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You have opened six discussions about the same topic. Do not you think it is too many? In addition, Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies only to states, as opposed to private parties such as Wikimedia Foundation. Please, do not misquote the law. Ruslik 18:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, administrator Yaroslav Blanter and administrator Leonst use at least one server of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc in order to spread defamation, because they are sure that the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies only to states". Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 04:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:MoveToMediaWiki

I propose that the Template:MoveToMediaWiki tag be removed from all pages that have had that tag for a year without being transwiki'ed. Some of those pages are probably outdated to the point of being wrong/useless. If MediaWiki.org were amenable to importing those pages, presumably they would have been imported by now. Leaving those maintenance tags permanently attached to the pages gives the wiki a slovenly, unkempt appearance. If no one objects within a week or two, I will go ahead and start removing those tags. Thanks, Tisane 22:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I would rather that there was more of an effort and a scheme to get the pages moved over, or addressed rather than the existing apathy. It is fairly clear that the pages belong on MW, not here, so how about we get them moved. If they lose the history, that may be a concern, however, so be it. I would rather loss of history, than loss of appropriate data. billinghurst sDrewth 00:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

They can be moved with history by someone with transwiki rights. But check out this discussion. Obviously there is resistance to moving the entire set of articles that currently has that tag. Tisane 08:44, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikimania 2010

Wikimania 2010, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, and tutorials related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from July 9-11, 2010 in Gdansk, Poland. For more information, check the official Call for Participation. Cbrown1023 talk 22:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

IRC policy

Hi, I read in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/wikipedia/Guidelines#No_public_logging that public logging is forbidden for the channel #wikipedia. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Canal_IRC state the same thing for #wikipedia-fr. What remain not clear for me is if those restrictions are internal policies of the chans or are rules which should be enforced on the wikimedia projects. Concrete exemple : could someone which would repeatedly copy/paste logs of wikimedia IRC channels into a wikimedia wiki be blocked by a local administrator basing his action on the policies of the foundation regarding IRC?--Kimdime 05:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

help

My user page has been blocked--Jmgz51 10:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

About bullying (II)

In one of the previous messages I have asserted that:

a) some administrators (for instance, Zimin.V.G., Yaroslav Blanter, Ilya Voyager, Alex Smotrov) and other users bullied at me, when I wrote and edited articles in the Russian Wikipedia,

b) some administrators (for instance, Gutsul, Leonst, Yakudza) and other users (for instance, Drundia, Movses) bullied at me, when I wrote and edited remarks and additions to articles in the Ukrainian Wikipedia.

No one of the mentioned persons refute my assertion.

Note

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (see Article 5 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Галактион Терёшин 94.26.144.199 09:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)