body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
> crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.

With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit service
was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.

Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some things
remain a little wonky.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
> crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.

With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit service
was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.

Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some things
remain a little wonky.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
> crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.

With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit service
was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.

Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some things
remain a little wonky.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
> crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.

With two servers fully recovered we've got the wikis up for read-write
access; editing is open. Total time from crash to restoring edit service
was about 24 hours, 10 minutes. Sigh.

Some special pages (including contribs and watchlist) are off for the
moment to reduce server load until we have more machines up. Some things
remain a little wonky.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikien-l

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and category-based image filtering

body:
geni said:
>> It seems to me that which images are to be deferred would be decided
>> by someone other than the reader.  This would probably compromise
>> NPOV.
>
>
> Why? I am constantly deciding what the reader should see and the
> reader should not see.

We are supposed to do so in a manner consistent with the neutral point of
view.  Deciding that Leonardo's Vitruvian Man or Ann Druyan's drawing for
the Voyager plaque should not be displayed on the page seems to me to be
inescapably bound to the point of view that drawings of naked humans are
unacceptable.
If we would not provide the same facility for line drawings of steam
engines, then clearly there is a point of view at work in selecting one
category rather than another as a potential for filtering.
If we *would* provide the same facility for line drawings of steam
engines, the question becomes: why, what's so offensive about line
drawings of steam engines?  The answer is presumably still that there does
exist a point of view that images of nudity are offensive and this point
of view is being encoded into the heart of Wikipedia itself.
I'm not entirely convinced by this argument, but I think it's worth asking
whether we should be in the business of deciding on the disposition or
otherwise of drawings on Wikipedia except on encyclopedic grounds.
Some of the cleverer people on this list have already picked up on this
and argued, in a manner than almost convinces me, that certain pictures
are in their view objectionable on esthetic grounds, and linking is simply
an acceptable compromise, a bit of realpolitik in the face of strong
opposition to the deletion of those images.  This begs the question of
whether a "horrible" picture (which may however be technically well
composed and of good photographic quality) should be judged unencyclopedic
on the grounds that it is esthetically unpleasing to some viewers.  Again
POV rears its ugly head.


from_name: Sheng Jiong

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again

body:
> If anything, Singlish
> is less mutually intelligible with "standard English" than either Scots
> or Ulster Scots are.  The main difference seems to be that, while the
> Scottish government wishes to promote the use of Scots as a legitimate
> language, the Singaporean government takes the opposite view of Singlish.

I do not think that it is entirely due to the view of the government.
There is also strong opposition within the country, among the ordinary
speakers of the language. People have gotten used to the thinking that
"when I write, I should use standard English; when I speak to a fellow
Singaporean, there is no need to be so formal". Before they begin to
change their mindsets and decide to write in the way they usually talk
(as China experienced in 1910s and 20s, and many other countries too.
And I personally see it as a result of the increasing nationalistic
feelings), should Wikipedia recognise the language so fast? The
potential danger is the undermining of our credibility.

> I guess this brings up the question of how we distinguish between
> these.  Should we care what the relevant governments think?

Indeed. Wikipedia used to take ISO 639 as a guideline for the setting
up of Wikipedias. But now this has apparently been abandoned, and it
becomes harder for us to determine really a written language does
exist.

formulax


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] Don't push POV into the Wikipedia software and policies

body:
I'm going to ignore most of Mr. Lee's speculations and get right to the
point instead, in the hope that we are not causing too much harm to the
signal-to-noise ratio on this list.

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 07:24:35PM +0800, John Lee wrote:
> What's your problem with letting others disable the viewing of certain
> images for themselves?

I fully support end-users using whatever systems are at their disposal
to avoid seeing images that they do not want to see.  Those systems are
chiefly at the client end, and include goofy censorware programs as well
as working facilities such as turning images off in the browser before
you open up an article whose title suggests that it might traumatize
your poor innocent eyebulbs.

However, I suspect it would be possible to build an NPOV-safe image-
filtering system for Wikipedia ... although I do not think it would do
what you would want it to do.  I'll deal with this in detail below.

> Let's try summaring your stance:

The core of my position is really simple:  There isn't really a problem.

The status quo regarding images is actually working extremely well.
Gratuitous (uninformative) images do get removed or replaced, especially
those gratuitous images that also offend some people.

Vandalism of articles by inserting shock-site images is dealt with the
same as any other vandalism.

At the same time, censorious editors are not allowed to vandalize
Wikipedia by deleting or concealing informative images just because they
are offended by caterpillars or clitorises.

This is all as it should be.  As the community gains more experience and
precedent cases, and more understanding of what to watch for in order to
detect vandalism (of either kind) it will become easier rather than
harder.

> >Because that is what your (and others') "filtering" proposals are.  They
> >are not really about making Wikipedia "safe" or "inoffensive", since
> >those goals have been demonstrated to be impossible.  (As long as
> >Wikipedia is an editable wiki, there is no way to provide assurances
> >that it is inoffensive.  As long as it is NPOV, there is no way to
> >decide _whose_ offense shall be considered significant.  And those who
> >really militate against "indecency" and the like, in law and public
> >policy, are offended by text just as much as by images.)
> >
> So because it's impossible, we should never try to strive for it?

It's possible to do a remarkable amount of harm while pursuing
unreachable goals.  I don't think you actually understood what I wrote,
though, so I'll try to spell it out a little more clearly:

1. As long as Wikipedia is a wiki, bozos and jerks can put "offensive"
   content into it.  Vandalism may not last long, but it does not have
   to.  Therefore, we can _never_ provide a guarantee that any given
   article will not have goatse on it.  And thus, Wikipedia will _never_
   be suitable for classrooms where such a guarantee is required.

2. As long as Wikipedia has an NPOV policy, there is no way to decide
   whose view of what is "offensive" shall be used for labeling.  Some
   people are offended by sex, some by violence, some by caterpillars,
   and some get seizures from viewing [[moire]] images.

   Therefore, any labeling of selected categories as "potentially
   offensive" is an NPOV violation and unacceptable on that regard.

3. Your and others' proposals for image censorship have been defended in
   part on the grounds that people will dislike or distrust Wikipedia
   because it contains images that offend them.  However, this is as
   true of text as it is of images.

   Some people, for instance, consider the sentence "Dave (age ten) and
   Joe (age twelve) had sex" to be child pornography, just as some
   people believe that a drawing can be child pornography.  I believe
   that sentence might even be illegal to publish in some jurisdictions.

   Therefore, the need for any system for image censorship implies the
   need for a system for text censorship.  I personally suspect that
   text censorship would drive off a lot of editors and would harm
   Wikipedia greatly.

> Wikipedia can never be guaranteed to be safe for viewing, but we can
> _try_ to stem it. The proposal will not even affect users who explicitly
> declare they refuse filtering, so what's the fuss?

Censorship by default is still censorship, and still is an imposition of
someone's POV as to what is "offensive" or not.  If you block clitorises
by default and don't block caterpillars, then you're offending against
those who find caterpillars more objectionable than clitorises.

Here's how to make an image-filtering system that is NPOV by design:

1. All images are treated equally by default -- either displayed, or not
   displayed.  Thus, the system does not incorporate any POV biases such
   as the idea that nudity is "offensive" and caterpillars are not.

2. IF the system blocks all images by default:  Both anonymous and
   logged-in users are able to display all images.  The system does not
   violate WikiNature by incorporating a bias against anonymous users.

3. The system does not include any hard-coded categories reflecting the
   POV of its creators.  It uses the flexible Wikipedia category system.
   Editors who contribute images are encouraged to categorize them
   topically.  "Uncategorized images" becomes a virtual category, which
   can also be selected.

4. Existing NPOV policy is applied in full force to categories.  This
   means that it is a violation of Wikipedia policy to create categories
   such as "images appropriate for children" or "images of sexual
   perversions".  Editors who do so persistently are treated the same as
   any other systematic POV-pushers.

Although such a system would not be an NPOV violation, it would still be
(A) prone to abuse, and (B) prone to cause NPOV conflicts among editors.
Moreover, it is not necessary, as Wikipedia's present editing regime
works great for dealing with the images which are most commonly cited as
problematic, that is, the _uninformative_ "offensive" ones.

Thus, it is _possible_ to have an NPOV-safe image-filtering system.  But
it would be a constant struggle to *keep* it NPOV-safe.  Moreover, such
a system is not what censorship advocates seem to want, and in any event
it would not improve Wikipedia.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-L needs dailing posting limits

body:
> All in all, it's perfectly suited for a high volume mailing list.

i agree plus I've just received 50 invites so if anyone wants one drop
me  a line (personally to me not to the list)

Theresa


body:
On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 11:32:11AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
> >A digest contains ALL the crap. It is much easier to identify and delete
> >spam based on author. However spam of the volume we are receiving degrades
> >the dialog. So the topic itself must serve as a rough guide to theads which
> >have become senseless and useless.
> >
> That, and if you want to reply to one item in the thread it's more
> complicated than a simple reply.

Many mail clients make it easier if you set the digest to MIME mode
rather than plain text.  You can do this in your user preferences on the
mailing list info page.

(For instance, I read mail in mutt.  Plain-text digests are as annoying
as ever, but with a MIME digest I can respond to a single message from
the digest, exactly as if it had been delivered as a separate message.
It's as easy as saving an attachment to a file.)

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


body:
David Benbennick wrote:
> Surely you're aware of this error:
>
> <error message>
> Warning: file(/home/wikipedia/common/all.dblist): failed to open
> stream: Stale NFS file handle in
> /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/InitialiseSettings.php on line
> 9

I'm not seeing this, and all apaches that are up seem able to stat that
file. Can you confirm, and include the exact URLs you're trying?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia problems

body:
John Liu wrote:
> Some changes I've added just prior to the power failure aren't
> appearing in the main article, while there seems to be records in the
> history, requests for diff returns database errors.
>
> My particular case was an article on MB boardgame
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusade
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_Crusade&action=history
> Changes on 21/02/2005 are all missing :(
>
> It's no big deal if this can't be recovered, I'll just write again :)
> But I'm curious whether this is the only case.

I see these, and diffs for them all appear intact:
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:59, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:58, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:48, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?External Links)
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:46, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Eldar Attack)
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:46, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Operation
Dreadnaught)
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:43, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Operation
Dreadnaught)
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:36, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180 (?Eldar Attack)
	? 	(cur) (last)  07:34, Feb 21, 2005 218.214.32.180

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blocking policy over personal attacks

body:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:55:56 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:

> And more have come back and (along with inserting their views in various
> articles) have continued to harrass and threaten TBSDY; for example:

 15 Feb 2005, David Gerard blocked NSM88
 17 Feb 2005, Ta bu shi da yu blocked SS88
 17 Feb 2005, Ta bu shi da yu blocked SS-88
12:55, 21 Feb 2005, The Anome blocked 216.55.149.21 (expires 12:55, 23 Feb 2005)

I can't see when the account were created because the feature is
disabled but it's pretty safe to assume that they were created on the
same day that they were blocked. Note the time periods between one
account being blocked and the next one coming back to threaten is
longer than 24 hours.

These accounts are almost certainly the same person. This is someone
who is familiar with the IP blocker and knows he has to wait 24 hours
before he can create a new account. I still maintain that this is
someone trolling,. Note how they go after Ta bu shi da yu rather than
David or me ( I was the one who deleted the photo) Why is that d'ya
think?

Unfortunately for them, they have revealed thier IP address. If they
come back after the 23rd I suggest we block the IP as well as whatever
the latest sockpuppet is for a long period (a month say)

A reverse DNS gives 216-55-149-21.dedicated.abac.net.

Theresa


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:35:59 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And on a tangent... how does he know I don't drive a Hyundai??

>From my calculation, you've been old enough to drive for one year,
maybe two. So it's likely there have not been too many cars in your
driving history. So *do* you drive a Hyundai? :)


from_name: David Benbennick

body:
Surely you're aware of this error:

<error message>
Warning: file(/home/wikipedia/common/all.dblist): failed to open
stream: Stale NFS file handle in
/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/InitialiseSettings.php on line
9

Warning: array_map(): Argument #2 should be an array in
/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/InitialiseSettings.php on line
9

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in
/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/includes/SiteConfiguration.php
on line 54

Wiki does not exist
>From Meta, a wiki about Wikimedia
This domain (en.wikipedia.org) has been reserved for the Wikipedia in
the English language. Would you like this wiki to be created?
</error message>

It even gives a nice "create wiki" button!

I get this error for a reasonably high percentage of page views.

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:20:54 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> Some things remain a little wonky.


body:
Fred Bauder said:
> Although many of our potential readers might object to these
> images they are unobjectionable.

Well the Pioneer plaque was controversial in its day.  The Philadelphia
Inquirer apparently retouched the copy of the image to hide the male
genitals and the female nipples.  The Chicago Sun Times at first published
an unaltered picture and then successively airbrushed out features with
each later edition.  The LA Times carried the picture on its front page,
and received angry letters about tax-payers' money being used to "spread
this filth, even beyond our solar system", and decrying the lapse of the
newspaper's standards in depicting "sexual exploitation" on its front
page.  The two figures are shown standing side by side, some distance
apart, facing the viewer.  The man's hand is raised in greeting.  Some
feminists objected to the "passivity" and "submissiveness" of the female
figure.  One man insisted that the man's hand was raised in a nazi salute,
and proposed that another spacecraft be sent out to destroy Pioneer 10
along with this symbol of fascism.  Frank Drake, the ETI researcher who
along with Carl Sagan had designed the plaque, later remarked that the
image had turned out to be "a cleverly disguised Rorschach test." (The
Depths of Space, Mark Wolverton.)
As well as the mission (it was Pioneer, not Voyager) I got the author of
the plaque wrong. It was not Sagan's third and last wife Ann Druyan but
his second, Linda Salzman, who drew the nekkid people.  John Naugle,
NASA's associate administrator for space science, approved the drawings
after erasing the single line representing the woman's vulva.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki does not exist

body:
This domain (en.wikipedia.org) has been reserved for the Wikipedia in
the English language. Would you like this wiki to be created?

I clicked the "Yes" button; I'll check back in a couple of hours.

Mischievously yours,

Uncle Ed


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia problems

body:
John Liu wrote:
> Yes, I checked that right after the mail and discover the diffs are
> working.  (should have check before, my mistake).
>
> Something that still puzzles me though, the current page
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusade
>
> Isn't showing the latest 'current' according to

Since we had the site up in read-only mode while the databases were
being updated, some pages may have older versions stuck in the cache.
You can try forcing it to update like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusade?action=purge

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Killian documents

body:
Wolfman, I'm not ignoring you. It's just that the Wikipedia has forked
itself up, which really sucks (see [[autofellatio]] ;-)

Here's my considered opinion about how we should treat the [[Killian
documents]] controversy:

==the documents were faked==

I think the phrase ''the documents were faked''
should not be used in the text of the article.
First of all, it represents a point of view.
Secondly, it states that POV in a confusing
way.

The chief issues here are:
* Did Killian actually write the documents in
question?
** Does dictating notes to a secretary, who
then types up an UNSIGNED document count as
"Killian writing the documents"? Then it's just
a matter of (1) Did Killian dictate those
notes; and (2) Did his secretary type 'em up
for him?

* Was the copy CBS published "real", or what?
** To what extent can a reconstructed document
legitimately be presented as an "authentic
copy" of an original?
** If I use Office 2002 to word-process a copy
of a decades-old document (which I have in my
hand, but I can't get it to a xerox machine) -
and if I use a Courier font so it '''looks
like''' it was typed, how much of these details
am I obliged to reveal?

(A related example concerns my "far-right-wing"
church. When I received bookkeeper training in
1991, my church treasurer told me that the IRS
will accept hand-written or typed "receipts"
for petty cash expenditures, in lieu of printed
cash register receipts. This is primarily
intended for purchases such as buying soda from
a vending machine, or using a pay phone. You
just had to make sure you didn't overdo it;
accounting for 100% of petty cash with
reconstructed receipts would positively be a
violation, and the treasurer would, er, "stomp"
on me way ahead of any IRS audit, maybe even
remove me from my position if I stayed out of
compliance. The point here is that
'''reconstructed documents''' are allowable in
certain contexts.)

The question for Dan Rather and 60 Minutes is
whether this '''single case''' of presenting a
document as evidence of a political claim is:

# A straightforward presentation of an
'''original''' document
# A '''permissible''' reconstruction''' of an
authentic document
# An '''illegitimate''' reconstruction''' of an
authentic document
# A forgery, i.e., he never wrote that; he
didn't dictate anything like it to his
secretary; he never even thought that

Considering the importance of the issue, I
think we'd be better off ducking all
conclusions. It opens too many Pandora's boxes.

Let's not call them "faked documents" but
"documents relating to George W. Bush's service
in the Air National Guard. Let's mention that
the matter was investigated and aired during
the last election (the won he didn't "really
win", remember?) and that they brought it up at
the last minute AGAIN for this election (with a
link to [[October surprise]]). Oh, and don't
forget to mention that at least '''part''' of
the furor was over the "authenticity" of the
documents.

We should handle this dispute with as much care
and sensitivity as the death of [[Rachel
Corrie]]. ~~~~

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
> wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 4:00 PM
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 19, Issue 93
>
>
> Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to
> 	wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> 	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> 	wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	wikien-l-owner at Wikipedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more
> specific than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."
>  << File: Today's Topics (9 messages) >>  << Message: Re: [WikiEN-l]
Re: The Censorship Lie >>  << Message: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio -
NO to that image >>  << Message: Re: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David,
and Christiaan >>  << Message: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO to
that image >>  << Message: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie >>  <<
Message: Child porn and wikipedia (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Autofellatio - NO
tothat image) >>  << Message: Re: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures >>
<< Message: Re: [WikiEN-l] Naughty/violent pictures >>  << Message: Re:
[WikiEN-l] Re: The Censorship Lie >>  << File: Digest Footer >>


from_name: Viajero

body:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:20:38 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> and (using the bit at the bottom) set their mail feed to daily digest

and Zoney wrote:

> Using an email system that groups messages by thread is very helpful.

Neither digests nor fancy mailers solve the issue of overposting.
Besides, digests cause other problems. I use Thunderbird, which is very
proficient at sorting messages by thread, even when the subject is
changed. But the sorting system fails when people who subscribe to the
digest version post a reply by replying the digest message or by
starting a new message.

In short, there is no quick & easy tech fix (AFAIK, Mailman, the program
this list uses, does not support daily quotas). If overposting continues
to be a problem, some kind of voluntary agreement, like the three revert
rule, may be the only solution.

V.


from_name: Michael Bracker

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)

body:
hi Daniel,

Daniel Mayer schrieb:
> Numbers have been updated and corrected.

when do you think we can get the first figures from wikimedia Germany?

would be great if they could be included :-)

Greetings,
Michael


from_name: admin at goobergunch.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Database error when trying to Save

body:
> I'm trying to create a new article.  Show preview
> works, but when I click on "Save", I get a page which
> says "Database error
>>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
>
> Internal error" and a message at the top that says
> "Warning: mysql_query(): Unable to save result set in
> /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/includes/Database.php
> on line 324".
>
> I have tried four times to do a Save and keep getting
> this error.
>
> Are people still working on the servers?
>
> RickK

For what it's worth, I've been getting a similar error when trying to
check my Watchlist.

>My watchlist
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
>(for user "Goobergunch")
>temporarily disabled during server recovery

--[[User:Goobergunch]]


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
On Tuesday, February 22, 2005 5:07 PM, Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote a lovely piece about the controversy
surrounding the Pioneer 10 plaque. Is it on the Wiki? If not, it'd make a
great section or sub-section.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


from_name: Gerrit Holl

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:48:17 +0100 (CET)
>
> The bad news: that copy was a bit over a day behind synchronization (it
> was stopped to run maintenance jobs), so in addition to slogging around
> 170gb of data to each DB server we have to apply the last day's update
> logs before we can restore read/write service.
>
> I don't know when exactly we'll have everything editable again, but it
> should be within 12 hours.

Will any changes be lost?

regards,
Gerrit Holl.

--
Weather in Twenthe, Netherlands 22/02 18:25:
	-1.0?C light snow showers; Towering cumulus clouds observed partly cloudy wind 3.1 m/s NE (57 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961
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body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:48:17 +0100 (CET)
>
> The bad news: that copy was a bit over a day behind synchronization (it
> was stopped to run maintenance jobs), so in addition to slogging around
> 170gb of data to each DB server we have to apply the last day's update
> logs before we can restore read/write service.
>
> I don't know when exactly we'll have everything editable again, but it
> should be within 12 hours.

Will any changes be lost?

regards,
Gerrit Holl.

--
Weather in Twenthe, Netherlands 22/02 18:25:
	-1.0?C light snow showers; Towering cumulus clouds observed partly cloudy wind 3.1 m/s NE (57 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961
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from_name: John Lee

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 09:00:33PM +0800, John Lee wrote:
>
>
>>Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>>
>>
>>>When you speak for "the readers", nobody can hear the readers.  One can
>>>hear only you, putting on the voice of "the readers" as a phony accent,
>>>like a bad American actor pretending to Cockney.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>It's things like this that tick me off, because in this case, that
>>argument flies against common sense:
>>
>>
>
>Not really.  You have every business to speak for yourself, and no
>business at all speaking for people who have never asked for your
>representation.  You weaken your argument when you set yourself up as
>the Speaker-for-the-Readers, and thereby imply that those who disagree
>with you are somehow opposed to "the readers" ... which, of course,
>nobody here is.  It comes across, at least to me, as a thoroughly
>arrogant and indefensible tactic of argumentation on your part.
>
>
You separated that from the following argument. Naturally, that
particular premise cannot stand by itself. Splitting the supporting
statement from a premise means the premise cannot stand. That's exactly
what you did.

>
>
>
>>Most middle-class Asians and Americans would be offended or at least
>>shocked/distracted by a vivid photograph of a man blowjobbing himself.
>>Most middle-class Europeans and Australians wouldn't.
>>
>>
>
>Okay.
>
>The issue here is not the Autofellatio photograph.  It's a crappy
>photograph and the encyclopedia is better off without it.  If you want
>to beat that dead horse, it has a talk page ... I think it's at
>[[Wikipedia talk:Dead horse]] or something like that.
>
>The issue here is the proposed alteration of Wikipedia policy or
>software to favor some people's standards of making Wikipedia
>"inoffensive" or "safe".  That is, the making of structural changes to
>Wikipedia which support some people's POV and derogate or closet others
>... while not actually accomplishing the proposed (dystopian and
>impossible) goals.
>
>
What's your problem with letting others disable the viewing of certain
images for themselves? Is it because the proposed default would be to
"censor" anons from viewing "possibly offensive images"? It sounds like
_you_ are the one pushing your POV here.

Let's try summaring your stance: You don't want to alter policy or the
software to even allow the possibility of server-based filtering of
potentially offensive images (client-based filtering doesn't work
because users can't know of every possibly offensive image on
Wikipedia). Isn't that pushing your POV that everyone should be exposed
to and offended by images such as that of a man blowjobbing himself?

>
>
>
>>At first it seems like we're at an impasse, but consider: While those
>>who don't mind would be slightly inconvenienced, those who do mind
>>would be very heavily inconvenienced by having to disable the image in
>>their browser's settings. The latter group would also be more annoyed
>>than the former. It's a clear case to me, but I can see why extreme
>>liberals from Europe and Australia find this debate so puzzling.
>>
>>
>
>It's really great how telepathic you are.  Not only can you read the
>minds of the vast and powerful mass of "the readers", you can also tell
>all sorts of things about the personal backgrounds of those who disagree
>with you.  That's an amazing skill.
>
>Or ... maybe you're just making stuff up.
>
>
For some reason it's common sense to me. But since you come from a more
liberal background, I don't blame you. But still, something has to give.
The proposed alteration to the software means nothing to users who don't
want the pages they view to be censored: they just disable the
filtering. Unless they're anonymous, but as we grow to encompass more
offensive content, it's common sense to by default have filtering on for
anonymous readers.

Let's take a real life example: I frequently visit snopes.com, which
occasionally has some gruesome images. Although I am not disturbed by
them, the site makes you click on a link to view possibly offensive
images. I don't mind this at all, and I know it makes business sense,
because let's face it, a lot of people who suddenly find themselves
viewing photographs of a man impaled on a fence pike would not be very
happy about it. I accept this inconvenience as a fact of life, because I
know it provides the least cost for most benefit.

Not having even a modicum of built-in filtering is stupid if we plan to
include more images like the autofellatio one on Wikipedia.

>
>
>
>>>I propose that offending people is a Virtue and not a Vice, if one does
>>>so in a manner which is simultaneously informative & educational.  It is
>>>of no use to offend gratuitously; that is, to rehash tiresome offenses
>>>which no longer teach the offended person anything.  But to be offended
>>>and to receive knowledge at the same moment, is to receive knowledge
>>>twice over.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>This is precisely the attitude I've been talking about: Editors imposing
>>their personal beliefs on readers.
>>
>>
>
>You don't have a rebuttal, do you?  You're spending all your time
>talking about my "attitude" and speculating (erroneously) about the
>nationality or ethnicity of those who disagree with you.  How come?
>
>
Because most Europeans and Australians _are_ raised in a more liberal
culture. Asians and Americans _are_ raised in a more conservative
culture. Statistically, the odds are in favour of those strongly opposed
to filtering are likely to hail from Europe or Australia. They could
easily be from America or Asia, and many do, but statistically, you're
far more likely to find people accepting of nudity in France or Canberra
than in Maine or Singapore.

And stop beating around the bush, please. You _are_ imposing your
beliefs on readers by refusing to allow a system which allows for
readers to disable potentially offensive images. It doesn't even apply
to all readers, just the ones who want it. _What the fuck is your problem?_

>
>
>
>>We don't tell people "Nazis were evil" or "Saddam was evil" because
>>that would be imposing our personal beliefs (for those editors that
>>believe the statements). Likewise, we should not tell people "Being
>>offended is good! Really! Otherwise you'll never learn anything!"
>>
>>
>
>OK.  Then we should also not tell people "Sex is dirty!  Pictures of
>things John Lee thinks are icky should be hidden away!  Otherwise
>Wikipedia will go out of business and we'll all die on the streets from
>acute square-bracket deficiency!"
>
>
Strawman. Have you understood what I am arguing for or are you seriously
believing I intend to hide away all potentially offensive images?

>Or, more seriously, we should not build your POV about "offense" into
>the Wikipedia software or policies ... especially since the recent cases
>of gratuitously offensive images have already been dealt with
>adequately, WITHOUT any such POV-pushing software or policy.
>
>
 From #wikipedia:

Feb 07 00:40:14 <Submarine>    is the clitoris photo still on the
article itself?
Feb 07 00:40:18 <Raul654>    Yes
Feb 07 00:40:23 <Raul654>    I made a point of mentioning that
Feb 07 00:40:35 <Raul654>    That in the article on clitoris, it took no
fewer than 10 pages of archive discussion
Feb 07 00:40:41 <Raul654>    and numberous users being banned
Feb 07 00:40:45 <Raul654>    and an arbcom decision
Feb 07 00:40:56 <Raul654>    (I was arguing that we need him [Jimbo] to
make some kind of official policy prounoucement)
Feb 07 00:41:08 <Raul654>    "And he was like, oh, well then maybe we do
need one"

>Because that is what your (and others') "filtering" proposals are.  They
>are not really about making Wikipedia "safe" or "inoffensive", since
>those goals have been demonstrated to be impossible.  (As long as
>Wikipedia is an editable wiki, there is no way to provide assurances
>that it is inoffensive.  As long as it is NPOV, there is no way to
>decide _whose_ offense shall be considered significant.  And those who
>really militate against "indecency" and the like, in law and public
>policy, are offended by text just as much as by images.)
>
>
So because it's impossible, we should never try to strive for it?
Wikipedia can never be guaranteed to be safe for viewing, but we can
_try_ to stem it. The proposal will not even affect users who explicitly
declare they refuse filtering, so what's the fuss?

>Filtering proposals are thus not about making Wikipedia "safe", but
>rather about encoding someone's personal and cultural biases about
>sexuality and other so-called "offensive" topics into the software and
>policies.  They are about making censorship, rather than openness, the
>norm on Wikipedia, by mandating that things _you_ find "offensive" be
>marked up with tags and hidden away.
>
>
Mandating? They will not be hidden away if you declare you never want
them to be hidden away _for you_. It is the user making the decision,
just like how we tell the user what Hitler and Saddam did and let them
decide for themselves whether Hitler or Saddam was evil.

>Once more, the issue here is not Autofellatio.jpg.  It is the grievous
>wrong of placing a POV-pushing mechanism into the technical and policy
>support structure of Wikipedia.
>
>
Explain to me how a system which allows users to opt out pushes a POV.

>
>
>
>>Disagreeing with the "customer" on an issue like this would mean big
>>trouble in the business world. Just because we're trying something
>>different does not mean "Hahahaha, I'll shove some pictures of Goatse
>>in your face because you wanted to view the shock site article!"
>>
>>
>
>Gratuitous, uninformative images and trolling are already dealt with
>quite well by Wikipedia policy and editing practices.  They are not, at
>present, a problem for Wikipedia.  You're just trying to use them as an
>excuse to push your POV into the MediaWiki software in the form of
>"offensive" image censorship.  For shame!
>
>
>
Pray tell, what is the difference between a picture of a man stretching
his ass or a woman peeing for the pleasure of it and the difference
between a picture of a man fellating himself for the pleasure of it? The
reason this problem is absent because we've had a common sense editorial
procedure of not including screencaps of shock sites in the shock site
article. We don't even link to the sites, just provide the unlinked URL.
And hey, you argued it's good to be offended. Why is it good to be
offended by the picture of a man fellating himself for fun but not to be
offended by the picture of a man stretching his ass for fun?

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Nicholas Knight

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> I don't want to seem rude since I'm the one supposedly causing all the
> problems by posting a lot recently.  But what is the problem? If you don't

You're not the only one that recieved a rather disingenious email in
private from him.


from_name: El C

subject: [WikiEN-l] test?

body:
test.
--
India.com free e-mail - www.india.com.
Check out our value-added Premium features, such as an extra 20MB for mail storage, POP3, e-mail forwarding, and ads-free mailboxes!

Powered by Outblaze


body:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 04:23:57 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Nicholas Knight (nknight at runawaynet.com) [050223 03:42]:
> > Theresa Knott wrote:
>
> > >Unfortunately for them, they have revealed thier IP address. If they
> > >come back after the 23rd I suggest we block the IP as well as whatever
> > >the latest sockpuppet is for a long period (a month say)
> > >A reverse DNS gives 216-55-149-21.dedicated.abac.net.
>
> > The "dedicated" bit made me think this is probably a static address and
> > thus maybe some information could be found on its owner, so I googled
> > it. It looks like a system at this address is serving as an exit node
> > for an anonymizing network. This makes it virtually certain he'll be
> > able to easily show up again with an entirely different IP coming from
> > an entirely different ISP. It also makes it virtually impossible to say
> > for certain whether it's anyone we know at this point.
>
> Definitely troll, then. When the database is read-write, the address should
> be blocked as an {{OpenProxy}} (Tor, to be specific).
>

Along with all the other Tor nodes

http://serifos.eecs.harvard.edu:8000/cgi-bin/exit.pl#legend

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Downloading many articles

body:
You're lucky that Wikipedia is locked at the moment. I'm bored enough
to help you out.

Try this (when you are able):

Go to you watchlist and view the complete list

Then  got to Favorites --> Add to Favorites

A box should appear that says "Interenet Explorer will add this page
to your favorites" There is a checkbox  that says "make available
offline". Ttick this box.

Then click the button that says "customize".

A wizard will start. Click next, then when you get to "if this page
contains links to other pages would you like them to be available
offline too?"  click "yes" (one link deep should be enough, if you up
it to 2 then every link on every page of your watchlist should also be
sychronised)

Click next then go on to say how often you want to sychronise your
offline pages with wikipedia.

HTH

Theresa


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)

body:
[crossposted to wikipedia-l, wikien-l, wikitech-l]

Daniel Mayer (maveric149 at yahoo.com) [050222 20:25]:

> "A small price to pay for a project like this. But get a move on with all those
> ambitious plans for paper versions. Most of the world doesn't have computers."
> by Anonymous

The closest we appear to have to an active plan for this is ... mine!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0

This relies on rating code (so as to let the Wiki do the work - editorial
committees don't scale, editors with opinions will).

Jimbo's idea - which passes the "simple brilliant elegance" test - is to
set up ratings on a large Wikipedia (e.g. en:!) and just gather data for a
month or whatever. Then release the data for everyone to look at and make
sense of.

This relies on someone who knows PHP writing rating code, or better yet
beating Magnus Manske's existing rating code into production quality ...

I could install MediaWiki at home (it runs on FreeBSD, right?) and hack on
it here. And, ahahaha, learn PHP, of which I know not a jot or tittle. And
I haven't written anything longer than a quickie shell script since 1993.
"Rusty" isn't in it.

So if SOMEONE ELSE who is interested and KNOWS PHP could come forward, that
would be *really good*!

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)

body:
Sorry folks - one more update on the way.

I synced exchange rate figures between the two tables and fixed a more
embarrassing error; in my haste to get this report out I included *gross*
instead of net figures. Opps. :)

-- mav

--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Numbers have been updated and corrected.
>
> On Day 4 (Monday 21 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not
> available in UTC) we made $6,586.15 (USD equivalent) through PayPal (no
> updates
> available for other sources at this time). This is a decrease of 16.44% from
> Day 3 but still does represent 18.85% of total funds collected so far
> ($34,946.69 ; only counting full days) and 8.78% of our goal ($75,000).
>
> Remarkably, the rate of donations were not too adversely affected by the
> downtime today. Since the donation forms were not available during a large
> part
> of the downtime, I can only guess that people remembered our PayPal account
> name.
>
> Donations did significantly increase soon after a Slashdot story about the
> downtime was released (9:28PM, EST), forcing us to move the backup donation
> page once the Slashdot Effect brought down the website hosting it
> (http://wikisearch.org ; Sorry about that Angela).
>
> NOTE: Pending transactions are also included in the below numbers (some of
> them
> will likely turn out to be canceled)
>
> Day  4			        Day  3 comparison
> Breakdown:
> PayPal		USD equiv	USD equiv	%change
> AUD	32	     $25.30       $330.90	-92.36%
> CAD 	785	    $636.09	  $238.93	166.23%
> EUR 	1489.63	  $1,947.24	$2,755.66	-29.34%
> GBP 	332.06	   $630.18	  $696.89	 -9.57%
> JPY	8501	    $80.58	  $198.96	-59.50%
> USD	3266.76	 $3,266.76	$3,596.33	 -9.16%
> PayPal total:	 $6,586.15	$7,817.66	-15.75%
>
> MoneyBookers
> 		 no data           $64.00	-100.00%
>
> 	TOTAL	$6,586.15	$7,881.66	-16.44%
>
>
> Grand totals so far (only counting complete days)
>
> PayPal		   USD equiv	%GrandTotal
> AUD	1157.1	     $914.69	 2.62%
> CAD 	1719.92	   $1,393.65	 3.99%
> EUR 	9469.28	  $12,378.24	35.42%
> GBP 	1654.34	   $3,139.61	 8.98%
> JPY	90723	     $859.96	 2.46%
> USD	15833.85  $15,833.85	45.31%
> PayPal total:	  $34,520.00
>
> Moneybookers:
> 		     $426.69	1.22%
>
> GRAND TOTAL	  $34,946.69	100.00%
>
> % toward goal 	    46.60%
>
>
> For the most recent grand total and other details visit
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1
> (once everything is back up)
>
> Some selected comments from Day 4:
> See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_4 in about a
> day (hopefully I'll be able to post by then)
>
> "I love this site. Keep up the awesome work!" by Anonymous
>
> "I use Wiki - I have to pay for it !" by Immo Wetzel
>
> "You have aided me countless times in my academic pursuits in math, science,
> and the humanities. I can't thank you guys enough." by Laura Napolitano
>
> "Wiki is the future!" by Christoph Burschka
>
> "Wikipedia is in my opinion one of the most noble collective human endeavours
> underway in the world today. Thank you so much for contributing to society
> with
> your wonderful website. I love it and abide" by Matthew Barba
>
> "Wikimedia Rocks!" by Jasmeet Singh
>
> "I have always had a thirst for knowledge, and this project does more than
> quench it. I am happy to donate." by Matthew Gluesenkamp
>
> "Cheaper than cable" by Anonymous
>
> Some of my favorites:
>
> "Spread your Squids around the world. And use cached pages for logged in
> users
> as well. Fix those and I'll be happy as a [[clam]]. Good job so far!!!" by
> Rami
> Lehti
>
> "A small price to pay for a project like this. But get a move on with all
> those
> ambitious plans for paper versions. Most of the world doesn't have
> computers."
> by Anonymous
>
> "The Wikimedia Foundations is an acheivement of great proportions spreading
> the
> one firm truth that information is truly free. Thank you." by Siddharth
> Bhansali
>
> "Help preserve the sum total of human knowledge for less than the price of
> two
> Caramel Frappuccinos. Wikipedia is not only fat-free and carbohydrate-free,
> it
> will never go straight to your hips!" by Jonet Greene
>
> "Give Wiki a boost!!" by Kiminori Noma
>
>
> Daniel Mayer,
> Wikimedia CFO
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
> http://my.yahoo.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (final update)

body:
Numbers have been updated and corrected.

On Day 4 (Monday 21 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not
available in UTC) we made $6,287.52 (USD equivalent) through PayPal (no updates
available for other sources at this time). This is a decrease of -20.23% from
Day 3 but still does represent 18.15% of total funds collected so far
($34,648.06 ; only counting full days) and 8.38% of our goal ($75,000).

Remarkably, the rate of donations were not too adversely affected by the
downtime on Monday. Since the donation forms were not available during a large
part of the downtime, I can only guess that people remembered our PayPal
account name.

Donations did significantly increase soon after a Slashdot story about the
downtime was released (9:28PM, EST on Monday), forcing us to move the backup
donation page once the Slashdot Effect brought down the website hosting it
(http://wikisearch.org ; Sorry about that Angela).

NOTE: Pending transactions are also included in the below numbers (some of them
will likely turn out to be canceled)

Day  4			Day  3 comparison
Breakdown:
PayPal		USD equiv	USD equiv	%change
AUD	  29.68	    $23.46	  $330.90	-92.91%
CAD 	 750.35	   $608.01	  $238.93	154.48%
EUR 	1410.77	 $1,844.16	$2,755.66	-33.08%
GBP 	 315.19	   $598.17	  $696.89	-14.17%
JPY	8082	    $76.61	  $198.96	-61.50%
USD	3137.11	 $3,137.11	$3,596.33	-12.77%
PayPal total:	 $6,287.52	$7,817.66	-19.57%

MoneyBookers
		no data	           $64.00	-100.00%

	TOTAL	$6,287.52	$7,881.66	-20.23%

Grand totals so far (only counting complete days)

PayPal		USD equiv	%GrandTotal
AUD	1154.78	     $912.85	 2.63%
CAD 	1685.27	   $1,365.57	 3.94%
EUR 	9390.42	  $12,275.16	35.43%
GBP 	1637.47	   $3,107.59	 8.97%
JPY	90304	     $855.99	 2.47%
USD	15704.20  $15,704.20	45.32%
PayPal total:	  $34,221.37

Moneybookers:
		     $426.69	 1.23%

GRAND TOTAL	  $34,648.06	100.00%

% toward goal 	   46.20%

For the most recent grand total and other details visit
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1

Some selected comments from Day 4:
See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_4

"I use Wiki - I have to pay for it !" by Immo Wetzel

"You have aided me countless times in my academic pursuits in math, science,
and the humanities. I can't thank you guys enough." by Laura Napolitano

"Wiki is the future!" by Christoph Burschka

"Wikipedia is in my opinion one of the most noble collective human endeavours
underway in the world today. Thank you so much for contributing to society with
your wonderful website. I love it and abide" by Matthew Barba

"Wikimedia Rocks!" by Jasmeet Singh

"I have always had a thirst for knowledge, and this project does more than
quench it. I am happy to donate." by Matthew Gluesenkamp

"Cheaper than cable" by Anonymous

Some of my favorites:

"Spread your Squids around the world. And use cached pages for logged in users
as well. Fix those and I'll be happy as a [[clam]]. Good job so far!!!" by Rami
Lehti

"A small price to pay for a project like this. But get a move on with all those
ambitious plans for paper versions. Most of the world doesn't have computers."
by Anonymous

"The Wikimedia Foundations is an acheivement of great proportions spreading the
one firm truth that information is truly free. Thank you." by Siddharth
Bhansali

"Help preserve the sum total of human knowledge for less than the price of two
Caramel Frappuccinos. Wikipedia is not only fat-free and carbohydrate-free, it
will never go straight to your hips!" by Jonet Greene

"Give Wiki a boost!!" by Kiminori Noma

Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (final update)


from_name: Robert Brockway

subject:
Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again)

body:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:

> As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me

It's been 13 years this month for me.  I think perception of online
discussions does change when you've hung out online for a long period of
time.

> pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of
> reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit
> a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund
> goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in
> public, your fund goes down.

Yes well put.

My company keeps a list of resumes for contractors we'll subcontract work
to.  I have deleted resumes because of poor attitudes I've seen people
display on mailing lists.  I think a lot of people underestimate how their
words impact how other perceives them.

For the record I've been ignoring the Quenya thread so I have no idea how
much or little flaming has been going on.

My advice when people get to hung up on a thread in email:

1.  Relax.

2.  Having the last say does not impart any sort of legitimacy to an
     argument.

3.  Accept that others will have different opinions.

4.  Accept that many people will not change their minds even when
     presented with sound logic.

5.  There is every likelihood that open mailing list archives will be
     retained indefinitely.  One day our great great grand children are
     going to be able read what we wrote online.  They will have
     unprecedented ability to understand their ancestors.  I wonder what
     they will think of us.

6.  Understand that many terrible things are going on in this
     world.  Consider diverting some of that energy to helping others.

Cheers,
 	Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: 416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway at opentrend.net http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org)


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report

body:
"Continuate cosi!" - Ivan Sassi
"Vivent les syst?mes libres!" - Martijn Coppoolse
"F?r eine tolles Projetk" - anon
"Wikipedia ist eines der aktuellsten Nachschlagewerke." - Tobias Maurus
"Kostenlos ist klasse. Aber es sollte nicht umsonst sein." - Andre Versuemer
"Please don't go with google. - keep up the great work! Don't go with
google please, stay independant!" - anon
"und ein klares NEIN gegen Studiengebuehren" - Peer Johannes
"Je serais trop malheureux de voir une telle entreprise faillir ou
tomber en de mauvaises mains." - Benjamin Guillemain d'Echon
"??nimo, es un gran proyecto. ?El conocimiento debe ser libre!" - anon
"Seguir adelante con este inmenso proyecto..." - Josep Penella Sala
"Don't move to Google!" - anonymous Polish donor
"Wikipedia rulez. it:"Come sarebbe il mondo senza Wikipedia?"" - anon
"F?r eine der besten Ideen des Informationszeitalters" - Michael Schmitz

And, as yesterday, lots of "wieder so"s.

Mark

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 00:05:52 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Day 4 (Monday 21 February eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not
> available in UTC) we made $6,586.15 (USD equivalent) through PayPal (no updates
> available for other sources at this time). This is a decrease of 16.44% from
> Day 3 but still does represent 18.34% of total funds collected so far
> ($35,904.88 ; only counting full days) and 8.78% of our goal ($75,000).
>
> Remarkably, the rate of donations were not too adversely affected by the
> downtime today. Since the donation forms were not available during a large part
> of the downtime, I can only guess that people remembered our PayPal account
> name.
>
> Donations did significantly increase soon after a Slashdot story about the
> downtime was released (9:28PM, EST), forcing us to move the backup donation
> page once the Slashdot Effect brought down the website hosting it
> (http://wikisearch.org ; Sorry about that Angela).
>
> Day  4                  Day  3 comparison
> Breakdown:
> PayPal          USD equiv       USD equiv       %change
> AUD     32         $25.30         $330.90        -92.36%
> CAD     785       $636.09         $238.93        166.23%
> EUR     1489.63 $1,947.24       $2,755.66        -29.34%
> GBP     332.06    $630.18         $696.89         -9.57%
> JPY     8501       $80.58         $198.96         59.50%
> USD     3266.76 $3,266.76       $3,596.33         -9.16%
> PayPal total:   $6,586.15       $7,817.66        -15.75%
>
> MoneyBookers
>                                    $64.00       -100.00%
>
>         TOTAL   $6,586.15       $7,881.66       -16.44%
>
> Grand totals so far (only counting complete days)
>
> PayPal          USD equiv       %GrandTotal
> AUD     1150.4       $909.39     2.53%
> CAD     1571.01    $1,272.99     3.55%
> EUR     9926.89   $12,976.44    36.14%
> GBP     1952.46    $3,705.39    10.32%
> JPY     82302.58     $780.15     2.17%
> USD     15833.85  $15,833.85    44.10%
> PayPal total:     $35,478.19
>
> Moneybookers:
>                      $426.69     1.19%
>
> GRAND TOTAL       $35,904.88    100.00%
>
> % toward goal         47.87%
>
> For the most recent grand total and other details visit
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1
> (once everything is back up)
>
> Some selected comments from Day 4:
> See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_4 in about a
> day (hopefully I'll be able to post by then)
>
> "I love this site. Keep up the awesome work!" by Anonymous
>
> "I use Wiki - I have to pay for it !" by Immo Wetzel
>
> "You have aided me countless times in my academic pursuits in math, science,
> and the humanities. I can't thank you guys enough." by Laura Napolitano
>
> "Wiki is the future!" by Christoph Burschka
>
> "Wikipedia is in my opinion one of the most noble collective human endeavours
> underway in the world today. Thank you so much for contributing to society with
> your wonderful website. I love it and abide" by Matthew Barba
>
> "Wikimedia Rocks!" by Jasmeet Singh
>
> "I have always had a thirst for knowledge, and this project does more than
> quench it. I am happy to donate." by Matthew Gluesenkamp
>
> "Cheaper than cable" by Anonymous
>
> Some of my favorites:
>
> "Spread your Squids around the world. And use cached pages for logged in users
> as well. Fix those and I'll be happy as a [[clam]]. Good job so far!!!" by Rami
> Lehti
>
> "A small price to pay for a project like this. But get a move on with all those
> ambitious plans for paper versions. Most of the world doesn't have computers."
> by Anonymous
>
> "The Wikimedia Foundations is an acheivement of great proportions spreading the
> one firm truth that information is truly free. Thank you." by Siddharth
> Bhansali
>
> "Help preserve the sum total of human knowledge for less than the price of two
> Caramel Frappuccinos. Wikipedia is not only fat-free and carbohydrate-free, it
> will never go straight to your hips!" by Jonet Greene
>
> "Give Wiki a boost!!" by Kiminori Noma
>
> Daniel Mayer,
> Wikimedia CFO
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
James D. Forrester said:
> On Tuesday, February 22, 2005 5:07 PM, Tony Sidaway
> <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote a lovely piece about the
> controversy surrounding the Pioneer 10 plaque. Is it on the Wiki? If
> not, it'd make a great section or sub-section.

Glad you liked it.  See what happens when Wikipedia is down? ;)


body:
You're close, but a bit off - I don't drive at all yet. So no, I do
not drive a Hyundai.

Mark

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:32:53 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:35:59 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > And on a tangent... how does he know I don't drive a Hyundai??
>
> From my calculation, you've been old enough to drive for one year,
> maybe two. So it's likely there have not been too many cars in your
> driving history. So *do* you drive a Hyundai? :)
>


body:
"Thanks" for the advice.

I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I
have noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me,
when it is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.

Mark

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 07:04:25 -0800, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
> >
> He probably does, actually. Despite repeated hints that it's
> counterproductive, you continue to try to browbeat people into
> doing what you want.
>
> As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me
> pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of
> reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit
> a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund
> goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in
> public, your fund goes down.
>
> Why does this matter? If your fund of reputation is high, you can
> merely suggest an idea, and people will rush to make it happen.
> If your fund is low, others will dislike your idea, *even if it's
> a good idea*. Unfair, perhaps, but that's how interpersonal
> relationships work, on the net as elsewere.
>
> Some people even tried to let you know when your fund crossed zero
> and headed into negative territory, but you blew right on by without
> slowing down. So, if you want to have any chance at all of having
> any influence on things, I suggest you cool it with all the
> accusations and criticism - I think you do enough worthwhile things
> normally that your reputation will eventually get back to the
> positive side again.
>
> Stan
>
>


body:
Ray Saintonge said:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>A digest contains ALL the crap. It is much easier to identify and
>>delete spam based on author. However spam of the volume we are
>>receiving degrades the dialog. So the topic itself must serve as a
>>rough guide to theads which have become senseless and useless.
>>
> That, and if you want to reply to one item in the thread it's more
> complicated than a simple reply.

I don't want to seem rude since I'm the one supposedly causing all the
problems by posting a lot recently.  But what is the problem? If you don't
want to read an email, don't read it.  If you do, do.  I get my list mails
sorted into a big long list showing author and datestamp, nothing
sophisticatted. If I see an email I feel like reading I read it.  I ignore
*all* the others because life's too short.


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:59:02 +0000, Theresa Knott
<theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>I've just received 50 invites

Ditto.  They're for you, people.

Smoddy


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug in hooks code for 1.4

body:
So, there's a bug in the hooks code for 1.4. I've got a fix working on
my machine, but since the problem requires a change in the calling
semantics, I have to test all the code that causes events. This is
taking a while.

I hope to have something checked in in the next couple of days.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou
evan at bad.dynu.ca


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject:
Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and	Chinese Wikipedia again)

body:
Ditto.  There's only so far I'm willing to read a thread.  I think I got the
basic arguments of the Quenya thread within the first 10 mails.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:07 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language
request,and Chinese Wikipedia again)

Stan Shebs wrote:

> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>> Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
>>
> He probably does, actually. Despite repeated hints that it's
> counterproductive, you continue to try to browbeat people into
> doing what you want.
>
> As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me
> pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of
> reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit
> a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund
> goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in
> public, your fund goes down.
>
> Why does this matter? If your fund of reputation is high, you can
> merely suggest an idea, and people will rush to make it happen.
> If your fund is low, others will dislike your idea, *even if it's
> a good idea*. Unfair, perhaps, but that's how interpersonal
> relationships work, on the net as elsewere.
>
> Some people even tried to let you know when your fund crossed zero
> and headed into negative territory, but you blew right on by without
> slowing down. So, if you want to have any chance at all of having
> any influence on things, I suggest you cool it with all the
> accusations and criticism - I think you do enough worthwhile things
> normally that your reputation will eventually get back to the
> positive side again.

Well put!

What I would add is that another thing that moves someone into negative
territory is continuing "ad nauseam" with a subject.  This "Quenya"
thread seems to keep going on  ... and on ... and on ... and on ... and
on ... with the same cast of characters, and often lengthy posts.  It
gets to the point where I don't even bother to look to see if there are
accusations and criticisms.  My finger on the delete button just gets
very heavy.

Ec

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] One reason why Wikipedia
	is	not	presently	classroom-safe

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs said:
>> Well you'll have to excuse me, you seem clear enough of mind not to
>> have missed this: as we discussed image holders could be used in the
>> same way as using your browser to defer image downloads. The
>> difference would be that only some of the images would be deferred
>> instead of all of them.
>
> It seems to me that which images are to be deferred would be decided
> by someone other than the reader.  This would probably compromise
> NPOV.

To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers some
images. And in either case the user is in control as which images are
then loaded. Please Tony, I beg of you, why are you talking in circles?

Christiaan


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Problems?

body:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Brion Vibber wrote:

>Update logs are still replaying, but we're up to 42 minutes prior to the
>crash on one machine and still going. I don't expect problems.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

One can see the logs replaying checking the "Recent changes" page, like
the more ordinary activity :-) On it: we are at yesterday's 23:13 UTC,
about 23 hours ago. I suppose the last change displayed depends on which
server one hits.

Alfio


subject: [WikiEN-l] Downtime

body:
On 22 Feb 2005, at 10:01 pm, Rick wrote:

> Any estimates on when Wikipedia will be back up?

22 Feb 2005 13:48:17 +0100 (CET) Brion Vibber wrote:
> I don't know when exactly we'll have everything editable again, but it
> should be within 12 hours.

Christiaan


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki does not exist

body:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:20:45 -0500, Poor, Edmund W
<Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> This domain (en.wikipedia.org) has been reserved for the Wikipedia in
> the English language. Would you like this wiki to be created?
>
> I clicked the "Yes" button; I'll check back in a couple of hours.

It worked! If only you had tried it sooner.

Theresa


body:
One way to cut down on email list traffic is to move the discussion
elsewhere, such as:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/End-user_content_suppression

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Downtime

body:
It's back up now

Theresa

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:36:35 +0000, Christiaan Briggs
<christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
> On 22 Feb 2005, at 10:01 pm, Rick wrote:
>
> > Any estimates on when Wikipedia will be back up?
>
> 22 Feb 2005 13:48:17 +0100 (CET) Brion Vibber wrote:
> > I don't know when exactly we'll have everything editable again, but it
> > should be within 12 hours.
>
> Christiaan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
The problem is, "most of the world" - especially the most of the world
without computers - doesn't speak English.

For that matter, in the computerless world, even languages such as
German and French and Spanish are relatively rare. We are talking here
about targeting entire continents such as Africa which are best served
by native-language content which we cannot currently provide in any
way shape or form. We have growing Arabic and Afrikaans Wikipedias, a
minimal Swahili Wikipedia, just beginning Wolof, Bambara, Zulu,
Somali, and Amharic Wikipedias, and can already obviously provide
English, French, and Portuguese-language content for those Africans
who can speak these languages fluently.

Most of the other places where the vast majority is computerless speak
primarily languages with small or nonexistant Wikipedias. Take, for
example, Bhutan. How large is the Dzongkha Wikipedia?

Or Khmer. How big is the Khmer Wikipedia?

I just hope we don't send out copies in languages people can't read or
can barely read. That would be linguistic imperialism at its worst,
suggesting to these people that their langauge is not good enough
because we can't provide them material in it. In places like Cambodia
or Bhutan this may not be too harmful because the national language is
the source of a lot of national pride, but elsewhere (African nations,
Native America, aboriginal Australia, autonomous Russia) it could
contribute to the already worrysome trend of rapid decline of minority
languages.

Until now languages of the "have nots" have been largely protected by
the absence of mass media and other technology which usually serves
only to hurt minority languages (although it can help in many cases),
but mass distribution of for example Wikipedia in an LWC could be
devastating to many languages which until now had relatively secure
futures.

This is not to say we should limit access to information to save
languages. However, we should think carefully before mass distribution
of print editions - what language do these people speak best, and can
we provide content in that language? If not, would it be possible to
launch a campaign for the growth of a native-language Wikipedia?

My point is, I would be heartbroken if English copies of Wikipedia
print editions are handed out in schools on Hopi, or the school in
Havasupai, or schools in the Tohono O'odham Nation or the Navajo
Nation or the Gaeltachta.

Mark

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:09:25 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> [crossposted to wikipedia-l, wikien-l, wikitech-l]
>
> Daniel Mayer (maveric149 at yahoo.com) [050222 20:25]:
>
> > "A small price to pay for a project like this. But get a move on with all those
> > ambitious plans for paper versions. Most of the world doesn't have computers."
> > by Anonymous
>
> The closest we appear to have to an active plan for this is ... mine!
>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0
>
> This relies on rating code (so as to let the Wiki do the work - editorial
> committees don't scale, editors with opinions will).
>
> Jimbo's idea - which passes the "simple brilliant elegance" test - is to
> set up ratings on a large Wikipedia (e.g. en:!) and just gather data for a
> month or whatever. Then release the data for everyone to look at and make
> sense of.
>
> This relies on someone who knows PHP writing rating code, or better yet
> beating Magnus Manske's existing rating code into production quality ...
>
> I could install MediaWiki at home (it runs on FreeBSD, right?) and hack on
> it here. And, ahahaha, learn PHP, of which I know not a jot or tittle. And
> I haven't written anything longer than a quickie shell script since 1993.
> "Rusty" isn't in it.
>
> So if SOMEONE ELSE who is interested and KNOWS PHP could come forward, that
> would be *really good*!
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: MilchFlasche瑋平

body:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:44:10 +0800, Sheng Jiong <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If anything, Singlish
> > is less mutually intelligible with "standard English" than either Scots
> > or Ulster Scots are.  The main difference seems to be that, while the
> > Scottish government wishes to promote the use of Scots as a legitimate
> > language, the Singaporean government takes the opposite view of Singlish.
>
> I do not think that it is entirely due to the view of the government.
> There is also strong opposition within the country, among the ordinary
> speakers of the language. People have gotten used to the thinking that
> "when I write, I should use standard English; when I speak to a fellow
> Singaporean, there is no need to be so formal". Before they begin to
> change their mindsets and decide to write in the way they usually talk
> (as China experienced in 1910s and 20s, and many other countries too.
> And I personally see it as a result of the increasing nationalistic
> feelings), should Wikipedia recognise the language so fast? The
> potential danger is the undermining of our credibility.
>
Well, for Wikipedia, I think beside of the factor of such
"credibility" (although for myself, I could never imagine how allowing
versions less written could reduce people's confidence in the whole
project; I'd guess that such crisis of confidence occurs when people
have their own despise and discrimination towards such languages),
"freedon" and "toleration" are also what make it different and
revolutionary from "traditional" encyclopediae. While the
incredibility and doubt of some people (in fact most people don't even
knew that there ARE significant distinction among Chinese languages in
both verbal and text form; they just need to be educated and most of
the time would listen and recognize, unless they were too stubborn to
admit.) may make them view Wikipedia "lower" and "less credible", but
Wikipedia would also benefit from hosting and sponsoring these
versions. If they work, MORE THAN HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people WILL
be grateful to the Wikimedia foundation. Don't only look upon the
presence (especially when the presence is not so pessimistic as have
been described), think about the future development and the spirit of
Wikipedia.
> > I guess this brings up the question of how we distinguish between
> > these.  Should we care what the relevant governments think?
>
> Indeed. Wikipedia used to take ISO 639 as a guideline for the setting
> up of Wikipedias. But now this has apparently been abandoned, and it
> becomes harder for us to determine really a written language does
> exist.
>
> formulax
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
2005, make signs happen!


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
For improvement of JA situation (Re: [Foundation-l] And blocked
	again)

body:
Thank you Delphine and Walter for your feedback.

After a half year attempt to recruit new admin candidates, here I try
to summarize the situation.

In my views the current situation on JAWP is:
1. The JA WP is suffered by shortage of sysops.
1a. some users don't recognize the situation, because they don't
recognize the situation closely.
1b. other (or the majority in my view) know the shortage but don't
think themselves as possible sysop candidate.
1c. except some users, including me (I had contacts over 20 users),
almost no one recommended new candidates or urge them to request for
sysoship.

2. Some users, not in a small number, misunderstand sysopship of our project.
2a. Some think it a sort of authority  or a kind of honour.
2b. Some users who don't know how to work sysop previledges or who are
afraid not to understand policies and guideline. Shortly they
underestimate themselves.
2c. Some thinks sysops should do so-and-so activities which need no
sysop previledges (like casting a Welcome message, voting on VfD,
archiving talk discussions or VP ...). Perhaps it can be included to a
phenomenon on #3, but I think it is a sort of misunderstanding what
sysops are.

3. Misunderstanding around sysopship causes phenomena: like
misunderstanding as if sysopship grants a sort of authority,
self-descouragement to request for sysopship, gossipng, power
conflicts (in my opinion JAWP has such conflict at least twice) and so
on.

4. The cultural features of Japanese (because most of Ja contributors
are Japanese in birth) , for example lack of trustness but strong
demand for assurance (a Japanese sociologist pointed it out in his
papter), gossiping ouf of wiki, strong afraid to make a failure or a
keen sense avoiding a "shame"; fear to reject of request for sysopship
(it could be a shame for him):

Point 4 seems to be the hardest points  to alter, so I try to think
how other points could be changed.

For 1c, I expect more users, particular current sysops recommend good
users as sysop candidates. An user who I asked him to request for
sysopship replied me a recommendation from only one person was not
enough make him request for sysopship. Another guy  who was already a
sysop urged him, iirc, and now the user is a sysop on JAWP. Offering
from plural persons would be effective for other people, I think.

Since today I urged already over 20 people to request for sysopship. I
hope others follow me.

Point 3. is hardly deatl with by itself. Misunderstanding established
for a long time - for two years - couldn't be easliy resolved. I
expect here each user point out such misunderstanding by occasions.
Particularly a sysop have misunderstandings like "a sysop can be
allowed authoritative by his nature" or "a sysop without using any
sysop previledge is still a good sysop". I suspect on JA WP even some
sysops have such thoughts.(In my parts I believe in a good sysop
should be an active users and use his previledge appropriately by
occasion. )

And one of most effective ways to resolve Pt.3, is an appropriate
information on what sysop preveledges are. That is, already Notafish
showed us an example. I think such close explanations would be helpful
not only avoiding misunderstanding but encouraging potential
candidates: like Walter said on JAWP, there is no specially
difficulties on doing sysop tasks. But it is sometimes unclear even
for a newly created sysops in my experience. (Not every sysop knows
what is MediaWiki messages, how to merge two files and so on)

To encourage potential candidates, I think also DeWP  provides us with
an interestign attempt. There is an "official trainee" of Wikipedia
(Wikipedia-azubi) ;-) A user requested for this position from his own
idea. Under some experienced Wikipedians' instruciton, he is learning
how to edit articles, make a discussion, deal with trolls and so
on.... He said now he writes a coursebook to be a good Wikipedian by
himself. On a communith which the shortage of sysops suffers possibly
need such attempt to involve more persons into administrative issues,
like a trainee course and/or guidebook.

--
Aphaia (at) gmail (dot) com


subject:
[WikiEN-l] One reason why
	Wikipedia	is	not	presently	classroom-safe

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Christiaan Briggs said:
>
>>To use a browser as you suggest defers ALL images. This way defers some
>>images.
>
>
> That is true, and that is precisely the problem.  In my opinion deferring
> *all* images is the only way that is consistent with NPOV.  *You*, as an
> editor, cannot know which images *I* want deferred.

Which is _exactly_ why the proposal was created. Images will be
categorized. If a user wants a certain category of images deferred, they
can pay a visit to their preferences and add that category to the filter.

We. Make. No. Choices. For. Anyone.


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spam

body:
Hi,

Le Tuesday 22 February 2005 16:01, David Gerard a ?crit :
> Brion Vibber (brion at pobox.com) [050223 01:01]:
> > The lists are restricted to registered users only, but we hold other
> > mails in the moderation queue rather than discarding them outright.
> > This means a lot of spam gets in the moderation queue, which nobody ever
> > sees except the list admins. I keep hearing a rumor that we've set up
> > SpamAssassin but I guess it hasn't really gotten done.

No, it was never done, inspite of several propositions to do so.
I?offered several times to help setting this, and I do it again today.

> There's a LOT of spam in the moderation queue, but it does no harm sitting
> there (unless the mail server is about to fall over with the weight of it).

The amount of spams has become so much that managing a list is now a burden.
So yes, it does harm, because it wastes my time as list administrator.
I?am sure I am not alone in this case.

> The main reason to check the queues at all is just in case there's a
> message from a human to allow through.

Every day, there are valuable mails from people who are not subscribers,
so the cleaning of spams has to be done daily.

For a?basic spam filter, we don't even need to install Spamassassin.
Just filtering out non existing domains and virus will remove a lot of
unwanted traffic.

> - d.

Regards,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


body:
You have a very distorted view of linguistic diversity in Africa.

First of all, while there are definitely more than 500 languages in
Africa, there are only 10 or 20 with over 1 million speakers.

It is very linguistically imperialistic of you to assume that the
entire population of Africa is best-served by English.

Mark

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:16:12 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >For that matter, in the computerless world, even languages such as
> >German and French and Spanish are relatively rare. We are talking here
> >about targeting entire continents such as Africa which are best served
> >by native-language content which we cannot currently provide in any
> >way shape or form. We have growing Arabic and Afrikaans Wikipedias, a
> >minimal Swahili Wikipedia, just beginning Wolof, Bambara, Zulu,
> >Somali, and Amharic Wikipedias, and can already obviously provide
> >English, French, and Portuguese-language content for those Africans
> >who can speak these languages fluently.
> >
> >
> I'd question that: I think Africa is "best served" by whatever content
> the most people can read, which is likely to be English.  Even expanding
> to say, four languages, the best choices are likely to be English,
> French, Arabic, and Swahili (although I can't find very good statistics
> on this).  Unless you have a plan to simultaneously publish editions in
> 500 different languages, publishing in the major languages---i.e. those
> that the most people are able to make use of---seems like the best plan.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
delivery wasn't good.

So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
the way he said it.

Mark

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> Dear Mark W.,
>
> At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
> >"Thanks" for the advice.
> >
> >I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
> >condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
> >noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
> >is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
>
> As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
> telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
> -- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
> to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
> condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
> frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
> times, you know ....
>
> I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
> debating strategies.
>
> Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
> don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
> that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
> in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
> why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
> misunderstandings...?
>
> I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
> I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
> you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
> and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
> one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
> flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
>
> I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
> see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
> listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Olve
>
>
> ___________________
>
> Olve Utne
> http://utne.nvg.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Oh, and I know I can at times be irritating and condescending
(although this isn't usually intentional, and when it is, well, you'd
better watch out). But when somebody makes a point of telling me
something they dislike specifically or warns me about something about
them, I don't go flagrantly violating it.

Everybody can be irritating, but it takes a true master to send a
condescending message of advice to one who has in the past said he
doesn't much appreciate advice (I have enough advice as it is -
believe me, I've heard all of this before), especially when it's
delivered in such a manner.

Mark

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:25:17 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I didn't say he didn't have a good point. I just said the method of
> delivery wasn't good.
>
> So it wasn't entirely lost on me, I just got a bit pissed at Stan for
> the way he said it.
>
> Mark
>
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:17:42 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> > Dear Mark W.,
> >
> > At 05:09 23/02/2005 +0000, Mark Williamson wrote to Stan Shebs:
> > >"Thanks" for the advice.
> > >
> > >I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so
> > >condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have
> > >noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it
> > >is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
> >
> > As someone who has supported you before (even though I have no way of
> > telling whether you appreciated it), I ask you to break a little bit there
> > -- Stan Shebs' advice wasn't *that* bad, actually... It is easy for us all
> > to sound a bit condescending at times (and you probably think I sound
> > condescending right now), but you sound more than a bit condescending (and,
> > frankly, a bit irritating (since you brought up that term)) yourself at
> > times, you know ....
> >
> > I think this may be a good time for you to step back a bit and rethink your
> > debating strategies.
> >
> > Listen to Stan -- and give what he said some thought. It won't hurt. You
> > don't need to post all your thoughts about it here (or anywhere else, at
> > that) -- but please try to listen. Maybe you find that he isn't right. But
> > in that case, maybe you could make your own life easier by finding out
> > why/how people misunderstand you -- and then find ways of avoiding these
> > misunderstandings...?
> >
> > I appreciate very much your struggle for "small"-language wikipedias, Mark.
> > I have also seen you contribute in many other great ways., and I hope that
> > you will continue the struggle for Wikipedia to become ever more democratic
> > and diverse within the limits of truth and humanism. But in this struggle,
> > one needs both a strong conviction AND a level of humility (!) and
> > flexibility (!!!) that allows people not to be driven away from the good cause.
> >
> > I have defended you before, and will be happy to do so again as long as I
> > see that you do positive things for Wikipedia. But sometimes it is time to
> > listen and learn for all of us -- even for you.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > Olve
> >
> >
> > ___________________
> >
> > Olve Utne
> > http://utne.nvg.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


body:
Viajero (viajero at quilombo.nl) [050222 23:50]:

> This list *urgently* needs to adopt daily posting limits. A certain user

Any user can go to the list page:

    http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

- and (using the bit at the bottom) set their mail feed to daily digest or
individual mails at will, and change it back at will.

Using this as a workaround is more likely to give you the result you're
after (a lack of tons of stuff in your mailbox) in the immediate future.

Besides, we're all suffering wikiwithdrawal.

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,
	and Chinese Wikipedia again

body:
What I find amusing is that he says things about how Cantonese isn't
written, and then in the same breath he says something about how
_when_ Cantonese is written, it can't be understood.

He started out saying that Mandarin and Cantonese are written
identically, but then he made some concessions. So now they aren't
identical, but Cantonese is inferior because - well, because he says
so.

Formulax, we are going in circles here.

Quit telling native speakers of Cantonese what they should have to do
with THEIR LANGUAGE. Such a movement as the May 4th movement is
extremely difficult to spark, and usually comes amid great political
or economic strife, which currently isn't exactly present in
Cantonese-speaking areas.

If you can understand Cantonese so well and it's so similar, then
we're back to the question "Why are my contributions to zh.wikipedia
in pure unadulterated Cantonese 'corrected' to Baihuawen?" which you
have already answered with your typical accusations of inferiority and
lack of standardisation.

As I said, we are going in circles.

And even more interesting is how you act for a moment conciliatory
buay conciliatory (I think you'd be more likely to hear "act yong hor
buay yong hor") about how you encourage this enthusiasm... but then
your true nature rears its ugly head (that's what the "buay yong hor"
part is for) and you're back to your snappy,
Cantonese-is-not-a-written-language-and-if-it-is-I-dont-like-it self.

Mark

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:18:24 +0800, Alex Y. Kwan <litalex at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Sheng Jiong wrote:
> > And now you should start another movement and let the public accept it
> > before coming to ask for a Cantonese Wikipedia.
>
> You could have just stated that was your definition of "widely accepted"
> before letting all of us get into this long, long discussion.
>
> > Yes, there was. But majority of the population know only how to read
> > some wenyanwen, but not write.
>
> Odd that you'd say that. I hang out at this online writing forum and
> quite a number of the people there write almost perfect wenyanwen. But
> that's besides the point.
>
> > His examples are just stubs. And in fact I can read it as well.
>
> His examples from www.cantonese.org.cn?
>
> > are only two possible solutions: 1) do not translate these terms into
> > Cantonese, which makes a Cantonese Wikipedia a repetition of Chinese
> > Wikipedia, or 2) translate, and no one understands.
>
> You just said that written Cantonese is so easy to understand and now
> you say once a term is translated, no one will understand it?
>
> > Whatever it is, it is written. Cantonese is not.
>
> I don't get why you're making statements like those when there is
> evidence to the contrary.
>
> little Alex
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
No, you're being very unrealistic.

What percentage of the population of Africa is fluent in English?

Ge'ez.

Mark

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:42:39 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >It is very linguistically imperialistic of you to assume that the
> >entire population of Africa is best-served by English.
> >
> >
> No, it is simply realistic.  I'm not trying to tell people what
> languages they ought to know, merely observing what languages they *do*
> know.  My goal is to get information to people in a language they can
> read it, not some quest to promote particular languages.  If Espertanto
> were more successful and most of the world spoke it, I'd be happy
> publishing just one Wikipedia in Esperanto.  As that's not the case, we
> have to do the next-best thing and publish in multiple languages,
> choosing the languages to reach as many people as possible.
>
> See, I speak Greek fluently.  Being Greek, I like the language, like
> speaking it, and would like it to be preserved.  But it would be silly
> to argue that Greek ought to be one of the first languages being
> considered for a print version of Wikipedia.  Not only are there many
> other languages with many more speakers, but many Greeks speak one of
> those other languages anyway (mostly English, with some German).
>
> Is there any good argument for putting Greek anywhere near the top of
> the list of languages we ought to produce a print version of?  I don't
> think there is---any of a number of languages (English, French, Arabic,
> German, Spanish, Chinese, etc.) are more useful to a much larger number
> of people.  So why would there be a similar argument for any other
> language of about the same size (Greek has around ~11 million native
> speakers)?
>
> The question is, basically, "what reasonable subset of the world's
> languages can we pick that will serve the largest number".  The answer
> might include some languages we're not currently good at, but not that
> many.  From what I can tell, the only languages in the top 10 whose
> Wikipedias are fairly inactive are Bengali and Hindi, and possibly Russian.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>