from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l]Hidden tragedy: requests in limbo (dezas sekrè: demand nan okenn kote)

body:
I don't see the line in the new policy adopted by the langcom that
says "Anyone with a proposal for a new Wikipedia should read
wikipedia-l", nor do I see the line that enumerates the policy you
have just stated to me about having complete interface translations.

If you are going to have a policy or expectation, you cannot expect
people to guess it, it needs to be enumerated in the policy document.

I originally subscribed to this list because I was told that zh-tw was
being discussed here; but this was only after I asked where the
decisions were being made. This mailing list may be public, but it is
not as if it is advertised on the main Wikipedia portal. And even
people who are subscribed to this ML are unlikely to read every post.

Mark

On 05/03/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> No,
> But I can expect them to read the mailing list.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 3/5/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I take it, then, that you have informed these people of the reason
> > their requests are not approved yet?
> >
> > We can't expect them to be telepathic, after all.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 05/03/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hoi,
> > > I will be happy to see that you are right once the message files exist.
> > > Thanks,
> > >     GerardM
> > >
> > > On 3/5/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I'm not protesting it, I am simply saying that obviously nobody is
> > > > aware of this requirement.
> > > >
> > > > The people who are working on these projects are very dedicated, if
> > > > they knew that this requirement existed, you can be sure that it would
> > > > be fixed right away.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > On 05/03/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Hoi,
> > > > > We are now at the stage where we have a policy. We are not
> > interested in
> > > > > talking the proposal to death. We are first going to see how it
> > > > functions.
> > > > > When we find that it does not work, we will tweak things carefully.
> > The
> > > > lack
> > > > > of having message files for all languages is one of the major
> > > > shortcomings
> > > > > in the current localisation procedures.
> > > > >
> > > > > You may think of it as a technicality or not fair. The point is that
> > the
> > > > > developers proved to be unwilling to remedy things in the past (for
> > > > instance
> > > > > for Marathi). The only consequence can be that new projects have to
> > > > > have message
> > > > > files from the start. It is not fair to start new languages that are
> > > > > incomplete; it is not fair to require the localisation to be done
> > again
> > > > when
> > > > > a new project is requested in the same language.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > >     GerardM
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On 3/5/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'm not complaining about be.wp, I know that is a difficult
> > situation
> > > > > > and I do not expect that it can be resolved soon.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It doesn't appear that anybody told any of these people that they
> > are
> > > > > > required to have a message file.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > These requests are simply sitting there, nobody has actually told
> > > > > > these people "We do not see ____, when you get that we will
> > proceed
> > > > > > further with considerations for your Wiki."
> > > > > >
> > > > > > These people are very dedicated, I am sure if anyone had actually
> > told
> > > > > > them what exactly it is that they need to do to move forward, they
> > > > > > would do it right away. I am sure the messages file would be
> > > > > > translated into Kabyle, for example, in less than a week, if
> > anyone
> > > > > > had ever actually informed those people that it is needed.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > - Wls - if there is "no reasonable support", the number of
> > speakers is
> > > > > > entirely irrelevant, of course the project is not viable since it
> > has
> > > > > > 0 articles in the incubator and nobody currently asking for its
> > > > > > creation (there was only one person who did).
> > > > > > - Twd - this case needs to be probed further to see how much
> > Twents
> > > > > > people would support it as a Wiki separate from nds-nl. There are
> > > > > > already over two hundred articles in it, but the majority are at
> > > > > > nds-nl.wp. User:Tubantia indicated preliminary support of such a
> > > > > > request some time ago, so it needs to be re-investigated to see if
> > > > > > this is a viable project or not, and whether the needs of
> > > > > > Twents-speakers are currently being surved by our existing project
> > > > > > (nds-nl)
> > > > > > - Stq - this is obviously a viable project. There is support of
> > native
> > > > > > speakers, many many pages and very active on the incubator. So you
> > > > > > want a message file. Why didn't you tell the people working on
> > this
> > > > > > project? I am sure they would prepare it in several days.
> > > > > > - Pfl - this project appears to still be in the early stages of
> > > > > > incubator development. At this point in time, I don't expect it to
> > be
> > > > > > approved by anyone.
> > > > > > - Lld - same as pfl, except I do not expect its development soon.
> > > > > > Someone needs to investigate how well existing users are served by
> > > > > > rm.wp and fur.wp.
> > > > > > - Kok - although this is a major language of India with millions
> > of
> > > > > > speakers, it is a problem that there are currently no articles.
> > I'm
> > > > > > sure Frederick Noronha could remedy this, though; in the meantime,
> > I
> > > > > > agree and do not think it would be reasonable to approve the
> > project.
> > > > > > - Kab - same as stq.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Others you failed to mention:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > - Bat-ltg/lv-ltg - same situation as stq.
> > > > > > - Crh - same situation as stq.
> > > > > > - Dsb - same situation as stq.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It seems that if your rules mean that these Wikis are not able to
> > be
> > > > > > created now, it is not necessarily the case that there is no
> > > > > > opposition (although it may be), the case currently is that
> > _nobody
> > > > > > knows about the rules_. When you have a new policy with as much
> > impact
> > > > > > as this one, it is imperative that it be solicited to all the
> > persons
> > > > > > and communities to whom it is relevant, and their opinion awaited.
> > > > > > This is a Wiki, I am sure that even people who support the policy
> > will
> > > > > > have suggestions for its improvement, but so far very few have
> > shown
> > > > > > up because you have not advertised it much.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Mark
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On 05/03/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > Mark Williamson schreef:
> > > > > > > > Hello,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Perhaps some of you are aware of the formation of the Langcom.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Also, you may be aware of the recent reform of the language
> > > > proposal
> > > > > > process.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > However, what you may not be aware of is that the Language
> > > > Committee
> > > > > > > > is taking a while to actually get underway and to the point
> > where
> > > > they
> > > > > > > > can excersise control over the creation of new Wikis.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Despite that, it seems that they are already looked to as an
> > > > authority
> > > > > > > > in this area, while they do not act as such.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > There are several new Wikipedia requests which were
> > > > uncontroversial
> > > > > > > > when first posed. Many of dozens of voices of support, and
> > have
> > > > > > > > thriving tests on the Incubator.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > However, their requests were deleted by PathosChild who said
> > that
> > > > they
> > > > > > > > would have to remake them, which they have. So far, no
> > proposals
> > > > for
> > > > > > > > Wikipedias in new languages have been _approved_ under the new
> > > > > > > > proposal process, despite its having been around for several
> > > > months
> > > > > > > > now. They just sit there. And sit there. And sit there some
> > more.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I think it's about time something happened. I think it's about
> > > > time we
> > > > > > > > welcomed these people -- the Kabyles, the Latgalians, the
> > Lower
> > > > > > > > Sorbians, the Crimeans, and all the others -- into our
> > Wikipedia
> > > > > > > > family. They have waited long enough. Why can't somebody do
> > > > something?
> > > > > > > > Why do they have to wait for the langcom to get underway? For
> > all
> > > > we
> > > > > > > > know, that could take years.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Mark
> > > > > > > Hoi,
> > > > > > > The language committee has proposed things. It does not have the
> > > > power
> > > > > > > to force issues. We are now at the stage where we have published
> > our
> > > > > > > guidelines. We have given warning that we do adopt these
> > guidelines
> > > > as a
> > > > > > > rule if there was no indication of opposition to this. This has
> > not
> > > > > > > happened. From our POV the rules as we published them apply.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > All projects for a new language that do not have a work in
> > progress
> > > > in
> > > > > > > the Incubator are denied. Starting in the Incubator is
> > mandatory.
> > > > > > > Working on the localisation is a strong factor in favour for
> > > > granting a
> > > > > > > new language a project.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > We have some questions outstanding with the board; particularly
> > > > about
> > > > > > > the Belarus Wikipedia. In our opinion only the official Belarus
> > > > > > > Wikipedia has the right to the be.wikipedia label. We have asked
> > at
> > > > > > > least a month ago for a resolution of this issue from the board.
> > We
> > > > do
> > > > > > > not want to take up new things that much if open things do not
> > get
> > > > > > > resolved. It is a waste of our time otherwise.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > We have already denied one proposal for an artificial languages
> > that
> > > > has
> > > > > > > no wide support. That one was obvious.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > *The wls project has no reasonable amount of support at the
> > moment,
> > > > > > > there are only 29,768 people speaking it .. Is this a reasonable
> > > > > > proposal ?
> > > > > > > *The twd project has no reasonable amount of support at the
> > moment,
> > > > > > > there is not even an estimation how many people are speaking it
> > ..
> > > > Is
> > > > > > > this a reasonable proposal ?
> > > > > > > *The stq project does not have a message file.. so we cannot
> > assess
> > > > the
> > > > > > > localisation of the messages
> > > > > > > *The pfl project does not have a message file.. so we cannot
> > assess
> > > > the
> > > > > > > localisation of the messages. There are insufficient articles of
> > a
> > > > > > > sufficient length.
> > > > > > > *The lld project does not have a message file.. so we cannot
> > assess
> > > > the
> > > > > > > localisation of the messages. There are insufficient articles of
> > a
> > > > > > > sufficient length.
> > > > > > > *The kok project does not have a message file.. so we cannot
> > assess
> > > > the
> > > > > > > localisation of the messages. There are no articles
> > > > > > > *The kab project does not have a message file.. so we cannot
> > assess
> > > > the
> > > > > > > localisation of the messages.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > So basically from our point of view, it seems that the message
> > files
> > > > are
> > > > > > > not there. They are required.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > > >     GerardM
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --
> > > > > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 06/03/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>it feels like the damn project is imploding.

Actually, I would bet you that the vast majority of people editing
Wikipedia don't even have the faintest awareness of "the Essjay
situation". Hyperbole like this doesn't help.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


list: wikitech-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] AJAX and .aspx as technologies for MediaWiki?

body:
I see that the list just went on temporary moderation, so I will try
to keep this note positive.

On 3/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/03/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For future reference, Virgil: programmers' hackles tend to raise when
> > you talk about languages being "easy" to write in, because that
> > generally means "people who write in this language have no real
> > knowledge of programming because the language is designed to be easily
> > accessible, and so their easily-written code turns into an
> > unmaintainable mess with no coherent structure and tons of stuff done
> > in crazy or unsafe ways".  When programmers like a language, they call
> > it something like simple, elegant, or powerful . . . not easy.  Good
> > programming is never easy and can never be easy, because it
> > intrinsically involves careful thought and a great deal of background
> > knowledge and experience.
>
>
> Sure sure, I didn't realise I was conversing with a group of super elite
> hax0r programmers. I'm a novice with ASP .NET and various other languages,
> better with PHP, but fully fledged in other stuff like Visual Basic. I do
> know what makes good programming. As far as being an elite programmer, I
> don't cut it because I still enjoy rapid development platforms like VB. Ease
> is good to me when writing. But by this I certainly don't mean to sacrifice
> quality, structured and bugless code. Nevertheless, I wasn't suggesting I
> did any MW coding myself *anyway*, so why all this fuss?

I think it's important to put this into context.  Large complex
software products are a major undertaking, the equivalent of founding
a whole new branch of philosophy.  Each one is largely unique, and
requires many levels of understanding to really "get it".

Again to put this into context, trying to reconceptualize how to do
something like Mediawiki from just playing around with ASP .net, VB,
etc is like trying to recreate Rationalism from scratch relying only
on a [[CliffsNotes]] version of Descartes' first works.  The scope is
too broad, and there are intellectual tools not in the short version
necessary to do the real thing.

If you are serious about this, as people have said, study the actual
MW code, perhaps take some computer science classes, and take a look
at some of the computer science "how to do big project" books like
Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month", McConnell's "Code Complete", etc
(also [[Category:Computer science books]] ).

These are the sorts of foundations you need to be proficient enough to
engage constructively in rearchitecting large software projects.  You
probably need to add a fair amount of experience working on software
to that to do so successfully, but that hasn't always stopped good
people before.

If you're really interested in this and have the time and energy to
learn it properly, I wish you good luck, and you will certainly find
lots of good resources on WP and in the people here.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Kasimir Gabert

body:
Hello Sebastian,

MediaWiki is not just run on Wikimedia Foundation servers.  If
MediaWiki were to use a proprietory but "better" solution, then I am
relatively positive that many of the wikis out there running Linux and
open source operating systems would immediately drop MediaWiki.

Kasimir

On 3/6/07, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I don't think I actually mentioned writing this myself did I?
> >
> > Yes I understand that, but I wasn't actually sure what to call the
> > language.
> > ASP .NET? Like I say, I've never claimed to be a whizz on the coding. I
> > have
> > a basic understanding of how the technologies all work and what they can
> > do,
> > so I'm working off that to make more sensible suggestions... when I do.
>
>
> For the purposes of education: ASP.NET works primarily with C# or VB.NET.
> All three have fairly good Wikipedia articles about them, if you want to
> know more.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sebastian
>
> P.S. I also want to add that I find some of the comments here regarding open
> source and ASP.NET a little peculiar. Choosing a tool set and an
> infrastructure should be based on merit, not dogma. If there's an open
> source tool that does the best job, Wikimedia should use it. If there's
> another one that's proprietary and does a better job, all else being equal,
> Wikimedia should take that one.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Kasimir Gabert


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/07, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY:
> > This email and any attachments may contain information that is privileged,
> > and/or confidential, and is meant only for the intended recipient(s).If
> > the reader of this email is not the intended recipient, you are hereby
> > notified that any unauthorized dissemination, distribution or reproduction
> > of this email, or its attachments, is strictly prohibited. If you have
> > received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately and
> > destroy the e-mail and any attachments.
>
> I know this probably forced on you by your company but I have to
> wonder if such a boilerplate belongs on an interactive mailing list
> with hundreds of users.

Many or most such boilerplates are added by the outgoing mail transfer
agent software, and completely outside a users' ability to control.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
"Erik Moeller" wrote

> Why don't we do the same thing with administrators?

We could call them, I don't know, sysops.

I'm not convinced there is a serious problem to solve here.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 06/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> On an infinitely larger and more significant scale, do I need to cite the
> recent mess at Walter Reed Hospital? Are the words of the patients (victims)
> hyperbole?

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator"
of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with, and we've had
nothing but trouble with this name ever since. Users misunderstand it
(and ask admins to make editorial decisions). Media misunderstand it
(and either do not explain it, or connect it to power and influence).
And it's no wonder. "Administrator" could refer to a manager, or
someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an
important official position.

When the role of "bureaucrat" was created, the name was chosen
specifically so that people would not treat it as a status symbol. It
should be something nobody really _wants_ -- something people do
because it needs doing, not because it gains them credibility and
influence. This seems to have worked reasonably well for the most
part.

Why don't we do the same thing with administrators? No need to do a
global search & replace, just change the key pages and MediaWiki
messages and leave old mentions of "adminship" on talk pages and such
around. But change it to something like "janitor". Or at least
something less formidable than "administrator", like "trusted user."

Seriously, people.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

body:
On 06/03/07, Andrew Cady <andrew.cady at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I find it disturbing that so many here accept this characterization of
> the falsified credentials.
>
>
You shouldn't be surprised though. If it was known who everyone was on
Wikipedia, there are people involved now that you wouldn't let near it with
a ten-foot barge pole.

Without disrespect to the well-educated, mature and balanced members of
Wikipedia, there are undoubtedly many here who not only have difficulty
deciding what is acceptable, but are not suitable people to do anything bar
contribute trivia to Wikipedia. And even then you'd not be sure that it was
accurate trivia (I'm sure the even Pok?mon article editors have to deal with
ignorant people mucking up even those articles with inaccurate and false
details).

There's no way our Adminning procedure can discern whether someone is
suitable for helping the smooth running of the project either. All it can do
is discount those who have already shown themselves up on Wikipedia, or else
have stepped on people's toes too much. Even then, if they are familiar
enough with existing editors and admins...

People have just got a bit too carried away with the potential of wikis for
an attempt to collect together information on everything. Wikipedia is
useful, but it isn't magically going to work out.

Zoney
--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Jim Wilson

body:
... must ... resist .... flamebait ....

On 3/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 06/03/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > If you want to do something at least as good as the current engine, you
> > will need to understand how it works. To understand it you will need to
> > understand PHP. When you finish doing it, you will be able to write php
> > code too, so you won't need to stuck with aspx ;)
>
>
> Actually I do understand PHP, I just wondered whether .aspx was okay as it
> seemed to be easier to write in (when using Visual Web Developer).
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On 3/6/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> It probably isn't that surprising that a site set by conservative Christians
> in the US is keen on AD rather than CE.

Sure, and personally I too prefer AD over CE, though I can understand
the rationale there. But to make it a fundamental "commandment" up
there with "true and verifiable" and "no opinion" (and of course,
"American spelling" :)) surprises me.

I also find something odd in Conservapedia accusing Wikipedia of being
"biased", but then taking pride in its own "conservative" stance. Does
it implicitly accept that it, too, is "biased"? Or does it imply that
a conservative stance is actually a neutral one, and therefore that
Wikipedia is biased simply because it does not adopt that same
conservative point of view?

It's all so confusing! But kudos to Jimbo for his nice quote.

Steve


from_name: Platonides

body:
Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> But thanks for the replies now. You've managed to answer my question -
> sticking with PHP is, I'm sure, the way to go. I'll have to look into how to
> use AJAX with that. For the record again, I'm trying to work out these
> coding concepts so I can make my suggestions sensibly.

If you want to do something at least as good as the current engine, you
will need to understand how it works. To understand it you will need to
understand PHP. When you finish doing it, you will be able to write php
code too, so you won't need to stuck with aspx ;)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>Not really.  However long the RfC turns out to be it's not going to
>>change the simple fact that EssJay is still only one person.  The lack
>>of evidence that others have done this only tells me that this is a
>>one-off situation.
>>
>>
>Essjay is one person out of maybe half a dozen with a similar level of
>responsibility. 1 out of 6 is quite a high rate...
>
I wasn't aware that we had identified anothe 5 users who had falsified
credentials, but even so your inference is somewhat strangely
backwards.  It means that if we had identified only one other the rate
of 1 in 2 would be even worse!  The more important and useful statistic
is the number of thes people as a ratio of total editors.

Ec


from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
> [...] people are dropping the site left and right [...]
> WP:IAR is being embraced like never before [...]
> it feels like the damn project is imploding.

It may feel that way, but you know it's not. Not over this, anyway. As someone
else said, the majority of people here probably aren't even aware of this
incident. I would also guess that of the remaining minority, the majority aren't
that interested.

It may be healthy to step back from it and do what presumably you originaly came
here to do. For full nostalgic effect, log out. Somewhat ironically, it is
WP:IAR which helps enshrine this option. It is your guarantee that the tedious
and overdramatic talk in project space is Mostly Harmless to the actual
encyclopedia, and that for the most part you need not follow it, if you don't
want to.

This is not to condone some of the behaviour here and pretend there's nothing
wrong. In fact I agree that renaming is probably not a useful response. If
anything I'd be more in favour of two other suggestions made by others, namely
lowering the RfA bar, and admins being less afraid of keeping check on each other.

But more importantly it seems like some perspective is needed as to the urgency
and severity of the problem. Personally, I make extensive use of the ignore
feature.

Dan

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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This email and any attachments may contain information that is privileged,
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from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator"
> of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with, and we've had
> nothing but trouble with this name ever since. Users misunderstand it
> (and ask admins to make editorial decisions). Media misunderstand it
> (and either do not explain it, or connect it to power and influence).
> And it's no wonder. "Administrator" could refer to a manager, or
> someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an
> important official position.

People who ask admins/sysops to make editorial decisions are simply unaware
of their role. Instead of causing loads of work by renaming the position, it
would IMO be more effective to educate the others. People who make editorial
decisions about writing are usually called editors. Should we rename that
term too?

Also, the fact people misunderstand is partly caused by admins messing up.
We shouldn't be afraid to keep an eye on each other's work and make sure
fellow admins follow the rules.

When the role of "bureaucrat" was created, the name was chosen
> specifically so that people would not treat it as a status symbol. It
> should be something nobody really _wants_ -- something people do
> because it needs doing, not because it gains them credibility and
> influence. This seems to have worked reasonably well for the most
> part.

Seeing as how the word "bureaucrat" appears to be connected with
"bureaucracy" I can't see how it could have been carefully chosen.

Why don't we do the same thing with administrators? No need to do a
> global search & replace, just change the key pages and MediaWiki
> messages and leave old mentions of "adminship" on talk pages and such
> around. But change it to something like "janitor". Or at least
> something less formidable than "administrator", like "trusted user."
>
> Seriously, people.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
On 3/6/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> >  I
> > think we're pretty hard on crap in biographies of living individuals
> > these days.
> >
> > Guy (JzG)
> > --
>
>
>
> If that's true than somebody please remove this link to CODOH from this
> article:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_Wilcox#Further_reading
>
> it has no place here.
>
> Thank you.

It appears to be to something he wrote.  Is that a forgery, or ???

Context?

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators

body:
> > I've fiddled a bit with Planet before; if there's no objection I'll set
> > that up later today. If anyone wants in, let me know where to find your
> > blog. :)
>
> No objection from me, but: I want us to make sure that all the blog
> posts appearing are only Wikimedia-related. So I would insist that
> blogs either provide a Wikimedia-specific feed, or that we are able to
> filter them on our side by tag.

Oh, I don't know; Sometimes you get some interesting stuff that's not
strictly MediaWiki / Wikipedia / Wikimedia - related.

For example, you might miss out on stats about the number of people that fake
their identity online ( http://wikiangela.com/blog/a-sad-loss/ ) , videos of
suburbs being hit by asteroids and zapped by aliens
( http://leuksman.com/log/2006/06/17/video-crap/ ), and maybe at some point a
posting about the OLPC's security architecture ( http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ivan/ ).

Isn't it nicer to have something organic and freeform and inclusive and alive,
that flows in unpredictable directions like a good conversation, rather than
something that's narrow and exclusive and walled into a small box?

I say: embrace the weird and the wonderful and eclectic in all its forms, and
let the chips fall where they may - the only criteria should be whether MediaWiki
(core or extensions) / Wikipedia / Wikimedia / wikis-in-general are a major
personal or professional interest to the author, and then wiki-related stuff will
just naturally tend to form a large percentage of the planet's content (although
it will include other stuff too). You see this pattern already in other planets
(e.g. Planet Debian). Or at least maybe try that approach at first, and if it
doesn't work then refine it from there.

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 06/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> On an infinitely larger and more significant scale, do I need to cite the
> >> recent mess at Walter Reed Hospital? Are the words of the patients (victims)
> >> hyperbole?
> >
> > I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
>
> If you live in the United States, and have seen or heard any national news
> reports in the last week or so, you would.

I don't live in the United States. Why would you have assumed that I do?

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>On 3/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
>>I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator"
>>of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with, and we've had
>>nothing but trouble with this name ever since. Users misunderstand it
>>(and ask admins to make editorial decisions). Media misunderstand it
>>(and either do not explain it, or connect it to power and influence).
>>And it's no wonder. "Administrator" could refer to a manager, or
>>someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an
>>important official position.
>>
>>
>People who ask admins/sysops to make editorial decisions are simply unaware
>of their role. Instead of causing loads of work by renaming the position, it
>would IMO be more effective to educate the others. People who make editorial
>decisions about writing are usually called editors. Should we rename that
>term too?
>
The name change process should not be a problem, as it would happen
gradually.  Admins did used to be called sysops, and that term has not
completely died out.  Applying to be a jamitor could be renamed "Request
for Brooms".

>Also, the fact people misunderstand is partly caused by admins messing up.
>We shouldn't be afraid to keep an eye on each other's work and make sure
>fellow admins follow the rules.
>
Absolutely. But it's not just simple messing up.  Defending the mess-up
can be a bigger problem.

>When the role of "bureaucrat" was created, the name was chosen
>
>
>>specifically so that people would not treat it as a status symbol. It
>>should be something nobody really _wants_ -- something people do
>>because it needs doing, not because it gains them credibility and
>>influence. This seems to have worked reasonably well for the most
>>part.
>>
>>
>Seeing as how the word "bureaucrat" appears to be connected with
>"bureaucracy" I can't see how it could have been carefully chosen.
>
Quite the contrary.  The selection was done somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Ec


from_name: Rotem Liss

subject: [Wikitech-l] Faking multiple category namespaces

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Jim Hu wrote:
> IIRC, there were others besides me who were interested in having
> multiple namespaces that act like the category namespace.  Playing
> with my alternate Category page extension, I realized that I could
> fake having multiple category namespaces by getting the title text
> of  the category page, analyzing it, and then replacing it with
>
> 	$wgOut->setPageTitle( $titleText );
>
> Where $titleText is the alternative h1 heading.  I've also figured
> out how to alter the subheadings and count messages.  But I haven't
> figured out how to set the text in the leftmost tab.
>
> Here's an example of what I'm trying to do:
>
> http://ecoliwiki.net/colipedia/index.php/Category:Complex:Flagellum
>
> I'd like the tab that says Category to say Complex.  Anyone know how
> to do that?
>
> Jim
> =====================================
> Jim Hu
> Associate Professor
> Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
> 2128 TAMU
> Texas A&M Univ.
> College Station, TX 77843-2128
> 979-862-4054
>

Something like this may work (I didn't test it):

$wgHooks['SkinTemplateTabs'][] = 'wfChangeCategoryTabText';

function wfChangeCategoryTabText( $skin, $content_actions ) {
	if ( isset( $content_actions['nstab-category'] ) ) {
		$content_actions['nstab-category']['text'] = 'something';
	}
	return true;
}

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF7WhDqahN/0dU8mcRArTaAKDD8gxw35Ey62RYoyBx4AOm66/v6QCePD6S
YABdbwRYN9UBTGaIRnSGbtU=
=/FND
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Keitei stated for the record:
> http://www.conservapedia.com/Revisionist_history
>
> ...oh.

reporting Keitei post AD2173AE-0C15-432B-8895-EE45A52C1689 at gmail.com
doubleplusungood refs unpages rewrite fullwise upsub antearchive

- --
 obrien at miniluv.gov
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF7fUA/SVOiq2uhHMRAlnkAJ4lSWrxUtPUofoHiZNwKGJhDbgKowCg0QHq
yXX3RoCoJzaLyWOAB2hGnrM=
=6mA8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

body:
Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:

> Absolutely, many individual parts need reworking, and some major parts
> (such as Parser) could use a total rewrite.  But individual parts need
> reworking, not the whole thing.

My personal opinion is that the code should be rewritten so that
articles are still largely *edited* in wikitext but get *stored* as
XML. This would present several advantages:

(1) The XML would be close to the HTML version that most people see
when they view articles in their web browser, so less parsing would
need to be done when presenting articles for viewing. (The XML
storage format would have to provide equivalents of the current
{{template}} tags, and those would still need to be parsed anew when
the article is displayed, but overall the parsing load should be
reduced.)

(2) Adopting XML as a standard storage format would make it easier to
port content between MediaWiki and other word-processor formats and
content management systems.

(3) Wikitext could be retained as an input format for people who wish
to use it when creating or editing articles, but if articles are
actually *stored* as XML, it would be easier to offer other input
formats such as WYSIWYG. Going to XML would also require (and,
perhaps, facilitate) more precise characterization of wikitext so
that it becomes possible to establish a one-to-one correspondence
between every possible wikitext markup and its XML equivalent.

Of course, this should be done while preserving as many as possible
of the existing wikitext conventions that are currently in use within
the MediaWiki community.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the computer world,  "System Administrators" and "System Operators"
> (sysops) are those with special privileges on a multi user system.
> They can do things that ordinary users can't do. Read/delete any file,
> restrict user accounts. On some Unix type systems, they are members of
> the "wheel" group thus the term "wheel war". Wikipedia is a multi user
> system and Admins/sysops on Wikipedia have some of these same powers.
> They can delete any article, restrict any user. They need these powers
> and they are a necessary evil.
>
> If a user tries to edit a page and can't because he is blocked,
> whether he deserved it or not it's an insult to his intelligence to
> tell him it was "cleanup" by a "janitor". I came to this list a few
> years ago because I was blocked for a month, my whole ISP was because
> of one vandal with an army of sock puppets and a slew of throwaway ISP
> accounts. You are not going to get me to believe that drastic action
> was done by the guy who mops the server room floor.
>
> I say continue to call them what they are, "Administrators".

This is exactly right, they are administrators in all of the classical
computer science senses of the word. But I would also argue that they
are in a way "part of the administration", since they are trusted with
making some tough administrative decisions, such as AfDs. I don't
think that the word "administrator" implies any sort of extra
editorial power though. since they only administer (wow, I've bent
that word backwards and forwards for this post, huh) the site. Plus,
"janitors" would sound really stupid, especially in newspaper
articles.

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>On 3/6/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If a user tries to edit a page and can't because he is blocked,
>>whether he deserved it or not it's an insult to his intelligence to
>>tell him it was "cleanup" by a "janitor". I came to this list a few
>>years ago because I was blocked for a month, my whole ISP was because
>>of one vandal with an army of sock puppets and a slew of throwaway ISP
>>accounts. You are not going to get me to believe that drastic action
>>was done by the guy who mops the server room floor.
>>
>>I say continue to call them what they are, "Administrators".
>>
>>
>This is exactly right, they are administrators in all of the classical
>computer science senses of the word. But I would also argue that they
>are in a way "part of the administration", since they are trusted with
>making some tough administrative decisions, such as AfDs. I don't
>think that the word "administrator" implies any sort of extra
>editorial power though. since they only administer (wow, I've bent
>that word backwards and forwards for this post, huh) the site. Plus,
>"janitors" would sound really stupid, especially in newspaper
>articles.
>
"Janitors" is somewhat self-deprecating; "administrators" can seem
pompous.  If we are able to laugh at ourselves, that can be a very
attractive feature.

Ec


list: commons-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Commons-l] Audio file sizes

body:
On 06/03/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Then we would, either via an automatic transcoding bot or via an
> upload enhancement to mediawiki automatically generate 40kbit/sec
> (dialup) and 96kbit/sec (broadband)  versions from the lossless. These
> versions are what we'd link from our other projects.

I understand Ogg Vorbis was designed such that you can create a
96kbit/s frame by taking a 160kbit/s frame and stripping the end off.

- d.


from_name: Ivan Krstić

body:
Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> Actually I do understand PHP, I just wondered whether .aspx was okay as it
> seemed to be easier to write in (when using Visual Web Developer).

You understand ".aspx" is a file extension, not a language, and that it
undermines your credibility to keep talking about writing something in it?

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


from_name: Anthony

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made
	nearly 2 years ago

body:
On 3/6/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> I think that this is really the crux of the disagreement, so let's
> state it clearly. There are some people here who think that it is
> reasonable and appropriate for Wikipedians to deceive other
> Wikipedians about their biography, while others find this unacceptable.
>
> By deceive I mean more than "maintain anonymity" or "use a
> pseudonym." Let's be clear about this, because confusion on this
> point was evident as early as Jimbo's (now-retracted) statement that
> Essjay's false credentials were "a pseudonym and I don't really have
> a problem with it."
>
Was Jimbo's statement retracted?  His "retraction" seemed to focus on
the fact that Essjay was using his credentials to gain authority.  As
far as I know he hasn't stated he was wrong in suggesting that it's
ever OK to lie about your credentials on your userpage.

Which makes this whole proposal rather hypocritical to me.  Is it OK
to lie about your degrees on your userpage, as long as you don't
mention those fake degrees in content disputes, or not?

> Once again: false credentials (or other biographical falsifications,
> for that matter) are NOT a pseudonym.
>
Jimbo knew that Essjay made up false credentials when he made the
comment that they were a pseudonym, and he has not to my knowledge
retracted that statement.

Anthony


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
Look what they got up for AfD

http://www.conservapedia.com/Articles_for_Deletion


body:
Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> Jimbo knew that Essjay made up false credentials when he made the
> comment that they were a pseudonym, and he has not to my knowledge
> retracted that statement.

Since Wikipedia does not currently have a policy stating that users
should be honest on their user pages, Jimbo's statement was
consistent with current policy. The question now is, how should we
deal with that? By bashing Jimbo? Or by fixing the policy?

And once again, for those who missed the point in my previous
comment, saying that users "should be honest" does NOT require anyone
to stop using anonymity, pseudonyms, humor, etc. on their user pages.
It draws a bright line between those practices and falsehoods
intended to deceive.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Look Who's Using Wikipedia

body:
I really don't think "we" all in agreement on what "we" want.

I do not have a problem with people using Wikipedia as a primary
source for information. When it comes to certain topics, I would
encourage it because I have confidence in our accuracy and wide
coverage.

However, I would not encourage people to stake their fortune or their
health on Wikipedia at all, and there are certain topics that I would
discourage people from using Wikipedia as a primary source or in some
cases even a secondary source for (pretty much anything related to
Eastern Europe, all of which is still definitely a Work In Progress
when it comes to POV).

Mark

On 06/03/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > As students begin their online research, they could view the
> > prevalence of Wikipedia references in Google as proof of the accuracy
> > and reliability of the source. Given the search exposure and sheer
> > volume of data available on the site, they might fall into the trap of
> > relying on a single source for their education.
> What we *really* want is for people to pass through WP on the way to our
> sources and references and external links, and use those for citations
> instead of WP. I think we say that somewhere, but what else can we do to
> drive home the point? I've added some really topnotch books as
> references for articles, and yet when I go back to the library, those
> books are still sitting on the shelves, when they should be checked out
> nonstop.
>
> Stan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> Trusted user is the wrong term. Many people are trusted but not admins
> on a specific project. (Not to mention some admins can't be trusted).

If they can be trusted then perhaps they should be admins. If they
can't be then they shouldn't be admins but this should be obvious.

I would accept "trusted user" or "trustee". (we "trust" this user with
the tools) but I still think "admin" or "sysop" is best. If you can
push a button and wipe out an article I spent a lot of time writing or
push another and keep me from editing, then you ain't no fracking
"janitor".


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 3/6/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> * Don't Kill Your Fellow Wikipedians And Eat Their Brains To Make A Point

Darn it, [[WP:ZOMBIE]] is still a redlink, and it's several whole been
minutes since you posted this...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


body:
On 3/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>  I
> think we're pretty hard on crap in biographies of living individuals
> these days.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --

If that's true than somebody please remove this link to CODOH from this
article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_Wilcox#Further_reading

it has no place here.

Thank you.


body:
Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> a basic understanding of how the technologies all work and what they can do,
> so I'm working off that to make more sensible suggestions... when I do.

A "basic understanding of the technologies" doesn't cut it today for
writing non-trivial patches or extensions to be included in MediaWiki
mainline, and it's *certainly* not going to cut it for magically writing
a new MediaWiki from scratch tomorrow.

MediaWiki is a complex piece of software. Some of this complexity is
because of hysterical raisins, lots are because it offers a large amount
of functionality that's anything but simple. Without an inside-out
understanding of how the existing codebase works, what it gets wrong,
what it gets right, and _why_ things are the way they are, I submit you
are wasting your time and ours by daydreaming about a rewrite.

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY:
> This email and any attachments may contain information that is privileged,
> and/or confidential, and is meant only for the intended recipient(s).If
> the reader of this email is not the intended recipient, you are hereby
> notified that any unauthorized dissemination, distribution or reproduction
> of this email, or its attachments, is strictly prohibited. If you have
> received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately and
> destroy the e-mail and any attachments.

I know this probably forced on you by your company but I have to
wonder if such a boilerplate belongs on an interactive mailing list
with hundreds of users.


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 3/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> The reason I suggested a rewrite was that I've heard over and over how the
> code is terribly difficult and messy, and is a bit dodgy. For instance, the
> parser (I'm told) is a set of regular expressions, and whilst this works it
> does not make it easy to add to the syntax, change syntaxes, can be buggy,
> etc etc. It would be good if the parser worked by generating a genuine DOM
> tree for the document, and then translating that into the output. This is
> just one example of where (I've heard that) a core part of the software
> needs major reworking.
>
> Another reason for a rewrite (of some core parts) is that MediaWiki was
> written when Wikipedia first began, but the uses and functions of Wikipedia
> - and other projects - today, were very much unforeseen back then, so the
> software wasn't streamlined for those functions. It seems we keep having to
> work around the software to achieve simple things in a difficult way - e.g.
> voting/commenting pages on Wikipedia (Featured Article Candidates, for
> instance), which are a very simple idea, become difficult for new users to
> understand and contribute to. If these were streamlined directly from the
> core code, (add your comment/vote forms, etc), this commonplace function
> would work much better.

Absolutely, many individual parts need reworking, and some major parts
(such as Parser) could use a total rewrite.  But individual parts need
reworking, not the whole thing.

On 3/6/07, Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:
> You understand ".aspx" is a file extension, not a language, and that it
> undermines your credibility to keep talking about writing something in it?

I expect that in most open-source communities, talking about willingly
writing anything in a Microsoft-proprietary language will undermine
your credibility.  Especially when you talk about how easy it is to
use Visual Web Developer (as Jim alluded to above).  :)

For future reference, Virgil: programmers' hackles tend to raise when
you talk about languages being "easy" to write in, because that
generally means "people who write in this language have no real
knowledge of programming because the language is designed to be easily
accessible, and so their easily-written code turns into an
unmaintainable mess with no coherent structure and tons of stuff done
in crazy or unsafe ways".  When programmers like a language, they call
it something like simple, elegant, or powerful . . . not easy.  Good
programming is never easy and can never be easy, because it
intrinsically involves careful thought and a great deal of background
knowledge and experience.


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 06/03/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> I beg your pardon, Rob, but this was really quite rude. This mailing list
> isn't a private elite club, is it? People interested in the Wikimedia
> Foundation's goals are all allowed to voice their opinions right? Isn't that
> the Wikimedia ethos?

Of course it's the Wikimedia ethos, and it's also mine - I'm keen to
hear all improvements and suggestions for our software, even if I am
often inclined to be somewhat blunt about dismissing those I disagree
with, rightly or wrongly.

What I don't see here is much evidence of you actually voicing said
opinion. You've basically, in this thread, implied that a complete
rewrite would be needed. You haven't begun to put forward what's wrong
with MediaWiki, nor have you put forward any areas for improvement.
Just that "it's bad, and we need a big rewrite".

> I am not creeping onto your forums ("your" forums!), how dare you. I am not

It was the royal "our", of course; I was speaking in the best
interests of the people who have put a lot of (most of it unpaid) time
and effort into building up the software we have now, and the
infrastructure to support it, on a less-than-shoestring budget.

> trying to usurp anything. I'm genuinely interested in Wikimedia. Just for
> the record, I'm a 20-year-old philosophy student at Trinity College,
> Cambridge - not a dot-com business man rubbing his hands together looking
> for cash.

My apologies; it was merely the implied tone.

> I don't actually think I could write something on my own anyway. Nor am I
> trying to jump in and scream that all your base are belong to me. It's just
> that I have so many ideas for a better wiki engine that it would be almost
> ridiculous to suggest them as additions to MediaWiki. They comprise a new

That largely depends; as above, I've seen few of these.

> engine in themselves (one that would obviously be written to work with any
> MediaWiki database), and I was just wondering which languages were preferred
> for an implementation so that I could scale any suggestions I made to that.

As I stated in a previous post on this thread, a large-scale rewrite
is a bad way to approach many of these problems. The model we have
now, where new features are developed and continuously integrated,
works best with our peculiar arrangement - MediaWiki is an open source
project, but unlike many, doesn't exist to provide a product for
mass-use.

> As for the "obsession with MediaWiki 2.0", I'm keen, sure. I think a major
> upgrade to the software would really help the Foundation's goals. I'm keen
> on the Foundation. It follows.

Why can such improvements not be integrated? Why discard the enormous
investment that so many people have already put into the software?

Rob Church


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
Marc Riddell wrote

> If you live in the United States, and have seen or heard any national news
> reports in the last week or so, you would.

You know, many people do not live in the USA. About 95%, really. Why not just cite [[Walter Reed Army Medical Center]]?

-----------------------------------------
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body:
On 3/6/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >  I
> > > think we're pretty hard on crap in biographies of living individuals
> > > these days.
> > >
> > > Guy (JzG)
> > > --
> >
> >
> >
> > If that's true than somebody please remove this link to CODOH from this
> > article:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_Wilcox#Further_reading
> >
> > it has no place here.
> >
> > Thank you.
>
> It appears to be to something he wrote.  Is that a forgery, or ???
>
> Context?
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com

It is; however CODOH cannot be used as a cite for anything other than
itself.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

references:
<20070306162302.MSIB17393.aamtaout02-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@smtp.ntlworld.com>
	<6gqru2th5pod6i1n39ol9i93tc4pp02ao2@4ax.com>
	<52a8cf060703061434g27ed39bayb06a28a7010010da@mail.gmail.com>
	<43sru2dfpk5pmdpuu9q7eg7of0h3lur5cr@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 15:34:41 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >http://www.conservapedia.com/Articles_for_Deletion
>
> Hmmm.  The article on Massachusetts Liberal is a classic!
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Amen.  I thought it was conservatives who wanted to take away peoples
rights.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally
	problematic	conflict of interests?

body:
"Mercenary Wikipedian" wrote

> Let's judge edits by their content and editors
> by their contributions, not by their motive.

I think we tend to judge editors, on the downside, by their handling of conflicts. Being paid by results may hinder someone's perspective, as far as resolving disputes goes. It certainly is likely to increase sheer persistence.

Charles

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To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Virgil Ierubino wrote:
>  Please refer to the part of my message where I emphasised that **I never
> mentioned writing anything myself**.

Lacking the understanding I mentioned disqualifies you from dreaming up
how this new MediaWiki will work at anything but the most superficial of
levels, even if you don't intend to write a line of code yourself.

> "Hysterical raisins" was done on purpose, right?

If only there existed a vast encyclopedia of free knowledge you could ask.

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
Erica wrote

> > You know, many people do not live in the USA. About 95%, really. Why not
> > just cite [[Walter Reed Army Medical Center]]?
>
>
> Good grief, give him a break. He already apologized.

(a) Email lists aren't synchronous; 'already' carries relativity in time. Don't assume I had read the mails you have. (b) Marc posts here in terms of his wish to understand WP culture more fully (AFAICS). I thought it was indicative of something relevant to that, that he referred to American media rather than WP to make a point.

Charles

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

references:
<20070306162302.MSIB17393.aamtaout02-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@smtp.ntlworld.com>
	<6gqru2th5pod6i1n39ol9i93tc4pp02ao2@4ax.com>
	<52a8cf060703061434g27ed39bayb06a28a7010010da@mail.gmail.com>
	<43sru2dfpk5pmdpuu9q7eg7of0h3lur5cr@4ax.com>
	<52a8cf060703061459u5ff58104w51039d67f08fc682@mail.gmail.com>
	<k8vru21jknpk0scld3cnucp7d97lod6r9v@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 15:59:50 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I thought it was conservatives who wanted to take away peoples
> >rights.
>
> Always baffles me, how the need for a well-regulated militia equates
> in some people's minds to the right to pack heat at all times :-)

You never know when a thundering herd of pot-smoking, tie-dyed,
long-haired, single-payer healthcare peace activists will ride over
the horizon, gunning for you with their trippy new-age music and lousy
Jerry Garcia concert tapes blaring.

Ya gotta be prepared, man.  A real man could die from that music.  We
should have blasted off and nuked California from orbit a long time
ago.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] No flamefests please

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

This list is under temporary moderation.

Remember, this list is for working, not flames.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 3/6/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> After some thought I'm fairly ambivalent about this. On the one hand I
> have some concern that this could lead to some people with "verified
> credentials" throwing their verified weight around inappropriately, on
> the other hand it may quiet some of our less dedicated critics.

I think the community has always been sceptical and disapproving of
people who try to gain advantages in disputes or enforce their
versions of articles simply because they have certain credentials.
There are regular discussions in the mailing list archives about
Wikipedia's "anti-expert bias", going way back to 2001.

I think this is so well ingrained in the Wikipedia culture that a
verification system wouldn't be able to displace it, especially if it
were implemented as nothing more complicated than a small note on a
user's userpage saying, "yes, this person is not lying".

> Either
> way I doubt much will come of it in terms of actual article quality and
>  I probably won't bother to get verified myself. I'm satisfied that my
> edits stand on their own merits and they mostly aren't related to my
> degrees anyway.

The main goals of such a system, as I see them, would be to help
editors trust each other with respect to the credentials that they
claim, and to help those members of the reading public who are
interested in the question "who writes Wikipedia?" to have greater
trust in Wikipedia.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: Husky

subject: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] How non-free is Flash?

body:
I'm pretty impressed by the Cortado demo. I'm not sure how well it competes
with Flash video on lower-end machines (i'm at a high-end machine right
now), but it seems like a really good alternative for presenting in-line
video on Wikimedia projects. One of the main hassles for incorporating
videos on Wikimedia projects (aside from the copyright and bandwidth issues)
always seemed to be the lack of widely available Theora support. With
everyone being accustomed by YouTube working right out of the box it seems a
bit weird that you ask people to download a codec and install it, or use an
alternative player. This works right out of the box, in Firefox at least. I
had to download the J2RE on IE 6.

If we could use this in some way it would be a great addition to the
projects.

-- Hay Kranen / [[User:Husky]]

On 3/6/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > How non-free do we consider Flash to be? The Gnash player appears to
> > be making good progress. Would it be acceptable to permit useful Flash
> > files which work in Gnash and don't require non-free codecs to be
> > uploaded?
> >
> > I did not see any issues with patents mentioned in the relevant
> > Wikipedia article. The old Macromedia Flash website lists a US patent
> > on "creating gradient fills", but that seems so bizarre as to pose no
> > real threat.
>
> For what application? I see that you say 'don't require non-free
> codecs', but it's not clear that you're aware of the status of codecs
> in flash:
>
>
> For video support the flash plugin contains a H.263 video and a MP3
> audio codec.
>
> It's not possible to write MP3 software which does not infringe
> 5,105,463 among several other patents
> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6388273.stm Weee!).
>
> H.263 is covered by a pool of patents similar to MPEG-4.
>
> Flash player 8 and above also includes the VP6 video codec. On2 has
> patents they license for VP6 use, but overall they are pretty cool
> company though, so I'm not fully sure where that stands. I expect that
> requiring flash player 8 would leave Java as a more compatible web toy
> solution.
>
> Unlike the Java video player implementations the codec isn't actually
> 'written in flash'. Actionscript is a poor match for doing lots of
> data manipulation. I understand that someone nearly has a Vorbis codec
> working actually written in actionscript, but it's too slow to be
> useful.
>
> So for video, flash does not look good. The use of cortado in Java
> would be much better. (http://www.flumotion.net/cortado/). Success
> rate of the inline Java audio player hasn't been bad, and cortado
> should be even more compatible with older JVMs.
>
> A bigger concern I have with the freedom of flash doesn't have
> anything to do with patents: There are no free authoring tools, other
> than some hacks that are used for dynamic authoring. I think this is a
> pretty big killer. Nothing we need for authoring today requires
> proprietary software.
>
> If we're looking to allow users to submit flash there another freedom
> related issue:
>
> Since the toolchain is proprietary and built around desktop usage
> we'll be stuck with the 'opaque object' problem. In short, for
> downloadable turing complete software (Java, Flash, JS) it can be
> impossible to fully understand what the software will do. Perhaps on
> the 3rd of the month it displays the goastse image, perhaps it
> exploits the sandbox and steals your data. In cases where we have the
> source, it's possible to require the software be simple enough that no
> such tricks could be easily inserted.  As a result I previously
> suggested that if we ever accept user submitted java that we have
> people submit source and we compile it on our side. Because the flash
> authoring tools are proprietary this option is closed to us.
>
> These are just some quick points, a little more knowledge of the
> intended application would help me drill in and look for freedom
> related limitations.
>
> I hope that I'll be given the opportunity to comment on the
> non-freedom related aspects, since I think there are some significant
> issues. Again, knowing the application is critical.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
Puppy wrote

> Oh please. Have you clicked "Random entry" there? See
> http://www.conservapedia.com/Cold_War  for an example of the "quality" -
> or Richard Nixon, unless its been fixed.

That's a cool page. The rest of NATO and the Warsaw Pact have vanished from history. China is nowhere. And they require you to log in, but still get silly vandalism.

Charles

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from_name: Mercenary Wikipedian

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment fundamentally a problematic
	conflict of interests?

body:
For those who didn't care to follow the link, the cited Dilbert cartoon goes
as follows:

Writer: "I hope you don't expect me to write a favorable article about your
company just because you bought me drinks."

Dogbert: "No, I expect you to publish my press release and act like you
wrote it."

Dogbert: "You can work or you can get drunk, but the pay is exactly the
same."

That is all very cute, but one ought to remember that what we are talking
about here is a publishing medium where someone's credibility is _entirely_
dependent on the community's perceptions of their work. If, by community
standards, an editor is making contributions that are unconstructive (i.e.
against policy), there is no defense. Vandals, POV-pushers, and the like can
and are rebuked, temporarily blocked, or banned.

As I mentioned before, a paid Wikipedian is basically capitalizing on his or
her established trust in the community. Any switch to abusive edits that
fail to follow policy will quickly lose him his accumulated social equity
and thus hurt his bottom line. On the other hand, someone who is paid to
write a new article about a truly notable topic or to clean-up an existing,
sub-par article is both working towards making Wikipedia better and would be
satisfying the client's demand. Surely the members of this list would not
argue that business (or charitable) interests and Wikipedia interests can
_never_ coincide, right? Where they _do_ coincide, why not let them
subsidize the expansion/improvement of the encyclopedia?

Assuming that the status quo (one that is hostile to sponsored work) is
maintained, how does this better enable editors to critically examine
contributors than an open system? Are such restrictions about punishing
those who would dare to profit from something that they love (Wikipedia), or
are they about making it easier to review questionable contributions? I
would say that the latter is what we should be going for, and full
disclosure, not persecution, is what will enable that.

As WP:AUTO suggests, it is _difficult_ but _not_impossible_ for individuals
to write about themselves in a neutral fashion. In my paid work, I am
certainly aware that my clients might want to aggrandize their reputation,
but I always work from my own sources. That is, when I take a job, I start
from scratch, just like I would with any other topic that I was researching
for Wikipedia. I google them, review the results for notable sources that
seem useful, and I start working on the article, eventually finding enough
sources to construct something that answers the questions that the initial
research raised in my mind. I always include any notable criticisms that I
can find, and this raises some clients' eyebrows. Their reactions are easily
answered, though. I just tell them, "Look, I am willing to write something
that conforms to Wikipedia policy and accurately represents the verifiable
information available about your organization, all in a neatly formatted
article. That is what makes my services valuable, because that means the
article won't get immediately deleted as spam."

If companies want to hire POV warriors or spammers, by all means let's
announce to the world that those companies are assailing the great resource
that is Wikipedia. Such news would surely be viewed in the same light as if
they had hired vandals to go spray-paint a competitor's office with nasty
comments. I doubt most companies would care to generate such publicity. So
long as paid contributors stick to notable, verifiable information, cite
their sources, and maintain an NPOV while using the encyclopedic voice,
though, I don't understand what the problem is.

MW

>Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 20:24:46 +0000
>From: "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally
>	problematic	conflict of interests?
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070222.html
>(spotted by Anthere)
>- d.

_________________________________________________________________
Play Flexicon: the crossword game that feeds your brain. PLAY now for FREE.?
  http://zone.msn.com/en/flexicon/default.htm?icid=flexicon_hmtagline


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I
	made	nearly 2 years ago

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote

>During the course of
> his rise within the project, however, he would have become familiar
> with the policy and would have been more likely to bring himself into
> compliance with it before it blew up on him.

Actually the right thing to do, in case of a false start as editor, is a 'chrysalis move', if I could call it that. Shed the old account while bringing in a new one, dropping a note to the ArbCom about what you're doing and why. Not good for the edit count, maybe, but much better for the soul.

Charles

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from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Commons-l] [Wikitech-l] Audio file sizes

body:
Hoi,
I have had contact with the people behind the "Praat" program. They are
in favour of having support for a lossless format like Ogg/Flac.
Certainly with the added benefit of having meta data with the files, it
is even welcomed. They would love to have it included as an option in
their program.
Thanks,
    GerardM

Gregory Maxwell schreef:
> First some background, why do we use compressed audio:
>
> 1) Uncompressed audio is huge and uses a lot of disk space for us.
> 2) Uncompressed audio would be an amazing waste of our bandwidth.
> 3) Uncompressed audio would be a huge burden on our readers, and would
> make clips longer than a few seconds inaccessible to users on dialup.
>
> Brion may stab me for saying it, but (1) is fairly unimportant.
>
> The way we are using compressed audio today is not very good from the
> perspective of (2), and (3).
>
> I haven't gone and exhaustively checked our files, but most of the
> Ogg/Vorbis files I'm seeing people upload are in the 160kbit/sec
> range. I believe there are four reasons for this:
>
> 1) An incorrect impression created by old data about MP3 performance.
> Old MP3 wisdom is that you have to be 160kbit/sec to be good. This was
> true five years ago.
>
> All cutting edge perceptual coders have results which are very good at
> 128kbit/sec, Vorbis better than the others, with results which are
> nearly statistically the same as the original on a test using trained
> listners.(http://www.listening-tests.info/mf-128-1/results.htm)
>
> 2) My recording is a unique and precious snowflake. I want it to be
> the highest quality.
>
> 3) You can go down but you can't go up, and I have broadband so it's
> fast enough for me.
>
> 4) Lossless files are bad for editing, less loss is better.
>
>
> Of these, *none* of them should be a factor is deciding what we send
> to our readers.  Yet here we are sending these 160kbit/sec oggs to
> joe-average-reader, sucking up his bandwidth and ours.
>
> In terms of what we need uploaded for our own purposes, (4) matters.
> It matters a lot, because being able to edit the content is an
> important part of what we enable. However,  even the 160kbit/sec lossy
> files fail here: Take a file decoded from a 160kbit/ogg and pass it
> through a 1500Hz high pass filter ('sox input.wav output.wav highp
> 1500'  for those with real computers (tm)). The result will have
> obvious yucky artifacts. This isn't a bug, it's the behavior of a
> perceptual codec by design. The high pass trick is a pathological
> worst case, but it is true that even at 160kbit/sec perceptual codecs
> do not survive all forms of manipulation well.
>
>
> What I'd like to see us do instead, is to ask uploaders to send us
> losslessly compressed Ogg/Flac files instead. Lossless compression
> because disk space isn't totally irrelevant and to avoid people
> downloading insanely huge wavs just because they don't want to use the
> java player or install a codec.  We already permit uploading these
> lossless audio files they can be easily transcoded to Ogg/Vorbis while
> preserving all metadata.
>
> Then we would, either via an automatic transcoding bot or via an
> upload enhancement to mediawiki automatically generate 40kbit/sec
> (dialup) and 96kbit/sec (broadband)  versions from the lossless. These
> versions are what we'd link from our other projects.
>
> Considering the quality of most audio/video sharing sites on the
> internet, these would still leave us head and shoulders better
> quality. (Most youtube videos seem to be using 8 or 16kbit/sec mp3 for
> their audio, it's miserable but you don't notice if you're watching
> the video)
>
> Thoughts on this?  On using a bot vs some native support?  The biggest
> limit I see on this is that we don't have any support for subfiles, or
> bundled files... which means that this gunks up commons with two extra
> files for our audio.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Audio file sizes


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Commons-l] [Crosslist] [Press] Press list

body:
[Crossposted on many lists]

Hello,

The press team of the Foundation is currently building a press list file and
gathering contact information of journalists and editors of all the major
media (newspapers, magazines, radio, tv) around the world. The aim is to
improve our communication and be able to reach people from all over the
world (not only people from the US and not only people from English-speaking
countries).

We are requesting help from the whole community to gather this information.
We have the chance to have a global community of users and volunteers and we
need to take advantage of this chance. Please help us by sending contact
information of journalists and editors you know or from your country.

The basic information are :
Name of the journalist:
First name:
Email:
Name and type of the media: (for instance "CNN, worldwide news TV channel")

Any other information about each contact is welcome (area of concentration,
coverage, schedule...).

Please send the information you have got to: press at wikimedia dot org and
*do not answer this email*, I will probably not get the emails since I am
not subscribed to all lists I have posted to.

Thanks for your help!

--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org
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Une pi?ce jointe HTML a ?t? nettoy?e...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/attachments/20070306/625fa0bf/attachment-0001.htm


subject: [Foundation-l] [Crosslist] [Press] Press list

body:
[Crossposted on many lists]

Hello,

The press team of the Foundation is currently building a press list file and
gathering contact information of journalists and editors of all the major
media (newspapers, magazines, radio, tv) around the world. The aim is to
improve our communication and be able to reach people from all over the
world (not only people from the US and not only people from English-speaking
countries).

We are requesting help from the whole community to gather this information.
We have the chance to have a global community of users and volunteers and we
need to take advantage of this chance. Please help us by sending contact
information of journalists and editors you know or from your country.

The basic information are :
Name of the journalist:
First name:
Email:
Name and type of the media: (for instance "CNN, worldwide news TV channel")

Any other information about each contact is welcome (area of concentration,
coverage, schedule...).

Please send the information you have got to: press at wikimedia dot org and
*do not answer this email*, I will probably not get the emails since I am
not subscribed to all lists I have posted to.

Thanks for your help!

--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Crosslist] [Press] Press list


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Crosslist] [Press] Press list


from_name: Lane, Ryan

body:
> Wouldn't it be vastly better if the functionality were built
> into the core code rather than having a miniscule base and a
> thousand extensions?
>

>From an administrator's perspective, I'd much rather have a decent
amount of the functionality provided by extensions. It is much easier to
replace the functionality of an extension with the functionality of a
similar extension than it is to replace the functionality of something
in the core code. It also means less complexity in the software, which
(generally) makes it more secure. That is also one less thing I have to
worry about disabling if I decide I don't want it.

Authentication plugins are a prime example. There are a million
different authentication systems out there, and at any given point in
time I may decide it is best to use another one. If it wasn't for the
wonderful plugin system provided by the software, it would be very hard
to move to a different authentication system on a whim (or when your
architecture changes).

>From a developer's perspective, I like the idea of most of the code
being written as extensions, because that means I can hook into the code
and change functionality far easier than I could otherwise.
Extensibility is a good thing! (on a side note, I love the idea of class
hijacking hooks mentioned in the "Massive Hooks Proposal" chain)

V/r,

Ryan Lane


body:
On 3/6/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wouldn't it be vastly better if the functionality were built into the core
> code rather than having a miniscule base and a thousand extensions?

Not really.  Modularity is a good thing.  It allows people to turn off
unneeded functionality to achieve speed boosts, or remove things they
don't want their users to use for some reason (maybe someone really
hates galleries).


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
on 3/6/07 12:38 PM, Cormac Lawler at cormaggio at gmail.com wrote:

> As well as writing an
> encyclopedia, we're also here to create the *culture* within which to
> do so - and culture doesn't just exist in policy documents, nor
> materialise out of thin air - culture is something that we all
> actively construct as an inherent part of writing this encyclopedia.

Yes! Culture is about how people regard and treat each other within a group.
And the quality of that culture will ultimately be reflected in the work
that group produces. Does this really require a written policy? Do we really
need to write down instructions on how to treat someone? Treat them the way
you would like to be treated. It's a no-brainer. (Unless you are a masochist
- which is a whole other issue).

Marc Riddell


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On Mar 6, 2007, at 11:23, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Puppy wrote
>
>> Oh please. Have you clicked "Random entry" there? See
>> http://www.conservapedia.com/Cold_War  for an example of the
>> "quality" -
>> or Richard Nixon, unless its been fixed.
>
> That's a cool page. The rest of NATO and the Warsaw Pact have
> vanished from history. China is nowhere. And they require you to
> log in, but still get silly vandalism.
>
> Charles

http://www.conservapedia.com/Revisionist_history

...oh.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20174]
	branches/REL1_9/phase3/languages/messages/MessagesHe.php

body:
On 06/03/07, rotem at svn.wikimedia.org <rotem at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 20174
> Author:   rotem
> Date:     2007-03-06 06:50:45 -0800 (Tue, 06 Mar 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> Fix.

Are these critical?

I'm not picking on Rotem in particular, but I'd like to further
discourage backporting of trivial items by anyone who isn't the
release manager. A loose "backport" culture managed to cause
significant breakage to the installer between 1.5.7 and 1.5.8, as
certain developers will recall. ;)

Rob Church


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org> wrote:

> I have always liked the name "custodian". It's a little like janitor,
> but implies that you are doing your job in order to protect and help
> wikipedia rather than solely cleaning up after (messy) people. I think
> that term fits much better with the others as well (Bureaucrats etc).
> Thoughts?

We thought through the title of "admin"/"sysop" when we set up
Wikiversity - and we named it "custodian"
<http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Custodianship>. We also
organised the system by which people become custodians (or lose that
status) specifically so that it would be seen as having a learning
curve, and that new custodians would be peer-monitored - similar to
the system of apprenticeship. It's also something that is "easy come,
easy go" - it should be "no big deal" to 1) be a custodian, 2) to
become a custodian, and 3) to lose your custodianship (though we
haven't yet had to face the latter situation).

My general thoughts are that - no matter what we call it - "adminship"
should be seen as simply a willingness to help out with the
maintenance of a wiki - but that it should *not* be fetishised as an
object of status, which it clearly is by many people. And yes, we're
here to write an encyclopedia, as John Lee says above - but in a way
it is and in a way it isn't that simple. As well as writing an
encyclopedia, we're also here to create the *culture* within which to
do so - and culture doesn't just exist in policy documents, nor
materialise out of thin air - culture is something that we all
actively construct as an inherent part of writing this encyclopedia.

Cheers,
Cormac

http://cormaggio.org
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Cormaggio


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [20159]
	trunk/extensions/LinkSearch/LinkSearch.php

body:
On 06/03/07, raymond at svn.wikimedia.org <raymond at svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 20159
> Author:   raymond
> Date:     2007-03-05 23:47:39 -0800 (Mon, 05 Mar 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * (bug 7804) fixes for r20144:
>   better XML code (I hope)
>   selected namespace preserverd for prev/next actions

Please don't mix up the old wfOpenElement() etc. functions (which are
compatibility only) with the cleaner XML "namespaced" functions, e.g.
Xml::namespaceSelector(); pick one and stick to it...for obvious
reasons, the latter is preferred.

Rob Church


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
"Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> writes:

>> Not really.  However long the RfC turns out to be it's not
   going to
>> change the simple fact that EssJay is still only one person.
The lack
>> of evidence that others have done this only tells me that this
   is a
>> one-off situation.
>
> Essjay is one person out of maybe half a dozen with a similar
  level of
> responsibility. 1 out of 6 is quite a high rate...

Come on. That's a [[Hasty generalization]]. What if Essjay hadn't
messed up? Then we'd have a 0% failure rate!

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Audio file sizes

body:
On 06/03/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> The way we handle thumbnailing with arbitrary sizes kind of sucks,
> though: making only specific versions, and probably generating them on
> upload, would be most sensible.

This model works better here because people requiring audio will more
frequently fit into one of the groups we "cater" for, in terms of
sizes available. Images arguably require a bit more flexibility in
selection.

Rob Church


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

references:
<20070306162302.MSIB17393.aamtaout02-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@smtp.ntlworld.com>
	<6gqru2th5pod6i1n39ol9i93tc4pp02ao2@4ax.com>
	<52a8cf060703061434g27ed39bayb06a28a7010010da@mail.gmail.com>
	<43sru2dfpk5pmdpuu9q7eg7of0h3lur5cr@4ax.com>
	<52a8cf060703061459u5ff58104w51039d67f08fc682@mail.gmail.com>
	<k8vru21jknpk0scld3cnucp7d97lod6r9v@4ax.com>
	<38a7bf7c0703061608s1795bc42j81a559ef066571f6@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 3/6/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 15:59:50 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >I thought it was conservatives who wanted to take away peoples
> > >rights.
> >
> > Always baffles me, how the need for a well-regulated militia equates
> > in some people's minds to the right to pack heat at all times :-)
>
> You never know when a thundering herd of pot-smoking, tie-dyed,
> long-haired, single-payer healthcare peace activists will ride over
> the horizon, gunning for you with their trippy new-age music and lousy
> Jerry Garcia concert tapes blaring.
>
> Ya gotta be prepared, man.  A real man could die from that music.  We
> should have blasted off and nuked California from orbit a long time
> ago.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com

It's an interesting law; I've never owned a gun.  The day owning a gun
becomes illegal is the day I will feel the necessity to own a gun.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> jamitor

Now there's an idea for a name. Play nice, follow our policies and
don't be a dick or we will "JAM" you :)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On 3/6/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
> It formerly stated he was president of the Christian United States. And
> oh my, it was a Wikipedian who fixed it.
>
> Rob Smith wrote:
> > On 3/6/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> >
> >> See
> >> http://www.conservapedia.com/Cold_War  for an example of the "quality"
> -
> >> or Richard Nixon, unless its been fixed.
> >>
> >
> >

Hate to disappoint y'all, but diplomatic historians name eras after the
architects of alliances that keep the peace between major wars.  For
example, 1792-1812 Age of Napoleon; 1815-1848 Age of Metternich; 1862-1914
Age of Bismarck; 1919-1939 Age of Wilson; 1945-1972 Age of Churchill; and
since 1972 the US has become at peace and a trading partner with our former
enemies, so you guessed it, you are today living in the Age of Nixon.  How
many US Presidents have the honor of an historic Age named after them?

Perhaps the failure of so many to recognize that is the root of so much
misunderstanding.


body:
on 3/6/07 6:28 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote:

> I would also like to propose new rules in a similar vein, since
> (thankfully) you can in fact change people's thought processes by
> altering text on a policy page:
>
> * Don't Rob Banks And Send The Money To The Foundation To Make A Point
> * Don't Kill Your Fellow Wikipedians And Eat Their Brains To Make A Point
> * Don't Climb The Reichstag Dressed As Spiderman To Make A Point
> * Don't Shove Beans Up Your Nose

Bravo! Point excellently made!

Marc Riddell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
On 3/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator"
> of Wikipedia is.

Reminds me of the whole deal of being an "IRC Operator" back in the
90s. All the official docs said that being an ircop was no big deal
and they were only there to maintain servers, not get involved in
channel issues. The top opers and admins would parrot this line over
and over again. However, the fact was that users did consider it a
"big deal", ircops frequently tried to use their powers to "fix" and
"protect" channels and ircops even got to have people see "[nick] is
an IRC Operator" when they did a whois and ircops got a cute little *
next to their nicks in channel user lists. Those ircops who actually
took the policy seriously were constantly bombarded with "please help
me get my channel back" and "so and so is harassing me" requests from
users. In short, it was a "big deal".

In any "social system", if it's necessary to give some people "special
powers", then those people will be seen to have a "special status" and
ordinary users will desire that status and some will even hate people
who have that status. The effect can be minimized but it will always
be a "big deal" It's just the nature of the beast.


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rename admins to janitors

body:
> But change it to something like "janitor". Or at least
> something less formidable than "administrator", like "trusted user."

Trusted user is the wrong term. Many people are trusted but not admins
on a specific project. (Not to mention some admins can't be trusted).

Angela


subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
On 3/6/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/7/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 3/6/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > It formerly stated he was president of the Christian United States.
> And
> > > oh my, it was a Wikipedian who fixed it.
> > >
> > > Rob Smith wrote:
> > > > On 3/6/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> See
> > > >> http://www.conservapedia.com/Cold_War  for an example of the
> > "quality"
> > > -
> > > >> or Richard Nixon, unless its been fixed.
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hate to disappoint y'all, but diplomatic historians name eras after the
> > architects of alliances that keep the peace between major wars.  For
> > example, 1792-1812 Age of Napoleon; 1815-1848 Age of Metternich;
> 1862-1914
> > Age of Bismarck; 1919-1939 Age of Wilson; 1945-1972 Age of Churchill;
> and
> > since 1972 the US has become at peace and a trading partner with our
> > former
> > enemies, so you guessed it, you are today living in the Age of
> Nixon.  How
> > many US Presidents have the honor of an historic Age named after them?
> >
> > Perhaps the failure of so many to recognize that is the root of so much
> > misunderstanding.
>
>
> I've never heard of any of these terms, except maybe the Age of Napoleon.
> Then again, I'm not exactly an expert in the field of diplomatic history -
> but still, if these are common terms, I'm wondering why pages like [[Age
> of
> Wilson]] are redlinks.
>
> Johnleemk

Good question, and not without controversy (of course); in German it's
refered to as "the Wiemar period", and remember the US never formally joined
the alliance system the Wilson created.

I was reading a wik article the other day that made reference to "the Nazi
seizure of power"; this article obviously was brought over from the German
wiki, cause American sources always make light of the fact Hitler was
democratically elected.


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia

body:
It formerly stated he was president of the Christian United States. And
oh my, it was a Wikipedian who fixed it.

Rob Smith wrote:
> On 3/6/07, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
>> Oh please. Have you clicked "Random entry" there? See
>> http://www.conservapedia.com/Cold_War  for an example of the "quality" -
>> or Richard Nixon, unless its been fixed.
>>
>
>
> Says twice he resigned. Maybe overkill.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


from_name: Raimond Spekking

body:
Rob Church schrieb:

> Please don't mix up the old wfOpenElement() etc. functions (which are
> compatibility only) with the cleaner XML "namespaced" functions, e.g.
> Xml::namespaceSelector(); pick one and stick to it...for obvious
> reasons, the latter is preferred.

Thanks for the hint, I will rework it.

Raymond.

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