subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki parser in JavaScript

body:
I guess I don't have such a clear understanding of what "parser"
stands for and what it doesn't, so I might have misnamed my script as
it better fits the definition of a converter since it's wiki to HTML
only. Sorry about the confusion.

Anyway, the aim of this script is not to add flexibility to wiki code
as Timwi's project (which looks very promissing, BTW), but to allow
editors to generate instantaneous page previews in their browsers,
thus enhancing their experience editing the wiki while reducing the
load on the servers.

I haven't tried this yet, but I think a live-preview feature could be
attached to the edit page by adding the script to the footer of the
page (which is a simple MediaWiki message). I have done this before
with the insertable special characters box in the Spanish wiki and
worked just fine (seems like the English wiki is using now too, I
haven't checked if it's the same method though). I will try it later
on my own MediaWiki installation.

Once again, sorry about the confusion. I will rename the project to
avoid further misunderstandings.

-Pedro

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:51:01 +0100, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Pedro Fayolle schrieb:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >I've been coding a wiki parser in JavaScript with the hope it could be
> >of some use for the project (especially in giving some relief to the
> >servers).
> >
> >You can view a demo here: http://gusanos.sourceforge.net/wp/wikitest.htm
> >
> >
> This works very well, but is it really a *parser* or "just" a
> *converter*? Don't get me wrong, I fell for the same thing at least
> twice :-)
>
> Timwi and I (well, mostly Timwi) have been working on a *parser*
> wiki-to-XML, written in Bison, a parser-generator language that outputs
> C code. It is already pretty advanced (HTML parsing is currently kinda
> broken, though), and having an XML file as output beats wiki-to-HTML, as
> it can be converted into (X)HTML just as easily (relatively speaking;-)
> as into PDF, OpenOffice XML, RDF, or something else entirely (even back
> into wiki text, as a markup beautifier!).
>
> So, if you've written a converter, well, great, but I wrote at least
> three of them in C++, and abandoned them all in different stages of
> development (at least one should do most of yours, including TOCs).
> Language flamewars aside, I think exchanging the current PHP converter
> for another is such a complex task (talking integration in the existing
> framework) that "merly" improving conversion speed might not be worth
> the effort.
>
> If, however, you've written a "real" parser, it would be most
> interesting to know if it could produce XML instead.
>
> Anyway, you might like to look at the Bison code of Timwis parser, in
> the CVS, module "flexbisonparse". You can try it with the CVS HEAD
> wikipedia, if you follow the instructions in "ParserXML.php", in case
> you're interested.
>
> Magnus
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Frank v Waveren

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki parser in JavaScript

body:
On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 09:54:57AM +1100, David Gerard wrote:
> (I suppose it'd still have to load images and so on to really work ...)
The images should be cached, and even if they're not, they're static
content and should only hurt bandwidth-wise, not server-load-wise.

--
Frank v Waveren                                      Fingerprint: BDD7 D61E
fvw@[var.cx|stack.nl] ICQ#10074100                      5D39 CF05 4BFC F57A
Public key: hkp://wwwkeys.pgp.net/468D62C8              FA00 7D51 468D 62C8

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from_name: Pedro Fayolle

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wiki parser in JavaScript

body:
> > Having when editing 50% of the screen place occupied by the wiki
> > source and 50% occupied by the preview could be cool.
> > Especially if the preview is in a scrollable box, scrolled by default
> > to the position of the cursor in the textarea and updated in realtime
> > (This have to be optional since for slow computers it could be
> > dangerous :D)

As-you-type previews with the current code is not something I would
recommend, especially for long pages, as the script would run through
the entire wikicode every time you press a key. Anyway, what's the big
deal of hitting the preview button every once in a while?

> > Even if the preview isn't perfect the fact that it could be "real
> > time" and on the client side make it usefull i think.

That's the whole point of it :o)
I'll try to do it as feature-complete as possible, though, so it
should be close-to-perfect in the end.

-Pedro


list: wikien-l

from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Let us not attack sources as unreliable without reason

body:
I believe Zero has found a copy of the UN mediator's report and will
post about it on Monday, so hopefully the issue will be cleared up
then. The thing is, we do have to be able to quote from reliable
scholars and journalists about what they've read in reports, or else
we'd have to spend all our time in archives digging up primary-source
material ourselves. I personally find it hard to believe that Mitchell
Bard would have misquoted the UN report, but we'll see soon enough.

Slim

Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Secondly, the citation in question has been checked by me and others >against the primary source on the UN site and we cannot find the figure >that Bard attributes to it. I don't propose that we should class Bard as >unreliable, but we must not claim as a fact that the figure Bard cites is a >UN figure.


from_name: Black Fox

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki parser in JavaScript

body:
Having when editing 50% of the screen place occupied by the wiki
source and 50% occupied by the preview could be cool.
Especially if the preview is in a scrollable box, scrolled by default
to the position of the cursor in the textarea and updated in realtime
(This have to be optional since for slow computers it could be
dangerous :D)

Even if the preview isn't perfect the fact that it could be "real
time" and on the client side make it usefull i think.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image protection

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

Andreas Kasenides wrote:
| hi everybody,
| Is there a way to protect images from defacement
| ie upload of a bogus image with the same name as
| a valid image?

Protect the image page.

| On a relevant issue how is it possible for an attacker to forge its
| true ip address? Can that be prevented.

"True" IP address is a tricky thing to determine. Right now my
computer's IP address is 10.0.0.87, but this is a private network
address on my home network. Packets coming from my computer to the
outside internet go through a router which has some other IP address,
and that's what you would see when I make an edit to a wiki on the Internet.

Similarly, the request could be sent through an intermediary proxy
server, in which case the wiki would see the proxy's internet IP address
instead of my router's internet-side address. The proxy _might or might
not_ report my router's address as having been the original source. It
might even report some randomly invented address.

Proxy servers are typically used to aggregate requests from many client
machines at a company or ISP, to reduce bandwidth use by caching or to
increase security by reducing the number of outside points required to
be open to the internet (or both). There are also proxy servers out
there specifically for the purpose of letting anyone use them to hide
the source of their web requests (as well as many misconfigured proxies
which allow this to happen without the intention of their owners).

See past threads on open proxy blocking and related issues.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFB9Nf5wRnhpk1wk44RAhqiAKCZvjpz64kgIt4HjlrIlI2aT2wxNACgiX3M
xMPup/poRLtXQUJ49E3WgA4=
=lx18
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body:
Zero has found the document and has posted a very helpful analysis at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948
In summary, the 472,000 figure was indeed in the document, but Zero
feels Bard may not have interpreted it accurately.

I agree that citing the original document is better than citing a
secondary source, though others might argue that makes it hard for the
reader and other editors to check that Wikipedia is quoting
accurately.

Slim

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:47:34 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> Absolutely.  But we should not ignore clear instances where an attempt to
> verify a citation to primary material fails.  Scholars do make errors,
> indulge in interpretation, and so on, and we should allow for this.  The
> safest way to cite secondary sources is cite the secondary source (Bard,
> in this case) as *our* source for a quote (the scholar himself) and note
> *his* claimed source.  If the primary material becomes available it may
> still be a good idea to list the secondary source, but it is no longer of
> great importance.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] reply to Tony Sidaway

body:
steven l. rubenstein said:
>
>>steven l. rubenstein said:
>> >
>> >>"Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>> >>
>> >>Quality of source is usually (but not always) POV. We're supposed to
>> >>be writing NPOV articles.
>> >>A caveat such as "warning: the article relies on population
>> >>projections that were proven by events to be grossly in error" is
>> >>fine and NPOV. A caveat such as "the claims at this site are
>> >>patently incorrect" is POV and superfluous. Otherwise rely on the
>> >>general site content disclaimer and the reader's commonsense.
>> >
>> > I believe this misrepresents our policy.
>>Could you be more specific?
>
> I'm afraid you will have to read my entire e-mail, and not just the
> first  sentence.

Take it as read that I did.  In what way did I misrepresent the policy?


body:
Robert said:
> Slim writes:
>> Would you please post your correspondence with him on
>> the Talk page, as you indicated you would, so that other
>> editors can judge whether he was evasive in response to
>> your enquiry? Your claims about Mitchell Bard as a
>> source have implications for a number of Wikipedia
>> articles in which he is quoted.
>
>
> This makes no sense.  Are you seriously suggesting that
> Wikipedia should consider sources as unreliable if one of
> our thousands of anonymous editors doesn't get instant
> gratification from a writer and scholar that they have
> never met?

Firstly, a lot of the email content I've deleted constitutes an
unacceptably personal attack.
Secondly, the citation in question has been checked by me and others
against the primary source on the UN site and we cannot find the figure
that Bard attributes to it.
I don't propose that we should class Bard as unreliable, but we must not
claim as a fact that the figure Bard cites is a UN figure.  We must
attribute it to Bard and say that he claims that it originated in the
source material, but this cannot be independently verified.  And we quote
the source document so that anyone who wants to can check that it is not
there.


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
--- apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk wrote:

>When more
> editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute
> on a regular basis...

What do you mean, can be persuaded? Wikipedia is an all-volunteer
organization. People here contribute because they want to, because
they believe that this will benefit mankind.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


body:
I've occasionally written "this information has not been independently
verified" after a statement made by a source I regard as dodgy or
self-interested, but this shouldn't be done often because all sources
can be questioned to some degree; and then, as Jay says, it starts to
look POV that only certain sources are picked on for that degree of
scrutiny.

I feel Bjorn did not come to the mailing list with entirely clean
hands in this matter. He has previously used quite questionable
sources for other edits himself; he accused Bard, based on nothing
solid, of not even having read the UN progress report; and he implied
that Bard had been evasive when, in fact, Bard had simply not answered
Bjorn's second e-mail. Bjorn also did not tell Bard the information
was for Wikipedia, which I feel he should have done. Also, once Zero
had obtained the report and suggested a way to word the reference to
make it accurate, and Tony had edited that onto the page, Bjorn
decided to create an entirely new category, and moved the information
out of the UN section and into a new section called "Incomplete
estimates" (even though Tony's edit made it clear the estimate was
incomplete, and the words "progress report" imply that anyway.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948&diff=9614990&oldid=9614450

This begins to look like POV pushing and not just careful scrutiny of
source material.

Slim

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:28:51 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
>stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify
>these as truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).  Doing so, of
>course, would be highly POV, since it would naturally create the
>impression that the sources were suspect and untrustworthy, rather
>than the actual case that certain editors are unwilling or unable to
>check the primary references.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki parser in JavaScript

body:
Magnus Manske (magnus.manske at web.de) [050124 09:51]:
> Pedro Fayolle schrieb:

> >You can view a demo here: http://gusanos.sourceforge.net/wp/wikitest.htm

> So, if you've written a converter, well, great, but I wrote at least
> three of them in C++, and abandoned them all in different stages of
> development (at least one should do most of yours, including TOCs).
> Language flamewars aside, I think exchanging the current PHP converter
> for another is such a complex task (talking integration in the existing
> framework) that "merly" improving conversion speed might not be worth
> the effort.

The difference with this one is that it's browser-side. As an editor, I
would find something like this most useful for those times when the wiki is
too slow even to give previews!

What sort of load does hitting 'preview' put on the site?

(I suppose it'd still have to load images and so on to really work ...)

- d.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Concern arises in the cases of secondary sources which take particular
points of view. Such sources marshall evidence which supports that point of
view. Being "unwilling or unable to check the primary references" applies
when those references are relatively easy to locate, not the case here.

Fred

> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:28:51 -0500
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Let us not attack sources as unreliable without reason
>
> Indeed.  And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
> stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify these as
> truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).  Doing so, of course, would be
> highly POV, since it would naturally create the impression that the sources
> were suspect and untrustworthy, rather than the actual case that certain
> editors are unwilling or unable to check the primary references.  The fact
> that only a tiny number of seconday sources seem to even be candidates for
> this kind of treatment is interesting.
>
> Jay.


body:
> I believe Zero has found a copy of the UN mediator's report and will
> post about it on Monday, so hopefully the issue will be cleared up
> then. The thing is, we do have to be able to quote from reliable
> scholars and journalists about what they've read in reports, or else
> we'd have to spend all our time in archives digging up primary-source
> material ourselves.

Absolutely.  But we should not ignore clear instances where an attempt to
verify a citation to primary material fails.  Scholars do make errors,
indulge in interpretation, and so on, and we should allow for this.  The
safest way to cite secondary sources is cite the secondary source (Bard,
in this case) as *our* source for a quote (the scholar himself) and note
*his* claimed source.  If the primary material becomes available it may
still be a good idea to list the secondary source, but it is no longer of
great importance. For this reason I have some problems with other
estimates in the UN section which have clearly not been verified against a
cited primary source.  I have provided a UN source for one of the figures
and when one of us finds time I hope we will be able to trace the primary
source for all official estimates from UN sources.


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>Robert said:
> > Slim writes:
> >> Would you please post your correspondence with him on
> >> the Talk page, as you indicated you would, so that other
> >> editors can judge whether he was evasive in response to
> >> your enquiry? Your claims about Mitchell Bard as a
> >> source have implications for a number of Wikipedia
> >> articles in which he is quoted.
> >
> >
> > This makes no sense.  Are you seriously suggesting that
> > Wikipedia should consider sources as unreliable if one of
> > our thousands of anonymous editors doesn't get instant
> > gratification from a writer and scholar that they have
> > never met?
>
>Firstly, a lot of the email content I've deleted constitutes an
>unacceptably personal attack.
>Secondly, the citation in question has been checked by me and others
>against the primary source on the UN site and we cannot find the figure
>that Bard attributes to it.

You couldn't find the figure, because you didn't find the documents
themselves.  That's quite a different thing, as I pointed out on a number of
occasions.  Zero was kind enough to find the documents, and it turns out the
472,000 figure is in there, and does indeed refer to the estimated refugees
as of October 1949, which is pretty much what my wording of the footnote
stated.

It is completely unacceptable, in my view, to add caveats to cited
references as you did, stating "Attempts to verify Bard's attribution to the
UN Mediator's report have so far failed
(http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa!OpenDocument)",
or as Bjorn did ("Attempts to verify Bard's attribution to the UN Mediator's
report have so far failed: see Talk:Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee
flight of 1948."), simply because you are unwilling or unable to expend the
necessary energy to look up the primary sources.  Moreover, telling people
to refer to Talk: pages is bad form, particulary (but not exclusively)
because Talk: pages change all the time, and are often archived.

Jay.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk wrote:
>
>
>>When more
>>editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute
>>on a regular basis...
>>
>
>What do you mean, can be persuaded? Wikipedia is an all-volunteer
>organization. People here contribute because they want to, because
>they believe that this will benefit mankind.
>
I think he just means that there are a lot of experts who would be
valued contributors, but have been hanging back because of various
concerns, some valid, some less so. For instance, some might be
avoiding WP because they've heard about the "edit wars and vandalism"
that journalists like to write about because it's exciting, but in
truth, experts adding to [[Abyssocottidae]] will almost certainly
have a positive experience and not have their additions messed up
by the clueless.

It's an unfortunate irony that on many topics WP is already the
leading reference work, online or off, but aside from some being
featured articles, that part of WP gets almost no airplay compared
to the controversial topics.

It would be useful to collect and report statistics about vandalism
and edit wars. I have 16,000 articles on my watchlist (too many, I
know!) and vandals touch maybe five of those per day, with most of
the edits occurring on topics familiar to the general public (Julius
Caesar, Steve Jobs, RMS Titanic, etc). If you can tell ichthyologists
that the fish area of WP is 99.99% troublefree, that's a powerful
argument to move data from their own websites, which likely don't
even have 99% uptimes, and no army of copyeditors fixing typos.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] original research, sources, and verification

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>>Ray Saintonge said:
>>
>>
[I wrote]
>>>
>>>
>>No, in the original example it should be taken for granted that the
>>population projections have been falsified.  For instance, if I cited
>>Malthus.
>>
>>
> One does not build a very solid case if one starts to take things for
> granted.

In that case you will find it very difficult to follow illustrative examples.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans le fruit ?

body:
--- Traroth <traroth at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Traroth"

Machine translated text:

I posted the following text:  "Wikimedia
Foundation:  the worm in the fruit?  At the
time of the constituent assembly of
association Wikimedia France, it was known
as that Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia
Foundation refused the right to him to use
the marks which she held (Wikimedia,
Wikipedia, Wktionary, Wikibooks...) if
Foundation did not have a right of veto
(the term made debate) on the decisions
that would take the French foundation.
Parrall?lement, during the creation of
Wikimedia Foundation, Jimmy Wales imposed 3
seats out of 5, by reserving the seat of
president, the 2 seats remaining being
provided by election (what led to 4
anglophone members out of 5).  This
sipositif was not to be renewed, and a
really democratic election was to take
place this year (it is what had been known
as at the time).  One learns now that Jimmy
Wales intends to continue with reserver the
seat of president, with probably a right of
veto on the decisions.  Less democratic,
that appears difficult.  The one year shift
was thus only one means of drowning fish.
These manners of making push to be posed a
certain number of questions:  *  For what
are used these foundations?  *  Don't the
givers have a right of glance on the use
which is made money that they gave?  *
Isn't this to mislead people to only make
believe that a foundation takes care of the
inter?ts of Wikipedia, whereas it is only
about one organization-tail, without real
capacity of decision?  *  Is this step to
mislead people only to give appearances of
the democracy, without being to it less
world?  *  What will make the community if
Jimmy Wales makes decisions opposite with
the opinion of the majority, as it could be
that that is the case on the subject of
publicity (Jimbo never decided clearly
against)?  To answer "Y has that to make a
fork", it is to slap the givers in full
face.  We hear well:  I do not have
anything against Jimbo, and I would have
been the first to be voted for him in 2004,
and this, as a long time as there would
have been ready to remain president.  That
would have been only one formality.  Today,
I would be more circumspect.  Of what it is
afraid exactly?  Certain(e)s answered:
that Board which would precisely make
decisions opposite with the will of the
majority.  In addition to the fact that it
is in complete contradiction with the
concept even of democracy, the current
system does not put to us with the shelter.
Simply, this "privilege" is reserved to
only one person.  Personally, I intended to
rather strongly imply me in the activity of
French association, but now, I am with two
fingers all to send p?ter.  That would be
already done if Wikip?dia and the other
projects were not in GFDL, which wants to
say that they do not belong to Foundation.
Without hostility, I would like to work
with a collective?uvre, and not with a
species of monument to the glory of Jimmy
Wales, whatever his merits.

END TRANSLATION

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


list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans
	le fruit ?

body:
--- Traroth <traroth at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Traroth"

Machine translated text:

I posted the following text:  "Wikimedia
Foundation:  the worm in the fruit?  At the
time of the constituent assembly of
association Wikimedia France, it was known
as that Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia
Foundation refused the right to him to use
the marks which she held (Wikimedia,
Wikipedia, Wktionary, Wikibooks...) if
Foundation did not have a right of veto
(the term made debate) on the decisions
that would take the French foundation.
Parrall?lement, during the creation of
Wikimedia Foundation, Jimmy Wales imposed 3
seats out of 5, by reserving the seat of
president, the 2 seats remaining being
provided by election (what led to 4
anglophone members out of 5).  This
sipositif was not to be renewed, and a
really democratic election was to take
place this year (it is what had been known
as at the time).  One learns now that Jimmy
Wales intends to continue with reserver the
seat of president, with probably a right of
veto on the decisions.  Less democratic,
that appears difficult.  The one year shift
was thus only one means of drowning fish.
These manners of making push to be posed a
certain number of questions:  *  For what
are used these foundations?  *  Don't the
givers have a right of glance on the use
which is made money that they gave?  *
Isn't this to mislead people to only make
believe that a foundation takes care of the
inter?ts of Wikipedia, whereas it is only
about one organization-tail, without real
capacity of decision?  *  Is this step to
mislead people only to give appearances of
the democracy, without being to it less
world?  *  What will make the community if
Jimmy Wales makes decisions opposite with
the opinion of the majority, as it could be
that that is the case on the subject of
publicity (Jimbo never decided clearly
against)?  To answer "Y has that to make a
fork", it is to slap the givers in full
face.  We hear well:  I do not have
anything against Jimbo, and I would have
been the first to be voted for him in 2004,
and this, as a long time as there would
have been ready to remain president.  That
would have been only one formality.  Today,
I would be more circumspect.  Of what it is
afraid exactly?  Certain(e)s answered:
that Board which would precisely make
decisions opposite with the will of the
majority.  In addition to the fact that it
is in complete contradiction with the
concept even of democracy, the current
system does not put to us with the shelter.
Simply, this "privilege" is reserved to
only one person.  Personally, I intended to
rather strongly imply me in the activity of
French association, but now, I am with two
fingers all to send p?ter.  That would be
already done if Wikip?dia and the other
projects were not in GFDL, which wants to
say that they do not belong to Foundation.
Without hostility, I would like to work
with a collective?uvre, and not with a
species of monument to the glory of Jimmy
Wales, whatever his merits.

END TRANSLATION

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l


body:
steven l. rubenstein said:
>
> Tony Sidaway wrote,
>>As far as I'm aware, there are no useless or unacceptable
>>sources (even /dev/random has a value in the right context), only
>>useless and unacceptable citations.
>
> You are not being clear, but I think you are saying that all sources
> are  valid, but they can be used properly or improperly (for example,
> Nazi  propaganda about Jews tells you very little about Jews, but tells
> you a lot  about Nazis).

I think my example was clear enough; I show that a good citation describes
precisely what facts the cited material represents, no more and no less.
I don't think your example above is good because really all Nazi
propaganda can tell you is what the Nazis thought of jews.  The inference
that this tells us what Nazis were like should be identified as such, and
does not belong in a NPOV article.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Situation deadlocked, how to solve it?

body:
> Bjorn, Jayjg's description is correct here. Your version suggests that
> the figure is Mitchell Bard's, but it isn't (he gives his own estimate
> elsewhere). The figure is from the UN mediator's progress report,
> which Mitchell Bard says he is quoting.

Well let's wait until we can say that the figure is in the UN mediator's
report.  Those of us who have checked on the UN copy have not found the
figure.


body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
> > SlimVirgin wrote:
> > I agree that citing the original document is better than citing a
> > secondary source, though others might argue that makes it hard for the
> > reader and other editors to check that Wikipedia is quoting
> > accurately.
> >
>I do hope that nobody would make such an argument.  We should always cite
>primary sources where at all possible, and this instance shows the
>importance of correctly handling secondary sources.

Indeed.  And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify these as
truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).  Doing so, of course, would be
highly POV, since it would naturally create the impression that the sources
were suspect and untrustworthy, rather than the actual case that certain
editors are unwilling or unable to check the primary references.  The fact
that only a tiny number of seconday sources seem to even be candidates for
this kind of treatment is interesting.

Jay.


from_name: Andreas Kasenides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image protection

body:
hi everybody,
Is there a way to protect images from defacement
ie upload of a bogus image with the same name as
a valid image? This is a very easy way to make a mess
of things which is what happened on the Greek wikipedia
a day or so ago. Please look at
http://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solare_Planeten99.jpg
for an exmaple.
On a relevant issue how is it possible for an attacker to forge its
true ip address? Can that be prevented.

Thanks
Andreas Kasenides
http://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ank


body:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>
>JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050125 02:53]:
>
> > It is completely unacceptable, in my view, to add caveats to cited
> > references as you did, stating "Attempts to verify Bard's attribution to
> > the UN Mediator's report have so far failed
> >
>(http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa!OpenDocument)",
> > or as Bjorn did ("Attempts to verify Bard's attribution to the UN
> > Mediator's report have so far failed: see Talk:Estimates of the
>Palestinian
> > Refugee flight of 1948."), simply because you are unwilling or unable to
> > expend the necessary energy to look up the primary sources.  Moreover,
> > telling people to refer to Talk: pages is bad form, particulary (but not
> > exclusively) because Talk: pages change all the time, and are often
> > archived.
>
>
>However, you didn't have the primary reference either, which would have
>avoided a great many problems.

Yes, of course, if we had the primary references everything would have been
quite simple.  Well, except, of course, in cases like the LaRouche articles
SlimVirgin mentions, where apparently the LaRouche supporters there accuse
you of lying until you actually scan the documents and post them somehow.

>In general, questioning a reference shouldn't provoke this level of
>defensiveness.

With all due respect, I think you have it backwards, David.  In general,
citations, particularly explicit ones like this, shouldn't provoke this
level of skepticism and caveats.

>It did turn out to differ in small but important ways from
>the original citation.

But its treatment in the article did not, regardless of what the secondary
source was stating.  The number was correct, it was stated as interim, it
was made clear in the footnote that the refugee flight was not over, and
that many more refugees fled after that.  The treatment after the original
source was located differed little.

>There must be an NPOV way of dealign with secondary references like this -
>of indicating one is quoting a secondary reference and naming the reference
>they claim.

There was, and it was done.  It was only the original caveats that were POV.

Jay.


from_name: MPerel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:59:47 -0800, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Christopher Mahan wrote:

> It would be useful to collect and report statistics about vandalism
> and edit wars. I have 16,000 articles on my watchlist (too many, I
> know!) and vandals touch maybe five of those per day, with most of
> the edits occurring on topics familiar to the general public (Julius
> Caesar, Steve Jobs, RMS Titanic, etc). If you can tell ichthyologists
> that the fish area of WP is 99.99% troublefree, that's a powerful
> argument to move data from their own websites, which likely don't
> even have 99% uptimes, and no army of copyeditors fixing typos.
>
> Stan

16,000 articles on your watchlist!??!!  Wow!

Miri


body:
> Zero has found the document and has posted a very helpful analysis at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948> In summary, the 472,000 figure was indeed in the document, but Zero
> feels Bard may not have interpreted it accurately.
>
> I agree that citing the original document is better than citing a
> secondary source, though others might argue that makes it hard for the
> reader and other editors to check that Wikipedia is quoting
> accurately.
>
I do hope that nobody would make such an argument.  We should always cite
primary sources where at all possible, and this instance shows the
importance of correctly handling secondary sources.  It isn't so much a
matter of a secondary source being intrinsically unreliable, it's the
danger that we may replicate possible errors in secondary sources by
citing an attribution to primary source as factual when, not having
checked it, we do not know it to be factual.


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Black Fox wrote:
> Having when editing 50% of the screen place occupied by the wiki
> source and 50% occupied by the preview could be cool.
> Especially if the preview is in a scrollable box, scrolled by default
> to the position of the cursor in the textarea and updated in realtime
> (This have to be optional since for slow computers it could be
> dangerous :D)
>
> Even if the preview isn't perfect the fact that it could be "real
> time" and on the client side make it usefull i think.

I think a better way to produce instant previews would be using Mozile,
or the IE equivalent whatever it's called.

http://mozile.mozdev.org/

That way you get WYSIWYG editing, not just fast previews. Just press F7
on any page view (except ones containing irreversible wikitext to XHTML
conversion), and you can edit the text right there on the view page.

Converting back from XHTML to wikitext is made a bit difficult because
it's ambiguous. The algorithm would have to minimise the differences
between the old wikitext and the new wikitext.

Infobox-style templates can be handled by putting a separate editable
div around them. Articles with templates that are inline with text
couldn't be handled in this way.

Just something I've been musing about. It was also discussed on meta a
while ago.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVG upload?

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> | Frank v Waveren (fvw.wikipediaml at var.cx) [050123 14:45]:
> |>The filetypes allowable for uploads were hurriedly limited a while
> |>back because of abuse, I suspect it's just that nobody thought of SVG.
> |
> | Does it check what the file actually is, or just check the extension?
>
> Take a look at SpecialUpload.php some time. In summary, on upload we:
>
> * Normalize the filename
> * Ensure the extension is in a whitelist
> * Ensure that no blacklisted extensions are present
> * For known image types, use the getimagesize() function to detect the
> file type and ensure that there is an identifiable header.
> ** If no type is detected for a known extension, the file is rejected.
> ** If the detected type does not match the given extension, the file is
> rejected.
> * Attempt to replicate Internet Explorer's HTML-detection heuristic to
> prevent scripting attacks using HTML+JavaScript embedded into a valid
> image file.
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
For SVG, and other well-formed XML documents, it should be possible to
check the uploaded document for conformance to the appropriate DTD or
schema. See http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/svgdtd.html for the SVG 1.0 DTD.
After a bit of searching for free software (and that means free as in
both GPL and not based on Java), it looks like libxml2 supports DTD
validation for versions >= 2.4.0. The xmllint tool seems to be a nice
way to wrap this all up in an easy-to-call command-line tool See
http://www.xmlsoft.org/xmldtd.html

However, I agree that the HTML/JavaScript detector should be used as
well; double-checking is a good thing, and I'm not sure how extensible
the SVG DTD is, or how lax other parsers are.

DTD-checking input also greatly increases the chances of downstream
tools such as image renderers working properly when we allow SVG to be
treated as yet another image type.

-- Neil.


from_name: Seun Osewa

subject: [Wikitech-l] Standalone Wikitext Parsing Code in PHP

body:
Hi,

Can you advice me on the easiest way to get a PHP wikitext parser for
manipulating the output of SPecial:export ?  I need a tool that allows
me to export to HTML or another format of my choice, and I don't mind if
it's a command line tool.

Thanks.


body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>

> >>I do hope that nobody would make such an argument.  We should always
> >>cite primary sources where at all possible, and this instance shows the
> >>importance of correctly handling secondary sources.
> >
> > Indeed.  And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
> >  stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify
> > these as  truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).
>
>But we must.  If a secondary source cannot be verified it is useless.

Nonsense.  *Your* inability or unwillingness to verify it does not mean it
is useless.

>And
>to make it absolutely plain, I advocate that *all* secondary sources
>should be handled with care.

There are thousands on Wikipedia; perhaps tens of thousands.  Go for it.

>The extremely loose wording of the citation
>was what caused the problems--it was attributed to a primary source with
>the appendage "cited by", while it was plain to all of us there we were
>not in a position to attribute the figure to the primary source as a
>matter of fact.
>That is how *not* to cite a secondary source--to give it the appearance of
>a citation of a primary source.
>Using a secondary source, we must take care to attribute the opinion (or
>estimate, or whatever) *to the secondary source*, appending any claimed
>primary sources to aid the user in his own research.  We can state as a
>matter of fact that the secondary source says such-and-such and claims
>that this is sourced from so-and-so.  Unless we know for a fact that
>so-and-so also says such-and-such (in which case we wouldn't neet the
>secondary source) we cannot say "so-and-so says such-and-such, as cited by
>Sec & Ary  Sauce."

I don't recall seeing other secondary citations handled this way in other
Wikipedia articles, or indeed, even in this Wikipedia article.  It was only
this particular secondary source which seemed to need this treatment.

Jay.


body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>JAY JG said:
> >  The fact  that only a tiny number of
> > seconday sources seem to even be candidates for  this kind of treatment
> > is interesting.
> >
>*All* secondary sources must be handled with caution.

Handled with caution is fine, specific ones singled out for special
treatment is not.

Jay.


body:
>From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
>
>I feel Bjorn did not come to the mailing list with entirely clean
>hands in this matter. He has previously used quite questionable
>sources for other edits himself; he accused Bard, based on nothing
>solid, of not even having read the UN progress report; and he implied
>that Bard had been evasive when, in fact, Bard had simply not answered
>Bjorn's second e-mail. Bjorn also did not tell Bard the information
>was for Wikipedia, which I feel he should have done. Also, once Zero
>had obtained the report and suggested a way to word the reference to
>make it accurate, and Tony had edited that onto the page, Bjorn
>decided to create an entirely new category, and moved the information
>out of the UN section and into a new section called "Incomplete
>estimates" (even though Tony's edit made it clear the estimate was
>incomplete, and the words "progress report" imply that anyway.)
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948&diff=9614990&oldid=9614450
>
>This begins to look like POV pushing and not just careful scrutiny of
>source material.

Indeed it does.  At the same time Bjorn was criticizing this cite, and
basically accusing it of being false, he (in another article) had no problem
whatsoever using this reference to a *blog*
http://misnomer.dru.ca/2003/02/11/a_coalition_of_the_willing.html (i.e. a
dubious, tertiary source) as proof of whatever point he was trying to make.

Jay.


body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>
>
>If I see a reference in an encyclopedia I expect it to have been verified
>by the author of the article, or else the author should state if he has
>attempted to verify it and been unsuccessful.  This is important
>information about the quality of the citation and must not be omitted.

Your expectations are not in line with reality.  Encyclopedia articles use
secondary references all the time, and do not insist that the author of the
article check every primary reference.  Historians, scientists, etc. are
quoted all the time.

Jay.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [Wikipedia-l] picture themes

body:
In general, I do find the problem Lars mentioned: many Wikipedia
articles exist "in isolation" and are poor at discussing broader
context.  I try and stop and think, "What is the reader likely to want
to know?"  It's hard to think from the point of view of the reader,
rather than that of the writer, but trying is worthwhile.

I also try and send people I know to articles, and have them give me
feedback. Sometimes others can see what a contributor cannot.

-Matt


body:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> > >*All* secondary sources must be handled with caution.
>
> > Handled with caution is fine, specific ones singled out for special
> > treatment is not.
>
>
>Bjorn's handling of it may have been clumsy (and that username raises an
>eyebrow), but  I think the essential point he was trying to make still
>stands.
>
>(Also, you both seem to be assuming less than complete good faith on the
>part of the other.

Bjorn created his Userid for a particular kind of advocacy, and has used it
for nothing else.  In the case of this article, he has produced a large
number of extremely high estimates of dubious provenance from many
pro-Palestinian sites, without questioning them at all.  In others he has
considered blogs, Letters to the Editor of the Guardian newspaper, even
Holocaust Denial sites as valid references, but somehow thought this
particular reference (which happened to be lower than he liked, and from a
source he didn't like) needed an overwhelming amount of scrutiny. I think
lack of good faith is entirely warranted in this case.

>I really don't see that as eing the case for either of
>you. I see no reason this can't be worked out in a mutually satisfactory
>manner now and for the future.)

I can work in a satifactory way with anyone who follows Wikipedia policy.

>I see no reason why each of the thousands of secondary references shouldn't
>have attention paid to them in principle. We have a reference checking
>project, after all.

A great idea, in principle.

Jay.


from_name: Delirium

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>
>>
>> If I see a reference in an encyclopedia I expect it to have been
>> verified
>> by the author of the article, or else the author should state if he has
>> attempted to verify it and been unsuccessful.  This is important
>> information about the quality of the citation and must not be omitted.
>
>
> Your expectations are not in line with reality.  Encyclopedia articles
> use secondary references all the time, and do not insist that the
> author of the article check every primary reference.  Historians,
> scientists, etc. are quoted all the time.

I'm not too familiar with standard practice in encyclopedias, but in
journal and conferences papers, it's considered fairly standard to cite
the secondary source if that's where the quote or other information came
from, even if the secondary source itself cites a primary
source---citing the primary source is taken to be an assertion that
you've personally gotten the information from the primary source, or at
least verified that it's there.  If it were discussed in running text
(as something particularly murky or controversial often would be), it
would be with phrasing along the lines of "Smith (1997) places the
population of Moscow during this period at 2,321, citing a census of
1854 consistent with various other reports."  If the census of 1854 is
completely undisputed, then it could be simply mentioned directly, but
the citation would still be something like "The census of 1854 placed
the population of Moscow at 2,321 (Smith 1997)"---citing the census
itself would be inappropriate unless you've personally looked it up.

Quotations seem often to be unattributed, but IMO this is also a
somewhat undesirable practice, especially given how many quotations are
actually improperly attributed by hearsay.

-Mark


from_name: Pedro Fayolle

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki parser in JavaScript

body:
> Preview is valuable because it produces *exactly* the output that the
> wiki does. A JavaScript work-alike parser is unlikely to work exactly
> the same even in the best case, and isn't going to provide for
> extensions at all without invoking the PHP parser on the server.

I never intended this to be a replacement for the current preview as
it simply is impossible to provide a feature-complete preview without
invoking server-side processing. On the contrary, this is just an
extension for people who understands the limitations of using such an
alternative. For those people I believe this could prove to be very
useful.

> Having two parallel parsers is also a bad practice, introducing extra
> work in maintaining them both and keeping them in sync. Someday we may
> have a real working 'alternate' parser, but if so it's going to have to
> prove itself worth the effort of maintaining it; as it is we have enough
> trouble with sloppily-written pages not working when copied to another
> wiki that's not running with tidy to clean up HTML kinks, and that's
> just a post-processing phase rather than the parser itself.

Now, I don't even pretend this to become integrated with the current
software, I don't even see the need for it as long as there are ways
of customizing one's wiki (namely with monobook.js). Of course not
everyone would understand the difference between server-side and
client-side previews, so having this enabled by default would be a big
mistake.

So, in other words, I want this to be some sort of plug-in which
particular users could install for themselves _if_ they want to. I'm
sure there's nothing wrong with that. What's more, I think MediaWiki
could do with some more ways of customizing user interfaces.

> There's some experimental code in 1.5 for fetching previews via an
> XmlHTTPRequest, which avoids the skin rendering overhead (and in many
> cases should avoid message cache initialization overhead) required for a
> full HTML page submission while letting the PHP parser return real
> rendering results. Most of the time spent in rendering non-trivial pages
> is concentrated in a few hotspots (particularly title normalization,
> link checking, and link generation) and IMO optimization effort would be
> better spent on these.

Sounds really interesting. I'm really for that kind of a approaches.
Look at GMail for instance, I think it's amazing. MediaWiki could take
great advatange from that kind of techniques.

> This is not to say that a JavaScript wikitext parser is useless; but I
> don't think we would be able to use it for things like previews.

Hm... since I can't fully agree here I can only hope I stated my view
clearly. In the meanwhile I will continue to enhance and extend the
script to support as many features as possible.

Regards,

-Pedro


body:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>

> > >I see no reason why each of the thousands of secondary references
>shouldn't
> > >have attention paid to them in principle. We have a reference checking
> > >project, after all.
>
> > A great idea, in principle.
>
>
>As I said, it's susceptible to abuse by the querulous. But that's an editor
>problem. How far is too far? At what point do we cull querulousness without
>forestalling questioning of a reference seriously considered (in good
>faith) to be dubious?

I don't know how to quantify the general rule, and seriously doubt that it
could be quantified.  Suffice it to say, however, that when editors are not
editing in good faith, this problem will arise.  In the case of the
particular citation we have been discussing, the "abuse by the querulous"
line was crossed days ago, and this was borne out when the primary sources
were finally located.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
>Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>It would be useful to collect and report statistics about vandalism
>and edit wars. I have 16,000 articles on my watchlist (too many, I
>know!) and vandals touch maybe five of those per day, with most of
>the edits occurring on topics familiar to the general public (Julius
>Caesar, Steve Jobs, RMS Titanic, etc).

As you point out, it really depends on the articles on your watchlist.  I
have about 1,000 on my watchlist, and the other night I was dealing with one
vandalism per minute, even after pages were protected (after protection they
went after the Talk: pages instead).

Jay.


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] How do I submit some changes to the code.

body:
As my first attempt at doing some development work for MediaWiki, I
have what I believe to be a fix for bug 190
(http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=190). (It's not really a
bug, but a feature request). I've tested this on a local installation
of the software, and worked out the bugs (at least the obvious ones).

So what is the correct next step? Instructions on meta suggest that I
post the patch to this list. Is there some particular difference tool
that patches are created with? Or do I just post the code with
instructions about where to put it?

There used to be the test wiki to allow for more people to check this
kind of change. How is that done these days?

Thanks for any help.

-Rich Holton
(en.wikipedia:User:Rholton)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Alexander Sigachov

subject: [Wikipedia-l] How to update LanguageXX.php in CVS?

body:
Hi

After large update the language file LanguageRu.php corresponds to the
last Language.php (revision 1.419). A lot of fixes and improvements
(removed hardcoded links, renamed talk namespaces, new convertGrammar
function, new messages etc). It was tested at local Mediawiki site
(v1.4beta4). New translations was discussed at special Russian Wikipedia
talk page (http://ru.wikipedia.org/?????????_??????????:????????_????).

How to update LanguageRu.php in CVS and Wikipedia?

(new langfile is located at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageRu.php)

Page "Requests for languageXX.php update" at Meta is probably dead. Now
in contains more than 30 requests.

Yes, i know about MediaWiki, but:
*new langfile has new translations of some namespaces (category and talks)
*only Russian Wikipedia is well translated (in MediaWiki). Russian
Wiktionary, Wikibooks etc use the old language file with mistakes which
are not corrected in their MediaWikies.
*in new wiki-projects (not Wikifoundation's projects) based on current
MediaWiki software is translated only half of messages (because in old
langfile many messages absent)

Sorry for my English :(

--
Cxion la plej helan,
Alexander "Ajvol" Sigachev


from_name: sannse

subject: [Foundation-l] wikimoney, wikimoney makes the wikiworld go round.

body:
Robin Shannon wrote:
> g'day everyone,
>
> I was just thinking about how difficult it is to get really good
> (gfdl) photos, and maybe we should start some kind of competion (aimed
> at non-wikimedians) for a really great photo for a wikipedia article.
> Just a thought.
>
> paz y amor,
> [[User:The bellman]]
>

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Media_competition

This is aimed at Wikimedians, but the rules state that no prior
contributions are required - your entry can be your first contribution
to the projects.

We have a few more details to sort out, and then we hope to make this
more widely known - we could easily make it seen outside Wikimedia as
well as on the projects.

If anyone has advice, suggested changes and so on - please do add to the
talk page.

--sannse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 19/01/05


from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] picture themes

body:
On Jan 24, 2005, at 4:04 PM, Matt Brown wrote:

> In general, I do find the problem Lars mentioned: many Wikipedia
> articles exist "in isolation" and are poor at discussing broader
> context.  I try and stop and think, "What is the reader likely to want
> to know?"  It's hard to think from the point of view of the reader,
> rather than that of the writer, but trying is worthwhile.
>
> I also try and send people I know to articles, and have them give me
> feedback. Sometimes others can see what a contributor cannot.
>
> -Matt
> ____________________________________________

One simple solution to this is to, when you see such an article, add
some "See also" links or a cat. Once articles are linked to other like
articles, they tend to being to draw more traffic and therefore more
editors.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
JAY JG said:
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>> > SlimVirgin wrote:
>> > I agree that citing the original document is better than citing a
>> > secondary source, though others might argue that makes it hard for
>> > the reader and other editors to check that Wikipedia is quoting
>> > accurately.
>> >
>>I do hope that nobody would make such an argument.  We should always
>>cite primary sources where at all possible, and this instance shows the
>>importance of correctly handling secondary sources.
>
> Indeed.  And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
>  stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify
> these as  truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).

But we must.  If a secondary source cannot be verified it is useless.  And
to make it absolutely plain, I advocate that *all* secondary sources
should be handled with care.   The extremely loose wording of the citation
was what caused the problems--it was attributed to a primary source with
the appendage "cited by", while it was plain to all of us there we were
not in a position to attribute the figure to the primary source as a
matter of fact.
That is how *not* to cite a secondary source--to give it the appearance of
a citation of a primary source.
Using a secondary source, we must take care to attribute the opinion (or
estimate, or whatever) *to the secondary source*, appending any claimed
primary sources to aid the user in his own research.  We can state as a
matter of fact that the secondary source says such-and-such and claims
that this is sourced from so-and-so.  Unless we know for a fact that
so-and-so also says such-and-such (in which case we wouldn't neet the
secondary source) we cannot say "so-and-so says such-and-such, as cited by
Sec & Ary  Sauce."


body:
JAY JG said:
>  The fact  that only a tiny number of
> seconday sources seem to even be candidates for  this kind of treatment
> is interesting.
>
*All* secondary sources must be handled with caution.


from_name: Traroth

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVG upload?

body:
Include SVG in Wikipedia article could be a great
feature, especially if they are editable (in
Wikicommons for example)

Traroth

 --- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> a ?crit :
>
> I just uploaded [[Image:X client server
> example.png]]. That's a little
> network diagram done in Inkscape. So the native form
> is SVG, which is
> highly editable and thus makes some sense as a work
> to distribute under the
> GFDL - the SVG is the source code, the PNG is just a
> rendering.
>
> But I can't upload SVG. Is there a good reason for
> this, or is it just that
> no-one thought of it?
>
> (SVG is just XML text - I don't know of a way to
> include malware.)
>
> This goes for other image formats - GIMP,
> Illustrator, etc. For resources
> under a license that allows editing, it would make
> sense to allow upload of
> the source version.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

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from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
David Gerard wrote

> In general, questioning a reference shouldn't provoke this level of
> defensiveness. It did turn out to differ in small but important ways from
> the original citation.

Is it me, or is this thread and its predecessor(s) illustrating something
quite different from what we were being told?  The proposition 'cite
original sources and all will be well' seems hardly to be sustained by all
this.

Like it says under the edit box, citing sources is supposed to help others
to verify postings.  Unless it is done with exactly that in mind (easy
access, amongst other things), doesn't it mostly displace debate?

Charles


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)

At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring out
all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.

Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article, then
the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears
nowhere.

The information on the current mistubishi page is incorrect.

I tell you something. I've been spending a lot of time trying to
unravel japanese companies, their partneships, ownerships, lines of
business, banking reltionships, subsidiaries, formal and informal
relationships. Yet people come behind me and redirect everything back
to the old bad way it was before. And these are not vandals, but
regular wikipedia contributors. I don't want to hurt their feelings,
and I don't want to get into wars of words, but when they simply
redirect or blank out hours of work without comment as to why, it
makes me believe they don't care for my contributions.

I don't make waves, I do my share of vandal reverts, I plod along
super-boring subjects, fact-checking and fact-checking on google
every  little word I write in here. I never remove people's words,
rather I copyedit. typoedit. add sections, try to organize, to
expand, to make more and more complex subjects accessible. I even try
to get along, help along, people who otherwise are insufferable.

I want a little respect for my work.

If it's too much to ask, then, I'll have to leave and remember WP as
something which sounded good on paper but didn't work for me in the
real world.

About http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution,
I deal with plenty of politics at work already, and I don't care to
follow an overly burdensome and complicated process to enforce
something which is obvious to civilized people.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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body:
JAY JG said:
> >
> It is completely unacceptable, in my view, to add caveats to cited
> references as you did, stating "Attempts to verify Bard's attribution
> to the  UN Mediator's report have so far failed
> (http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ab14d4aafc4e1bb985256204004f55fa!OpenDocument)",>  or as Bjorn did ("Attempts to verify Bard's attribution to the UN
> Mediator's  report have so far failed: see Talk:Estimates of the
> Palestinian Refugee  flight of 1948."), simply because you are
> unwilling or unable to expend the  necessary energy to look up the
> primary sources.  Moreover, telling people  to refer to Talk: pages is
> bad form, particulary (but not exclusively)  because Talk: pages change
> all the time, and are often archived.

If I see a reference in an encyclopedia I expect it to have been verified
by the author of the article, or else the author should state if he has
attempted to verify it and been unsuccessful.  This is important
information about the quality of the citation and must not be omitted.


subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
What happened on the main [[Mitsubishi]] article, it seems, is that an
anon user vandalised the page by replacing your list of
Mitsubishi-related companies with the oh-so-intelligent text "there
are no problems..they are ace".  Someone came along after that,
noticed the vandalism but edited the article to remove the comment,
instead of checking to see if the vandal had removed anything or
reverting.  Subsequent editors haven't realised that anything was
missing.

Unfortunate, but these were not regular Wikipedia contributors
deliberately ruining your work, this was an anon vandal and a newbie
trying to clean up and not doing it right.

-Matt


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] User table dump

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

RedWolf wrote:
| Where can one obtain a copy of the user table?

You cannot. The user table contains information which is considered
private (such as e-mail addresses and password hashes) and is not made
public under any circumstances.

| I have the latest version (18
| days old as of today!) of the cur table from download.wikimedia.org
and imported
| into a local mysql database. I would like to map the user id column to
a name so
| I can generate some reports on articles in the image namespace. For
example,
| listing unverified images by user name.

You can obtain a mapping of user_id <-> user_name for any user who has
edited by extracting this from the cur_user and cur_user_text fields in
cur and old_user and old_user_text fields in old, etc. An id field of 0
indicates a not-logged-in user (anonymous editor/IP address, or a local
installation/upgrade script edit, or a pre-conversion editor from UseMod
days).

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFB9Z+mwRnhpk1wk44RAic8AJ9gHr1ly/SaMkQ3qilf0m+W1XY03ACgxa4Y
WcCEQQTC1kcPUWN6q1+du6w=
=TaZH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
>
>At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring out
>all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.
>
>Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article, then
>the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears
>nowhere.
>
Are you talking about Michael Snow changes that happened nearly a
year ago? That's a long time to be oblivious!

Anyway, when I've developed a design that may not be self-evident,
I usually leave a note on the talk page explaining the theory. I
suspect my little notes forestall a lot of ill-considered changes;
of the remainder, the people who want to change it anyway either
leave their own counterargument and ping me via talk page. As a
last resort, they're all on my too-long watchlist...

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> Are you talking about Michael Snow changes that happened nearly a
> year ago? That's a long time to be oblivious!

Sort of. But there's a lot more recent stuff that I didn't bring in
because I wanted to keep my rant semi-coherent.

> Anyway, when I've developed a design that may not be self-evident,
> I usually leave a note on the talk page explaining the theory. I
> suspect my little notes forestall a lot of ill-considered changes;
> of the remainder, the people who want to change it anyway either
> leave their own counterargument and ping me via talk page. As a
> last resort, they're all on my too-long watchlist...

I hear you.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 03:09:40 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > or as Bjorn did ("Attempts to verify Bard's attribution to the UN
> > Mediator's report have so far failed: see Talk:Estimates of the Palestinian
> > Refugee flight of 1948."), simply because you are unwilling or unable to
> > expend the necessary energy to look up the primary sources.  Moreover,
> > telling people to refer to Talk: pages is bad form, particulary (but not
> > exclusively) because Talk: pages change all the time, and are often
> > archived.
>
> However, you didn't have the primary reference either, which would have
> avoided a great many problems.
>
> In general, questioning a reference shouldn't provoke this level of
> defensiveness. It did turn out to differ in small but important ways from
> the original citation.

The important differenence was how Mitchell Bard presented it in his
article and how Jayjg wanted it presented in Wikipedia against how I
and other editors wanted it represented in Wikipedia. We all guessed
that the figure came from Count Folke Bernadotte's report from
September 16, 1948 but we were mislead due to Mitchell Bard's sloppy
referencing. He dated the publishing of the report to 18 September,
1948 while the real date was 18 October, 1948. Me and other editors
found it of utmost importance to mention that the report was written
long before the war was over and that it therefore was incomplete -
anyone who does not have an excellent knowledge of the Palestine war
would be fooled by it. Jayjg found it unfitting to tell the reader
that. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948&diff=9512567&oldid=9511977

Oh, and there is more on the talk page
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Estimates_of_the_Palestinian_Refugee_flight_of_1948)
that reveals what a dishonest, clueless propagandaist Mitchell Bard
is. I don't think Wikipedia should mirror his words. That'll be all
for me on this subject. Sincere thanks to all who offered their input,
and since apologises to all for wasting your time. And FYI, Bj?rn
Lindqvist is my real life name. So much for anonymous internet
e-mailers.

--
mvh Bj?rn


subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
--- Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:

> Unfortunate, but these were not regular Wikipedia contributors
> deliberately ruining your work, this was an anon vandal and a
> newbie
> trying to clean up and not doing it right.

That's not what I was talking about.

Thank you for digging though.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

body:
> --- apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk wrote:
>
> What do you mean, can be persuaded? Wikipedia is an all-volunteer
> organization. People here contribute because they want to, because
> they believe that this will benefit mankind.

And so, my fellow 'Pedians, ask not what your Wiki can do for you
--ask what you can do for your Wiki.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what the 'Pedia will do for
you, but what together we can do for the knowledge of man.

Smoddy


from_name: NSK

body:
On Monday 24 January 2005 13:12, Seun Osewa wrote:
> Can you advice me on the easiest way to get a PHP wikitext parser for
> manipulating the output of SPecial:export ?  I need a tool that allows
> me to export to HTML or another format of my choice, and I don't mind if
> it's a command line tool.

You can use the code of the GetWiki software, used in http://www.wikinfo.org

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org/freehosting


from_name: Robin Shannon

body:
g'day everyone,

I was just thinking about how difficult it is to get really good
(gfdl) photos, and maybe we should start some kind of competion (aimed
at non-wikimedians) for a really great photo for a wikipedia article.
Just a thought.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mailman upgraded

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

We've been running a release candidate of Mailman 2.1.5 for some time; I
finally got around to upgrading to the final release. Hopefully there
should be no difficulties.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFB9bqOwRnhpk1wk44RArk6AJ9RVIgZ0llyHZIy72nbEMts5zrRIQCeMoCY
0wAL3z8n3D4s18HGWRLa71o=
=sa/e
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans le fruit ?

body:
Sorry if I don't translate in english...

Sur ma page personnelle
(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Traroth),
j'ai post? le texte suivant :

"Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans le fruit ?

Lors de l'assembl?e constituante de l'association
Wikimedia France, il a ?t? dit que Jimmy Wales et
Wikimedia Foundation lui refusait le droit d'utiliser
les marques qu'elle d?tenait (Wikimedia, Wikipedia,
Wktionary, Wikibooks...) si la Foundation n'avait pas
un droit de veto (le terme a fait d?bat) sur les
d?cisions que prendrait la fondation fran?aise.
Parrall?lement, lors de la cr?ation de Wikimedia
Foundation, Jimmy Wales a impos? 3 si?ges sur 5, en se
r?servant le si?ge de pr?sident, les 2 si?ges restant
?tant pourvu par ?lection ( ce qui a conduit ? 4
membres anglophones sur 5). Ce sipositif ne devait pas
?tre reconduit, et une election r?ellement
d?mocratique devait avoir lieu cette ann?e (c'est ce
qui avait ?t? dit ? l'?poque). On apprend maintenant
que Jimmy Wales a l'intention de continuer ? se
reserver le si?ge de pr?sident, avec probablement un
droit de veto sur les d?cisions. Moins d?mocratique,
?a parait difficile. Le d?calage d'une ann?e n'a donc
?t? qu'un moyen de noyer le poisson. Ces mani?res de
faire poussent ? se poser un certain nombre de
questions :

* ? quoi servent ces fondations ?
* Les donateurs n'ont-ils pas un droit de regard sur
l'usage qui est fait de l'argent qu'ils ont donn? ?
* N'est-ce pas tromper les gens que de faire croire
qu'une fondation veille aux inter?ts de Wikipedia,
alors qu'il ne s'agit que d'une organisation-croupion,
sans pouvoir r?el de d?cision ?
* N'est ce pas tromper les gens que de se donner les
apparences de la d?mocratie, sans l'?tre le moins du
monde ?
* Que fera la communaut? si Jimmy Wales prend des
d?cisions contraire ? l'opinion de la majorit?, comme
il se pourrait que cela soit le cas sur le sujet de la
publicit? (Jimbo ne s'est jamais prononc? clairement
contre) ? R?pondre "Y a qu'? faire un fork", c'est
gifler les donateurs en pleine face.

Entendons-nous bien : je n'ai rien contre Jimbo, et
j'aurais ?t? le premier ? voter pour lui en 2004, et
ce, aussi longtemps qu'il aurait ?t? pr?t ? rester
pr?sident. ?a n'aurait ?t? qu'une formalit?.
Aujourd'hui, je serais plus circonspect. De quoi
a-t-il peur exactement ? Certain(e)s ont r?pondu :
qu'un Board qui prendrait justement des d?cisions
contraire ? la volont? de la majorit?. Outre le fait
que c'est en contradiction compl?te avec la notion
m?me de d?mocratie, le syst?me actuel ne nous met pas
? l'abri. Simplement, ce "privil?ge" est r?serv? ? une
seule personne.

Personnellement, j'avais l'intention de m'impliquer
assez fortement dans l'activit? de l'association
fran?aise, mais maintenant, je suis ? deux doigts de
tout envoyer p?ter. ?a serait d?j? fait si Wikip?dia
et les autres projets n'?taient pas en GFDL, ce qui
veut dire qu'ils n'appartiennent pas ? la Foundation.
Sans hostilit?, j'aimerais travailler ? une ?uvre
collective, et non ? une esp?ce de monument ? la
gloire de Jimmy Wales, quels que soient ses m?rites.

Traroth"

Si vous voulez y r?agir, faites le sur ma page de
discussion
(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Utilisateur:Traroth)
ou sur cette liste.

Traroth

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from_name: apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Encyclopaedia standards

body:
What do you mean, can be persuaded? Wikipedia is an all-volunteer
organization. People here contribute because they want to, because
they believe that this will benefit mankind.

They will also contribute if we show them how. I have several friends
who are interested but who need showing what Wikipedia can do and how
to do it by practical demonstration. I occasionally talk about
Wikipedia in emails to people who might be interested. Its a sort of
Viral Marketing, beloved of tele-marketers. Maybe we might have a
campaign to 'introduce an editor'.

Tony Woolrich

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 19/01/2005


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hi,

Le Monday 24 January 2005 19:40, Traroth a ?crit :
> Sorry if I don't translate in english...
>
> Sur ma page personnelle
> (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Traroth),
> j'ai post? le texte suivant :
>
> "Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans le fruit ?

Traroth, ton anti-am?ricaisme primaire est compl?tement d?pass?.
Il est comparable aux th?ories du complot les plus farfelues.
Ton "playdoyer" est rempli d'inexactitude, et le spamming en fran?ais sur 4
listes totalement inappropri?.
Je pr?f?rerais plut?t que tu nous laisses travailler tranquille.

Traroth, your simple-minded anti-americanism is completely old-fashioned.
It looks like the worst complot theories. Your speech is full of mistakes.
And spamming in French on 4 lists is totaly unappropriated.
I rather like that you let us work undisturbed.

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


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans le fruit ?

body:
This is okay not to translate , but please try to refrain from multiple
cross posting. FOundation is the right place to post this. Not wikipedia-l

Ant

Traroth a ?crit:
> Sorry if I don't translate in english...
>
>
> Sur ma page personnelle
> (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Traroth),
> j'ai post? le texte suivant :
>
> "Wikimedia Foundation : le ver dans le fruit ?
>
> Lors de l'assembl?e constituante de l'association
> Wikimedia France, il a ?t? dit que Jimmy Wales et
> Wikimedia Foundation lui refusait le droit d'utiliser
> les marques qu'elle d?tenait (Wikimedia, Wikipedia,
> Wktionary, Wikibooks...) si la Foundation n'avait pas
> un droit de veto (le terme a fait d?bat) sur les
> d?cisions que prendrait la fondation fran?aise.
> Parrall?lement, lors de la cr?ation de Wikimedia
> Foundation, Jimmy Wales a impos? 3 si?ges sur 5, en se
> r?servant le si?ge de pr?sident, les 2 si?ges restant
> ?tant pourvu par ?lection ( ce qui a conduit ? 4
> membres anglophones sur 5). Ce sipositif ne devait pas
> ?tre reconduit, et une election r?ellement
> d?mocratique devait avoir lieu cette ann?e (c'est ce
> qui avait ?t? dit ? l'?poque). On apprend maintenant
> que Jimmy Wales a l'intention de continuer ? se
> reserver le si?ge de pr?sident, avec probablement un
> droit de veto sur les d?cisions. Moins d?mocratique,
> ?a parait difficile. Le d?calage d'une ann?e n'a donc
> ?t? qu'un moyen de noyer le poisson. Ces mani?res de
> faire poussent ? se poser un certain nombre de
> questions :
>
> * ? quoi servent ces fondations ?
> * Les donateurs n'ont-ils pas un droit de regard sur
> l'usage qui est fait de l'argent qu'ils ont donn? ?
> * N'est-ce pas tromper les gens que de faire croire
> qu'une fondation veille aux inter?ts de Wikipedia,
> alors qu'il ne s'agit que d'une organisation-croupion,
> sans pouvoir r?el de d?cision ?
> * N'est ce pas tromper les gens que de se donner les
> apparences de la d?mocratie, sans l'?tre le moins du
> monde ?
> * Que fera la communaut? si Jimmy Wales prend des
> d?cisions contraire ? l'opinion de la majorit?, comme
> il se pourrait que cela soit le cas sur le sujet de la
> publicit? (Jimbo ne s'est jamais prononc? clairement
> contre) ? R?pondre "Y a qu'? faire un fork", c'est
> gifler les donateurs en pleine face.
>
> Entendons-nous bien : je n'ai rien contre Jimbo, et
> j'aurais ?t? le premier ? voter pour lui en 2004, et
> ce, aussi longtemps qu'il aurait ?t? pr?t ? rester
> pr?sident. ?a n'aurait ?t? qu'une formalit?.
> Aujourd'hui, je serais plus circonspect. De quoi
> a-t-il peur exactement ? Certain(e)s ont r?pondu :
> qu'un Board qui prendrait justement des d?cisions
> contraire ? la volont? de la majorit?. Outre le fait
> que c'est en contradiction compl?te avec la notion
> m?me de d?mocratie, le syst?me actuel ne nous met pas
> ? l'abri. Simplement, ce "privil?ge" est r?serv? ? une
> seule personne.
>
> Personnellement, j'avais l'intention de m'impliquer
> assez fortement dans l'activit? de l'association
> fran?aise, mais maintenant, je suis ? deux doigts de
> tout envoyer p?ter. ?a serait d?j? fait si Wikip?dia
> et les autres projets n'?taient pas en GFDL, ce qui
> veut dire qu'ils n'appartiennent pas ? la Foundation.
> Sans hostilit?, j'aimerais travailler ? une ?uvre
> collective, et non ? une esp?ce de monument ? la
> gloire de Jimmy Wales, quels que soient ses m?rites.
>
> Traroth"
>
> Si vous voulez y r?agir, faites le sur ma page de
> discussion
> (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Utilisateur:Traroth)
> ou sur cette liste.
>
> Traroth
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> D?couvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail : 250 Mo d'espace de stockage pour vos mails !
> Cr?ez votre Yahoo! Mail sur http://fr.mail.yahoo.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedic standards

body:
Following from my post earlier this evening about getting more
competent editors, has any thought ever been given to snappy slogans
which might be included in email signatures?

eg - I edit Wikipedia, so why don't you?
or - Help educate the planet - become a Wikipedia editor. No pay,
just lots of satisfaction.

[Suitably beefed up with the the URL,of course]

At a seminar I took part in in November, the hand-outs I provided
were print-outs of Wikipedia articles I had written, with a word or
two about what Wikipedia was. I have no idea if these will bring
results, but its was worth trying, I feel.

If potential editors know someone who is an editor, they will see we
are - (mostly) - serious people, with a mission, and worth
considering joining. Its the personal contact that counts, I feel.

Tony Woolrich

--
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subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Are you talking about Michael Snow changes that happened nearly a
>>year ago? That's a long time to be oblivious!
>>
>
>Sort of. But there's a lot more recent stuff that I didn't bring in
>because I wanted to keep my rant semi-coherent.
>
:-) It's a good thing the microphone in my computer isn't normally
on, I've certainly done more than a little verbal ranting at some
editors, have to wipe off the screen afterwards...

>
>
>>Anyway, when I've developed a design that may not be self-evident,
>>I usually leave a note on the talk page explaining the theory. I
>>suspect my little notes forestall a lot of ill-considered changes;
>>of the remainder, the people who want to change it anyway either
>>leave their own counterargument and ping me via talk page. As a
>>last resort, they're all on my too-long watchlist...
>>
>
>I hear you.
>
It occurs to me that maybe we don't actually suggest it anywhere;
I just started that to avoid cleaning up after people who made
(what seemed like) obvious mistakes, and when I pointed it out,
their response was "oh yeah, didn't realize". Wikiprojects do that
for standard-setting on a large scale, but a lot of my notes are
just "I Googled variants of title and here are the numbers that
guided my choice".

Stan


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

body:
On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> --- Traroth <traroth at yahoo.fr> wrote:
>
> (Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Wktionary, Wikibooks...)

> Jimmy Wales imposed 3 seats out of 5, by reserving the seat of
> president, the 2 seats remaining being provided by election (what led
> to 4 anglophone members out of 5).

Hmm - the benevolent dictatorship.

> *  For what are used these foundations?
> *  Don't the givers have a right of glance on the use which is made
>    money that they gave?

[ ... ]

> * What will make the community if Jimmy Wales makes decisions opposite
>   with the opinion of the majority, as it could be that that is the case
>   on the subject of publicity (Jimbo never decided clearly against)?

> Personally, I intended to rather strongly imply me in the activity of
> French association, but now, I am with two fingers all to send p?ter.

I think it is reasonable to request, or at least allow, a majority of
French on the French wikipedia board. Personally, I see wikipedia as the
runaway success - the other marks as also-rans.

I have no reason to believe that Jimbo will be anything other than a
benevolent dictator, but I can understand the concern of les
francophones.

There is a very real concern that commercial interests may do a land
grab of mediawiki content - and maybe that is the Strong Hand on the
Wheel that you are seeing.

Wikipedia is verging on a phenomenon. However, its strength is the soft
touch. French people must feel they own their own encyclopedia - the
problem is in the direction and management. Maybe Jimbo is saying he has
that, on all mediawiki sites.

Cheers,    Andy!

[en:User:Wikiwizzy]


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] <graph> extension updated

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Friday 14 January 2005 11:55, Tels wrote:
> Moin,
> On Friday 14 January 2005 01:03, Jakob Voss wrote:
> > Well, uglyness is a very subjective argument that may fit to both.

:-)

> > But there is a limit in graphviz: you cannot embed Wikilinks! So if
> > your plugin produces clickable images like Erik's Timeline that would
> > be really useful.

Ask and ye shall receive :o) I updated my code (and webpage) today.

Graph::Simple is now:

* is an extension living in extensions/. (This makes wiki integration SOO
  much easier, but AFAICS we loose the user-setting for which output
  style (s)he want's to see. Is there a way an extension can register a
  page/tab in the user preferences?).
* understands titles (for mouse-over) and (internal/external) links. See
  this example:

	http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/test.html#syntax_0024.txt

Details on what else is new in this version can be found here:

	http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/history.html

Thanx for all your work and feedback (I still would like to hear more
ideas and/or arguments, though :o)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Mon Jan 24 21:43:10 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Den wahren Wert dieser Software werden vermutlich nur Fach L?ute und
 Firmen erkennen." -- "So isst es. Ein gewi?er Standart muss schon gewart
 beiben!" --  Kabe (http://tinyurl.com/3kucx)

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body:
Andy Rabagliati a ?crit:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>
>>--- Traroth <traroth at yahoo.fr> wrote:
>>
>>(Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Wktionary, Wikibooks...)
>
>
>>Jimmy Wales imposed 3 seats out of 5, by reserving the seat of
>>president, the 2 seats remaining being provided by election (what led
>>to 4 anglophone members out of 5).
>
>
> Hmm - the benevolent dictatorship.
>
>
>>*  For what are used these foundations?
>>*  Don't the givers have a right of glance on the use which is made
>>   money that they gave?
>
>
> [ ... ]
>
>
>>* What will make the community if Jimmy Wales makes decisions opposite
>>  with the opinion of the majority, as it could be that that is the case
>>  on the subject of publicity (Jimbo never decided clearly against)?
>
>
>>Personally, I intended to rather strongly imply me in the activity of
>>French association, but now, I am with two fingers all to send p?ter.
>
>
> I think it is reasonable to request, or at least allow, a majority of
> French on the French wikipedia board. Personally, I see wikipedia as the
> runaway success - the other marks as also-rans.
>
> I have no reason to believe that Jimbo will be anything other than a
> benevolent dictator, but I can understand the concern of les
> francophones.
>
> There is a very real concern that commercial interests may do a land
> grab of mediawiki content - and maybe that is the Strong Hand on the
> Wheel that you are seeing.
>
> Wikipedia is verging on a phenomenon. However, its strength is the soft
> touch. French people must feel they own their own encyclopedia - the
> problem is in the direction and management. Maybe Jimbo is saying he has
> that, on all mediawiki sites.
>
> Cheers,    Andy!
>
> [en:User:Wikiwizzy]

Hi Andy.

Before this goes in the wrong direction, I would like to only mention
that Traroth opinion is very much the opinion of a minority (basically
the strong opinion of 3-4 editors and each time the topic is raised, the
opinion of a couple of newbies who do not know much yet about the way
Wikipedia is managed).

Traroth raises this topic every now and then. Usually, it is restricted
to our pump, so it may be interesting that this gets more public view.

What surprises me is that he seems to imply in his diatribe that Jimbo
recently announced he would keep his position as the president of
Wikimedia Foundation and would probably now use his right of veto.

While the first point has always be obvious to me (so I see not what is
new), the second is just a discovery to me. I am not aware Jimbo ever
said he would use his right of veto. I am not even aware he had a veto
right...

Anyway, I just want to insist on the fact this is Traroth (and a few
users opinions) and absolutely does not reflect the view of the largest
number of french editors. So, please do not make any wrong conclusion by
concluding french people are *again* making fools of themselves.

The second point is that though I think most of Traroth comments here
are just without basis, I can only recognise that this is the opinion of
a few people, and these people are real editors, not vandals, nor
trolls, nor jerks. So, I suppose these opinions are important to listen to.

As for myself, I do not really feel like answering them, simply because
I already tried to answer Traroth several times on the topic. If he is
posting here, it means he does not recognise my answers sufficient. So,
it would be useless to repeat my answers again. So perhaps someone else
could help.

Anthere


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] os.wikipedia.org -- Ossetic wikipedia request

body:
Hi Slavik,

I personally don't object to your proposal, but I would like to know
what is your personal experience with Ossetic, and if you cannot speak
it do you know anybody who could contribute to an Ossetic Wikipedia?

Also, if nobody objects to your proposal I think to get somebody to
actually create the Wikipedia you have to send them a message directly
(try a developer).

Mark


from_name: John Robinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
>I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)

Welcome to the club. Wikipeida is no longer an encyclopedia, in my
view. It has devolved into simply another write-enabled website where
anyone with an opinion can have a rant.

And that's sad.

-Hephaestos


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
At 10:47 PM 1/24/2005 -0600, John Robinson wrote:
>>I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
>
>Welcome to the club. Wikipeida is no longer an encyclopedia, in my view.
>It has devolved into simply another write-enabled website where anyone
>with an opinion can have a rant.
>
>And that's sad.

He didn't rant on Wikipedia, though, he ranted on a Wikipedia-related
mailing list. While it may still be arguable whether it was appropriate to
do so at least it doesn't affect Wikipedia itself in any way. User: pages
come a little closer, but even in that case User: pages are quite well
segregated from the encyclopedia content.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Press release for Wikimania conference

body:
The Board has asked me to help organize a press release to publicize
Wikimania 2005, this summer's Wikimedia conference. We've had great
success with some of our past press releases, and this is an excellent
opportunity to develop interest in this exciting event.

I've set up a page to work on the press release, but since I haven't
been very involved in the planning (the chances of me actually being
able to attend are unfortunately very low), the content right now is
barely a skeleton:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_press_releases/Wikimania_conference

As I understand it, the plan is to send this press release out on
February 14. I would appreciate everyone's help in putting together the
content, and eventually translating it into other languages as well.

Please take a moment to advertise this on your individual languages and
projects, so we can get a good group of people working on the press
release. Thanks for your help.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
Rich Holton wrote:
> As my first attempt at doing some development work for MediaWiki, I
> have what I believe to be a fix for bug 190
[...]
> So what is the correct next step? Instructions on meta suggest that I
> post the patch to this list.

Whichever page suggested that needs updating: due to problems with
viruses, trojans, etc, this list now blocks most attachments,
including patches. The best place to post it is therefore on bugzilla
- and in this case, that's a doubly good idea, since there's a bug
report tracking this issue already. Just click "Create a New
Attachment", and remember to tick the box marked "patch". You may also
want to edit the "keywords" field on the bug report to say "patch", in
case someone searches for this to find things to check in to CVS.

> Is there some particular difference tool
> that patches are created with? Or do I just post the code with
> instructions about where to put it?

Well, generally the GNU "diff" utility is used - use "diff -U3" to
give a patch in "unified format" with 3 lines of context either side
of each change. If there are changes to more than one file, and you
got the source via CVS, you can do something like "cvs diff -U3", and
it should output everything you've changed all in one go. [I won't go
into any more detail unless you ask, because I don't know how familar
or not you are with such tools]

> There used to be the test wiki to allow for more people to check this
> kind of change. How is that done these days?

IIRC, running a test wiki on the foundation's servers was considered a
bit of a security and resources risk. Once a change has been checked
into CVS (which implies somebody with access noticing it on bugzilla),
it will find its way onto various people's test installs, but I don't
know if anyone's running anything publically at the moment.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] wikipedia content in a GPL program

body:
--- Andres Baravalle <andres.baravalle at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would need a suggestion on how to incorporate (if it is possible)
> text from several wikipedia articles into a GPL software
> (phpGrabComics). I would need to incorporate a few lines (3 to 12) in
> many files. Basically I would like to include in pages as

If all you are only going to use is the first paragraph or two, then that is
fair use. However, and very stupidly, the FDL and the GPL are not compatible,
making anything more than fair use unnecessarily difficult. For this reason
(and a few others) the Debian project does not allow FDLd documentation.

This, for example, prevents our developers from using FDLd MediaWiki
documentation in MediaWiki. One way I have suggested to get around this is to
include a separate SQL database with that documentation in it (the database
itself, of course, would need to comply with the FDL). So far I haven't heard
whether or not this would be legal and IANAL.

-- mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] My rant

body:
--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring out
> all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.
>
> Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article, then
> the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears
> nowhere.
>
> The information on the current mistubishi page is incorrect.

I just merged-in your info into the lead section at [[Mitsubishi]]. Please make
any needed changes due to merge errors.

> I want a little respect for my work.

I for one respect you and your work. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. It just
looks like some things were innocently overlooked.

> If it's too much to ask, then, I'll have to leave and remember WP as
> something which sounded good on paper but didn't work for me in the
> real world.

Please don't do that. You are a great contributor and we need more people like
you. :)

-- mav

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