from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> You can either try to Taylorise the process of trusting people, or you
> can get in people you trust. Sysadmins *could* do any destructive
> thing they want. But they pretty much *don't*. I wonder why that is.

 If sysadmins can do any destructive thing they want, then you haven't
created a very secure system.
 As for why they don't, it depends which sysadmins you're talking to.
Certainly the fact that their actions are logged and that they'd lose their
job and face criminal charges if they did something destructive has
something to do with the reason a sysadmin at Yahoo or Google is unlikely to
do something destructive.

Usually it works that the sysadmins have the access they need to keep
> stuff working. Around here, where all day every day is a "WTF?!"
> moment, the present process seems to work. I'm sure you can outline
> many reasons why the present way of doing things is utterly broken and
> can't possibly work in theory, never mind that it does in practice.

 Apparently it doesn't work that well in practice, and that's why you're
talking about changing the way things work. From my own experience, the site
is quite flaky, and from your statement above CheckUser sometimes takes 5
hours to process. Doesn't sound like things are working very well to me.

You don't actually know much about systems administration in practice, do
> you?

 I've been the lead administrator for multi-million dollar systems, so yes,
I know a lot about how systems administration works in practice.

- d.

 Anthony


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Announcing the European Union collaboration!

body:
Hi all,

This email is announcing the launch of a new fortnightly collaboration
which aims to improve articles related to the European Union. If you're
interested in the EU, its institutions or other related stuff, please
nominate an article and/or help out with the current article (the first
one is [[Eurobarometer]]).

The collaboration overview page is [[Wikipedia:European Union
collaboration]]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:European_Union_collaboration).

Cheers,
Chris


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> >> >  The fact is, Wikimedia *is* a large organization, it's getting larger every
> > day, and it should start acting like it.
> >
> >  Anthony
>
> Tell me when you get the money together to pay for it.

> geni

I think it got to be a large organization precisely because it didn't
act like it.

Sarah


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>  Give me a pagerank and traffic profile as high as Wikipedia and I'll give
> you the money.

We're waiting for the money.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>  But when we're talking about production boxes in a colo, it shouldn't even
> be possible to log in as root.

Uh, sure, right.  So how do you propose to do maintenance on this box?

*Somebody* has to be able to log in as root.  That person is capable
of destroying the system.  Even if the immutable flag is set on the
root (because said person can always clear that flag).  And if nothing
else there's always the technique of taking a shotgun to the server.

Kelly


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 10/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > >
> > > Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
> > > VfU is unlikely to help.
> >
> > In practice no, but VFU *should* undelete pages on the basis that
> > Wikipedia is better with them than without. It's in the undeletion
> > policy; the fact that there's a strong resistance to actually
> > implementing the undeletion policy is saddening.
>
>
> That's certainly the way it used to be, but this changed at some point:
> "This process should *not* be used simply because you disagree with a
> deletion debate's reasoning ? only if you think the debate was interpreted
> incorrectly by the closer. This page is about *process*, not content." Not
> sure who added that, and whether or not there was a vote to completely
> change the undeletion process, but that's right at the top of the page now.
>
> Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> > > speediable
> >
> > Recreation of pages deleted *under the deletion policy* (which does
> > actually apply here).
>
>
> One reason not to improve an article while it's under a VfD debate, unless
> you are sure it's going to win. I've seen a number of times when articles
> were improved significantly after most people voted, they were deleted based
> on those old votes, and now that newly improved content was speediable.
>
Isn't that an easy VFU candidate.
"This article improved significantly during its time on AFD but ended
up deleted based on old votes." Such requests are easily undeleted.

Try to get such articles undeleted first and see if VFU is really as
ineffective as you think.
BTW, were the improvements mentioned in the AFD discussion so the
closing admin could take it into account?

--Mgm

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Do you really think there are people at other top-50 websites with
> unlogged
> > and unfettered access to this sort of information?
> > If so, do you think they had to go through any background checks, and
> sign
> > a non-disclosure agreement?
> > It certainly *is* possible to set up a system so that *no single person*
> > can "see all and know all". I would hope all the other top-50 websites
> have
> > set up such a system.
>
> Most top-50 websites have a IT staff budget in excess of $1M a year.
> What's Wikipedia's IT staff budget, again?

 Far too low. This is something which should be addressed.

Kelly

 Anthony


body:
On 10/13/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Anthony DiPierro" <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> [snip]
> > If sysadmins can do any destructive thing they want, then you haven't
> > created a very secure system.
>
>
> Pick the most secure version of UNIX you can find.
>
> Log in as root.
>
> Invoke the following:
> $ rm -r /

 If I were at home I'd do just that and it'd accomplish nothing, as I have
the immutable flag on the / directory. Yes, this flag could be removed if I
really wanted to, but there are ways to set up a system so that it requires
physical access to do such a thing.
 But when we're talking about production boxes in a colo, it shouldn't even
be possible to log in as root.

How destructive do you actually want?
>
> (I recall hearing a story of how somebody did this and, having interrupted
> the process mid-destroy, managed with the help of some friends to
> resurrect
> the system because he happened to have a copy of EMACS running (i.e.
> loaded
> into memory and not susceptible to instant deletion) and was therefore
> able
> to type in various vital system files by reading the hex off another
> terminal. I wish I could back it up with a URL, but it's the end of my
> work
> day here, and I'm going home :-)
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > If sysadmins can do any destructive thing they want, then you haven't
> > created a very secure system.
>
> There is always at least one sysadmin at every organization who has
> the capability to destroy, or at least significantly harm, everything.
> Only at the very largest organizations -- those with redundant,
> geographically separated data centers -- is is possible to make this
> effectively impossible.

 You say that it's possible at every organization, then you say it's
possible to avoid it at the very largest organizations.
 The fact is, Wikimedia *is* a large organization, it's getting larger every
day, and it should start acting like it.

Kelly

 Anthony


list: foundation-l

from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 - host city,
	contest part two - change in schedule

body:
(warning, cross post to many lists, thank you for not replying to all
- thank you for forwarding to the relevant lists)

Boston (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Boston) and
Toronto (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Toronto) have
been shortlisted to host the 2006 edition of Wikimania.

Wikimania 2006 will be the second international Wikimedia conference
and will gather members of the Wikimedia community acorss projects as
well as participants and speakers from different horizons to talk
about wikis and more. An overview of the 2005 edition can be found at
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org.

Contrarily to what was announced on the Wikimania page
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006), and due to tight
schedules of the jury from 3 corners of the planet, the jury might not
be able to meet and give its answer on the 15th october as was
planned.

This will only be delayed a day or two, please stay tuned for an update.

In the meantime, participants and others are free to ask/answer
questions on the talk pages of the Boston
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006/Boston) and
Toronto (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006/Toronto)
bid.

Best,

Delphine
--
~notafish


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Wikimania 2006 - host city,
	contest part two - change in schedule


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > You say that it's possible at every organization, then you say it's
> > possible to avoid it at the very largest organizations.
> > The fact is, Wikimedia *is* a large organization, it's getting larger
> every
> > day, and it should start acting like it.
> >
> >
> > Anthony
>
> Tell me when you get the money together to pay for it.

 Give me a pagerank and traffic profile as high as Wikipedia and I'll give
you the money.

--
> geni

 Anthony


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 10/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
> > > > VfU is unlikely to help.
> > >
> > > In practice no, but VFU *should* undelete pages on the basis that
> > > Wikipedia is better with them than without. It's in the undeletion
> > > policy; the fact that there's a strong resistance to actually
> > > implementing the undeletion policy is saddening.
> >
> >
> > That's certainly the way it used to be, but this changed at some point:
> > "This process should *not* be used simply because you disagree with a
> > deletion debate's reasoning ? only if you think the debate was interpreted
> > incorrectly by the closer. This page is about *process*, not content." Not
> > sure who added that, and whether or not there was a vote to completely
> > change the undeletion process, but that's right at the top of the page now.
> >
> > Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> > > > speediable
> > >
> > > Recreation of pages deleted *under the deletion policy* (which does
> > > actually apply here).
> >
> >
> > One reason not to improve an article while it's under a VfD debate, unless
> > you are sure it's going to win. I've seen a number of times when articles
> > were improved significantly after most people voted, they were deleted based
> > on those old votes, and now that newly improved content was speediable.
> >
> Isn't that an easy VFU candidate.
> "This article improved significantly during its time on AFD but ended
> up deleted based on old votes." Such requests are easily undeleted.
>
> Try to get such articles undeleted first and see if VFU is really as
> ineffective as you think.

I've monitored VFU for a while, and participated occasionally, but
mostly, it's become a self validation tool where AfD delete voters
gather and pat each other on the back for doing the "right thing"
where no consideration of anything other than the AfD process itself
is permitted.  If you didn't see the AfD nomination in the first
place, well, that's just too bad, they say.  It no longer matters
whether the content is useful or valuable anymore, it's all about
"enforcing" the "consensus" of the few regulars at AfD.  Anyone who's
looked at it with a critical eye knows this already.  If AfD needs a
"dynamite enema", VFU may be the proper insertion point.

Even simply asking for the content of a deleted article gets you
suspicious eye from some with "petty AfD enforcement" attitudes.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >> > The fact is, Wikimedia *is* a large organization, it's getting
> larger every
> > > day, and it should start acting like it.
> > >
> > > Anthony
> >
> > Tell me when you get the money together to pay for it.
>
> > geni
>
> I think it got to be a large organization precisely because it didn't
> act like it.

 My apologies to all for taking this thread off-topic.
 Apparently the majority of people on this list are content with the way
things are, and don't think there is any room for improvement, so I'm not
going to waste my time on this thread any further.

Sarah

 Anthony


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Improving articles during AfD

body:
From: Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com>

>When I improve articles on AfD, which is a regular occurrence, I leave notes
on the discussion noting the changes and people regularly change their
votes. If the vote us running heavily for deletion, I drop a note on the
voters page letting them know that I have improved the article.

>There hasn't been a case yet where the vote hasn't changed significantly.
AfD voters are reasonable people and will reconsider their vote if presented
with new information. You just have to tell them that the article has been
improved...

This has been my experience to date. To the best of my recollection EVERY
article I have improved during an AfD/VfD has been kept.

For a recent example, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hanukkah_bush

(the FIRST discussion; scroll down to "Closed discussion from 5 September
nomination of Hanukkah bush").

(The rewritten article was renominated for deletion by someone whom I believe
to be pushing a POV and kept again).


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Foundation-l] New project : movies.mediawiki.org?

body:
GerardM wrote:

>Hoi,
>A movie is often called differently in many languages, even in different
>countries. The same can be said for the names of actors and actresses, I
>assume that you know how to write Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts in at least one
>other character set.
>
>As this kind of information is of a lexicological nature, there is the
>option to have this information in the "Ultimate Wiktionary" where it is of
>value in its own right and it would give you the appropriate information in
>your Wikipedia.
>
>
Of course, one could
* assign a unique ID to each movie
* look up that ID when you want to include the movie into your wikipedia
* request movie information from movies.wikimedia.org by that ID
* have the language-specific data stored on movies.wikimedia as well,
and return the correct ones depending on the caller

Magnus


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: Ant: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia - a policy question?

body:
There were the whole story about ICTY and Bosnian, Croatian and
Serbian. They used translators for all languages (including Bosnian
<-> Croatian <-> Serbian)... Until they realized that people can
understand each other well.

It is hard to understand the problem... Maybe someone from Ireland may
guess what the problem may be. If Irish people developed two a little
bit different standards, I am sure that they would be maybe stronger
in demands for two different Wikipedias.

Standard language is political question and the situation is a lot
different then in English language relations. While English speaking
people don't care for written variant, while cohesion  between Chinese
is much stronger (they developed the whole civilisation on their
writing system) -- people from Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia
feel that standard language is important part of their separate
identities.

Also, majority of people from those countries feel that the name
"Serbo-Croatian" is offensive term. If you say to someone from this
area that (s)he talks Serbo-Croatian, it is almost the same as you say
to some African American that (s)he is a Nigger.

I think that software allows to us to make some "light" tools for
translation between similar standard variants, such as en-uk <->
en-us, sr <-> hr <-> bs, Simplified and Traditional Chinese. As I
said, I think that we can finish Serbian conversion
(http://conversion.vikimedija.org/) in the next couple of months. But,
this is not only our problem. A lot of standardized and
non-standardized languages have and may have the similar problem.
Occitan is the example, but it is not the only one; I am sure that
there are some groups who would like to pronounce/write some
Neapolitan or Sicilian in other way then it is "standardized" on
Wikipedia. In other words, we need some kind of general tool for such
situations.

And to back to SCB relations. There are two important things more:

- All attempts which try to unify Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian would
be treated as an attack by all communities (and not only by Wikipedian
communities). In other words, Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian Wikipedias
should have their own URLs, their own main pages etc.

This means that it was good decision to separate Serbian, Bosnian and
Croatian Wikipedias. It is better to have three strong Wikipedias then
one weak.

Wikipedia is not technical, but cultural project. While we have a lot
of "technical contacts" with a lot of FS and OS communities from
former Yugoslavia, cultural relations are a lot more complex. In that
sense, cooperation between communities from Croatian and Serbian
Wikipedias are important cultural event for our cultures. (I.e., this
is one more thing where Wikipedia made a great success.)

Also, I have to express one my frustration with (international)
Wikipedian community (not with Jimmy, who completely understands the
situation and who is willing to help): A number of times I asked (via
different tools: using the list or the pages on Meta or using the
pages on English Wikipedia) for help to solve some Balkan related
problems. I got something more then zero response. But it is very
interesting to talk what Wikipedia should exist and what should not
even we were working a lot on our communication and our problems. In
other words: if you don't want to help us, just don't make problems to
us.

- Also, again, we are talking about four communities. It is not so
easy as Mark says, because...

1. During around a year and half I was working with one community.
Almost one year we have community strong enough to assimilate all new
Wikipedians to work on Wikipedia which doesn't know for edit wars even
it has more then 14.000 articles and a lot of contributors. I don't
care for adminship on sh:. (I don't even remember when I used admin
privileges on sr: last time.) Merging communities doesn't mean that
some people from sr:, hr: and bs: should become admins on sh:. It
means a lot more.

2. sh:, sr:, hr: and bs: have different relations between people.
While it is not a big deal to become an admin or bureaucrat on sr:,
while community from hr: is at the beginning of similar
implementation, sh: and especially bs: have (as I think) have more
hierarchy: in their communities it is a big deal to become admin (I
think that they don't have any bureaucrat). If we make another kind of
simple merging, community from sr: would have a great majority of
admins. So, this should not be a good way, too.

...

Maybe I am boring to a lot of this list member :) But I think that
more talk about this issue would help to a lot of people to better
understand our problems.

On 10/13/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Delirium wrote:
> > Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> >> I absolutely agree.  At this stage a merger may be nothing more than
> >> an intellectual ideal.  It could be years before the conditions are
> >> right, if ever.  The most that can be done now is to make the
> >> opportunity available.
> >
> >
> > Is it really a good precedent to separate Wikipedias based on political
> > differences among groups of people?
>
> No, it is a terrible precedent, but it happened before we understood it
> well enough.
>
> It seems to me quite possible to move forward gently and slowly and to
> get consensus, and that there's no reason to force people together
> before they are ready.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
We need more people with access to CheckUser, because I don't scale,
and we're under a nasty vandalbot attack. Proposal at:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Quick_and_dirty_Checkuser_policy_proposal

Discussion at

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Quick_and_dirty_Checkuser_policy_proposal

Also, it's really slow, and I've had it time out for five hour
stretches before when the DB's been under heavy load. So if anyone
with a good grasp of the MediaWiki data structures wants to rewrite it
to be faster/less load, please do!

My comments at the above:

As the guy who uses it now on en: (mostly so Tim Starling can get on
with development and sysadmin matters), a few notes:

    * _You have to pick people you can trust, and then trust them all
the way._ Various people are going to ask to have this logged seven
ways to Sunday to protect against possible abuses - but adding red
tape is just going to be a massive PITA and not actually affect
whether the CheckUser checker can be trusted to act with confidence.
Basically, we have to pick people we trust not to use the power for
evil. Like we do admins and bureaucrats, but more so.
    * Access by all bureaucrats is good IMO. They're highly trusted
people. If people aren't sure about this one, we can reconfirm all
current bureaucrats one by one.
    * Remember that a small number of the developers (those who have
access to the database) already have this power and use it. They
control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and
know all ? because they have to have complete control in order to
administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy,
because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend
access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few
people for the job.
    * It helps if the person understands various network foo. If not I
am most happy to help and show how to interpret stuff. It's an art,
not a science.
    * I really need to write up a Help: page for CheckUser checkers.
    * taw on pl: has CheckUser for pl:, I think ? worth asking for ideas?

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Adding page view restrictions

body:
Sechan, Gabe wrote:
> I'm using MediaWiki to create a corporate wiki, and need to allow
> access to certain pages only to certain groups.  I don't see full
> support for this in MediaWiki as of 1.4.11

There is no support for that in MediaWiki; I recommend you use some
other product which suits your requirements.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalbot range block

body:
Carnildo wrote:

>I've blocked 83.92.128.0/24 for 24 hours, as all four of the vandalbot
>IP addresses I saw go by are from that range.  The range belongs to
>TeleDanmark (tele.dk), and claims to be part of their ADSL IP space.
>The full TeleDanmark space appears to be 83.88.0.0/13, but since the
>vandalbot appears to be working from the smaller space, I've only
>blocked that.

You know, that looks *remarkably* like User:XAL's range ... perhaps
it's not Wik after all.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalbot range block

body:
On 13/10/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> >I've blocked 83.92.128.0/24 for 24 hours, as all four of the vandalbot
> >IP addresses I saw go by are from that range.  The range belongs to
> >TeleDanmark (tele.dk), and claims to be part of their ADSL IP space.
> >The full TeleDanmark space appears to be 83.88.0.0/13, but since the
> >vandalbot appears to be working from the smaller space, I've only
> >blocked that.
>
> You know, that looks *remarkably* like User:XAL's range ... perhaps
> it's not Wik after all.

This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the
history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it
seems to just predate me...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalbot range block

body:
>This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the
>history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it
>seems to just predate me...

Wik ([[User:Wik]]) was a Wikipedian dedicated to the point of
obsession. He mostly made very good edits, but was somewhat brittle
and abrasive. Eventually he got pissed off with another user doing
things to his talk page and wanted it *stopped*, and eventually wrote
a nasty vandalbot to do just that ([[User:Vandalbot]]). He returned as
[[User:Gzornenplatz]], but continued to be abrasive in the same way,
and ended up at the AC. It turned out he was definitely Wik. He came
back again as [[User:NoPuzzleStranger]], editing from open proxies;
and continued okay for a while, but then was abrasive again in exactly
the same way; then Lucky 6.9 noticed that "NoPuzzleStranger" was an
anagram of "User Gzornenplatz". Then he (just recently) started a bot
to watch particular pages and create a new username and edit them the
moment they were unlocked. Fun stuff.

He's firmly dedicated to Wikipedia and still makes mostly good edits.
However, he (a) has great problems working well with others (b) does
nasty things when he doesn't get his way. So he isn't very well
favoured.

(Any details above incorrect, please correct!)

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] The first phase of Serbian extension to MediaWiki is
	done

body:
(This mail goes to wikipedia-l and foundation-l just as an announce. I
assume that we should talk at mediawiki-l mailing list.)

We are at the end of the first phase. Brane Jelisavcic finalized
Zhengzhu's work. It is working now on
http://conversion.vikimedija.org/ (using MediaWiki 1.5rc4). If anyone
has some questions about that, please, ask it here because Brane reads
this list.

We want to implement this extension on Serbian Wikipedia. What should
we do for that? (I.e., is it enough to ask here, or we should ask for
it somewhere else?)

After the implementation of this part, we would start to work on the
next phase (read-write access to all variants).


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The first phase of Serbian extension to MediaWiki is
	done


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Fwd: The first phase of Serbian extension to MediaWiki
	is done

body:
(I used mediawiki-l instead of wikitech-l list...)

We are at the end of the first phase. Brane Jelisavcic finalized
Zhengzhu's work. It is working now on
http://conversion.vikimedija.org/ (using MediaWiki 1.5rc4). If anyone
has some questions about that, please, ask it here because Brane reads
this list.

We want to implement this extension on Serbian Wikipedia. What should
we do for that? (I.e., is it enough to ask here, or we should ask for
it somewhere else?)

After the implementation of this part, we would start to work on the
next phase (read-write access to all variants).


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Vandalbot range block

body:
"David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:fbad4e140510130856u71d295e2xa76cb1bdaca039c9 at mail.gmail.com...
>This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the
>history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it
>seems to just predate me...

[nice little potted history of the [[Wik]] affair snipped]

Am I alone in thinking this really should be recorded somewhere for
posterity, if not on :en: then maybe on :meta:?

I would also like to have access to similar potted histories for
[[Michael]], [[Lir]] and [[Plautus Satire]] (although I understand
[[Michael]] is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation now?) whose names crop
up repeatedly with the assumption that everybody knows who they are and what
they did.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Ant: Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia - a policy question?

body:
"Milos Rancic" <millosh at mutualaid.org> wrote:
[snip]
> Also, majority of people from those countries feel that the name
> "Serbo-Croatian" is offensive term. If you say to someone from this
> area that (s)he talks Serbo-Croatian, it is almost the same as you say
> to some African American that (s)he is a Nigger.

This has to be a relatively recent development, because we had some very
good friends when I was small (about 30 years ago now :-) and the husband
was quite happy to say that he was, and spoke, Serbo-Croat: he was proud of
it IIRC.

I'm not aware that the term "nigger" has ever been quite so acceptable to
those to whom it has been applied in a pejorative way.

I'm also not aware that the term "Serbo-Croat" has ever been used as an
actual hate term in the same way as "nigger", but I'm happy to be educated
if you can provide sources...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Ryan W. (Merovingian)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ANON watchlist?

body:
I've noticed the same thing.  I assume that it's a "clueless newbie" just seeing if the "Edit this page" button really works, and then running back to undo it, so that (s)he doesn't get "yelled at" by a "mod".  I think the uninitiated think Wikipedia is a lot like a forum, where we kick out just anybody we don't like.

--Ryan

> From: actionforum at comcast.net
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] ANON watchlist?
>
> One thing that has puzzled me, is the behavior of some ANONs who
> will insert a bit of vandalism or trash, or just a , or something
> into a page and then immediately back it out with a revert.   Could
> they be using this as a sort of "watchlist"?  They put a marker
> into the history, so that when they return to the page, that can
> tell what changed since the last time they visited.
> As for the list itself, they could just store pages they are
> interested in, as we browser favorites.
> I've wondered about the behavior, because it occurrs too often in
> the same way just to be sandbox behavior.
>                               -- Silverback

--
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
From: Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com>
>
> When I improve articles on AfD, which is a regular occurrence, I
> leave notes
> on the discussion noting the changes and people regularly change their
> votes. If the vote us running heavily for deletion, I drop a note
> on the
> voters page letting them know that I have improved the article.
>
> There hasn't been a case yet where the vote hasn't changed
> significantly.
> AfD voters are reasonable people and will reconsider their vote if
> presented
> with new information. You just have to tell them that the article
> has been
> improved..
>

     This has been my experience to date. To the best of my
recollection EVERY
     article I have improved during an AfD/VfD has been kept.

     For a recent example, see:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/
Hanukkah_bush

     (the FIRST discussion; scroll down to "Closed discussion from 5
September
     nomination of Hanukkah bush").
     (The rewritten article was renominated for deletion by someone
whom I believe
     to be pushing a POV and kept again).

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>On 10/13/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>> * Remember that a small number of the developers (those who have
>> access to the database) already have this power and use it. They
>> control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and
>> know all ? because they have to have complete control in order to
>> administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy,
>> because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend
>> access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few
>> people for the job.

> Do you really think there are people at other top-50 websites with unlogged
>and unfettered access to this sort of information?
> If so, do you think they had to go through any background checks, and sign
>a non-disclosure agreement?
> It certainly *is* possible to set up a system so that *no single person*
>can "see all and know all". I would hope all the other top-50 websites have
>set up such a system.

You can either try to Taylorise the process of trusting people, or you
can get in people you trust. Sysadmins *could* do any destructive
thing they want. But they pretty much *don't*. I wonder why that is.

Usually it works that the sysadmins have the access they need to keep
stuff working. Around here, where all day every day is a "WTF?!"
moment, the present process seems to work. I'm sure you can outline
many reasons why the present way of doing things is utterly broken and
can't possibly work in theory, never mind that it does in practice.

You don't actually know much about systems administration in practice, do you?

- d.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>die, who knows? And since the contents of the deleted article were fine
>>I intend to use that text as a basis for the recreation, which means the
>>GFDL requires that the edit history be restored along with it.
>>
>>
> Surely there are other ways to approximate compliance with the GFDL other
>than the history maintained by Wikipedia. But in any case, the edit history
>of deleted articles is already available.
>
>
I suppose I could include attributions for the various contributors
using edit summaries, HTML comments, or on the talk page. But this seems
like an awful lot of extra effort to go to to fulfil the letter of AfD's
"law", what would be the point when I can just undelete the thing and
have the edit history back in full?


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

subject: [Wikitech-l] History flow exporter script update

body:
I had some trouble using the script [1] for extracting the xml dump
into History Flow's format, so I tweaked it.

Details are available [2] for those interested.

[1]
http://thecap.org/projects/expand-wiki-export.py

[2]
http://dunck.us/anabasis/archives/2005/10/13/getting-started-with-history-flow/


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Anthony DiPierro (wikispam at inbox.org) [051014 04:54]:
>
> > My apologies to all for taking this thread off-topic.
> > Apparently the majority of people on this list are content with the way
> > things are, and don't think there is any room for improvement, so I'm
> not
> > going to waste my time on this thread any further.
>
>
> The majority of people on this list are concerned with the content side of
> en:. Why aren't you saying all this on wikitech-l?

Umm, dude, you're the one who initiated the thread.

- d.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>Which article are we actually talking about? If there's new additional
>evidence in the form of the Wayback machine links it explains why a
>regular Google didn't work which would make it quite likely for the
>original decision to be overturned. Especially when the creator has
>another comic included.
>
>
The webcomic "The Jar":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Jar

The archives used to be located here:
http://www.montroseacademy.com/jar/ and some of it can be seen via
Wayback Machine at
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.montroseacademy.com/jar/ .
Kittyhawk's subsequent webcomic has an article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkling_Generation_Valkyrie_Yuuki with
the old VfD discussion for it pasted on its talk page.

I'd try a VfU, but the policy right on the VfU page is quite confusing
on this point. It says:

Deletion Review is also to be used if significant new information has
come to light since a deletion /and/ the information in the deleted
article would be useful to write a new article. This process should
/not/ be used simply because you disagree with a deletion debate's
reasoning ? only if you think the debate was interpreted incorrectly by
the closer. This page is about /process/, not content.

I've got new information and the information in the deleted article
would be useful to write a new article, but I don't agree with the
deletion debate's reasoning and I think the debate was interpreted
correctly by the closer (the result was clearly "delete", I don't fault
whoever pressed the button). I'd like to see the policy situation
clarified rather than just making an exception in this one case since
it's not like this one case is particularly important on its own.


body:
"Anthony DiPierro" <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
[snip]
>  If sysadmins can do any destructive thing they want, then you haven't
> created a very secure system.

Pick the most secure version of UNIX you can find.

Log in as root.

Invoke the following:
$ rm -r /

How destructive do you actually want?

(I recall hearing a story of how somebody did this and, having interrupted
the process mid-destroy, managed with the help of some friends to resurrect
the system because he happened to have a copy of EMACS running (i.e. loaded
into memory and not susceptible to instant deletion) and was therefore able
to type in various vital system files by reading the hex off another
terminal. I wish I could back it up with a URL, but it's the end of my work
day here, and I'm going home :-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already there.
>
The article histories of deleted articles have been cleared out of the
database before, it could happen again. I don't trust it for long-term
storage.

>I really think you're getting all worried over nothing.
>
I guess I'll see whether I am when I see what happens when I undelete
it. :) I hope I am. Regardless, though, it'd be nice to have a clearer
way to resurrect deleted articles like this and ideally a policy of
disregarding votes that lack justification. That's what sparked my
current disgruntlement.


body:
On 13/10/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Anthony DiPierro" <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> [snip]
> >  If sysadmins can do any destructive thing they want, then you haven't
> > created a very secure system.
>
>
> Pick the most secure version of UNIX you can find.
>
> Log in as root.
>
> Invoke the following:
> $ rm -r /
>
> How destructive do you actually want?
>
> (I recall hearing a story of how somebody did this and, having interrupted
> the process mid-destroy, managed with the help of some friends to resurrect
> the system because he happened to have a copy of EMACS running (i.e. loaded
> into memory and not susceptible to instant deletion) and was therefore able
> to type in various vital system files by reading the hex off another
> terminal. I wish I could back it up with a URL, but it's the end of my work
> day here, and I'm going home :-)

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/msg/7746ec4c7cd47ffd
(or Message-ID:<_n7z!pk at rpi.edu>) sounds like what you mean, I think.

I believe the technical term is *shudder*...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
...

Speaking of duplication of content.

On 13/10/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Andre Engels wrote:
> <snip>
> > EITHER Serbian and Croatian are the same language, and then we should
> > not have separate Wikipedias for them,
> > OR they are not the same language, and then we should not have a
> > combined Wikipedia.
> >
> > Doing both is silly. And that's about the weakest expression I can think of.
> >
>
> I agree. It would be like having an American English Wikipedia, a
> Commonwealth English Wikipedia, a Generic Other English Wikipeida, and
> our current English Wikipedia.
>
> Does anyone ever wonder where the phrase "Balkanisation is evil" came
> from? We're staring it in the face. We've got duplication of effort
> where we don't need it. Either they're the same language or they're not.
> Time to stop pretending that it's some weird quantum superposition of
> both states at once. On a macroscopic scale, it just doesn't happen.
>
> - --
> Alphax                      |   /"\
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> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Is Wikip/media politic?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Jakob Voss wrote:
>>== The famous "IBM-5-minutes-vandalism"-myth ==
>
> I always say it like this:
>
> "For certain types of vandalism which were easy to identify
> algorithmically, the median time for reversion is under 5 minutees."
>
> I said this at a talk *at IBM* and asked Martin Wattenberg if this was a
> fair way to state it, and he said it was perfect.

That's right. But you know journalists don't tend to take statements
like this literaly - I doubt that everyone knows what a median or
identifying something algorithmically is ;-)

By the way I'm sure we'll get some newer and more detailed numbers soon.

Greetings,
Jakob


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>  You say that it's possible at every organization, then you say it's
> possible to avoid it at the very largest organizations.
>  The fact is, Wikimedia *is* a large organization, it's getting larger every
> day, and it should start acting like it.
>
>
>  Anthony

Tell me when you get the money together to pay for it.

--
geni


from_name: Alphax

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism and newpages/RC patrol and
	buckets of crap

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Tony Sidaway wrote:
<snip>
> RC patrol needs guidance.  This is the sharp end, not only in the
> fight to keep the wiki healthy, but in recruiting the new editors who
> will take our place when we move on to other things.  We must expend
> thought on coming up with guidelines, or etiquette, for greeting new
> editors.  Seat-of-pants methods have perhaps outlived their
> usefulness.
>

*steps up* Hello, I've done RC patrol, Shortpages patrol and (sometimes)
Newpages and Newusers patrol. I'm also a member of the welcoming
committee. One of the first things I do when I log on each day is to
check my watchlist and welcome any logged-in users who've edited one of
my watched articles. Sometimes I have to revert newbie tests, sometimes
I have to put up with bad writing, but on the whole it's not too bad.
You get the chance to be the first interaction that people have with
someone who's been around a while, and hopefully they read some of the
things that you suggest to them.

Once in a while, you have to reach for the LART, but it's better to
educate and inform them before they've gone completely bonkers and teach
them the value of the encyclopedia instead of waiting until they go off
the rails on us, isn't it?

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ANON watchlist?

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

Ryan W. (Merovingian) wrote:

>I've noticed the same thing. I assume that it's a "clueless newbie" just
seeing if the "Edit this page" button really works, and then running
back to undo it, so that (s)he doesn't get "yelled at" by a "mod". I
think the uninitiated think Wikipedia is a lot like a forum, where we
kick out just anybody we don't like.
>
>--Ryan

I think this is right. I usually make a point to leave {{anon}} on the
talk pages of users I see doing this. It means that they don't
actually want to do any harm, and are interested in the idea, so I
think they ought to join the community.

Ryan
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes speedy it
>>>you'll have others on your side to restore it.
>>
>>No, you can't.  If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
>>previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
>>accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.
>>
>>Kelly
>>_______________________________________________
>
> That would be against policy unless the articles were similar.
> I would start a VFU debate and make sure I'd add proof this comic was
> indeed popular.
> With the lack of Google hits initially cited it was unverifiable for
> the original voters. If you can change that they might change their
> mind.
>

Unfortunately, people seem to think that AfD is Perfect and that you
can't undelete if the AfD was "valid"; I've seen several votes on VfU
simply saying "Keep deleted, valid AfD". What AfD (and VfU) needs is a
swift kick in the pants.

And possibly the bloc voters need one too.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
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from_name: Anthere

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> We need more people with access to CheckUser, because I don't scale,
> and we're under a nasty vandalbot attack. Proposal at:
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Quick_and_dirty_Checkuser_policy_proposal
>
> Discussion at
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Quick_and_dirty_Checkuser_policy_proposal
>

Hi,

Note that it would be nice that a global decision is made rather than a
local one. If the global decision is made that on projects where there
is an arbcom, only arbcom members should have access to the tool, then
only arbcom members will have access to the tool.

if we agree that others can have also access to the tool, then agreeing
  on local editors to have access to the tool will be fine.

> Also, it's really slow, and I've had it time out for five hour
> stretches before when the DB's been under heavy load. So if anyone
> with a good grasp of the MediaWiki data structures wants to rewrite it
> to be faster/less load, please do!

yup :-)

> My comments at the above:
>
> As the guy who uses it now on en: (mostly so Tim Starling can get on
> with development and sysadmin matters), a few notes:
>
>     * _You have to pick people you can trust, and then trust them all
> the way._ Various people are going to ask to have this logged seven
> ways to Sunday to protect against possible abuses - but adding red
> tape is just going to be a massive PITA and not actually affect
> whether the CheckUser checker can be trusted to act with confidence.
> Basically, we have to pick people we trust not to use the power for
> evil. Like we do admins and bureaucrats, but more so.
>     * Access by all bureaucrats is good IMO. They're highly trusted
> people. If people aren't sure about this one, we can reconfirm all
> current bureaucrats one by one.

I doubt very much that the global policy will be to grant all
bureaucrats access to check user tool. I will personnaly oppose it very
very very strongly.

>     * Remember that a small number of the developers (those who have
> access to the database) already have this power and use it. They
> control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and
> know all ? because they have to have complete control in order to
> administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy,
> because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend
> access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few
> people for the job.

Currently, this is not done any more by developers.
This is done by a few people, who got access sometimes within the
current rules, and sometimes against the current rules, plus stewards.
The policy to give access is under discussion on meta.
I am not very happy with the current proposal which seems unfinished to me.
Some people support informing editors that they are ip-checked for
exemple, but I fear this is very unpractical.

Currently, the check user log is private (only visible to those with
check user access). Imho, this is just not a good idea. I think it
should be public somewhere.

As for solving bottlenecks, I tend to agree with you when I see the
amazing number of ip-check you handle per week. I am not entirely sure
it is really required to do so by the way :-)
But fixing a bottleneck by giving such an access to all bureaucrats is a
bit too huge of a step. Bureaucrat status is given quite liberally on
some projects, so it is to my opinion, just out of question.

>     * It helps if the person understands various network foo. If not I
> am most happy to help and show how to interpret stuff. It's an art,
> not a science.

True, but it is easy enough to write a help page for check user editors.

>     * I really need to write up a Help: page for CheckUser checkers.
>     * taw on pl: has CheckUser for pl:, I think ? worth asking for ideas?

Taw is an example of a person who had check user access through a system
I have no idea. Access is currently given out of the current rules. I do
not find that so good. I do not doubt he is trusted by his community,
but I have no proof of this. As a steward, so giving such access, I
wonder how I can justify saying NO to a request when I have no idea why
some editors were told YES and got the access.

It is a bit disturbing :-(

> - d.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Andre Engels wrote:
<snip>
> EITHER Serbian and Croatian are the same language, and then we should
> not have separate Wikipedias for them,
> OR they are not the same language, and then we should not have a
> combined Wikipedia.
>
> Doing both is silly. And that's about the weakest expression I can think of.
>

I agree. It would be like having an American English Wikipedia, a
Commonwealth English Wikipedia, a Generic Other English Wikipeida, and
our current English Wikipedia.

Does anyone ever wonder where the phrase "Balkanisation is evil" came
from? We're staring it in the face. We've got duplication of effort
where we don't need it. Either they're the same language or they're not.
Time to stop pretending that it's some weird quantum superposition of
both states at once. On a macroscopic scale, it just doesn't happen.

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from_name: Stephen Bain

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Per-article blocking (was: Article quality
	deterioration)

body:
On 10/12/05, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>  There's was a poll at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Per-article_blocking and only 6%
> oppose per-article blocking (84% support and 10% are neutral). The last vote
> was cast over a month ago, so I think we can accept the results are being
> pretty conclusive. At the very least, this should be put into trial use as
> soon as the code is working.
>  Carbonite

The perfect application for this is admins doing 3RR blocks. That way
the 3RR will really be an electric fence, keeping editors away from
the 'dangerous' articles but letting them graze on the rest of the
wiki.

Trial use should start with these sorts of blocks, once the code is turned on.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
David Gerard wrote:

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>>On 10/13/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>* Remember that a small number of the developers (those who have
>>>access to the database) already have this power and use it. They
>>>control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and
>>>know all ? because they have to have complete control in order to
>>>administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy,
>>>because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend
>>>access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few
>>>people for the job.
>
>
>>Do you really think there are people at other top-50 websites with unlogged
>>and unfettered access to this sort of information?
>>If so, do you think they had to go through any background checks, and sign
>>a non-disclosure agreement?
>>It certainly *is* possible to set up a system so that *no single person*
>>can "see all and know all". I would hope all the other top-50 websites have
>>set up such a system.
>
>
>
> You can either try to Taylorise the process of trusting people, or you
> can get in people you trust. Sysadmins *could* do any destructive
> thing they want. But they pretty much *don't*. I wonder why that is.

Most of them do not do anything wrong because anything they do can be
easily seen by ANYONE (sysops and non sysops).
And aside from deleting an image, everything they do can be reverted.

If they block, someone else can unblock
If they delete a page, someone else can undelete
If they protect a page, someone else can unprotect

Reversion of an admin action is actually done pretty frequently.

Also, some sysops make mistakes, but how many were ever unsysoped for
their errors ? Hardly any on the english wikipedia.

They pretty much do not do anything destructive, because they are
intelligent people who know not to do bad things AND because others can
revert what they do. So there can not be any destruction.

And this is why, nothing being definitive, few are punished. I am quite
sure that if their action were final, there will be more punishment.

What a check user can do can hardly be checked by anyone. And definitly
not by the common user, who have no idea of what is going on. So, how
could he complain ? Note that this is in favor of having more check user
editors.

Also, a check user can do destructing things, that no other check user
can restore. He can publish ips of an editor. And once the information
is known, nothing can be done to have people magically forgot the
information. It is OUT.

Note that anything a steward can do is visible by anyone as well (on
meta log), and can be reverted by anyone as well.

This is NOT the case of check user right now.

> Usually it works that the sysadmins have the access they need to keep
> stuff working. Around here, where all day every day is a "WTF?!"
> moment, the present process seems to work. I'm sure you can outline
> many reasons why the present way of doing things is utterly broken and
> can't possibly work in theory, never mind that it does in practice.
>
> You don't actually know much about systems administration in practice, do you?

Actually, Karynn suggested all checkuser rightsholders should sign a NDA
with the Foundation. It could be a good idea...;

Anthere

> - d.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>die, who knows? And since the contents of the deleted article were fine
> >>I intend to use that text as a basis for the recreation, which means the
> >>GFDL requires that the edit history be restored along with it.
> >>
> >>
> > Surely there are other ways to approximate compliance with the GFDL
> other
> >than the history maintained by Wikipedia. But in any case, the edit
> history
> >of deleted articles is already available.
> >
> >
> I suppose I could include attributions for the various contributors
> using edit summaries, HTML comments, or on the talk page. But this seems
> like an awful lot of extra effort to go to to fulfil the letter of AfD's
> "law", what would be the point when I can just undelete the thing and
> have the edit history back in full?

Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already there. In
case you didn't understand what I meant, when you click on "history" there
will be a link which reads "View X deleted
edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Ria_Fulton>?"
and clicking on that will provide you with the history information (anyone
can see the edit history, not just admins). Furthermore, history only
undeletion is allowed without a vote anyway (at least, it was last time I
checked, a few months ago). Finally, it's really not that hard to copy/paste
the edit history into the talk page, and that approximately fulfills the
GFDL requirements as well as any other system being used on the wiki.

I really think you're getting all worried over nothing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
> I'd try a VfU, but the policy right on the VfU page is quite confusing
> on this point.

Here's where the policy change was made,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_undeletion/Vfu_header&diff=23560429&oldid=23518465,
on 20 September 2005. The edit summary was "Consensus has been reached,
being bold." I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.

Clearly there wasn't a consensus for this policy change, and I don't see a
problem with being bold and reverting the change.

Anthony


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already there. In
> case you didn't understand what I meant, when you click on "history" there
> will be a link which reads "View X deleted
> edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Ria_Fulton>?"
> and clicking on that will provide you with the history information (anyone
> can see the edit history, not just admins). Furthermore, history only
> undeletion is allowed without a vote anyway (at least, it was last time I
> checked, a few months ago).

And yet my request for a history only undelete of [[White Horse Circle]]
a few weeks ago became a vote.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already there.
> >
> The article histories of deleted articles have been cleared out of the
> database before, it could happen again. I don't trust it for long-term
> storage.

Fair enough. In this case typing "based on deleted article by Oleg
Alexandrov and Hahnchen" into the edit summary wouldn't be so hard though
:). You could even give credit to Mr. 12.214.62.234
<http://12.214.62.234>if you care. And now that I look at it, Oleg and
Hahnchen seem to have only
removed information, so they don't have to be credited anyway. So all that's
left is Mr. 12.214.62.234 <http://12.214.62.234>. I don't think the GFDL
requires us to credit an IP address.

But yeah, it's the principle of the thing, I guess. Incidently, is the
information about the authors of the deleted versions kept in a part of the
database that might get cleared out? I'd hope not, but now that you mention
it maybe it is.

>I really think you're getting all worried over nothing.
> >
> I guess I'll see whether I am when I see what happens when I undelete
> it. :) I hope I am. Regardless, though, it'd be nice to have a clearer
> way to resurrect deleted articles like this and ideally a policy of
> disregarding votes that lack justification. That's what sparked my
> current disgruntlement.

I agree, but it really has nothing to do with GFDL attribution requirements.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already
> there. In
> > case you didn't understand what I meant, when you click on "history"
> there
> > will be a link which reads "View X deleted
> > edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Ria_Fulton>?"
> > and clicking on that will provide you with the history information
> (anyone
> > can see the edit history, not just admins). Furthermore, history only
> > undeletion is allowed without a vote anyway (at least, it was last time
> I
> > checked, a few months ago).
>
> And yet my request for a history only undelete of [[White Horse Circle]]
> a few weeks ago became a vote.

Just because admins *can* do something doesn't mean they have to. On
[[Wikipedia:Undeletion policy]], it says ""History only" undeletions can
always be performed without needing to list the articles on the votes for
undeletion page, and don't need to be kept for a full ten days. Article
histories that include copyright
violations<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems>should
not be undeleted." Of course, this is the same page gives a reason
for undeletion saying: "Article wrongly deleted (ie that Wikipedia would be
a better encyclopedia with the article restored). This may happen because
they were not aware of the discussion on Wikipedia:Articles for
deletion<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion>(AFD)
or Wikipedia:Miscellaneous
deletion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellaneous_deletion>(MD),
or because it was deleted without being listed on AFD, or because they
objected to deletion on *bona fide* grounds but were improperly ignored."


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Which article are we actually talking about? If there's new additional
evidence in the form of the Wayback machine links it explains why a
regular Google didn't work which would make it quite likely for the
original decision to be overturned. Especially when the creator has
another comic included.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

MAURICE FRANK wrote:
>>Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:11:13 -0700
>>From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
>>Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: The curse of Jack
>
<snip>
>>English edition). Let's treat the public right.
>
>
> Yes let's, eh?
>
> If you claim to "be entitled to anything", you get
> permablocked for it and told that it counts as making
> legal threats. Which it doesn't anywhere else in the
> world.
>

Wikipedia is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, a private organisation,
not any kind of government. The only "rights" you have are what they
grant you.

> If you really make legal threats, and act on them, and
> send "unpleasant emails", you get unblocked.
>

1. Who blocked you?
2. What was the reason for the block?
3. Why has nobody unblocked you?

The results speak for themselves.

- --
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subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
I don't see how we can compare the security of Wikipedia with that of
other Top 50 websites. We already have the "large security hole" that
any one can edit and that's what put wikipedia where it is now. Other
top 50 websites aren't editable.

Also, however much I like him to be, David, is not scaleable on his
own. If Wikipedia grows, so does the need for people with access to IP
information to deal swiftly with vandalbots and very much confirmed
sockpuppets (not just suspected ones).

The need is there. All we need to agree on is who we give the access to.

IMO giving it to the arbcom so they can swiftly handle cases would be
a good thing and perhaps it can be given to a few more trusted people
so it's easy to find an active person with such access in an
emergency.

--Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] ANON watchlist?

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

In any case, they aren't causing harm, so I don't think it's worth any
fuss.

- - Ryan

JAY JG wrote:

>> From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
>>
>> On 10/13/05, actionforum at comcast.net <actionforum at comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>> One thing that has puzzled me, is the behavior of some ANONs
>>> who
>> will insert a bit of vandalism or trash, or just a , or something
>> into a page and then immediately back it out with a revert.
>> Could they be using this as a sort of "watchlist"?
>>
>> Anons don't have watchlists. It is probably becuase they don't
>> realy belive that wikipedia can be edited by anyone. This type of
>> people are the people who {{test}} is for.
>
>
> I've seen some IP addresses do this multiple time over a period of
> days or even weeks. Based on the edits, it's clearly the same
> individual doing it, so I don't think your explanation covers that
> case.
>
> Jay.

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from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] ANON watchlist?

body:
>From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
>
>On 10/13/05, actionforum at comcast.net <actionforum at comcast.net> wrote:
> > One thing that has puzzled me, is the behavior of some ANONs who will
>insert a bit of vandalism or trash, or just a , or something into a page
>and then immediately back it out with a revert.   Could they be using this
>as a sort of "watchlist"?
>
>Anons don't have watchlists. It is probably becuase they don't realy
>belive that wikipedia can be edited by anyone. This type of people are
>the people who {{test}} is for.

I've seen some IP addresses do this multiple time over a period of days or
even weeks. Based on the edits, it's clearly the same individual doing it,
so I don't think your explanation covers that case.

Jay.


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] ANON watchlist?

body:
One thing that has puzzled me, is the behavior of some ANONs who will insert a bit of vandalism or trash, or just a , or something into a page and then immediately back it out with a revert.   Could they be using this as a sort of "watchlist"?  They put a marker into the history, so that when they return to the page, that can tell what changed since the last time they visited.
As for the list itself, they could just store pages they are interested in, as we browser favorites.
I've wondered about the behavior, because it occurrs too often in the same way just to be sandbox behavior.
                             -- Silverback


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> I don't see how we can compare the security of Wikipedia with that of
> other Top 50 websites. We already have the "large security hole" that
> any one can edit and that's what put wikipedia where it is now. Other
> top 50 websites aren't editable.
>
> Also, however much I like him to be, David, is not scaleable on his
> own. If Wikipedia grows, so does the need for people with access to IP
> information to deal swiftly with vandalbots and very much confirmed
> sockpuppets (not just suspected ones).
>
> The need is there. All we need to agree on is who we give the access to.
>
> IMO giving it to the arbcom so they can swiftly handle cases would be
> a good thing and perhaps it can be given to a few more trusted people
> so it's easy to find an active person with such access in an
> emergency.
>
> --Mgm
> _______________________________________________

To go a step further...

Could the arbcom make a decision of agreeing to give check user access
to more arbcom members ?

ant


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Ant: Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia - a policy
	question?

body:
This was periodically, not only recent... Croatian linguists always
called the language "Croatian or Serbian" (and even just "Croatian")
while jargons in Croatia and Serbia was always "Croatian" and
"Serbian". But, some people still say that they speak Serbo-Croatian.

Also, keep in mind that "Serbo-Croatian" language name supported with
a lot of force. And this force was one of the main reasons for bloody
war in 1990s.

Yes, some people felt SFRY as their country and Serbo-Croatian as
their language. But, history of Yugoslavia (between 1918 and 1991) was
full of national based conflicts (especially between Croats and
Serbs).

On 10/13/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Milos Rancic" <millosh at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> [snip]
> > Also, majority of people from those countries feel that the name
> > "Serbo-Croatian" is offensive term. If you say to someone from this
> > area that (s)he talks Serbo-Croatian, it is almost the same as you say
> > to some African American that (s)he is a Nigger.
>
> This has to be a relatively recent development, because we had some very
> good friends when I was small (about 30 years ago now :-) and the husband
> was quite happy to say that he was, and spoke, Serbo-Croat: he was proud of
> it IIRC.
>
> I'm not aware that the term "nigger" has ever been quite so acceptable to
> those to whom it has been applied in a pejorative way.
>
> I'm also not aware that the term "Serbo-Croat" has ever been used as an
> actual hate term in the same way as "nigger", but I'm happy to be educated
> if you can provide sources...
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ANON watchlist?

body:
On the pages I watch, they seem to be anon proxies.  Sometimes they will legimately make good faith edits, after inserting some nonsense, remember to remove the nonsense at the time.  Using the proxies, usually implies some level of sophistation, unlike  a true novice.

There are anon proxies that will switch to a new proxy on the list with practically every web access.  I've seen the IP address of the ANON change, yet the garbage get removed  within a minute or two, by the new IP, and the new IP only has that edit in their contrib list.  I think it would be a painful way to operate, because you'd either have to note what IP you used when you last visited the page, or perhaps see two anon edits in a row, and check to see if that diff, was consistent with what you would have done.  Then you could diff from that point to the current version to see the changes, since your last visit.

I think it occurs too often and is too stereotyped to just be newbies.

                      -- Silverback

-------------- Original message --------------

> I've noticed the same thing. I assume that it's a "clueless newbie" just seeing
> if the "Edit this page" button really works, and then running back to undo it,
> so that (s)he doesn't get "yelled at" by a "mod". I think the uninitiated think
> Wikipedia is a lot like a forum, where we kick out just anybody we don't like.
>
> --Ryan
>
> > From: actionforum at comcast.net
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] ANON watchlist?
> >
> > One thing that has puzzled me, is the behavior of some ANONs who
> > will insert a bit of vandalism or trash, or just a , or something
> > into a page and then immediately back it out with a revert. Could
> > they be using this as a sort of "watchlist"? They put a marker
> > into the history, so that when they return to the page, that can
> > tell what changed since the last time they visited.
> > As for the list itself, they could just store pages they are
> > interested in, as we browser favorites.
> > I've wondered about the behavior, because it occurrs too often in
> > the same way just to be sandbox behavior.
> > -- Silverback
>
> --
> ___________________________________________________
> Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>die, who knows? And since the contents of the deleted article were fine
>>>>I intend to use that text as a basis for the recreation, which means the
>>>>GFDL requires that the edit history be restored along with it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Surely there are other ways to approximate compliance with the GFDL other
>>>
>>>
>>>than the history maintained by Wikipedia. But in any case, the edit history
>>>
>>>
>>>of deleted articles is already available.
>>>
>>>
>>I suppose I could include attributions for the various contributors
>>using edit summaries, HTML comments, or on the talk page. But this seems
>>like an awful lot of extra effort to go to to fulfil the letter of AfD's
>>"law", what would be the point when I can just undelete the thing and
>>have the edit history back in full?
>>
>>
>Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already there. In
>case you didn't understand what I meant, when you click on "history" there
>will be a link which reads "View X deleted
>edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Ria_Fulton>?"
>and clicking on that will provide you with the history information (anyone
>can see the edit history, not just admins). Furthermore, history only
>undeletion is allowed without a vote anyway (at least, it was last time I
>checked, a few months ago). Finally, it's really not that hard to copy/paste
>the edit history into the talk page, and that approximately fulfills the
>GFDL requirements as well as any other system being used on the wiki.
>
>
Those edit histories are pretty useless when they don't show who made
what edit.  They're just a list of names and times.  They're added to
the talk page of things that are transwikied to Wiktionary where it's
just as well to do a fresh rewrite of the article and delete the
so-called history.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Version Number

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> After upgrading from 1.4.10 to 1.4.11, the page:
>
> http://wiki.oxus.net/wiki/Special:Version
>
> Still says version 1.4.10... I even ran the upgrade.php script and everything.

Already known, already been mentioned on the mailing list, and already
been fixed in CVS.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] ANON watchlist?

body:
On 10/13/05, actionforum at comcast.net <actionforum at comcast.net> wrote:
> One thing that has puzzled me, is the behavior of some ANONs who will insert a bit of vandalism or trash, or just a , or something into a page and then immediately back it out with a revert.   Could they be using this as a sort of "watchlist"?

Anons don't have watchlists. It is probably becuase they don't realy
belive that wikipedia can be edited by anyone. This type of people are
the people who {{test}} is for.

--
geni


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database dumps by mail

body:
At 11:50 -0500 13/10/05, Jeremy Dunck wrote:
>On 10/13/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  In particular, two people (Gordon Joly and Fernanda Viegas) have asked
>>  me in the last week if there were such an option.
>
>What would be an appropriate price markup for this?
>
>And where are those two folks?

I am..... here?

Gordo (aka '''LoopZilla''' on many Wikis)

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


from_name: Kerim Friedman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Version Number

body:
After upgrading from 1.4.10 to 1.4.11, the page:

http://wiki.oxus.net/wiki/Special:Version

Still says version 1.4.10... I even ran the upgrade.php script and everything.

Kerim


subject: [Wikitech-l] stuck in preview?

body:
Thanks. That seems to help.

- kerim

On 10/12/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Kerim Friedman wrote:
> > OK. I just tried in Safari and it worked. So it must be something
> > about my Firefox install, not my server. I'm using 1.5b2
>
> Log out, log back in. If that doesn't help, clear your cookies.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>

--
_______________________________________
P. KERIM FRIEDMAN
http://kerim.oxus.net

DO NOT hit "reply" to send me personal messages!
This address is for BULK mail only.
My private address is: kerim (dot) my last name (at) oxus (dot) net.
_______________________________________


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/skins MonoBook.php, 1.57,
	1.58

body:
On 10/13/05, Tom Gilder <tomgilder at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Update of /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/skins
> In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv26413/skins
>
> Modified Files:
>         MonoBook.php
> Log Message:
> re-add jump links with main.css?1 to bypass cached CSS
>
> Index: MonoBook.php
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/skins/MonoBook.php,v
> retrieving revision 1.57
> retrieving revision 1.58
> diff -C2 -d -r1.57 -r1.58
> *** MonoBook.php        13 Oct 2005 02:45:45 -0000      1.57
> --- MonoBook.php        13 Oct 2005 03:01:18 -0000      1.58
> ***************
> *** 57,61 ****
>       <?php $this->html('headlinks') ?>
>       <title><?php $this->text('pagetitle') ?></title>
> !
>       <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" <?php if(empty($this->data['printable']) ) { ?>media="print"<?php } ?> href="<?php $this->text('stylepath') ?>/common/commonPrint.css" />
>
> --- 57,61 ----
>       <?php $this->html('headlinks') ?>
>       <title><?php $this->text('pagetitle') ?></title>
> !
>       <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" <?php if(empty($this->data['printable']) ) { ?>media="print"<?php } ?> href="<?php $this->text('stylepath') ?>/common/commonPrint.css" />
>
> ***************
> *** 86,89 ****
> --- 86,90 ----
>             <?php if($this->data['undelete']) { ?>
<?php     $this->html('undelete') ?>
<?php } ?>
>             <?php if($this->data['newtalk'] ) { ?>
<?php $this->html('newtalk')  ?>
<?php } ?>
> +
<?php $this->msg('jumpto') ?> <?php $this->msg('jumptonavigation') ?>, <?php $this->msg('jumptosearch') ?>

>
>             <?php $this->html('bodytext') ?>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MediaWiki-CVS mailing list
> MediaWiki-CVS at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-cvs
>

I don't think this is the way to do this, it's a lame hack.


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
When I improve articles on AfD, which is a regular occurrence, I leave notes
on the discussion noting the changes and people regularly change their
votes. If the vote us running heavily for deletion, I drop a note on the
voters page letting them know that I have improved the article.

There hasn't been a case yet where the vote hasn't changed significantly.
AfD voters are reasonable people and will reconsider their vote if presented
with new information. You just have to tell them that the article has been
improved..

If it were me seeking the undeletion, I would leave a polite message saying
that you have significant additional information establishing the importance
and verifiability of the webcomic in question. You might also wish to let
others who have participated in this discussion

On 10/13/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 10/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to
> procedure
> > > > VfU is unlikely to help.
> > >
> > > In practice no, but VFU *should* undelete pages on the basis that
> > > Wikipedia is better with them than without. It's in the undeletion
> > > policy; the fact that there's a strong resistance to actually
> > > implementing the undeletion policy is saddening.
> >
> >
> > That's certainly the way it used to be, but this changed at some point:
> > "This process should *not* be used simply because you disagree with a
> > deletion debate's reasoning ? only if you think the debate was
> interpreted
> > incorrectly by the closer. This page is about *process*, not content."
> Not
> > sure who added that, and whether or not there was a vote to completely
> > change the undeletion process, but that's right at the top of the page
> now.
> >
> > Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> > > > speediable
> > >
> > > Recreation of pages deleted *under the deletion policy* (which does
> > > actually apply here).
> >
> >
> > One reason not to improve an article while it's under a VfD debate,
> unless
> > you are sure it's going to win. I've seen a number of times when
> articles
> > were improved significantly after most people voted, they were deleted
> based
> > on those old votes, and now that newly improved content was speediable.
> >
> Isn't that an easy VFU candidate.
> "This article improved significantly during its time on AFD but ended
> up deleted based on old votes." Such requests are easily undeleted.
>
> Try to get such articles undeleted first and see if VFU is really as
> ineffective as you think.
> BTW, were the improvements mentioned in the AFD discussion so the
> closing admin could take it into account?
>
> --Mgm
>
> --Mgm
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


from_name: SJ

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database dumps by mail

body:
On 10/13/05, Brian <reflection at gmail.com> wrote:
> That would take a dedicated geek! Purchasing hard drives, downloading the
> dumps (and old is gigantor), doing it in many languages, keeping stocked on
> packing supplies, dealing with shipping, creating a dynamic website. Erik
> and I actually "joked" about this at some point :)

A dynamic website?  You're right about all the rest.  Providing an
email address to write to ask for this would help.  It does take
dedication, but every person you serve is one more person who now has
reliable, fast access to the information, for years to come -- which
is both rewarding in its own right and a core project goal.

Once you stock up on the right packing supplies and are used to a
regular shipping schedule, it's not a great hassle; you set a
particular dump to copy over (you shouldn't have to download it more
than once per dump-cycle, if you do this regularly) from one drive to
the next; address the package; take a week's worth of packages to the
post at the same time.  last I checked, aduni charged $20 extra
(beyond hardware and shipping) per drive.

We should set up bittorrent streams for the most popular dumps, if
they don't exist; which will be useful in its own right.

To reply to Jeremy: Fernanda V. is in Boston; Gordon I believe is near London.

SJ

> On 10/13/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Can we set up a "db dumps by mail" system, for people to get a full db
> > dump on a hard drive by mail? That's the most efficient way to get
> > the dumps out to people on slow connections.
> >
> > We have done this for the <80GB of content on aduni.org <http://aduni.org>for a few
> > years; charging a bit over the cost of materials for making each
> > drive, to support our bandwidth. It has been extremely popular,
> > particularly in Asia... I am sure the same would be true of a similary
> > WP/WM program.
> >
> > In particular, two people (Gordon Joly and Fernanda Viegas) have asked
> > me in the last week if there were such an option.
> >
> > -- ++SJ
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Brian Mingus
> AIM, Skype: BReflection
> Google talk: reflection at gmail.com
> Phone: (720) 771-2599

--
++SJ


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Vandalbot range block

body:
On 10/13/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I would also like to have access to similar potted histories for
> [[Michael]], [[Lir]] and [[Plautus Satire]] (although I understand
> [[Michael]] is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation now?) whose names crop
> up repeatedly with the assumption that everybody knows who they are and what
> they did.
> --

You can probably find out quite a lot using the obvious links and
working backwards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Completed_requests


from_name: Jason Holt

subject: [Wikitech-l] Patch: SSL client certificate authentication

body:
This 17-line patch maps SSL client certificates, which could be either those
used in my pseudonymity package "nym" or traditionally issued certificates, to
IP addresses in the reserved 10.0.0.0 network.  I have a live MediaWiki
installation which uses this patch with nym to allow pseudonymous editing as I
described in my proposal last week.  nym-0.3, which includes the patch, can be
found here:

http://www.lunkwill.org/src/nym/

This is the code:

    if ( $wgMapClientCertToIP && isset( $_SERVER['SSL_CLIENT_M_SERIAL'] ) ) {
        # This is a little classier, but would require
        # more codebase changes and might cause subtle bugs
        # $ip = 'anonuser.' . $_SERVER['SSL_CLIENT_M_SERIAL'];

        # This, on the other hand, is almost guaranteed to work, but could
        # cause problems for people using the 10.*.*.* private IP range
        $s = $_SERVER['SSL_CLIENT_M_SERIAL'];

        if ( $s >= (2 << 24) ) {
              die('Client certificate ID too large(!)');
        }
        $o1 = ($s >> 16);
        $o2 = ($s >> 8) & 255;
        $o3 = $s & 255;
        $ip = '10.' . $o1 .'.'. $o2 .'.'. $o3;
    }

It should be placed in includes/ProxyTools.php just before the last three lines
of wfGetIP:

    wfDebug( "IP: $ip\n" );
    $wgIP = $ip;
    return $ip;
}

(I'm using MediaWiki from CVS, ProxyTools.php RCS version 1.6.).

The following should then be added to DefaultSettings.php:

# Enable this setting if you want to use strong authentication
# based on SSL client certificates; the serial number of the certificate
# will be mapped to the last three octets of a 10.*.*.* IP address
$wgMapClientCertToIP    = false;


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new CheckUser proposal up

body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [051014 06:28]:

> Could the arbcom make a decision of agreeing to give check user access
> to more arbcom members ?

Easily. The way it came about was that we were asking the devs *lots and
lots* for IP checks, they had other things to do (running the site) and so
we thought about who could and would do it. I volunteered because I had
some idea which way was up in IP checking, and Tim hacked together the
Special:CheckUser page.

So basically we need people who could be trusted to keep the IP data
confidential and who have some idea how to interpret the results. That's
the basic requirement: (a) trustworthiness (b) competence. (a) is the
community's problem, but anyone who's ever traced spammers or network
abuse would be a good start for (b).

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
Anthony DiPierro (wikispam at inbox.org) [051014 04:54]:

>  My apologies to all for taking this thread off-topic.
>  Apparently the majority of people on this list are content with the way
> things are, and don't think there is any room for improvement, so I'm not
> going to waste my time on this thread any further.

The majority of people on this list are concerned with the content side of
en:. Why aren't you saying all this on wikitech-l?

- d.


body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [051014 04:38]:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >You can either try to Taylorise the process of trusting people, or you
> >can get in people you trust. Sysadmins *could* do any destructive
> >thing they want. But they pretty much *don't*. I wonder why that is.

> Most of them do not do anything wrong because anything they do can be
> easily seen by ANYONE (sysops and non sysops).
> And aside from deleting an image, everything they do can be reverted.
> If they block, someone else can unblock
> If they delete a page, someone else can undelete
> If they protect a page, someone else can unprotect

I am not talking about Wiki admins/sysops, I mean the people who run the
actual servers, i.e. [[system administrator]]s.

- d.


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 103

body:
>From: "Ryan W. (Merovingian)" <bigwiki at earthling.net>
>
>I've noticed the same thing.  I assume that it's a "clueless newbie" just
seeing if the "Edit this page" button really works, and then running back to
undo it, so that (s)he doesn't get "yelled at" by a "mod".  I think the
uninitiated think Wikipedia is a lot like a forum, where we kick out just
anybody we don't like.

The "edit this page" tab is as tempting as a "wet paint" sign.

Except that you have the opportunity to remove your fingerprint afterwards.

I've assumed it was in fact _responsible_ behavior. The first edit is just
"being bold." The second is being responsible. I've occasionally complimented
anons that did this.


from_name: Sechan, Gabe

body:
You seem to misunderstand.  If it does not exist fully as of yet (although it seems that there was at one time some work on the feature, or else why the restrictions field in the cur table), I'm willing to write it and give the change back to the community.  I was asking for advice on implementation in the rest of the email.

Gabe

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 4:31 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Adding page view restrictions

Sechan, Gabe wrote:
> I'm using MediaWiki to create a corporate wiki, and need to allow
> access to certain pages only to certain groups.  I don't see full
> support for this in MediaWiki as of 1.4.11

There is no support for that in MediaWiki; I recommend you use some other product which suits your requirements.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
> >Well, like I said, the edit history of deleted articles is already there.
> In
> >case you didn't understand what I meant, when you click on "history"
> there
> >will be a link which reads "View X deleted
> >edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Ria_Fulton>?"
> >and clicking on that will provide you with the history information
> (anyone
> >can see the edit history, not just admins). Furthermore, history only
> >undeletion is allowed without a vote anyway (at least, it was last time I
> >checked, a few months ago). Finally, it's really not that hard to
> copy/paste
> >the edit history into the talk page, and that approximately fulfills the
> >GFDL requirements as well as any other system being used on the wiki.
> >
> >
> Those edit histories are pretty useless when they don't show who made
> what edit. They're just a list of names and times. They're added to
> the talk page of things that are transwikied to Wiktionary where it's
> just as well to do a fresh rewrite of the article and delete the
> so-called history.

 The GFDL only requires the title, the name, the year, and the publisher, in
the section entitled history. So yeah, they're useless, but they give some
semblance of GFDL compliance.

Ec

 Anthony