from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [Wikitech-l] wiki syntax

body:
On Wednesday, 4th May, 2005, at 04:50, Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-05-03 at 18:56 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> > Lars Aronsson wrote:
> >
> > Making it more transclusion-looking instead of link-looking might be
> > logical in a holistic way.
>
> Agreed.

So s/[[Image:*]]/{{Image:$1}}/g ? Perhaps {{File:*}} or {{Media:*}} instead,
with [[File:*]] being a direct link? Transclusion of pages and of media
files would then be identical, which makes it easier to grok them...

[Snip]

> > I'm really leery of complex templating -- especially anything allowing
> > loops, that's a merry jaunt on the road to Denial of Service land.
>
> Yep.  And I'm wary of arbitrary transclusions.  Mybe limiting them to
> template-space only would be a good idea as well.

The thing is, non-template-space transclusions are being used a lot for
"good" reasons (quite apart from anything else, reducing the number of times
you conflict or over-write yourself when you edit several sections on the
same page in quick succession) on pages like VfD where lots of people
discuss pages, images, people, etc.

> > > And what about <math></math>?
>
> I'd also like to eliminate all <tag>-type markup.  With math, there's
> the natural alternative of "$$ stuff $$", just like the original TeX.

Seems sensible. Though how are we going to do articles with phrases like
"eArN $$!$$$$%%!&^! sENd all money now!"? (Yes yes, I know, <nowiki>.) ;-)
More seriously, I imagine the string "$$" occurs in a (possibly trivially
small) number of places. Also, if we're going to have TeX inlines, can we
have TeX display formulae? That would be quite useful, actually, in quite a
few places.

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

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


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: VfD needs to be internally wired

body:
Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> I was surfing Wikipedia the other day, and at one point, I had to use
> VfD. My experience makes me shudder. But that's not my point.
>
> In my opinion, the VfD is now beyond elegant implementation without
> hardwired software help. As of now, Wikipedia:Vfd is simply a page with
> lots of policy and lots of problems.

I agree. In fact, I've gone so far as to suggest the VfD automation task
to newbie developers as a potential first feature. Nobody has taken it
up yet. Your proposal looks solid and well thought out, although
ultimate design decisions should be made by the developer who writes the
code.

> The negative is:
>  * This puts a greater strain on Wikipedia servers with the parsing and
> output of these pages (which may require an entirely different sort of
> caching system). It probably will come down to only a few possible ways
> of viewing VfD to keep caching manageable.

VFD puts great strain on the server as it is, because the server is
forced to regularly render the whole page, consisting of a few megabytes
of HTML. If you can break it down into small sections, I think that will
be a win for performance, even if there is less opportunity for caching.

The other page that needs to be automated is the Village Pump. I'd like
to see a hybrid of a wiki interface and a bulletin board for that.
Divide the page into threads, show links to the most recent 50 threads
with links to the next 50, that sort of thing.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Christof Damian

subject: [Wikitech-l] wiki syntax

body:
On Wed, 04 May 2005, James D. Forrester wrote:
>
> So s/[[Image:*]]/{{Image:$1}}/g ? Perhaps {{File:*}} or {{Media:*}} instead,
> with [[File:*]] being a direct link? Transclusion of pages and of media
> files would then be identical, which makes it easier to grok them...

{{Image:*}} has a meaning already, it includes the description text of
the image.

I would prefer if {{XXX}} would always include the contents of a page
XXX, no matter if it is a Image+description, a Category-page or a
plain wiki page. Currently it just works with plain pages and just
includes the description otherwise.

christof
--
Christof Damian
christof at damian.net


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia, Emergence, and The Wisdom of Crowds

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits by logged
>in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.  It would be extremely
>interesting to run tests to compare "edit dispersion" for new articles,
>old articles, heavily edited articles, highly watched articles, heavily
>trafficked articles, etc.
>
>
Those sound like plausible numbers, but I think your methodology is
somewhat overstating the cohesiveness: The "drive-by editors" who are
the least associated with an identifiable Wikipedia community are the
users who haven't even bothered to go so far as to create a user
account, which you explicitly exclude from your count.

-Mark


body:
Sj wrote:

>The swarm does the bulk of the writing, especially finding and
>providing current facts, starting new articles, and adding neglected
>POVs.
>
I think this is an interesting aspect, and definitely something I notice
in my monitoring of "New Pages".  Often there will be a new and fairly
low-quality article created by an anon user on a topic I had never heard
of.  Sometimes I'll do some research on the topic, find out it's really
somewhat interesting, and basically scrap the original crappy
contribution and completely rewrite the article from scratch into at
least a reasonably good stub.  So in a sense, I've written 100% of the
article as it then exists, but without the original drive-by user, I
wouldn't have done so.  Meaning that even users who are not much help in
actually writing encyclopedia articles are at least occasionally useful
in pointing out things that should be written about.

-Mark


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] list for wikisource

body:
Hi, does someone of you know where I can find a discussion list for
wikisource? I just searched for it, but did not find it.

Please help! There's quite an interesting thing going on in Europe and
it could be a great thing for wikisource to "grow" with this project.

Sorry, don't have the time to describe now - if you want to know more,
let me know and I'll send a copy of the mail I'll write this evening to
this list.

Ciao, Sabine

*****
Sabine Cretella
Translations
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
skype:sabinecretella


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] list for wikisource

body:
Hi Sabine,

Le Wednesday 4 May 2005 14:39, Sabine Cretella a ?crit :
> Hi, does someone of you know where I can find a discussion list for
> wikisource? I just searched for it, but did not find it.

I don't think there is a list for Wikisource.

> Please help! There's quite an interesting thing going on in Europe and
> it could be a great thing for wikisource to "grow" with this project.

On the French langage projects, we are also closely watching this, see the
recent interview of Anthere. And I?think that it concerns much more that
Wikisource, but all Wikimedia projects. So I?think that foundation-l is the
place to discuss this.

See also my article for the upcoming Quarto:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Right_or_wrong_use_of_intellectual_property

> Sorry, don't have the time to describe now - if you want to know more,
> let me know and I'll send a copy of the mail I'll write this evening to
> this list.
>
> Ciao, Sabine
>
> *****
> Sabine Cretella
> Translations
> s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
> skype:sabinecretella

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


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Redirect Pages: Text on them -> Text on article

body:
On 03/05/05, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> > I'd still like to see
> > http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1521 implemented first
> > though, or some other way of creating more stable section anchors.
>
> At first I though this would be some controversial feature, but checking
> out the bug page, it seems quite reasonable. It would help greatly in
> all cases where anchors are used (although it would take a while to get
> it standardized and stuff, plus, old links would break as soon as the
> new ones were added even if the title itself didn't change).

Not necessarily - the way I see it, the existence of "sticky" anhors
on headings more-or-less *requires* the ability to specify *multiple*
anchors for a heading anyway. For instance, if an article is
rearranged such that two topics, previously under different headings,
are merged (say, "Appearances on TV" and "Appearances on Radio" become
"Appearances in the media"), the new heading should have the "sticky
anchors" for both old headings (as well, perhaps, as one of its own) -
otherwise, the links to them will become invalid. It would therefore
make perfect sense for the actual displayed heading to be treated as a
valid anchor *alongside* any manual ("sticky") anchors.

In other words, something like ==Appearances in the
media|Media|Radio|TV== would show as "Appearances in the media", and
define 4 anchors: "#Appearances_in_the_media", "#Media", "#Radio", and
"#TV".

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


list: wikien-l

from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Today I dealt with three very questionable
> templates:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Unencyclopedic
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nonnotable
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Vanity

None of these is a "new" template.  They have been
around and have been used for quite some time now.

There is also a proper process for getting rid of them
-- the Templates for deletion procedure.

RickK

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail Mobile
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body:
On 02/05/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> > Current behavior of Redirects totally masks any text that comes after
> > the #REDIRECT [[]] declaration.
>
> The main reason this is done is that extra text containing links will
> foul up the link database: the single outgoing link from a redirect is
> used to keep track of where that redirect leads to.
>
> Redirect pages really oughtn't to be stored the way they are, it's a
> nasty hack. This should be recorded properly as metadata listing the
> exact target as a cleanly machine-readable field.

This was why - although I explained it very badly - I posited a
"l_is_redirect" field when I outlined a possible structure for a
combined links table. [1] On further thought, it would possibly be
simpler to have it as just another link type - alongside LT_NORMAL,
LT_CATEGORY, LT_IMAGE, etc, you could have an LT_REDIRECT which marked
out the one specific link which designated the target for that
redirect.

The idea being that, on loading the page record and spotting the
page_is_redirect flag, a lookup could be made for (pardon if this is
hideously bad SQL, but you get the idea I hope) "SELECT l_to_ns,
l_to_title WHERE l_from=$id l_type=LT_REDIRECT" and be guaranteed to
get the destination, without needing to ban other links from the
redirect page.

I had originally wondered whether a link could be, for instance, a
categorylink *and* a redirect destination, but it's probably better if
that's *not* the case. I had an idea, for instance, that a category
redirecting to another category should act as an "alias" when
determining the category's membership (this would allow categories to
be renamed without changing all references to them); but I'm not sure
now whether having the redirect flag distinct from the link_type would
make that any easier.

Ref:
[1] http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-March/027957.html

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: wiki syntax

body:
"James D. Forrester" <james at jdforrester.org> wrote in message
news:200505041021.j44ALtFD024191 at mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk...
> On Wednesday, 4th May, 2005, at 04:50, Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>
> wrote:
>> Yep.  And I'm wary of arbitrary transclusions.  Mybe limiting them to
>> template-space only would be a good idea as well.
>
> The thing is, non-template-space transclusions are being used a lot for
> "good" reasons (quite apart from anything else, reducing the number of
> times
> you conflict or over-write yourself when you edit several sections on the
> same page in quick succession) on pages like VfD where lots of people
> discuss pages, images, people, etc.

Maybe some harder rules about which namespaces you could transclude into and
from whence might be helpful.

So you could do {{:}} --> {{:}} and {{wp:}} --> {{wp:}} but not
{{wp:}} -->{{user:}} for example.

Do we have any statistics as to the most common arrangement of source/sink
namespaces?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
On 04/05/05, Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> wrote:
> Redirects should _only_ be used for things like alternate
> spellings, where the correspondence is exactly 1-to-1.  If
> there's any explaining to do, there should be article text to
> do that explaining.  If that makes a very short article, sobeit.
> The feature you suggest would add absolutely nothing to the
> user experience that can't already be done by simple article
> text, so why complicate things?

I think it *does* add something to the user experience, in that it's
one less link to follow, and one less page-load to wait for on
high-traffic sites. One of the great things about looking things up
electronically is that cross-references are instant - you don't need
to read "Smith, John: see John Smith" and look up again, because a
well-designed system will simply take you there of its own accord.
Obviously, a one line article still leaves you only a click away -
rather than, say, having to turn over several hundred pages of a big
old book - but it still feels like a click (and a loading wait)
wasted.

On top of which, redirects have a number of additional advantages -
for instance, they can easily be identified as "not real articles",
and a "what links here" display on their target can automatically
recurse through things that link to them. These can be very useful for
maintenance tasks, and are one of the few kinds of metadata mediawiki
explicitly supports (in its quirkily evolved way).

A lot of many-to-1 redirection schemes on en.wikipedia come about
because of discussions and VfD decisions, where the individual topics
don't seem worthy of an article, and a catch-all merged page is
created instead. This leads to pages like "Minor characters from The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"; having one-line entries on each of
these characters is exactly what the page is trying to avoid, but in
order to avoid the pages being endlessly recreated, *something* is put
in place. A redirect seems an obvious choice, and if a "see this
particular section" message could be displayed, all the better.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: committing to CVS

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> (I'm interested in terms of comparisons to ideas like bounty systems, which
> are widely advocated but I've never seen actually being very functional.
> I'm suspecting the way to get lots of good work out of a hacker is to make
> it an actual job then trust them to do it. This requires picking one's
> hacker carefully.)

I can say that at least so far, from my side, my relationship with Brion
hasn't changed much at all.  I barely know what he's doing, and miracles
happen on a regular basis, and I like it. :-)

The main difference in what he's actually doing _so far at least_ has
been that Brion is liasoning with some people who are interested in
paying for access to a live feed of the database as a service, which he
would have done before only if it was really interesting, which it
probably isn't.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Conference report from South Africa

body:
Andy Rabagliati wrote:
>>This is assuming that the larger part of the cost of textbooks is
>>copyright licenses. I would imagine that it is instead the production
>>costs of actual books, and obviously free content won't help that.
>
> Having had (almost) direct experience of this in Africa, much of the
> problem is bureaucracy and supply.

Surely free licensing will help with both bureaucracy and supply.
Anyone who takes an interest and sees an opportunity can redistribute
our work without having to get permission from anyone.

--Jimbo


from_name: Jason Lane

subject: [Wikitech-l] Collation problems

body:
Hi list,

I'm trying to install MediaWiki -1.4.3  and during installation I'm
getting the following collation errors :(

Logging table has correct title encoding.
Initialising "MediaWiki" namespace...
A database error has occurred
Query: SELECT cur_title,cur_is_new,cur_user_text FROM `cur` WHERE
cur_namespace=8 AND cur_title
IN('1movedto2','1movedto2_redir'...'Yourvariant','Zhconversiontable')
Function:
Error: 1271 Illegal mix of collations for operation ' IN ' (localhost)

Backtrace:
GlobalFunctions.php line 507 calls wfBacktrace()
Database.php line 383 calls wfDebugDieBacktrace()
Database.php line 333 calls DatabaseMysql::reportQueryError()
InitialiseMessages.inc line 150 calls DatabaseMysql::query()
InitialiseMessages.inc line 78 calls initialiseMessagesReal()
updaters.inc line 205 calls initialiseMessages()
index.php line 539 calls do_all_updates()

I've even gone to the measure of creating the `wikidb` manually:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE wikidb DEFAULT CHARACTER SET Latin1 COLLATE
Latin1_bin;

and then running the install script. We are using PHP 5.0.1 and MySQL
4.0.18, any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

Jason
__________
Jason Lane (Development)

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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] URL changes

body:
Robert Jones wrote:
> I have a problem in that my SERVER_NAME is www.URL but I use the domain name
> without the www. To host my closed wiki. This works fine until I submit an
> edit and the www. Is added meaning I have to log in again.

Override the autodetected $wgServer.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: committing to CVS

body:
Brion Vibber (brion at pobox.com) [050504 11:40]:

> Granted. I'm not always as helpful or communicative as I should be, and
> I do have a tendency to be rude or snippy at times. This is something
> I'm trying to watch since I've ended up sort of in charge of this little
> program of ours, but there's certainly room for improvement.

So how does it feel like it's going now that it's technically your job?

(I'm interested in terms of comparisons to ideas like bounty systems, which
are widely advocated but I've never seen actually being very functional.
I'm suspecting the way to get lots of good work out of a hacker is to make
it an actual job then trust them to do it. This requires picking one's
hacker carefully.)

- d.


from_name: Faraaz Damji

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

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

Erik Moeller wrote:
> The problem with templates is that it is very easy to create them, and
> very hard to get rid of them. Virtually all problem templates I've seen
> have survived being listed on "Templates for deletion" because, usually,
> there are multiple passionate fans -- the people who have been using the
> template and who don't want to modify their existing workflows.

I think that if TFD votes keep for too many templates, it won't make a
difference if there's {{propsed template}}, since people will just vote
keep there instead.  In fact, it may have more people voting keep since
it won't be visible to such a large group of people.

Do you see my point? I'm not sure if I'm being clear or not...everyone
who votes keep on TFD would've voted "use" on the discussion page
anyways; everyone who votes "delete" on TFD would also vote "don't use"
on the discussion page.  Unless I'm missing something, I think that this
would just make things more complex, and is unecessary considering the
fact that we already have TFD.

> This has led to an abundance of pastel colored boxes, as every editor
> seems to want a template to call their own.

Very true, I've found myself doing it with one of my templates also.
It's my baby, and I can't bear to see it go.

> I believe we have to treat new templates in the same way we treat new
> policy proposals. We can keep them around as proposals, but before we
> actually *use* them, there has to be a consensus to do so.

Why not just nominate them for deletion if you feel they deserve to be
gone? Surely there will be more "passionate fans" on the discussion page
of that particular template than on TFD.

> That effectively locks the template from being used until the discussion
> page shows that people agree on what to do with it.

Again, I feel that TFD would do better here.  The lag is only 5
days...the only advantage I see of that system is that it gives editors
a little less time to put it on pages, which means that it's easier to
depopulate.  However, I don't agree with the dogma that things should be
"guilty until proven innocent"- so in this case, "detrimental until
proven beneficial." There are a lot of templates on TFD that people
really do think are good.  If we "freeze" templates, that would mean
that any template deletionist would get their way for five days (or
whatever the lag time is), regardless of how beneficial it is seen to be.

When there is obvious disapproval of a template, it:
a) isn't added to pages in the first place, unless by the creator of
said template
b) is usually removed by people watching that article, like the
"unresolved objections" banner on [[clitoris]] a while back.
c) is sometimes depopulated early if it's obviously something that needs
to go

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

- --
Blog: http://frazzydee.ca
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body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Timwi, if you doubt the accent problem is a real one, you clearly have
> not heard many different accents in your life.
>
> Even when spoken slowly and clearly, there are some accents that are
> well near unintelligible to those with a certain different accent, at
> least without being around them for a while.

At least for English, and at least in my own experience, the accent
problem is not a very big deal, in the context of people speaking slowly
and clearly, especially if they are careful to moderate their accent to
some widely-held standard and avoid particularly local expressions and
accents.

> Some people would say that any accent other than the "standard" (with
> English, being official in more than one nation, there is no single
> "standard", but people often being ignoramuses we can expect that they
> will say "Sure, the ____ and the _____ have their 'standard accent',
> but ours is the only correct one." (making little imaginary quote
> marks around "standard accent")

Well, if people say things like that, then they are wrong.  Simple. :-)

There's no one particular way of speaking English which is correct, but
there are ways which are easier and harder for most people to
understand.  This presents an obstacle to spoken wikipedia, but not an
insurmountable one.

I talk to a lot of people who speak English with different sorts of
accents, and it is very seldom a barrier to communication at all.  It
might be a bit surprising to listen to an English article read by
Anthere, who speaks with a distinct French accent, but she's still very
easy to understand.

--Jimbo


body:
Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> I assure you, this problem is very real. Have you travelled to the North
> of England ? You may be suprised - sometimes you will have /absolutely
> no idea/ what they are talking about.

Although I'm on record (2 minutes ago) as saying I don't think that the
accent problem is a very big deal, I should also add that when I was
consulting at the BBC (with Angela), I often found myself in meetings
struggling to catch up if people started speaking very fast.  Angela
thought this was funny.

And of course the Brits have their own secret (ha ha) words for many
ordinary things, thus leaving outsiders quite perplexed at times.

> I lived for 10 years in the USA. Do you think an Indian would have any
> idea what a native of Brooklyn was talking about ?

This point is well taken, but in general both the Indian and the
Brooklyn native would know how to slow down their speech and switch as
well as they could to a more universally recognized accent in order to
make themselves understood to each other.

> I have had to ask someone from Huntsville, Alabama, to repeat themselves
> three times - and they were only spelling their name.

Once Angela said to me something like that we should meet at "half
Eleven".  When I didn't know what this meant, I think she thought I must
be from another planet, and of course a way I am, since I'm from
Huntsville, Alabama.  (Where else could I get such a ridiculous nickname
as Jimbo?)

:-)

But as a native of Huntsville, Alabama, but one who is educated and
watched too much television as a child ;-), I think you'd find it very
very easy to understand me, and I'd find it very very easy to understand
you.   (Although I might get frustrated if you didn't show up at 5:30
when you clearly said you'd be there at half-Eleven ;-))

--Jimbo


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Text to speech (Was: Conference report from South
	Africa)

body:
Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> When Atlanta Airport (Georgia) opened, with automated trains taking you
> out to the terminals, there was a requirement for public announcements
> telling you which terminal, stand clear, departing now, etc.
>
> They started out with a pleasant local (Georgian) accent.
>
> Complaints - sounded too provincial, International passengers, etc.
>
> They changed it to a female announcer.
>
> Complaints - people didn't pay enough attention, what was wrong with the
> previous one, etc.
>
> They have ended up with an assertive, metallic, computer voice.
>
> No complaints.

That's a great story, but it occurs to me that maybe the reason there
were no complaints is that people just assume that computers speak
badly, and nothing can be done about it, and so they just accept it,
even if it is annoying.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

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

When there are significant problems with a template, but it is still
decided that it should be kept (eg. "poorly written", "shouldn't be a
box"), a note is made on the talk page about this.  In theory, the
problem should be rectified if it to be kept.

For example, {{deletedpage}} simply said "This page has been deleted and
should not be re-created" before it was put on TFD.  Consensus was to
keep it, but nearly everybody felt that it was worded badly, and should
be improved.  It was therefore improved after the TFD process had
concluded, and was only put on pages after it had been improved.  The
same can happen for the asymmetry that you have discussed.

In short, if a note is made on the talk page that most voters felt that
it needed x, y and z improvements, that should be sufficient for people
to see it and say "hey, let's do this before we actually put it on
pages." That should also be a sufficient argument for removing it from
pages (although just improving the template is almost always easier than
removing it, improving it, and then putting it back).

- -Faraaz Damji
- --
Blog: http://frazzydee.ca

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Faraaz-
>
> it's the asymmetry that needs to be addressed. A template that is
> supported by 3 people but opposed by 7 may not pass TFD because
> consensus is required for deletion. Hence, we end up with lots of
> templates that are supported only by a minority of users. Both sides of
> the debate often see an unsuccessful TFD as a victory for the
> template-supporters and accept its use.
>
> We need to make clear that a template is a fundamental intrusion into
> the article namespace and, like a policy, needs broad community support
> before being put into active use. If 3 people strongly oppose a template
> and 7 support it, then their objections need to be resolved just as much
> as in the opposite situation, *before* the template is tagged onto
> articles. Marking templates as "proposed" is an important step towards
> clarifying the distinction between merely keeping a template and
> allowing its use.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
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from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
On May 4, 2005, at 8:20 PM, Lars Aronsson wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits
>> by logged in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.
>
> This indicates a concentration at the top, but is this
> concentration bigger or smaller than any alternative situation?
>
> Book (and record) stores have always sold a bulk of "best
> sellers", with a "tail" of less common titles.  In recent decades,
> supermarkets are selling books with a higher concentration of best
> sellers (a shorter tail), while Internet book sellers such as
> Amazon.com offer a far longer tail than any traditional book store
> can afford.  This was featured in the October 2004 issue of Wired,
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html and is the
> topic of the www.thelongtail.com blog

http://www.bopnews.com/archives/002699.html#2699


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
On Thu, 5 May 2005, Erik Moeller wrote:

[snip]
>
> The problem with templates is that it is very easy to create them, and
> very hard to get rid of them. Virtually all problem templates I've seen
> have survived being listed on "Templates for deletion" because, usually,
> there are multiple passionate fans -- the people who have been using the
> template and who don't want to modify their existing workflows.
>
> This has led to an abundance of pastel colored boxes, as every editor
> seems to want a template to call their own.
>
> I believe we have to treat new templates in the same way we treat new
> policy proposals. We can keep them around as proposals, but before we
> actually *use* them, there has to be a consensus to do so.
>
> That way, we fix the current asymmetry: We make it harder to *adopt*
> templates; then it doesn't matter so much that it's hard to *delete* them.
>
> In practice, I suggest putting the
>
> {{Proposed template}}
>
> tag on top of dubious templates which do not yet have community support.
> That effectively locks the template from being used until the discussion
> page shows that people agree on what to do with it.
>
> Hopefully, this will help to stem the tide of questionable templates.
>
One useful step would be to help educate our fellow Wikipedians about
what Templates there are, which ones would work best -- & which ones should
be deprecated.

I mention this only because I've recently learned about {{Succession}},
which can be successfully applied to at least 98% of all imaginable
cases -- succession patterns of Roman Emperors, Popes, Presidents, &
Internet Kooks of the Month [*]. I've been using it quite happily in
writing my contributions of Ethiopian Emperors. And I'm sure there are
several other simple, flexible Templates that can be used to replace
countless others.

Once these simple & flexible ones are found & used to replace their
competition, then we can start deleting these templates on the basis
that they aren't used.

[*] The only case I can think of where {{Succession}} wouldn't work is
with Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs -- because not only would the office --
Pharaoh -- need to be included, but also the period of Egyptian history
(e.g., Old Kingdom, Second Intermediate, etc.) & the Dynasty. However,
I haven't been able to create a consensus about including the Dynasty in
such a template, so perhaps even this exception could be subsumed into
this template.

Geoff


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: committing to CVS

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> So how does it feel like it's going now that it's technically your job?

The main difference is I'm able to spend less time on other clients and
more time on Wikimedia/MediaWiki without worrying about being sent to
debtor's prison. ;)

> (I'm interested in terms of comparisons to ideas like bounty systems, which
> are widely advocated but I've never seen actually being very functional.
> I'm suspecting the way to get lots of good work out of a hacker is to make
> it an actual job then trust them to do it. This requires picking one's
> hacker carefully.)

Well, I have worked on some specific things that I might not have
otherwise (the update service), and some other useful side software
(getting Kate's lucene search fixed up), but mostly I'm just still
banging away on general MediaWiki maintenance, the future-proofing
schema rework, and such. Some of it's boring, I suppose, but I was
already mostly doing that sort of boring stuff.

It seems hard to get newbies excited about maintenance, code cleanup,
validating output, security, schema efficiency. Everybody wants to do
new features, new interfaces, add an extra preference...

Maybe bounties for specific tasks can work, maybe they won't. I really
haven't seen any actually in effect.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Is that minus bots?

Mark

On 04/05/05, Erik Zachte <epzachte at chello.nl> wrote:
> Jimbo:
> > My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits by logged
> > in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.
>
> I was in the audience in Berlin when you talked about this.
> It inspired me to add a table to wikistats:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians
>
> Erik Zachte
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 5/4/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits by logged
> in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.  It would be extremely
> interesting to run tests to compare "edit dispersion" for new articles,
> old articles, heavily edited articles, highly watched articles, heavily
> trafficked articles, etc.

Well it's also the case that there are a great number of trivial edits
(minor copyediting, vandalism reversion, simple wikification0 that get
made by people with the right 'calling' (and in some cases, the right
automation tools)...

The nature of these changes (each small and not time consuming, but as
a whole tedious and unrewarding to many people) causes a small number
of obsessive (in a good way) people to make a great number of edits.

I suspect that if you omit these edits you'd find the distribution of
contributions to be somewhat less concentrated.


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] A suggestion for a new IRC channel, #mediawiki-dev

body:
Currently we have two IRC channels that are development/administration
related, #mediawiki and #wikimedia-tech, the latter recently forked
out of the former because server-related discussions were taking up
too much space at #mediawiki.

I think we should have another IRC channel specific to development of
the Mediawiki software, support requests and other non-development
related stuff have begun to take up alot of space on #mediawiki and at
times drown development discussion.

I've already created it but it would be nice to have the CIA bot join
it as well as to move wikibugs from #mediawiki to it, that is if
others agree with the concept at all.


from_name: Erik Zachte

body:
Jimbo:
> My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits by logged
> in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.

I was in the audience in Berlin when you talked about this.
It inspired me to add a table to wikistats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians

Erik Zachte


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] Some help needed for Directmedia import

body:
I could use some help to separate anonymous artists from named ones in
the metadata. See

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:10%2C000_paintings_from_Directmedia#Some_help_needed

For general information:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:10%2C000_paintings_from_Directmedia

All best,

Erik


from_name: Delirium

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I talk to a lot of people who speak English with different sorts of
>accents, and it is very seldom a barrier to communication at all.  It
>might be a bit surprising to listen to an English article read by
>Anthere, who speaks with a distinct French accent, but she's still very
>easy to understand.
>
>
This depends partly on where you're from, because if you change small
bits, and then change small bits again, and so on, the overall
difference gets quite large.  Most people who speak English with a
middle-of-the-road American or British accent are one degree away from
most accents you'll encounter.  A German who learns English, for
example, almost always learns from a UK or US English role model---not
from an Indian or Singaporean role model.  So the Indian or Singaporean
is two degrees of accents away from the German speaking English, while
the American or Briton is only one degree away.

I know from personal experience that while most American students can
understand nearly all the foreign-born professors I've had, albeit
sometimes with some difficulty, many of the international students, even
those who were born in English-speaking countries like India, have much
more difficulty, especially with some of the European accents.

Although it smacks of a bit of accent imperialism, the most widely
understood accents are probably some sort of middle-of-the-road American
accent (i.e. not a strong New York, Southern, or Texas accent), and some
sort of middle-of-the-road British accent (i.e. not Cockney).  Of
course, we could always provide multiple readings...

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
Today I dealt with three very questionable templates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Unencyclopedic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nonnotable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Vanity

(Template:Vanity was OK in its intention, but it was improperly placed
on article pages.)

The problem with templates is that it is very easy to create them, and
very hard to get rid of them. Virtually all problem templates I've seen
have survived being listed on "Templates for deletion" because, usually,
there are multiple passionate fans -- the people who have been using the
template and who don't want to modify their existing workflows.

This has led to an abundance of pastel colored boxes, as every editor
seems to want a template to call their own.

I believe we have to treat new templates in the same way we treat new
policy proposals. We can keep them around as proposals, but before we
actually *use* them, there has to be a consensus to do so.

That way, we fix the current asymmetry: We make it harder to *adopt*
templates; then it doesn't matter so much that it's hard to *delete* them.

In practice, I suggest putting the

{{Proposed template}}

tag on top of dubious templates which do not yet have community support.
That effectively locks the template from being used until the discussion
page shows that people agree on what to do with it.

Hopefully, this will help to stem the tide of questionable templates.

All best,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Template asymmetry

body:
Rick wrote:
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>Today I dealt with three very questionable
>>templates:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Unencyclopedic
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nonnotable
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Vanity
>
>
> None of these is a "new" template.  They have been
> around and have been used for quite some time now.
>
> There is also a proper process for getting rid of them
> -- the Templates for deletion procedure.
>
> RickK
>

{{subst:Response doesn't address question}} ~~~~


subject: [Wikitech-l] Article validation feature in 1.5?

body: It won't be in 1.5.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
Faraaz-

it's the asymmetry that needs to be addressed. A template that is
supported by 3 people but opposed by 7 may not pass TFD because
consensus is required for deletion. Hence, we end up with lots of
templates that are supported only by a minority of users. Both sides of
the debate often see an unsuccessful TFD as a victory for the
template-supporters and accept its use.

We need to make clear that a template is a fundamental intrusion into
the article namespace and, like a policy, needs broad community support
before being put into active use. If 3 people strongly oppose a template
and 7 support it, then their objections need to be resolved just as much
as in the opposite situation, *before* the template is tagged onto
articles. Marking templates as "proposed" is an important step towards
clarifying the distinction between merely keeping a template and
allowing its use.

Erik


from_name: Robert Jones

subject: [Wikitech-l] URL changes

body:
I have a problem in that my SERVER_NAME is www.URL but I use the domain name
without the www. To host my closed wiki. This works fine until I submit an
edit and the www. Is added meaning I have to log in again.

Is there any way round this?

In OutputPage.php I changed:

$hostname = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];

to

$hostname = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];

As I thought this might force it to work as HTTP_HOST is what I want the web
address to begin with, but it didn't change anything (it still works but
just the same - not in the way I would like).

Any advice? I know I could change the SERVER_NAME, but I use a couple of
domains on the same IP and wanted it to be right for both.

Many thanks.


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits
> by logged in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.

This indicates a concentration at the top, but is this
concentration bigger or smaller than any alternative situation?

Book (and record) stores have always sold a bulk of "best
sellers", with a "tail" of less common titles.  In recent decades,
supermarkets are selling books with a higher concentration of best
sellers (a shorter tail), while Internet book sellers such as
Amazon.com offer a far longer tail than any traditional book store
can afford.  This was featured in the October 2004 issue of Wired,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html and is the
topic of the www.thelongtail.com blog.

I think that Wikipedia also has a very long tail, a large number
of contributors who just write a few articles on highly
specialized topics.  Much more so than any mainstream (printed)
encyclopedia.  But we don't have their statistics to compare with.

If we just compare the bulk or mainstream part of Wikipedia, I
think it is still smaller than Britannica, even though Wikipedia's
long tail makes its total number of articles very large.  I think
it would be interesting if we could measure how far into the tail
each article is.  Is this the number of page views?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: V. Ivanov

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ossetic again (bugs, bugs, bugs...)

body:
Thank you, the unknown hero, who have repaired the interwiki system so
that the links to os.wikipedia are working now.
See, e. g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alania

It's a very good gift for all of us at [[:os:]], since an article from
our WP is a very probable candidate for the next week "Translation of
the Week":
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_of_the_week/Translation_candidates

Thank you again,
Sl. Ivanov

PS: {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} and similar things still don't work at
[[:os:]]. See http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

> > > The other example of the misfunctioning interwiki links can be found
> > > at http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D1%8B%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B3_%D0%B0%D0%B4%C3%A6%D0%BC
> > > ?D all the interwikies _from_ the Ossetic WP to older WPs do work,
> > > while the interwiki to cv: (created in December 2004 or so) is the red
> > > part of the article.
> > >
> > > How can we change all that? Feeling ourselves a somewhat outer project
> > > with no links to the "main WP" is really weird.
> > > E. g. now we have a really cute article
> > > http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/??????????????_?????????? translated into Russian,
> > > German and Esperanto. We would like to propose it for the "Translation
> > > of the Week" as soon as we have the well-structured English version.
> > > But how can we do that, if no interwiki links to the Ossetic articles
> > > can exist?!..
> > >
> > > Respectfully,
> > > Slavik Ivanov

--
Esperu cxiam!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Article validation feature in 1.5?

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> So what was the problem, is it going to be sorted out soon, and when can we
> start testing?

Missing database prefix in a query causes a fatal SQL error on every
page view, making the wiki completely unusable.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Where to find buildtables.sql

body:
Jeremy Dunck wrote:
> I'm creating the DB for the first time, and I saw a note here:
> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phpwiki/newcodebase/docs/schema.doc?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

This is a reeeeeeeeeeeeally old copy of the source from an branch
abandoned in mid-2002. You want to look in the 'phase3' module, not
'phpwiki'.

> "The script "buildtables.sql" always contains the latest
> database schema for wikipedia software."
>
> Where can I find buildtables.sql?

You can't, as it doesn't exist. :)

Try tables.sql. Note also that the schema has changed dramatically from
1.4 to 1.5.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Lucene in C#

body:
While the Java-based Lucene search server is giving pretty good
performance on search results compiled with GCJ, the index builder
performs pretty slowly: 3-10x slower than the same code running under
Sun's JDK.

Since I've gotten relatively good performance out of the C# version
running under Mono, I've gone ahead and imported that into CVS and
started bringing it up to date, and plan to use it at least for the
indexing.

It's in the 'mwsearch' module in CVS, should anyone feel like taking a look.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Jeremy Dunck

body:
I'm creating the DB for the first time, and I saw a note here:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phpwiki/newcodebase/docs/schema.doc?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

"The script "buildtables.sql" always contains the latest
database schema for wikipedia software."

Where can I find buildtables.sql?


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Wikitech-l] no more wikislow?

body:
Has anyone tried how this monster
http://webaccelerator.google.com/index.html does affect the ability to
retrieve wikipedia pages?

Mathias


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Only non-commercial re-use od Wiki content?

body:
--- Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
>
>  "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
>  it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
>  disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
>  Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
>  external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
>  under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
>  agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).

Wikimedia lawyers? Since when have we had lawyers? Who the hell is this admin?
Admins do not have any authority to enter into any agreement on behalf of the
foundation without board approval.

>  My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
>  and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
>  to the Wikis.

Not just opinion, you are exactly right. It is also a clear violation of the
GNU FDL.

-- mav

Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On 5/5/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
> I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
> with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
> be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
> to hear them.
>
> Andre Engels
>
>
> On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
> >
> >  "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
> >  it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
> >  disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
> >  Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
> >  external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
> >  under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
> >  agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
> >
> >  My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
> >  and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
> >  to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
> >  misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
> >
> >  However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
> >  circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
> >  Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
> >
> >  Thank you,
> >  [[m:user:tsca]]

It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any
Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads. Couldn't that be construed
as a commercial use? Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally
responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial
purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a
position?

Is Wikimedia syndicating content for a fee? Is that a "commercial purpose"?

All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca
raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to
one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more
restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree
that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the
user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?

I notice that on en:Wikipedia there are templates for such things as
{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCSA}} and {{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCND}} that
attempt to do just that.

Of course, IANAL...in case anyone had any doubts ;-)

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050505 08:28]:

> The problem with templates is that it is very easy to create them, and
> very hard to get rid of them. Virtually all problem templates I've seen
> have survived being listed on "Templates for deletion" because, usually,
> there are multiple passionate fans -- the people who have been using the
> template and who don't want to modify their existing workflows.
> This has led to an abundance of pastel colored boxes, as every editor
> seems to want a template to call their own.
> I believe we have to treat new templates in the same way we treat new
> policy proposals. We can keep them around as proposals, but before we
> actually *use* them, there has to be a consensus to do so.
> That way, we fix the current asymmetry: We make it harder to *adopt*
> templates; then it doesn't matter so much that it's hard to *delete* them.

OH YES PLEASE.

- d.


body:
On 5/5/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Try tables.sql. Note also that the schema has changed dramatically from
> 1.4 to 1.5.

What version is the live wikipedia running?


body:
On 5/5/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/05/05, Jeremy Dunck <jdunck at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/5/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > Try tables.sql. Note also that the schema has changed dramatically from
> > > 1.4 to 1.5.
> >
> > What version is the live wikipedia running?
>
> 1.4.4

Thanks, and what're the odds that 1.5 will land in production before,
say, January 2006?

I'm asking because I was thinking about doing analysis on the data
tables, and it sounds like some abstraction may be needed.


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] no more wikislow?

body:
I can't test it since it's Windows-only, but seems some sort of caching
scheme. Thus, for logged-in users it won't make any difference, since
pages are customized and you need to hit wikimedia's servers.

For non logged-in users it might be useful.

Alfio

On Thu, 5 May 2005, Mathias Schindler wrote:

>Has anyone tried how this monster
>http://webaccelerator.google.com/index.html does affect the ability to
>retrieve wikipedia pages?
>
>Mathias
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] no more wikislow?

body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:

> Has anyone tried how this monster
> http://webaccelerator.google.com/index.html does affect the ability to
> retrieve wikipedia pages?
>
> Mathias

Hoi,
I think the idea behind it is brilliant. But consider what happens when
Google starts HOSTING Wikimedia content. Their webaccelerator combined
with WMF cache functionality will  result in even faster service again.
The trick for Google is that their service doing the web acceleration
must be local so it follows that hosting the WMF projects will be one of
the most interesting bits of research for Google. The size of our data
is not too big, currently the amount of our traffic is basically as much
as we can provide server wise.. With Google hosting us, they could throw
addiditional hw at the problem as demand for our product increases.

Combining hosting and acceleration will give you a hosting platform that
will be stellar and commercially hard to beat. Because they have the
servers and they can do the on demand computing as the market requires it..

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Template asymmetry

body:
--- Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com>
wrote:
> Rick wrote:
> > --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> >>Today I dealt with three very questionable
> >>templates:
> >>
>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Unencyclopedic
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nonnotable
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Vanity
> >
> >
> > None of these is a "new" template.  They have been
> > around and have been used for quite some time now.
> >
> > There is also a proper process for getting rid of
> them
> > -- the Templates for deletion procedure.
> >
> > RickK
> >
>
> {{subst:Response doesn't address question}} ~~~~

{{m:instruction creep}}

RickK

Discover Yahoo!
Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out!
http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
--- Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:

> One useful step would be to help educate our fellow
> Wikipedians about
> what Templates there are, which ones would work best
> -- & which ones should
> be deprecated.

Very true.  I'd love an easy-to-use Template or
Category Table of Contents or Index.

RickK

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


from_name: Sj

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Make summaries mandatory

body:
Sounds like a good idea.  Even if some people fill it with a single
period, it will definitely increase the readability of RC.  I admit to
being a culprit; I often hit Alt-S without remembering to add an
edit-summary.  Perhaps we could make Alt-S move your focus to the
summary field if it's empty, and only save if it's full?

This regular appearance of this suggestion inspired the newly-created
Village Pump section for "perennial proposals".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%29

SJ

On 4/28/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> Looking at a scroll of Recent Changes, I noticed that usage of the summary
> field has plummeted. I strongly recommend a simple change: making summaries
> mandatory for edits not checked as "minor". This is non-obtrusive and
> helpful. An example of a wiki that uses this feature is at
> http://www.technomanifestos.net.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
>I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
>with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
>be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
>to hear them.
>
>Andre Engels
>
>
>On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
>
>
>> "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
>> it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
>> disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
>> Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
>> external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
>> under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
>> agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
>>
>> My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
>> and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
>> to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
>> misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
>>
>> However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
>> circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
>> Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
>>
>> Thank you,
>> [[m:user:tsca]]
>>
>>
I don't understand this non-commercial license restriction either.
 There is nothing in the GFDL that prohibits commercial redisitribution
of content.  The only thing that it does restrict is exclusive
redistribution agreements by anybody (like the Wikimedia Foundation) to
still yet other parties.  If you want to take the Wikipedia content and
publish it onto some CD-ROMs and sell them for $20 a piece, you are free
to do that.  You are also welcome to make your own website with the
content and put ads or whatever you want... as long as you comply with
the terms of the GFDL (with all of its inviolate portions and whatnot).
 You can even publish a set of hardcover books with wikipedia content.
 You just have to allow people who get the content from you do be able
to do the same thing with no further restrictions.

Not all "free" licenses are this way, I admit, and there is a certain
group within the free content community that simply doesn't want
commercial licensing.  The GFDL does not provide for that sort of
protection, and I would like to know what "Wikimedia lawyers" were
giving this sort of incredibly wrong advise.  In addition, I don't know
what sort of scam any admin would be getting involved with that would
give him/her any more authority than is given to anybody else.  And it
is indeed a scam for an admin to claim that they could even enter into
any sort of contract over content for anything other than what they
personally have contributed to any Wikimedia projects.

That is the crucial detail you have to remember.  If you are the
originator of content, you can "relicense" what you have done to any
other licensing agreement... even EULA's like from Microsoft or
Prentiss-Hall.  But that is limited to only what you have personally
contributed, and if it is already in the Wikipedia (for example) the
rest of us still can do whatever is legal according to the GFDL.

--
Robert Scott Horning
218 Sunstone Circle
Logan, UT 84321
(435) 753-3330
robert_horning at netzero.net


from_name: Magnus Manske

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

?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason schrieb:
> It won't be in 1.5.

Pardon me, but it already *is* in 1.5. And for pure gathering of data,
it works just fine. There was apparently some problem with it on
test.leuksman.com, but hey, it's an alpha release :-)

Magnus
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCefEMCZKBJbEFcz0RAtf6AJ0YkjExKxon/aDy9HKJVGj/RjNbnQCfYTR3
BUQeHkpY4h9+SPa7eIRXAUE=
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from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Test wiki

body:
Latest strangeness: everything in my watchlist
(http://test.leuksman.com/index.php/Special:Watchlist) is now marked as
"New".

What **is** going on over there?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
"Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote in message
news:4279F10D.7030609 at web.de...
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason schrieb:
> > It won't be in 1.5.
> Pardon me, but it already *is* in 1.5. And for pure gathering of data,
> it works just fine. There was apparently some problem with it on
> test.leuksman.com, but hey, it's an alpha release :-)

So what was the problem, is it going to be sorted out soon, and when can we
start testing?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Make summaries mandatory

body:
Actually, I agree that there's no need to make the poor editor's life harder.

The latest proposal on the VP was to auto-fill the summary box with
some of the text of the edit... perhaps prefaced by a string that
makes it clear that it is an auto-summary (so you can still tell it is
a 'newbie', if that's what no summary told you before).  This simply
lets more information about the edit drift up to the RC and history
views.  This conceptual change is about improving the density of
information provided by those views, not about forcing people to do
anything.

SJ

On 5/5/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/5/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > The more restrictions you put into place, the more you will find people
> > reluctant to do something for you. When it is ESSENTIAL that you get
> > specific information, you make it mandatory. But if this summary is a
> > good idea, it is a much better idea to have compulsory license info with
> > digital content. We do not even do that. Pictures without license info
> > are deleted and some wonderfull people do a lot of good work to get this
> > info. The extended descripton box is a lifesaver, it allows you to add
> > these fields during upload time :)
>
> There are already those that blindly revert many changes made by
> people they don't know with robot like efficiency.
>
> If we make edit summaries mandatory, we'll just cause newbies to make
> something us... and as a result have less ability to discern
> experienced edits from new editors.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


from_name: Astrological Consulting

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
I would like to respectfully ask that you remove my name from all references to "kooks" and other abusive and defamatory maligning propaganda posted to your website specifically to damage my business and profession of 30 years+.

I wrote an explanation of why the usenet abusers harass me and ask that you read it and my academically published works and decide for yourselves if I am what these abusers say I am.
The people who supply you "kopok" information do so on anonymous basis, while I openly discuss my points of view on usenet and have done so for 9 years.

I am a published author and have my own consulting business and publishing company here in San Diego, and will take all legal action necessary to stop you and your company from using your service as a way to defame others.

Post about being stalked for 9 years:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.astrology/msg/3c1c63f3e35ee818?hl=en

Links to my academic articles:

http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/fate_vs_free_will.htm
http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/did_the_greeks_invent_astrol??ogy.htm
http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arguments_against_the_astrol??ogers.htm
http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/art_evolution_in_greece_and_??rome.htm
http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arabic.htm

Thank you for your attention.

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


from_name: Jack Lutz

body:
If Jimbo's proposed requirement of having the contributor grant their
copyright to Wikimedia is instituted, then wouldn't this prevent
importing *any* CC-WIKI/other content without having the original
authors agree to these unique terms?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
Sent: May 5, 2005 12:58 PM
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

Astrological Consulting (arcturianone at earthlink.net) [050506 05:46]:

> I would like to respectfully ask that you remove my name from all references to "kooks" and other abusive and defamatory maligning propaganda posted to your website specifically to damage my business and profession of 30 years+.
> Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
> (C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
> Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
> Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
> http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/

Actually famous Usenet crank. More coherent than Sollog. Lots of material
on skeptictank.com .

- d.

Which is a website that will be facing a lawsuit from my publishing company. You don't really believe these websites do you? I debated this nutcase on usenet (Fredrick Rice), 9 years ago--his arguments amount to bigotry. How is it that you determine otherwise that I am a "crank"? Because I have knowledge you don't agree with?
This is simple bigotrfy, not critical thinking. I have a degree in psychology from SDSU and 30 years of counseling people.

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Thank you, there are plenty of websites and other forms of abuse against me, they can get the information there and decide for themselves.
It really boils down to the fact that when I started posting in 1996, I didn't realize that some of these harassers make a life career out of doing this to people. I sent complaints and yanked a few accounts, they have not left me alone ever since, it really has little to do with my perspectives.

-----Original Message-----
From: slimvirgin at gmail.com
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:01 PM
To: David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com>
Cc: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

Thanks, David. I have removed Edmond's name from this article, as this
appears to be his real name, he says it's affecting his business, and
we're using Usenet as our source, which is not allowed to be used as a
secondary source on Wikipedia. It may be used as primary-source
material for information about itself, but that doesn't cover Edmond.
I'll leave an explanation on WP:AN/I for the admin who protected the
page.

Sarah

On 5/5/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> I'm assuming:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.usenet.kooks
>
> Clearly mentions him.
>
> "Subscribers to the group regularly hand out awards in various categories,
> most notably the "Kook of the Month Award", by regularized voting processes.
> Notable past winners include Archimedes Plutonium, Sollog and Edmond Heinz
> Wollmann (who was "honored" as the "Kook of the Millennium")."
>
> Is currently protected from vandalism.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> To: "Astrological Consulting" <arcturianone at earthlink.net>; "English
> Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 8:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services
>
> Edmond, which article is this in?
>
> Sarah
>
> On 5/5/05, Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > I would like to respectfully ask that you remove my name from all
> references to "kooks" and other abusive and defamatory maligning propaganda
> posted to your website specifically to damage my business and profession of
> 30 years+.
> >
> > I wrote an explanation of why the usenet abusers harass me and ask that
> you read it and my academically published works and decide for yourselves if
> I am what these abusers say I am.
> > The people who supply you "kopok" information do so on anonymous basis,
> while I openly discuss my points of view on usenet and have done so for 9
> years.
> >
> > I am a published author and have my own consulting business and publishing
> company here in San Diego, and will take all legal action necessary to stop
> you and your company from using your service as a way to defame others.
> >
> > Post about being stalked for 9 years:
> >
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.astrology/msg/3c1c63f3e35ee818?hl=en
> >
> > Links to my academic articles:
> >
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/fate_vs_free_will.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/did_the_greeks_invent_astrol??ogy.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arguments_against_the_astrol??ogers.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/art_evolution_in_greece_and_??rome.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arabic.htm
> >
> > Thank you for your attention.
> >
> > Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
> > (C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
> > Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
> > Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
And Tony Sidaway is the person who posed as a female (sherilyn at demon.net) who started this whole thing by sending complaints to my providers trying to nuke my accounts--HE taught me how to do it because my provider (Earthlink.net) sent me a copy of the complaint. I then retailiated in kind (killing at least 100 accounts in the process) and we have been at this for 9 years because of him and his bright idea to try to make someone more intelligent and capable than he, look like a "kook." I still (as you can see) have that original Earthlink account, because my provider saw what was happening to me and stood by me.
I have been really disappointed in not only his behavior, but the ruination of such a potentially valuable tool such as usenet for sharing ideas across the world. It has driven everyone into moderated groups where one is at the mercy of less than objective or fair moderation.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:04 PM
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

David DJ Hedley said:
> I'm assuming:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.usenet.kooks
>
> Clearly mentions him.
>

There used to be an [[Edmond Wollmann]] article, created back in early
January.  I cleaned it up to get the worst POV crap out, then supported a
VfD which was successful.  I'm sympathetic to the idea of removing the
reference from the [[Alt.usenet.kooks]] article because it is not
essential to the article and, frankly, any kookiness Edmond may ever have
possessed is more than matched by others.  I speak as the person who first
nominated him for KOTM in 1998.
However anything of this kind removed from the article would likely be
restored within minutes.

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

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Article validation feature in 1.5?

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> wrote in message
news:427A0AD7.7070804 at pobox.com...
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> > So what was the problem, is it going to be sorted out soon, and when can
> > we
> > start testing?
> Missing database prefix in a query causes a fatal SQL error on every
> page view, making the wiki completely unusable.

OK, so the problem has apparently been diagnosed. Is it difficut to fix?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Since when is calling someone pathetic names to get back at them for cancelling your account, a "verifyable fact" of anything other than backyard bully crap?

-----Original Message-----
From: Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:28 PM
To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

On 5/5/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.

If it's a verifiable fact that's germane to the article and presented
within the NPOV guidelines, why can't we name them?

--
Seth Ilys
   email: seth.ilys at gmail.com
   IM (aol, msn, yahoo): JehanneDaix
   blog: http://somewhereindurham.blogspot.com/
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:27 PM
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>But the article, [[Alt.usenet.kooks]], *is* about UseNet, so of course
>>it is relevant to use UseNet in that case as a primary source for
>>information about itself.  The article simple states the verifiable fact
>>that this usegroup has given out "Kook of the Year" awards to several
>>people.
>>
>>
>
>And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.
>
>
Why not?  We name a lot of people on Wikipedia.  Basically, anyone who
has achieved any sort of notability, whether good or bad.

-Mark

Then name my Book, website, accomplishments in academia, the astrological field, my artwork:
http://www.e-wollmann.com/gallery_9.htm
And everything else I have accomplished in my 50 years on the planet????

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
If it is not removed I will file a lawsuit for damages and MAKE you remove it.

-----Original Message-----
From: David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:38 PM
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

Is this group itself even notable? 5,100 Google hits, and minusing the
Usenet indexes, thats not much.

As for mentioning names, I think it is fine, if presented in the right way.
Saying "Given the 'honour' of being named 'Kook of the Year'" isn't really
the way to put it, as stating 'honour' in quotation marks is NPOV in itself.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Gerard" <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
To: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>; "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

> slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050506 06:15]:
> > On 5/5/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> > > Actually famous Usenet crank. More coherent than Sollog. Lots of
material
> > > on skeptictank.com .
>
> > I think the point here is that WP policy states that we must used only
> > reputable or credible published sources as secondary sources, and
> > Usenet doesn't count as that. It can be used as primary-source
> > material for information about itself, but it can't be used as a
> > secondary source of information about someone else, especially not
> > when we're using a person's real name (unlike the case of Sollog).
>
>
> Uh, [[alt.usenet.kooks]] is an article about a Usenet group.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

body:
I demand that my name be removed immediately. This is your last c hance to explain why you choose to defame my companies.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:47 PM
To: Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net>,
	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>,
	Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>, slimvirgin at gmail.com
Subject: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

I have edited the article about the "alt.usenet.kooks" newsgroup to
clarify the fact that Wikipedia is not labelling anybody. The label of
"kook" is now attributed to that newsgroup's subscribers.

Particularly galling may have been the article's sympathetic adoption of
the newsgroup's POV. It referred to the label (in positive terms) as an
"award". This has been changed in two places: (1) to the neutral term
"label" and (2) to the negative term "branded".

Moreover, a polite note assures readers that Wikipedia does not endorse
but merely reports - a fact which may be lost to those who are not avid
students of Wikipedia's neutrality policy.

Best wishes to all.

Uncle Ed

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Edmond, which article is this in?

Sarah

On 5/5/05, Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I would like to respectfully ask that you remove my name from all references to "kooks" and other abusive and defamatory maligning propaganda posted to your website specifically to damage my business and profession of 30 years+.
>
> I wrote an explanation of why the usenet abusers harass me and ask that you read it and my academically published works and decide for yourselves if I am what these abusers say I am.
> The people who supply you "kopok" information do so on anonymous basis, while I openly discuss my points of view on usenet and have done so for 9 years.
>
> I am a published author and have my own consulting business and publishing company here in San Diego, and will take all legal action necessary to stop you and your company from using your service as a way to defame others.
>
> Post about being stalked for 9 years:
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.astrology/msg/3c1c63f3e35ee818?hl=en
>
> Links to my academic articles:
>
> http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/fate_vs_free_will.htm
> http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/did_the_greeks_invent_astrol??ogy.htm
> http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arguments_against_the_astrol??ogers.htm
> http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/art_evolution_in_greece_and_??rome.htm
> http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arabic.htm
>
> Thank you for your attention.
>
> Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
> (C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
> Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
> Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
> http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template asymmetry

body:
On Thursday, May 05, 2005 5:11 AM, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com>
wrote:

> I mention this only because I've recently learned about {{Succession}},
> which can be successfully applied to at least 98% of all imaginable
> cases -- succession patterns of Roman Emperors, Popes, Presidents, &
> Internet Kooks of the Month [*]. I've been using it quite happily in
> writing my contributions of Ethiopian Emperors. And I'm sure there are
> several other simple, flexible Templates that can be used to replace
> countless others.

There's also {{succession box}} and all of its cohorts that are used on
thousands of pages that I created to be more flexible than {{Succession}}
itself, and includes the years of office; you may want to use those,
instead.

> Once these simple & flexible ones are found & used to replace their
> competition, then we can start deleting these templates on the basis that
> they aren't used.

Agreed. But perhaps we're getting there already?

> [*] The only case I can think of where {{Succession}} wouldn't work is
> with Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs -- because not only would the office --
> Pharaoh -- need to be included, but also the period of
> Egyptian history
> (e.g., Old Kingdom, Second Intermediate, etc.) & the Dynasty. However,
> I haven't been able to create a consensus about including the
> Dynasty in
> such a template, so perhaps even this exception could be subsumed into
> this template.

The standard way to do that would be to encode it into the office, so (made
up):

{{succession box |
  before=[[Pharaoh of Egypt]]'''
''of the [[Old
Kingdom]]'''''
  title=[[Pha]] |
  years=[[1000 BC]]–[[980 BC]] |
  after=[[Bar]]
}}

Also, when positions change, similar syntax is used on the
successor/predecessor (from [[Virginia Bottomley]]):

{{succession box |
  before=[[Stephen Dorrell]] |
  title=[[Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport|Secretary of State
for National Heritage]] |
  years=1995–1997 |
  after=[[Chris Smith (UK politician)|Chris Smith]]'''
''Sec.
State Culture, Media and Sport'''''
}}

It's a little bit of a hack, yes, but it's not that common a problem. I
might encode it into a series of sub-templates if people really think it
necessary.

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

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


body:
Pleasze remove all references to my companies and myself or face legal action--immediately

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-----Original Message-----
From: Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:49 PM
To: "Poor,Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>,
	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>,
	Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>, slimvirgin at gmail.com
Subject: Re: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

I demand that my name be removed immediately. This is your last c hance to explain why you choose to defame my companies.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
Sent: May 5, 2005 1:47 PM
To: Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net>,
	English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>,
	Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>, slimvirgin at gmail.com
Subject: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

I have edited the article about the "alt.usenet.kooks" newsgroup to
clarify the fact that Wikipedia is not labelling anybody. The label of
"kook" is now attributed to that newsgroup's subscribers.

Particularly galling may have been the article's sympathetic adoption of
the newsgroup's POV. It referred to the label (in positive terms) as an
"award". This has been changed in two places: (1) to the neutral term
"label" and (2) to the negative term "branded".

Moreover, a polite note assures readers that Wikipedia does not endorse
but merely reports - a fact which may be lost to those who are not avid
students of Wikipedia's neutrality policy.

Best wishes to all.

Uncle Ed

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/

Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
(C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Thanks, David. I have removed Edmond's name from this article, as this
appears to be his real name, he says it's affecting his business, and
we're using Usenet as our source, which is not allowed to be used as a
secondary source on Wikipedia. It may be used as primary-source
material for information about itself, but that doesn't cover Edmond.
I'll leave an explanation on WP:AN/I for the admin who protected the
page.

Sarah

On 5/5/05, David 'DJ' Hedley <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:
> I'm assuming:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.usenet.kooks
>
> Clearly mentions him.
>
> "Subscribers to the group regularly hand out awards in various categories,
> most notably the "Kook of the Month Award", by regularized voting processes.
> Notable past winners include Archimedes Plutonium, Sollog and Edmond Heinz
> Wollmann (who was "honored" as the "Kook of the Millennium")."
>
> Is currently protected from vandalism.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> To: "Astrological Consulting" <arcturianone at earthlink.net>; "English
> Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 8:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services
>
> Edmond, which article is this in?
>
> Sarah
>
> On 5/5/05, Astrological Consulting <arcturianone at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > I would like to respectfully ask that you remove my name from all
> references to "kooks" and other abusive and defamatory maligning propaganda
> posted to your website specifically to damage my business and profession of
> 30 years+.
> >
> > I wrote an explanation of why the usenet abusers harass me and ask that
> you read it and my academically published works and decide for yourselves if
> I am what these abusers say I am.
> > The people who supply you "kopok" information do so on anonymous basis,
> while I openly discuss my points of view on usenet and have done so for 9
> years.
> >
> > I am a published author and have my own consulting business and publishing
> company here in San Diego, and will take all legal action necessary to stop
> you and your company from using your service as a way to defame others.
> >
> > Post about being stalked for 9 years:
> >
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.astrology/msg/3c1c63f3e35ee818?hl=en
> >
> > Links to my academic articles:
> >
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/fate_vs_free_will.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/did_the_greeks_invent_astrol??ogy.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arguments_against_the_astrol??ogers.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/art_evolution_in_greece_and_??rome.htm
> > http://astroconsulting.com/FAQ??s/arabic.htm
> >
> > Thank you for your attention.
> >
> > Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.
> > (C) 2005 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603
> > Astrological Consulting http://www.astroconsulting.com/
> > Artworks http://www.e-wollmann.com/
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~arcturianone/
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


from_name: Josh Gordon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
This fellow is one of the pure ones. A wee bit of research shows he's been
threatening to sue anyone who suggests he is anything other than brilliant
for a decade or so.

If we're going to have an article on alt.usenet.kooks, it makes sense to
report on what they do...

jpgordon

On 5/5/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/5/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > No, this isn't using a secondary source. If we are stating the fact
> > "[X] has been named 'Kook of the Year' by the UseNet newsgroup
> > alt.usenet.kooks", then we're using alt.usenet.kooks as a primary source
> > for the award. If we were saying "[X] *is* a UseNet kook", then we
> > would be using it as a secondary source to back up that fact. But we
> > aren't saying anyone is a kook---merely reporting that someone else has
> > said so. In short, the article is about the group and what they've
> > said, using their words as a primary source for what they've said.
> >
> Right, I agree. But then there's no need to name the award winners. As
> soon as you do that, you're reporting that X was said about John
> Smith. You're not commenting on the truth of it, but you're repeating
> the allegation. Therefore, it must have been published by a credible,
> secondary source. That's our policy.
>
> Mark, I've removed the name again. Now that the problem has been
> pointed out to us, we're on very sticky ground inserting the material
> back into the article. Perhaps we could discuss this instead either
> here or on WP:AN/I? If I'm the only person who thinks it should be
> removed, then obviously I'll abide by the majority view, but I'd like
> to see what a few others think first.
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Corrected (was: Abuse of your services)

body:
> I demand that my name be removed immediately. This is your
> last chance to explain why you choose to defame my companies.

I see nothing in the article that defames you or your companies. The
fact that some anonymous idiot labelled you a "kook" means nothing. And
it's not an offense for Wikipedia to report that fact.

Note carefully the distinction:

A. Wikipedia is NOT calling you a kook (that would violate our policy,
and I personally won't tolerate that).

B. Wikipedia *MAY* report that those jerks on Usenet have branded you a
kook. (Read the part about Wikipedia NOT endorsing that label.)

I think I've said enough about this.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Here, Usenet is being used as a primary source: of the opinions of
contributors to alt.usenet.kooks.  Ed Wollman's posts to Usenet
themselves are also primary sources.  Note that this is not bringing
up someone's name who chooses to remain private.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/5/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Actually famous Usenet crank. More coherent than Sollog. Lots of material
> on skeptictank.com .
>
I think the point here is that WP policy states that we must used only
reputable or credible published sources as secondary sources, and
Usenet doesn't count as that. It can be used as primary-source
material for information about itself, but it can't be used as a
secondary source of information about someone else, especially not
when we're using a person's real name (unlike the case of Sollog).

Sarah