subject: [Wikipedia-l] 4 factor fair use test

body:
jansson at gmx.net wrote:
> > 1.  What is the character of the use?
> >
> > Our use is nonprofit and educational.  Because the photo of the artwork
> > would
> > naturally be accompanied by an article about the artwork, our use is
> > criticism
> > and commentary.  Notice that even commercial use can be o.k., if the use
> > is
> > generally educational, commentary, criticism.
>
> I thought as a part of the article the image would have to be GNU FDL
> compatible. But these demands don't sound like they would be.

You raise an interesting question.

Suppose I go out and take a photo of a copyrighted art work, and put
it on the wikipedia.  Our use falls pretty clearly under 'fair use'.
I release *my work* under the GNU FDL.  This means that *my copyright
interest* in the photo is licensed to others under the GNU FDL.  This
does not imply that I am licensing the underlying artwork.

Now suppose someone uses my GNU FDL photo in such a way that it is no
longer fair use of the underlying work.  Notice that *I* am not
imposing additional conditions on the work, but the law is, generally.

I think that's o.k. under the GNU FDL.  The end user would not violate *my*
copyright (in the photo itself) by using the photo commercially, for example.
But they might violate the original artwork copyright.

--Jimbo


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The Enlightenment: Cologne Blue mockup article

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> I am purely tweaking this for gross graphical layout, and seeing if the
> "ergonomic" sidebar is too big.
>
> Please let me know if this continues to look clean and nice, and whether
> something like this would be a good idea as a default skin, as and when
> it is completely debugged and cleaned-up.

The page overall is clean and legible, great!

However, my comments on the sidebar still stand; "Page options" and "My
options" are going to vanish off the bottom of my screen, which is
something I find frustrating in the current layout.

Still missing "Watch page" and "Talk page" links (on the current CB
these are under 'Page options'); also there needs to be a place to put
"Move page", "Delete page", and "Protect page" for trusted hands/sysops
(currently in Edit).

Also, one tiny style suggestion: I'd put the gray section headers in the
sidebar ('Find', 'Browse', etc) in sans-serif font to match the gray
sans-serif article title.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Contoversy flag on articles.

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>>Can we add a "contested flag" or something? That alerts the
>>reader to the opinion (of any given author) that the content
>>of the article is or might be tainted? A lot of the middle east
>>articles popping up all over could then be tagged as not entirely
>>reliable until everyone have had their say.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>If not as a specific feature, then at least as a convention on how
>>to mark an article as controversial, for instance with an agreed
>>upon keyword early in the article.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>I love Wikipedia, but this problem always gives me a bad feeling,
>>and makes we feel like giving up. Something like this would help
>>to civilize disagreements, and thereby divert a lot of energy away
>>from them, and over to other articles.
>>
>>
>
>I would consider just marking an article as "likely to be
>controversial" or something along those lines as tantamount to
>giving up on the goal of making it a good article, so I wouldn't
>want that.  On the other hand, it is not only acceptable, but
>highly recommended, that the first paragraph if not the first
>sentence of such an article simply tell the reader in plain
>English that the topic is controversial and likely to contain
>contradictory opinions. That's just part of describing the topic.
>
>We could make a clearer statement of policy to that effect if
>it would help.
>
>

I have created:

Controversial issue
#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:List of controversial issues]]

that can be used as a tracker link. That way, an article can contain
something like the words:

(Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing
points of view...  &c.

Neil

>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] an idea

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> Is there a way to register the number of words by each article in the search
> engine? This would give a quick sense of whether the article is stub or not.

That's a good idea. Please add it to the feature requests tracker so we
don't forget about it!

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?group_id=34373&atid=411195

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing

in_reply_to: <200207250925.g6P9PIt20662@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 02:25:18AM -0700

body:
On Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 02:25:18AM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> I'd love to have a formal grammar of some kind (I think regexps
> would be fine),

Hmm, I seem to remember I promised that once. :-/ I'll see what I can do. If
people want to help, just go to

  http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/User:Jan_Hidders/Wikipedia_syntax

(I probably should put this on the meta-wikipedia.)

Just to be clear; the syntax should not describe what we accept and not
accept (we accept actualy everything sot that's a really simple grammar :-))
but should have enough "resolution" to allow us to specify the semantics of
the mark-up. We first should not concentrate on making it LALR(1) or
anything, but just that it is unambiguous (in the parsing-sense of the word)
and complete.

> and I agree with Jan that a totally wiki-specific syntax would be far
> better than our current mish-mash of HTML and wiki markup. But I'm not
> sure if it's not already too late to revisit those decisions.

Was it a conscious decision? I got the impressions the early software didn't
filter out HTML so people used it and now we are stuck with it.

Apart from the big technical advantages I still feel that having a simple
HTML-free mark-up language is necessary to keep Wikipedia accessible for
newcomers. Having lots of complicated HTML that is not very WYSIWIG makes
editing harder. This inevitably means that you cannot do a lot of fancy
lay-out things, but I believe that is not a bug but a feature.

So, yes, it is probably impossible to come up with an HTML-free mark-up that
has an equivalent for all the HTML that is currently used. However, we would
probably be breaking only a very small percentage of pages and we could even
automatically detect those pages and put them on a "to be simplified" list.

> But if it isn't, I'll be happy to discuss what a syntax might
> look like.

I have once made a proposal on

  http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/User:Jan_Hidders/HTML-free_mark-up

but I have to admit that it was mainly to draw some discussion.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Article-a-day?

body:
The Wikipedia article-a-day subscription hasn't worked since the time I
got here (about the time of conversion to phase II software in January).

Does anybody want to bring this feature back, or should the
Article-a-day queue be deleted to avoid confusing people?

   http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia/Article_a_day_queue

If interested (positively or negatively), please follow-up to the
feature request tracker here:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=587259&group_id=34373&atid=411195

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Dear all,

This is another hack-up of the Cologne Blue style, mostly using the
user-selected font.
This now uses CSS rather than tables (except for the table at the top).

Disclaimers:
* It does not yet have the final link layout,  or any working links.
* Not all links are present.
* It probably does not validate yet, or work in older browsers which are
not CSS-aware.

I am purely tweaking this for gross graphical layout, and seeing if the
"ergonomic" sidebar is too big.

Please let me know if this continues to look clean and nice, and whether
something like this would be a good idea as a default skin, as and when
it is completely debugged and cleaned-up.

Neil


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

body:
On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Neil Harris wrote:

> Controversial issue
> #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:List of controversial issues]]
> that can be used as a tracker link. That way, an article can contain
> something like the words:
> (Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing
> points of view...  &c.

Hm. I think the idea of having a page called "controversial issue", and
describing the problem there is a good idea. I also think that linking to this
page early in a controversial article is a good idea.

I _don't_ think listing them up is a good idea. The page should be an
explanation as to why we chose to flag certain articles as controversial,
what it implies (that one should be prepared for slanted content, etc.), and
how to ultimately solve the controversy (npov tactics).

Linking from each article, instead of linking _to_ each article will also make
it easier for the random reader (just arrived from Google) to know whether
these are cold encyclopedic "facts" or contested viewpoints. (Of course, the
system can be abused, but it is more dangerous for people to have too little
skepticism, than too much. (And a flame war of people turning on and off the
"controversial issue"-link is far less intrusive than one where they rewrite
large sections for every update.))

If you need to track down controversial issues to work on, use the funky "pages
that link here" gizmo.

-- Daniel


body:
(re-sent with the attachement in place)
--------------------------------------------

Dear all,

This is another hack-up of the Cologne Blue style, mostly using the
user-selected font.
This now uses CSS rather than tables (except for the table at the top).

Disclaimers:
* It does not yet have the final link layout,  or any working links.
* Not all links are present.
* It probably does not validate yet, or work in older browsers which are
not CSS-aware.

I am purely tweaking this for gross graphical layout, and seeing if the
"ergonomic" sidebar is too big.

Please let me know if this continues to look clean and nice, and whether
something like this would be a good idea as a default skin, as and when
it is completely debugged and cleaned-up.

Neil

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] an idea

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> How do I do that?

Go to the tracker:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?group_id=34373&atid=411195

Click "Submit new" and fill out the form.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] an idea

body:
>How do I do that?

I added this one, so no need. But if you follow the link to the
SourceForge tracker on the bug reports page, all you have to do is
click on "Submit New", fill in the details (and don't forget your e-
mail address if you're not logged into SourceForge), and submit.


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] an idea

body:
How do I do that?

Danny


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright question

body:
Does anyone know the status of photos taken of works in museums/galleries
(in this case, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver)
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Parsing

body:
On Fri, Jul 26, 2002 at 07:00:28AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Jan.Hidders wrote:
>
> My grasp of the consensus (but maybe I am misremembering... perhaps
> this is just my grasp of my own opinion!) is that going out of our way
> to be HTML-free is not a good thing, but that not allowing the many
> html-nightmares is a good thing.

I think you are right that this was and is the consensus. Doesn't mean I
can't try, does it? :-)

> For example, many many many people, not just programmers, understand
> how to make html bold and italics.  Those are intuitive
> and harmless.  The original Ward Cunningham wiki solution of ' and ''
> and ''' for different things, well, that was never very intuitive and
> newcomers didn't know about it.

<rave>
Oh, come on! How long does it take for newcomers to grasp what '' and
''' means? I agree that in itself there is nothing wrong with  and
although I personally think they are slightly less easier to read then the
WikiWiki notation and I think it is always better to simply have one notation
for every mark-up.

However, they are at the root of the HTML problems because once you start
allowing such HTML-like mark-up the software has to decide which tags it
allows and which it doesn't and if the stuff is well-formed or not and
that's just hard to do. So in the beginning it simply wasn't done and
because, as you said, the code was and is the law now the life of the parser
has become unnecessarily difficult and some pages are more and more looking
like regular hard to understand and edit HTML pages.

It really would have been so much better if right from the beginning somebody
would have said: no HTML tags. It really would have. *sigh*
</rave>

> Of course, at this point, we do have an established userbase of writers,
> some of whom are known to us as regulars, but lots and lots of whom may
> only show up once every month to write a little bit.  I think we have a
> duty not to change anything in a way that will astonish them.

You are right, of course, but I would say that we also have a duty towards
the hundreds of thousands potential contributers that will come to visit us
in the future. And seeing how Wikipedia is happily humming along at the
moment and even getting a facial soon, I'm quite sure that they will come.
:-)

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocking IPs

body:
The guy attacking [[User:Rlee0001]] is back with a new IP.
I blocked it (see [[Special:Blockedips]], but I'm new at this sort of thing,
so if there's anything that I should know when I become part of a cabal --
like how to figure out if an IP is dynamic and when to unblock it? --
then somebody should tell me.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


from_name: jansson at gmx.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 4 factor fair use test

body:
> 1.  What is the character of the use?
>
> Our use is nonprofit and educational.  Because the photo of the artwork
> would
> naturally be accompanied by an article about the artwork, our use is
> criticism
> and commentary.  Notice that even commercial use can be o.k., if the use
> is
> generally educational, commentary, criticism.

I thought as a part of the article the image would have to be GNU FDL
compatible. But these demands don't sound like they would be.

Kurt

--
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net


subject: [Wikitech-l] About a formal syntax for Wikipedia.

body:
I've been thinking a little about writing a formal syntax for the Wikipedia
contents, and now have a question. If I understand the code correctly the
parts between <nowiki> tags are completely left alone, no matter what HTML
we find betwen them (Javascript, illegal HTML or whatever). My first
question is (1) is that what we want? and (2) if not should then the formal
grammar describe what the code is doing now or what it should be doing?

As far as (1) is concerned I would like it if we would guarantee that our
output is always valid and well-formed HTML4 without any scripting. As far
as (2) my first inclination would be to let the grammar describe what the
code is doing at the moment since that is probably needed anyway, and then
we can start discussing what it actually should be doing.

-- Jan Hidders


body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>>
>> Please let me know if this continues to look clean and nice, and whether
>> something like this would be a good idea as a default skin, as and when
>> it is completely debugged and cleaned-up.
>
>
> The page overall is clean and legible, great!

Brion,

Thanks for the feedback: I only know what I like, I'm glad you like it too.
Most of the credit for the clean design goes to Marian.

I've enclosed a new version, with some more tweaks. There is also the
first step at creating a better rendition of the quickbar menu for
non-CSS browsers, involving two different renderings with and without
CSS, using hidden stuff that will only pop up for non-CSS browsers.

I've also
* given a muted purple colour to visited internal/external links, but
not for menu links.
* made a contrasting colour for external links
* lots of little tweaks to layout and fonts

See the enclosed page for details.

>
> However, my comments on the sidebar still stand; "Page options" and
> "My options" are going to vanish off the bottom of my screen, which is
> something I find frustrating in the current layout.

Yes, vertical space is a problem. I've restored the idea of a user menu
at the top as a first step, pending a solution of the larger problem.

>
> Still missing "Watch page" and "Talk page" links (on the current CB
> these are under 'Page options'); also there needs to be a place to put
> "Move page", "Delete page", and "Protect page" for trusted
> hands/sysops (currently in Edit).

Yes, I've not forgotten them: they are just not there at the moment.

>
> Also, one tiny style suggestion: I'd put the gray section headers in
> the sidebar ('Find', 'Browse', etc) in sans-serif font to match the
> gray sans-serif article title.

Done.

>
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>

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from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocking IPs

body:
On Friday 26 July 2002 22:21, Toby Bartels wrote:
> The guy attacking [[User:Rlee0001]] is back with a new IP.
> I blocked it (see [[Special:Blockedips]], but I'm new at this sort of
> thing, so if there's anything that I should know when I become part of a
> cabal -- like how to figure out if an IP is dynamic and when to unblock it?
> -- then somebody should tell me.

[phma at neofelis /tmp]$ whois 66.24.193.53 at whois.arin.net
[whois.arin.net]
ROADRUNNER-NYS (NETBLK-ROADRUNNER-NYS)
   13241 Woodland Park Road
   Herndon, VA 20171
   US

   Netname: ROADRUNNER-NYS
   Netblock: 66.24.0.0 - 66.24.255.255
   Maintainer: RRNS

   Coordinator:
      ServiceCo LLC  (ZS30-ARIN)  abuse at rr.com
      1-703-345-3416

   Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

   DNS1.RR.COM                  24.30.200.3
   DNS2.RR.COM                  24.30.201.3
   DNS3.RR.COM                  24.30.199.7
   DNS4.RR.COM                  65.24.0.172

   ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
[phma at neofelis /tmp]$ nslookup 66.24.193.53
Name:    alb-66-24-193-53.nycap.rr.com
Address:  66.24.193.53

Road Runner addresses are generally dynamic, though people who leave their
computers on all the time get the same address for months. You may want to
complain to abuse at rr.com and ask them to lart the vandal. This one appears to
be in Albany, New York.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocking IPs

body:
Here's the guy's other address, also in Albany, New York:

[phma at neofelis /tmp]$ whois 216.238.177.114 at whois.arin.net
[whois.arin.net]
BiznessOnline (NETBLK-THEBIZ)
   1873 Western Ave.
   Albany, NY 12203
   US

   Netname: THEBIZ
   Netblock: 216.238.0.0 - 216.238.255.255
   Maintainer: CASO

   Coordinator:
      BiznessOnline.com  (ZB54-ARIN)  ipadmin at thebiz.net
      518-452-5772

   Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

   NS1.THEBIZ.NET               216.238.0.14
   NS2.THEBIZ.NET               216.238.98.50

   Record last updated on 17-Jan-2001.
   Database last updated on  25-Jul-2002 20:00:35 EDT.

[phma at neofelis /tmp]$ nslookup 216.238.177.114
Name:    vpn2.wrgb.com
Address:  216.238.177.114


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Suspend user of IP (sourceforge feature request that needs policy discussion)

body:
LDC wrote on sourceforge:
>After having my user: page vandalized repeatedly today,
>I'm convinced that user pages should only be editable by
>the logged on user. Furthor, there should be a submit
>form to submit IP addresses of users who abuse the
>system. Perhaps with a "1 hour suspension" which
>takes effect immediately so that an admin has time to
>investigate and take permanant action.

I'm ambivalent about whether or not user: should only be editable by
logged-in users and would oppose this only if it were difficult to implement
or could break anything (there are /far/ more important things to do). But
really, this is kinda anti-wiki, no? As it is me thinks too many pages are
not editable by too many people. I know, I know, this is done for practical
reasons but I suggest we re-implement something like "trusted user"status on
a 30 day/30 edit (or whatever) basis so that 'old hands' could edit protected
pages, move articles and their histories and do any other non-meta sysop
functions.

I see no need to block users like Zoe or Jheijmans or Enchanter etc. from
editing the Main Page, copyediting and condensing policy pages (which is
/badly/ needed for some of them BTW) or administratively moving articles.
These users and many others have more than enough experience with our
policies, naming conventions and such to be trusted to do semi-sensitive work
like that. Heck,  Zoe and Jheijmans already meet the requirements for being
sysops; they are trusted members of the community, and they contribute to
policy discussion (although trusted, I don't remember Enchanter contributing
to this list on a regular basis -- I may be wrong...).

However, we should be careful to not have many scores of sysop accounts --
there simply would be too much potential for random internet thugs coming in
and guessing some ancient, no longer contributing sysop's password and really
doing some harm. BTW, the contributor status of sysops should be checked once
in a while anyway and those that have not contributed in some time (more than
x months) should be non-punitively demoted to user and a note placed on their
page telling them to ask another sysop or better yet the list to re-promote
them after/if they return.

Furthermore, non logged-in users contribute a hell of a lot to the project
and I don't fault them for being anonymous (its their /right/). Why single
them out by allowing /any/ logged-in user the ability to block them for any
period of time (even totally green users that set-up their accounts 5 minutes
before)? I forsee much abuse with that feature. In addition, I constantly
read comments on talk pages of logged-in users chiding non-logged-in users to
"sign-up" in a tone that implies that it is some type of sin not to be
signed-up!

Yes I am probably guilty of this too but only with those that were majorly
annoying me and chatting a lot on talk pages (hopefully this is all in my
past now). BTW, please correct me whenever I am being too harsh on the
'pedia.

I reserve that right here though :->

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Suspend user of IP --- AIM-like warn feature perhaps?

body:
Hum, I just had an idea that may just satisfy everyone --- why not have
something like the warn function of AIM? Then anybody, including sysops,
could be blocked for an hour if they are warned enough by enough users.
I would suggest that warning users should be limited to 'old/trusted hand' or
greater status users (for policy learning curve issues).

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] G*d D@m#t!! Much apologies to LDC and the list for incorrect sourceforge attrib

body:
Opps! I missed the "Assigned To" part before "Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker)"
and totally missed the "Submitted By: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)" part.

Grumble, grumble.... I wouldn't have spent on hour on my previous message if
I had known it wasn't from LDC (I /knew/ the comment sounded out of
character). Since it has been mentioned, this topic should be discussed
anyway though.

--mav


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What do I do when my bug report is rejected for an invalid reason?

body:
Jens Frank wrote:

>>
>>But the response isn't true.  I still can't get "view the last (x) days" to work.
>>
>
>Hi Zoe,
>
>There are two limits active: First the number of changes to be displayed
>(150 by default), second the number of days (3 by default).
>
>If you click on "7 days", the limit of 150 still applies. You have to click
>on "500", to get the last 500 changes, up to 7 days ago.
>
>However, you probably won't get 7 days that way two, since there are more than 500
>changes in 7 days. You will have to change the URL to include e.g. 1000 or 2000
>changes.
>
It seems to me that the limit in days has outlived its usefulness,  It
made sense when the number of contributions to Wikipedia were relatively
small, but now with multiple edits being reported the number of changes
can be as much as 1500 to 2000 every day.  The operation of these limits
is also counter-intuitive.  To the uninitiated, the natural way to
interpret this function is on an either/or basis.

Eclecticology

>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Years in review and the need for editorial judgement

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>We could learn a lot from the experience of traditional encyclopedia
>editors over the last few centuries, but very few of us would take the
>time to do so.  I've read a biography of Denis Diderot, and "The
>Professor and the Madman", and have a small collection of old (Swedish)
>encyclopedia and dictionaries, but that's about all.  One conclusion that
>I've drawn is that they all used to borrow facts and ideas from each
>other, without too much worry for copyright infringement.

That may be because one can't copyright facts and ideas.

I notice that we keep copying public domain text from 1911,
which is usually so out of date that it must be completely rewritten.
This is a waste of time, and makes our own articles wrong.
We should look at the 2002 encyclopaedia and completely rewrite *that*.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recent changes page

body:
Eclecticology wrote:

>What I really miss is not being able to use the back button to get back
>to where I was.  It now forces a reload whenever I do so.  I've noticed
>it most with Recent Changes, but I've also had it come up while editing
>a page.  My habit has been to use search to go to verify a page name
>when I'm trying to create a link from the page I'm editing.  Now when I
>back-button from the search results I get a brand new edit page with my
>partial edits deleted.

I've learned to *always* press "Preview" before leaving the edit page.
Then the only problem is if the connection fails for some reason
(probably a problem on my end, since it occurs with other sites),
in which case backtracking from the error page loses the most recent edit.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Restored history

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

>Which reminds me: do we still want to restore the edit histories from
>the usemod wiki days?

*I* certainly do, if possible.
In fact, I'd always assumed that they weren't restored in March
only because it was *not* possible, so I never brought it up.
I actually think that it should be a very high priority.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: URL followed by punctuation->broken link

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

>Crop final punctuation from links: Brion, Tony

Tut, tut, shouldn't misspell your supporters' names, Brian ^_^.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>That seems to be a growing consensus.  The remaining questions,
>then, are the exact details.  Exactly which characters do we want
>to consider "punctuation", and under what circumstances?  My
>suggestion is this: After parsing URLs the way it does now, if the
>URL ends with one, and exactly one, of the characters period, comma,
>question mark, or exclamation; then remove that character and
>assume it punctuates the sentence. Otherwise, leave the URL alone.

There's also the endings ".)", "?)", "!)", and "...".
Getting too complicated?  I agree.

So the rule should be a string of *any* length at the end of a URL
consisting of characters that (should shouldn't be hard to determine)
aren't commonly used to end a URL.
Annoying if you want to site <http://www.com/page.html?secretcode=*%.)?!@>?
Yes, but that's going to be an extremely rare occurrence,
and anybody that does that will know that they have a weird little URL
and will check the <Preview> if they're not a fool.
In contrast, everybody and their mother is going to write
"(For more information, see http://www.com/moreinfo.html.)",
at least while they're newbies.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Image width

body:
Tarquin wrote:

>Yes, but the width of the browser window itself should be much less:
>http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TenWordLine

That explains why I like to read Wikipedia with my browser at half screen.
I always rationalised that it was so I could look at another article
(or web site) while editing, but there's more to it than that.
You are absolutely right!

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wat is een oefenwedstrijd?

body:
I seem to remember "oefenen" in Dutch means something
like to practice for better results (ie to do
exercices repeatedly such as in sport and music maybe)

foto van een is obviously "photography from a"

wedstrijd is a sport competition, a sport event, a
meeting

as for NEC, check out http://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/

looks like football to me :-)

so I would say it's a picture taken during practice of
that team...

--- Pierre Abbat <phma at webjockey.net> wrote:
> Someone calling himself "Jerrydon" has again
> uploaded a picture of some scene
> at a ball field, and this time added the comment
> "foto van een oefenwedstrijd
> van NEC". I cannot identify the game, and it's not
> used on any of the pedias,
> so I'm deleting it again. What does the comment
> mean?
>
> phma
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Contoversy flag on articles.

body:
Neil Harris wrote:

>(Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing
>points of view...  &c.

"'''Evolution''' is a [[controversial issue]],
with widely differing points of view."

"The '''theory of relativity''' is a [[controversial issue]],
with widely differing points of view."

"The '''heliocentric model of the solar system''' is a [[controversial issue]],
with widely differing points of view."

I think that an honest admission, in '' like disambiguation page notices,
that the article is not *yet* NPOV is preferable.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocking IPs

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:

>Road Runner addresses are generally dynamic, though people who leave their
>computers on all the time get the same address for months. You may want to
>complain to abuse at rr.com and ask them to lart the vandal. This one appears to
>be in Albany, New York.

I'm not really comfortable writing to abuse addresses myself
and speaking for the community or appearing to.

I guess that I'll unblock the dynamic RR address
when maveric149 unblocks the similar one that he did.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
Jan Hidders raved (I assume he meant "ranted"):

>Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>For example, many many many people, not just programmers, understand
>>how to make html bold and italics.  Those are intuitive
>>and harmless.  The original Ward Cunningham wiki solution of ' and ''
>>and ''' for different things, well, that was never very intuitive and
>>newcomers didn't know about it.

>Oh, come on! How long does it take for newcomers to grasp what '' and
>''' means? I agree that in itself there is nothing wrong with  and
>although I personally think they are slightly less easier to read then the
>WikiWiki notation and I think it is always better to simply have one notation
>for every mark-up.

The question isn't how easy "'''" is to learn.
The question is how easy "" is to learn.
The answer to that is, it's pretty darned easy;
therefore, since people will try it, it should be allowed.
If having two ways to write the same thing is bad,
then honestly "'''" should go before "" does.

(Note the "if"; I think that "'''" is great -- easier to type.
In fact, it should actually be rendered as ,
which is even harder to type but is almost always more correct.)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


body:
Someone calling himself "Jerrydon" has again uploaded a picture of some scene
at a ball field, and this time added the comment "foto van een oefenwedstrijd
van NEC". I cannot identify the game, and it's not used on any of the pedias,
so I'm deleting it again. What does the comment mean?

phma


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
Why should I have to learn yet another -- extremely cryptic and
counter-intuitive -- markup language, just so I can volunteer for the
privilege of writing an encyclopedia?

In other words, why would you (y'all, I'm not addressing Cunc in
specific) want to discourage me?

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of The Cunctator
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 08:34
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

On 7/27/02 11:24 AM, "tarquin" <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

>
> I would hesitate before deprecating <b> and <i> in wiki markup, but I
> change those to the equivalent ' whenever I see them, and I don't
think
> they should be encouraged.
>
That's what deprecating means.

I think it's good practice to discourage HTML, but not ban it. TMTOWTDI.

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> Brion VIBBER wrote:
>>Crop final punctuation from links: Brion, Tony
>
>
> Tut, tut, shouldn't misspell your supporters' names, Brian ^_^.

Oops! Much apoligizings.

-- broin vbir (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Controversy flag on articles.

body:
At 07:29 AM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Neil Harris wrote:
>
> >(Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing
> >points of view...  &c.
>
>"'''Evolution''' is a [[controversial issue]],
>with widely differing points of view."
>
>"The '''theory of relativity''' is a [[controversial issue]],
>with widely differing points of view."
>
>"The '''heliocentric model of the solar system''' is a [[controversial
>issue]],
>with widely differing points of view."
>
>
>I think that an honest admission, in '' like disambiguation page notices,
>that the article is not *yet* NPOV is preferable.

Also, of course, "'''God''' is a [[controversial issue]], with widely
differing points of view",
"'''Democracy''' is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing points
of view",
and so on for all religious and political topics.

Seriously. Evolution isn't half as controversial as whether Jesus is God.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 06:39:34PM +1000, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> What I need to know now
> is how to unwatch the darned things... Having 'history' under 'edit' is
> a much better arrangement.

Hi Kajikit,

Open the Watchlist, klick on a watched article, and in the place the
"Watch this article" button was a "Stop watching" button is available.

Regards,

JeLuF


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
On 7/27/02 11:24 AM, "tarquin" <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

>
> I would hesitate before deprecating <b> and <i> in wiki markup, but I
> change those to the equivalent ' whenever I see them, and I don't think
> they should be encouraged.
>
That's what deprecating means.

I think it's good practice to discourage HTML, but not ban it. TMTOWTDI.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
On 7/27/02 11:51 AM, "Sean Barrett" <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> Why should I have to learn yet another -- extremely cryptic and
> counter-intuitive -- markup language, just so I can volunteer for the
> privilege of writing an encyclopedia?
>
> In other words, why would you (y'all, I'm not addressing Cunc in
> specific) want to discourage me?

I don't think you should be discouraged. I just think that we should only
encourage one way (for style, consistency, simplicity) but allow other ways.
HTML should be treated with benign neglect.

In other words, you don't have to learn anything, but if you want to, you
can.


body:
On 7/27/02 12:15 PM, "Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" <daniel at copyleft.no> wrote:
\> My idea with the "controversial issue" flag/page-link would be to use it
for
> articles that are still "contested" at Wikipedia. Many articles that in
> themselves regard controversial issues have been splendidly NPOVed, and
> wouldn't need to be flagged.
>
> But others, where people bicker back and forth, or where someone still doesn't
> consider the article to be NPOVed, would benefit from it.
>
This is essentially a non-helpful idea, since the criteria for what is a
controversial issue is itself a controversial issue. Better would be to look
for objective criteria, such as pages that are edited unusually frequently,
or have had multiple massive  rewrites, etc.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
'' and ''' are not the worst offenders.  There's also various numbers of
equal-signs and dashes, colons and so on.  All of which accomplishes
nothing that the equivalent and more widely used HTML (and thus more
widely known) doesn't also.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of tarquin
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 13:35
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

	<discussion of "deprecated" snipped>

In response to Sean Barrett: I find that Wiki markup has so few rules
they've stuck pretty quickly. However, if '' and ''' are cryptic to you,
don't use them. Stick to plain text, and the only thing you need to
remember is "\n\n" makes a paragraph break. A well-written article has
formatting as a mere embellishment: it is clear without it.

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>The question isn't how easy "'''" is to learn.
>The question is how easy "<b>" is to learn.
>The answer to that is, it's pretty darned easy;
>therefore, since people will try it, it should be allowed.
>If having two ways to write the same thing is bad,
>then honestly "'''" should go before "<b>" does.
>
>(Note the "if"; I think that "'''" is great -- easier to type.
>In fact, it should actually be rendered as <strong>,
>which is even harder to type but is almost always more correct.)
>
>
Or <em> maybe?
Many people comne to wikipedia completely ignorant of HTML. Many people
on the net don't even know what HMTL is -- really! Some of them are my
friends! Many people *with websites* use Dreamweaver or some such and
have no idea what <b> means.

I think the most important point is that wiki must be easily readable in
both raw & rendered formats. The eye skims over ''' very easily, whereas
<b> and </b> arrest the flow.

I would hesitate before deprecating <b> and <i> in wiki markup, but I
change those to the equivalent ' whenever I see them, and I don't think
they should be encouraged.

tarquin


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Pierre Abbat wrote:

> at a ball field, and this time added the comment "foto van een oefenwedstrijd
> van NEC". I cannot identify the game, and it's not used on any of the pedias,
> so I'm deleting it again. What does the comment mean?

Dutch oefenwedstrijd = German ?bungswettkampf = English practicing game,
you meet another team outside of the series, so the result doesn't really
count.  NEC is the premier league soccer club in Nijmegen (Nijmegen
Eendracht Combinatie), http://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/

The title reads "photo from one of NEC's practice games".

The Dutch Wikipedia has 26 pages that mention wedstrijd (game), but none
that says oefenwedstrijd.  There are 18 pages on voetbal (soccer), but
none yet on Nijmegen or NEC.  Soccer is big in the Netherlands.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/  http://elektrosmog.nu/  http://susning.nu/


body:
> "'''Evolution''' is a [[controversial issue]],
> with widely differing points of view."
>
> "The '''theory of relativity''' is a [[controversial issue]],
> with widely differing points of view."
>
> "The '''heliocentric model of the solar system''' is a [[controversial issue]],
> with widely differing points of view."

My idea with the "controversial issue" flag/page-link would be to use it for
articles that are still "contested" at Wikipedia. Many articles that in
themselves regard controversial issues have been splendidly NPOVed, and
wouldn't need to be flagged.

But others, where people bicker back and forth, or where someone still doesn't
consider the article to be NPOVed, would benefit from it.

(I'll write a sketch.)

-- Daniel


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
Well, the html doesn't transfer well to netscape email, but I can
comment on one thing - you have moved the contents of the sidebar into a
better order. It's driving me NUTS that 'watch this page' is right under
'edit this page' in the current sidebar. I keep on accidentally adding
things to my watchlist and I don't even USE one! What I need to know now
is how to unwatch the darned things... Having 'history' under 'edit' is
a much better arrangement.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
and now Ample Aussies Mailing List:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-logged in users using upload utility

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
>
> On Friday 26 July 2002 04:52, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> > There are also many good contributers who choose not
> > to obtain a login for one reason or another. I'd
> > rather let these people upload files. Besides, if we
> > block non-logged in uploads, our abuser will just get
> > a login.
>
> Google isn't going to get a login, and our upload page is still #2 on Google,
> which is how the junk uploaders are finding it. So new abusers won't get
> logins - they won't find Wikipedia to begin with.

I've got the feeling that the fact that the Wikipedia Upload Images page
shows up so high on Googles' ranking of image upload pages is a VERY BAD
THING. It encourages people who have never heard of the wikipedia to
think 'oh great, this is a free storage space for my pics of my
cat/dog/canary/naked fiance :)

IMO, it shouldn't hurt people if we demand that they are logged in to
upload images. At least that way they have to have taken the time to
register and to maybe find out what the wikipedia is all about before
they start uploading trash or copyrighted images wilynily.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
and now Ample Aussies Mailing List:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
At 09:12 PM 7/27/02 +0200, Daniel wrote:

>And on a more personal note: Articles where matters are presented in a
fashion
>I feel strongly is not NPOV (but where the author probably disagrees again -
>having used facts and reasonable language) tax my motivation to contribute to
>Wikipedia severly. Yes, it's kind of self centered, but I think it's a very
>natural and common feeling to be discouraged with the project in its entirety
>when you come into contact with a flame war you probably don't have the
>resources to fight (and would also like to avoid, since your expertise lies
>elsewhere).

This phenomenon is a part of internet dynamics; you will be defeated by
those who are on wikipedia 16 hours a day and are aggressive. It is
discouraging. Even if your expertise lies in this area you still can't win
and have a life.

Some issues are simply not addressable from a NPOV. If billions of dollars
are being extracted from an activity which kills millions of people there
is no way the perpetrators and the victims are going to agree. One thing
that saves us now is that except for a few areas e.g. Israel, Palestine,
both sides of many controvesies don't have a strong contingent here. But as
Wikipedia succeeds that will change.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

body:
On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, The Cunctator wrote:

> This is essentially a non-helpful idea, since the criteria for what is a
> controversial issue is itself a controversial issue. Better would be to look
> for objective criteria, such as pages that are edited unusually frequently,
> or have had multiple massive  rewrites, etc.

I disagree. It's not a way of magically removing controversy. It's also not a
way of keeping a registry of controversial issues. It's a way to isolating a
disagreement into a single flag or link that (in extreme cases)  antagonists
can flip on or off in a flamewar. Once the article becomes NPOV enough for the
people who disagree, the flag can be turned off.

As opposed to massacering the contents of the article again and again. A
lightning rod, so to speak.

Yes, articles that shouldn't ble flagged could end up being flagged. But too
much skepticism / caution in reading is better than too little. And this is
after all a message to the casual reader as much as it is a signal between the
authors.

I believe it would helt tremendously to defuse opinion wars (a kind of cease
fire).

And on a more personal note: Articles where matters are presented in a fashion
I feel strongly is not NPOV (but where the author probably disagrees again -
having used facts and reasonable language) tax my motivation to contribute to
Wikipedia severly. Yes, it's kind of self centered, but I think it's a very
natural and common feeling to be discouraged with the project in its entirety
when you come into contact with a flame war you probably don't have the
resources to fight (and would also like to avoid, since your expertise lies
elsewhere). An easy way of registering your disagreement would be
very beneficial in this regard - and importantly, I don't think it would be
very destructive from the opposite point of view. If I wrote an article I
considered to be very good and also NPOV, and someone marked it as
controversial, it would probably annoy me slightly, but I wouldn't feel that my
work was going to waste, or that the Wikipedia project was doomed. :) Okay,
that was rather drawn out, but you get my point.

The criteria for what is a controversial issue would be simple: That someone
who has the effort to spare to edit the article, finds it non-NPOV enough to
mark it. Whoever.

-- Daniel


from_name: Tim Marklew

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Admin status

body:
Mav wrote:
>I see no need to block users like Zoe or Jheijmans or Enchanter etc. from
>editing the Main Page, copyediting and condensing policy pages (which is
>/badly/ needed for some of them BTW) or administratively moving articles.
>These users and many others have more than enough experience with our
>policies, naming conventions and such to be trusted to do semi-sensitive
>work
>like that. Heck,  Zoe and Jheijmans already meet the requirements for being
>sysops; they are trusted members of the community, and they contribute to
>policy discussion (although trusted, I don't remember Enchanter
>contributing
>to this list on a regular basis -- I may be wrong...).
You are absolutely right that I have never written to the list (though I
have been reading your every word...).  So hi to everyone!

Personally I think the current situation where most users are blocked from
editing the policy pages is OK.  For important policy pages like, say, NPOV
or naming conventions, I don't think anyone (including administrators)
should be making changes without discussing them first, either here on the
list or the talk page.  By having only a limited number of administrators
able to make the change, we make it more likely that policy changes and
other changes will be discussed properly before being implemented.

If a non-administrator has a suggestion for a new or revised section on,
say, a naming convention, they can post their suggestion on the talk page.
When people have had time to make any comments an admin can then make the
change in the subject page.  Where more substantial editing is needed, we
could create a page like, say, "Proposed draft of neutral point of view" for
people to work on before making the change to the official page.

It would be nice if the article moving feature were available to all users
though.  I don't know much about how it currently works, but in theory it
should be possible to implement it so that there is no danger of it deleting
any articles or history. In that case it would be safe for anyone to use, as
any mistakes could be reversed.

Tim (the Enchanter)

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous
one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.

Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist

One of the messages this person left was:

"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3
proxies ;)"

I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a
tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not act
on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so
ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs
are not violated.

I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back again.

Any suggestions?

Jimbo you are an ISP owner, what do you think?

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 7/27/02 11:24 AM, "tarquin" <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I would hesitate before deprecating <b> and <i> in wiki markup, but I
>>change those to the equivalent ' whenever I see them, and I don't think
>>they should be encouraged.
>>
>>
>>
>That's what deprecating means.
>
>I think it's good practice to discourage HTML, but not ban it. TMTOWTDI.
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
Ah. I stand corrected. From my experiences with HTML I had assume that
in hacker lingo "deprecated" was used to mean the opposite of "beta"
("doesn't work yet" ;) ie "doesn't work any more".

In response to Sean Barrett: I find that Wiki markup has so few rules
they've stuck pretty quickly. However, if '' and ''' are cryptic to you,
don't use them. Stick to plain text, and the only thing you need to
remember is "\n\n" makes a paragraph break. A well-written article has
formatting as a mere embellishment: it is clear without it.


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
--- Vicki Rosenzweig <vr at redbird.org> wrote:
> At 07:29 AM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:
> >Neil Harris wrote:
> >
> > >(Name of issue here) is a [[controversial
> issue]], with widely differing
> > >points of view...  &c.
> >
> >"'''Evolution''' is a [[controversial issue]],
> >with widely differing points of view."
> >
> >"The '''theory of relativity''' is a
> [[controversial issue]],
> >with widely differing points of view."
> >
> >"The '''heliocentric model of the solar system'''
> is a [[controversial
> >issue]],
> >with widely differing points of view."
> >
> >
> >I think that an honest admission, in '' like
> disambiguation page notices,
> >that the article is not *yet* NPOV is preferable.
>
> Also, of course, "'''God''' is a [[controversial
> issue]], with widely
> differing points of view",
> "'''Democracy''' is a [[controversial issue]], with
> widely differing points
> of view",
> and so on for all religious and political topics.
>
> Seriously. Evolution isn't half as controversial as
> whether Jesus is God.

Exactly. I think half the articles in the database
could bear that label. We would have to set up a page
for the discussion of which topics are controversial
enough for the warning, and then the discussion page
itself would need to be marked with its own
disclaimer. :P

- Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On 7/27/02 11:51 AM, "Sean Barrett"
> <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
> > Why should I have to learn yet another --
> extremely cryptic and
> > counter-intuitive -- markup language, just so I
> can volunteer for the
> > privilege of writing an encyclopedia?
> >
> > In other words, why would you (y'all, I'm not
> addressing Cunc in
> > specific) want to discourage me?
>
> I don't think you should be discouraged. I just
> think that we should only
> encourage one way (for style, consistency,
> simplicity) but allow other ways.
> HTML should be treated with benign neglect.

"Benign neglect". I love that phrase...

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not
> the same as the previous
> one. Both events involved more than one IP being
> used by a single individual.
>
> Please see
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
>
> One of the messages this person left was:
>
> "ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't
> waste your time ;) <3
> proxies ;)"
>
> I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the
> ISP but my partner is a
> tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says
> that Earthlink does not act
> on these types of complaints. I don't know if this
> vandal's ISP will be so
> ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their
> users do so long as EULAs
> are not violated.
>
> I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost
> certainly come back again.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Jimbo you are an ISP owner, what do you think?
>
> --mav

Well, we can use the old fashion UseModWiki way of
dealing with vandalism: seven to ten people watching
Recent Changes and undoing things faster than the
vandal can do them. They tend to go away when their
masterpieces don't last 30 seconds.

The problem with IP banning is not only that people
have dynamic IP numbers. It is trival to use a list of
anonymous proxy servers to change your IP after every
edit. There are even programs that will rotate through
your proxy list every thirty seconds. In this case,
banning becomes as much work as simply dogging the
person and reverting the pages.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com


body:
On 7/27/02 3:12 PM, "Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" <daniel at copyleft.no> wrote:
> And on a more personal note: Articles where matters are presented in a fashion
> I feel strongly is not NPOV (but where the author probably disagrees again -
> having used facts and reasonable language) tax my motivation to contribute to
> Wikipedia severly. Yes, it's kind of self centered, but I think it's a very
> natural and common feeling to be discouraged with the project in its entirety
> when you come into contact with a flame war you probably don't have the
> resources to fight (and would also like to avoid, since your expertise lies
> elsewhere). An easy way of registering your disagreement would be
> very beneficial in this regard - and importantly, I don't think it would be
> very destructive from the opposite point of view. If I wrote an article I
> considered to be very good and also NPOV, and someone marked it as
> controversial, it would probably annoy me slightly, but I wouldn't feel that
> my
> work was going to waste, or that the Wikipedia project was doomed. :) Okay,
> that was rather drawn out, but you get my point.
>
Feel free to use the Talk to register your opinion on the article. It's part
of the reason it's there.

I can't see what help a checkbox will do other than to let people defuse a
bit of frustration meaninglessly. It doesn't add quality or information to
the entry.

Meta-commentary should be restricted to Talk, I believe. Otherwise it gets
to be a very slippery slope into semantic porridge.

On a personal note, I too am driven to frustration by many of the articles.
E.g. the "history of the United States" articles seem like they're straight
out of 1950s textbooks.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
On 7/28/02 12:14 AM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous
> one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
>
> Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
>
> One of the messages this person left was:
>
> "ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3
> proxies ;)"
>
This is the problem with armsraces. SoftSecurity is usually better than
HardSecurity. (Though I don't know anything about this particular case.)
Usually "vandals" are in it for the amusement. And contributing to Wikipedia
can often be a more satisfying feeling, if it can be made to seem worth it.

What are the articles this person has been changing?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
At 09:14 PM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:
>I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous
>one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
>
>Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
>
>One of the messages this person left was:
>
>"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3
>proxies ;)"
>
>I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a
>tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not
act
>on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so
>ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs
>are not violated.
>
>I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back
again.
>
>Any suggestions?

Good chance he's bluffing. Most folks only have a limited number of choices
as to ISPs and when vandalism starts costing money they give up. ISPs may
ignore complaints but we could all complain and maybe that would not be
ignored if this turns out to be a persistant guy.

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
On Sunday 28 July 2002 03:00 am, The Cunctator wrote:
> What are the articles this person has been changing?

For 66.108.155.126:
20:08 Jul 27, 2002 Computer
20:07 Jul 27, 2002 Exploit
20:07 Jul 27, 2002 AOL
20:05 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker
20:05 Jul 27, 2002 Leet
20:03 Jul 27, 2002 Root
20:02 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker
19:59 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker
19:58 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker
19:54 Jul 27, 2002 Principle of least astonishment
19:54 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker
19:52 Jul 27, 2002 Trance music
19:51 Jul 27, 2002 Trance music

For 208.24.115.6:
20:20 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker

For 141.157.232.26:
20:19 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker

Most of these were complete replacements with discoherent statements.
Such as "TAP IS THE ABSOLUTE DEFINITION OF THE NOUN HACKER" for Hacker.

For the specifics follow http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
and look at the contribs.

--mav


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

body:
Daniel wrote:
>Also, the existence of such a page, and some links to it, doesn't mean all
>possible non-NPOV pages at Wikipedia would have to ble tagged, in some giant
>operation...
>
>So:
>
>* A controversy flag doesn't really impede an article.
>* It doesn't add work for anyone.
>* It saves work and time for both sides in a dispute.
>* It "lightning rods" away undue emotional, immediate rewrites of articles.
>* It signals to the audience that not everyone on Wikipedia is satisified
>  with the way the particular article is presented. (IMO, very valuable
>  information.)
>* It would affect a very limited number of articles.
>
>Is it still such a bad idea?
>
>-- Daniel

I think so, sorry.  :-)
*It's more complicated than what we're doing already, and for uncertain benefit.
*People will just have to get over their immediate emotional responses if they wish to write NPOV about controversial topics--that or avoid writing about those topics.  Vigilance in this area is required, and yes, I've had my own transgressions on this front.
*So far, talk pages have been used to indicate dissatisfaction with an article's content; that has worked with considerable success.
*It would affect a very large number of articles, as my and your ideas of what is controversial are probably quite different.  Suppose I cite "gun rights" and "capitalism", User:pRobertson cites "abortion" and "separation of church and state", someone else cites "taxes" and "Indonesia"....  I fail to see how it's useful.  It seems likely to become a convenient axe-grinding tool for partisans.  And, really, does wikipedia need another list?

Just my opinion, of course, and--as always--feel free to disagree & elaborate.  :-)

kq


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
Wow, I don't remember that one.  It could have its use, but sometimes even complete nuts make the occasional sensible edit.

kq

You Wrote:
>correct me if I'm worng, but I seem to recall a feature
>in the UseMod software where one could revert all changes
>done by one user or IP. it would seem quite usefull in this
>case.
>
>regards,
>WojPob
>


body:
I guess I see the use of [[controverial issue]] a bit differently. If
either from experience here or elsewhere you know the issue is one on which
there are passionate differences the link should be in the first paragraph,
with information on the page [[controversial issue]] giving what ever aid
we can to readers and writers.

This link would remain regardless of the current state of the article. For
example [[Tibet]] is now rather vanilla but I know from experience that
passionate and sharply divergent views exist.

Fred Bauder


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
>
> '' and ''' are not the worst offenders.  There's also various numbers of
> equal-signs and dashes, colons and so on.  All of which accomplishes
> nothing that the equivalent and more widely used HTML (and thus more
> widely known) doesn't also.

I don't know all the wiki html equivelants... for that matter I only
know very basic html. But what I DO know seems to often be simpler then
the wikipedia alternatives.

My very basic diary-formatting html commands (because that was why I
learnt to bold, italic etc) include

But the only one of those I use in the pedia is
 because I don't
know what if any way there is to force the text to skip down to the next
line. Intuitively, just hitting Enter ought to do it, but it doesn't. I
don't think I've seen the wiki equivelant command. But the others
weren't hard to learn.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
and now Ample Aussies Mailing List:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright Question - Catholic encyclopedia

body:
Larry Sanger wrote:

>FYI, I did ask the Catholic Encyclopedia web editor for permission when
>the same issue came up probably about a year ago.  I didn't get a reply,
>if I recall correctly.  It's worth trying again, but I doubt they have a
>nice view the prospect of the encyclopedia's content being included in
>Wikipedia.
>
>If we feel we don't have one, it would be good to get a definitive view on
>such issues, when they arise, from a lawyer, and then just proceed
>regardless of what New Advent says (or fail to say).
>
>Larry
>
Stone-walling can be a very effective tactic when someone's copyright
claim is tenuous at best.  The unfortunate problem with prophylactic
legal opinions is that they are necessarily provided in the absence of
actual opposition.

Eclecticology


from_name: Steve Callaway

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
Alternatively,  we are now sufficiently established and have enough gravitas
that we could //persuade// the ISP in question that it would be in their
best interests to block malefactors. I leave it to your collective
imaginations what our response could be, but we could certainly do a
full-featured article on uncooperative and problematic ISPs for example....
Or we could block them entirely.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

> At 09:14 PM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:
> >I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the
previous
> >one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single
individual.
> >
> >Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
> >
> >One of the messages this person left was:
> >
> >"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;)
<3
> >proxies ;)"
> >
> >I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is
a
> >tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not
> act
> >on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be
so
> >ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as
EULAs
> >are not violated.
> >
> >I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back
> again.
> >
> >Any suggestions?
>
> Good chance he's bluffing. Most folks only have a limited number of
choices
> as to ISPs and when vandalism starts costing money they give up. ISPs may
> ignore complaints but we could all complain and maybe that would not be
> ignored if this turns out to be a persistant guy.
>
> Fred Bauder
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Fred Bauder wrote:

> Some issues are simply not addressable from a NPOV. If billions of dollars
> are being extracted from an activity which kills millions of people there
> is no way the perpetrators and the victims are going to agree. One thing
> that saves us now is that except for a few areas e.g. Israel, Palestine,
> both sides of many controvesies don't have a strong contingent here. But as
> Wikipedia succeeds that will change.

(Replying to Fred, but including points from other replies too.)

These are not the issues I'm talking about. I'm talking about the issues that
most likely are adressable from a NPOV, but aren't adressed that way today. To
remedy such articles is a lot of work, and the controversy flag wouldn't be
a replacement for such work. Instead, it would be a civilized way of
registering ones position that the article is NPOV - not primarily to the
author, but to the audience (the audience doesn't read talk pages).

An earlier poster convinced me that a separate database flag would just be
silly, but a standard "controversial flag" page, that certain such articles
linked to from one of the first lines - I seriously think that would help.

Also, the existence of such a page, and some links to it, doesn't mean all
possible non-NPOV pages at Wikipedia would have to ble tagged, in some giant
operation...

So:

* A controversy flag doesn't really impede an article.
* It doesn't add work for anyone.
* It saves work and time for both sides in a dispute.
* It "lightning rods" away undue emotional, immediate rewrites of articles.
* It signals to the audience that not everyone on Wikipedia is satisified
  with the way the particular article is presented. (IMO, very valuable
  information.)
* It would affect a very limited number of articles.

Is it still such a bad idea?

-- Daniel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright question

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Gareth Owen wrote:
>
>>Does anyone know the status of photos taken of works in museums/galleries
>>(in this case, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver)
>>
>
>I think this is a very good question.
>
>If the work is already in the public domain, then there should be no
>copyright problems with taking such a picture, although museum rules
>for photography would presumably come into play.  If a museum forbids
>photography, and you take a picture anyway, then you've probably
>broken the (implicit?) contract for admission to the museum.  But this
>is not, strictly speaking, a matter of copyright.
>
>If the work is not in the public domain, then a photograph at
>web-resolution probably meets "fair use" as well as anything possibly
>could.  I'm assuming here that you mean a photo that YOU take, of a
>potentially copyrighted subject.  If a photographer takes a picture of
>the Mona Lisa, we can't assume that that *photograph* is in the public
>domain, even if the *Mona Lisa* is.
>
>--Jimbo
>
I agree that violating museum rules is not a matter of copyright.  If
you do so, you do it at your own risk.  If you get away without the
museum seizing your film, then whatever copyrights go with the
photograph would be yours.

Canadian copyright law, which applies here since you are talking about a
museum in Canada, makes a specific exclusion in the definition of
"publication" to photographs of sculptures and architectural works.  Of
course this does open the question of just what do we mean by
"sculpture". I would venture to say that dugout canoes and Haida masks
qualify as sculptures, but a lot of modern mixed media productions that
do not fall into the traditional carved concept of sculptures.

Copyright in photographs also links to the ownership of the original
negative or plate.  Two independently photographed images of the "Mona
Lisa" would not impinge on each other's copyrights.  If I remember
correctly  the Louvre does not ban photography, but does ban flash
equipment and tripods.

Eclecticology


from_name: wojtek pobratyn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
correct me if I'm worng, but I seem to recall a feature
in the UseMod software where one could revert all changes
done by one user or IP. it would seem quite usefull in this
case.

regards,
WojPob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 6:14 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

| I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous
| one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
|
| Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
|
| One of the messages this person left was:
|
| "ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3
| proxies ;)"
|
| I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a
| tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not act
| on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so
| ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs
| are not violated.
|
| I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back again.
|
| Any suggestions?
|
| Jimbo you are an ISP owner, what do you think?
|
| --mav
|
|
| [Wikipedia-l]
| To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
| http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
|
|


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recent changes page

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Eclecticology wrote:
>
>>It now forces a reload whenever I do so.  I've noticed
>>it most with Recent Changes, but I've also had it come up while editing
>>a page.  My habit has been to use search to go to verify a page name
>>when I'm trying to create a link from the page I'm editing.  Now when I
>>back-button from the search results I get a brand new edit page with my
>>partial edits deleted.
>>
>I've learned to *always* press "Preview" before leaving the edit page.
>Then the only problem is if the connection fails for some reason
>(probably a problem on my end, since it occurs with other sites),
>in which case backtracking from the error page loses the most recent edit.
>
>-- Toby Bartels
>   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>
>
I'll try it, but I still really would like to be able to push back or
forward without forcing a reload.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: [ wikipedia-Bugs-584804 ] URL followed bypunctuation->broken link]

body:
>The Cunctator wrote thusly:
><snip>
>|| > Crop final punctuation from links: Brion, Tony
>| > Include final punctuation in links: Lee, Jan
>| >
>| > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>| >
>| Crop.
>
I vote to crop except apostrophes.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 4 factor fair use test

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>jansson at gmx.net wrote:
>
>>>1.  What is the character of the use?
>>>
>>>Our use is nonprofit and educational.  Because the photo of the artwork
>>>would
>>>naturally be accompanied by an article about the artwork, our use is
>>>criticism
>>>and commentary.  Notice that even commercial use can be o.k., if the use
>>>is
>>>generally educational, commentary, criticism.
>>>
>>I thought as a part of the article the image would have to be GNU FDL
>>compatible. But these demands don't sound like they would be.
>>
>
>You raise an interesting question.
>
>Suppose I go out and take a photo of a copyrighted art work, and put
>it on the wikipedia.  Our use falls pretty clearly under 'fair use'.
>I release *my work* under the GNU FDL.  This means that *my copyright
>interest* in the photo is licensed to others under the GNU FDL.  This
>does not imply that I am licensing the underlying artwork.
>
>--Jimbo
>
I think it's also important to remember that the thumbnail is a low
resolution reproduction of the picture.  It strikes me that it would be
technically impossible to use that to recreate a high resolution image.

Eclecticology


body:
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> I think so, sorry.  :-)

> *It's more complicated than what we're doing already, and for uncertain
> benefit.

I fail to see how it's more complicated. You simly add a link to "controversial
issue" on the page you think is perhaps not totally NPOV. When people feel the
article has become NPOV again, they simply remove the link.

> *People will just have to get over their immediate emotional responses if
> they wish to write NPOV about controversial topics--that or avoid writing
> about those topics.  Vigilance in this area is required, and yes, I've had my
> own transgressions on this front.

The scenario is not that I sit down and write passionately, and that I let my
excuse for doing this be a "controversial issue" flag. The scenario is that I
bump into an article that I don't consider NPOV at all, but that I don't have
the time or the effort to fix then and there. Instead of having to accept the
current presentation until I myself can write a more balanced one (or indeed
instead of passionately slamming down my own opinion, and perhaps
unwisely deleting content), I simply flag the article. Later on, using talk
pages and civilized debate, me and the author can work out a new presentation.
And mean while I don't have to be unduly worried about visitors (straight from
Google, reading what calls itsef an _encyclopedia_) getting a strongly biased
article.

The flag would not brand the article as objectively non-NPOV, but mean that in
the opinion of someone (able and willing to go through the effort, and to use
the civilized procedure, instead of deleting or rapidly re-writing), the
article is not entirely NPOV.

> *So far, talk pages have been used to indicate dissatisfaction with an
> article's content; that has worked with considerable success.

Again, the audience doesn't read talk pages. This would not replace talk page
discussions, just work to civilize them. "We agree that the article is in
dispute, and we're talking about it here."

> *It would affect a very large number of articles, as my and your ideas of
> what is controversial are probably quite different.  Suppose I cite "gun
> rights" and "capitalism", User:pRobertson cites "abortion" and "separation of
> church and state", someone else cites "taxes" and "Indonesia"....  I fail to
> see how it's useful.  It seems likely to become a convenient axe-grinding
> tool for partisans.  And, really, does wikipedia need another list?

It _could_ affect a very large number of articles, but I don't think it will.
Again, it's not suppoed to mark articles that deal with controversial issues in
themselves - but articles where the controversial issue hasn't been treated
fairly. This is, I'm glad to say, a rarity on Wikipedia. Most articles aren't
about controversial issues. Those that are, are generally very well presented.

And what if partisans use it for axe-grinding? It doesn't mess up the article,
as they might otherwise want to do. It doesn't mark the article as useless.

And finally, it is not a list.

-- Daniel


body:
On 7/28/02 1:24 PM, "Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" <daniel at copyleft.no> wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> I guess I see the use of [[controverial issue]] a bit differently. If
>> either from experience here or elsewhere you know the issue is one on which
>> there are passionate differences the link should be in the first paragraph,
>> with information on the page [[controversial issue]] giving what ever aid
>> we can to readers and writers.
>
> So how about calling it the "NPOV dispute flag" instead. :) Goes down better?
>
It's still a bad idea if it's something that people check off. It's not
necessarily a bad idea if you can find some objective metric that achieves a
similar purpose automatically. See if you can think of measurable criteria
which would discern such articles.


body:
See if you can think of measurable criteria
>which would discern such articles.

Objective criteria can be extracted from the [[Palestine]] article.

1. Way long, absurdly detailed.

2. Frequently edited, and I presume reedited to put it back.

3. Voluminous talk page.

4. There are also external criteria, as one may observe on the news.

Of course the question is not identifying the obvious case.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Why are we deleting "articles"? (semantics and consistency issue)

body:
Concerning the page :[[Wikipedia:Article deletion log]] and several other
willy-nilly uses of the word "article".

Why in the world would we ever want to delete an article? I know we don't
delete articles (as in encyclopedia articles) but others may not be aware of
this. It is already difficult enough to explain the difference between
certain types of wikipedia-specific pages, mere definition pages, vandalized
pages and an actual encyclopedia articles without added confusion.

As Larry often said, every page in wikipedia is a page but not every page is
an article (or something like that). We needn't add un-needed confusion by
loosely using the word "article" for every page. This also effects the
proposed new wording of the front page which will read "anyone can edit any
article" -- which is a completely true statement if we stick with Larry's
definition and the criteria used by the statistics to estimate the number of
articles in the database.

Our statistics currently reads (with added emphasis by me):

"There 63416 total /pages/ in the database. This includes "talk" pages, pages
about Wikipedia, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that probably
don't qualify as /articles/. Excluding those, there are 35128 pages that are
probably legitimate /articles/."

Why then does the save button always say "save article"?

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Why are we deleting "articles"? (semantics and consistency issue)

body:
In response to my sourceforge feature request, LDC has already changed the
name of the deletion log and to [[wikipedia:deletion log]] and has replaced
"save article" with "save page".  Thanks LDC!

So my previous post is probably mostly if not totally moot. Are there any
remaining inconsistencies that should be fixed in this regard?

--mav


body:
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Fred Bauder wrote:

> I guess I see the use of [[controverial issue]] a bit differently. If
> either from experience here or elsewhere you know the issue is one on which
> there are passionate differences the link should be in the first paragraph,
> with information on the page [[controversial issue]] giving what ever aid
> we can to readers and writers.

So how about calling it the "NPOV dispute flag" instead. :) Goes down better?

-- Daniel


from_name: Larry Olin Horn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Recent changes page

body:
> I'll try it, but I still really would like to be able to push back
> or forward without forcing a reload.

I find it easier to just shift-click or right-click+open-in-new-window
or middle-click to open in a new tab, leaving the "base" page I'm
working from alone, even on sites where going back doesn't cause
a refresh.

loh


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why are we deleting "articles"? (semantics and
 consistency issue)

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> It is already difficult enough to explain the difference between
>>certain types of wikipedia-specific pages, mere definition pages, vandalized
>>pages and an actual encyclopedia articles without added confusion.
>
>
> Wikipedia is the application of wiki to the goal of building an
> encyclopedia.  The question is which terminology to use:
>
> 	Wiki term		Encyclopedia term
>
> 	page			entry (German: Stichwort)
> 	article			article
> 	redirect		reference (?) (German: Hinweis)
>
> The difference is that a non-article "entry" in a printed encyclopedia
> is a single line (East Germany, see German Democratic Republic) while
> the word "page" sounds like it contains a lot of text.

"Page" is standard _web_ terminology for a single 2-dimensional
continuous expanse of space that contains text and/or images, of any size.

"Entry" is I think not general enough, because we use the same tools to
access and edit both encyclopedic material ("entries") and support
materials: commentary about articles, the introduction to the
encyclopedia and how to use it, and personal bios of the contributors
and editors. I would hesitate to call these "[encyclopedia] entries",
but I would not hesitate to call them "[web] pages".

Just my two cents.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, The Cunctator wrote:

>> So how about calling it the "NPOV dispute flag" instead. :) Goes down better?

> It's still a bad idea if it's something that people check off.

Why? What's the harm if the article registers that someone (and I repeat
myself, someone who is willing to spend the time and effort to include the
correct link to the "npov dispute" page in the article) thinks the article is
not npov?

And with no harm, and gains all over, why not do it? Especially since it
wouldn't have to be a Wikipedia-wide effort, a complete list, or even need to
be up to date...

-- Daniel


from_name: Imran Ghory

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
On 27 Jul 2002, at 21:14, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner
> is a tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink
> does not act on these types of complaints.

It varies a lot from ISP to ISP, and also the issue involved.

> I don't know if this
> vandal's ISP will be so ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what
> their users do so long as EULAs are not violated.

Most EULAs are so broad that it's hard not to violate them, bring to
the ISP the exact sections of their AUP that has been violated,
include all IPs involved with timestamps of access.

Also follow up with a phone call if neccassary.

If that fails we should set up a mechanism such that anyone
accessing the webpage from that ISP has a note attached to the
top saying "Due to a failure by $ISPName$ to take action against
an attack against wikipedia we are considering removing write
access from user coming from this ISP. Please help us to avoid
doing this by contacting your ISPs abuse department and making
your views on the matter felt to them".

When an ISPs users start complaing most ISPs buck up, I know a
few service sites which have used this technique succesfully.

Imran
--
TheOpenCD Project
Promoting Open Source on Windows
http://www.theopencd.org


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
Imran Ghory wrote:

>Most EULAs are so broad that it's hard not to violate them, bring to
>the ISP the exact sections of their AUP that has been violated,
>include all IPs involved with timestamps of access.
>
>Also follow up with a phone call if neccassary.
>
>If that fails we should set up a mechanism such that anyone
>accessing the webpage from that ISP has a note attached to the
>top saying "Due to a failure by $ISPName$ to take action against
>an attack against wikipedia we are considering removing write
>access from user coming from this ISP. Please help us to avoid
>doing this by contacting your ISPs abuse department and making
>your views on the matter felt to them".
>
>When an ISPs users start complaing most ISPs buck up, I know a
>few service sites which have used this technique succesfully.
>
>Imran
>
>
Yes. Reverse DNS lookup could be used, assuming that the ISP has a clue.

Thinks:
It would be interesting to know what fraction of Wikipedia users come
from ISPs with/without valid reverse DNS lookup set up for their IP
addresses. If the fraction from clueless ISPs is small (and it should
be), then we could

* ban customers of crap no-reverse-delegation ISPs from editing by
default (which will capture a lot of "grey" IP addresses, too), and
* offer suitably privileged users the option to issue the appropriate
warning (as above)  on a per-ISP basis, based on the reverse lookup domain.

Of course, things should never get this far in the first place, but
having the tools in reserve would be nice.

Neil


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
I am against the idea. People seeing a tagged article on some topic they feel
strongly about would be more likely to try and insert their own views to
"balance" the topic. Rather than resolving any controversies, tagging
articles as controversial would probably serve to exacerbate the controversy.

Danny


body:
On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Why in the world would we ever want to delete an article? I know we don't
> delete articles (as in encyclopedia articles) but others may not be aware of
> this. It is already difficult enough to explain the difference between
> certain types of wikipedia-specific pages, mere definition pages, vandalized
> pages and an actual encyclopedia articles without added confusion.

Wikipedia is the application of wiki to the goal of building an
encyclopedia.  The question is which terminology to use:

	Wiki term		Encyclopedia term

	page			entry (German: Stichwort)
	article			article
	redirect		reference (?) (German: Hinweis)

The difference is that a non-article "entry" in a printed encyclopedia
is a single line (East Germany, see German Democratic Republic) while
the word "page" sounds like it contains a lot of text.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/  http://elektrosmog.nu/  http://susning.nu/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
On Monday 29 July 2002 01:58 am, you wrote:
> I would not hesitate here. If you have two notations for the same thing
> people who want to write have to know them both because they are going to
> encounter them and therefore have to know what they mean and if they are
> the same or not. Having one notation is simpler for everybody.
>
> -- Jan Hidders

I agree -- we should eventually move away from duplication and just have wiki
markup in cases where we now have both that do the /exact/ same thing
(although I don't change <b> to ''' whenever I see them like some people do).
I would also like to see an ultra easy and human readable and intuitive wiki
table markup enacted for Wikipedia (maybe the software can automatically
convert HTML to exact wiki equivalents when a page is saved... Then new
contributors with an HTML background can start off running.). .

The trouble with raw HTML is that human eye skips over HTML tags since they
add visual complexity and confussion to text. I have less sympathy for HTML
hackers who have to learn a simple new markup than for the non-HTML coding
majority of contributors who are intimidated by HTML and are unable to
effectively read heavily HTML tagged text (myself included -- even though I
am responsible for a number of HTML tables in wikipedia).

Wiki is dead easy to learn -- HTML coders of all people will quickly adapt.
But all this is really not nearly as important as clearing the bug list.

Here is a link to the wiki table feature request:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=584459&group_id=34373&atid=411195

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: multi-headed VANDALS + PANIC button

body:
On Monday 29 July 2002 01:58 am, you wrote:
> Thinks:
> It would be interesting to know what fraction of Wikipedia users come
> from ISPs with/without valid reverse DNS lookup set up for their IP
> addresses. If the fraction from clueless ISPs is small (and it should
> be), then we could
>
> * ban customers of crap no-reverse-delegation ISPs from editing by
> default (which will capture a lot of "grey" IP addresses, too), and
> * offer suitably privileged users the option to issue the appropriate
> warning (as above) ?on a per-ISP basis, based on the reverse lookup domain.
>
> Of course, things should never get this far in the first place, but
> having the tools in reserve would be nice.
>
> Neil

Whoa! I don't think we are at that point yet, but I will file your email away
for future reference. Our vandal problem is simply not bad enough yet to
warrent such drastic counter-measures. However I see no harm in looking ahead
to that eventuality, doing some research, and preparing the systems needed --
but I don't think there is any urgency yet.

What I do fear is some script kiddy with a couple dozen rotating proxies and
a ship-load of bots flooding the database with junk and overwriting 20
articles a minute. A panic button to lock-down the site would then be nice
(Sorry, I can't protect pages fast enough). Then that would give a sysop the
time needed to block all the IPs of the vandal. But again, I don't think we
are at that point yet.

We should think about different ways to optionally protect wikipedia from
these types of more sophisticated attacks. Although I would be /very/ wary of
categorically excluding ISPs when there have been no vandals from that ISP
(although that may be part of any panic button). ISPs that fail to act on our
complaints of documented vandalism are fair game as far as I am concerned
though.

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS

body:
On Monday 29 July 2002 01:58 am, Imran wrote:
> Most EULAs are so broad that it's hard not to violate them, bring to
> the ISP the exact sections of their AUP that has been violated,
> include all IPs involved with timestamps of access.
>
> Also follow up with a phone call if necessary.
>
> If that fails we should set up a mechanism such that anyone
> accessing the webpage from that ISP has a note attached to the
> top saying "Due to a failure by $ISPName$ to take action against
> an attack against wikipedia we are considering removing write
> access from users coming from this ISP. Please help us to avoid
> doing this by contacting your ISPs abuse department and making
> your views on the matter felt to them".

This sounds reasonable to me. I hope we will never have to make good on such
a threat though -- I know I get majorly pissed when I can't send an email to
somebody because my ISP has been blacklisted by my recipient's ISP because
somebody on my ISP is a low-life spammer.

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

in_reply_to: <3D42BB21.3010306@planetunreal.com>; from tarquin@planetunreal.com on Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 04:24:17PM +0100

body:
On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 04:24:17PM +0100, tarquin wrote:
>
> I would hesitate before deprecating <b> and <i> in wiki markup, but I
> change those to the equivalent ' whenever I see them, and I don't think
> they should be encouraged.

I would not hesitate here. If you have two notations for the same thing
people who want to write have to know them both because they are going to
encounter them and therefore have to know what they mean and if they are the
same or not. Having one notation is simpler for everybody.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

body:
On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 08:51:06AM -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
> Why should I have to learn yet another -- extremely cryptic and
> counter-intuitive -- markup language, just so I can volunteer for the
> privilege of writing an encyclopedia?

In the three years or so that I've now been roaming around WikiWiki sites,
this is the first time that I've heard somebody complain about the
complexity of the mark-up language. The WikiWiki concept has been around for
more than 5 years and that experience suggests that the complexity of the
mark-up is rarely a problem and usually the opposite. If you want to write
you can do so already with a very minimum set of mark-up which is probably
already used on the page you are editing anyway. There is always going to be
some "weird mark-up" because linking is done differently from HTML.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

in_reply_to: <3D43327E.5FD34449@labyrinth.net.au>; from kaji@labyrinth.net.au on Sun, Jul 28, 2002 at 09:53:34AM +1000

body:
On Sun, Jul 28, 2002 at 09:53:34AM +1000, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
>
> But the only one of those I use in the pedia is
 because I don't
> know what if any way there is to force the text to skip down to the next
> line.

There isn't, at the moment, except of course for
.

> Intuitively, just hitting Enter ought to do it, but it doesn't.

The problem with that is that if you want to type one single paragraph you
cannot use an Enter to break it up into lines. On some browser that makes it
a bit hard to read back what you just typed.

> I don't think I've seen the wiki equivelant command.

Some have suggested that you don't really need it because we already have
paragraphs, itemized lists et cetera. Would you strongly disagree with that?

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

body:
> What I do fear is some script kiddy with a couple dozen rotating
> proxies and a ship-load of bots flooding the database with junk and
> overwriting 20 articles a minute. A panic button to lock-down the
> site would then be nice (Sorry, I can't protect pages fast enough).
> Then that would give a sysop the time needed to block all the IPs
> of the vandal. But again, I don't think we are at that point yet.

I actually do already have a "lock the database" button available
to developers; maybe I should make that available to sysops as well
(as long as "unlock" is as well, of course)?

I also need to start thinking about some back-end stuff like the cron
job for making more frequent backups.


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Proposal: new Cologne Blue final

body:
At 03:34 PM 7/29/02 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>This is my latest, and I hope final, mock-up  rendition of Cologne Blue
>that I  intend to offer to replace the existing implementation of Cologne Blue.
>
>I enclose a mock-up page: this represents the final look intended in
>standard-compliant CSS browsers like Mozilla and IE 6, but will probably
>not work properly in non-CSS-aware browsers yet. There's still lots to do,
>but the only way to find out is not to build a better mock-up, but to
>write the working code.

I don't like using so much of the screen for editing-related stuff before
the reader gets to
the content of the article. I'd take at least "special pages" to the bottom
or one side. Ideally,
I'd have one row of links along the top, something like

Find | Browse |Main page | Recent changes | Random page | Current events |
Edit this page |My settings

and move the rest to the bottom or one side.

(If I should have posted this earlier, I apologize.)

For the record, I'm looking at things in Netscape 6, with CSS and Java but
not Javascript.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org
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