subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Patch for Bug #827757: Wikitext not escaped in log
 entry descriptions

in_reply_to:
<87he0pfwiz.fsf@unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
	(Evan Prodromou's message of "Thu, 27 Nov 2003 14:20:52 -0500")

body:
>>>>> "EP" == Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> writes:

    EP> Attached is a patch to escape the descriptions in log
    EP> entries. It's pretty much self-contained, and I think
    EP> qualifies as a Righteous Patch. B-)

Well, I was wrong, as Brion pointed out: links in the $action param
were getting escaped. I went through and did all the escaping at the
caller end, per his suggestion, but it was tedious, and I had to do
the combining of the two args to addEntry ($action and $comment)
manually in each space, too. It was a hassle, so I just went ahead and
changed the contract of addEntry(). Now, the $action param is left
alone, so it can contain wiki text, but the $comment param is
escaped. It's used unescaped for the change comment.

Attached is a patch. I'll be less cocky this time around.

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
>>>>> "EP" == Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> writes:

    EP> Attached is a patch to escape the descriptions in log
    EP> entries. It's pretty much self-contained, and I think
    EP> qualifies as a Righteous Patch. B-)

Well, I was wrong, as Brion pointed out: links in the $action param
were getting escaped. I went through and did all the escaping at the
caller end, per his suggestion, but it was tedious, and I had to do
the combining of the two args to addEntry ($action and $comment)
manually in each space, too. It was a hassle, so I just went ahead and
changed the contract of addEntry(). Now, the $action param is left
alone, so it can contain wiki text, but the $comment param is
escaped. It's used unescaped for the change comment.

Attached is a patch. I'll be less cocky this time around.

~ESP

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--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> schrieb:
>
>>I suppose I should not have used the word "likely".  It was just too
>>polite. :-)
>>
>>Cunc could not possibly have unblocked something without it having been
>>blocked, but I'm sorry I keep forgetting that some people have
>>difficulties accepting logical conclusions as evidence :-P
>>
>
>Sorry, but there is an important step missing in your 'logical conclusions'.
>Cunctator unprotected the page -> The page was protected. Correct. (after
> correct workding)
>The page was protected -> Someone protected the page. Correct (in all
> probability).
>Someone protected the page -> A sysop protected the page. Correct.
>A sysop protected the page -> A sysop abused their power. Nope, sorry.
>
>General rule is that sysops should not protect pages that they are involved
>in. The general rule is NOT that sysops should not protect pages. If that
>were the rule, sysops would not have been given the possibility to protect
>pages in the first place.
>
Nothing in any of what I said implied that any simple application of
blocking priveleges was necessarily an abuse of power.  What is an abuse
of power is the use of those powers to impose a particular point of
view.  Insisting on including the VfD notice in an article when its
future existence is the topic of debate does express a POV.  A person
who has not previously participated in an article, and who makes any
substantive change in the contents of the article in conjunction with
the application of the blocking process, no longer can be said to be
approaching the subject with clean hands.  Therein lies the abuse of
power.  Furthermore, a person actively engaged in an edit war can
quietly ask a previously uninvolved colleague whom he knows shares the
same POV to block the article.  That would be within the letter of the
rules, but just slightly conspiratorial.

Ec


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

body:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Surely, whoever alleges that Cunc was abusing his sysop powers, must
> recognize that Cunc's opponents were equally guilty of such misdeeds.

RickK and Maximus Rex have clearly listed what, when and where Cunctator
did with his edits.  Perhaps you could do the same for the supposedly
"equally guilty" opponents.

-Fuzheado


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ralesk Ne'vennoyx

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bans

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> Hmmm.  As I understood it, a ban was just that, a ban.   No wiggle room.
> Doesn't that imply that any contributions from a banned individual
> should be deleted  on the spot, and not reinstated?
>
> If people want to argue that a particular user should be unbanned,
> that's another issue.

    I would personally consider that at least disturbing, but more like
appalling, if, say, there was a contributor that /contributed/ some nice
articles, say, to things related to early quantum physics, Wolfgang
Pauli etc. on the, say, Hungarian wikipedia, but for other
?contributions? that were inappropriate ? and the warnings about those
being ignored ? they had got banned, then even the actually useful and
worthwile articles would have to be deleted, just because the person is
incapable of, say, keep themselves on the NPOV fence in regards of
religion or something.

    See the problem yet, or should I break it into something that is
less like Schiller's periods?

--
"Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good
excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix." (Torvalds to Tanenbaum)
--
Ralesk Ne'vennoyx
[ICQ:37046326]


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bans

body:
Hmmm.  As I understood it, a ban was just that, a ban.   No wiggle room.
Doesn't that imply that any contributions from a banned individual
should be deleted  on the spot, and not reinstated?

If people want to argue that a particular user should be unbanned,
that's another issue.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

body:
Yet another example of Votes for Deletion being broken:

Delete. Like people, books listed in WP shold be famous or important. We are
not big enough to list everything/everybody. Anjouli 05:09, 27 Nov 2003
(UTC)


list: textbook-l

from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Textbook-l] Jim Morrison

body:
Hi folks,
Almost two years ago I've written about 20 pages on Jim Morrison's
life and work.
Is anybody (I'm too busy with university and keeping de:wikipedia clean)
interested in making a textbook out of it?

Sure, it might not be that interesting like good old Shakespeare or
[[Runescape]] but it's just an offer from me to you.
If someone does that job I promise to do the German translation (a thing
I'm planning all the time...)

http://www.tomk32.de/Facharbeit/ (txt, tex, lyx, pdf and html)

ciao, tom
--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
    -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
    /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
    / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


subject: [WikiEN-l] When to Protect Pages

body:
On 11/27/03 5:00 PM, "Andre Engels" <engelsAG at t-online.de> wrote:

> "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> schrieb:
>> I suppose I should not have used the word "likely".  It was just too
>> polite. :-)
>>
>> Cunc could not possibly have unblocked something without it having been
>> blocked, but I'm sorry I keep forgetting that some people have
>> difficulties accepting logical conclusions as evidence :-P
>
> Sorry, but there is an important step missing in your 'logical conclusions'.
> Cunctator unprotected the page -> The page was protected. Correct. (after
> correct workding)
> The page was protected -> Someone protected the page. Correct (in all
> probability).
> Someone protected the page -> A sysop protected the page. Correct.
> A sysop protected the page -> A sysop abused their power. Nope, sorry.
>
> General rule is that sysops should not protect pages that they are involved
> in. The general rule is NOT that sysops should not protect pages. If that
> were the rule, sysops would not have been given the possibility to protect
> pages in the first place.

That last line doesn't make sense. Just because a power exists does not mean
it should be used as a general rule.

I believe the general rule IS that sysops should not protect pages, inasmuch
as that is an extremely anti-Wiki action that prevents the majority of
Wikipedians from participating in the process of contributing.

If that is not the general rule, then that would be rather upsetting.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

body:
"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> schrieb:
> I suppose I should not have used the word "likely".  It was just too
> polite. :-)
>
> Cunc could not possibly have unblocked something without it having been
> blocked, but I'm sorry I keep forgetting that some people have
> difficulties accepting logical conclusions as evidence :-P

Sorry, but there is an important step missing in your 'logical conclusions'.
Cunctator unprotected the page -> The page was protected. Correct. (after
 correct workding)
The page was protected -> Someone protected the page. Correct (in all
 probability).
Someone protected the page -> A sysop protected the page. Correct.
A sysop protected the page -> A sysop abused their power. Nope, sorry.

General rule is that sysops should not protect pages that they are involved
in. The general rule is NOT that sysops should not protect pages. If that
were the rule, sysops would not have been given the possibility to protect
pages in the first place.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop abuses?

body:
I would like to ask the following to discuss the following actions:

== RickK ==
RickK deleted [[Lake Clifton Eastern High School]], a perfectly
valid-looking article without listing on VfD, in violation of Wikipedia
policy (see [[Wikipedia:deletion policy]]).

== Haephestos ==
Haephestos protected [[Sunset High School]] before any attempt was made to
mediate what he considered an edit war, in violation of Wikipedia policy
(see [[Wikipedia:edit war]]).


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia full dump (English) broken link?

body:
On Nov 27, 2003, at 14:35, Jose Quesada wrote:
> I have noticed  that the link to the full english database (2280MB):
> http://download.wikipedia.org/archives/en/20031125_old_table.sql.bz2

Yes, this needs to get marked appropriately on the download page, sorry!

The version of apache we're running absolutely refuses to deal with
files over 2 gigabytes. Until this is fixed, a copy of the file is
available split in two pieces as:
http://download.wikipedia.org/archives/en/xaa
http://download.wikipedia.org/archives/en/xab

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Patch for Bug #827757: Wikitext not escaped in
	log entry descriptions

body:
On Nov 27, 2003, at 13:15, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> Now, the $action param is left
> alone, so it can contain wiki text, but the $comment param is
> escaped. It's used unescaped for the change comment.
>
> Attached is a patch. I'll be less cocky this time around.

If we weren't a bit cocky we'd never get anything done! :)

But we should all try to be more rigorous about testing... and we
should have some decent, useable, maintainable, and maintained
regression tests (and perhaps unit tests). I don't know if that sounds
like fun for anyone to work on...

Anyway, new patch applied, committed, and installed.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: James Duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] TC and wikipedia

body:
>From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion
>Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:07:25 -0800
>
>The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>BTW, do you deny that having [[Gene Ray]] on VfD is a sign of something
>>seriously wrong?
>>
>>
>I do deny this.  If it were *deleted* I'd think it was something seriously
>wrong.  If it's not deleted, no harm done--someone made a mistake, it was
>corrected (presuming the page does not get deleted), and the process works
>as it's supposed to.
>
>-Mark

But that misses the point, Mark. :-) The independent republic of TC operates
under different rules to wikipedia. You can't expect Cunc to actually /obey/
the wishes of everyone else, now, can you? When tc visits a page, /his/ own
rules are all that matter, as he has shown most recently by unprotecting a
protected page so that he can get his own way. Wikipedia rules like on
protecting pages don't apply in tc-land.  :-)

TC

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cunctator

body:
>
>On 11/26/03 9:20 PM, "John Robinson" <john at freeq.com> wrote:
>
> > After having today discovered [[User:The Cunctator/Bias Talk]] I have a
> > couple of questions:
> >
> > 1) Why was this person made an admin in the first place?
> > 2) Why does this user remain an admin after abusing that privilege in
> > an edit war?
> >
> > These questions are not rhetorical.
> >
The Cunctator wrote
>Ah, but the second one *is* leading.

And as usual not answered, just waffled around.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


subject: [WikiEN-l] When to Protect Pages

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>I believe the general rule IS that sysops should not protect pages, inasmuch
>as that is an extremely anti-Wiki action that prevents the majority of
>Wikipedians from participating in the process of contributing.
>
>If that is not the general rule, then that would be rather upsetting.
>
It doesn't seem that long ago that Ed Poor was sewverely chastized for
even suggesting that he might protect a page.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Attrition

body:
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>

>Tu me parles d'un temps, que les moins de 20 ans, ne
>peuvent pas connai-tre. tididadidadaaaa,
>tidadidadadaaaa
>
>>"Quand au hasard des jours
>>Je m'en vais faire un tour
>>A mon ancienne adresse
>>Je ne reconnais plus"
>>
J'ai passe quelques mois a  habiter a  la Place
Blanche.  (La Place
Blanche est assez proche a  Montmartre.)  Quand
plusieurs annees plus
tard j'ai visite le musee Van Gogh a  Amsterdam j'ai
reconnu
l'endroit
sur un de ses toiles.  Quelques semaines plus tard
nous nous sommes
rendu a  Paris et a  la Place Blanche.  Une fois la
sur le point
exacte
j'ai remarque que c'etait precisement la  ou Van Gogh
aurait du se
placer
pour peindre son toile, et qu'un immeuble a  l'autre
bord de la Place
etait toujours le meme.  Mais pour une personne qui
n'avait jamais
vecu
la , ce n'etait pas la.

-------

Yes. It was not there. It was no more there.

And if Van Gogh had tried to put his easel in the
middle of the place, he would have been run over by a
car.
Because the young ones living there do not walk any
more; they are different.
Even if some would pay millions for the painting, the
place can not welcome the painter any more.

>Ok, I usually forget that feature as well. I thought
>it was part of the initial package. When did you
>arrive Ec ?
>
In February 2002.  Does it show that much?

Yes.
I read my first article on Wikipedia that very month,
february 2002;
Our memories will be the museum in Amsterdam.
Andr? Engels will already be at the proper location
:-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop abuses?

body:
There is extensive discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy/schools

My thought, which is probably a distinct minority, is that while it is a
good policy to not include articles on high schools, is is good to tolerate
articles made by contributors or groups of contributors who are currently
attending a school.

Fred

> From: The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 22:25:47 -0500
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Sysop abuses?
>
> I would like to ask the following to discuss the following actions:
>
> == RickK ==
> RickK deleted [[Lake Clifton Eastern High School]], a perfectly
> valid-looking article without listing on VfD, in violation of Wikipedia
> policy (see [[Wikipedia:deletion policy]]).
>
> == Haephestos ==
> Haephestos protected [[Sunset High School]] before any attempt was made to
> mediate what he considered an edit war, in violation of Wikipedia policy
> (see [[Wikipedia:edit war]]).
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bans

body:
At 09:22 PM 11/27/03 +0100, Ralesk wrote:
>Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
>>Hmmm.  As I understood it, a ban was just that, a ban.   No wiggle room.
>>Doesn't that imply that any contributions from a banned individual
>>should be deleted  on the spot, and not reinstated?
>>If people want to argue that a particular user should be unbanned,
>>that's another issue.
>
>    I would personally consider that at least disturbing, but more like
> appalling, if, say, there was a contributor that /contributed/ some nice
> articles, say, to things related to early quantum physics, Wolfgang Pauli
> etc. on the, say, Hungarian wikipedia, but for other ?contributions? that
> were inappropriate ? and the warnings about those being ignored ? they
> had got banned, then even the actually useful and worthwile articles
> would have to be deleted, just because the person is incapable of, say,
> keep themselves on the NPOV fence in regards of religion or something.

That would be disturbing, if it was our policy.

The actual policy is that if someone is banned--and that doesn't happen very
often--anything they sneak onto the site *after the ban* will be reverted.
Material
contributed pre-ban is treated just like anything else on the Wikipedia:
that is,
it may be edited and rewritten, or left alone, depending on content and who
happens
to look at it.


body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> But we should all try to be more rigorous about testing... and
    BV> we should have some decent, useable, maintainable, and
    BV> maintained regression tests (and perhaps unit tests). I don't
    BV> know if that sounds like fun for anyone to work on...

No, it sounds fun for nobody to work on.

However, I've started a manual test script on the meta-wiki:

         http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_test_script

It should be relatively easy to get up to speed, especially if people
who know the software well add to it. Hint hint.

Automated tests are great, but they're difficult for Web
applications. The library code in MediaWiki is difficult to isolate
and do unit tests for. A manual test script is a step towards some
rigor in quality assurance.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop abuses?

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>There is extensive discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy/schools
>
>My thought, which is probably a distinct minority, is that while it is a
>good policy to not include articles on high schools, is is good to tolerate
>articles made by contributors or groups of contributors who are currently
>attending a school.
>
>Fred
>
This seems to encourage a fair-minded approach.  While I do admit that
while most of what might be written about a high school is of very
little general interest or significance, there are pockets of people who
have an interest in these things, and they should be respected.  Given
the enormous number of high schools around the world, it's unlikely that
articles would appear about any more than a handful of them..  Most will
be written by people who have or have had a direct connection with the
school.  If I were to write about a high school (which is NOT in my
plans) I would be more inclined to write about the brand new one where
my son just started attending, than the one that I graduated from many
years ago.  I could even justify this in terms of the study of the
innovative educational policies that were applied in the plans for the
school.

It is extremely frustrating to be perpetually needing to defend articles
about obscure topics that directly affect a limited number of people.
 The fact that one of the high schools may have the largest student
population of any school on the US Eastern Seabord does not translate
into a corpus of a whole lot of wikipedians  to defend it out of direct
interest.  The history of science and technology is an endless series of
ideas that were conceived, published and ignored. That does not imply
anything about the idea; maybe just nobody had the interest or the time
to carry it further so it fell into obscurity.  Nobody is suggesting
that we go back and delete all of these dead end articles from the
journals so that the journals may be more compact and fit more easily on
the library shelves.

Among the arguments that may be raised against the death penalty is an
economic one.  (Please, this posting is not about the death penalty)  It
starts from an estimate of how much it might cost to keep a person in
prison for the rest of his life.  It then compares that to the costs of
lawyers, courts and the rest of the justice system to keep the same
person from being executed.  If the appeals are successful, the costs of
keeping him in prison will still be there.  This can make the pursuit of
capital punishment very expensive.

Dealing with proposed deletions is a severe drain of time on
Wikipedians, because we must spend time defending free speech over
trivial articles we are kept away from contributing at other things
where our time might be better spent.  As we defend these articles there
is always the feeling that we need to keep looking over our shoulders to
see where the deletionists may strike next; this makes for a generally
stressful atmosphere.  Any article presented with good faith that does
no apparent harm should be retained.

Ec


body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> Anyway, new patch applied, committed, and installed.

Oh, so, just to check with you, there were a couple of other patches I
submitted this week. Are they going to go in? Is there anything I can
do to make them more attractive?

Also, any chance I can get CVS access?

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [WikiEN-l] Angela and The Cunctator

body:
From: [[Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion]]

Anyway, I rewrote the policy to make it look like I was right all along.
Comments, reverts etc welcome there. :) [[User:Angela|Angela]] 02:53, 23 Nov
2003 (UTC)

Funny, it seems like people have complained about me for doing that. And by
"complained about me" I mean "called me a destructive unilateralist who
should be banned".


subject: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

body:
The fun continues...

On 17:58, 26 Nov 2003 Kingturtle deleted "Hertz doctrine" (voted for
deletion. 2 votes to keep, 8 votes (including mine) to delete)

1. The entry listed on Votes for Deletion was Hearst doctrine, not Hertz
doctrine.

2. After Hearst doctrine was listed on Votes for Deletion, I created the
entry Hertz doctrine and significantly editing the content that had been at
Hearst doctrine.

3. Kingturtle, unless I am mistaken, made no effort to preserve the content
that was listed on that page at what he considered a more appropriate title.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

body:
I'd like to request that someone revert the section in [[Wikipedia:Votes for
deletion]] on the VfD listing boilerplate to either version oldid=1817959 or
if people feel that all of my changes are controversial and unhelpful (sorry
for the oversimplification) to version oldid=1817954, the one before.

The changes made since:
 1) removed a version of the boilerplate with which (after the edit made in
1817959) I had little complaint, leaving only one with which I disagree, and
 2) changed the official policy to something I am actively in dispute with.

Both changes have been made by people who are in active dispute with me.
This is why I am asking for someone else to revert the standing policy until
the differences are resolved, rather than simply changing it back and
listing my reasons why on the talk page.

Change 1) (oldid=1818182, Daniel Quinlan: new verbose version should always
be used) was made by someone who has called for removal of my sysop privs.

Change 2) (oldid=1824137 (Fuzheado: Put into words the convention we have
already -- putting VfD notice at the top of articles) was made by someone
who was in dispute with me over that very issue at [[Sunset High School]].

--tc


from_name: Peter Bartlett

body:
Hi Jose,

Glad you finding something to use the Wikipedia fore. A quick heads up -
the text is not "copyright-free" in the sense of public domain but does
have a "free" licence so you should be able to do what you want for no
cost and without extra permissions as long as you attribute us when
publishing. See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights for
the full details.

Pete

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jose Quesada
Sent: 27 November 2003 22:36
To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia full dump (English) broken link?

Hi,

Here at CU we work with corpora of text to train models that
'understand'
language (see, e.g., LSA.colorado.edu). We wanted to use Wikipedia to
create a copyright-free corpus of text that anyone in the scientific
community could use. To do that we downloaded the DB dumps a while ago
( about 2 billion words), but due to a computer problem, we lost them.

I have noticed  that the link to the full english database (2280MB):
http://download.wikipedia.org/archives/en/20031125_old_table.sql.bz2

doesn't work anymore; it returns a Forbidden error, says that you don't
have permission to access
/archives/en/20031125_old_table.sql.bz2 on this server

Could you please grant us access to the file?

Thanks a lot in advance,
-Jose

--
Jose Quesada, PhD.

quesadaj at psych.colorado.edu             Research associate
http://lsa.colorado.edu/~quesadaj       Institute of Cognitive Science
					University of Colorado (Boulder)

Muenzinger psychology building          Phone:303 492 1522
office D447A						Fax:  303 492
7177
Campus Box 344
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309-0344

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


body:
On Nov 28, 2003, at 09:52, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> Oh, so, just to check with you, there were a couple of other patches I
> submitted this week. Are they going to go in? Is there anything I can
> do to make them more attractive?

Yes, I just haven't got to all of them yet..

> Also, any chance I can get CVS access?

You're added to the project, give a holler if you have trouble getting
in.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
On Nov 28, 2003, at 18:14, Evan Prodromou wrote:
[suggests 'arch' for source control instead of cvs]

Could we import our existing CVS repository with history, or would we
have to break everything (again) at that point?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] meta policy

body:
Anthere wrote:
>...
>Please, would you accept my apologies to have been tough on you ?

All is well. :) I accept your apology and hope you will accept mine. Once
again we were not communicating until after regretable things were said and
done on both sides.

-- mav


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

in_reply_to:
<3FA1BA34.6020406@hotmail.com> (Tim Starling's message of "Fri,
	31 Oct 2003 12:26:12 +1100")

body:
>>>>> "TS" == Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> writes:

    TS> However, I'm certainly not doing new features at the moment --
    TS> it's been far too long since the branches were last merged, so
    TS> I'm working on cleaning up the unstable branch, not
    TS> optimisation.

So, this is kind of a non-sequitur, and a response to a really old
post, and pretty much a commercial for some good Free Software. But,
anyways...

I've noticed that it's really hard keeping unstable and stable in
synch. I know that that's hard -- doing any branching and merging in
CVS is hard.

I just want to put the flea in anybody who's listening's ear about GNU
arch.

        http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-arch/
        http://gnuarch.org/bin/view/Main/WhyArch

Arch has some features that are really great for distributed
development teams like MediaWiki's:

* Distributed repositories: individual developers can have their own
  repositories, so they can do incremental version control, and then
  push or pull stuff from a central repository.

* Pull-based distribution: few people have to have write access to the
  central repository. A source monitor can pick and choose changes
  from remote repositories. In other words, no more patch files.

* Extremely graceful branching and merging: Branching and merging in
  arch is a delight. It works. It really works. Conflicts are rare and
  easy to resolve. Repeated merges (merging between branches more than
  once) is handled automatically and cleanly.

* Project-based change management: versioning is done by the project
  directory, not by individual files. (You can check in individual
  files if you want to, though.)

* Automated Changelog generation: arch can make and version GNU-style
  changelogs automatically.

* Multiple access protocols: arch can use HTTP, WebDAV, sftp, ftp,
  NFS, and some other protocols for remote access (read-only or
  read-write). A combination of sftp (for developers needing write
  access) and HTTP (for people needing only read access) works great
  with SourceForge.

arch is stable software, written in C (old versions were shell +
utils, but it's all C now).

MediaWiki is the first project I've worked on using CVS in over a
year. I've been using arch since then, and I have to tell you: CVS is
really painful after spending time with arch. I keep a private arch
repository for Wikitravel-specific changes to MediaWiki.

I realize that changing version control systems probably isn't at the
top of anyone's TODO list. I just want to put it out there that
there's an easier and cleaner tool than CVS.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers: update the status on
	sourceforge ?

in_reply_to:
<bnv2di$7j7$1@sea.gmane.org> (Tim Starling's message of "Sat, 1
	Nov 2003 12:33:44 +1100")

body:
>>>>> "TS" == Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> writes:

    LVO> I suppose that it will be usefull if someone try to update
    LVO> the status of all the bugs entries on sourceforge.  If so
    LVO> then I'm volonteer for this; it will be a good exercice!

    TS> Most of the entries in the bug tracker are tedious, minor
    TS> problems that the other developers have put into their "delay
    TS> indefinitely" basket. If that's what you want to do, then I
    TS> wish you well. But you may well be better off fixing the
    TS> problems identified by developers, rather than users.

So, I read this a while ago, and it kinda clicked for me this
afternoon as I was going through the SourceForge bugs.

I think it would be an excellent task for someone just getting into
MediaWiki to update status on bugs and RFEs on SourceForge, merge some
together, remove assignments to inactive developers, and generally
keep that whole mess up to date.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikitext Tables

body:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide:_Using_tables&action=edit

Oh please oh please oh please! I'm trying to figure this out from the
source of OutputPage.php, but, y'know... it'd help if someone
knowledgeable actually added the docs themselves.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop abuses?

body:
You're an ass.  I have no interest in discussing anything with you now, or in the future.

RickK

The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
I would like to ask the following to discuss the following actions:

== RickK ==
RickK deleted [[Lake Clifton Eastern High School]], a perfectly
valid-looking article without listing on VfD, in violation of Wikipedia
policy (see [[Wikipedia:deletion policy]]).

== Haephestos ==
Haephestos protected [[Sunset High School]] before any attempt was made to
mediate what he considered an edit war, in violation of Wikipedia policy
(see [[Wikipedia:edit war]]).

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

---------------------------------
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 4, Issue 41

body:
> > Doesn't that imply that any contributions from a banned individual
> > should be deleted  on the spot, and not reinstated?
> >
> > If people want to argue that a particular user should be unbanned,
> > that's another issue.
>
>     I would personally consider that at least disturbing, but more like
> appalling, if, say, there was a contributor that /contributed/ some nice
> articles, say, to things related to early quantum physics, Wolfgang
> Pauli etc. on the, say, Hungarian wikipedia, but for other
> ?contributions? that were inappropriate ? and the warnings about those
> being ignored ? they had got banned, then even the actually useful and
> worthwile articles would have to be deleted, just because the person is
> incapable of, say, keep themselves on the NPOV fence in regards of
> religion or something.
>

Maybe you misunderstood.  I wasn't implything that past contributions
should be removed automatically, I was saying that once they are banned
they are *banned*, full stop.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Fast server response

body:
This is unnatural. What gives? ;)

Has the mega monster server already been installed?

If so it would be great to see how many disabled database features can be
enabled before the new server configuration gets bogged down.

And then there is induced demand. It happens all the time in California; you
add a couple new lanes to a highway and that just encourages more people to
drive more often. Before long congestion hits again. The only long-term
solution is to get more people to carpool and use the bus.

I think I just went on a tangent (happens often during the holidays).

Daniel Mayer (aka mav) runs and hides. ;)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Fast server response

body:
On Nov 29, 2003, at 01:44, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> This is unnatural. What gives? ;)

It's late night on a holiday weekend (US)?

> Has the mega monster server already been installed?

Not that I know of, and we're certainly not running the database on it.

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

body:
On 11/29/03 1:21 AM, "Rick" <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> You're an ass.  I have no interest in discussing anything with you now, or in
> the future.
>
I do hope we can resolve our differences amicably in the future.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Fast server response

body:
On Nov 29, 2003, at 01:49, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Nov 29, 2003, at 01:44, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> This is unnatural. What gives? ;)
>
> It's late night on a holiday weekend (US)?

Also, since yesterday we've had E23's new linkcache code enabled, which
should speed things up for logged-in page views.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Please, could tech people help us there ?

body:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%E9dia%3ATrace_des_effacements

Papotages has been vandalising the french wiki several
times per hour for now 12 hours.

Today, we had a promotion, new people

We are so busy blocking, reverting, deleting, that we
cannot follow recent changes, we cannot follow new
people.

Also, could someone repair the deletion log please ?
Right now, deletion, undeletion, blocking and
unblocking are all in the same log, that is messy.

People are talking of just letting all Papotages pages
be (our page counter will explode then), just as is.
But I can't say this will be a very good image for
Wikipedia

People are getting tired of doing only this, not
anything else.

And some users are complaining of being blocked, so
some also spend time today unblocking the dozens of
ips we have been blocking a couple of hours sooner

This is getting entirely stupid.

Any suggestion about what to do is more than welcome.

Ant

__________________________________
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Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers

body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> Could we import our existing CVS repository with history, or
    BV> would we have to break everything (again) at that point?

AFAIK, there's no dependable CVS import tool. It's just too hard --
CVS does such a crap job of tracking branches and merges, there's just
too much guesswork.

Or so I've heard. I'd never want to write one, that's for sure.

Last I checked, the arch party line was: just keep your CVS repository
around if you need it. The history is stored there.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    Me> Oh, so, just to check with you, there were a couple of other
    Me> patches I submitted this week. Are they going to go in?

    BV> Yes, I just haven't got to all of them yet..

Well, maybe I'll just test out my new CVS access by committing them
myself. Sound OK?

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


in_reply_to:
<873cc7oqtl.fsf@unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
	(Evan Prodromou's message of "Fri, 28 Nov 2003 21:23:50 -0500")

body:
>>>>> "EP" == Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org> writes:

    EP> I think it would be an excellent task for someone just getting
    EP> into MediaWiki to update status on bugs and RFEs on
    EP> SourceForge, merge some together, remove assignments to
    EP> inactive developers, and generally keep that whole mess up to
    EP> date.

I just got developer access, I seem to be unable to edit any bugs. Can
somebody flip the switch that says I can close bugs that get fixed?

~ESP

P.S. I just committed the patches for hide-minor-edits and for
redirecting cookie checks.

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers: update the status
	on	sourceforge ?

body:
On Nov 29, 2003, at 10:46, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> I just got developer access, I seem to be unable to edit any bugs. Can
> somebody flip the switch that says I can close bugs that get fixed?

You've got to love a system that by default allows *anyone* to commit
code and *no one* to mark bug reports as closed.

(flip flip flip) okay, let's see if that did it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Sascha Noyes

body:
On Saturday 29 November 2003 13:29, Anthere wrote:
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%E9dia%3ATrace_des_effacements
>
> Papotages has been vandalising the french wiki several
> times per hour for now 12 hours.
>
> Today, we had a promotion, new people
>
> We are so busy blocking, reverting, deleting, that we
> cannot follow recent changes, we cannot follow new
> people.

I just saw that you haven't protected your front page, and that it seems to
get vandalised quite often. Howcome?
(http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Accueil&action=history)

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: delirium at rufus.d2g.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles

body:
> "B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
> responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version,
> together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all
> of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release
> you from this requirement."
>
> Our recommendation for third parties using Wikipedia material so far has
> been that it is completely sufficient in the spirit of the FDL to point to
> the original Wikipedia article on which the copy is based, because that
> page contains the history and therefore the list of *all* authors. Ulrich
> claims that this is not sufficient because it does not meet the conditions
> of modification set forth in the FDL.

Well, I think the plain language of the FDL is that Ulrich is correct.  It
doesn't say you can point to a list of the authors elsewhere: it says that
*you* have to list the authors, and on the title page, no less (not in a
list at the end of the document, for example, and *certainly* not with
only a link at the end of a document to a list elsewhere).  In fact, it's
pretty evident that this clause of the GFDL was purposely written to
disallow such things: it was written with software manuals in mind, the
idea being that any third-party reproductions would be forced to proclaim
loudly at the beginning who the original authors were.  Saying "this is
derived from [blah blah], see that book for the original authors" is
clearly not intended to be sufficient.

Now whether Wikipedia would like to use the FDL is another matter.  But we
currently do, and changing our license seems pretty impossible at this
point.

-Mark


body:
On Saturday 29 November 2003 15:10, Erik Moeller wrote:
> There may be a solution to prevent this problem from escalating. We could
> amend the edit notice on Wikipedia to require the author to release third
> parties from the need to maintain a list of five "principal authors" per
> page, since such a release is explicitly provided for in the FDL..

This is a big problem indeed. However, if the user threatening this is
unreasonable (which it appears that s/he/it is), then this will not help the
immediate situation, as everyone licensed their contributions under the GFDL
which has the five main authors clause in it.

Best,
Sascha Noyes

--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


subject: [Wikitech-l] Please, could

body:
>I just saw that you haven't protected your front
page, >and that it seems to
>get vandalised quite often. Howcome?
>(http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Accueil&action=history)

The homepage is protected on and off.
Several of us want us it to stay available to
everyone.
And having it become protected because of the action
of Papotages is quite a victory of him on us.

Our two main problems in letting the main page free
for edition so is 1) someone (an anon ip) tries to
impose us some links we chose not to have (such as the
memorial); and 2) Papotages.

For the latter, if we protect this page, he vandalises
the talk page, or the "encyclopedie" page; if we
protect the "encyclopedie" page, he vandalises
"censure" and so on.

At least, any wikipedian can revert the main page if
necessary

But most of Papotages message goes through the title
of the articles created, as these necessarily convey
meaning in recent changes; even when deleted.

Such as

LES CENSEURS NE SONT JAMAIS INTELLIGENTS. CE SONT DES
CRETINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOUROUFIES DE LA PENSEE
UNIQUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LES WARLOPEDIENS SONT DES VRAIS CRETINS!!!!!!!!!!! LA
PREUVE ICI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Censurer VITE!!!

LES WARLOPEDIENS SONT DES CRETINS!!! L'ACTION DE
PAPOTAGES SEMBLE LE CONFIRMER. ILS NE SAVENT PLUS QUOI
FAIRE MAINTENANT QU'ILS SONT CONTRAINTS DE
REFLECHIR!!!!

Interlopp? de warlop?dia! REVOLTEZ-VOUS! LA CENSURE
N'A RIEN DE SERIEUX! CE SONT DES
RIGOLOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

FOUTEZ LES WARLOPEDIENS PAR LA FENETRE! CE SONT DES
FACHOS!!!

Encyclopedia des pas nets! CE SONT DES FACHOS!!!

ZantiSSectes

Warlopediez wikip?dia. DES VRAIS FACHOS!!!!!!!!!! PAS
DE QUARTIER POUR LES CENSEURS!!!

Warlopedia n'est qu'un site de PROPAGANDE ANTIssECTES
AU SERVICE DU POUVOIR FRANCAIS ANTIssECTES. CA
DISTRAIT LE PEUPLE DES VRAIS PROBLEMES

Wikip?do a d?fendu les pr?tres catholiques p?dophiles.
C'EST UN SCANDALE. CES GENS N'ONT AUCUNE MORALITE.
PROTEGEONS NOS ENFANTS DE LA SALOPERIE DES
WARLOPEDIENS ANTIssECTES!!!!!!!!!!

and so on...

So, actually, the protection of the main
page...well...right now Al protected it; perhaps it
will be unprotected in 2 hours...

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
http://companion.yahoo.com/


from_name: Alex R.

body:
As the post is about a legal topic I have posted my response on Wikilegal-L:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2003-November/000084.html

For information about the list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilegal-l

Alex756


body:
On Nov 29, 2003, at 10:46, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> P.S. I just committed the patches for hide-minor-edits and for
> redirecting cookie checks.

Great, thanks!

I fixed a slight bug in recentchanges which sometimes made the 'hide
minor edits' link not work, and added some paranoid checks on the value
of the hideminor variable.

And while I was there, I special-cased the login code so it won't
helpfully return you to Special:Userlogout if you don't click another
link after switching accounts...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug and RFE status

body:
On Nov 29, 2003, at 18:35, Evan Prodromou wrote:

> So, I just started updating some of the bugs and RFEs on SourceForge,
> and now I'm wondering: is it OK to mark a bug "fixed" if it's only
> fixed in unstable?

Sure. Particularly as unstable is live right now. ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] GNU FDL and XML-export

body:
Hi,
Doesn't the FDL expect the last five authors also to be shown in the
XML-Export?
I'm asking because if you want to use the export for your own page you
will violate the FDL.

ciao, tom
--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
   -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
   /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
   / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
At 09:10 PM 11/29/2003 +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
>This would place an unacceptable burden on third parties as they would
>have to carry along the complete history of every page thtey use (since
>there is no automated way to determine who is a principal author),

Not currently, but I can't see why an automatic algorithm can't be created
that does an adequate job. Have it compare diffs and determine what
percentage of the current article's text was originally typed in by each
author, for example, and then pick the users with the five biggest scores.
This would need some tricks to account for special cases, though,
especially things like rearrangements of existing text that look like
massive additions/deletions but which aren't really. Could take a lot of
computer resources, so maybe it could be done only when generating
"downloadable" archive bundles.

Does anyone know if there's an accepted legal definition of "principal
author" anyway? If not, then would counting the number of characters in the
current version of the article that an author contributed be a reasonable
way of defining it for Wikipedia's purposes?

>a history which on the English Wikipedia is now so large that we can't even
>store it in a single file anymore (over 2 gigabytes). Not to mention that
>having such a list in articles is cumbersome and annoying.

The licence only requires five names attached to the work; that's a single
line of small text, which can be tucked down at the bottom of the page
somewhere discreet. It could be a configurable option, even, if people
don't like the clutter. The whole entire history would not be required
then; if the page already lists the five main authors when it's displayed
then you can just copy the entire page wholesale into your derivative work.


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal
action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material
without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author"
requirement, which reads as follows:

"B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version,
together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all
of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release
you from this requirement."

Our recommendation for third parties using Wikipedia material so far has
been that it is completely sufficient in the spirit of the FDL to point to
the original Wikipedia article on which the copy is based, because that
page contains the history and therefore the list of *all* authors. Ulrich
claims that this is not sufficient because it does not meet the conditions
of modification set forth in the FDL.

This is not just theoretical. There is a new commercial German project
called "Flexicon" which uses Wikipedia material. Currently they don't give
any credit whatsoever, but since Flexicon itself is a wiki, some
Wikipedians have added links to the original Wikipedia articles in order
to meet the conditions of the FDL. Ulrich now threatens anyone with legal
action who copies material to Flexicon from the German Wikipedia which he
has worked on without having the unworkable "list of five principal
authors" on the target page.

This would place an unacceptable burden on third parties as they would
have to carry along the complete history of every page thtey use (since
there is no automated way to determine who is a principal author), a
history which on the English Wikipedia is now so large that we can't even
store it in a single file anymore (over 2 gigabytes). Not to mention that
having such a list in articles is cumbersome and annoying.

In my opinion, legal threats like these are dangerous to this project and
to the very idea of open content. They also show once again that the FDL
is a fundamentally flawed, overly complex license with lots of loopholes
for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the
community.

There may be a solution to prevent this problem from escalating. We could
amend the edit notice on Wikipedia to require the author to release third
parties from the need to maintain a list of five "principal authors" per
page, since such a release is explicitly provided for in the FDL..

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Feature suggestion: partial user blocking

body:
Hello.

Still trying to figure out, with others, how to handle vandalism on fr:
Wikipedia, I have a feature suggestion: ability to prevent someone from
editing only encyclopedia pages (namespace 0, i think?), but letting
her/him edit talk pages and such.
This way articles are protected, but still we can talk with the user
through talk pages, or meta pages, something we can't do if we totally
block the user.

It would also make it easier for a user having an ip matching a blocked
vandal's ip to ask for unblocking.

What do you think?

Nicolas 'Ryo'


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Meta policy

body:
>>Anthere wrote:
>>...
>>Please, would you accept my apologies to have been
>>tough on you ?

>All is well. :) I accept your apology and hope you
will >accept mine.
>-- mav

I most certainly do Mav. I thank you for accepting
mine, and hope we can work constructively in the near
future.

That is now.

I put a rough draft on meta, much inspired of Martin's
and others work, which I think is good, simplified as
meta does not requires so much detail, and beginning
to take into consideration the different policies that
begins to apply on our wikipedias. Waiting for your
input, especially as regards what is in the discussion
page. Will insist again that it should be exceptional.

ant

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug and RFE status

body:
So, I just started updating some of the bugs and RFEs on SourceForge,
and now I'm wondering: is it OK to mark a bug "fixed" if it's only
fixed in unstable?

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] More on the Ed Poor/William Connolley controversey

body:
A few days ago, Gareth Owen wrote to Ed Poor:

>  > No.  You called for William Connolley's edits to be reverted.

Jimbo then responded:

>In the interests of accuracy, Ed said absolutely no such thing.  He's
>very supportive of those edits, in fact, and has additionally
>suggested that it would be appropriate to cite Connolley as a source.

Since Jimbo is interested in accuracy, he should review the revision
history for the SEPP article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=SEPP&action=history

I think it's obvious from even a cursory review that Ed has *not*
been supportive of Connolley's edits. I'm flabbergasted that Jimbo
cites Ed's interest in "citing Connolley as a source" as evidence of
how "supportive" Ed has been. Take a look, for example, at Ed's edit
on 18:39, 24 Nov 2003, when Ed actually *did* revise the article to
"cite Connolley as a source." Here's Ed's comment on that edit:
"attributing your POV to you, Dr. Connolley - you've finally stepped
over that line I warned you about."

Does that sound "supportive" to you, Jimbo?

Sheesh!
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Need developers: update the status	on
	sourceforge ?

body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> You've got to love a system that by default allows *anyone* to
    BV> commit code and *no one* to mark bug reports as closed.

Yay, SourceForge.

    BV> (flip flip flip) okay, let's see if that did it.

Seems to be working. I'm trying to take out the bugs I fixed --
assigning them to myself in the process -- and combine some of the
duplicate bugs and RFEs. It might make the list a little more
manageable.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> Great, thanks!

    BV> I fixed a slight bug in recentchanges which sometimes made the
    BV> 'hide minor edits' link not work, and added some paranoid
    BV> checks on the value of the hideminor variable.

Cool. I realize that I was a little overzealous in passing around the
hideminor variable -- it probably doesn't need to be passed through if
it's the same as the user's default.

    BV> And while I was there, I special-cased the login code so it
    BV> won't helpfully return you to Special:Userlogout if you don't
    BV> click another link after switching accounts...

Nicely!

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


body:
delirium-
> In fact, it's
> pretty evident that this clause of the GFDL was purposely written to
> disallow such things: it was written with software manuals in mind,

Exactly. That's why it is legitimate in terms of interpretation to use
concepts from the Internet world that are not applicable in the paper
world, such as hyperlinking.

> Now whether Wikipedia would like to use the FDL is another matter.  But we
> currently do, and changing our license seems pretty impossible at this
> point.

As I explained, it would be trivial to amend our "site contract" to
provide for a release from this particular requirement of the FDL, which
is optional. While this wouldn't fix past edits, it is unlikely that this
problem is going to come up often, and when it does, who will remember
that the submit message didn't *always* say this? (OK, we'll have to purge
this message from the archives ;-)

Regards,

Erik


body:
Reply found on Wikilegal-L:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2003-November/000088.html

Subscribe here: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilegal-l

From: "Bryan Derksen" <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Cc: <wikilegal-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 11:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles


subject: [Wikitech-l] My application (Re: Need Developers)

body:
On Nov 30, 2003, at 02:59, Fantasy wrote:
> Following Tim's request for people to speak up, if they would like to
> contribute to MediaWiki, here it is:
>
> I would liket to ask for developer-status and offer some of my
> Wikipedia-time to write MediaWiki-PHP scripts.

*poof* you're a developer! Welcome to the team! :)

If you need bug tracker & up-to-date CVS access, let me know your
Sourceforge account name and I'll add you.

Note that "developer status" for wiki user accounts is vestigial and
will likely be phased out completely soon; read-write database access
is too dangerous to leave on an unencrypted web connection secured only
by cookies so this is no longer done. There isn't really much of
anything else that "developer status" confers; most of our developers
don't have it, and nobody really needs it.

> - I would not like to give up all my Wikipedia-Time to development

Exercise self-restraint, with luck you'll be able. :D

> The fields I would prefer to help:
> - http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiImages.org

Yeah, we need something there...

> - DE/IT Server issues

IT needs to be migrated to the new software, but in the 4,000 article
range it will be a lot of work to manually fix up. (Catalan is another
one that's fairly large.) Improvements to the conversion script to get
case-sensitivity renaming and other fixes done automatically would
probably be useful.

> - One central user-registration for all wikipedias (I don't know the
> current status of this Idea)

Everybody thinks it's a great idea, but there's no code for it. :) Two
issues:
- technically, we need to either use a single common database whenever
we use the user table, or else have a central database that each wiki
snarfs data from at account creation or login time
- we have to sort out existing usernames to see which are conflicting
and which are the same user, and how to deal with conflicts

> - ...whereever I can give Brion and other Developers a hand on simple
> tasks that just take time away from them and help me learn MediaWiki.

Evan's been cleaning up the bug reports and feature requests; there's
plenty of material!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Pliny apache gone wild

body:
 From time to time apache on pliny will start eating up all available
memory and everything slows to a crawl. Restarting it properly
sometimes requires a kill -9 (via the apache-kill alias) to kill off
the old one thoroughly.

In an effort to track down the culprit, I've disabled mod_throttle on
pliny. If we still have problems, we'll know to look elsewhere...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] The Defendent

body:
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the plaintiff
should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if
contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich Fuchs is
right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is not
productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse our
material without onerous requirements.

Fred

> From: Ulrich Fuchs <mail at ulrich-fuchs.de>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 12:21:20 +0100
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles
>
> Am Samstag, 29. November 2003 21:10 schrieb Erik Moeller:
>> A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal
>> action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material
>> without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author"
>> requirement, which reads as follows:
> [snip]
>
> Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website
> flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using
> Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site
> maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the
> licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).
>
>
> That site actually reserves the right to distribute the material in any form,
> including for example on paper, smartphones or on PDAs (since the site is
> down I'm citing that from google cache).  That makes a weblink to Wikipedia
> practically useless. In addion, Flexikon states "so dass Sie keine Inhalte
> einstellen d?rfen, wenn Sie sp?ter eigene Rechte geltend machen wollen" (You
> may not upload content, if you want to claim rights on the text later).
> That's not true, putting a text under GNU FDL does not mean, *losing* ones
> rights on the text.  What makes me especially angry is DocCheck/Flexikon
> putting a "(c) 2002 by DocCheck Medical Services GmbH" under each article
> page, and refering to the GNU FDL just on one general "usage" page. It all
> looks like a de facto re-closing of open content.
>
> I agree with everyone thinking the GNU FDL is completely unsuitable for
> Wikipedia. We act against this license a hundred times a day moving content
> from one article to another, translating from english to german and just
> stating there "aus en:". But that is *within* Wikipedia. It's a completely
> different thing if people are starting to make money out of that project.
>
> It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better one
> in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we have
> to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother
> version of the license released by the GNU Foundation. (By the way, Erik, you
> cannot just add a statement on the edit pages (releasing from the five-author
> quote thing), since the license does not allow you to modify the text then.
> If you modify, you must put the modification again under the GNU FDL and
> under nothing else. The five-author-thing also applies to mere copying
> without modification, since the history "section" is part of the document.)
>
> For making one thing perfectly clear: I have nothing against using Wikipedia
> material in a commercial context. The license perfectly allows for that, that
> is what is *intended* and I actually start beleiving that a commercial
> read-only Wikipedia with edited content is probably a good thing (like Linux
> also needed Distributors for it's success).
>
> But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is going
> to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our rights
> to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to have
> mentioned our effort in developing that content.
>
> The German "Urheberrecht" (similar to copyright in US) is applying here (I
> think so, since there are just german people involved; *where* something is
> published is irrelevantin such a context, the question is *who* is
> publishing). However, the "Urheberrecht" is a personal right, there is no
> such thing as a "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia foundation" or "Wikipedians" who
> can possibly own the "Urheberrecht" on the texts.
>
> So, I have to say "I will do" when I'm meaning "we should do". *We* cannot do
> anything, it's always just the copyright owner who can do something.
>
> I have escalated this issue because Wikipedians have started to upload content
> to a commercially oriented site who is not complying to the GNU FDL at all. I
> do not want to threat any Wikipedian with legal action, but I also do not
> want to spoil any legal action against a non-complier to the license because
> some Wikipedians helped him in not-complying and I did not tell them to stop
> doing so. From a legal point of view I have to state explictly that I do not
> tolerate any uploading (of contented provided by me) to a commercial site
> that does not comply to the license, since otherwise I would not have done
> anything to keep the damage low (which is more or less required by german law
> -pretty good law, does prevent from things like SCO distributing Linux over
> years and then filing a lawsuit).
>
>> In my opinion, legal threats like these are dangerous to this project and
>> to the very idea of open content.
>
> Again, I'm not against open content. And I *know* that implies commercial
> usage. But I will fight any attempt to "re-close" the content, and that
> means, please, that Wikipedians do not actively *support* a non-complier(!)
> to the license with posting Wikipedia content there.
>
>> They also show once again that the FDL
>> is a fundamentally flawed,
>
> Agreed
>
>> overly complex license with lots of loopholes
>> for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the
>> community.
>
> This is absolutely not what I am doing. And I'm pretty sad about Erik being
> this insulting.
>
> Uli
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Fantasy

body:
Hi all,

Following Tim's request for people to speak up, if they would like to
contribute to MediaWiki, here it is:

I would liket to ask for developer-status and offer some of my
Wikipedia-time to write MediaWiki-PHP scripts.

To give you an idea about what you can expect from me:
- I worked 4 years in the database field.
- No experience with PHP, but my first look at the PHP-scipts gave me
the feeling that I will be able to understand how Wikipedia works and
how I can contribute, and I got Wikipedia up and running at home already ;-)
- I would not like to give up all my Wikipedia-Time to development, I
see my involvement more as a long-time contribution, something like 50%
- I contribute to Wikipedia nearly a year and I am admin in en/de/it.

The fields I would prefer to help:
- http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiImages.org
- DE/IT Server issues
- One central user-registration for all wikipedias (I don't know the
current status of this Idea)
- ...whereever I can give Brion and other Developers a hand on simple
tasks that just take time away from them and help me learn MediaWiki.

I look forward to your replies,
Fantasy :-)


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] auto-update of the cache

body:
The main page of most Wikipedia's contain the {{CURRENTDAY}} instruction.

The problem is when the main page has not been edit the cache is not
updated. The result is that a visitor will see the date of the day of
the last edit.

Until a few minutes the main page of Wikipedia NL displayed the date of
friday in the cache version. Now the Esperanto version is still sending
the date of thursday to visitors.

Can the cache for the main pages automatically been refreshed every day
afther midnight?

midnight = is different for most Wikipedia's

--
Contact: walter AT wikipedia PUNT be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

body:
Am Samstag, 29. November 2003 21:10 schrieb Erik Moeller:
> A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal
> action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material
> without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author"
> requirement, which reads as follows:
[snip]

Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website
flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using
Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site
maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the
licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).

That site actually reserves the right to distribute the material in any form,
including for example on paper, smartphones or on PDAs (since the site is
down I'm citing that from google cache).  That makes a weblink to Wikipedia
practically useless. In addion, Flexikon states "so dass Sie keine Inhalte
einstellen d?rfen, wenn Sie sp?ter eigene Rechte geltend machen wollen" (You
may not upload content, if you want to claim rights on the text later).
That's not true, putting a text under GNU FDL does not mean, *losing* ones
rights on the text.  What makes me especially angry is DocCheck/Flexikon
putting a "(c) 2002 by DocCheck Medical Services GmbH" under each article
page, and refering to the GNU FDL just on one general "usage" page. It all
looks like a de facto re-closing of open content.

I agree with everyone thinking the GNU FDL is completely unsuitable for
Wikipedia. We act against this license a hundred times a day moving content
from one article to another, translating from english to german and just
stating there "aus en:". But that is *within* Wikipedia. It's a completely
different thing if people are starting to make money out of that project.

It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better one
in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we have
to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother
version of the license released by the GNU Foundation. (By the way, Erik, you
cannot just add a statement on the edit pages (releasing from the five-author
quote thing), since the license does not allow you to modify the text then.
If you modify, you must put the modification again under the GNU FDL and
under nothing else. The five-author-thing also applies to mere copying
without modification, since the history "section" is part of the document.)

For making one thing perfectly clear: I have nothing against using Wikipedia
material in a commercial context. The license perfectly allows for that, that
is what is *intended* and I actually start beleiving that a commercial
read-only Wikipedia with edited content is probably a good thing (like Linux
also needed Distributors for it's success).

But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is going
to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our rights
to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to have
mentioned our effort in developing that content.

The German "Urheberrecht" (similar to copyright in US) is applying here (I
think so, since there are just german people involved; *where* something is
published is irrelevantin such a context, the question is *who* is
publishing). However, the "Urheberrecht" is a personal right, there is no
such thing as a "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia foundation" or "Wikipedians" who
can possibly own the "Urheberrecht" on the texts.

So, I have to say "I will do" when I'm meaning "we should do". *We* cannot do
anything, it's always just the copyright owner who can do something.

I have escalated this issue because Wikipedians have started to upload content
to a commercially oriented site who is not complying to the GNU FDL at all. I
do not want to threat any Wikipedian with legal action, but I also do not
want to spoil any legal action against a non-complier to the license because
some Wikipedians helped him in not-complying and I did not tell them to stop
doing so. From a legal point of view I have to state explictly that I do not
tolerate any uploading (of contented provided by me) to a commercial site
that does not comply to the license, since otherwise I would not have done
anything to keep the damage low (which is more or less required by german law
-pretty good law, does prevent from things like SCO distributing Linux over
years and then filing a lawsuit).

> In my opinion, legal threats like these are dangerous to this project and
> to the very idea of open content.

Again, I'm not against open content. And I *know* that implies commercial
usage. But I will fight any attempt to "re-close" the content, and that
means, please, that Wikipedians do not actively *support* a non-complier(!)
to the license with posting Wikipedia content there.

> They also show once again that the FDL
> is a fundamentally flawed,

Agreed

> overly complex license with lots of loopholes
> for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the
> community.

This is absolutely not what I am doing. And I'm pretty sad about Erik being
this insulting.

Uli


subject:
RFEs and Bugs against Wikipedia (was Re: [Wikitech-l] My
	application (Re: Need Developers))

body:
>>>>> "BV" == Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> writes:

    BV> Evan's been cleaning up the bug reports and feature requests;
    BV> there's plenty of material!

So, I'd like to make a category of bugs and RFEs that are just about
Wikipedia's implementation and configuration of MediaWiki, and not
about the software itself.

Examples would be replacing text in the Language.php file, or changing
the English Wikipedia to UTF-8.

Is this reasonable?

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Chuck Becken

subject: [Textbook-l] Job Kwanta

body:
Please contact me about collecting a large
amount of money.
cwbecken at webtv.net


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bugs and RFEs for LDC

body:
So, I believe it was mentioned here before that Lee Daniel Crocker is
no longer actively participating in MediaWiki development.

Would it be uncouth to bulk-unassign all the bugs and RFEs currently
assigned to him?

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


body:
Ulrich-
> Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website
> flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using
> Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site
> maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the
> licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).

I already noted that. Of course their behavior is wrong, everyone
acknowledges that. But we have a specific recommendation for cases like
these, namely that they should backlink to us. From a pragmatic
perspective, that's more than good enough. I don't see that you or anyone
else would gain anything by being listed as a "principal author",
especially as Wikipedia articles are often the work of hundreds of people
who make very small but important contributions. A link to the history is
much more useful, as it shows all authors and also gives users the ability
to generate diffs. So I see your insistence on this requirement mostly as
a case of "Let's see if I can find anything in the FDL that will stop them
from using my articles".

> It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better
> one in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we
> have to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother
> version of the license released by the GNU Foundation. (By the way, Erik,
> you cannot just add a statement on the edit pages (releasing from the
> five-author quote thing), since the license does not allow you to modify the
> text then.

Actually, section 4.B specifically says "unless they release you from this
requirement", and allows modification. Just like the FDL allows creators
to "opt-out" of cover texts and invariant sections, it allows them to opt
out of the author list requirement.

> But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is
> going to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our
> rights to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to
> have mentioned our effort in developing that content.

All this is meaningfully done by linking to the page history. If it is
still meaningful enough in a medium that does not allow hyperlinks may be
a matter of some debate.

>> overly complex license with lots of loopholes
>> for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the
>> community.

> This is absolutely not what I am doing. And I'm pretty sad about Erik being
> this insulting.

Then stop insisting on a requirement that nobody else agrees is necessary.
The Net fundamentally depends on openness and mutual cooperation: You have
to add the FDL notice, but it's sufficient if you link to the history. The
moment you insist on unreasonable requirements, you become no better than
the lawyers, politicians and corporations who have eroded the freedom of
the Net in the past years.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] links table

body:
So, design question: in the links table, why is l_from a string rather
than a cur_id? I'm trying to dig it up, but I can't.

Seems kinda losey -- you can't join cur and links on l_from -- say, to
find what articles link to an article with a given ID. You can get all
the l_from's from links, of course, but then you have to do a query to
cur to get any other information.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


body:
Am Sonntag, 30. November 2003 18:24 schrieb Erik Moeller:
>Ulrich-
>[snip]

go back and read my last posting to this list. Obviously you didn't.

Uli


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Uploading files?

body:
Is there a better way than uploading files with
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Upload ?  This is much too slow
(too many clicks) if you want to upload more than a single file.

How can I accomplish the same task using netcat?

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Uploading files?

body:
Karl-
> Is there a better way than uploading files with
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Upload ?  This is much too slow
> (too many clicks) if you want to upload more than a single file.

Try this Perl script (replace string constants accordingly). You need to
be logged in, so copy your cookies.txt to the directory where the script
is run:

#!/usr/bin/perl
my @files=glob("fayum-??.jpg");
use LWP::Simple;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request;
use HTTP::Response;
use HTML::LinkExtor;
use HTTP::Cookies;
my $browser=LWP::UserAgent->new();
  my @ns_headers = (
   'User-Agent' => 'Mozilla/4.76 [en] (Win98; U)',
   'Accept' => 'image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg,
        image/pjpeg, image/png, */*',
   'Accept-Charset' => 'iso-8859-1,*,utf-8',
   'Accept-Language' => 'en-US',
  );
$browser->cookie_jar( HTTP::Cookies::Netscape->new('file' => 'cookies.txt'));

  foreach $file(@files) {
my $response=$browser->post("http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload",
@ns_headers,Content_Type=>'form-data',Content=>
[
wpUploadFile=>[$file],
wpUploadDescription=>"Large version of portrait for [[Gallery of Fayum mummy portraits]].
Scanned and/or edited by [[User:Eloquence|Eloquence]], [[public domain]] picture.",
wpUploadAffirm=>"1",
wpUpload=>"Upload file",
wpIgnoreWarning=>"1"
]);
push @responses,$response->content;
  }
open(RESPO,">responses.txt");
print RESPO @responses;
close(RESPO);


from_name: wiki pedista

subject: [WikiEN-l] Keep an eye on contributions of user Sayeya

body:
Hello,
This is to recommend you to keep an eye on the
contributions of user Sayeya. He has written before in
the Spanish wikipedia and before that in Enciclopedia
Libre, and has been regarded in both as a, at least,
problem user with serious POV issues.

AstroNomer

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subject: [Textbook-l] Job Kwanta

body:
Job, Your email address is not working.
Write to me. Have information that will
make you a wealthy man re your
instrumentality in the Farrow acct.
Charles Becken < cwbecken at webtv.net >


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] False Colors

body:
The issue is whether the opinions of someone posing as a scientist but in
fact pushing a position derived from devine revelation is to be treated as a
legitimate divergent view from a scientific viewpoint. Clearly, if not
excluded which is my preference, such material should be clearly labeled as
to its nature, including references to the source of the revelation.

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 10:02:56 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mainstream of science
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>> The problem is that Ed Poor has been editing
>> articles on climate science to give equal weight
>> to opinions outside of mainstream science, and
>> describing the different sides as "environmentalists,
>> liberals, Democrats and some scientists" and "other
>> scientists".
>>
>> This isn't a dispute over generalities or a philosophy
>> of neutrality; it's a specific dispute over the
>> presentation of particular scientific issues.
>
> The question is: What is "mainstream science"?
>
> 1. Money
>
> Is it determined by where the bulk of the money is spent on research? If
> so, then all we have to do is find out which hypotheses and/or
> conclusions are winning the most research grants, and so on.
>
> For argument's sake, let us grant that the environmentalist positions on
> the (A) "CFCs cause deadly cancer" issue and the (B) "carbon dioxide
> heats up the air too much" issue are getting $5 billion per year.
> Further, let us suppose that the contrary positions are getting less
> than 5% of that, say, $200 million.
>
> This would mean that mainstream science supports the environmentalist
> positions on the (A) and (B) issues.
>
> 2. Journal Articles
>
> Is mainstream science defined by what the overwhelming majority of
> peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals say?
>
> Then all we have to do is review those articles, or for those not
> familiar with the language of science, maybe just the article
> "abstracts" (the summary at the beginning of the text).
>
> If the overwhelming majority of these articles report that their
> research supports the environmentalist positions on the (A) and (B)
> issues, then our Wikipedia articles should say so.
>
> And if our "Wikipedia definition" of "mainstream science" is "whatever
> the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed articles in scientific
> journals say", then we can say:
>
> * The viewpoint of [[mainstream science]] is that the [[global warming]]
> theory is true.
>
> However, the link to "mainstream science" should provide either the
> money definition given above, or the journal article count one.
>
> I for one would trust someone like William Connolley to tell me what the
> journal articles say, and perhaps we could cite Sheldon Rampton as a
> source for where what views the bulk of the research funds is
> supporting.
>
> Ed Poor
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mainstream of science

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

> The problem is that Ed Poor has been editing
> articles on climate science to give equal weight
> to opinions outside of mainstream science, and
> describing the different sides as "environmentalists,
> liberals, Democrats and some scientists" and "other
>  scientists".
>
> This isn't a dispute over generalities or a philosophy
> of neutrality; it's a specific dispute over the
> presentation of particular scientific issues.

The question is: What is "mainstream science"?

1. Money

Is it determined by where the bulk of the money is spent on research? If
so, then all we have to do is find out which hypotheses and/or
conclusions are winning the most research grants, and so on.

For argument's sake, let us grant that the environmentalist positions on
the (A) "CFCs cause deadly cancer" issue and the (B) "carbon dioxide
heats up the air too much" issue are getting $5 billion per year.
Further, let us suppose that the contrary positions are getting less
than 5% of that, say, $200 million.

This would mean that mainstream science supports the environmentalist
positions on the (A) and (B) issues.

2. Journal Articles

Is mainstream science defined by what the overwhelming majority of
peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals say?

Then all we have to do is review those articles, or for those not
familiar with the language of science, maybe just the article
"abstracts" (the summary at the beginning of the text).

If the overwhelming majority of these articles report that their
research supports the environmentalist positions on the (A) and (B)
issues, then our Wikipedia articles should say so.

And if our "Wikipedia definition" of "mainstream science" is "whatever
the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed articles in scientific
journals say", then we can say:

* The viewpoint of [[mainstream science]] is that the [[global warming]]
theory is true.

However, the link to "mainstream science" should provide either the
money definition given above, or the journal article count one.

I for one would trust someone like William Connolley to tell me what the
journal articles say, and perhaps we could cite Sheldon Rampton as a
source for where what views the bulk of the research funds is
supporting.

Ed Poor


body:
Guess Singer is not getting his "knowledge" from Moon, still bogus though.

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 11:53:43 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Clearly labeled material (was: False Colors)
>
> Fred wrote:
>
>> The issue is whether the opinions of
>> someone posing as a scientist but in
>> fact pushing a position derived from
>> devine revelation is to be treated as
>> a legitimate divergent view from a
>> scientific viewpoint. Clearly, if not
>> excluded which is my preference, such
>> material should be clearly labeled as
>> to its nature, including references to
>> the source of the revelation.
>
> I agree, if you're talking about the [[creation science]] viewpoint
> about evolution. 95% of all scientists (and 99.8% of biologists) favor
> the "no divine intervention" viewpoint on evolution.
>
> Thus, I think it's safe to say that mainstream science favors the
> Darwinist position. And that Creationists' attempt to fly the flag of
> religion in scientific waters need not be endorsed by Wikipedia as a
> "legitimate divergent view".
>
> I disagree, if you're painting SEPP or its founder S. Fred Singer as
> pushing a position based on divine revelation. Singer actually disagrees
> with the only religious viewpoint I've ever heard expressed about CFCs.
> For example, Rev. Moon said,
>
> "The development of scientific knowledge and civilization has . . .
> resulted in such global problems as the destruction of nature and the
> environment, global warming and the diminishing of the ozone layer."
>
> -- http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon95/SM950822.htm
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but Moon's view seems to differ from Singer's.
> The reverend is blaming people for global warming and ozone depletion,
> if I'm not reading this quotation out of context. The retired scientist
> (Singer) is much less certain that human beings are to blame, and even
> questions whether the phenomena Rev. Moon expressed so much concern
> about, are even occurring!
>
> Ed Poor
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Keep an eye on contributions of

body:
> From: wiki pedista <wikipedista at yahoo.com>

> Hello,
> This is to recommend you to keep an eye on the
> contributions of user Sayeya. He has written before
> in
> the Spanish wikipedia and before that in
> Enciclopedia
> Libre, and has been regarded in both as a, at least,
>
> problem user with serious POV issues.
>
> AstroNomer

Something I have not been able to figure really
Astronomo, is whether Sayeya was HeKeIsDa or not ?

ant

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from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

> Am Samstag, 29. November 2003 21:10 schrieb Erik Moeller:
> > A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal
> > action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material
> > without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author"
> > requirement, which reads as follows:
> [snip]
>
> Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website
> flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using
> Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site
> maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the
> licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).

[snip]

Reading what your problems with the site are, my impression is, "So then why
is it not THAT that you are going after?" That is, why don't you threaten to
sue over going against the spirit of the GNU/FDL by having their copyright
notice prominent, but the GNU/FDL notice hidden if at all?

Andre Engels


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm back

body:
But of course I'm several hundred emails behind, in Wikipedia alone,
not to mention all my other email.

Here's a thought: if I were to engage in a policy of de-sysop'ing
(what a word!) for more or less routine quarrels between sysops, then
rather than learning to live together, we'd have a strong incentive to
quarrel even more.  Rather than seeking to find a way to harmonize our
different points of views, we'd have an incentive to make the
counterparty look as bad as possible.

Compare: "Hey, SoAndSo, I wanted to leave a note for you about what
you did on thus-and-such a page.  I disagreed with what you did there,
and here's why.  Even though we disagree, I hope you can find a way to
meet me halfway on this."

Versus: "I nominate that SoAndSo be de-sysop'ed, and here's why: blah
blah blah.  And some other bad stuff about him.  And a list of links
to jerky things he's done."

--Jimbo


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] SPAM altert! Ignore [Textbook-l] Job Kwanta posts

body:
Sorry folks, a couple got through. PLEASE do not
respond to "[Textbook-l] Job Kwanta" posts unless you
want you inbox full of SPAM and your email account
rendered useless (set aside the fact that SPAM is part
of a scam!).

This is getting annoying - every day at least a couple
SPAM emails are sent to this list and either Brion or
I have to review and reject each one. My work email is
also exposed on the Internet as a 'mailto:' and yet I
have received only one commercial SPAM email in 2
years (office SPAM is another issue...).

--- textbook-l-owner at wikimedia.org wrote:
> As list administrator, your authorization is
> requested for the
> following mailing list posting:
>
>     List:    Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
>     From:    86mvfispx at tim.it
>     Subject: I know you get many messages like
> this!But just have a look anyway xyxk  lqy gjt xq
>     Reason:  Post by non-member to a members-only
> list
>
> At your convenience, visit:
>
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/admindb/textbook-l
>
> to approve or deny the request.
>

> ATTACHMENT part 2 message/rfc822
> From: "Cameron Thornton" <86mvfispx at tim.it>
> To: textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: I know you get many messages like this!But
> just have a look anyway
> 	xyxk lqy gjt xq
> Date: Mon, 01 Dec 03 06:38:46 GMT
>
> have you experienced seduction and salaciousness
> with virtual reality before?
>
> click here
> http://ns2.adweawen.biz/ph/index_mailer.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ig gd cyes vmnuvtgeztkeqssjwtqzgh
> ezdp
> lmn cgvljcfysxaesyql   aempgn hwwwj
>

> ATTACHMENT part 3 message/rfc822
> Subject: confirm
> e22263c3135ff391b6ee17d69da2903bca7517b5
> From: textbook-l-request at wikimedia.org
>
> If you reply to this message, keeping the Subject:
> header intact,
> Mailman will discard the held message.  Do this if
> the message is
> spam.  If you reply to this message and include an
> Approved: header
> with the list password in it, the message will be
> approved for posting
> to the list.  The Approved: header can also appear
> in the first line
> of the body of the reply.

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