from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
hah. AFD needs to die, but I didn't say it shouldn't be replaced. It
should be replaced with the pure wiki deletion system.

On 9/11/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> JAY JG wrote:
> >> From: Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> >>
> >> But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about
> >> called it "articles for merging"?
> >
> >
> > That would be un-helpful, since the majority of intentions and outcomes
> > are for deletion.  Yes, sometimes the consensus is for merging the
> > article, but that's not the most typical outcome.  Neologisms, original
> > research, rants, advertisements, pet theories, bands that are planning
> > to record their first CD any day now, [[List of flags featuring one or
> > more stars and the colors red, blue, and white]] etc. don't qualify
> > under Speedy deletion rules, but still have no place in an encyclopedia.
> >
>
> Now I understand why people leave so quickly...
>
> A: "This article should be deleted."
> B: "But it's verifiable!"
> A: "It's non-notable and unencyplodic."
> C: "There are no notability policies! It's verifiable and isn't original
> research!"
> A: "Have read the article? We don't need an article on this! It has no
> place in a general purpsose encyclopedia!"
> D: "JIMBO SEZ: Wiki is not paper, so it can stay."
> A: "ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
>
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: One Where We Blew It

body:
geni wrote:
> Remeber if you make legit deletions harder on VFD you will simply end
> up with a stealth increase of speedy delete.
>

TINC.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
James D. Forrester wrote:
> Phroziac wrote:
>
>>>Anyone in favor of banning the word cruft from vfd? They might as well
>>>just be saying crap...
>
>
> Seconded.
>
> Oh, and top-posting should be made a bannable offence. :-)
>

Agreed.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
charles matthews wrote:
> It has never been pretty; but the current complaints on the deletion
> mechanism seem to be about Gresham's Law.  Roughly speaking, the
> 'clueless newbie' approach is orthogonal to the 'right stuff' for the
> job, which is to know what help constructs WP, and what is fluff or
> actually detrimental.
>
> What to do?  If GL is the basis reason - the people with informed
> judgement being also those who can easily find better things to do on
> the site, then it needs configuring.  Subdivide by type of reason for
> deletion?  By area of topic?  A smaller 'room' can be a friendlier
> atmosphere.
>
> It seems to me that a basic point that borderline cases are _not_ the
> most significant; a marginal keep is one that is not great for WP.
>

I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened
with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).

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from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Alphax wrote:

>Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax wrote:
>>
>>
>>Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that?
>>Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any
>>information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in
>>Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR).
>Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the
>articles to.
>
>
>
Why in the world would we do that? We don't have an "Articles for
spelling corrections" or an "Articles for improper header
capitalization", people just _fix_ those things. I've merged and
redirected plenty of articles in the past without putting it to a vote.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Phroziac wrote:
> On 9/11/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>charles matthews wrote:
>>
>>>It has never been pretty; but the current complaints on the deletion
>>>mechanism seem to be about Gresham's Law.  Roughly speaking, the
>>>'clueless newbie' approach is orthogonal to the 'right stuff' for the
>>>job, which is to know what help constructs WP, and what is fluff or
>>>actually detrimental.
>>>
>>>What to do?  If GL is the basis reason - the people with informed
>>>judgement being also those who can easily find better things to do on
>>>the site, then it needs configuring.  Subdivide by type of reason for
>>>deletion?  By area of topic?  A smaller 'room' can be a friendlier
>>>atmosphere.
>>>
>>>It seems to me that a basic point that borderline cases are _not_ the
>>>most significant; a marginal keep is one that is not great for WP.
>>>
>>
>>I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened
>>with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).
>>
> No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
> renaming it would fix the problems.
>

So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of
candidates for speedy deletion), ever?

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from_name: Worldtraveller

subject: [WikiEN-l] A plug and a query

body:
They do book publishing, see here:

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/books.aspx

Only black and white, which is a bit of a shame, but colour covers at least.

WT

> On 9/11/05, Worldtraveller <wikipedia at world-traveller.org> wrote:
>
> > The query is, who runs the Wikipedia Cafepress shop?  It would be quite
> > nice to offer WikiReaders for sale there once a few have been created.
>
> Daniel Mayer (mav) recently took over running the shop, but as far as
> I know, you can only sell CafePress products there, not WikiReaders.
>
> Angela.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
Using 'publish this page' to develop WMF website content on Meta
	(was Re: [Foundation-l] a crazy idea...)

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> mediawiki.org already exists, actually - and it's one of the
> nicest-looking and most usable wikis around. Sadly though, a lot of
> MediaWiki info is still on meta.
>
> This gives rise to a problem I hate, which also happens on the WMF
> wiki: one moment you're on mediawiki.org, you click a link, and
> suddenly you're on a different website (meta). Eh?

Goddam hypertext! :P

It's to be hoped that (good, clear) documentation will be moved to or
created afresh at mediawiki.org. But it's still new, people are busy,
and there's lots of stuff elsewhere.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: DF

subject: [WikiEN-l] Systematic violation of the GFDL

body:
It has recently come to my attention that the
one-woman small-scale commercial website
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ has been copying
paragraphs and entire passages from Wikipedia articles
and dropping them into their own content, without
attribution or GFDL release.

The initial discussion of this exists at Katefan0's
RFA, after she was accused of copying this site's
content when in fact it is now clear they have been
copying from us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Katefan0

I have spent a bit of time looking into this and found
at least 5 cases of misappropriation in the 7
historical articles I looked at from that site.  In
some cases, there are minor changes to our text (e.g.
NPOV -> "It's a great place to visit"), and in all
cases the paragraphs that have been copied are
surrounded by text and images that do not appear to
have come from us.  What makes this worse however, is
that in at least one case other passages in the same
article were copied from yet another copyrighted
online source without attribution.

This last feature suggests that even if this person
were open to sticking a GFDL label on all her
derivative works, that they would still be copyvios
related to misappropriations from other sites.

Since this is a very small business, I believe it is
at least concievable that the person in charge does
not understand copyright law (mix and match from
enough copyrighted sources and it becomes fair use,
right?), though I am inclined to doubt that the
average person would think it is okay to copy material
without any attribution whatever.

The site boasts having more than 2000 pages of
content.  Some of that is user submitted and fluff
pieces, like ghost stories, that seem unlikely to have
come from us.  But a large chunk is factual and
historical content about the American Southwest.  If
my informal survey is representative, we could be
talking about dozens or even hundreds of pages with
content copied from us.

Do people have any suggestions for how to pursue this?

-DF


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] A plug and a query

body:
On 9/11/05, Worldtraveller <wikipedia at world-traveller.org> wrote:

> The query is, who runs the Wikipedia Cafepress shop?  It would be quite
> nice to offer WikiReaders for sale there once a few have been created.

Daniel Mayer (mav) recently took over running the shop, but as far as
I know, you can only sell CafePress products there, not WikiReaders.

Angela.


from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
On 11/09/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think Jimbo once used the example of flat earthers - the view is so
> soundly rejected by the vast majority of the world that it doesn't
> deserve mention in [[Earth]] (I have no idea if it is mentioned or not
> - I just recall that being the example!).

Actually it was Fred Bauder who started the example, and Jimbo had this to say:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-June/024609.html

Jimbo also made an interesting related comment:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-June/024607.html

Dan


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikien-l Mailing List

body:
On 9/10/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Has somebody tried to just e-mail them and ask them please not to spam us or
> our list members?
>
> Tell them we're not interested in their products and if they keep it up
> we'll create a whole article about how they are a relentless spamming
> company who doesn't respond to polite requests? ;-)
>
> FF

I replied as an individual at the time asking them not to send me any
more mail. Sj has just CCed the tech contact at roomity.com his reply
to my request (which didn't get to the list - the reply, not the
request) so credit goes there.

Cormac


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
On 9/11/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> > From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> >
> > What is top posting anyway?
>
> A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.
>
> At some time in the mid-1990s, many people without USENET access
> acquired it. Some USENET oldtimers resented this. One characteristic
> of the newbies was many of them used some piece of software,
> Microsoft Outlook Express perhaps, was configured in such a way that
> by default if you just typed a reply it went at the top of the
> message, above the material to which it was replying.
>
> At about that time, in some newsgroups, people started viciously
> attacking the practice of "top-posting" and asserting that it was bad
> netiquette.
>
> I've participated in USENET since about 1990. At that time, bottom
> posting was the norm but top posting was not at all uncommon. It was
> a matter of personal style and nobody ever commented on it. It is
> simply not true that there was any prohibition on it.
>
> There is an unofficial RFC 1855, e.g. http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/
> rfc1855.html which is sometime quoted as deprecating top-posting. But
> it is clear from context that the point of the RFC is _primarily_
> concerned with _not_ quoting the the entire original ("It is
> extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including all the
> previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material"), and the
> fact that it mentions putting the summary at the top seems
> incidental. The actual text is:
>
> "If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
> summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
> enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure
> readers understand when they start to read your response. Since
> NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings
> from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a
> message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone.
> But do not include the entire original!"
>
> It is very much like splitting an infinitive. Don't split infinitives
> if you know your copy will be edited by someone who thinks there's
> something wrong with splitting infinitives. But do know that these
> people have nothing to back themselves up with; even Fowler's English
> Usage sees nothing wrong with it.
>
> Similarly if you are participating in a group that contains people
> that dislike top-posting, don't do it. But don't be gulled into
> believing that there's more here than personal taste.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
I've only been on computers for 10 years, and I really see no problem
with putting it either way. Gmail/firefox automatically make my cursor
at the top... --~~~~


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
On 9/11/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/11/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > > No, I was talking about the public mailbox on the end of the street
> > > which everyone in the neighbourhood uses. It's very much accessible
> > > and verifiable.
> > >
> >
> > That would be Original Research.
> >
> OR? How so. I could say a lot of things about the box anyone going
> there could verify. No original research needed. Aren't articles about
> bus stops basicly the same?

What you are proposing is primary source information.  Wikipedia is
not a primary source.  It is basically a tertiary (and to a small
extent, secondary) source.  This is what no original research means:
don't do research that no-one has done before.  I'd say someone
_doing_ research on a bus stop makes it fairly noteworthy...

Sam


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Fwd: [Wikipedia] DICT protocol]

body:
I've talked to folks who have worked on it, but still I am left with the
feeling that if there is to be a server/client protocol, http is the best
way to handle it. Of course, if you want to download the content and run
your own dict server for others thats great..but how many are out there that
will use it?

/Alterego

On 9/11/05, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 05:29:57AM -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Dear Sir,
> >
> > I would like to suggest you at Wikimedia to use the DICT protocol [1]
> > which allows to query dictionaries and databases [2].
> >
> > For example, thanks to the _Dict Firefox extension_ [3] it's possible to
> > write an url like the following one : dict://dict.org/d:encycplopedia .
> >
> > There is a DICT server which allows to query the french Wikipedia
> > dict://mali.geekcorps.org/d:wikipedia e.g. [4].
> >
> > It would be really great if we could query Wikimedia content with this
> > protocol.
> >
> > BTW, while searching for http://google.com/search?q=wikipedia+dict I
> > found a lot of websites reproducing Wikipedia content with Google Ads. I
> > am wondering if they comply with the GNU GFDL license.
> >
> > [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2229.txt
> > [2] http://www.dict.org
> > [3] http://dict.mozdev.org
> > [4] http://mali.geekcorps.org/mediawiki/index.php/Wik2dict
>
> The idea has been proposed many times.
>
> Attached is a toy Polish Wiktionary->dictd gateway I once coded.
> It's not usable in the real world, but it may give people some ideas.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
>
>> So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of
>> candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
>>
>>
>>
> Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that?
> Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any
> information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in
> Wikipedia.
>

Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR).
Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the
articles to.

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subject: [Wikitech-l] iPG-Enciclopédia

body:
Dear devs,
The website iPG-Enciclop?dia <http://www.enciclopedia.ipg.com.br> is using
real time content from ptwiki and is not crediting either the article
authors or Wikipedia as a source, but is instead indicating that the content
is copyrighted by them. Since they also do automatic text replacement, I
would like to request - just like elian suggested on #wikimedia - this
website to be blocked from accessing the Wikimedia projects.

I'll also will try to send them an email about this.

Best regards,
--
Edit this page @ http://pt.wikipedia.org


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikipedia, Kennisnet, and me

body:
Marjon Bakker wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> You probably do not know me, I'm Galwaygirl from the Dutch Wikipedia and
> I have some news to tell you. I went to Wikimania and I met Jan-Bart de
> Vreede and Annemiek Nederpel from the Kennisnet Foundation (the Internet
> organisation for Dutch schools). Jan-Bart was a speaker at Wikimania.
> (http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimania05/Presentation-JB1)
>
> The week after Wikimania, Jan-Bart asked me to go to work for Kennisnet.
> Kennisnet has some initiatives regarding ways to use Wikipedia in
> classrooms. Jan-Bart was looking for someone from the Dutch Wikipedia
> community to work with.
>
> That someone turned out to be me, much to my surprise. So now I'm
> working for Kennisnet as a part-time freelancer (yes, I'm getting paid).
> I will be working on my own account, not as a representative of the
> nl.wikipedia community, although it may sometimes prove impossible to
> keep things absolutely separate.
>
> There are several things I will be doing for Kennisnet, basically it
> comes down to this:
> *I'll write a simple, easy-to-use manual that Kennisnet can make
> available for students and teachers. This manual could be published on
> the Dutch Wikipedia as well.
> *I'll participate in talks about how to use Wikipedia in classrooms.
> *When Wikipedia is actually starting to get used in classrooms, I will
> answer specific questions from both students and teachers.
>
> I thought this might interest some of you. Personally, I'm really exited
> about this, as it is a wonderful turn in my "career". :-)
>
> Thanks for your attention,
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Galwaygirl
> (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Galwaygirl)

Hi Galwaygirl;

Thanks for telling us, this must be very exciting as an experience. I
hope you can keep us informed on how Wikipedia will be used in classroom.

I was also interested to know if you planned to get involved in wikiversity.

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> On 10/09/05, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
<snip>
>
>>Where such an article can't be merged into something larger, it's
>>probably because it is too trivial for the next broader level of
>>detail and probably shouldn't be included at all (for example, I
>>wouldn't even be worth mentioning in my university's article: it would
>>rightly get deleted were a sentence about me to be added) -- or if it
>>should be included, indicative that we have a big gaping hole
>>somewhere in our coverage and need to write the article for the next
>>broader level (for example, an individual folk song from a country on
>>which there is no "music of X" article yet).
>
>
> What should and shouldn't be an article is covered by wp:verifiability and NOR.
>
>

Excuse me while I go and add articles on all the monsters from Dungeons
and Dragons then...

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Counter for articles - Which WPs did disable them?

body:
Heinz wrote:
> According to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Relevanz the counter for
> articles in the german wp is disabled. I would like to know why and if all
> WPs did disable them

They're disabled on all Wikimedia wikis and have been for several years.

Originally counters were disabled because the updates to every page on
every page view were expensive on the database at the time.

When we changed the system to heavily cache page views, then the
counters would have become useless if reenabled because they cannot
count cached page views anyway (since they never reach the web servers).

(Besides that, the usefulness of a one-dimensional hit counter with no
listed beginning date or change over time info is debatable.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 9/11/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>>Excuse me while I go and add articles on all the monsters from Dungeons
>>>and Dragons then...
>>
>>I fail to see a problem with this (besides copyright issues if you want
>>to add stats, for example).... after all, we have an article for each
>>pokemon.
>>
>>
>>>Thanks,
>>
>>RN
>>
>
> No, I was talking about the public mailbox on the end of the street
> which everyone in the neighbourhood uses. It's very much accessible
> and verifiable.
>

That would be Original Research.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> What is top posting anyway?
>

Posting above replies instead of below them. Eg:

Yes.
>
> Are you sure?
>>
>> Because it reverse the logical flow of conversation
>>>
>>> Why is top posting frowned upon?

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from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: cruft

body:
> I think the solution is perfectly clear. We fix the articles at a
> reasonable rate....
>
> What do we really lose by having 100 mediocre-to-crappy articles on
> obscure Pokemon? I mean, yes, I lose sanity if I try to read them,
> but if they just sort of exist? The only thing I can think of that we
> might lose is some respect. Here's the thing, though - this project
> is four years old. We've built a pretty damn good encyclopedia in
> four years.

It's an equilibrium process.

Bad articles are created _at some rate_, and get fixed _at some rate._

Wikipedia is useful to me, in the areas where I have no expertise,
_because the bad articles get fixed quickly enough, four years into
the project, most of the articles in Wikipedia are pretty much OK._

That isn't a law of nature. It's a consequence of the _balance_ of
the rate of various things that are happening within Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has, as far as I can tell, improved continuously over four
years. That does not mean that this will automatically continue.
Wikipedia's usefulness depends on articles _actually receiving
reviews_ and the benefit of "many eyes."

If the Pokemon articles are, in fact, well-researched and accurate,
and have received input from many editors, they're not a problem. I'm
really not au fait with Pokemon so I've literally never looked at
them before... Let's see... I think I'll look at a few articles
linked from "List of Pok?mon..." Hmm, they're numbered... let's look
at 271 and 314, the first three digits of e and pi respectively...

...these certainly _look_ like _good_ articles to _me._ Not mediocre-
to-crappy at all.

(Incidentally, it's hard to judge simply from number of edits. I was
stunned some months ago by an article that was, if I recall, a hoax
or close to it, that had received many edits from experienced
editors... who had been editing only for language and style. So, not
knowing either Pokemon or the individual editors involved, I can't
really judge accuracy).

Are there convincing theories that say that there cannot possibly be
a problem with low-quality articles being created faster than they
are fixed?

Offhand I would think that avoiding such problems would require a
general consensus that the "inclusiveness" of Wikipedia must be kept
_in balance_ with the number of active contributors, both to
Wikipedia as a whole and within particular topic areas. I suspect
that's exactly what's being done in the hard-to-codify judgments of
what's "notable."

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] iPG-Enciclopédia

body:
Get_It wrote:
> Dear devs,
> The website iPG-Enciclop?dia <http://www.enciclopedia.ipg.com.br> is using
> real time content from ptwiki and is not crediting either the article
> authors or Wikipedia as a source, but is instead indicating that the content
> is copyrighted by them. Since they also do automatic text replacement, I
> would like to request - just like elian suggested on #wikimedia - this
> website to be blocked from accessing the Wikimedia projects.

Blocked.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
>> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>>> Alphax wrote:
>>>> Phroziac wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On 9/11/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened
>>>>>>with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
>>>>>renaming it would fix the problems.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of
>>>> candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that?
>>>Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any
>>>information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in
>>>Wikipedia.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR).
>> Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the
>> articles to.
>>
>
> Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when
> seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority
> instead of a concensus.
>
> Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a bigger pain.

Argh! Don't snip so much! Check which part of the thread you are
replying to! I have re-threaded it so that we can see everything in
context...

But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about
called it "articles for merging"?

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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New request for Cantonese Wikipedia: vote at 29-6

body:
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Jimbo, my whole point in informing an international mailinglist, and
> > ALL people who listed themselves as Cantonese speakers (including a
> > few who ended up voting against a Cantonese Wikipedia), was that it
> > seemed to me unfair to give Mandarin-only users an extra tip-off when
> > no other community got one.
>
> Makes zero sense to me.  Mandarin-only speakers are affected by this,
> and deserve a voice.

And they have a voice. I don't think they deserve a specific point-out
though, I mentioned it on an international mailinglist which should be
enough.

> > Zy26, "oppose", from "Northeast China" [zhongguo dongbei] (a
> > Mandarin-speaking area)
> > BenBenI, "oppose", from Chengdu (a Mandarin-speaking city)
> > Alexcn, "oppose", from Nanjing (a Mandarin-speaking city)
>
> And these people should be silenced?

Did I say that?

> > If Kosovo wants to be internationally recognised as completely
> > independent from Serbia, who should vote on it? All of Serbia, or just
> > Kosovars? Certainly, if it is up to ALL of Serbia, they will remain
> > part of Serbia, while if it is up to the Kosovars only, they may very
> > well not.
>
> This is a wildly inaccurate analogy.
>
> Here's a better analogy: if Kosovars want a separate *wikipedia* from
> the Serbians, for political reasons rather than linguistic reasons, who
> should vote on it?  All of Serbian Wikipedia?  Or just Kosovars?  (Or,
> my position, everyone who takes an interest, with the poll widely
> advertised to everyone who might be affected, including Bosnians,
> Croatians, etc.)

What you've missed here is that the vast majority of Kosovars speak
Albanian, which is only distantly related to Serbian (on the same
level as, say, English and Russian), and thus already have their own
Wikipedia.

If Kosovars wanted a separate Wikipedia from the Albanian Wikipedia,
what would my opinion be? That everybody should be informed, but that
only Kosovars, if anyone, deserves to have it pointed out directly to
them in such a manner.

If it's obviously an unreasonable split, the majority of Kosovars will
oppose it.

> > Before the vote, everyone who wanted a Cantonese Wikipedia was
> > thinking, "what's the holdup?? how is it that andrew lih and
> > shengjiong ran over us with a steamroller in the court of Jimbopinion,
> > but we had the majority and we cited sources to support our argument
> > when they didn't???". That was the motivation for the vote, to have
> > something that screamed for attention by giving a concrete message of
> > how many people support it, that would be difficult to ignore.
>
> You raise many valid points, to be sure.  But it is pretty easy to
> ignore a poll which is admittedly rigged to exclude those most likely to
> dissent.

You keep using the word "rigged". I did not exclude anybody. Again, I:

1) Informed the international mailinglist; and
2) Informed all people with Cantonese-N templates who allowed other
users to send them e-mail.

There is no rule on the voting page that restricts Mandarin-only
speakers from voting. If they're not subscribed to wikipedia-l, that's
their fault. And if anybody else wanted to inform any person or group
of people on their own, nobody was stopping them.

> You did not inform Mandarin speakers.  That's a pretty egregious error.

That is your _opinion_. Whether or not any given person thinks I
should've explicitly informed the Mandarin-speaking community depends
largely on their views of the relationship between Cantonese and
Mandarin. Both you and Angela have shown through various comments so
far that you're not entirely convinced that they're very different at
all in written form.

> I would recommend that you think about who is likely to be interested,
> and inform them.  I would not complain at all if no one posted to the
> Hungarian Wikipedia village pump.

I would think that all Wikipedia communities, or at least all
minority-language Wikipedia communities, would be equally interested.

> It assumes that Mandarin speakers are dishonest or politically
> motivated, and not just a little bit, but to the extent that their voice
> should be silenced.  That's a personal attack.

That's your personal conclusion, and it's wrong. I also purposefully
did not inform the English, Malay, or Japanese Wikipedias. Does that
mean I think speakers of these languages are dishonest or politically
motivated? Or does it mean that I think they're less likely to be as
well-informed as native Cantonese speakers?

> I trust Cantonese speakers.  I trust Mandarin speakers.  Careful
> thoughtful reasoned discussion will help us all come to a consensus
> about this.  Silencing people deliberately not informing them of a vote
> that you know to be relevant to them does not help.

"That you know to be relevant to them" -- that's just it. This vote
isn't particularly relevant to Mandarin speakers. As Wooddoo at zhwiki
put it, "???wiki????????" (what possible negative effect could this
have on the Chinese wiki?). Nobody answered that question.

Or this, which describes one of the things that has happened since the
post to zhwiki village pump (this time from Ffarr):

"??????????????????????????????????????? ...
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????"

(Opinions like "Cantonese and Chinese writing are the same" and "the
difference between Cantonese and Chinese is just pronunciation" have
been expressed ... I hope that Chinese Wikipedians who want to oppose
the Cantonese Wikipedia will think a little first and come up with
better reasons than these.)

> It has never been an issue because I have never before seen a case in
> which someone deliberately rigged a poll by not including relevant
> people in the announcement.

Again, that it was "rigged" is your opinion. Just because I didn't
inform a community to which I didn't think it was particularly
relevant doesn't mean I am evil (you didn't say "evil", of course, and
that's worth noting because you are the kind of person who likes to
make it clear that you don't say stuff like that).

Mark


subject: [Wikitech-l] SVG re-enabled

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I've hacked in an embargo on external file references in librsvg, so
> it's back on. Whee!

Oh and here's my hack patch:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=8165206&forum_id=12476

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
Ryan Norton wrote:
>>>
>>
>> Excuse me while I go and add articles on all the monsters from Dungeons
>> and Dragons then...
>
>
> I fail to see a problem with this (besides copyright issues if you want
> to add stats, for example).... after all, we have an article for each
> pokemon.
>

Grr... I'm seeing very few redlinks on [[List of species in fantasy
fiction]]...

Alright, why do the Star Wars wiki and Memory Alpha exist? Can't the
information in them go into Wikipedia (yes, I know that Memory Alpha is
not GFDL-compatible)?

--
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from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
The problem with top-posting is not so much the top-posting itself, it is
what it generally goes along with: copying the entire text of the article
being replied to, and not being specific about what you're replying to.

Generally, one should be including only enough context to make it obvious
what's being answered.

-Matt


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
I can't help it, Gmail is set to top post too. And since all messages
are displayed in a conversation style, you don't need to worry about
that previous message. All quoted text is surpressed unless you reply
to specific part of it.


body:
It seems now, given the size of sr.wiki, that a merger of the three
South Slavic Wikipedias is unlikely.

However, it's certainly very feasible: all articles from all three
would be moved to a new database, with the exception of articles with
the same titles (even if one title was Cyrillic and the other was
Latin). Those articles with coinciding titles would be sorted through
by hand to make a single new article based on the older two (or
three), including all information from them.

Disputes regarding history, culture, language, etc. of the former
Yugoslavia would be very carefully monitored by a group of 6, two
Croats, two Bosnians, and two Serbs, who would be elected by their
compatriots. Their job would be to make final rulings on all such
issues. If they could not arrive at a consensus (with at least 4 of
the delegates, at least one from each pair, agreeing with one
another), predetermined observers from other Wikipedias could be
brought in to cast tie-breaking votes.

The reason for such a dispute resolution process is that currently
there are more Serbian Wikipedians by far, and Bosniaks and Croats
might reject a union of Wikipedias out of fear that a slight Serbian
slant would prevail.

Mark

On 11/09/05, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
> >> Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.
> >
> > Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of
> > separate ones for each dialect?
> >
>
> Hysterical raisins.
>
> IOW: we made the wrong choice when setting both up. Let not the sins of
> the past bind us in eternity.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> - --
> James D. Forrester
> Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
> E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
> IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFDJM4hkn3kUxZyJx0RAsiUAJ9bChW8QM3KGMYyMQ5MgjqRaNAFhQCfW6Ih
> SgdMBIKhDUAVIn2igfqU4J8=
> =qW0V
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
> What you are proposing is primary source information.  Wikipedia is
> not a primary source.  It is basically a tertiary (and to a small
> extent, secondary) source.  This is what no original research means:
> don't do research that no-one has done before.  I'd say someone
> _doing_ research on a bus stop makes it fairly noteworthy...
> Sam

The primary source of bus stop information is my local bus company's
website. Basing articles on their schedule would not be original
research.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 9/11/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>>
>>>On 9/11/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Excuse me while I go and add articles on all the monsters from Dungeons
>>>>>and Dragons then...
>>>>
>>>>I fail to see a problem with this (besides copyright issues if you want
>>>>to add stats, for example).... after all, we have an article for each
>>>>pokemon.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>No, I was talking about the public mailbox on the end of the street
>>>which everyone in the neighbourhood uses. It's very much accessible
>>>and verifiable.
>>>
>>
>>That would be Original Research.
>>
>
> OR? How so. I could say a lot of things about the box anyone going
> there could verify. No original research needed. Aren't articles about
> bus stops basicly the same?
>

We have articles on bus stops?

Are bus stops encyclopedic?

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from_name: Phroziac

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Image copyright question: NYT images pre 1922 that are
	claimed to be copyrighted

body:
On 9/11/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, re: Sonny Bono: as I understand it (someone correct me if I'm
> wrong), it didn't put anything which WAS in the public domain into the
> private domain, it just made it so that things which were SUPPOSED to
> enter into the public domain did NOT. Which is very sad, but at least
> it doesn't open anyone up for litigation.

That's exactly right. That's why the date of public domain is
currently locked until 2019 or so..


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
> There is also a practical, though I think unwritten, rule against
> articles that can never be anything more than stubs.
> -Snowspinner

Sure, I'm just saying that it's not necessarily Original Research :).

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bot for French cities on Romanian Wikipedia

body:
The discussion has now started at:
#wikidatadiscussion , irc.freenode.net

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: new mailing list: issues-l

references:
<431F66E0.B4A8F540@livejournal.com>	<Pine.LNX.4.61.0509081047030.25391@sara.aronsson.se>
	<dfveah$duc$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
>> Kate wrote:
>>
>>> i have create a new mailing list, issues-l
>>> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/issues-l).  notifications of
>>> new site issues will be sent to this list.  developers might want to
>>> subscribe to it.
>>
>>
>> What stupid name is that for a list, and what on earth are "new site
>> issues" supposed to mean?  A have an issue with this name. Doesn't
>> wikitech handle technical issues, foundation-l handles policy issues,
>> and juriwiki-l legal issues?  Search
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list for the word issue, and it
>> pops up on every mailing list there is.
>
>
> I completely agree. I also don't get what this does that this mailing
> list and BugZilla (in combination) don't already do.
>
> This is not to say that it's a bad idea or anything, just that I don't
> understand the idea, and that the name "issues-l" does not give me the
> slightest clue.
>
> Timwi

Hi

Could it be registered on Gmane please ? Thanks

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 9/11/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, that sounds like a recipe for edit warring - in fact, page blankers
> are typically viewed as vandals. Is there something un-wiki about trying
> to
> find consensus on the matter on a special page devoted to those kinds of
> discussions - say, something like AfD?
>

Having the discussions in a single place e.g. AfD biases the case towards
those whose interest is in general deletion policy, whether they be
deletionist, inclusionist, or whatever; in other words, regulars of that
page. Page deletion by blanking would be accompanied by discussion on the
talk page for an article, biasing the case towards those who care about the
article. Both have their flaws.

-Matt


body:
Ahh, a few more things.

1) Regardless of whether or not the poll was "rigged", there has been
a message on the zhwiki village pump for a few days now, and Angela
sent a message to wikizh-l. Given a few more days or a week, I would
think that whatever problem you might have with me not informing that
community even though I didn't think it was particularly relevant to
them would be pretty much solved;

2) If you go back and look at Andrew's messages from the original
discussion on the issue... Andrew never argued that written Cantonese
and Mandarin are the same. I also don't remember him saying that there
should *never* be a Cantonese wiki. His reason for opposing its
creation was, if you'll recall, his belief that a separate Cantonese
Wikipedia would take away too many editors from zhwiki, and that
zhwiki was too small at the time (even though it had nearly 20k
articles).

Now, I don't know what his feelings are now, but I'm pretty sure that,
living in Hong Kong, Andrew would not contest the assertion that there
is a separate written Cantonese that is slowly gaining prestige.

Ffarr and Wooddoo also expressed on the zhwiki village pump the belief
that most Mandarin speakers would have a great deal of difficulty
understanding the articles in the Cantonese test-wiki.

Kaihsu and A-Gi?u, among others, have also made comments to this effect.

The discussion isn't about whether or not they're written differently,
really. Sure, a few people have said they're written identically, but
that's not really the question anymore.

The real question is whether or not Cantonese is deserving of a Wiki,
which depends on the answers to a few questions.

1) Written Cantonese and written Mandarin are quite obviously
different (as anyone who has lived in Hong Kong for even a short
period of time should know), but are they different enough that
Cantonese deserves a separate WP? Nobody's really raised this issue
yet, at least not as a reason for opposing. However, people have said
things along the lines of Mandarin speakers not understanding written
Cantonese well, including Milchflasch, Ffarr, and Wooddoo.

2) Is written Cantonese "good enough" for a Wikipedia? Spoken
Cantonese is used in all walks of life, including, say, physics
lectures at university, but written Cantonese is largely limited to
instant messaging, entertainment periodicals, novels, SMS, informal
letters, and the like. This is slowly changing -- one can find a
website about vegetarianism in Cantonese, websites about music, love,
and a few about science. Blogs also tend to use Cantonese heavily.
There are some groups which advocate the expansion of written
Cantonese into all walks of life, and some people use it in such a
fashion. Both Commons and Meta have Cantonese mainpages. Especially
moving to me is a quote from Jogloran, a Wikipedian: "My mother tongue
is Cantonese, not Mandarin, not 'Chinese', but specifically Cantonese.
When I read through the sample articles in Cantonese linked above, I
was struck by how much clearer it was to my mind. When I read a text
written in standard language, it takes a little longer for the exact
meaning to become apparent."

3) Will a Cantonese Wikipedia take away too many users from zhwiki? I
personally don't think so. Just as the creation of a Minnan Wikipedia
only drew away a few users, I think that even most Cantonese speakers
will continue to contribute to zhwiki. People who do "move" are, in my
opinion, unlikely to move completely -- most will probably share their
time between the two.

4) Will a Cantonese Wikipedia get any readers? I think so. There are
millions of speakers of Cantonese, and while some Cantonese speakers
would laugh at a Cantonese Wikipedia, I feel that many would frequent
it and find it refreshing to be able to find so much information in
the language of their hearth. This is perhaps similar to Sicilian,
Luxembourgish, and other minority language Wikipedias.

5) There is currently no official standard for writing Cantonese.
However, there is a sort of consensus, in that most people use the
same characters for the same words, even though there's no official
way. This is due mostly to the effect of the media -- the way
Cantonese is written in entertainment periodicals, tabloids, and
advertisements has influenced the writing of the people, and also, the
different major sources of written Cantonese have influenced each
other until arriving at a sort of "finished product", where most
things have a single usual way of writing. Exceptions are cuss words,
such as "diu" (as in "diu lei lo mo chao lo hai", "throw your mother's
smelly old shoes in the garbage"), which people may write with the
"consensus" character, or may substitute it with a homophone to avoid
writing a character that is seen as taboo due to its meaning and
etymology.

Mark

On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Stirling Newberry wrote:
> > You wonder why people don't trust you, this is why, you are not
> > trustworthy. The question as to whether Catonese is a separaete
> > *written* language is precisely the question that needs to be decided
> > by the community.
>
> I don't think the personal attack was necessary, but nonetheless, I
> think it is worth noting that using a vote-stacked poll is extremely
> counter-productive and unpersuasive.
>
> The *real* question here is not about polls or communities.  Let's
> imagine for a moment that somehow the US and UK governments got into a
> fight, let's imagine even that it's a war.  And let's imagine that in
> the aftermath, there is a huge community vote to split into two English
> Wikipedias: American English and British English.  And let's further
> imagine that there is a huge majority.
>
> Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.
>
> Having said that, of course there are borderline cases and complexities.
>
> What I would like to hear is *nothing* about Node's rigged poll, but
> about some very simple practical questions.
>
> Those in favor of the split claim that the two languages *in written
> form* (as well as spoken form) are mutually unintelligible.  Node has
> produced some testimony to that effect.  I would like to hear more about
> that, especially from (for example) Andrew Lih.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
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POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Time spent in page rendering

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Jeremy Dunck wrote:
>>
>>> According to the hardware orders page[1], a major bottleneck is page
>>> rendering.
>>>
>>> Does any phase of this stand out?  DB fetch?  Text parse?
>>> Request/Response bandwidth?
>>
>>
>> Depends on the page. On most pages the biggest chunks of rendering time
>> are in handling links. (On most pages most of the markup is links, so...)
>
>
> Do we still query the database for all these links to decide whether
> they exist and (depending on user settings) whether they are stubs? As I
> recall, someone once had an idea to write a simple, light-weight daemon
> for this that uses a dictionary data structure (I presume they were
> thinking of a DAWG (directed acyclic word graph)) for this.
>
> There are many algorithms available to generate DAWGs; I wrote one in
> Java once, but it's slow, you can probably find a faster one in a faster
> language. Or has this idea been scrapped for some reason?

I considered implementing a cache for link existence, but when we
realised it could be done with a quite satisfactory speed, using the cur
(now page) table only, the robustness gains convinced me that it was the
best solution. External daemons necessarily bring a higher system
administration overhead. Caches, especially ones which don't respect
database transactions, tend to develop inconsistencies.

I think Brion meant replaceInternalLinks (7.9%) and the CPU component of
 replaceLinkHolders (3.2%), not the 0.75% of execution time now required
for link lookup within the parser.

It's true that the addLinkObj query still takes 5.5%. In my opinion,
that can be reduced to near zero by implementing batch lookup techniques
ubiquitously.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
So the answer is clear: everyone subscribing to WikiEN-l should be
compelled to use Gmail!

Sam

On 9/11/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't help it, Gmail is set to top post too. And since all messages
> are displayed in a conversation style, you don't need to worry about
> that previous message. All quoted text is surpressed unless you reply
> to specific part of it.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 11/09/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:

> > Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR).
> > Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the
> > articles to.
> >
> I admit I've only read a few pieces of this discussion, but has anyone
> proposed redefining "AfD" to be the abbreviation for "Articles for
> Discussion"? That would move the process even further from appearing
> to be Wikipedia's variant of being the law West of the Pecos.

Discussion is possibly too vague.
"Articles/Categories/Templates/Images for Review"? (or Consideration,
which is nicely vague) This encompasses a lot of the "this probably
isn't deletable in general, but it goes to VfD for want of anything
better" that crops up...

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


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
JAY JG wrote:
>> From: Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
>>
>> But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about
>> called it "articles for merging"?
>
>
> That would be un-helpful, since the majority of intentions and outcomes
> are for deletion.  Yes, sometimes the consensus is for merging the
> article, but that's not the most typical outcome.  Neologisms, original
> research, rants, advertisements, pet theories, bands that are planning
> to record their first CD any day now, [[List of flags featuring one or
> more stars and the colors red, blue, and white]] etc. don't qualify
> under Speedy deletion rules, but still have no place in an encyclopedia.
>

Now I understand why people leave so quickly...

A: "This article should be deleted."
B: "But it's verifiable!"
A: "It's non-notable and unencyplodic."
C: "There are no notability policies! It's verifiable and isn't original
research!"
A: "Have read the article? We don't need an article on this! It has no
place in a general purpsose encyclopedia!"
D: "JIMBO SEZ: Wiki is not paper, so it can stay."
A: "ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

--
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
On 11/09/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> > From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> >
> > What is top posting anyway?
>
> A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.

Y'think? This is the first mailing list I've ever been a member of,
and I only joined in June!

I don't like top posting as it makes it impossible to see what was
said before - I like to see what someone is replying to.

Dan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

body:
> The problem with top-posting is not so much the top-posting itself,
> it is
> what it generally goes along with: copying the entire text of the
> article
> being replied to, and not being specific about what you're replying
> to.

Those are the problems, then, not whether the reply went above or
below the quoted text.

> Generally, one should be including only enough context to make it
> obvious
> what's being answered.
>
> -Matt

Well, sure (at least in mailing list or forum situations where people
can be assumed to be following a thread, or to go back to see what
was being referred to).

To tell the truth, I hardly ever notice whether people have top-
posted or bottom-posted.

As long as it's present as a matter of preference, and the emphasis
is put on being helpful to readers, I don't have any issues.

What I object to is the frequent _flaming_ of people for top-posting,
and to the inaccurate claim that top-posting is considered a major,
important faux pas in all Internet discussions at all times. Top-
posting is like splitting an infinitive. Some people hate it, and
some of the people who hate it can give you good reasons, but it's a
matter of taste and style, not a universally accepted or important
rule of grammar.

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


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
>From: Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com>
>
>On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Phroziac wrote:
> > > No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
> > > renaming it would fix the problems.
> >
> > But die to be replaced with what?
> >
> > Deletion is absolutely necessary.  A community process for deletion is
> > absolutely necessary.
>
>Pure wiki deletion system.

What is this "pure wiki deletion system" that people keep talking about?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
>From: Angela <beesley at gmail.com>
> > For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural
> > background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
>
>The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any
>user. See
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)

Well, that sounds like a recipe for edit warring - in fact, page blankers
are typically viewed as vandals.  Is there something un-wiki about trying to
find consensus on the matter on a special page devoted to those kinds of
discussions - say, something like AfD?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
>From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbsmith at verizon.net>
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting
> > > From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> > >
> > > What is top posting anyway?
> >
> > A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.
> >
>From: Lisa Thurston <lisathurston at gmail.com>
>
>Thank you Daniel for that explanation. I think your explanation deserves to
>go at [[Top posting]] considering you explain the 'social impact' which is
>more interesting to me than the actual mechanics!
>
>Lisa

It was a lovely explanation, quite interesting and informative.  However,
it's also anectdotal original research, which is inappropriate for a
Wikipedia article.

Jay.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Messages can be blank

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> UI messages can now be blank, this is now considered to be different to
> missing. Unless there are strenuous objections, it will stay that way, I
> think it makes more sense than those ugly   workarounds.

Yay!

> There were a few transient bugs over the last 24 hours related to this,
> some messages erroneously showed up as blank when they were in fact
> missing. This should be fixed now (thanks to Brion for helping with this).

600+ wikis * 100+ languages * a lot of messages comes out to a *lot* of
memcached deletes to make sure everything's scrubbed, so it's actually
not done yet. :)

Most of the biggest wikis should already be taken care of though, and
the rest should be all double-checked within a few hours.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] rebuildall.php mediawiki-1.5rc4

body:
Peter Grecian wrote:
>> ** Rebuilding recentchanges table:
>> Loading from CUR table...
>> A database error has occurred
[snip]
> I'm trying to rebuild the index and links from an imported wiki.

Looks like some of the rebuild* scripts are a bit broken still. :)

You can run refreshLinks.php separately and skip the broken
recentchanges bit for now.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Phroziac wrote:
> > No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
> > renaming it would fix the problems.
>
> But die to be replaced with what?
>
> Deletion is absolutely necessary.  A community process for deletion is
> absolutely necessary.

Pure wiki deletion system.

Dan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 9/11/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Pure wiki deletion system.

That would actually fix nothing.  All it would do is granularise
deletion discussions.  We would have limits on the numbers of reverts
to blank pages to stop edit wars, and force discussion.  So we end up
with deletion discussions on controversial topics.

What has this solved?

Sam


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
>>Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.
>
>
> Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of
> separate ones for each dialect?

By historical accident more than anything else.  I don't consider the
current situation to be ideal, but my deep respect for the choices of
the community means that any decision to merge is going to come over a
time of careful discussion and consensus building.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 11/09/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Deletion is absolutely necessary.  A community process for deletion is
> > absolutely necessary.
>
> Pure wiki deletion system.

For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural
background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>Phroziac wrote:
>>
>>>No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
>>>renaming it would fix the problems.
>>
>>But die to be replaced with what?
>>
>>Deletion is absolutely necessary.  A community process for deletion is
>>absolutely necessary.
>
>
> Pure wiki deletion system.

Can you explain what you mean by that?  In some detail?

--Jimbo


body:
I would suggest a friendly mail on copyright law and asking them to
properly contribute our text and ask permission from whoever else they
copied.

If they refuse, we can take it from there.

On 9/11/05, DF <dragons_flight at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It has recently come to my attention that the
> one-woman small-scale commercial website
> http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ has been copying
> paragraphs and entire passages from Wikipedia articles
> and dropping them into their own content, without
> attribution or GFDL release.
>
> The initial discussion of this exists at Katefan0's
> RFA, after she was accused of copying this site's
> content when in fact it is now clear they have been
> copying from us:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Katefan0
>
> I have spent a bit of time looking into this and found
> at least 5 cases of misappropriation in the 7
> historical articles I looked at from that site.  In
> some cases, there are minor changes to our text (e.g.
> NPOV -> "It's a great place to visit"), and in all
> cases the paragraphs that have been copied are
> surrounded by text and images that do not appear to
> have come from us.  What makes this worse however, is
> that in at least one case other passages in the same
> article were copied from yet another copyrighted
> online source without attribution.
>
> This last feature suggests that even if this person
> were open to sticking a GFDL label on all her
> derivative works, that they would still be copyvios
> related to misappropriations from other sites.
>
> Since this is a very small business, I believe it is
> at least concievable that the person in charge does
> not understand copyright law (mix and match from
> enough copyrighted sources and it becomes fair use,
> right?), though I am inclined to doubt that the
> average person would think it is okay to copy material
> without any attribution whatever.
>
> The site boasts having more than 2000 pages of
> content.  Some of that is user submitted and fluff
> pieces, like ghost stories, that seem unlikely to have
> come from us.  But a large chunk is factual and
> historical content about the American Southwest.  If
> my informal survey is representative, we could be
> talking about dozens or even hundreds of pages with
> content copied from us.
>
> Do people have any suggestions for how to pursue this?
>
> -DF
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 05:29:57AM -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Dear Sir,
>
> I would like to suggest you at Wikimedia to use the DICT protocol [1]
> which allows to query dictionaries and databases [2].
>
> For example, thanks to the _Dict Firefox extension_ [3] it's possible to
> write an url like the following one : dict://dict.org/d:encycplopedia .
>
> There is a DICT server which allows to query the french Wikipedia
> dict://mali.geekcorps.org/d:wikipedia e.g. [4].
>
> It would be really great if we could query Wikimedia content with this
> protocol.
>
> BTW, while searching for http://google.com/search?q=wikipedia+dict I
> found a lot of websites reproducing Wikipedia content with Google Ads. I
> am wondering if they comply with the GNU GFDL license.
>
> [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2229.txt
> [2] http://www.dict.org
> [3] http://dict.mozdev.org
> [4] http://mali.geekcorps.org/mediawiki/index.php/Wik2dict

The idea has been proposed many times.

Attached is a toy Polish Wiktionary->dictd gateway I once coded.
It's not usable in the real world, but it may give people some ideas.
-------------- next part --------------
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# The lack of namespace-class separation is Perl is extremely annoying ...

# http://pl.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Vacuum_tube&action=raw

use Carp;
use HTTP::Request;
use HTTP::Request::Common;
use HTTP::Headers;
use HTTP::Cookies;
use LWP;
use HTML::Form;
use IO::Socket;
use IO::Multiplex;
use URI;

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$ua->agent("Wiktionary dictd gateway (public svn release; by Taw)");

my $msg_number = 1000;

my $port = 9202;
my $sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(LocalPort=>$port,ReuseAddr=>1,Listen=>5);
my $mux = new IO::Multiplex;

$mux->listen($sock);
$mux->set_callback_object(__PACKAGE__);
$mux->loop;

sub mux_connection {
    my $package = shift;
    my $mux = shift;
    my $fh = shift;
    DictConn->new($mux, $fh);
};

package DictConn;

our %CACHE;
our %ALIASES;

# repeated, so we can use $ua->request(GET $url) here
use HTTP::Request::Common;

sub new {
    my $package = shift;
    my $self = bless { mux => shift, fh => shift, name => undef } => $package;
    $self->{mux}->set_callback_object($self, $self->{fh});

    # It's not unique at all
    my $msg_id = "<$msg_number\@taw.pl.eu.org>";
    $msg_number++;
    $self->reply(220, "Wiktionary dictd gateway", "<>", $msg_id);
}

sub mux_input {
    my $self = shift;
    shift;
    shift;
    my $input = shift;
    while ($$input =~ s/^(.*?)\s*\n//) {
	my $cmdline = $1;
#	print "C: $cmdline\n";

	my @parts;
	while($cmdline ne "")
	{
	    next if $cmdline =~ s/^\s+//;
	    if ($cmdline =~ s/^"((?:[^"\\]|\\.)*)"//) { # "
		push @parts, $1;
	    } elsif ($cmdline =~ s/^'((?:[^'\\]|\\.)*)'//) { # '
		push @parts, $1;
	    } elsif ($cmdline =~ s/^([^'"\\  \t\r\n]+)//) { # '
		push @parts, $1;
	    } else {
		# Parse error
		next;
	    }
	}

	if(@parts) {
	    my ($cmd, @args) = @parts;
	    $cmd = lc($cmd); # CORRECT ?

	    if($cmd eq "define") {
		$self->define(@args);
	    } elsif($cmd eq "match") {
		$self->match(@args);
	    } elsif($cmd eq "show") {
		$self->show(@args);
	    } elsif($cmd eq "client") {
		$self->reply(250, "ok");
	    } elsif($cmd eq "status") {
		$self->reply(210, "No status info available");
	    } elsif($cmd eq "option") {
		# Totally ignore
	    } elsif($cmd eq "help") {
		$self->help(@args);
	    } elsif($cmd eq "quit") {
		$self->quit(@args);
	    } else {
		# Unknown command
	    }
	} else {
	    # Parse error - empty line
	}
    }
}

sub reply
{
    my $self = shift;
    my $answer = join(" ", @_) . "\r\n";
    print {$self->{fh}} $answer;
#    print "S: $answer";
}

sub help
{
    my $self = shift;
    # Totally ignore
}

sub quit
{
    my $self = shift;
    $self->reply(221,"Closing Connection");
    close $self->{fh};
}

sub cache_fetch
{
    my($self,$word) = @_;

# Just a lag work-around, for testing
#    local $/;
#    open CACHE, "c";
#    $CACHE{$word} = <CACHE>;
#    close CACHE;
#    return;

# Back to normal procedure
    my $url = URI->new('http://pl.wiktionary.org/w/index.php');
    $url->query_form('title'=>$word, 'action'=>'raw');

    my $res = $ua->request(GET $url);
    unless($res->is_success)
    {
	print $res->message, "\n";
	# Return error message to client
	exit 1;
    }
    $CACHE{$word} = $res->content;

# Lag workaround, for testing
#    open CACHE, ">c";
#    print CACHE $CACHE{$word};
#    close CACHE;
}

sub db_grep
{
    my($self,$word) = @_;
    $self->cache_fetch($word) unless defined $CACHE{$word};
    my $def = $CACHE{$word};
#    print "W: <<<$def>>>\n";
    $def =~ s/\r//g;
    $def =~ s/\s+$//mg;
    $def .= "\n";

    my @res;
    while ($def =~ s/^(.*)==\s*([^\n]*?)\s*\(([^\n]*)\)\s*==\n(.*?)\s*$/$1/s)
    {
	my $n = $2;
	my $long = $3;
	my $wdef = $4 . "\n";

	my $short = $ALIASES{$3} || $3;
	$short =~ s/ /_/g;
	$short =~ s/[{}]//g;
	$short = "pl.wt:$short";

	# Remove empty entries from $def
	$wdef =~ s/----\n//g;
	$wdef =~ s/^\{\{[^{}\n]+\}\}\s*(?={)//mg;
	$wdef =~ s/^\{\{[^{}\n]+\}\}\s*\z//m;
	$wdef =~ s/\n\n+/\n/g;

	push @res, {
	    short => $short,
	    long => "'Polish Wiktionary - $long'",
	    def => "$n\n$wdef"
	}
    }
    return @res;
}

sub define
{
    my($self,$db,$word)=@_;

    my @defs = $self->db_grep($word);

    $self->reply(150, scalar(@defs)." definitions found: list follows");
    for(@defs)
    {
	$self->reply(151, $word, $_->{short}, $_->{long});
	print {$self->{fh}} $_->{def}, "\n.\n";
    }
    $self->reply(250,"Command complete");
}

sub match
{
    my($self,$db,$strategy,$word)=@_;
    # Totally ignore
}

sub show
{
    my $self = shift;
    my $toshow = shift;
    $toshow = lc($toshow);
    if($toshow eq "db" or $toshow eq "databases") {
	# Totally ignore
    } elsif($toshow eq "strat" or $toshow eq "strategies") {
        # Totally ignore
    } elsif($toshow eq "info") {
	my $database = shift;
        # Totally ignore
    } elsif($toshow eq "server") {
        # Totally ignore
    }
}


from_name: Heinz

body:
According to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Relevanz the counter for
articles in the german wp is disabled. I would like to know why and if all
WPs did disable them

heinz


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
Merging is also good for a very important reason: It helps the reader
find content. The problem w these stray "cruft" articles is that few
people ever see them. They're rarely well linked together, and often a
number of articles end up written on a very similar subject, all of
them in some way redundant and difficult to find. The best thing for
EVERYBODY is merging/redirecting tiny articles (w/o loosing good
content) and then allowing them to spin off into their own articles
again when the "hub" article grows too big

Jack (Sam Spade)

> Just to be clear, I'm not 100% sure this is my position.  :-)
>
> My position most certainly is that, *fortunately*, a lot of really
> difficult issues *are* resolved by verifiability and no original
> research.  Those two rules knock out a huge swath of certifiable
> nonsense without even breaking a sweat.
>
> There is now a magazine article (Florida Trend) which gives my mother's
> name, and tells about the school which she founded, where I attended as
> a child.  This information is now verifiable (it is in a magazine) and
> the original research was done by a professional journalist (plus I can
> personally vouch for it being true, for whatever that may be worth).
>
> Even so, I do not think we should have an article about my mother.
> She's a dear sweet wonderful person, to be sure, but not encyclopedic.
>
> This is a case where I'm going to go with Kat Walsh (Mindspillage) and
> say that I'm a "merge-ist".  Does the tidbit about my mom's school
> deserve a separate article?  Absolutely not.  Does it belong somewhere
> in the encyclopedia?  Sure.  Where?  In the article about me.
>
>
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

body:
Some people also say that short articles are more likely to get edited.
I say:
1) They have to be found first.
2) Sections can be edited just as easily.

--Mgm


body:
> Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.

Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of
separate ones for each dialect?

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Lisa Thurston

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

body:
Thank you Daniel for that explanation. I think your explanation deserves to
go at [[Top posting]] considering you explain the 'social impact' which is
more interesting to me than the actual mechanics!

Lisa

From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbsmith at verizon.net>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting
> > From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> >
> > What is top posting anyway?
>
> A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.
>


from_name: James D. Forrester

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

Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
>> Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.
>
> Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of
> separate ones for each dialect?
>

Hysterical raisins.

IOW: we made the wrong choice when setting both up. Let not the sins of
the past bind us in eternity.

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Differential storage

body:
Netocrat wrote:
> What is/are the reason/s for storing the full text of page revisions in
> the database as opposed to some form of differential?

Expedience; it hasn't been written yet.

>  Am I correct in
> assuming that speed has been given priority over storage space
> requirements, and if so, has any benchmarking been done to find out how
> much overhead would be added by storing revision as diffs and how much
> space would be saved?

See Tim's presentation from 21C3: http://zwinger.wikimedia.org/berlin/

> Also, has there been any discussion of the possibility of branching a page
> (as is possible in e.g. a CVS repository)?

Not really. Tagging of revisions is likely to happen soonish, branching
not so likely.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 9/12/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural
> background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?

The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any
user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)

Angela.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Image copyright question: NYT images pre 1922 that
	are claimed to be copyrighted

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> I frequently make use of an online database, made available to me at  no
> cost by my local public library system, which contains not merely  the
> full text but the actual page images of The New York Times back  to 1857.
>
> Obviously there's no problem with short quotes from the text, but  what
> about images prior to 1923?
>
> EVERY piece of material downloaded from this database, back to 1857,
> contains a notice like this:
>
> "Display Ad 7--No Title. New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 30,
> 1888; [database name] Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851  -
> 2001) pg. 8. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.  Further
> reproduction prohibited without permission."
>
> I'd syllogize that a) everything published before 1923 is in the  public
> domain, and b) everything that appears in The New York Times  has been
> publisheded, ergo c) this is in the public domain, and that  the notice
> is just boilerplate, presumably put on everything because  it is easier
> and less risky to put it on everything than to attempt  to determine
> which things are under copyright (after all, a few more  Sonny Bono laws
> and this may BE copyrighted again), and that I can  safely ignore it,
> that I use the image freely, and that no permission  is required.
>
> Comments?
>

IIRC (although IANAL) scanning something (in the US) doesn't add any
copyright to it...

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from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Well, why don't we have a vote?

If all the Serbians vote to merge, but all the Bosnians vote against,
of course, the merge would go through because there are more Serbians!

And, of course, they should all vote, because it affects all of their
communities, and their votes shouldn't count any differently.

Mark

On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
> >>Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.
> >
> >
> > Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of
> > separate ones for each dialect?
>
> By historical accident more than anything else.  I don't consider the
> current situation to be ideal, but my deep respect for the choices of
> the community means that any decision to merge is going to come over a
> time of careful discussion and consensus building.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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POSSIT MATERIARI
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

body:
On 12/09/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:

> What I object to is the frequent _flaming_ of people for top-posting,
> and to the inaccurate claim that top-posting is considered a major,
> important faux pas in all Internet discussions at all times.

Um... surely the fact that people are frequently flamed for it might
just indicate that, frequently, people consider it a major faux pas?
;-)

[Random factoid: first usenet citations I can find are just on eight
years ago. Which surprises me; I'm sure I remember it around when I
turned up. OTOH, they reference a pre-existing culture - "You can get
in a lot of trouble in the Netscape newsgroups for 'Top Posting'." -
so meh.)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Sounds great.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 9/12/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/12/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural
> > background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
>
> The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any
> user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 04:35:39PM -0600, Brian wrote:
> I've talked to folks who have worked on it, but still I am left with the
> feeling that if there is to be a server/client protocol, http is the best
> way to handle it. Of course, if you want to download the content and run
> your own dict server for others thats great..but how many are out there that
> will use it?

=== Why dictd ===

For wikipedia, dictd is not very useful.
For wiktionaries it is - this way content from the wiktionary
becomes just one of many dict data feeds your dict client may use.

Having dictionary data in a simple text format is usually much more
useful than in html. Dictd protocol provides more features than
naive http, it specifies how to select from multiple dictionaries,
how to specify many match strategies etc. dict clients know about
those features and may use them

We can de facto reimplement dictd over http, specifying an
API for dictionary queries, but we would have to inform all
the clients about it. Then either all dictioary servers would
have to switch to our API, and all existing dict clients
would have to switch to it, or all dict clients would
have to understand both dictd and our API - not good.

=== Practical solution ===

Actually running a local dictd is pretty usual thing
under Linux. The only thing we should do to become dict-compatible
is to provide a nicely reformatted wiktionaries in
a dictd-compatible format. It should not be too hard
to generate them from the XML dumps, but the generator
has to be aware of templates used in all Wiktionaries etc.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Packaging

body:
Installing and maintaining a bunch of software kind of sucks.

It would be good if we could make a more concerted effort to make use of
the RPM package manager that Fedora so conveniently provides for our
customized and patched software; we can have a local yum repository for
extra convenience (we've already got a local mirror of the main FC
packages, so adding our own should be easy).

We'll be upgrading the remaining Fedora Core 2 machines in the Florida
cluster to 3 to match the others, which should help in keeping things
consistent and friendly to mass installations.

Some documentation on building RPM packages:
http://www.rpm.org/RPM-HOWTO/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Inquiétude au sujet de Yahoo en Chine

body:
Emmanuel Engelhart <emmanuel at engelhart.org> wrote:
Bonjour

Je tiens ? faire part de mon inqui?tude ? la vue de cet article:
http://www.courrierinternational.com/article.asp?obj_id=54946

Il est normal que Yahoo respecte la loi chinoise, m?me si celle-ci est sc?l?rate.

Mais, je serai tr?s (tr?s) m?content d'apprendre qu'un chinois a des difficult?s ? cause de son
activit? (d?voil?e) sur un des projets de wikim?dia. Si Yahoo fournissait des informations comme
elle vient de le faire, alors il ne serait pas exag?r? AMHA de poser la question du degr? de
complicit? de la fondation dans cette affaire.

Une clarification a-t-elle d?j? ?t? faite ? ce sujet ?

Kelson
_______________________________________________
Wikimediafr-l mailing list
Wikimediafr-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediafr-l

Yahoo justifie son geste par le fait que sa filiale situ?e ? Honk Kong respecte (doit respecter ?) la loi chinoise.
Nous n'avons pas obligation de respecter ces lois, par cons?quent aucune raison de fournir ce type d'information.

Je ne vois pas tr?s bien en quoi si Yahoo fournissait des donn?es sur un de nos utilisateurs... nous serions consid?r? comme complices... peux tu clarifier ta pens?e ? ce sujet ? Fais tu allusion au fait que nous venons de mettre en place des serveurs qui seront utilis?s par nos projets mais qui sont la propri?t? de Yahoo ?

J'en profite pour ?voquer un petit point qui me tient ? coeur.

Jusqu'? il y a quelques semaines, seuls les d?veloppeurs pouvaient faire des v?rifications d'ip dans la base, en particulier en cas de vandalisme f?roce, ou d'abus de sockpuppets. Suite ? une demande croissante, un outil, le check user, a ?t? d?velopp? et permet ? des non d?veloppeurs de checker les adresses ips utilis?es et de mettre en concordance les ips de sock puppets.

La r?gle actuelle est que seules 2/3 personnes (arbcom en particulier) ont le droit d'utiliser cet outil.
En pratique... les demandes sont de plus en plus fr?quentes, soit aux d?veloppeurs (demande de v?rification), voire demande d'acc?s par des utilisateurs ? la fonction check user. Y compris par des utilisateurs relativement r?cents... et ce, sans contr?le par la communaut?. J'avais l'intention de d?velopper une petite r?gle d'utilisation, mais d?bord?e, j'ai demand? ? Datrio s'il ne pourrait pas lancer un petit quelque chose sur le sujet. Sa proposition actuelle consiste ? laisser cet outil dans les mains des stewards et ? permettre ? tout utilisateur de faire une requ?te.

Ce qui m'ennuit dans cette m?thode est que
1) soit le steward doit lui-m?me v?rifier la validit? de la requ?te (je vous laisse imaginer le plaisir de v?rifier dans une langue non comprise)
2) soit le steward donne l'information en routine

Dans le premier cas, le travail est excessif pour le steward (voire impossible)
Dans le deuxi?me cas, le risque d'abus est ?norme. Pour revenir ? Yahoo, rien n'emp?cherait alors un utilisateur faisant partie du gouverment chinois de  faire tranquillement des demandes sous un pr?texte mineur, et de r?cup?rer tranquillement des infos sur un utilisateur chinois... C'est tir? par les cheveux... mais possible...
Cela peut aller tr?s loin !!!

Je me suis vivement oppos?e aux deux derni?res requ?tes d'utilisateurs demandant ? avoir librement acc?s au check user, car il me semble que cet outil, pour utile qu'il puisse ?tre, est aussi fort dangereux et ?ventuellement contre notre politique de confidentialit?. Plusieurs ?diteurs ont soutenu ce refus, mais d'autres ont argu? que l'outil ?tant n?cessaire, il pourrait ?tre ajout? aux "outils" des bureaucrates.

Quand on sait qu'une personne peut ?tre administrateur ou m?me bureaucrate sans aucun vote sur les petits projets, cela fait peur !!!

Je ne vois qu'une solution possible
1) l'outil uniquement dans les mains des stewards (et des d?veloppeurs of course)
2) tout le monde peut faire une requ?te sur m?ta, mais la demande n'est acc?d?e que si elle est soutenue par une portion raisonnable de la communaut? locale (type arbcom, ou vote sur le projet lui-m?me). Ceci afin de s'assurer que la demande est JUSTIFIEE et n'est pas le fait d'une taupe ou d'un crackpot.

Je r?pond un peu plus longuement que pr?vu... pour bien mettre en ?vidence que si des informations sont diffus?es sur un utilisateur, avant de parler de la "responsabilit? de la Foundation" (pardon, complicit?), il faut aussi bien prendre conscience que ceux qui demandent (parfois ? grand cris) l'information, sont les utilisateurs, et ceux qui la donnent, n'ont parfois rien ? voir non plus avec la Foundation. Je ne reproche rien ? personne. Un admin est las d'un certain type de vandalisme, il tanne le d?veloppeur ou le steward pour r?cup?rer une ip. Celui qui est tann? finit par donner l'info. Il faut juste prendre conscience que pour 99 cas o? il s'agit d'un simple check un peu "abusif", il y aura peut ?tre 1 cas o? les cons?quences seront lourdes pour l'utilisateur.

Alors o? met-on la limite ? l'information que nous devons fournir et ? celle que nous ne devons pas fournir ???

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


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
>You did not inform Mandarin speakers.  That's a pretty egregious error.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
By now Mandarin voters are informed and it has strengthened the vote in
favour of a Cantonese Wikipedia a lot...

Waerth/Walter

ps: I will react to andrews email later on


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
G'day MGM,

> Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when
> seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority
> instead of a concensus.
>
> Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a
> bigger pain.

That's a *good* thing.

I'm probably fairly deletionist (though I've changed my vote a couple
times after being proved wrong).  If I have to jump through hoops to
justify why a page should be deleted, so what?  I shouldn't be listing
it if I don't think it's important that it gets removed.

Pros:
- fewer frivolous nominations
- nominator must be prepared to justify herself, because who would go to
   all that effort of selecting a category etc. without having a bloody
   good reason to delete?
- higher chance of knowledgeable people voting on the issue[0]
- smaller pages, so fewer articles get lost in the mess
- an admin can dedicate herself to a particular category, so there's
   less of a backlog

Cons:
- imagine Star Wars tragics camping themselves in the "Star Wars-cruft"
   category and harassing anyone who tries to suggest that the man
   mentioned in passing in somebody's fanfic based on some novel about
   Luke Skywalker's children with no other connection to the movies is
   *obviously* notable.  It'll happen.
- if there's no admins who care about $category, very few discussions
   will be closed.  Categories that don't cover WP's inherent biases will
   be as ignored as the majority of articles like that.

[0] Though frankly, if a voter (or whatever we're calling them now) is
     willing to do a minimum of research (read the article, check Google,
     check policies like WP:MUSIC), they shouldn't *need* to be
     knowledgeable about the subject.  If an article doesn't establish
     notability enough on its own, and Google/policies don't back it up,
     why shouldn't I argue for deletion?  Because I don't like Pok?mon,
     or whatever "cruft" has come up lately?

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote

> Deletion is absolutely necessary.  A community process for deletion is
> absolutely necessary.

As I understannd the 'pure wiki' proposal, it is not an article deletion but
a version deletion.  I think we need an article deletion process.  I think
we need a speedy process that catches more 'vanity' articles, but is
reticent about deleting other factual stuff.  There is no reason why we
can't have a speedy category of redirection to a 'node' page, i.e.
unpickable speedies. Finally, I think the AfD process should be reconfigured
so that any request is tagged by a category/policy reason - speedies usually
now tagged.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
G'day Dan,

> On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>Phroziac wrote:
>>>No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought
>>>renaming it would fix the problems.
>>
>>But die to be replaced with what?
>>
>>Deletion is absolutely necessary.  A community process for deletion is
>>absolutely necessary.
>
> Pure wiki deletion system.

A vandal's paradise.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>
> G'day Dan,
>
>>
>> Pure wiki deletion system.
>
>
> A vandal's paradise.
>
Vandals can _already_ blank pages. Other people notice the blanking,
check what's been blanked in the history, and if they think it was
inappropriate they revert it. What would change?


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 9/11/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day MGM,
>
> > Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when
> > seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority
> > instead of a concensus.
> >
> > Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a
> > bigger pain.
>
> That's a *good* thing.
>
> I'm probably fairly deletionist (though I've changed my vote a couple
> times after being proved wrong).  If I have to jump through hoops to
> justify why a page should be deleted, so what?

So when I'm on RC patrol it becomes even more tempting to streach the
rules os speedy delete rather than figure out how to navigate through
some awful AFD system. The current one is bad enough.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
Alphax wrote:

>As has been explained a few times now (and will probably need explaining
>a few more, because it's such a crazy idea) you "delete" pages by
>blanking them. A vandal's paradise.
>
>
I don't see why this would be any more a vandal's paradise than the
current setup, since vandals can already blank pages at will. We've
survived so far. People would notice blanked pages and check the history
to see if they should have been blanked or not, as they do now.

>Of course, we could adopt the "pure wiki deletion system on wheels",
>where you delete a page by moving it and then blanking the redirect...
>
>
>
Why would we do that? There's no point to that extra step, it hides the
edit history away somewhere useless and clutters the wiki with
unnecessary extra pages.

I realize you're trying to be facetious, but in the process you're also
implying that supporters of the "pure wiki deletion" idea are either
irrational or in some way support vandalizing Wikipedia. Please assume
good faith, enough people have proposed this technique at this point
that I hope it's clear that it's not a result of raving lunacy.


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
>From: Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk>
>
>Angela wrote:
>>>For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural
>>>background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
>>
>>The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any
>>user. See
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
>
>I think people probably need to remember that we're using Wiki to *build an
>encyclopaedia*: Wiki is a means to an end, not the end itself.

This is well worth repeating, since it seems to be so quickly forgotten.
Ideally we should also get a developer to have it generated as an automated
response to anyone who, on AfD, posts the phrase "Wikipedia is not paper".
"No, but it *is* an encyclopedia".

Jay.


list: commons-l

from_name: Brian

subject: [Commons-l] Creative Commons -NC Considered Harmful

body:
"Considered Harmful" Essays Considered
Harmful<http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html>

;)

/Alterego

On 9/12/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> For quite a long time, I've been meaning to write a summary of the key
> reasons not to use "non-commercial uses only" licenses. It is now online
> at:
>
> http://intelligentdesigns.net/Licenses/NC
>
> I posted it to Kuro5hin as well, where it is now being discussed:
>
> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/11/16331/0655
>
> The version on the wiki is slightly more comprehensive and will
> hopefully evolve over time.
>
> This is not specific to Wikimedia, but I hope that those Wikimedians
> lobbying individuals, governments, and educational or scientific
> institutions to put their content under truly free licenses or into the
> public domain will find this collection of arguments useful.
>
> Best,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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