from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Edit toolbar images are hardcoded

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

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> I was just looking at the code for the edit toolbar and it's hardcoded
> to take the images from the common skin rather than being
> customisable, is there a reason for that?

Apparently nobody got round to it. :)

Adding a little call through the skin object should be able to get the
appropriate path pretty easy.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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wIWnkAaMBQHXwdZYoGcEZsY=
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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] New Special:Contributions form in SVN

body:
On 3/14/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I'm fine with showing this form on Special:Contributions itself, but
> do we really need to show it when a user has been specified? It seems
> that a simple link to the form - "choose a different user" - should be
> sufficient.

Or put the form at the bottom, maybe, to make it less obtrusive.  I
see your point, it's interface clutter in most cases.

On 3/14/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Convenience in the interface - one click is more convenient than two,
> and vastly more convenient than URL-twiddling.

It's convenient once you're used to it, it's not convenient the first
or second or third time when you get overwhelmed by all the buttons
that do different things.  Rarely-used interface elements *should* be
extra clicks away.


list: wikien-l

from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as a primary source

body:
> a) No, the foundation is *not* the source. It is simply somewhere
> which happens to archive the source for the purposes of using it to
> write an encyclopedia. The source is the, well, the source; the person
> who wrote to us with the correction. (I write articles and give the
> book I worked from as the source. I don't give the library I read the
> book in, which seems to be the appropriate analogy here...)

When you cite a book that book is a published source that can be
confirmed by anyone visiting a well stocked library. When you cite an
unpublished email you are actually citing the person who read the
email, as that is the only link in the chain that can be confirmed
(since the person reading it will have said so on the article).

The source of a piece of information, for all meaningful purposes, is
the last link in the chain that you can get to without taking an
unreliable step. The step from the person reading the email to the
email itself is not reliable, so the effective source is the person
reading the email.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
[oops, appear to have replied to Anthony only - gmail is getting very
irritating over this...]
On 14/03/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 3/13/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 13/03/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > On 3/13/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I really don't see anything wrong with me footnoting a) as "was born
> > > > in Such-and-Such<ref>Personal correspondence with the Wikimedia
> > > > Foundation, June 17th, reference ABC1234567</ref>.
> > >
> > > I disagree.  There are lots of problems with this.  1) You're not the
> > > Wikimedia Foundation; 2) It's not a published source which can be
> > > easily accessed; and 3) it's not a reliable source even if it's true,
> > > as the person no doubt does not remember his own birth.
> >
> > 1) I forgot the minor detail that I was corresponding with the chap via OTRS...
> >
> I'm not really familiar enough with OTRS to comment on that part,
> then, although OTRS should probably be mentioned in the reference.

Basically, he wrote to the Foundation asking why his correction kept
getting taken out and replaced with the faulty cite. I explained.

What I'd have liked to do would be to have gone in and replaced the
correction, footnoting it as "information sourced from Joe Smith by
email, file # 1445364"; What this would do is make it about a minute's
effort for anyone with access to the mail system to then check that
I'd got it right, that the guy was who he claimed to be, so on and so
forth.

The problem is that we can't make it publicly accessible; this is
mainly for privacy reasons - there's no guarantee they didn't leave
nonpublic comments in the same email, giving their address is
essential to make it "verifiable" but really not a good idea given the
Sort Of Odd People we sometimes attract.

> > 2) Does it have to be easily accessed by a random passer-by if the
> > Foundation can verify it? That is really the point of this
> > discussion... stating it won't work because of this is kind of
> > circular.
> >
> I see how it was circular.  I do think the encyclopedia's references
> should be more than "trust me, I work in OTRS", but I guess that's not
> obvious.

FWIW, we're relying on this now for a good chunk of our copyright clearance.

> I don't think it's at all silly.  The fact that we're talking about a
> usually unimportant fact such as a birthday makes it excessive,
> perhaps, but I think there's far too much acceptance on Wikipedia of
> facts which are altogether unsubstantiated.  If all we know is that
> you claim that your mother claims that you were born on X, then IMO we
> shouldn't state as a fact that you were born on X.

I think we're getting into pretty tangential issues about the nature
of verifiable fact, here...

> > Okay, one we might have an interest in getting right... manner of
> > death. We usually give this if known. Not at all unknown for
> > obituaries to get it wrong, especially if published quickly; small
> > details in obituaries are rarely corrected afterwards for various
> > reasons (most often that the only people who know it's wrong are
> > otherwise preoccupied with mourning), and all too often that's the
> > last thing published on them before we come along.
> >
> > Spouse's names, that's another one we get a good few corrections over.
> > Little things, yes, and we can say "why should we include them?", but
> > the fact is we *do* include them, and it really seems futile to insist
> > on a method whereby if we include them we get them wrong.
> >
> By all means we shouldn't be getting things wrong.  If a reliable
> published source says that Bob died in Queens and Bob's mother calls
> up and says he died in Brooklyn, then we certainly shouldn't say in
> the article that he died in Queens.  But it shouldn't say that he died
> in Brooklyn either.

The problem is negative sourcing. When we can't provide an opposing
cite, then the Queens detail will keep creeping back in...

> > Which this proposal is one means to achieve. Not everything someone
> > quibbles with the article over is significant, it's just that when it
> > is significant we're less happy to take their unadorned word for it...
> >
> I think this is too much of a departure from the usual way of
> Wikipedia.  But maybe it's something which could be done in a separate
> project, and included in Wikipedia by reference.  A project for
> original research, maybe?

A very clumsy method would be WMF publishing a sort of weekly "errata
sheet", for people to incorporate...

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


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Does anyone want to help me build a digg/reddit
	style wikipedia filter?

body:
Ben Yates wrote:

> I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> about how to do stuff.

For the ratings part, there's an existing MediaWiki extension that
could serve as a starting-point:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AjaxRatingScript

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


from_name: Ben Yates

body:
Angela: I wasn't thinking of incorporating it into wikipedia at all --
wikimouse would just link to wikipedia (and maybe exerpt it), and
voting would all happen on-site.

On 3/14/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/14/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> > need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> > about how to do stuff.
>
> Wikia is developing something like this. The articles that are
> displayed on the home page of our magazine-style wikis are selected by
> the community using digg-style voting. See http://gaming.wikia.com/
> for example.
>
> I'm not sure how this could be applied to Wikipedia since I'm assuming
> most Wikipedians would object to having a vote box appear on every
> page.
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


body:
Hey, thanks; pligg looks really good.  I'll see what I can hack together.

On 3/14/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> > need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> > about how to do stuff.
>
> Sounds like you might want to use Pligg - it can do the voting stuff:
> http://www.pligg.com/
>
> Unfortunately the notability enforcement squad already got to the
> Wikipedia article about it ..
>
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


body:
I'm still interested if anyone knows rails, though.  (Sorry about the
superabundance of messages; I have a bad habit of using a listserv
like a chatroom.)

On 3/14/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey, thanks; pligg looks really good.  I'll see what I can hack together.
>
> On 3/14/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > On 3/15/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> > > need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> > > about how to do stuff.
> >
> > Sounds like you might want to use Pligg - it can do the voting stuff:
> > http://www.pligg.com/
> >
> > Unfortunately the notability enforcement squad already got to the
> > Wikipedia article about it ..
> >
> > --
> > Peace & Love,
> > Erik
> >
> > DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> > the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> >
> > "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> > free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Ben Yates
> Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


body:
Aw, crap; one more.  I do have a partially-working prototype on my
laptop if anyone wants to take a look.

On 3/14/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm still interested if anyone knows rails, though.  (Sorry about the
> superabundance of messages; I have a bad habit of using a listserv
> like a chatroom.)
>
> On 3/14/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey, thanks; pligg looks really good.  I'll see what I can hack together.
> >
> > On 3/14/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > > On 3/15/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> > > > need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> > > > about how to do stuff.
> > >
> > > Sounds like you might want to use Pligg - it can do the voting stuff:
> > > http://www.pligg.com/
> > >
> > > Unfortunately the notability enforcement squad already got to the
> > > Wikipedia article about it ..
> > >
> > > --
> > > Peace & Love,
> > > Erik
> > >
> > > DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> > > the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> > >
> > > "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> > > free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ben Yates
> > Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com
> >
>
>
> --
> Ben Yates
> Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Campaign by linguists to improve English/Russian
	coverage of linguistics

body:
Language Log is a widely read blog covering linguistic issues that
goes back to July 2003. (It's even licensed under CC-BY-SA! how
progressive :))

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004301.html
A recent post about [[en:User:Koryakov Yuri]]'s campaign to improve
linguistics biography and general coverage in Russian Wikipedia.
Probably more to come.

Also a nice anecdote from an assistant professor at the University of
Massachusetts:

--
    In my large intro course yesterday, there was an unfamiliar hand
in the air a lot of the time, and the student's questions and insights
were the best I've had all semester. It was puzzling, because I didn't
recognize him, and he seemed to know much more about syntax than one
would expect. (It was our first official day on the topic.)

    After class, he came to the front and introduced himself as a
prospective student, just out of high school. He said linguistics was
his passion in high school. I said, "What? How?" And he replied,
"Wikipedia".
--

regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion criterion G5

body:
On 14/03/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If it's an occasional mistake, cut some slack (check history to see if
> > he was doing cleanup) . If it wasn't, then it's
> > process-for-the-process-sake-wonkery-wonkery-willy-wonka kinda guy and
> > should be sent to room 101
>
> I think this is an example of where process should be followed even
> when it seems pointless. If we don't follow it then the banning policy
> is actually "Banned users are not allowed to make useless edits.",
> rather than "Banned users are not allowed to edit." The former is not
> a useful policy (it basically makes bans a form of probation).
>
> All edits by banned users should be deleted, if they're useful, they
> can be remade by someone else who can take responsibility for them.

Maybe I'm too hungry for efficiency but this kind of redundant
repetition of work strikes me as pointless. What's more, deleting
another's edits and resubmitting them as your own seems plagiaristic -
credit where credit's not due.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's get rid of the term "meatpuppet"

body:
In calling someone a "meatpuppet" we are acknowledging that they are
distinct individuals but we are also suggesting that someone else is
"pulling his strings" which can be considered insulting.

A better term would be "posse". In real life, "posses" are groups of
people who are not full time law enforcement officers who come
together for one purpose, usually the hunting of a fugitive. On
Wikipedia, a "posse" would be a group of people who either form
"single purpose accounts" or have inactive accounts coming together
for a single issue such as participating in an AFD or RFA debate. In
such a debate, "posses" should be given no more weight then a single
active contributor just as is true with "puppets" currently. However,
we shouldn't say that "posses" are outright prohibited.

Why the change, because it would acknowledge that a given "posse"
member, while initially here for one issue, might have his own reasons
for creating an SPA and is not necessarily a slave to a puppetmaster.
He might even discover that he likes it here and become a good
contributor in his own right. I think this would better conform to the
concept of "assume good faith".


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Wikitech-l] RSS feeds for watchlists

body:
Am I totally missing something, or are we talking about this?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=feedwatchlist

Bryan

On 3/14/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 01:15:54PM +0000, Rob Church wrote:
> > Watchlist data isn't "private" in the sense that we need to protect it
> > at all costs; if it *does* leak out, no-one's going to care that
> > much...you're not really gaining access to anything hideously
> > confidential, are you?
>
> Well, if you're the Wikipedia editor who is in the closet but has a
> watchlist that's disproportionately loaded with with MOTSS'y pages,
> then yeah, you might care.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jr 'sorry, g{ua}ys; that's just the canonical example' a
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
> Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
> Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requesting assistance re user:Bastique

body:
On 14/03/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2. I thought part of the aftermath of the whole Erik/Danny thing was to
> make insist that Danny make it clear when he is performing an Office
> action versus just editing like anyone else. Am I misinformed?

Yep.

> I am truly puzzled that there is no further reaction to the issue that I
> brought up with my earlier post. Have we really come to the point where
> where have a de-facto class of editors who are un-revertable, where
> reverting them is seen to be an offense, regardless of the merits of the
> case?

I suspect it's overlearning from those with a compulsion to Taylorise
all possible judgement away.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion criterion G5

body:
> Maybe I'm too hungry for efficiency but this kind of redundant
> repetition of work strikes me as pointless. What's more, deleting
> another's edits and resubmitting them as your own seems plagiaristic -
> credit where credit's not due.

The correct person should be credited in the edit summary, that's
true. It does seem pointless, but if you're going to let banned users
edit then they aren't really banned, are they?


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] BitTorrent Image Downloads enwiki-20070206 [NOW
	ACTIVE]

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>It may take a day or so to fully flush this out, but the torrents are up.
>>
>>
>
>Huzzah! I've added links to
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Images_and_uploaded_files
>so hopefully a few brave souls with far more bandwidth and storage than
>I will become seeders.
>
>
>
>
Go ahead and update that page with this info. The Torrents are active
now. I had to work out
the ports and some other issues. There is already a swarn forming on the
all images.

I had to move the tracker to port 6969 and I used an updated torrent
file creater so Azureus and Ctorrent can process
the .torrent files. The new files are at:

ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/torrents/

or

ftp://ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki/torrents/

The active tracker URL is:

http://www.wikigadugi.org:6969

and

http://www.wikigadugi.org:6969/announce

Jeff


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] BitTorrent Image Downloads enwiki-20070206 [NOW ACTIVE]


from_name: Angela

body:
On 3/14/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> about how to do stuff.

Wikia is developing something like this. The articles that are
displayed on the home page of our magazine-style wikis are selected by
the community using digg-style voting. See http://gaming.wikia.com/
for example.

I'm not sure how this could be applied to Wikipedia since I'm assuming
most Wikipedians would object to having a vote box appear on every
page.

Angela


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why cutting'n'pasting from Wikipedia is not a good
	idea

body:
On 3/14/07, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some good suggestions so far in the discussion, but I can't say that I like
> the idea of new text being wigglelined. It might be something perfectly
> fine, in fact it probably is, but it's going to look like a spelling or
> grammer error to the casual reader.

Yeah, "wigglelining" may not be the way to go. How about a yellow star
placed next to the paragraph, perhaps with the word "new!" or "fresh!"
or something.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation about Wikipedia

body:
On 3/14/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just make sure there's no wifi and there's social pressure not to use
> a phone at the quiz ...

Definitely no wi-fi. Not even any mobile broadband coverage. Social
pressure likely. Time pressure also helps - if you barely have time to
answer all the questions yourself, you definitely don't have time to
call someone at home and get them to look it up for you.

Steve


body:
I was just looking at the code for the edit toolbar and it's hardcoded
to take the images from the common skin rather than being
customisable, is there a reason for that?


body:
On 14/03/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure how this could be applied to Wikipedia since I'm assuming
> most Wikipedians would object to having a vote box appear on every
> page.

Would the devs regard loading the Wikipedia page in a frame as live-mirroring?

- d.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-15

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20480).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion criterion G5

body:
On 14/03/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe I'm too hungry for efficiency but this kind of redundant
> > repetition of work strikes me as pointless. What's more, deleting
> > another's edits and resubmitting them as your own seems plagiaristic -
> > credit where credit's not due.
>
> The correct person should be credited in the edit summary, that's
> true. It does seem pointless, but if you're going to let banned users
> edit then they aren't really banned, are they?

Banning doesn't stop a person editing Wikipedia, it is used with an
aim to do this by banning their username of choice (and any
sockpuppets they're found to have). If a user cannot freely edit
Wikipedia under their username of choice they are banned.

IMO, the punishment is not lessened if we passively accept useful
edits made by them during a ban.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 14/03/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> > need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> > about how to do stuff.
>
> Sounds like you might want to use Pligg - it can do the voting stuff:
> http://www.pligg.com/
>
> Unfortunately the notability enforcement squad already got to the
> Wikipedia article about it ..

They're clearly doing a good job of making Wikipedia a useful resource... :/

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 3/15/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I kind of
> need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
> about how to do stuff.

Sounds like you might want to use Pligg - it can do the voting stuff:
http://www.pligg.com/

Unfortunately the notability enforcement squad already got to the
Wikipedia article about it ..

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


list: textbook-l

from_name: Randy Wilson

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikijunior News and Notes

body:
I thought I'd send a message to this list for those who might be interested
but do not monitor the Wikijunior front page or the Wikijunior talk page on
Meta.

Wikijunior has made a pretty good start on +/-14 non-fiction titles for
children, and that's something that I think we at Wikijunior should be proud
of. During the creation of those titles their have been lessons learned and
ideas expressed.

Wikijunior has some new guidelines proposed including one that redefines
what kind of books can be produced under the Wikijunior umbrella. This
proposed guideline can be found at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Wikijunior:What_is_Wikijunior . This
proposed guideline along with the style guide at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Style_Guide and the new title policy
at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:New_Title_Policy . There is also
a request for a Wikijunior namespace to be created within Wikibooks. The
request is here: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9283 .

These changes represent a change of direction for Wikijunior and I hope all
those who are interested will comment and participate. I think that a change
of direction is wanted and needed by those working on the project and
developing the content. I hope that these changes will lead to renewed
interest and participation in the the idea of Wikijunior.

Hopefully these changes will lead to renewed interest from people outside
the Wikijunior Community and even greater participation from content
developers than Wikijunior already enjoys.

Thanks,

Randy Wilson (Wikibooks editor xixtas)


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fine, be that way.

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

Samuel L Bronkowitz stated for the record:
> Liar.
>
> On 3/14/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ah, Enviroknot/Parker again. (Unsurprisingly from the invective style.)
>>
>>
>> - d.

Yep, that's him.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | The box said it "requires Windows XP
 sean at epoptic.com | or better," so I installed Linux.
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kf+uXddsRkUkGmpq+WlCt38=
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from_name: Andrew Whitworth

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikijunior News and Notes

body:
Your work on Wikijunior has been commendable, Xixtas, and I think that this
is another expression of the renaissance that the entire Wikibooks project
is going through. It is neither a quick nor easy process, certainly, but it
is happening none-the-less.

I will certainly weigh in with my two cents on the pages that you linked to,
for what my opinion on those matters are worth. Wikijunior is an admirable
project, and all of Wikibooks will benefit from your improvements.

--Andrew Whitworth

>From: "Randy Wilson" <xixtas at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>To: textbook-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Textbook-l] Wikijunior News and Notes
>Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:03:43 -0500
>
>I thought I'd send a message to this list for those who might be interested
>but do not monitor the Wikijunior front page or the Wikijunior talk page on
>Meta.
>
>Wikijunior has made a pretty good start on +/-14 non-fiction titles for
>children, and that's something that I think we at Wikijunior should be
>proud
>of. During the creation of those titles their have been lessons learned and
>ideas expressed.
>
>Wikijunior has some new guidelines proposed including one that redefines
>what kind of books can be produced under the Wikijunior umbrella. This
>proposed guideline can be found at
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Wikijunior:What_is_Wikijunior . This
>proposed guideline along with the style guide at
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Style_Guide and the new title
>policy
>at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:New_Title_Policy . There is also
>a request for a Wikijunior namespace to be created within Wikibooks. The
>request is here: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9283 .
>
>These changes represent a change of direction for Wikijunior and I hope all
>those who are interested will comment and participate. I think that a
>change
>of direction is wanted and needed by those working on the project and
>developing the content. I hope that these changes will lead to renewed
>interest and participation in the the idea of Wikijunior.
>
>Hopefully these changes will lead to renewed interest from people outside
>the Wikijunior Community and even greater participation from content
>developers than Wikijunior already enjoys.
>
>Thanks,
>
>
>Randy Wilson (Wikibooks editor xixtas)
>_______________________________________________
>Textbook-l mailing list
>Textbook-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

_________________________________________________________________
Mortgage rates as low as 4.625% - Refinance $150,000 loan for $579 a month.
Intro*Terms
https://www2.nextag.com/goto.jsp?product=100000035&url=%2fst.jsp&tm=y&search=mortgage_text_links_88_h27f6&disc=y&vers=743&s=4056&p=5117


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] BitTorrent Image
 Downloads	enwiki-20070206 [NOW ACTIVE]

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> Unless the entire torrent is a single file (archive?) you will be fine.
>
> If you use Azureus you can select to not download most of the files...
>
> But a dump is one file, right?
>
> (PS. I'm using gmail on a PDA so I can't help top-posting.)
>
> On 15/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Jeff Merkey has made en:wp database dumps available via BitTorrent.
>>> w00t! Get mirroring! And don't forget to leave the dump available for
>>> others to share from you.
>> Dude, that's awesome. If I had 213 GiB to spare, I would totally help out!

I also suggest that Comcast Wikipedians be very careful if they intend
to take advantage of this, and perhaps make a note of this somewhere:

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/comcast/comcast-customer-uses-unlimited-service-excessively-gets-disconnected-for-a-year-235585.php

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly
	because you kind of get the impression she
	sang every song either about or to her cats.
	They seem to be the driving force in most of
	her creative process."     - Chuck Klosterman


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> A bit of common sense where common sense was due :) That said, I'm not
> sure you're right about 3 - litigation against vandalism is not
> something Wikimedia should engage in (at least, I can't think of a
> scenario where Wikimedia could justifiably use the threat of
> prosecution against vandals), but it is still interesting to consider
> how the law would treat wiki vandalism.
>
>
I think the practical problem would be to find a prosecutor who cared.
Real-world graffiti costs significant money and time to remove, plus
there are constituents (read: voters) calling City Hall to do something
about it. For wiki vandalism, exactly which elected official are you
going to complain to?

A crafty approach might be to create bios on all prosecutors, and then
just wait for those to be vandalized. :-)

Stan


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
I am curious about the practicality of trying to prosecute someone for
vandalism of a wiki. Andrew Schlafly seems to think it's possible, given the
warning on the Conservapedia main page.

"Conservapedia claims that posting obscene material or vandalizing the site
is illegal, and could result in a jail sentence of ten years. It makes these
claims on the basis of Title 18 of the United States Code, specifically 18
USC ? 1470 (with respect to obscenity) and 18 USC ? 1030 (with respect to
vandalism)."

(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia)

How would the courts look at vandalism when you have given someone the
ability to edit the site?  Unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia only allows
logged-in editing.  Does that mean that we have a stronger case to complain
about vandalism (since, literally, anyone can edit, so we aren't "approving"
the vandals) or a weaker case (since, literally, anyone can edit)?


from_name: Lane, Ryan

subject:
[Wikitech-l] help needed with LDAP Authentication setup and
	grouprestriction

body:
Please use 1.1d, and take a look at the documentation for changes in the
syntax of options. What you are trying to do wasn't supported until
1.1d. Specifically, the reason you are having a problem is because you
are using "NVIDIA.COM\\USER-NAME" for the search string, so the plugin
searches for "member=NVIDIA.COM\\Cvo" in your groups, which is not what
is in your groups. In 1.1d, the plugin will bind as the user, and get
the user's DN; after doing so, it searches the groups using the full DN
(which is what is in your group).

Btw, this isn't the right list for support issues, I believe that is
mediawiki-l.

V/r,

Ryan Lane

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Christian Vo
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 6:10 PM
> To: wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] help needed with LDAP Authentication
> setup and grouprestriction
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to add LDAP Authentication to my MediaWiki 1.6.5
> server and downloaded LdapAuthentication.php v1.0h.
>
> I'm having a lot of trouble when trying to restrict the wiki
> to a specific LDAP group...
> here's the block I've added to LocalSettings.php:
>
>
> # begin LDAP authentication part
> require_once( 'includes/LdapAuthentication.php' ); $wgAuth =
> new LdapAuthenticationPlugin();
>
>
> $wgLDAPDomainNames = array( "NVIDIA.COM" );
> $wgLDAPServerNames = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>"ldap.nvidia.com"  );
>
> //$wgLDAPUseSSL = true;
> $wgLDAPUseSSL = false;
> $wgLDAPUseLocal = false;
> $wgMinimalPasswordLength = 1;
>
> $wgLDAPAddLDAPUsers = false;
> $wgLDAPUpdateLDAP = false;
> $wgLDAPMailPassword = false;
> $wgLDAPRetrievePrefs = true;
> $wgLDAPDebug = 99;
>
>
> //$wgLDAPSearchAttributes = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>"sAMAccountName" );
>
> $wgLDAPSearchStrings = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>"NVIDIA.COM\\USER-NAME" );
>
>
> # testing group restriction below
>
> $wgLDAPRequiredGroups = array(
> "NVIDIA.COM"=>array("cn=neteng-contractors,ou=departments,ou=d
> istribution
> lists,ou=groups,dc=nvidia,dc=com") );
> $wgLDAPGroupUseFullDN = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>true );
> $wgLDAPGroupObjectclass = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>"group" );
> $wgLDAPGroupAttribute = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>"member" );
> $wgLDAPGroupSearchNestedGroups = array( "NVIDIA.COM"=>false
> ); $wgLDAPBaseDNs = array(
> "NVIDIA.COM"=>"ou=groups,dc=nvidia,dc=com" );
>
>
> Here is the error output that I'm getting:
>
> {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\
> fcharset0
> Arial;}} {\*\generator Msftedit
> 5.41.15.1507;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20
> Entering validDomain
> User is using a valid domain
> Entering getCanonicalName
> Munged username: Cvo
> Entering Connect
> Entering Connect
> Not Using SSL
> Using servers: ldap://ldap.nvidia.com
> Connected successfully
> Entering getSearchString
> Doing a straight bind
> userdn is: NVIDIA.COM\\Cvo
> Binding as the user
> Binded successfully
> Checking for (new style) group membership Entering
> isMemberOfRequiredLdapGroup Required
> groups:cn=neteng-contractors,ou=departments,ou=distribution
> lists,ou=groups,dc=nvidia,dc=com
> Entering getGroups
> Search string: (&(member=NVIDIA.COM\\Cvo)(objectclass=group))
>
> \par *Warning*: ldap_get_entries(): supplied argument is not
> a valid ldap result resource in
> */srv/www/htdocs/wiki/includes/LdapAuthentication.php* on
> line *857* \par \par *Warning*: array_shift()
> [function.array-shift]: The argument should be an array in
> */srv/www/htdocs/wiki/includes/LdapAuthentication.php* on line *
> 860*
> \par
> \par *Warning*: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in *
> /srv/www/htdocs/wiki/includes/LdapAuthentication.php* on line
> *863* \par Returned groups:
> Couldn't find the user in any groups (1).
> \par \par }
>
>
> If I uncomment the $wgLDAPSearchAttributes line and comment
> out $wgLDAPSearchStrings, I get the following:
>
> {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\
> fcharset0
> Arial;}} {\*\generator Msftedit
> 5.41.15.1507;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20
> Entering validDomain
> User is using a valid domain
> Entering getCanonicalName
> Munged username: Cvo
> Entering Connect
> Entering Connect
> Not Using SSL
> Using servers: ldap://ldap.nvidia.com
> Connected successfully
> Entering getSearchString
> Doing a proxy or anonymous bind
> Entering getUserDN
> Doing an anonymous bind
> Created a regular filter: (sAMAccountName=Cvo) Using base:
> ou=groups,dc=nvidia,dc=com Couldn't find an entry userdn is:
> User DN is blank
> \par \par }
>
>
> Can someone please help out?  I can run dsquery on a Win2k3
> server against my accountname (cvo) and it returns fine...
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Google Summer of Code

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

Wikimedia's been accepted as a mentoring organization for the 2007
Google Summer of Code program.

Here's our organization page:
http://code.google.com/soc/wikimedia/about.html

I put up an initial project list here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2007

It's semi-protected so it won't be too vandalized ;) but additional
suggestions are welcome. I'd like to ask that people who aren't directly
involved in development not add too much to the main page directly,
though; last year we ended up with lots of project submissions for
things that weren't really considered high priority, so I'd like to keep
the list a little more ordered this time.

We don't know for sure how many projects we'll get assigned, so we'll
see. :) At least Tim and I will serve as mentors for the student
projects; if a couple more experienced developers would like to help out
with that too that would be super.

Last year's projects went really well up to the public demo stage but
never quite got integrated into the mainline; I'm hoping that this year
we can stick with projects that will be easier to slip in and take live
much earlier in the process, which should help keep the students
interested and the projects active.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Google Summer of Code


subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code


from_name: Kusma

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion criterion G5

body:
On 3/14/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Redirect was deleted by User:Kusma from [[Schachter]] to
> [[Schechter]]. A valid redirect: the latter article is about a German
> surname which may be spelt Schachter (the in-text title of the article
> is, in fact, Schachter).
>
This may be currently a valid redirect. However, creation of useless
redirects and concatenation of various dsambiguation pages that are
only mildly related is a major part of the problem with this
particular user. See [[Wikipedia:SU]] for some context (cleaning up
those pages and making sure they conform to the [[MoS:DP]] is a major
headache). After a couple dozen sockpuppets of this particular user, I
no longer care that he sometimes does make useful or marginally useful
edits, I just revert / delete all of them when I come across them. In
this particular case, I think anything else is a major waste of time
(or will do nothing but contribute to the cleanup backlog).

Instead of talking about whether deleting this redirect (whose
existence or nonexistence doesn't really matter all that much) was a
good idea, I invite everybody to help fix the pages listed at
[[Wikipedia:SU]].

Kusma

> After a little digging I found out the only reason he had deleted this
> important redirect is because "[p]ages created by banned users while
> they were banned" is a reason to speedily delete.
>
> Am I wrong to think that deleting valid articles and redirects based
> on who the creator was is nonsensical and against what we're trying to
> achieve?
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 3/15/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> Guy,
>
> I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at all.
> I think that twisting words like this is not good nor is it honest, and that
> trying to paint someone in this manner because of your own personal views is
> a terrible way to be behaving.
>
> [[user:One Elephant went out to play...]]
>
> On 3/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
> > Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
> > include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
> >
> > www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html
> >
> > It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
> > explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
> > know, they can stop watching the others.
> >
> > Guy (JzG)

The writer of that article rather baldly and bluntly accuses us of
promoting terrorism.

I have a limited patience for that sort of thing.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki:<meta> Labels in dumps cause interwiki errors

body:
The inclusion of MediaWiki:<meta> pages in the base Article, templates,
etc. dumps, such as the English Wikipedia, cause major
problems if you are trying to import these dumps into a Wikipedia
enabled for another language.  Many of the navigation menu's
get trashed and corrupted when these MediaWiki labels for the English
Wikipedia are included in the base article and template dumps.
It certainly is ok to include them in the dumps which supposedly
contains "everything"  (the .7z dumps) but they shoud be stripped out
of the base dumps which are supposed to just contain the articles and
templates for the articles.

If you import one of these dumps without stipping out the MediaWiki:
specific articles which add menu items, etc. the navigation bar gets
messed up and things likfe "Recent Changes" no longer map properly in
MedaiWiki.

I think its OK to leave some of the MediaWiki tags, like site notice and
"contribute to Wikipedia" kind of stuff for GFDL and attribution,
but the inclusion of menu pointers which affect menus should be stripped
out as they will cause major problems on MediaWiki's enabled
for another language.

Jeff


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

Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> Adding a little call through the skin object should be able to get the
>> appropriate path pretty easy.
>
> Would the images have to be copied to all the skins, or is there some
> kind of default system if the files don't exist?

My recommendation would be to run the path through a method on the skin;
by default it would return the common directory.

A custom skin with its own images could override it.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> On 15/03/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am curious about the practicality of trying to prosecute someone for
>> vandalism of a wiki. Andrew Schlafly seems to think it's possible, given the
>> warning on the Conservapedia main page.
>>
>> "Conservapedia claims that posting obscene material or vandalizing the site
>> is illegal, and could result in a jail sentence of ten years. It makes these
>> claims on the basis of Title 18 of the United States Code, specifically 18
>> USC ? 1470 (with respect to obscenity) and 18 USC ? 1030 (with respect to
>> vandalism)."
>>
>> (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia)
>>
>> How would the courts look at vandalism when you have given someone the
>> ability to edit the site?  Unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia only allows
>> logged-in editing.  Does that mean that we have a stronger case to complain
>> about vandalism (since, literally, anyone can edit, so we aren't "approving"
>> the vandals) or a weaker case (since, literally, anyone can edit)?
>>
>
> Probably not the best approach to making the wiki a comfortable place
> for people to edit.
>
> If you don't get 10 years for vandalising public places obscenely, why
> would you get 10 years for vandalising a wiki? The latter is far
> easier and less expensive to reverse.
>
> Do they have a user agreement that specifically states that vandals
> will be prosecuted?
>
>
IMNAL, but it appears to me that 1) they may be making threats they
cannot possibly carry out, 2) if they can it may not be worth the
effort, and 3) not seeing where we should care much what they do.


from_name: Chris Marmo

body:
Hi Angela,

That gaming wiki is very impressive - have any extensions been
release (or could they be) based on this website?

Best Regards,
Chris

On Mar 15, 2007, at 8:54 AM, Angela wrote:

> On 3/14/07, Ben Yates <ben.louis.yates at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I can code a bit, but I'm not a programmer by any means, and I
>> kind of
>> need some help (ruby on rails is hard) or just answers to questions
>> about how to do stuff.
>
> Wikia is developing something like this. The articles that are
> displayed on the home page of our magazine-style wikis are selected by
> the community using digg-style voting. See http://gaming.wikia.com/
> for example.
>
> I'm not sure how this could be applied to Wikipedia since I'm assuming
> most Wikipedians would object to having a vote box appear on every
> page.
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] BitTorrent Image Downloads
	enwiki-20070206 [NOW ACTIVE]

references:
<45F7C063.9030205@wolfmountaingroup.com> <45F895F8.8090404@shaw.ca>
	<45F8EB96.1020804@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Jeff Merkey has made en:wp database dumps available via BitTorrent.
w00t! Get mirroring! And don't forget to leave the dump available for
others to share from you.

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
Date: 15-Mar-2007 06:45
Subject: [Wikitech-l] BitTorrent Image Downloads enwiki-20070206 [NOW ACTIVE]
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia
Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

Bryan Derksen wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>It may take a day or so to fully flush this out, but the torrents are up.
>>
>>
>
>Huzzah! I've added links to
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Images_and_uploaded_files
>so hopefully a few brave souls with far more bandwidth and storage than
>I will become seeders.
>
>
>
>
Go ahead and update that page with this info. The Torrents are active
now. I had to work out
the ports and some other issues. There is already a swarn forming on the
all images.

I had to move the tracker to port 6969 and I used an updated torrent
file creater so Azureus and Ctorrent can process
the .torrent files. The new files are at:

ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/torrents/

or

ftp://ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki/torrents/

The active tracker URL is:

http://www.wikigadugi.org:6969

and

http://www.wikigadugi.org:6969/announce

Jeff

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why cutting'n'pasting from Wikipedia is not a good
 idea

body:
Skyring wrote:

>I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an
>administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the
>"stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have
>"edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have
>POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's
>probably good.
>
I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable.  There
are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having
become admins.  Many operate in limited non-controversial areas.  The
result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by
admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement
of admins.

Ec


body:
On 15/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Jeff Merkey has made en:wp database dumps available via BitTorrent.
> > w00t! Get mirroring! And don't forget to leave the dump available for
> > others to share from you.

> Dude, that's awesome. If I had 213 GiB to spare, I would totally help out!

Disk is not that expensive, e.g.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=99805&TabID=1&source=1&doy=15m3
- 250GB for ?70.

I have vague plans of a household server with two 500GB disks ...

- d.


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] [daily-image-l] 2007-03-15

body:
Um ... link?

- d.

On 15 Mar 2007 04:00:29 -0000, Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Day
<daily-image-l at lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Descriptions:
>
> ?esky: Ka?on Zion v N?rodn?m parku Zion, Utah, USA
> Deutsch: Der Zion Canyon im Zion National Park (Utah, USA) bei Sonnenuntergang von Angel's Landing aus gesehen.
> English: Zion Canyon at sunset in Zion National Park in Utah, as seen from Angels Landing looking south.
> Espa?ol: Atardecer en el Parque Nacional Zion, Utah, Estados Unidos.
> Esperanto: Sunsubiro ?e nacia naturparko de Zion en Utaho, Usono
> Fran?ais: Le Parc national de Zion (Utah, USA) au coucher de soleil.
> Italiano: Tramonto al Parco nazionale di Zion.
> ???????: ???????????? ???? ???? (???? ?????? ????, ???, ???)
> Magyar: A Zion-kanyon a Zion Nemzeti Parkban (Utah ?llam, USA)
> Nederlands: Zonsopgang in de Zionkloof in het nationaal park Zion in Utah, gezien vanaf Angels Landing in de richting van het zuiden.
> Polski: Zach?d s?o?ca nad Kanionem Zion, Park Narodowy Zion w stanie Utah (widok z Angels Landing na po?udnie)
> Portugu?s: P?r-do-Sol no C?nion Zion no Parque Nacional Zion em Utah.
> Svenska: Solnedg?ng i Zion National Park i Utah i USA.
> T?rk?e: Zion Kanyonu, Utah, ABD.
> ????: ?????????????????
> ????: ?????????????????
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> daily-image-l mailing list
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/options/daily-image-l
> Questions, comments: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Daily-image-l
>
>


from_name: Jim Wilson

body:
> 17 still FAILING test(s) :(

Hey - that's one less than yesterday! Yay! :)

On 3/15/07, brion at pobox.com <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:
>
> This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20480).
>
> Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
> Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
> Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...
>
>   17 still FAILING test(s) :(
>       * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never
> passed]
>       * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never
> passed]
>       * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has
> never passed]
>       * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has
> never passed]
>       * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug
> 4926)  [Has never passed]
>       * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template
> (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
>       * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has
> never passed]
>       * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never
> passed]
>       * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never
> passed]
>       * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never
> passed]
>       * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never
> passed]
>       * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
>       * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
>       * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
>       * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never
> passed]
>       * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash
> or name.  [Has never passed]
>       * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra
> trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]
>
> Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 15/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Disk is not that expensive, e.g.

> I'm really, really poor. Most of my computer expenditures go to pay
> for killer fast broadband, but other than that, I can't afford shit. I
> running on an Amiga right now!

I'm speaking to the rest of the comfortable overpaid first-world geeks
out there ;-)

But seriously, a lot of people want database dumps and maintain
mirrors. BitTorrenting is an obvious answer.

- d.


from_name: Philippe Beaudette

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
Well thank God.  Because we hadn't been bashed in the news for nearly a day or so now.  It's good to know we can count on them to pull our attention back to where it really should be.

Philippe
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Guy Chapman aka JzG
  To: English Wikipedia
  Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:17 AM
  Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

  The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
  Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
  include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
  www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html

  It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
  explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
  know, they can stop watching the others.

  Guy (JzG)
  --
  http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

  _______________________________________________
  WikiEN-l mailing list
  WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
  To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
  http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
The phrasiology we use on Wikipedia seems to evolve in a free,
bottom-up fashion.

The term has come into use because it's better than the alternatives,
easy to remember, etc.

A discussion here wouldn't change much since we're nonprescriptive
about langauge.

(PS. I'm using gmail on a PDA so I can't help top-posting.)

On 15/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> In calling someone a "meatpuppet" we are acknowledging that they are
> distinct individuals but we are also suggesting that someone else is
> "pulling his strings" which can be considered insulting.
>
> A better term would be "posse". In real life, "posses" are groups of
> people who are not full time law enforcement officers who come
> together for one purpose, usually the hunting of a fugitive. On
> Wikipedia, a "posse" would be a group of people who either form
> "single purpose accounts" or have inactive accounts coming together
> for a single issue such as participating in an AFD or RFA debate. In
> such a debate, "posses" should be given no more weight then a single
> active contributor just as is true with "puppets" currently. However,
> we shouldn't say that "posses" are outright prohibited.
>
> Why the change, because it would acknowledge that a given "posse"
> member, while initially here for one issue, might have his own reasons
> for creating an SPA and is not necessarily a slave to a puppetmaster.
> He might even discover that he likes it here and become a good
> contributor in his own right. I think this would better conform to the
> concept of "assume good faith".
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo's letter to the New Yorker

body:
Thanks for the a
post. I think he did well to balance a condemnation of Essjay's
judgement with a reminder that he's a guy who made a mistake from
which the community learnt something.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Maximum wikien-l message size now 10 kilobytes

body:
I've just turned the maximum message size down to 10KB (previously
32KB). This should knock out quite a lot of the spam, since much of it
is email worms of 20-30KB.

I don't *think* this will knock out many human messages, though if it
does we can turn it back up. Or you could split your epic treatise
into two ;-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Restricting the GFDL license to the namespace

body:
I agree with Oskar entirely.

What's more, with caching and archiving services doing their stuff
regardless of copyright status, your proposal wouldn't make much, if
any, difference.

On 15/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, David Hanson <behindtheateball at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  At present GFDL includes not only wikipedia articles but talk pages, user
> > pages and WP pages. This is entirely necessary and accentuates the risk of
> > libelous or defamatory (or just nasty) comments being duplicated on
> various
> > mirrors throughout the web, beyond the reach of editors to delete them.
> >
> > Since the product of wikipedia, the actual content, are articles and not
> > talk pages, administrative pages, user pages etc can we do something to
> > limit the GFDL to these pages specifically?
>
> Are you saying that we should use a more restrictive license for the
> talk-pages? One that does not allow redistribution? Like, standard
> copyright? Even if this was feasible to do, I'd think that there would
> be vast opposition to it in the community. Wikipedia is free, every
> single part of it. When we contribute, we contribute free material.
> Anything else is unacceptable, even for the meta-pages.
>
> I don't know about the rest of you, but this is the way I feel at
> least. And I think I'm not alone.
>
> --Oskar
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jeff Merkey has made en:wp database dumps available via BitTorrent.
> w00t! Get mirroring! And don't forget to leave the dump available for
> others to share from you.

Dude, that's awesome. If I had 213 GiB to spare, I would totally help out!


body:
Unless the entire torrent is a single file (archive?) you will be fine.

If you use Azureus you can select to not download most of the files...

But a dump is one file, right?

(PS. I'm using gmail on a PDA so I can't help top-posting.)

On 15/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Jeff Merkey has made en:wp database dumps available via BitTorrent.
> > w00t! Get mirroring! And don't forget to leave the dump available for
> > others to share from you.
>
> Dude, that's awesome. If I had 213 GiB to spare, I would totally help out!
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 3/15/07, David Hanson <behindtheateball at gmail.com> wrote:
>  At present GFDL includes not only wikipedia articles but talk pages, user
> pages and WP pages. This is entirely necessary and accentuates the risk of
> libelous or defamatory (or just nasty) comments being duplicated on various
> mirrors throughout the web, beyond the reach of editors to delete them.
>
> Since the product of wikipedia, the actual content, are articles and not
> talk pages, administrative pages, user pages etc can we do something to
> limit the GFDL to these pages specifically?

Are you saying that we should use a more restrictive license for the
talk-pages? One that does not allow redistribution? Like, standard
copyright? Even if this was feasible to do, I'd think that there would
be vast opposition to it in the community. Wikipedia is free, every
single part of it. When we contribute, we contribute free material.
Anything else is unacceptable, even for the meta-pages.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this is the way I feel at
least. And I think I'm not alone.

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fine, be that way.

body:
On 3/14/07, Samuel L Bronkowitz <countpointercount at gmail.com> wrote:
> Liar.

He who smelt it, dealt it!

(...or something...)

--Oskar


body:
On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Disk is not that expensive, e.g.

I'm really, really poor. Most of my computer expenditures go to pay
for killer fast broadband, but other than that, I can't afford shit. I
running on an Amiga right now!

--Oskar


from_name: Sharon, Lois Bram

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 3/15/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 15/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
> > Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
> > include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
> >
> www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html
> >
> > It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
> > explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
> > know, they can stop watching the others.
> >
> > Guy (JzG)
>
> "In response, I really scratched my head in bewilderment. Especially
> given that some of those who attempt to attack and discredit Israelis
> and Israel organizations are Jewish and Israeli."
>
> I don't think we should worry about racist, nationalist articles like
> this.
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>

That seems to be a very strong misstatement you make about the website,
possibly crossing into libel.

After reading the article, there do seem to be some problems. It looks
eerily similar to the treatment I received recently, and I'm still trying to
figure out why it is that administrators seem not bound by the rules and why
there is no recourse for normal users who see something wrong.

Multiple people have emailed me or left messages suggesting I return to
editing, but as of yet I am unconvinced that this is viable after seeing how
wikipedia really operates. What I see here does not reflect well on the
encyclopedia and does not give me hope that there is any reason to
contribute.

[[user:One Elephant went out to play...]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
Guy,

I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at all.
I think that twisting words like this is not good nor is it honest, and that
trying to paint someone in this manner because of your own personal views is
a terrible way to be behaving.

[[user:One Elephant went out to play...]]

On 3/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> The notorious anti-Zionist Jimbo Wales and his ruthless cabal of
> Wikifascists is in the news again (for values of news which may
> include blogs pretending to be news agencies):
>
> www.israelnewsagency.com/wikipediaterrorismiranrussialeninisraelcensorship4877031407.html
>
> It's good to know that defamation on Wikipedia is restricted to
> explicitly pro-Israeli subjects, I'll let the biography Wikiproject
> know, they can stop watching the others.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is a work in progress

body:
I tried to help improve it, and got attacked.

I'm still deciding whether or not I really want to continue and risk that
again. At the moment, I'm leaning towards not. It doesn't make sense to do
so when people who have the power to cause me so much pain are apparently
completely disrespectful of honest contributors and of the rules that I was
expected to follow.

There are some good and honest people here, there were some very helpful
people who helped me fix things and learn to edit earlier. It's sad that
there are also real jerks who appear to be running wikipedia.

If there is not a level playing field between administrators and normal
users, then there is no point in trying to contribute, and that statement
should be updated to reflect this. I don't think if this is the case that it
will necessarily be better in 6 years, or 60 years, or 600 years either, no
matter what promises someone makes.

[[user:One Elephant went out to play...]]

On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_work_in_progress
>
> Great essay by User:Qxz. "So, if you rely on Wikipedia in its current
> state, that's your problem. We're not done with it, and we never said
> it would be any good ? we only said it would be free. If you aren't
> satisfied with it now, help improve it, or come back in another six
> years and take a look then. It'll be better. We promise."
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki:<meta> Labels in dumps cause interwiki
 errors

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>The inclusion of MediaWiki:<meta> pages in the base Article, templates,
>>etc. dumps, such as the English Wikipedia, cause major
>>problems if you are trying to import these dumps into a Wikipedia
>>enabled for another language.  Many of the navigation menu's
>>get trashed and corrupted when these MediaWiki labels for the English
>>Wikipedia are included in the base article and template dumps.
>>
>>
>
>Please describe "trashed and corrupted" by giving specific examples.
>Also try to describe what "enabled for another language" means.
>
>

 From language/messages/MessagesChr.php

# Recent changes
'changes' => '???????',
'recentchanges' => '??? ???????',
'recentchanges-url' => '????:Recentchanges',
'recentchangestext' => '???? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ?? wiki ?? ?? ????.',

"recentchanges-url" and other utrl tags end up mapping to their
translated constructs as the internal representation. i.e.
recentchanges-url ends up rendering as "??? ???????-url" as the page
link INTERNALLY rather than
"recentchanges-url", even though the internal variable is named
something else. This causes the page linking to
"????:Recentchanges" to end up pointing to a non-existent link. All of
the -url variables end up getting corrupted
this way.

>Does it mean you have configured the wiki to a language different from
>the language you are importing?
>

Yes.

>Can you explain why you would do this?
>
>
Translated Cherokee articles created from the English Wiki dumps.

>It sounds like a simple configuration error on your part. The obvious
>result would be that both articles and customized messages will appear
>in the language you imported (eg English) instead of the language you
>set it to.
>
>If you simply want to look at the menu in another language, you probably
>want to just change your user preference, not the wiki-wide content
>language.
>
>
Hmmm, not sure about this one, but I will investigate this one.

>
>
>>It certainly is ok to include them in the dumps which supposedly
>>contains "everything"  (the .7z dumps) but they shoud be stripped out
>>of the base dumps which are supposed to just contain the articles and
>>templates for the articles.
>>
>>
>
>Will consider making that change.
>
>
Probably a good idea.

>Note that you can exclude a namespace from your import using mwdumper by
>using the namespace filter, for instance:
>
>  --filter=namespace:\!NS_MEDIAWIKI
>
>(You can also use mwdumper to filter the XML and feed it into
>importDump.php or another tool to do the actual import, if you prefer
>using another tool.)
>
>
Thanks. I will update the database dumps page on meta with this
information on how to strip out
the MediaWiki namespace entries.

Jeff

>- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
>iD8DBQFF+ZKDwRnhpk1wk44RArW0AJsEdkLliDh1ojn+hXMKyYjS+uOJmgCeLjWj
>WpHPz577YLDxODL1STIemsI=
>=ooPk
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
Or you could just not top-post and remember to trim what you're quoting.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]

On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've just turned the maximum message size down to 10KB (previously
> 32KB). This should knock out quite a lot of the spam, since much of it
> is email worms of 20-30KB.
>
> I don't *think* this will knock out many human messages, though if it
> does we can turn it back up. Or you could split your epic treatise
> into two ;-)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] How many editors are there?

body:
Yes, but at least 250 of those were all Jon Awbrey, Jason Gastrich, and
MyKungFu... etc.

Oldak Quill wrote:
> On 15/03/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yet again I have a journalist question: "How many editors are there on
>> Wikipedia?"
>>
>> I can't find any solid numbers on this. I recall a graph showing that
>> activity per person is a power law graph, meaning there's no
>> sharply-definable answer.
>>
>> Does anyone have any idea?
>>
>
> Do you mean registered users or anons too? Also, do you want stats for
> English-language Wikipedia or Wikipedia as a whole?
>
> Sadly, Erik Zachte's stats haven't been updated in 6 months. As of
> September 2006 there were 285866 registered Wikipedians
> (http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZZ.htm).
>
>


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 14/03/07, David Hanson <behindtheateball at gmail.com> wrote:
>  At present GFDL includes not only wikipedia articles but talk pages, user
> pages and WP pages. This is entirely necessary and accentuates the risk of
> libelous or defamatory (or just nasty) comments being duplicated on various
> mirrors throughout the web, beyond the reach of editors to delete them.
>
> Since the product of wikipedia, the actual content, are articles and not
> talk pages, administrative pages, user pages etc can we do something to
> limit the GFDL to these pages specifically?

The primary problem is that we can't relicense the pre-existing text -
effectively we'd have to wipe over and start again. Having two
different copyright licenses on different namespaces is potentially
just more of a headache than it's wirthm too.

What we *can* do is offer article-only/article-and-image-only dumps -
purged of all non-mainspace pages- and make these the easier option
for setting up a mirror. As it is very few mirrors include non-article
pages, so I assume something like this is either happening or is
happening simply through convenience...

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


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as a primary source

body:
On 3/14/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2007, Anthony wrote:
> > > Even if this is true, isn't a line on a Wikipedia talk page saying "so-
> > > and-so told Wikipedia that... and it was verified to come from him by ..."
> > > basically a one line blog hosted by Wikipedia anyway?  (At least if we link
> > > to the diff, which nobody can edit.)
> > >
> > I dunno.  Why don't you ask on the talk page for WP:ATT?  I certainly
> > wouldn't call a line written on a talk page a blog, but I'm not
> > familiar enough with WP:ATT to say whether or not it falls under the
> > term as used there.
>
> You are answering the wrong question.  I'm not asking if it's a blog by our
> definition; I'm asking there's any *practical difference* between it and a
> blog.  What characteristics does the line on the talk page have, that the blog
> does not, that would justify why we'd *want* the rules to prohibit one but
> not the other?
>
Well, I'm still the wrong one to answer, because I don't think a blog
is per say justifiable in the first place.  Only if we're talking
about a well established blog with an author who is a reliable source
for the fact in question do I think we should be relying on blogs.

But apparently the rules say otherwise.  So if you want to know why
the rules prohibit one but not the other, ask the people who made the
rules - it wasn't me.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
On 3/15/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/15/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Guy,
> >
> > I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at
> all.
> > I think that twisting words like this is not good nor is it honest, and
> that
> > trying to paint someone in this manner because of your own personal
> views is
> > a terrible way to be behaving.
>
> The article was written by a complete and utter crackpot. Anyone can
> see that. I mean, the headline was "Does Wikipedia Support Terrorism".
> You know what the legions of supergeeky people sitting hours and hours
> behind a computer screen, writing articles and fixing stuff for no pay
> so that there will be an amazing free resource of knowledge for
> everyone really are like? They're pure Qaida! Believe me, I know lots
> of them.
>
> If you take this article seriously in any way, shape or form it says a
> whole lot more about you than it does about anything else.
>
> --Oskar
>
>

Sir,
I try to keep an open mind on anything I read, before deciding on its worth.

It is a poor mind that dismisses without first analyzing.

Please remember that in the future.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

body:
Please do not call honest people trolls, sir.

On 3/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 15/03/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I said nothing about the website. I was expressing my opinion about
> > the article. Can you tell me how I'm wrong?
>
>
> Please don't feed the troll.
>
>
> - d.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Leaving

body:
Apparently, I have been put upon "moderation" again?

I do not know why this is, nobody has sent me a note, or anything.

At this point I can only conjecture that it is the same people that do not
want anyone but their own opinion group contributing to wikipedia.

You have shown me that this encyclopedia is not worth contributing to.
Goodbye.

the former [[user:One Elephant went out to play...]]


body:
On 3/15/07, David Hanson <behindtheateball at gmail.com> wrote:
>  At present GFDL includes not only wikipedia articles but talk pages, user
> pages and WP pages. This is entirely necessary and accentuates the risk of
> libelous or defamatory (or just nasty) comments being duplicated on various
> mirrors throughout the web, beyond the reach of editors to delete them.
>
> Since the product of wikipedia, the actual content, are articles and not
> talk pages, administrative pages, user pages etc can we do something to
> limit the GFDL to these pages specifically?

That wouldn't be very practical. It happens quite often that content
is moved between namespaces. For example, articles about Wikipedia are
sometimes moved from the main to the Wikipedia: namespace when they
are seen as not notable enough for a general audience, but interesting
enough for Wikipedians to keep. Users also sometimes work
collaboratively on a draft in user space. All these useful
cross-namespace moves become license violations when different
namespaces use different licenses. Even worse, transclusion of some
namespaces in others would have to be disabled, or the result will be
a confusing mixed-license mess.

Note that most reasonable mirrors do not mirror non-mainspace contents
anyway, and the recommended downloads only give them what they need
for the mainspace.

Kusma


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requesting assistance re user:Bastique PLEASE HELP

body:
Sir,

I thank you for your time but I have now been attacked on this list too,
called a troll, and someone mean has moved me to moderation for some reason.

There is no reason for me to continue even attempting to contribute, your
system is obviously broken and you have some very mean, possibly evil,
people with power.

I am sorry to have to say this, it makes me sad because I know that there
were good people there, but they are obviously outnumbered by the bad.

On 3/14/07, Christof Sperl <christof.sperl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You should wait some time. It takes time for the mailing list to get
> updated, and not everyone gets the same mails at the same time. Take a day
> off or two, and there probably will be messages waiting for you from
> other,
> helpful, administrators.
>
> Regards,
> Christof Sperl aka Aetherfukz
>
>
> On 13/03/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Fine.
> >
> > I'm leaving.
> >
> > Jersey Devil outright threatened me, Slimvirgin posted the lies to the
> > administrators noticeboard, I am no longer interested in contributing to
> > Wikipedia if this is how you treat people.
> >
> > Goodbye.
> > [[User: One Elephant Went Out to Play...]]
> >
> > On 3/13/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > This has gotten progressively worse, now someone named Slimvirgin is
> > > accusing me of being someone I have no clue who they are, please,
> PLEASE
> > > will someone help?
> > >
> > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > From: Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com>
> > > Date: Mar 13, 2007 12:37 PM
> > > Subject: Requesting assistance re user:Bastique
> > > To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I need to request assistance with an issue I am having with an
> > > administrator who, for whatever reason, feels the need to be abusive
> and
> > > problematic towards me. This is the first time I'm encountering
> > something
> > > like this, the rest of the time people have been extremely helpful,
> > > especially when I didn't know how to fix something on the page for
> > pixar's
> > > Cars film and they helped troubleshoot a problem I saw with one of the
> > > images going over text.
> > >
> > > What is going on is at the [[National Council of La Raza]] page. I saw
> > > that there was an editing dispute there, editors disagreeing over the
> > > content of the page and the nature of the group. I've been reading the
> > > sources supplied by the various sides and it seems the truth lies
> > somewhere
> > > in the middle.
> > >
> > > However, user:Bastique saw fit to revert to a version he preferred,
> and
> > > then semiprotected the page. This seems to be at odds with the
> > protection
> > > policy and admin policies which state that admin powers should not be
> > used
> > > to win a content dispute.
> > >
> > > I reverted the page, and left a note on the talk page, the admins
> > > noticeboard, and then Bastique's page as a friendly reminder of what
> > policy
> > > states:
> > >
> > > Page history:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Council_of_La_Raza&action=history
> > > Edit on talk page:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ANational_Council_of_La_Raza&diff=114801400&oldid=114394497
> > > Edit made to Bastique:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ABastique&diff=114803985&oldid=114197204
> > >
> > > Bastique's response was to threaten me by saying "Don't revert me
> > again":
> > > he also reverted the page back and fully protected it this time, to
> > "win"
> > > his argument by preventing me from doing so. (see page history above).
> > >
> > > He has since continued to attack me, violating WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. He
> > > directly called me a liar, and has been lying about the fact that he
> > > threatened me, as well as accusing me of "gaming the system" which I
> am
> > not
> > > doing, and it seems obvious despite his claims to the contrary that he
> > has
> > > some stake in the content of the page, otherwise he would not have
> > > reverted/locked it TWICE nor would he be spending this much time
> > attacking
> > > me for pointing out that his doing so is against policy.
> > >
> > > It has gotten so bad that I had to create a new section regarding
> this:
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=114838915&oldid=114838462Thissectionfully explains my problem as well as containing the additional
> > > difference links.
> > >
> > > I do not know what else to do, this is scary to be treated in this
> > manner
> > > by an administrator, so I am posting here in hopes that someone can
> > help.
> > >
> > > Please, if anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.
> > > User: One Elephant Went Out to Play...
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Edit toolbar images are hardcoded

body:
> Adding a little call through the skin object should be able to get the
> appropriate path pretty easy.

Would the images have to be copied to all the skins, or is there some
kind of default system if the files don't exist?


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

references:
<f3siv216cq6f9586390cmhc4c2emot1j09@4ax.com>
	<a6c420a80703151018g3144a45ese406b12eac3cda49@mail.gmail.com>
	<r74jv2d2qep32b3qh7ur1c4nutlpejqefl@4ax.com>

body:
As you sir saw fit to remove my goodbye messages and block me claiming I am
a troll, please understand if I am less than thrilled by your statements.

You are rude and unhelpful, and exactly the reason I am leaving. The fact
that I was denied even the chance to leave a goodbye message to the few
people who have been nice to me is showing me precisely what sort of person
is made an administrator, however.

On 3/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:18:34 -0500, "Sharon, Lois Bram"
> <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is saying at
> all.
>
> I do.  That and bitching about being banned for spamming and bias and
> attacks, of course.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>># Recent changes
>>>'changes' => '???????',
>>>'recentchanges' => '??? ???????',
>>>'recentchanges-url' => '????:Recentchanges',
>>>'recentchangestext' => '???? ?  ???? ??? ??????? ?  wiki ?? ?? ????.',
>>>
>>>
>>>"recentchanges-url" and other utrl tags end up mapping to their
>>>translated constructs as the internal representation. i.e.
>>>recentchanges-url ends up rendering as "??? ???????-url" as the page
>>>link INTERNALLY rather than
>>>"recentchanges-url", even though the internal variable is named
>>>something else. This causes the page linking to
>>>"????:Recentchanges" to end up pointing to a non-existent link. All of
>>>the -url variables end up getting corrupted
>>>this way.
>>>
>>>
>
>It sounds to me like your problem is that you're running some sort of
>automated translation on the *contents* of MediaWiki:Sidebar as though
>it were article text, thus producing a useless, corrupt entry.
>
>In other words, the problem is not that you imported MediaWiki:Sidebar;
>the problem is that you imported a version of MediaWiki:Sidebar which is
>meaningless. "Garbage in, garbage out." :)
>
>Can you confirm?
>
>
Unconfirmed.  The translator skips any article titles which include
"MediaWiki:", "Template:", or
that contain any ':' characters.   At some point, I will enable template
translation, but I have to
instrument the #if, #expr parser language in the translator to
distinguish between tags
and valid text entries.   The problem is related to MediaWiki: articles
overwriting
default settings for the language, which could affect any non-English
Wiki, though I completely
agree with you that my use of MediaWiki with Machine translators is
outside of the designed scope of
the MediaWiki project.

I do agree, however, that MediaWiki: entries should be stripped out of
XML dumps if they just contain
articles and template.  MediaWiki settings should probably not be
included in such dumps if they are going to
be imported into a non-English Wiki.  For now, I think just documenting
it is sufficient.

I leave it to your call if you feel the dumps should exclude some of the
MediaWiki settings.  Personally, I would advise
against it since it is always possible someone could inadvertantly
insert some text or content that could create a security
exploit or problems with other MediaWiki versions, but as I said, this
is your call.  I think documenting and understanding
there could be a potential issue down the road or if someone uses the
MediaWiki software to import dumps across
languages there could be compatibility issues.

>I would recommend excluding such software configuration pages from your
>translation tool.
>
>
Totally agree.

Jeff

>- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
>iD8DBQFF+a+PwRnhpk1wk44RAs4yAJ9q4oxqT9hbE5oi50GZVruU+DJodgCgi8oC
>HK6LKfi3VxRbJkK0x+fx6Hk=
>=wL/Y
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
> The primary problem is that we can't relicense the pre-existing text -
> effectively we'd have to wipe over and start again.

That's definitely the biggest problem. Moving things between
namespaces can be got around, but the fact that all the pre-existing
text is already released under one license makes it pretty much
impossible to change any of our licensing arrangements.


subject: [Foundation-l] German Machine Translation Support added

body:
My wife's son, Florian Jerusalem, has been hired by WMG to write Machine
translation support for
the German Language.  Florian is from Schaag near the Netherlans border
and is staying with us this year.
Florian is fluent in German, English, and French,

At present, the lexicons are nearing completion for over 500,000 German
words and phrases and a translating
web proxy is also being developed along with Wikipedia support.
Although the German Language has an impressive
Wiki, machine translated versions will be published at WikiGadugi as
well very soon as well.    Florian will
be returning to Germany later this year, and will probably try to sync
up with the German Wikipedia
Chapter at some point.

Florian is 20 years old.

Jeff


from_name: DJ Bauch

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.10 mostly working on SQL Server 2000

body:
Hi,
I've been working on running MediaWIki on SQL Server 2000. It's mostly
working and it feels close to all working, but I still have a few major
wrinkles to iron out.
1. Almost nothing that involves a "pager" is working yet, with just a couple
of exceptions.
2. Interlanguage links are showing up at the end of the pages instead of in
a sidebar as on Wikipedia.
3. Template documentation that's referenced from a template as {{/doc}}
doesn't get transcluded.
4. Some tags generated by templates that are obviously meant to be
interpreted as HTML are instead getting interpreted as text (for example, if
I use the text & templates of the page [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] from
Wikipedia, I will see <small/> under Arnold's picture within the infobox at
the top of the page).
5. Not convinced that absolutely all the tables are working yet -- for
example, I have yet to see a record created in the redirect table.


references:
<45F96C34.8020506@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<45F99283.5020201@pobox.com>	<45F99549.8050902@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<45F9AF8F.4060902@pobox.com>	<45F9A1AA.9050008@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<etcem0$dks$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Platonides wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>I leave it to your call if you feel the dumps should exclude some of the
>>MediaWiki settings.  Personally, I would advise
>>against it since it is always possible someone could inadvertantly
>>insert some text or content that could create a security
>>exploit or problems with other MediaWiki versions, but as I said, this
>>is your call.  I think documenting and understanding
>>there could be a potential issue down the road or if someone uses the
>>MediaWiki software to import dumps across
>>languages there could be compatibility issues.
>>
>>
>
>I doubt users would inadvertantly insert a security exploit for older
>versions. More likely, you may get javascript errors. And if you remove
>the messages, you will get people complaining of NavFramem
>RealTitleBanner, featured articles Interwikis... not working
>
>

I'll just strip the MediaWiki articles out of and translated dumps and
document the issue for now.

jeff

>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and Conservapedia

body:
On 15/03/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am curious about the practicality of trying to prosecute someone for
> vandalism of a wiki. Andrew Schlafly seems to think it's possible, given the
> warning on the Conservapedia main page.
>
> "Conservapedia claims that posting obscene material or vandalizing the site
> is illegal, and could result in a jail sentence of ten years. It makes these
> claims on the basis of Title 18 of the United States Code, specifically 18
> USC ? 1470 (with respect to obscenity) and 18 USC ? 1030 (with respect to
> vandalism)."
>
> (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia)
>
> How would the courts look at vandalism when you have given someone the
> ability to edit the site?  Unlike Wikipedia, Conservapedia only allows
> logged-in editing.  Does that mean that we have a stronger case to complain
> about vandalism (since, literally, anyone can edit, so we aren't "approving"
> the vandals) or a weaker case (since, literally, anyone can edit)?

Probably not the best approach to making the wiki a comfortable place
for people to edit.

If you don't get 10 years for vandalising public places obscenely, why
would you get 10 years for vandalising a wiki? The latter is far
easier and less expensive to reverse.

Do they have a user agreement that specifically states that vandals
will be prosecuted?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Cabal strikes again

in_reply_to:
<4ed666e60703151047t79080e18vea6daab3f95c04d7@mail.gmail.com>
	(Oskar Sigvardsson's message of "Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:47:19 +0100")

body:
"Oskar Sigvardsson" <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> writes:

> On 3/15/07, Sharon, Lois Bram <oneelephant at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Guy,
>>
>> I don't think that this is what the writer of that article is
saying at all.
>> I think that twisting words like this is not good nor is it
honest, and that
>> trying to paint someone in this manner because of your own
personal views is
>> a terrible way to be behaving.
>
> The article was written by a complete and utter crackpot. Anyone
  can
> see that. I mean, the headline was "Does Wikipedia Support
  Terrorism".
> You know what the legions of supergeeky people sitting hours and
  hours
> behind a computer screen, writing articles and fixing stuff for
  no pay
> so that there will be an amazing free resource of knowledge for
> everyone really are like? They're pure Qaida! Believe me, I know
  lots
> of them.
>
> If you take this article seriously in any way, shape or form it
  says a
> whole lot more about you than it does about anything else.
>
> --Oskar

I don't think anyone's taken what that site says seriously since
the editor got banned back in 2004 or 2003 for severe POV
pushing. At least, I rather hope no one has, although given how
people are treating this as a new critic, I guess it's been
forgotten.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.