body:
On 5/6/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Sj wrote:
> > ===In the spirit of redundancy and availability===
> > A project suggestion:
> >
> > Develop a completely separate and redundant project to maintain our
> > own fast, quickly-updated static mirror of Wikipedia content.  We
>
> An entirely separate set will waste resources that could be keeping the
> site running well at peak access hours.

True.  The part I'm keen on is finding projects that can be offloaded
to groups of devs who aren't trusted enough to futz around in the core
cluster...  Maybe this can be done in a way that wastes neither
hardware nor developer resources.

> > ===In the spirit of failsafes and backups===
> >
> > A system to periodically store entire database snapshots (every
> > month?), to recover from subtle, undetected database corruption.  (my
> > impression was that this is not done already)
>
> Space requirements for this would be on the order of several hundred
> gigabytes per year. The days when I could back up all of Wikipedia onto
> one CD-R every month are long gone. :)

Yes.  I'm thinking perhaps a single hard drive for every couple
snapshots; 60GB now, and growing as the projects grow.  That also
offers distributed protection against media failure...
or we could write everything onto tapes or optical disks for
longer-term storage.  a TB a year isn't prohibitive.

--
+sj+


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Web Accelerator

body:
I've noticed it tends to prefetch my watchlist and recent changes. Most
changes are done by submitting forms (which it won't do), however, it is
possible for it to click rollback links on admin accounts or users using
"god mode" javascript. In general, however, it seems to prefetch links that
other users have clicked on, indicating that you are also likely to click on
it. This means it's probably not a problem, however it could be.

It is possible to block the web accelerator outright, but that seems
somewhat debilitating. Since Google honors the HTTP 1.1 spec, one option
would be to mark pages for logged in users as private. (See [1])

It is also possible to simply deny prefetch requests on pages that are
possibly harmful, as Mozilla sends out a prefetch header containing "X-moz:
prefetch". (See [2])

[1] http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=148604&cid=12454388
[2]
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/Link_Prefetching_FAQ.html#As_a_server_admin_can_I_distinguish

On 5/7/05, admin Yellowikis <yellowikis at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I saw this:
>
>
> http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/google_web_accelerator_hey_not_so_fast.php
>
> and wondered if GWA might cause any problems with wiki admin?
>
> Paul
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sj

subject: [WikiEN-l] Signpost update

body:
Hello all,

Michael Snow is on holiday for a few weeks, and I was asked to
guest-edit the Signpost in his absence.  Any mistakes you encounter in
the interim should be laid at my feet.  I could not replace him as
primary author of each issue; thankfully many writers have taken up
the slack (notably Worldtraveller, MacGyverMagic, Wally and
Blankfaze).  You can also help maintain its coverage:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom

In particular, we could use help covering the pending Wikimedia
elections (see below), new suggestions and discussions from the
mailing lists and the Village Pump each week,  updates to
WikiProjects, and new polls and proposed policy changes.

The first article on the upcoming elections is a late update to this
week's Signpost :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-05-02/Wikimedia_elections

-- SJ


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On Sat, 7 May 2005, Deathphoenix wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
>
> >Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050507 09:54]:
> >
> >>David Gerard said:
> >>
> >>>slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050507 09:33]:
> >>>
> >>>>The anonymous posters on Usenet are not published authors just because
> >>>>they post to Usenet. So yes, any editor who wanted to delete material
> >>>>sourced to Usenet would be well within their rights - except where
> >>>>it's being used as a primary source about itself.
> >>>>
> >>>Although in practice, this would be disruption to make a point. Why are
> >>>you hardly being agreed with?
> >>>
> >>I happen to find slimvirgin's argument impossible to answer.  As a
> >>secondary source, Usenet will never, ever be even remotely citable on the
> >>subject of the world outside Usenet.  I would not regard deletion of
> >>Usenet-sourced material as disruption to make a point.
> >>
> >I found it very useful for [[The Eye of Argon]], for instance.
> >
> I also found it useful regarding a conversation between Andrew S.
> Tanenbaum and some guy named Linus Torvalds. For instance, under
> [[flaming]], which would you prefer?
>
> 1. For example, the Usenet discussion between Andrew S. Tanenbaum and
> Linus Torvalds on microkernel versus monolithic kernel operating system
> design has been described as a famous "flame war".
>
> 2. For example, the Usenet discussion between a computer science
> professor and a software developer on microkernel versus monolithic
> kernel operating system design has been described as a famous "flame war".
>
This conversation has been reprinted many times, most notably in the
O'Reilly book _Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution_.
Reference to specific posts at Google are not necessary.

Geoff


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia widget for new Macintosh OS release

body:
On 5/7/05, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> I see that someone has already written a Wikipedia widget for the
> dashboard on the new OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") release for the Macintosh:
>
> http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/wikipedia.html

Sheldon, interesting that you should mention Mac and Wikipedia. I've
had some trouble with Wikipedia/Safari compatibility. I was running
Jaguar until a few months ago, which meant I was restricted to Safari
1.2.  Whenever I edited or even previewed a WP page with accents,
Safari changed them all, so I had to stop using it. Then someone on
this list said this was a problem only with 1.2 but 1.3 had fixed it.
I liked Safari so much as a browser that I upgraded to Panther so that
I could use Safari 1.3. and it did fix the accent problem, but is so
slow to get into WP that I've had to abandon it again. All the other
browers I use (Netscape, Opera, Firefox) get into WP considerably
faster than Safari 1.3 (which sometimes just hangs and never makes it,
and when it does, I get lots of spinning pizzas if I try to open
multiple windows), whereas Safari 1.2 seemed as fast as the others.

Now I'm wondering whether it would make any difference if I upgraded to Tiger.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Another Wikipedia Mention

body:
For those of you who don't subscribe to U.S. Newspapers, Wikipedia
was mentioned in the most important part of this medium -- the
Funny Pages. See http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2005/05/06/ .
(Bill Amend has shown a surprisingly acute grasp on Geek trends
in his portrayal of Jason.)

And yes, it did cause a flurry of edits to [[Warthog]], although
not to [[Rabies]].

I now return you to your ongoing arguments in progress.

Geoff


body:
On 5/7/05, iMeowbot <iMeowbot at mac.com> wrote:
> A few weeks ago, Apple pushed out an update to Panther's Safari that
> solved some Javascript performance problems I had been seeing earlier
> (in particular, history pages could be horribly slow before the
> update). If that version is fast enough, then yay.  As always your
> mileage may vary.
>
> It would _not_ be worth your while to upgrade to Tiger for that ...
>
Thank you, IM, that's very helpful. I think I do have the latest
version of Safari, but the problems are multiple. If I have more than
one browser window open, I get the closing pizza when I try to close
them, and I have to force quit. It can barely get into Wikipedia's
main page. Very slow to get into history, unbearably slow to do diffs.
WP apart, it can't seem to find files that I want to attach to e-mails
(it just says "local string not found"); the same when e.g. I download
a music file from Amazon to listen to (local string not found). And
various other problems I won't go into, but none of which I had with
Safari 1.2 - except with 1.2, whenever I edited a page with accents,
I'd leave behind a trail of red links and weird symbols where the
acutes and umlauts used to be.  ;-)

Sarah


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

body:
I see that someone has already written a Wikipedia widget for the
dashboard on the new OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") release for the Macintosh:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/wikipedia.html

In a related development, someone else has written "WikityWidget," a
widget that lets Mac users create their own personal wiki that runs
locally on their computer:

http://inkspotting.com/wikity/

Unfortunately, the WikityWidget only supports the CamelCase link
style, and I think Wikipedia's syntax is much more powerful and
flexible.

It would be great if someone could develop a WikityWidget-like tool
that supports the Wikipedia syntax. I've been using a local
installation of MediaWiki on my laptop to keep various notes for my
personal use, but it would be easier to have the same functionality
available on my dashboard. Also, it would help to further popularize
the Wikipedia syntax, which I'd like to see become the basis for a
standard wiki syntax even outside of MediaWiki.

--Sheldon Rampton


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

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

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
>
>>> That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
>>> interested in details of why you think so.
>>
>>
>> Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia and
>> wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
>>
>> But you're right, I should write something on it !
>
>
> A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that
> says this.  To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
> which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
>
> Ec
>
Hoi,
It may be a fundamental principal of law. However, I am uncomfortable
with it as it leads to all kinds of weasely people do things and argue:
"reading the law I can interpretet it in such a way so it should be
allowed" while it is totally against what the law is about. It works
both ways as this is also used to prevent people from doing things
because some people are great in bending the rules.

When it comes to our projects, it must be clear that they have their
rules, they invoke an image of what they are to mean. When the language
is deemed to be unclear and that is used as an excuse to do what is
manifestly against the spirit of our projects, I would not excuse this.
The guiding principle of what we do is, we write an encyclopedia, a
dictionary, news, training material whatever that is free NPOV and with
we do this with respect for our fellow editors. We are not a debating
club. We have people active as member of our community in practically
all legal entities of this world and therefore there is not only one law
and one law's principles that we have to take into account.

Our rules are different from project to project, it is the spirit of the
Wikimedia Foundation that binds us all. It must be clear, that rules
within a project that are against the spirit of the WMF are not
acceptable, neither are practices that violate what the WMF stands for.

Thanks,
    Sorry for my rant,
       GerardM


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Web Accelerator

body:
Brian wrote:
> Since Google honors the HTTP 1.1 spec, one option
> would be to mark pages for logged in users as private. (See [1])

We already do this:

Cache-Control: private, s-maxage=0, max-age=0, must-revalidate

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia widget for new Macintosh OS release

body:
Sarah (slimvirgin at gmail.com) wrote:

>Now I'm wondering whether it would make any difference if I upgraded to Tiger.

I wasn't planning to upgrade right away, but we bought a new laptop
for the office this Thursday, and I've been running it on Tiger and
generally liking the experience. it seems quicker than Panther.
However, I haven't had the problems with Safari in Panther that
you've described.

--Sheldon Rampton


from_name: iMeowbot

body:
On May 7, 2005, at 2:58 PM, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> Sheldon, interesting that you should mention Mac and Wikipedia. I've
> had some trouble with Wikipedia/Safari compatibility. I was running
> Jaguar until a few months ago, which meant I was restricted to Safari
> 1.2.  Whenever I edited or even previewed a WP page with accents,
> Safari changed them all, so I had to stop using it. Then someone on
> this list said this was a problem only with 1.2 but 1.3 had fixed it.
> I liked Safari so much as a browser that I upgraded to Panther so that
> I could use Safari 1.3. and it did fix the accent problem, but is so
> slow to get into WP that I've had to abandon it again. All the other
> browers I use (Netscape, Opera, Firefox) get into WP considerably
> faster than Safari 1.3 (which sometimes just hangs and never makes it,
> and when it does, I get lots of spinning pizzas if I try to open
> multiple windows), whereas Safari 1.2 seemed as fast as the others.
>
> Now I'm wondering whether it would make any difference if I
> upgraded to Tiger.

A few weeks ago, Apple pushed out an update to Panther's Safari that
solved some Javascript performance problems I had been seeing earlier
(in particular, history pages could be horribly slow before the
update). If that version is fast enough, then yay.  As always your
mileage may vary.

It would _not_ be worth your while to upgrade to Tiger for that,
because the latest Panther Safari's innards and the version that
ships with Tiger are, according to Apple, identical (and in real life
they do seem to be performing the same).


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/7/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's nothing worse than a powerful journalist who uses his or her
> position in the manner described above, and we've all become people
> who have, in many ways, just as much power (but without any of the
> infrastructural restraints journalists have), which means we have to
> exercise self-restraint and be decent. What's wrong with being decent
> all of a sudden?

You don't feel the hounds of hypocrisy nipping at your heels, dear?

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

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

Lee Daniel Crocker schrieb:
> Sorry, but I have to make a big-picture comment.  The phase 3 software
> was a quick hack, and reasonably effective at getting us over the
> bandwidth hump until we could afford to throw more hardware at the
> problem.  But my impression is that it is still 10-20 times less
> efficient than it could be if done right.  Good software takes time to
> design and build.  Might it not be wise to consider starting now to
> invest in some development work?
>

If we're after performance, and want guaranteed vaild X(HT)ML as a side
effect, we (that is, you, Lee:-) should finish Timwi's Bison-based
parser (module "flexbisonparse" in CVS, in case I haven't mentioned it
twenty times yet).

This will require external C, of course. For compatability to those who
cannot do this on their server, we could use my PHP-based wiki-to-xml
converter (at http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/wiki2xml.php ), but it
su**s performance-wise :-(

Magnus
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/7/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Websites of established newspapers may not be published in the
> original sense, but they're still run by the attached news agency and
> therefore trustworthy sources.
>

Since when has being attached to a news agency made you trustworthy?

--
geni


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Template asymmetry

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

Timwi wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>>
>> In practice, I suggest putting the
>>
>> {{Proposed template}}
>>
>> tag on top of dubious templates which do not yet have community support.
>
>
> But you're not following your own doctrine. You didn't put it on top of
> [[Template:Proposed template]].
>
>

[[Template:Proposed template]] doesn't go in the article namespace ;)

- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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from_name: ClockworkSoul

subject: [WikiEN-l] Another Wikipedia Mention

body:
I think that meant http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2005/05/07/

Geoff Burling wrote:

>For those of you who don't subscribe to U.S. Newspapers, Wikipedia
>was mentioned in the most important part of this medium -- the
>Funny Pages. See http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2005/05/06/ .
>(Bill Amend has shown a surprisingly acute grasp on Geek trends
>in his portrayal of Jason.)
>
>And yes, it did cause a flurry of edits to [[Warthog]], although
>not to [[Rabies]].
>
>I now return you to your ongoing arguments in progress.
>
>Geoff
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Websites of established newspapers may not be published in the
original sense, but they're still run by the attached news agency and
therefore trustworthy sources.

On 5/7/05, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> > On 5/6/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > > Just for the record, where is the policy stating
> > that Usenet /cannot/ be
> > > used?  I'm not being sarcastic; I genuinely don't
> > know.
> >
> > The relevant policies state that Wikipedia sources
> > must be published
> > sources, and that the publishers must be, in some
> > sense, reputable,
> > authoritative, and credible. These terms are
> > impossible to define, but
> > they boil down to relying on publishing houses that
> > have some form of
> > fact-checking procedure, or peer-review if it's an
> > academic subject.
> > Sometimes the degree of fact-checking will be
> > minimal, but there
> > should be some infrastructure within which
> > information is checked,
> > complaints are responded to, and obviously authors
> > are usually not
> > anonymous.
> >
> > None of these things applies to Usenet. It is pretty
> > much the
> > definition of a source that should not be used
> > (except in very limited
> > circumstances as primary-source material). See
> > [[Wikipedia:No original
> > research]] for more details.
> >
> > Sarah
>
> Then all of the information about Sollog has to go,
> all of the information about any Usenet celebrity
> (Kibo?), all information about any Usenet news group,
> unless there is '''''published''''' verification?
> Does this mean we can't use links to newspaper
> websites?  Those aren't published, after all.
>
> RickK
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Make Yahoo! your home page
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/7/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> At least newspaper editors can be tracked and held accountable for
> what they wrote. As for the trustworthiness. They're at least as
> trustworthy as the attached newspaper (as far as they are), not being
> published in the original sense has nothing to do with it. That last
> line was my point with regard to being used a source.

That's precisely the point: newspapers (and their websites) have a
fact-checking infrastructure in place. A reporter writes a story, it's
checked by the assigning editor, checked again by a copy editor, again
by a page editor, and again by a proof reader, all of whom are looking
for obvious legal and factual problems as well as style issues.
Depending on the size of the newspaper, it might also be checked by a
fact-checker. If it's a sensitive story, it might be looked at by the
managing editor, the editor-in-chief, the publisher, the lawyers, and
even the owners.

We don't have the resources to do any of this, which is why we rely on
sources that do. Usenet isn't one of them.

Sarah


from_name: Deathphoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] Another Wikipedia Mention

body:
If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn that was product
placement. So ''that's'' where the donations are going to...

I guess it's time to add those two articles to the ol' watchlist.

ClockworkSoul wrote:

> I think that meant http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2005/05/07/
>
> Geoff Burling wrote:
>
>> For those of you who don't subscribe to U.S. Newspapers, Wikipedia
>> was mentioned in the most important part of this medium -- the
>> Funny Pages. See http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2005/05/06/ .
>> (Bill Amend has shown a surprisingly acute grasp on Geek trends
>> in his portrayal of Jason.)
>>
>> And yes, it did cause a flurry of edits to [[Warthog]], although
>> not to [[Rabies]].
>>
>> I now return you to your ongoing arguments in progress.
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>On Sat, 7 May 2005, Deathphoenix wrote:
>
>
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050507 09:54]:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>David Gerard said:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050507 09:33]:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>The anonymous posters on Usenet are not published authors just because
>>>>>>they post to Usenet. So yes, any editor who wanted to delete material
>>>>>>sourced to Usenet would be well within their rights - except where
>>>>>>it's being used as a primary source about itself.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Although in practice, this would be disruption to make a point. Why are
>>>>>you hardly being agreed with?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>I happen to find slimvirgin's argument impossible to answer.  As a
>>>>secondary source, Usenet will never, ever be even remotely citable on the
>>>>subject of the world outside Usenet.  I would not regard deletion of
>>>>Usenet-sourced material as disruption to make a point.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I found it very useful for [[The Eye of Argon]], for instance.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I also found it useful regarding a conversation between Andrew S.
>>Tanenbaum and some guy named Linus Torvalds. For instance, under
>>[[flaming]], which would you prefer?
>>
>>1. For example, the Usenet discussion between Andrew S. Tanenbaum and
>>Linus Torvalds on microkernel versus monolithic kernel operating system
>>design has been described as a famous "flame war".
>>
>>2. For example, the Usenet discussion between a computer science
>>professor and a software developer on microkernel versus monolithic
>>kernel operating system design has been described as a famous "flame war".
>>
>>
>>
>This conversation has been reprinted many times, most notably in the
>O'Reilly book _Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution_.
>Reference to specific posts at Google are not necessary.
>
>Geoff
>
>_______________________________________________
>
Yes, but the fact is, this originated from Usenet. If Usenet is an
inappropriate source of information, then by extension, all
documentation based on Usenet posts are also inappropriate sources of
information

My point is that you can't paint *all* Usenet posts as being an
inappropriate source citation. There's a lot of Usenet discussions that
are quite informative (and not just on computer- or network-related
subjects).

Granted, I wouldn't exactly classify alt.usenet.kooks as a source of
encyclopedic information, but that doesn't mean all newsgroups are
unencyclopedic.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibreak from JAWP

body:
Hi folks,
some of you have known already I have been trolled on Japanese
Wikipedia and took a half wikibreak for a while. Some of trolls even
stole my real name in Kanji on the project (on that, I would like to
retrieve it but JA has no official contact to deal with private issues
; some sysops said I should open my request and from my view it is
absurd totally).

Being a part of Electin organiser team, I have been again involved
into that project; once I agreed to join the team, those trolls were
relatively inactive. I talked with my friends including Jimbo which
resolution could be available, and I believed once someone succeeded
to persuade at least some of trolls - I myself talked with one of them
to realize even unintentionally his activity was indeed trolling.

But I was wrong.

Trolling began again some days ago. I made complaints but ignored.  A
bureaucrat even said to me personally "Stand for".  Today one of them,
who was recently desysoped on JA WP, left a message on my talk on JA,
to advocate his trolling who revealed my surname on the project and
other site  (Tim remembers one of them on JA Wikibooks perhaps).

Okay I would be able to stand for those rants but for that I need to
be far apart from it.

On Election current, I know some of you expect me I will care for
translation into Ja and publication on JA projects - even I thought so
just before that trolling. I hope now however them friendly
understanding under some insult and emotional pressure. I think on our
voluntary-based project no one is forced to continue to face such
insult and personal attacks.  I hope someone will care for election
matters on JA WP and Japanese translation but now convince I have no
part on those works at all.

Cheers

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibreak from JAWP


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Enotif version for MediaWiki 1.4.4

body:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enotif documentation
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Enotif#Download download
http://test.leuksman.com/index.php/Enotif helpdesk hotpage

The ENotif version for MediaWiki 1.4.4 is basically a maintenance
release based on the current 1.4.4 code. It still uses the old and now
abandoned  method "e-mail authentication" for verifying e-mail addresses
(in mw1.5., the method is changed and called "confirmation") . The
feature can be fully disabled during the installation procedure and also
afterwards by setting $wgEmailAuthentication = false (in
DefaultSettings.php or LocalSettings.php)

All newer ENotif versions for MediaWiki 1.5.x use the better "EConfirm"
method, wherein a token is mailed to the user.
T.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050508 08:31]:
>
> > We don't have the resources to do any of this, which is why we rely on
> > sources that do. Usenet isn't one of them.
>
> That's why we rely on this thing called "case by case editorial judgement"
> to say whether to use them, and readers use a thing called "a clue" to
> judge the value of a given source. Your calls for an instant Arbitration
> Committee decision in mid-argument on the matter are, frankly,
> mind-boggling.
>
Where did I call for an Arbitration Committee decision??

Sarah


from_name: Dori

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
On 5/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Sj (2.718281828 at gmail.com) [050508 00:53]:
>
> > The primary use I was thinking of was as a failover option, even if
> > all normal servers blow up, go down, etc. But as long as such a system
> > is set up, however, why shouldn't it be available all the time? For
> > instance, if I were to design a game that involved regularly querying
> > WP content (and needed quick response times for it not to slow down
> > gameplay)... it would be much easier to do that through a central
> > static site than by setting up an incrementally-updating local mirror.
> > No need for us to rely on third parties like factindex to provide fast
> > static mirrors of Wikipedia content when that is what 90% of our
> > visitors want to see. (Or perhaps there is such a need? Depending on
> > said potential issues.)
>
> You know, it occurs to me that serving the static version to anon visitors
> by default might also be a nice way to implement that time-delay that
> Jimbo
> asked for when our [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] article became so
> popular.

Static would be good for not just for anons, but for all those that choose
it (I wouldn't force it on people as that'll increase the edit barrier even
if edit links point back to editable version). I don't have much faith in
time delay as fixing vandalisms would also be delayed.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050508 09:45]:
> > On 5/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> > > That's why we rely on this thing called "case by case editorial judgement"
> > > to say whether to use them, and readers use a thing called "a clue" to
> > > judge the value of a given source. Your calls for an instant Arbitration
> > > Committee decision in mid-argument on the matter are, frankly,
> > > mind-boggling.
>
> > Where did I call for an Arbitration Committee decision??
>
> Ah, you're right, you didn't - instead, you asked for my opinion as a
> member of the arbcom:
>
>     http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023258.html
>
> - to which the answer would almost certainly be "you're all adults, work
> this out on a case by case editorial basis rather than by rules-lawyering."
>
David, I also wasn't asking for your opinion qua member of the arbcom,
and if I gave that impression I apologize. I meant only that, insofar
as you're a member, your opinion about the meaning of policy pages is
important. What I asked was whether you (as an editor) could show me
which Wikipedia policy pages state or imply (or in any way give the
impression) that Usenet is an acceptable source, because my
understanding of all the relevant pages is the opposite, namely that
it would never be an acceptable secondary source. Although now that I
read your post again, you're perhaps agreeing that Usenet isn't
acceptable, but saying that certain Usenet posts might be okay as
source material once posted elsewhere on the Web.

Sarah


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Iuriatan Muniz

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Creation of Local Wiktionary mailing list for the
	PORTUGUESE wiktionary...

body:
Hello... I didn't find a explicit explanation of the procedure to open
a local wiktionary mailing list... But the fact is we of the
Portuguese wiktionary are in need of such a list...

Who can create the list ??? I could be the responsible, or moderator,
or whatever is necessary...

If i'm writing to the wrong address, sorry... =(

[]'s
                                       Iuri


from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Web Accelerator

body:
I saw this:

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/google_web_accelerator_hey_not_so_fast.php

and wondered if GWA might cause any problems with wiki admin?

Paul


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
On Sat, 2005-05-07 at 15:28 +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:

> If we're after performance, and want guaranteed vaild X(HT)ML
> as a side effect, we (that is, you, Lee:-) should finish Timwi's
> Bison-based parser (module "flexbisonparse" in CVS, in case I
> haven't mentioned it twenty times yet).

I agree; a good state-machine-based parser is one of the things
that would help; another is demonizing the TeX parser and some
imaging functions, and a few other things.  But we can't do the
parser until we have a formal syntax, so that's what I'm working
on now.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Richard Rabinowitz wrote:

>Excuse me. Where does one go to unsubscribe from this list?
>
>
>
    http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l#Changing options
and unsubscribing


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [WikiEN-l] your opinions

body:
Hello,
I'd like to know just what other people's real experiences of Wikipedia are.

Specifically,
*how you go about researching information, and to what lengths you
have gone to do so,
*how you tackle conflicts when they arise, and what types of conflict
you find the most difficult to deal with,
*if you have helped mediate a conflict between other users,
*what you have learned through this process and
*how learning is communicated throughout and between projects, whether
by yourself or by others

This is to feed in to my research for an M.Ed. and also a paper for
Wikimania - you can find out more from my w/en user page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cormaggio  I'm especially interested
in new users' impressions as much as seasoned Wikipedians', and I'd
also love to hear from a cross-section of languages. If you like, you
can forward this message to individual project mailing lists.

Should you feel like answering some other questions you could see here
if anything takes your fancy :)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research/Wikipedia_as_a_learning_community
You can answer on-wiki, in this thread, or maybe to keep from further
overloading the archives, email me privately. I will keep this
confidential as you wish.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Cormac / User:Cormaggio


subject: [Wikipedia-l] your opinions


from_name: Richard Rabinowitz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Excuse me. Where does one go to unsubscribe from this list?

On Fri, 6 May 2005, Rick wrote:

>
> --- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> > we're not supposed to use Usenet as a source
> > except for material
> > about itself.
>
> That is EXACTLY what we're doing.  We are reporting
> that THIS PARTICULAR Usenet newsgroup called this guy
> "Kook of the Millenium".
>
> RickK
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com stated for the record:

> That's precisely the point: newspapers (and their websites) have a
> fact-checking infrastructure in place. A reporter writes a story, it's
> checked by the assigning editor, checked again by a copy editor, again
> by a page editor, and again by a proof reader, all of whom are looking
> for obvious legal and factual problems as well as style issues.
> Depending on the size of the newspaper, it might also be checked by a
> fact-checker. If it's a sensitive story, it might be looked at by the
> managing editor, the editor-in-chief, the publisher, the lawyers, and
> even the owners.

That's a nice theory.  Too bad it has little or nothing to do with the
real world.  Once again, I point out [[journalism scandals]].

> We don't have the resources to do any of this, which is why we rely on
> sources that do. Usenet isn't one of them.

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it.  However, it is not
Wikipedia policy.

--
  Sean Barrett     | It is lovely to watch the coloured
  sean at epoptic.com | shadows on the planets of eternal light.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
thanx

On Sat, 7 May 2005, Jack Lutz wrote:

> Richard Rabinowitz wrote:
>
> >Excuse me. Where does one go to unsubscribe from this list?
> >
> >
> >
>     http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l#Changing options
> and unsubscribing
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com stated for the record:

> Sean, I've asked three or four times if anyone can point me to any
> part of Wikipedia policy that states or implies that Usenet is an
> acceptable source, and so far, no one has done so. My understanding of
> the policy pages (e.g. WP:NOR) is that it's not, and I sent you a link
> to the section that seems to back me up. It doesn't mention Usenet
> explicitly, but the description of what type of source is acceptable
> would definitely exclude it. I'd say you're the one operating on the
> basis of your opinion only, not me. But if I'm wrong, show me.

Policy does not list what is allowed, it lists what is prohibited.  In
other words, if it is not explicitly forbidden, it is permitted.  That's
the only way policy could ever work!

Challenge: show me where it is explicitly stated that articles on naval
vessels are permitted.  You can't.  Does that mean they're prohibited?

Since there is nothing in policy stating "Usenet is off-limits," its use
is allowed.

--
  Sean Barrett     | It is lovely to watch the coloured
  sean at epoptic.com | shadows on the planets of eternal light.


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on FoxTrot

body:
Just a heads-up.  The [[FoxTrot]] [[comic strip]] for [[May 7]]
mentions [[Wikipedia]].  In it, Jason shows Peter and proceeds to
vandalize two pages, [[Warthog]] and [[Rabies]], in order to make fun
of Paige.

The text is as follows:

(Peter and Jason are in front of the iFruit)
Peter: What are you looking at?
Jason: Wikipedia.  It's this totally cool online encyclopedia that
lets users update and edit its information.  It's the greatest
thing.  Watch.  Pretend you want to know about warthogs.
Peter: Is that a picture of our sister?
Jason: Now let's pretend you want to know about rabies...


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibreak from JAWP

body:
Aphaia wrote:

>Hi folks,
>some of you have known already I have been trolled on Japanese
>Wikipedia and took a half wikibreak for a while. Some of trolls even
>stole my real name in Kanji on the project (on that, I would like to
>retrieve it but JA has no official contact to deal with private issues
>; some sysops said I should open my request and from my view it is
>absurd totally).
>
>
I am very sorry to hear all of this happening to you Britty.
Unfortunately trolls seem to be very active and winning in a number of
languages.

Walter/Waerth

Himself on a partial wikibreak for over a week now.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibreak from JAWP


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
On 5/7/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > We don't have the resources to do any of this, which is why we rely on
> > sources that do. Usenet isn't one of them.
>
> That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it.  However, it is not
> Wikipedia policy.

Sean, I've asked three or four times if anyone can point me to any
part of Wikipedia policy that states or implies that Usenet is an
acceptable source, and so far, no one has done so. My understanding of
the policy pages (e.g. WP:NOR) is that it's not, and I sent you a link
to the section that seems to back me up. It doesn't mention Usenet
explicitly, but the description of what type of source is acceptable
would definitely exclude it. I'd say you're the one operating on the
basis of your opinion only, not me. But if I'm wrong, show me.

Sarah


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Web Accelerator

body:
Brian wrote:
> It is also possible to simply deny prefetch requests on pages that are
> possibly harmful, as Mozilla sends out a prefetch header containing "X-moz:
> prefetch". (See [2])

I've e-mailed Google's feedback address to ask for more details about
the prefetch behavior, which is woefully underspecified in their 'Help
for Webmasters' page[1].

If it really behaves as the Mozilla prefetch that they reference as
documentation, then there's nothing to worry about, since we don't
specify any dangerous URLs as <link rel="next"> or <link
rel="prefetch">. If it doesn't behave that way, then more information
would be helpful in deciding whether rejecting prefetches is necessary.

[1] http://webaccelerator.google.com/webmasterhelp.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Another Wikipedia Mention

body:
Deathphoenix said:
> If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn that was product
> placement. So ''that's'' where the donations are going to...
>
> I guess it's time to add those two articles to the ol' watchlist.
>

High time!

The Warthog article has had a lot of edits today.  It hadn't been touched
since  March 24.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
At least newspaper editors can be tracked and held accountable for
what they wrote. As for the trustworthiness. They're at least as
trustworthy as the attached newspaper (as far as they are), not being
published in the original sense has nothing to do with it. That last
line was my point with regard to being used a source.

--Mgm

On 5/7/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record:
>
> > Websites of established newspapers may not be published in the
> > original sense, but they're still run by the attached news agency and
> > therefore trustworthy sources.
>
> /me snorts coffee though his nose.
>
> News agencies are trustworthy sources?  Are you on drugs, or someone's
> payroll?
>
> May I suggest you start with [[Journalism scandals]], and let us know
> when you've caught up to the present?
>
> --
>  Sean Barrett     | We're going to take things away from
>  sean at epoptic.com | you on behalf of the common good.
>                   | --Hillary Clinton, 28 June 2004,
>                   | at a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

body:
>
>>> That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
>>> interested in details of why you think so.
>>
>> Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia and
>> wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
>>
>> But you're right, I should write something on it !
>
> A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that
> says this.  To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
> which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.

We're talking about emergence here... what do you mean ? ? ?


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
Sj (2.718281828 at gmail.com) [050508 00:53]:

> The primary use I was thinking of was as a failover option, even if
> all normal servers blow up, go down, etc. But as long as such a system
> is set up, however, why shouldn't it be available all the time?  For
> instance, if I were to design a game that involved regularly querying
> WP content (and needed quick response times for it not to slow down
> gameplay)... it would be much easier to do that through a central
> static site than by setting up an incrementally-updating local mirror.
> No need for us to rely on third parties like factindex to provide fast
> static mirrors of Wikipedia content when that is what 90% of our
> visitors want to see.  (Or perhaps there is such a need?  Depending on
> said potential issues.)

You know, it occurs to me that serving the static version to anon visitors
by default might also be a nice way to implement that time-delay that Jimbo
asked for when our [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] article became so
popular.

- d.


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

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

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Michael P. Hopcroft wrote:
>
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> Michael P. Hopcroft wrote:
>>>
>>>> First of all, the man is an ASTROLOGER. That doesn't bode well for
>>>> his logical capacities in the first place unless he's an outright
>>>> fraud. "Serious discusssion of astrology" is no more possible than
>>>> serious discussion of the belief that every object in the Universe
>>>> is a uniform shade of purple.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's a shamefully ignorant comment of the kind that can be expected
>>> from those who believe more in scientism than science.
>>
>>
>> I have no idea what 'scientism" is, but I do know that the idea that
>> randomly placed thermonuclear reactors dozens, hundreds and thousands
>> of light-years away have a direct influence on what happens to human
>> beings on Earth is illogical to the point of delusion. Even if they
>> were capable of thought, which is insanity in itself, how could they
>> possibly care?
>
>
> According to Oxford scientism is the "excessive belief in the power of
> scientific knowledge and techniques."  In many instances it takes on the
> characteristics of a religion.
>
> You began by making a wild comment about astrology and astrologers, and
> now you want to compound the issue with your creationist premise that
> someone has been going around placing thermonuclear reactors just so
> that you can set up some kind of straw man argument.

Firstly, the fact that Michael wrote "random" is anti-creationist;
secondly, you might want to see [[Star]].

With all the traffic on this subject, I'm not sure if this page has come
up before, but in case it hasn't:

http://www.petitmorte.net/phoenix/wollmann.html

I suggest you have a bit of a look around the rest of the site as well.
"Kook of the Millenium" wasn't the only award he won.

- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Sympathy entry: there appears to be an error in the
	example

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

DAVIDARPS at aol.com wrote:
>
> Below is from the Sympathy entr
> The bold statements appear to be reversed.
> Thus it is possible to be:
>     *   Empathetic but not sympathetic, by internally experiencing their
> feeling but not being motivated to alleviating action as a result (eg, a lust
> killer who is aroused by his victim's fear, or a con artist who knows how his
> "mark" feels but uses it to manipulate not support),
> and it is also  possible to be:
>     *   Sympathetic but not empathetic by realising (perhaps _cognitively_
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition) )  someone is upset and wanting to
> alleviate that, but not experiencing their  sense of upset directly and internally
> as an emotional state within themselves  (eg, a person at a help desk who
> sees another in distress, does not feel  distress themselves, but tries to find
> what is wrong and help them anyway).
> [_edit_
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sympathy&action=edit&section=1) ]
> See also
>

Please see these pages (in the order given):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Anon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template%3ASofixit

Thanks,

- --
Alphax
GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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subject: [Wikitech-l] New/old database dump format

body:
Historically, there are several problems with the cur & old SQL dumps
we've provided:

* It's hard to import a dump from MySQL into another DBMS like
PostgreSQL without some filtering.
* Reading the SQL dumps directly into external tools, like Erik Zachte's
statistics scripts, is a pain in the butt.
* Compressed text storage makes it even harder to use the dumps outside
of MediaWiki, or even in if PHP is missing the zlib module.

The new schema in MediaWiki 1.5 exacerbates these:
* No easy way to get only current revisions from raw table dumps without
downloading a lot of extra junk.
* Some text may not even *be* there -- conversion will add references to
the leftover cur table, and we expect to start storing bulk text outside
the database entirely at some point.
* Deleted text isn't automatically removed from the text table, so a raw
dump is not safe for distribution.

For some time I've planned to replace the cur+old dumps with a dump
using the Special:Export XML stream format[1]. This is a simple XML
wrapper around the page/revision model which reflects the data in our
schema without being tied to the actual table layout itself.

This should be more accessible to external tools: most programming
language environments provide a stream-friendly XML parser and can
easily slurp in and process the data without a lot of hacking.

The XML dump is also smaller: compressed blobs are opaque to the SQL
dumps, but here they're expanded and recompressed more efficiently. In
my testing, the gzipped full XML dump of nl.wikipedia.org is about 1/3
smaller than the gzipped SQL cur+old dumps. (A cur-only dump is about
the same size compressed as the SQL version.)

Dumps can be generated with maintenance/dumpBackup.php, which I've just
checked in. It can create both full-history and current-only dumps.

I still need to finish up an importer script using the Special:Import
framework. Also, a standalone .xml.gz->to->database importer tool might
be a useful tool / demo / exercise.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Export
Note that final dumps will include page, revision, and user id numbers
which are not reflected in the old sample markup at that page.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Chad Perrin

body:
On Fri, May 06, 2005 at 05:52:42PM -0400, Delirium wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >Delirium wrote:
> >
> >>Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >>
> >>>My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits by logged
> >>>in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users.  It would be extremely
> >>>interesting to run tests to compare "edit dispersion" for new articles,
> >>>old articles, heavily edited articles, highly watched articles, heavily
> >>>trafficked articles, etc.
> >>>
> >>Those sound like plausible numbers, but I think your methodology is
> >>somewhat overstating the cohesiveness: The "drive-by editors" who are
> >>the least associated with an identifiable Wikipedia community are the
> >>users who haven't even bothered to go so far as to create a user
> >>account, which you explicitly exclude from your count.
> >>
> >Users who aren't logged in make only around 18% of all edits.  It
> >doesn't change the results materially.
> >
> How about when bots are excluded?  Just RamBot is a non-negligible
> proportion of the total edits on en:, and obviously what bots do isn't
> really a good measure of the social aspects of how humans edit Wikipedia...

Why not?  Bots are part of what humans do.  I agree that they need to be
counted separately for many metrics when making statistical analyses of
the social interactions on Wikipedia, but they are a social phenomena in
that they are created, targeted, and enacted by humans as a result of
their desires and needs within the larger social circumstances of the
Wikipedia project as a whole.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


body:
On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 08:50:48AM -0400, Stirling Newberry wrote:
>
> On May 7, 2005, at 7:43 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> >Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> >>Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
> >>
> >>>>That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
> >>>>interested in details of why you think so.
> >>>
> >>>Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia and
> >>>wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
> >>>
> >>>But you're right, I should write something on it !
> >>
> >>A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that
> >>says this.  To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
> >>which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
> >>
> >>Ec
>
> It isn't a principle of law, the correct principle is "that which is
> not forbidden is allowed". The specifically changes the meaning
> entirely.

Perhaps, then, that should be rephrased "that which is not 'explicitly'
forbidden is allowed" rather than "specifically".

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Longterm hosting strategy [warning tome]

body:
On Fri, May 06, 2005 at 05:13:17PM +0200, Eden Akhavi wrote:
> > Belnet/Belgium -- 1 rack of space, unlimited bandwidth, they are ready
> > to go Monday, they can do full hands-on, etc., including replacing
> > borken hard drives and so on like that.  They are excited to move
> > forward quickly.  In this case, we must supply the hardware.  We can
> > either buy hardware (with the German money?) or I can ask someone to buy
> > it for us (see Big Company X, below).
>
> > Amsterdam - a large NGO wants to do a big press announcement when I'm
> > there in Holland at the end of this month.  They are providing a set of
> > servers which have already been ordered.  I do not know the exact
> > specifications, perhaps someone else can tell me?
>
> If we are talking Europe, I think the key here is to consider where the
> traffic comes from and who has good connectivity to that audience.
> [detailed discussion]

Looking from Germany, the two data centers seem to be well connected.
Traceroute shows direct connection from all major providers, using
peering points in Amsterdam an London. Ping times are in the 20-25ms
range. The ping time to Florida is 130ms. LINX-connected Janet is
about 22ms, quite similar to the two data centers in benelux.

So from a network POV, I think that the Benelux locations are quite
good.

Regards,

	JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Longterm hosting strategy

body:
On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 01:28:23AM +0200, Eden Akhavi wrote:
> > Seriously, though: I do not understand how setting up
> > colocations in other countries is going to accomplish
> > anything that putting the same hardware into the Florida colo
> > wouldn't already accomplish.
>
> Disaster recovery, power failure (UPS/Generator failure), fibre cut, ISP
> going bankrupt leading to lock out, international fibre system failure,
> faster access for non US customers, etc.

Unless there's data redundancy in these areas (whether by way of
redundant databases or redundant caches), separate locations are not
going to provide that sort of capability very much beyond simply having
one additional datacenter for purposes of quick replacement of services
in another location in case of disaster.  If they're sufficiently
distant from one another, two centers would provide excellent location
redundancy for most purposes.

Data redundancy in more than two locations would be fantastic.  That's a
separate issue from the discussions of linguistically segregated
locales, though, as putting the German Wikipedia in Germany and the
Korean Wikipedia in Korea (for instance) would not address data
redundancy one whit.

>
> Florida is not an ideal location either from a US network perspective, most
> of the European landings are in NY; whereas Asian landings are California.
> >From memory I think the Columbus cable system is the only transatlantic
> fibre to land in Florida which connects to Tarifa in Southern Spain; and the
> Spanish end is not idea for European connectivity.

I'm not sure what difference it makes for a single datacenter, frankly.
It's convenient for it to be in Florida because that's where the offices
are, of course.  Additional datacenters might perhaps be best located
near the Eastern Seaboard and the West Coast areas, plus perhaps
something more midwest-ish, just for purposes of covering the bases, if
we want multiple locations -- though cost effectiveness of locations
would need to be considered as well (San Francisco and New York City
would be abysmal choices for purposes of cost).  I don't see how being
near international airports and major shipping ports for Asian and
Eurpoean traffic would really matter too much, though.  The beauty of
the Internet is that only your bandwidth really matters all that much
when determining location.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


body:
On Fri, May 06, 2005 at 06:04:07PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
> >Currently the main vulnerable points appear to be network and power, and
> >we've experienced problems with both in the last 6 months. I'm not an
> >expert on either, but I'm assured securing these services to a
> >reasonable degree is possible.
> >
> I would suggest suggest that any new major backup colo in North America
> should be in a different power grid area.  This would protect from the
> possible consequences of a major blackout such as occurred in 2003.  As
> I understand the situation North America has two major power grids, one
> in the East and one in the West.  Only Texas and Quebec have independent
> grids.

Agreed.

I'd further recommend that a West Coast location NOT be in California,
for economic reasons (and, by extension, political reasons that affect
politics).  Washington state seems to provide a good balance of sorta
regional technological "savvy" and livable costs.  Plus, y'know, if it
turned out to be a good idea to move me to the new location, I'd really
like an opportunity to live in Washington for a while.

Heh.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 05:46:29PM +0000, Dori wrote:
> On 5/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> >
> > Sj (2.718281828 at gmail.com) [050508 00:53]:
> >
> > > The primary use I was thinking of was as a failover option, even if
> > > all normal servers blow up, go down, etc. But as long as such a system
> > > is set up, however, why shouldn't it be available all the time? For
> > > instance, if I were to design a game that involved regularly querying
> > > WP content (and needed quick response times for it not to slow down
> > > gameplay)... it would be much easier to do that through a central
> > > static site than by setting up an incrementally-updating local mirror.
> > > No need for us to rely on third parties like factindex to provide fast
> > > static mirrors of Wikipedia content when that is what 90% of our
> > > visitors want to see. (Or perhaps there is such a need? Depending on
> > > said potential issues.)
> >
> > You know, it occurs to me that serving the static version to anon visitors
> > by default might also be a nice way to implement that time-delay that
> > Jimbo
> > asked for when our [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] article became so
> > popular.
>
> Static would be good for not just for anons, but for all those that choose
> it (I wouldn't force it on people as that'll increase the edit barrier even
> if edit links point back to editable version). I don't have much faith in
> time delay as fixing vandalisms would also be delayed.

That hints at one of my problems with the idea of using it as concurrent
service.  I'll elaborate:

1.  Maintaining up-to-date realtime mirroring would be a HUGE SUCKING
SOUND on bandwidth.  This, it seems to me, is not an option.

2.  Providing seamless integration between the two without roughly
realtime replication would make for very weird problems, as one site is
serving the "master" for a given set of articles and the other is
serving a several-edits-out-of-date version of the same articles.
Nothing comes immediately to mind as a way to make this work nicely.

3.  Serving a delayed mirror to anons effectively bars anon edits in a
lot of unpleasant ways, as drawing in anonymous edits is largely
dependent on dilettantism.  This in turn requires that the anonymous
browser be able to see the current flaws, and not try to edit flaws that
were fixed several edits ago.

On the other hand, for specifically requested, "opt-in" preferences for
less-dynamic site content, there's no reason a backup/failover site
couldn't be in operation and serving pages 24/7.  In fact, that's far
better than the alternative (a backup/failover that does nothing but
suck snapshots and sit around waiting for orders).  This would surely
appeal to some users, but not as many as the up-to-the-minute site,
because of likely decreased access latency.  I could be wrong about
that: it might end up hammered with view-only traffic by people that
don't care to see the newer version unless they set out to edit.  I
don't think I'm wrong, though.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on FoxTrot

body:
On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 08:49:32PM -0600, kelvSYC wrote:
> Just a heads-up.  The [[FoxTrot]] [[comic strip]] for [[May 7]]
> mentions [[Wikipedia]].  In it, Jason shows Peter and proceeds to
> vandalize two pages, [[Warthog]] and [[Rabies]], in order to make fun
> of Paige.
>
> The text is as follows:
>
> (Peter and Jason are in front of the iFruit)
> Peter: What are you looking at?
> Jason: Wikipedia.  It's this totally cool online encyclopedia that
> lets users update and edit its information.  It's the greatest
> thing.  Watch.  Pretend you want to know about warthogs.
> Peter: Is that a picture of our sister?
> Jason: Now let's pretend you want to know about rabies...

Interesting . . . my initial impression of the meaning was that he
opened the page and there was a picture of a warthog on it that was
likened to Paige's appearance.  I got a good chuckle out of both
interpretations, though.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


body:
On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 03:58:28AM -0400, Chad Perrin wrote:

> I'd further recommend that a West Coast location NOT be in California,
> for economic reasons (and, by extension, political reasons that affect
> politics).  Washington state seems to provide a good balance of sorta

Whoops.  I mistyped that.  It should be "by extension, political reasons
that effect economics."  Ahem.  Sorry 'bout that.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


body:
[added mediawiki-l to cc]

slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050508 04:58]:
> On 5/7/05, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:

> > I see that someone has already written a Wikipedia widget for the
> > dashboard on the new OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") release for the Macintosh:
> > http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/wikipedia.html

> Sheldon, interesting that you should mention Mac and Wikipedia. I've
> had some trouble with Wikipedia/Safari compatibility. I was running
> Jaguar until a few months ago, which meant I was restricted to Safari
> 1.2.  Whenever I edited or even previewed a WP page with accents,
> Safari changed them all, so I had to stop using it. Then someone on
> this list said this was a problem only with 1.2 but 1.3 had fixed it.
> I liked Safari so much as a browser that I upgraded to Panther so that
> I could use Safari 1.3. and it did fix the accent problem, but is so
> slow to get into WP that I've had to abandon it again. All the other
> browers I use (Netscape, Opera, Firefox) get into WP considerably
> faster than Safari 1.3 (which sometimes just hangs and never makes it,
> and when it does, I get lots of spinning pizzas if I try to open
> multiple windows), whereas Safari 1.2 seemed as fast as the others.
> Now I'm wondering whether it would make any difference if I upgraded to Tiger.

That strikes me as odd, seeing as Brion uses a PowerBook and so presumably
does development work on MediaWiki on it ... Brion? (anyone?)

- d.


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> This reminds me that I had a problem some time ago with the
> Special:Export XML. Some XML parsers automatically remove
> spaces/newlines, which are both essential for the wiki markup. While
> that *can* usually be turned off, it is confusing and annoying.
>
> I suggest that *for the Special:Export* XML format, we replace
> * spaces with <sp/>
> * newlines (ASCII 10/13) with <nl/>

A parser ought to normally _not_ remove whitespace IIRC, but to be sure
sometimes there are stupid defaults. (PHP's XML extension defaults to
horribly violating the XML standard -- which specifies that element
names are case-sensitive -- by forcing all encountered element names to
uppercase. I don't know if this is a default expat stupidity or if it's
unique to PHP's interface to it.)

If we did want to preemptively protect against that, though, adding
elements is totally unnecessary. XML provides a built-in way to specify
characters distinct from markup:   and
 should do the job.

> An alternative would be to (optionally) run the wiki source through my
> PHP-based converter. It generates roughly the same XML as Timwi's *real*
> parser does (or would do), so there would be compatability if we ever
> switch parsers.

Well, that does something completely different doesn't it? Here we're
providing the 'transparent copy' which is the 'preferred format for
editing', which is the source text. A transformed version for output
could be useful in addition, but is a separate issue. Think program
source and object code...

> Last not least, I remember there's a free compression algorithm that
> specializes on XML compression, and claims to be more effective for XML
> texts tham plain-text compression (which goes up to 10 times). Alas, I
> forgot the name...

The vast bulk of the dump is natural-language text (which is highly
repetitive due to consecutively stored versions), so I'd be surprised if
this would outweigh the benefits of using a standard tool like gzip.
Might be good to know about it for reference though!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with a dodgy source, properly identified?

body:
I don't get it. Journalism follows one practice, academic research
another. I think Wikipedia follows a modified version of latter.

In journalism, stories are published with no indication of the source
other than the reporter's name (or the name of the wire service).
_Sources are not cited_. We rely on the newspaper's editorial staff,
the newspaper's reputation, and the reporter's responsibility to the
profession of journalism to follow appropriate standards to insure that
most of what we read is true. We usually have no way of directly
evaluating what's behind any story.

In academic research, every source is cited in a way that allows the
reader to verify it personally. Every fact that appears in a paper is
either the personal testimony of the author of the paper, we did thus
and such, we saw thus and such, we concluded thus and such. _Or, it is
a source citation._ These source citations are usually journal
references, but may occasionally be "personal communications." The
journals and sources are simply _named._ Sez who? Sez Frotz and Glotz
1989, Zeitschrift f?r Krankschaft und Geerschift, 22(6):116-122. In
most cases the reader can easily verify that the Zeitschrift exists and
that pages 116-122 of that number have that article and that it says
what the paper's author says it says.

_It is left completely up to the reader to know whether or not the
Zeitschrift is a peer reviewed journal or not, what its reputation is,
and whether Frotz and Glotz are competent_.

I completely fail to see _any problem in general_ in citing USENET as a
source, provided an actual citation is given so the reader can verify
that the posting says what the article says it says.

That does not mean that a statement citing USENET should necessarily go
in an article, or that citing USENET, or The New York Times, or
_Nature_, waves a magic wand over a passage that protects it from
criticism, discussion, replacement, or deletion.

A good example of what I think to be an entirely appropriate use of
USENET is in tracking the approximate time when phrases or neologisms
or memes became current in the Internet community.

Conversely, The Boston Globe might carry a story quoting sources
criticizing a judge. That would be a very reliable source. That does
NOT mean that it would automatically be appropriate for a Wikipedia
article to say ANY of these things:

*Judge so-and-so lacks proper judicial demeanor.

*Judge so-and-so was criticized for lacking proper judicial demeanor.

*On day so-and-so, page so-and-so, the Boston Globe quoted so-and-so as
saying Judge so-and-so is "a very passionate woman, and is not afraid
to go and dance and have a couple of glasses of wine and have a good
time. She's not your typical judge."

The third form is a valid citation, but may or may not be appropriate
to the context of an article.

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
>>
>>>> That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
>>>> interested in details of why you think so.
>>>
>>> Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia and
>>> wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
>>>
>>> But you're right, I should write something on it !
>>
>> A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that
>> says this.  To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
>> which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
>>
>> Ec
>
> Hoi,
> It may be a fundamental principal of law. However, I am uncomfortable
> with it as it leads to all kinds of weasely people do things and
> argue: "reading the law I can interpretet it in such a way so it
> should be allowed" while it is totally against what the law is about.
> It works both ways as this is also used to prevent people from doing
> things because some people are great in bending the rules.

Without fundamental principles the law is meaningless. Reading the law
in a way that doing something should be allowed is perfectly fine; it is
neither weasely nor against what the law is about.  Bending rules is a
part of the normal legal game.  Big companies like Microsoft will do
whatever they can to have the law work the way they want it to work.  If
it's right for them it's right for the little guy, and until the little
guy learns that he will forever be a loser.  The principle as I
expressed it does not prevent people from doing anything.  If something
is not mentioned in the law then doing it is not a violation of the
law.  The converse principle, that what is not specifically allowed is
forbidden, would lead to the absurdity that any kind of innovation is
illegal.

> When it comes to our projects, it must be clear that they have their
> rules, they invoke an image of what they are to mean.

The fewer rules the better.  To me an image or vision of what the
project is about determines what rules are necessary.

> When the language is deemed to be unclear and that is used as an
> excuse to do what is manifestly against the spirit of our projects, I
> would not excuse this.

Who does the deeming?  If the rules are contrary to the spirit of the
project I would change the rules.

> The guiding principle of what we do is, we write an encyclopedia, a
> dictionary, news, training material whatever that is free[,] NPOV and
> with we do this with respect for our fellow editors.

There's nothing wrong with this, but then it has nothing to do with the
topic.

> We are not a debating club.

Who said that we are?

> We have people active as member of our community in practically all
> legal entities of this world and therefore there is not only one law
> and one law's principles that we have to take into account.

So a balance is required, and this only proves my point.  If something
is clearly allowed in one country, but requires a slight "bending" of
the rules in another country we go ahead and bend those rules.  This is
not the same as an outright violation of the rules.  We do not need to
strive for the lowest common legal denominator.  If we did that we would
be bowing to the whims of a government like the one in China which might
shut the project down for anything that it felt was an insult to their
government.

> Our rules are different from project to project, it is the spirit of
> the Wikimedia Foundation that binds us all. It must be clear, that
> rules within a project that are against the spirit of the WMF are not
> acceptable, neither are practices that violate what the WMF stands for.

The separate rules of different projects are not an issue here.

Ec


body:
Stirling Newberry wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
>>>
>>>>> That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
>>>>> interested in details of why you think so.
>>>>
>>>> Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia
>>>> and wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
>>>>
>>>> But you're right, I should write something on it !
>>>
>>> A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that
>>> says this.  To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
>>> which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>
> It isn't a principle of law, the correct principle is "that which is
> not forbidden is allowed". The specifically changes the meaning entirely.

I can live without the word "specifically".  To me it tended to sharpen
the meaning.  It's omission give the concept a broader application, and
that only strenghtens my view on the matter.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

> MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record:
>
>> Websites of established newspapers may not be published in the
>> original sense, but they're still run by the attached news agency and
>> therefore trustworthy sources.
>
> /me snorts coffee though his nose.
>
> News agencies are trustworthy sources?  Are you on drugs, or someone's
> payroll?
>
> May I suggest you start with [[Journalism scandals]], and let us know
> when you've caught up to the present?

No source is to be trusted completely.  Newspapers, because of their
tight deadlines, are more easily prone to error.  As I indicated in a
previous comment on another thread  The "National Post" reported
McHenry's criticism of Wikipedia's article on President Alexander
Hamilton.  Neither McHenry nor Wikipedia had used the word "president".

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Sj (2.718281828 at gmail.com) [050508 00:53]:
>
>
>>The primary use I was thinking of was as a failover option, even if
>>all normal servers blow up, go down, etc. But as long as such a system
>>is set up, however, why shouldn't it be available all the time?  For
>>instance, if I were to design a game that involved regularly querying
>>WP content (and needed quick response times for it not to slow down
>>gameplay)... it would be much easier to do that through a central
>>static site than by setting up an incrementally-updating local mirror.
>>No need for us to rely on third parties like factindex to provide fast
>>static mirrors of Wikipedia content when that is what 90% of our
>>visitors want to see.  (Or perhaps there is such a need?  Depending on
>>said potential issues.)
>>
>>
>You know, it occurs to me that serving the static version to anon visitors
>by default might also be a nice way to implement that time-delay that Jimbo
>asked for when our [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] article became so
>popular.
>
Absolutely.  The idea has crossed my mind before.  The casual passive
user has no interest whatever in our edit wars; he just wants the
information.  Furthermore, most of them are unlikely to even need a more
complex search function.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
Alphax wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Michael P. Hopcroft wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Michael P. Hopcroft wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>First of all, the man is an ASTROLOGER. That doesn't bode well for
>>>>>his logical capacities in the first place unless he's an outright
>>>>>fraud. "Serious discusssion of astrology" is no more possible than
>>>>>serious discussion of the belief that every object in the Universe
>>>>>is a uniform shade of purple.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>That's a shamefully ignorant comment of the kind that can be expected
>>>>from those who believe more in scientism than science.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I have no idea what 'scientism" is, but I do know that the idea that
>>>randomly placed thermonuclear reactors dozens, hundreds and thousands
>>>of light-years away have a direct influence on what happens to human
>>>beings on Earth is illogical to the point of delusion. Even if they
>>>were capable of thought, which is insanity in itself, how could they
>>>possibly care?
>>>
>>>
>>According to Oxford scientism is the "excessive belief in the power of
>>scientific knowledge and techniques."  In many instances it takes on the
>>characteristics of a religion.
>>
>>You began by making a wild comment about astrology and astrologers, and
>>now you want to compound the issue with your creationist premise that
>>someone has been going around placing thermonuclear reactors just so
>>that you can set up some kind of straw man argument.
>>
>>
>Firstly, the fact that Michael wrote "random" is anti-creationist;
>secondly, you might want to see [[Star]].
>
Ahh, but the verb "to place" is creationist.  And if we accept the idea
of a creator it logically follows that that entity should be capable of
placing things randomly.  Why shouldn't God have the right to
participate in a crap game?

There's no mention of astrology in [[Star]], which is just as well,
despite the etymology of the word "astrology".  The word "random" does
not appear in the article either.  On the other hand, astrologers in
general are not likely to be interested in thermonuclear reactors.

>With all the traffic on this subject, I'm not sure if this page has come
>up before, but in case it hasn't:
>
>http://www.petitmorte.net/phoenix/wollmann.html
>
That's one of those unfortunate yellow on black pages that are always a
problem to read.  The whole thing seems like one interminable flame war
with not much being said that has any value.  In that sort of context
anything which it says for or against astrology is not going to be very
convincing or credible.

>I suggest you have a bit of a look around the rest of the site as well.
>"Kook of the Millenium" wasn't the only award he won.
>
I'm not interested in the debate over the individual kook's behaviour at
all.  Such matters appear all too frequently on the list.  The phrase
"the man is an ASTROLOGER" with the word in all capitals did catch my
eye.  That is irrelevant to the man's status as a kook.

The persistence of astrology through the ages suggests to me that there
are underlying germs of truth within it, but these are obscured by a
tremendous amount of unfounded claims.  Thus, specific claims that can
be scientifically supported are very few, and some would even say that
there are none at all.  But failure to prove is not disproof.
Unfortunately, people who claim to be promoting science make contrary
statements that are even more preposterous than the claims made by
astrologers.  They impute ideas to astrology that were never expressed
by the astrologers.  They than make the perfectly accurate comment that
the idea in question is ridiculous, and use that as evidence that all of
astrology is nonsense.  That's a straw man argument.  It is falacious
and unscientific.  The use of imputed ideas seems typical of people who
have no clue about the subject.

Ec


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>On 5/7/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
>>>We don't have the resources to do any of this, which is why we rely on
>>>sources that do. Usenet isn't one of them.
>>>
>>That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it.  However, it is not
>>Wikipedia policy.
>>
>
>Sean, I've asked three or four times if anyone can point me to any
>part of Wikipedia policy that states or implies that Usenet is an
>acceptable source, and so far, no one has done so. My understanding of
>the policy pages (e.g. WP:NOR) is that it's not, and I sent you a link
>to the section that seems to back me up. It doesn't mention Usenet
>explicitly, but the description of what type of source is acceptable
>would definitely exclude it. I'd say you're the one operating on the
>basis of your opinion only, not me. But if I'm wrong, show me.
>
Apparently the page is not as clear as it could be then, because
I read WP:NOR to mean exactly the opposite of your interpretation.

Why don't you try adding "For instance, Usenet is never a valid
secondary source" to the page and see how that goes? I think
everybody on the mailing list understands everybody else's position
by now, even if they don't agree with it; let's write it up for
the benefit of future editors.

Stan


body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

>>>> That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument.  I'm
>>>> interested in details of why you think so.
>>>
>>> Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia and
>>> wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
>>>
>>> But you're right, I should write something on it !
>>
>> A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that
>> says this.  To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
>> which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
>
> We're talking about emergence here... what do you mean ? ? ?

The statement (which was cut off at some point) was about your guess
that French law did not allow a work to be put into the public domain.
Citing a specific passage in the French statutes would be much more
effective than speculating about the law.

Ec


body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>>>>To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything
>>>>which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
>>>>
>>>>Ec
>>>>
>>>>
>>It isn't a principle of law, the correct principle is "that which is
>>not forbidden is allowed". The specifically changes the meaning
>>entirely.
>>
>>
>Perhaps, then, that should be rephrased "that which is not 'explicitly'
>forbidden is allowed" rather than "specifically".
>
>
I have no problem with that change.

Ec


body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>On Fri, May 06, 2005 at 06:04:07PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Currently the main vulnerable points appear to be network and power, and
>>>we've experienced problems with both in the last 6 months. I'm not an
>>>expert on either, but I'm assured securing these services to a
>>>reasonable degree is possible.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I would suggest suggest that any new major backup colo in North America
>>should be in a different power grid area.  This would protect from the
>>possible consequences of a major blackout such as occurred in 2003.  As
>>I understand the situation North America has two major power grids, one
>>in the East and one in the West.  Only Texas and Quebec have independent
>>grids.
>>
>>
>
>Agreed.
>
>I'd further recommend that a West Coast location NOT be in California,
>for economic reasons (and, by extension, political reasons that affect
>politics).  Washington state seems to provide a good balance of sorta
>regional technological "savvy" and livable costs.  Plus, y'know, if it
>turned out to be a good idea to move me to the new location, I'd really
>like an opportunity to live in Washington for a while.
>
>
Cool!  If you've been in Florida you'll appreciate Washington's lack of
a state income tax.  Oregon has no state sales tax.  Some Washingtonians
do complain about the Californians who have discovered the place and
driven up property prices. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) [050508 08:31]:

> We don't have the resources to do any of this, which is why we rely on
> sources that do. Usenet isn't one of them.

That's why we rely on this thing called "case by case editorial judgement"
to say whether to use them, and readers use a thing called "a clue" to
judge the value of a given source. Your calls for an instant Arbitration
Committee decision in mid-argument on the matter are, frankly,
mind-boggling.

- d.


from_name: Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon

body:
On 5/8/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> This reminds me that I had a problem some time ago with the
> Special:Export XML. Some XML parsers automatically remove
> spaces/newlines, which are both essential for the wiki markup. While
> that *can* usually be turned off, it is confusing and annoying.

I'm not an XML expert, but it seems to me that we can (and likely
should, due to HTMLish wikitags) wrap the wiki markup in a CDATA
section.  An XML parser that still throws away whitespace in that
situation would be horribly, horribly broken.

--
Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brent at brentdax.com>
Perl and Parrot hacker


subject: [Wikitech-l] user-configurable accesskeys

body:
On 5/8/05, John Fader <jfader at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>        Is there a way for a specific user (not a sysop or developer)
> to set their own accesskey-xxx settings, or to disable accesskeys in
> mediawiki pages altogether?

The accesskeys *seem* to be based in MonoBook.js, which individual
users can override.  See
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_style#Javascript> for more
on this.

--
Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brent at brentdax.com>
Perl and Parrot hacker


subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 11:07:55AM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
> >1.  Maintaining up-to-date realtime mirroring would be a HUGE SUCKING
> >SOUND on bandwidth.  This, it seems to me, is not an option.
> >
> >
> In Jimbo's original article it says: "free bandwith". I do not
> understand what the problem is. The only thing that I do see is that we
> have to optimise as much as possible. It is free as in payed for. This
> means that you want to be thrifty about it anyway.

"Free" does not equal "unlimited".

>
> I also do not understand your preoccupation with data centres in the
> USA. We are an international organisation. Our customers are all over
> this earth.

I do not understand your supposition that I'm "preoccupied" with
datacenters in the USA.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Tomer Chachamu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
On 08/05/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
> >1.  Maintaining up-to-date realtime mirroring would be a HUGE SUCKING
> >SOUND on bandwidth.  This, it seems to me, is not an option.
>
> In Jimbo's original article it says: "free bandwith". I do not
> understand what the problem is. The only thing that I do see is that we
> have to optimise as much as possible. It is free as in payed for. This
> means that you want to be thrifty about it anyway.

We will only be getting a certain amount of bandwidth. We need to
decide how much we will be using for communication with external squid
clusters, external apache clusters, any of these mirroring ideas, and
the users themselves.

If we are given a certain amount of bandwidth, and then the sites work
slowly, will they let us get more? Even if we had previously agreed
that they were giving enough?

Or is the amount of bandwidth we will be getting simply astronomical
and we won't be able to use it all within a few years?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>1.  Maintaining up-to-date realtime mirroring would be a HUGE SUCKING
>SOUND on bandwidth.  This, it seems to me, is not an option.
>
>
In Jimbo's original article it says: "free bandwith". I do not
understand what the problem is. The only thing that I do see is that we
have to optimise as much as possible. It is free as in payed for. This
means that you want to be thrifty about it anyway.

I also do not understand your preoccupation with data centres in the
USA. We are an international organisation. Our customers are all over
this earth.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Usenet as a source

body:
Being bold, I just added a paragraph discussing Usenet as a source to
the "what counts as a reputable publication?" section of [[WP:NOR]].

Oddly enough, it supports my position and contradicts SlimVirgin's ... ;->

Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"

--
  Sean Barrett     | A man about to speak the truth should keep
  sean at epoptic.com | one foot in the stirrup. --Mongol proverb


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] North Frisian wikipedia - arbitrary mention

body:
Wouter,

I have a major issue with this request.

That is: Do you have /any/ native speakers who have expressed interest?

Also, I am a firm believer in North Frisian dialectal solidarity. I do
not think there can or should be a single North Frisian Wikipedia. We
should start with one for Mainland North Frisian, then we can have
another for S?l`ring, one for Ferring, Oomram, etc.

Now, I will lift a quote from an e-mail in response to me on
"lowlands-l" regarding North Frisian:

//begin quote//
You and I and other language "geeks" (and I mean this in the best possible
way of course) would not find the North Frisian varieties all that different
from each other.  We would think they are fairly easily mutually
intelligible.  However, apparently the average person that not think so, and
this seems to be mainly because some of the shifts, especially vowel shifts,
are rather dramatic.  Some people talk about "Frisian *languages*."

Mutual intelligibility is fairly easy between the North Frisian mainland
varieties that developed from a variety imported in the 9th or 10th century,
possibly with an earlier North Frisian substrate (later developing into
insular varieties):

"Shine, old Moon, shine!" H?welmann yelled, but the moon was nowhere to be
seen and the stars weren't either; they had all gone to bed already.

Goesharde/Hoorning:
?Jocht, uule moune, jocht!" biilked H??welmoon, ors e moune waas n?rngs to
sch?ns ?n da steere ok ai; ja weern al aal to beede gingen.

B?kingharde/Mooring:
?Jucht, ??lje moune, jucht!" biiljked H??welmoon, ouers e moune wus nargne
tu sch?ns ?n e st??re uk ai; ja wjarn ?l ?ltum??le tu beed lim.

Wiedingharde:
?Ljocht, uuile moone, ljocht!" biilked H??welmuon, m?n e moone was n??rgen
to sch?ns ?n uk e steere ai; j? w?rn al altomoale to beerd gingen.

Tideland Islands (Halligen):
?Jaacht, uale m??ne, jaacht!" b?lked H??welmoon, man de m??ne woas n??rngs
to siinen ?n de steere uk ee; j? weern al altomaole to beed giangen.

The insular varieties developed from a variet that was imported to the area
in about the 7th century, that on the mainland had come to be overlaid by
another importation (now Continental North Frisian):

Isle of Heligoland:
?Lochte, ool Muun, lochte!" r?p He?welman, oawers de Muun wear naarni tu
sin'n en uk de Steern ni; dja wear al allemoal tu Baad gingen.

Isle of Oomram/Amrum:
?Locht, d? ual muun, locht!" rep Heewelmaan, man a muun wiar nochhuaren tu
sen an a st??ren uk ei; jo wiar al altumaal tu baad gingen.

Isle of Feer/F?hr:
?Locht, ual muun, locht!" rep Heewelmaan, man a muun wiar nochhuaren tu sen
an a st??ren uk ei; jo wiar al altermaal tu baad gingen.

Isle of S?l'/Sylt:
?Ljucht, ual Muun, ljucht!" skriilt H?welmann, man di Muun wiar narigen t?
sen en uk di Stiaren ek; ja wiar al altermaal t? Ber gingen.

Compare these with Westerlauwer ("West") Frisian:

"Skyn, ?ld moanne, skyn!" skreaude H?welmann, mar de moanne wie nearne te
sjen, en de stjerren ek net; hja wiene allegearre al op b?d gien.
//end quote//

At the _very best_, there could maybe be a Wikipedia for "Insular
North Frisian" and one for "Peninsular North Frisian", but according
to native speakers they are mutually unintelligible enough to deserve
their own separate literatures.

Mark

On 08/05/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dear fellow list subscribers,
>
> I just requested a North Frisian wikipedia. As the instructions on top of
> the requests page demand, I am mentioning this request on the mailing list
> now.
>
> According to Aliter from the Westlauwer Frisian wikipedia, the creation of
> Wikipedias for all three Frisian variants was on his and some others'
> agendas, but didn't have a very high priority. As the Seeltersk wikipedia is
> now in the early stage of development, I decided to request a Wikipedia for
> the last remaining Frisian language. Please do not expect its short time
> creation, unless unexpectedly some native speaker comes up doing a lot of
> work.
>
> I am well aware of its huge dialectical differences and we will certainly
> have to take appropriate measurements to cope with these.
>
> Regards,
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Nooit ongewenste berichten ontvangen: gebruik MSN Messenger
> http://messenger.msn.nl/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


message_id:
<426953240026467B@n120.sc0.cp.net> (added by
	postmaster@bouncemessage.net)

from_name: Eden Akhavi

body:
> > I would suggest suggest that any new major backup colo in North
> > America should be in a different power grid area.  This
> would protect
> > from the possible consequences of a major blackout such as
> occurred in
> > 2003.  As I understand the situation North America has two
> major power
> > grids, one in the East and one in the West.  Only Texas and Quebec
> > have independent grids.
>
> Agreed.
>
> I'd further recommend that a West Coast location NOT be in
> California, for economic reasons (and, by extension,
> political reasons that affect politics).  Washington state
> seems to provide a good balance of sorta regional
> technological "savvy" and livable costs.  Plus, y'know, if it
> turned out to be a good idea to move me to the new location,
> I'd really like an opportunity to live in Washington for a while.

California is better connected though that Washington. In California you
also have PAIX which is still quite a major NAP; also MAE West and a few
others. Also the opportunity to private peer with some of the Asian networks
should be very attractive. From memory at the PAIX site networks like KDD,
NTT, China Telecom, Singtel, etc are all there. Using 3rd party transit to
some of these networks (especially China Telecom) is awful; China Telecom
seems to use Sprint for most of its US transit and the interconnect between
the two networks is normally saturated. So for users in China their
experience of Wikimedia is going to be substantially improved by a private
peer.

Bandwidth will probably be cheaper in California, from previous experience
in Oregon we found we could get a 20-30% cost reduction. If you also look at
most carriers network maps, the routes going through Oregon and Washington
do not have the level of protection and redundancy that their central
Californian networks do.

//Eden


message_id:
<42695911002434E5@n126.sc0.cp.net> (added by
	postmaster@bouncemessage.net)

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm hosting strategy

body:
> That hints at one of my problems with the idea of using it as
> concurrent service.  I'll elaborate:
>
> 1.  Maintaining up-to-date realtime mirroring would be a HUGE
> SUCKING SOUND on bandwidth.  This, it seems to me, is not an option.

Does anyone know the actually volume of updates in (MB/GB) per day. With
some smart replication, you could simply pass a diff between sites to avoid
the complete transmission of articles; and pass a CRC for the final article
from the originating server; so you can verify that the article has been
replicated properly. If the replication fails then you pass the complete
article across.

//Eden