from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

references:
<cruo35$2uq$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<9Ob4ZHM8bzB@westermayer-74391.user.cis.dfn.de>
	<crut7q$k47$1@sea.gmane.org> <161674945.20050110225535@lexx.eu.org>
	<cruuq1$6su$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> >Wikipedia is an attempt at making a real multilanguage
>
>> encyclopedia.
>
>
> I agree this.
>
> I do think though that getting from that point to "we must have
> www.wikipedia.org in N languages with virtually no content" is a leap
> of faith more than a leap of logic.

One could take it as a "marketing opportunity" - think of Apple's
OS X install process, which also has the delicate task of getting
the user's language without causing confusion, rage, or worst of
all, a support call. :-)

It starts off with snappy music and flashy graphics, with floating
"Welcome" signs in different languages, then goes to a plain text
menu saying something "use XXX as the main language" written
in each language, with English at the top. (No flags, BTW.)

While a WP portal doesn't necessarily need music and animations,
a graphically-attractive portal should be able to get people more
excited about WP, while at the same time unobtrusively directing
them to the language of choice. As several people have observed,
most users should only ever see the portal once, so it's much
more about first impressions than daily use.

As an example of positive spin, I think even a parochial English
speaker would appreciate an encyclopedia whose material on Mexico
or Greece has been worked on and crosschecked by bilingual
natives of those places. (Yes, I know that argument has all kinds
of holes, but marketing is as much about emotional response as
logic.)

Another idea is to illustrate the portal with a collage built
from our featured pictures, particularly ones evoking different
parts of the globe. People are then choosing preferred language
while feeling, for a moment anyway, like citizens of the world.

Stan


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Justin M. Gregg

subject: [Wikitech-l] mediawiki specialpage:makesysop error

body:
Hi, I am new to using MedaWiki, and when I try to make a sysop from this
page:
http://www.glossologia.org/wiki/index.php/Special:Makesysop

I get the following text:

"Error: could not submit form

This form is used by bureaucrats to turn ordinary users into
administrators. Type the name of the user in the box and press the
button to make the user an administrator

*User "Bob" could not be made into a sysop. (Did you enter the name
correctly?)"
*

I am using MySQL and phpMyAdmin if that helps any. Runs fine for me
except for this problem. Thanks.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] test.wikipedia.org gone for now

body:
With a lot of experimental code that doesn't get looked over as closely
or as quickly as we might all like, I'm not willing to run a CVS
HEAD-based test.wikipedia.org on our main servers anymore. I've
discovered too many holes in code weeks after it went up on test to be
comfortable leaving unvetted code running on our production servers.

At some point we may set up a separate test wiki on one of the
non-main-cluster "test" boxes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Paul Youlten

body:
Could the new wikipedia.org page incorporate the "Go" and "Search" function
with radio (or check boxes) to select the language(s)?

Paul Youlten

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kate Turner" <kate.turner at gmail.com>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 4:40 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Why www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?

> Gr?goire Colbert wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
>> Frank v Waveren a ?crit :
>>> This would be a horrible abuse of HTTP. You should only present the
>>> same content in different languages based on the Accept-Language
>>> field, never to different content. Having links point to different
>>> things based on browser settings would be a nightmare.
>> The fact that www.wikipedia.com does not care about the visitor's
>> language does not seem an "horrible abuse" to you? Only HTTP matters? If
>> so, you've got a strange vision of what a website is made for.
>
>    The issue is not that the portal should "not care" about the user's
> language, but rather that different content should not be presented based
> on the language; the same content should be presented in different
> languages.
>
>    Since en.wikipedia.org and de.wikipedia.org do not have the same
> content, it would not make sense to automatically redirect a user to
> either
> one based on their preferred language.  What should be done is, for
> example, to highlight the Wikipedia(s) that exist in the user's language
> on
> the portal page, and to display the portal's interface in their preferred
> language.
>
>> Gr?goire
>
> Kate.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
I'm working right now on it, expect something soon...

Alfio

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Paul Youlten wrote:

>Could the new wikipedia.org page incorporate the "Go" and "Search" function
>with radio (or check boxes) to select the language(s)?
>
>Paul Youlten
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Kate Turner" <kate.turner at gmail.com>
>To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
>Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 4:40 PM
>Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Why www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?
>
>
>> Gr?goire Colbert wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
>>> Frank v Waveren a ?crit :
>>>> This would be a horrible abuse of HTTP. You should only present the
>>>> same content in different languages based on the Accept-Language
>>>> field, never to different content. Having links point to different
>>>> things based on browser settings would be a nightmare.
>>> The fact that www.wikipedia.com does not care about the visitor's
>>> language does not seem an "horrible abuse" to you? Only HTTP matters? If
>>> so, you've got a strange vision of what a website is made for.
>>
>>    The issue is not that the portal should "not care" about the user's
>> language, but rather that different content should not be presented based
>> on the language; the same content should be presented in different
>> languages.
>>
>>    Since en.wikipedia.org and de.wikipedia.org do not have the same
>> content, it would not make sense to automatically redirect a user to
>> either
>> one based on their preferred language.  What should be done is, for
>> example, to highlight the Wikipedia(s) that exist in the user's language
>> on
>> the portal page, and to display the portal's interface in their preferred
>> language.
>>
>>> Gr?goire
>>
>> Kate.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: NSK

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: www portal: "The Free Encyclopedia" in Japanese?

body:
On Monday 10 January 2005 09:36, Mark Williamson wrote:
> This is bad for usability for blind people, and some languages use

same for flags

> multiple scripts or the same scripts as other languages.

similar problem exists for flags

--
NSK
Come to see the new wikiprojects at http://portal.wikinerds.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
Please now have a look at

http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php

(note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and Italian
browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are Google translation fault:-))

This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box with text in
your language, and a drop-down selection of the available languages, with
yours selected first. Try changing your browser from en: to fr: or it:.

If you change the language preference and reload, your browser might
retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you won't see the
new one automatically selected. In that case, try clearing your cache
(Firefox has a special cache for form data that needs to be cleared).

Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
external configuration file is not a problem.

Alfio


list: wikien-l

from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Read the Signpost

body:
Where do I find it?

Christiaan

On 10 Jan 2005, at 4:03 pm, John Lee wrote:

> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>
>> --- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> In light of the size of Wikipedia, it's increasingly difficult for
>>> people to keep track of significant happenings in the community.
>>> I've made a new effort to collect this information by actually
>>> writing
>>> about it. In other words, I've started a newspaper.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
> Indeed; I find this much more useful than Goings-on, which was just
> lists. This actually has prose to read; good job so far!
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] HTML-to-XML

body:
As we were (OK: I am;-) running into trouble integrating HTML-to-XML
parsing into the Bison-based parser, I have written a specialized C++
class that can do this prior to the actual parsing. It will output only
correct XML *structure*, and (as far as I can tell) correct XHTML rules
(<tr> in <table> etc.) as well.

"Broken" HTML will be changed into < / > entities, so only valid
XML will reach the output. However, I took some care to automagically
fix the "usual suspects" (obligatory 21C3 reference) of HTML ugliness,
like not-closed <li> and various table chaos. Even a lonely <caption>
(not closed) somewhere in the text will generate a full table. It might
not be pretty, but it will be vaild XML.

While this is primarily intended for the wiki-to-XML parser, it might
work for enforcing XML output for the current parser as well. We'd only
have to run the wiki source through it before actually parsing.

Source: CVS HEAD, Module "flexbisonparse", file "html2xml.cpp". (GPL, of
course)

Magnus


from_name: Stephen Forrest

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

references:
<cruo35$2uq$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<9Ob4ZHM8bzB@westermayer-74391.user.cis.dfn.de>
	<crut7q$k47$1@sea.gmane.org> <161674945.20050110225535@lexx.eu.org>

body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:55:35 +0100, Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski
<fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> PP> www.wikipedia.org ends up as not particularly useful to anyone, and hard
> PP> to make non-ugly. Thus not much of a benefit, and we have to weigh
> PP> against the "broken" links to www.wikipedia.org that have built up over
> PP> the years.
>
> Unlike Amazon, other languages are not just foreign divisions of the American
> company, but Wikipedia is an attempt at making a real multilanguage
> encyclopedia. Are you saying that Wikipedia should be US-centric?

Wikipedia ought not be US-centric, or English-centric.  In the short
term, however, it benefits Wikipedia to be useful to people who wish
to use it, and I would suspect there are still more of these
interested in en: than any other language.  There will be considerable
numbers of casual readers who will be deterred by having to make any
choice on language, however trivial.

At the very least, the current portal could be changed to say "Select
your preferred language" or some such thing.  I suspect there are many
English speakers who would not even recognize the list currently on
www.wikipedia.org as a list of languages.  People who have no exposure
to languages beyond their own can have a very low tolerance for
reading foreign words before flinging up their hands in exasperation.

(Even here in Canada, an English-speaking country that is more
bilingual than most, I have known people who have become confused,
irritated, or even enraged at hearing "for English, press one" on
voicemail systems.)

For a larger solution: I suggest we seriously consider the idea of
auto-forwarding based on some combination of user location or browser
language settings.  Of course, a user must be able to override this.

Steve


from_name: Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Yet another portal page

body:
AP> Did you look at the page? The selected page is shown as big as the 5 major
AP> languages, while the other languages are smaller. If that's not
AP> acceptable, then also the current www.wikipedia.org portal is not.
AP> Alfio

It would be better if the text was also in that language.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags

body:
On Monday 10 January 2005 16:50, Delirium wrote:
> I think you're underestimating just how many countries there are for

I see Wikipedians arguing and discussing all the time about flags and
languages, while they do nothing to improve the present ugly portal. Why
don't do the obvious? Create a non-ugly design inspired from
http://www.europa.eu.int , and then discuss the flags etc.

Wikipedia suffers from many voices, often contradictory. I think you need an
influential leader to take final decisions (after community input of course).

--
NSK
Come to see the new wikiprojects at http://portal.wikinerds.org


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Could somebody please help remove this block?

body:
What I believe the block was for was inserting the "i.e. Hilary [sic]
Clinton" reference to "bitch", and possibly "usually unattractive" to
skank.

To me, this block does seem a little OTT, given that there were no
warnings given.

Whatever the reasoning, the block ought to be removed.  That it isn't
is a result of a fault in the MediaWiki software.  If I were an admin,
I'd unblock you.  Not being so, I can't.

But you ought be a little more careful.  Actually, Hyacinth has
written some **** on that page as well.

Smoddy

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:25:00 -0600, J Crews <ordrestjean at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm fairly new at this and would appreciate your help.
>
> The following block is several days overdue for removal:
>
> 02:32, 6 Jan 2005, Hyacinth blocked 155.84.57.253 (expires 02:32, 7 Jan
> 2005) (contribs) (vandalism to [[List of sexual slurs]]
> ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
>
> The person that placed the block will not respond to my polite enquiries.  I
> don't even know what I allegedly did wrong to deserve the charge of
> "vandalism".   It appears that Hyacinth has a running feud with several
> other contributors, and he/she? may have confused me for one of them.
>
> Sincere Thanks, your fellow contributor "Can'tStandYa"  aka   155.84.57.253
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:55:19 -0800 (PST), Christopher Mahan
<chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:

> How about a beautiful png world map with language zones rather than
> countries. Then, drill down to regions, then drill-down to areas. I
> bet it could be made really cool.

Such a thing would be nice, but it's important also to realize that
other interfaces would also be necessary: we have wikipedias in
extinct languages (Anglo-Saxon, Gothic) or languages which are
important but have a very small geographical range at present (Latin).

Steve


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Possible 3RR breaches by sock puppets

body:
Robert Brookes wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> I would appreciate some assistence in this matter.
>
> While I appreciate that the use of sock puppets is no more than frowned upon at Wikipedia the using of sock puppets to breach the 3RR is certainly not allowed.
>
> Therefore it is requested that someone inform me how to establish how to do it myself (or if it is restricted) then to establish whether the following users are one and the same or just a clever tag-team arrangement.
>
> Michael Glass
> Robert Blair
> 207.69.137.205
> 207.69.138.202
> 207.69.137.136
> 207.69.137.206
> 4.231.23.133
>
> Much obliged
> Robert

Judging by the IP numbers, Michael Glass is different (different
country) and the rest are the same person.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
Alfio Puglisi wrote:

>Please now have a look at
>
>http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
>
>(note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and Italian
>browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are Google translation fault:-))
>
>This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box with text in
>your language, and a drop-down selection of the available languages, with
>yours selected first. Try changing your browser from en: to fr: or it:.
>
>If you change the language preference and reload, your browser might
>retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you won't see the
>new one automatically selected. In that case, try clearing your cache
>(Firefox has a special cache for form data that needs to be cleared).
>
>Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
>external configuration file is not a problem.
>
>Alfio
>
Hoi,
I like it, it is a nice experiment, one thing you could add is the
template with all the sisterprojects. A great example of what this could
look like can be found on the Commons Main Page. Another thing to
enhance it, is by adding the picture of the day as featured on Commons.
You add a little colour and a picture and as a result it is a bit more
cheerfull. :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: A Scots Wikipedia (was: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: com)

body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 03:06:12 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> The bit where he suggested someone write one if they want to fix it is
> probably a reason ;-)
>
> (I'm surprised there isn't a [[en:Scots language]] wikipedia yet. I'll see
> if I can interest Juthware from scotstext.org ...)

I've thought the same for a while.  I don't know any Scots (aside from
the words to Auld Lang Syne and some Burns) but would be willing to
learn and contribute.

I think a Scots wikipedia would be pretty successful.  Because Scots
is close to English, the barrier to entry for amateurs is much lower
than for the other smaller British languages.

Steve


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:

>Then use the correct address for English Wikipedia, which is
>en.wikipedia.org.
>
>
Well, since the "correct" address keeps changing, from www.wikipedia.com
to www.wikipedia.org to en.wikipedia.org (and on occasion including
en2.wikipedia.org for good measure), one might forgive the casual reader
for being a bit confused...

-Mark


list: foundation-l

from_name: notafish

subject: [Foundation-l] donate to Wikimedia Deutschland

body:
> >The fundraising pages in the languages that are members of the euro-zone should
> >make this the first option of payment.
> >
> >
> Languages aren't members of the euro-zone though; countries are.  Is
> "French" a member of the euro-zone (France) or not (Canada)?  Etc.
> Obviously it makes no sense for a French-speaking Canadian to donate via
> a German bank account, since that would involve international
> bank-transfer fees.

Actually, any country to country transfer, even in the Euro-zone, in
euros, involves a fee (go figure ! banks could not let go such a
source of revenue). Of course, ALL donation pages in ALL the
languages, should clearly present the best way to give (ie. the
cheapest both for the donor and the receiver depending on the donor's
location and currency).

Maybe in the long run the French and German chapters should look into
having a special tick box which would allow donors to choose where
their money goes (ie. specifically the local chapter - providing the
local chapters have an idea of what to do with the money on a local
basis - or Wikimedia Foundation). This would allow for the local
chapter to transfer the money to Wikimedia Foundation (or, as elian
says, depending on laws allowing it or not, buy servers for the
Foundation  etc.).

My two cents (of a euro).

Delphine

PS. The French chapter will soooon be done and have its bank. :)


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Slowness of Wikipedia

body:
Thank you for taking the time to reply, Tim. The information's much
appreciated.

A day or so in read-only mode? But I'm completely addicted. Gulp. That
may require round-the-clock anesthesia.

Slim

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:45:58 +1100, Tim Starling
<t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Ariel ran out of disk space and suda was made the master DB server. We'll probably have to switch the site into read-only mode for a day or
> so to fix this.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Licensing

body:
On Monday 10 January 2005 16:51, John Lee wrote:
> Instead, we make all edits by anons and new users after a certain date
> dual-licensed under the GFDL and the CC-by-sa (or some other preferable)
> license. Sure, this does not solve anything in the short run. However,
> the point is, eventually, some time far far away in the future,
> everything on Wikipedia can be assurably be useable under both the
> CC-by-sa and GFDL licenses. Whether we want to then switch solely to the
> CC-by-sa or stick with the dual-license is not a decision for now.

In our wikiprojects at http://www.wikinerds.org and especially at
http://www.nerdypc.org we use both the GFDL and the CC-BY-SA2 with great
success (we have received positive comments from users). We even allow
anybody to choose what licensing terms they want for their articles. We
understand that many people have strong opinions about licenses and we dont
really want to force them to use any single license. we believe that we can
educate them to choose the best lic for their work so we allow them to choose
within a set of approved licenses. this means that every single page of our
wikis may have different licensing. we consider this good because we praise
the individuality of every member of Wikinerds.org and we want to allow them
to express their character fully, even through their license of choice.

beware of the following paragraphcontains some wikipedia-related "rant", don't
read it if you dont like and proceed to the next paragraph.

(rant)

In contrast, it my opinion that Wikipedia.org is collectivistic since does not
accept signed articles, author bios, different licenses, etc. thus, IMO,
wikipedia is oppressive to individualistic character traits or anything that
is different than the usual group think and practices of the community - how
many users have been labelled trolls recently without good reason in
wikipedia.org? Nevertheless, I do recognise that WP has done lots of good
work on the Net and this is amazing (but u can do more if u listen to
external evaluators - not members of the group think - and change policies).

(/rant)

At Wikinerds.org we believe that we have found the best balance between
individualism and the community. we have even set up a special experimental
wiki at http://jnana.wikinerds.org/ where individual freedom is guaranteed
and anything that is legal and does not cause any nuisance to me or to other
users is permitted!

I think dual-licensing under gfdl and cc is great practice, as long as the
sharealike parameter of cc is used and enforced.

I have asked this question when I met RMS this summer (at a speech): Is
dual-licensing good or bad? (between gpl and another lic). He said it depends
on the other license. (everything after this notice are my ideas - not rms')
I interpreted it as a reference to copyleft: if the other license allows
sublicensing (like bsd) then it hindersthe purpose of gpl, but if the other
license is just another copyleft pool, then theres no prob with that IMO.

However I would object any movement for CC-only licensing in wikipedia. I
think gfdl is the license of choice when it comes to large texts which need
effective copyleft protection. please dont abandon gfdl.

some ppl disagree with fsf politics so they prefer cc to gfdl/gpl. but there
is no good reason to avoid fsf, except if your salary comes from that
monopoly in the city starting with the word R :) if you haven't met rms I
suggest you to go to some speech and discuss with him (if he has time for u).
it is true that many people dont like him, but it it my belief that this is
not because of his ideas but because of his activism style. but even if you
dont like his style, you should accept that he does good work and really
helped very much with the softpatent problem here in EU.

This message does not contain any legal advice and I have no special knowledge
of law (IANAL). Statements made about other persons or projects in this
message reflect only my personal beliefs and perceptions of the discussed
persons or projects. The reader is asked to check the facts and not rely only
on beliefs ([[Baconian method]]).

(sorry for any mispellings etc but i was writting quickly and have no time to
check and fix the msg now.)

--
NSK
Come to see the new wikiprojects at http://portal.wikinerds.org


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wikipadia

body:
Sean Barrett a ?crit:
> Mark Williamson stated for the record:
>
>> I think the creativity of the domain squatter at work there should be
>> applauded. It also exemplifies the wonderful freedom of the internet
>> and how it applies to EVERYBODY. I think we should let it be rather
>> than harassing somebody trying to make a living by screwing others.
>>
>> Mark
>
>
>
> To ensure the security of our trolls as well as our serious
> correspondents, please observe the following safety precautions:
>
> Trolls are wild. Please stay on the visitor paths, observe posted signs
> and do not reach into or climb on exhibits.
>
> Please do not throw things at the trolls.
>
> Please do not feed the trolls.
>
> Making loud noises may startle the trolls.
>
> Thank you for your cooperation.

Thank you for the laugh tonight :-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
S> I singled out the en: wikipedia because anyone using URL shortcuts, or
S> posting links to "wikipedia.org" and expecting them to get to the en:
S> main page, would have -- until last week -- intended to direct readers
S> to en.

And that's why I think they should *not* be redirected automatically.
This portal makes people more aware of the existance of other language
Wikipedias.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New community newspaper on en:

body:
Michael, this is a very good idea and I read it with much interest.
Several attempts have already been made with the goal of keeping people
informed, and most have basically failed becuase of lack of people
motivated to keep up with the good work. I hope very very much that you
stick to it and find other editors to help you, because the result is
very nice.

Anthere

Michael Snow a ?crit:
> (With my apologies for cross-posting to different mailing lists. I wrote
> a separate message to wikien-l, so some of you will have already read
> about this, but I thought it would be good to mention this to some of
> the non-English Wikipedians who don't subscribe there.)
>
> As the English Wikipedia has gotten so big that even the most active and
> experienced users can't really follow all of the major events there,
> I've started a newspaper to try and collect that information for people.
> You can find it here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost
>
> Obviously, anyone is welcome to read it, but it's intended to be mostly
> for and about the English Wikipedia. Collectively (and in some cases,
> individually), all the other languages could undoubtedly have a similar
> newspaper, but I don't speak all those languages, and I'm only one
> person. Anyway, I think this is the sort of thing that we develop
> according to need, so whenever any individual project thinks it needs
> this, feel free to use and adapt this idea.
>
> --Michael Snow


body:
I like that option. Now, we could even put a bit of editorial content
based on language recognition (not too much) and some images to improve
the looks. Don't you think it would be nice ?

Ant

Alfio Puglisi a ?crit:
> Please now have a look at
>
> http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
>
> (note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and Italian
> browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are Google translation fault:-))
>
> This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box with text in
> your language, and a drop-down selection of the available languages, with
> yours selected first. Try changing your browser from en: to fr: or it:.
>
> If you change the language preference and reload, your browser might
> retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you won't see the
> new one automatically selected. In that case, try clearing your cache
> (Firefox has a special cache for form data that needs to be cleared).
>
> Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
> external configuration file is not a problem.
>
> Alfio


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki system message commons?

body:
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:17:15 +0000, Rowan Collins
<rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]
> I believe you have misunderstood the translation process, which I
> believe is roughly as follows [please don't take this as gospel and
> blame me if someone else tells you it's *not* like this]:
[snip]

I suspect that the idea behind James' question was to share MediaWiki
system messages across Wikipedias in the same language.  (This is
because I happen to know that the Language*.php system is not used on
the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia.)

For example, once we define on ang.wikipedia.org the value "Sibba
hwierfunga" for the MediaWiki variable MediaWiki:Recentchangeslinked,
it might be nice to automagically have the same customisation
available to ang.wikibooks.org or ang.wikinews.org (if the latter
existed).  Since all the wikimedia wikis we're talking about are
running MediaWiki, it is the same set of messages available for
localization in every wiki.

I would argue that the MediaWiki messages are most useful if they are
language-specific, not project-specific.  If English Wikipedia and
English Wikinews have need of different translations for the same
MediaWiki variable, then this is evidence that one or both need to
introduce another, project-specific MediaWiki variable for this
specific purpose.

Steve


body:
Sure, but I'm unable to do any graphics work apart from black text on
white background :-) If someone does an aesthetically pleasing html page I
can modify it to be language-dynamic.

BTW I added the localized logo instead of the generic one.

Alfio

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Anthere wrote:

>I like that option. Now, we could even put a bit of editorial content
>based on language recognition (not too much) and some images to improve
>the looks. Don't you think it would be nice ?
>
>Ant
>
>Alfio Puglisi a ?crit:
>> Please now have a look at
>>
>> http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
>>
>> (note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and Italian
>> browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are Google translation fault:-))
>>
>> This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box with text in
>> your language, and a drop-down selection of the available languages, with
>> yours selected first. Try changing your browser from en: to fr: or it:.
>>
>> If you change the language preference and reload, your browser might
>> retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you won't see the
>> new one automatically selected. In that case, try clearing your cache
>> (Firefox has a special cache for form data that needs to be cleared).
>>
>> Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
>> external configuration file is not a problem.
>>
>> Alfio
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags

body:
I'm aware of the issues regarding the flags, but if you put up a British
flag, or the flag of France, or the flag of Germany, I'm going to understand
you mean English, French, and German.  It's already done on many other
websites to choose languages.  Why not just use the "country of origin" to
determine the flag?  That'll solve the problem of all the French, Spanish,
and English speaking countries.

Just a thought.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ronald Chmara
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 10:45 AM
To: Mark Williamson; wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags

On Jan 10, 2005, at 12:41 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> However, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to have it on an
> international portal to represent the Sicilian language. If flags MUST
> be used, then without a question that is the flag that should be used
> to represent the Sicilian language, but otherwise I think flags should
> be absent altogether.

In regards to flags, might I suggest, in the spirit of "A Modest
Proposal":
For each language spoken,  rather than use one flag for "color", might
I suggest that each language have representational flags representing
all countries where 1% or more of the resident population speaks that
language. Thus, for the english language, we would have a mere 38 flags
or so, making sure we had quite a colorful and attractive layout. Same
with French, Spanish, and possibly a few other languages. At the top
and bottom of each page, rather than having something dull and legible
like text, we could have hundreds of bright and colorful flags,
representing all of the recognized and provisional nationalities, so
one may switch to flags, rather than languages!

Of course, in order to provide the needed detail on flags, we might
need to limit flag sizes to a minimum of 128 pixels in order to not
insult a given nation. Sure, for 6-10,000 flags
(nations/state-province-region/locale), this may require several
screens of flags before one can read articles text, but nationalism and
regionalism is a good thing! In order to access a given language, we
could break it up into multiple screens, so one could simply click on a
nationality flag, and then a subset flag representing a state or
region, and if needed, a locality flag, and thus be presented with a
small array of word flags to represent the some 6,000+ languages spoken
in the world today. Thus, by using a complex series of flags to
determine language, we can avoid the utter simplification of using
actual languages to select languages, and provoke needed nationalism,
patriotic sentiment, and jingoism around the world!

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_speakers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries

-Bop

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
Without language detection you only have two options:

- a page with ONLY the languages listing, like the European portal
proposed by Sj
- a page in English, hoping that the majority of the online community can
read it.

The current page at www.wikipedia.org is a compromise with a language
listing, some English-only content, and some limited multilanguage
content.

Detecting the language enables you to, at least, present what would
normally be English-only in a language that your reader understands.

Alfio

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Mark Williamson wrote:

>Again, any browser-setting based redirect or even not a redirect but a
>simple "your language: xxx" notice suffers from problems I have
>already enumerated.
>
>Mark
>
>On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:03:53 +0100 (MET), Alfio Puglisi
><puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
>>
>> Please now have a look at
>>
>> http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
>>
>> (note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and Italian
>> browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are Google translation fault:-))
>>
>> This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box with text in
>> your language, and a drop-down selection of the available languages, with
>> yours selected first. Try changing your browser from en: to fr: or it:.
>>
>> If you change the language preference and reload, your browser might
>> retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you won't see the
>> new one automatically selected. In that case, try clearing your cache
>> (Firefox has a special cache for form data that needs to be cleared).
>>
>> Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
>> external configuration file is not a problem.
>>
>> Alfio
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Hendrik Brummermann

subject: [Wikitech-l] Proposal to show pdf icon

body:
Thomas Gries wrote:
>>The current "external.png" implementation is horribly broken in
>>languages that are right to left like Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic. So let's
>>create a "pdf icon" only when the implementation of the external.png is
>>fixed. Let's not add more garbage in a manner that we know is broken.
> however, it doesn't matter, where that icon actually is (left or right
> -- this can be programmable, dependent on the direction of writing).
> My point is, do we want this or not ?

How do you want to detect whether an URL points to a PDF-file (i. e. not
something that Internet Exlporer would executeable but is called
"something.pdf")

Hendrik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:

> This portal makes people more aware of the existance of other language
> Wikipedias.

Playing devil's advocate a little, but why should I care, really, that
there is a Japanese Wikipedia. There are Japanese amazons and googles
too, but they are not forced down my throat.

Pete

p.s. here "I" means a "casual reader of English encyclopedias"


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:

> PP> Playing devil's advocate a little, but why should I care, really, that
> PP> there is a Japanese Wikipedia. There are Japanese amazons and googles
> PP> too, but they are not forced down my throat.
> PP> Pete
> PP> p.s. here "I" means a "casual reader of English encyclopedias"
>
> Then use the correct address for English Wikipedia, which is
> en.wikipedia.org.

Like I'm forced to use www.amazon.co.us to avoid amazon's portal?


from_name: Josh Gerdes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Read the Signpost

body:
It's at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost.

Excellent work, by the way.

Josh Gerdes
[[User:JoshG]]

Christiaan Briggs wrote:
> Where do I find it?
>
> Christiaan
>
> On 10 Jan 2005, at 4:03 pm, John Lee wrote:
>
>> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>>
>>> --- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> In light of the size of Wikipedia, it's increasingly difficult for
>>>> people to keep track of significant happenings in the community.
>>>> I've made a new effort to collect this information by actually writing
>>>> about it. In other words, I've started a newspaper.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>> Indeed; I find this much more useful than Goings-on, which was just
>> lists. This actually has prose to read; good job so far!
>>
>> John Lee
>> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: j.levrel at free.fr

subject: [Wikitech-l] A still difficult work on data

body:
Hi,

Thank you Jakob for added me on this page
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research, I will try to get some information on
it. Normally I will finish the redaction of the first and little part of my
work till middle february. Mainly in french but I will translate it in English
too.

Thank also for the link download.mediawiki.org, I take (firstly) the french
Wikipedia, cause 80G whoa !! I understand now why France is a little bit in
late for the IT society :/

But I have still a problem. Ok I have the articles and all history of them in
the database, but I don't see the "User:" pages. Maybe it's not the same with
en.wikipedia. Does it really contains the user pages? If this is not the case,
can we have access to these datas without being connected?

One more time ... thank you for your enthousiasm.

Julien Levrel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
MW> Again, any browser-setting based redirect or even not a redirect but a
MW> simple "your language: xxx" notice suffers from problems I have
MW> already enumerated.

How is a notice based on the browser language of the user's choice a
bad idea escapes me. It makes it easier for people who want to use
Wikipedia in their browser language, and for the others, who are most
likely a minority, the other languages are still listed.

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


from_name: Pawe³ 'Ausir' Dembowski

subject: [Foundation-l] legal question

body:
RS> That depends on just what you are making policies about.  The principles
RS> of NPOV, respect for copyright and respect for each other are quite
RS> fundamental and should apply across the board.

And this is one of the reasons why I'm opposed to Wikipeople - it will
certainly not maintain NPOV.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] legal question


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
PP> Playing devil's advocate a little, but why should I care, really, that
PP> there is a Japanese Wikipedia. There are Japanese amazons and googles
PP> too, but they are not forced down my throat.
PP> Pete
PP> p.s. here "I" means a "casual reader of English encyclopedias"

Then use the correct address for English Wikipedia, which is
en.wikipedia.org.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
Till Westermayer wrote:

> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
>
> Hi Pete/Pcb21,
>
> maybe here you (the casual English encylopedias readers) are the
> minority. It benefits everyone else.
>
> Till

But why would a French-speaker want to read the Japanese Wikipedia either?

www.wikipedia.org ends up as not particularly useful to anyone, and hard
to make non-ugly. Thus not much of a benefit, and we have to weigh
against the "broken" links to www.wikipedia.org that have built up over
the years.


from_name: Till Westermayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Licensing

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi NSK,

why exactly do you discussion on Wikipedia-L if you think Wikipedia is
so wrong?

Anyways, I want to corret an factual error in your rant

>In contrast, it my opinion that Wikipedia.org is collectivistic
>since does not accept signed articles,

They are implictly signed via the article history.

>author bios,

Ever heard of [[User:NSK]] pages? Here everybody can put a bio, list all
his/her contributions and so on. Isn't that an author bio?

>different licenses,

Nobody hinders one to state on ones user-page that every contribution of
that user is dual-licenced, as long as the second-licence is compatible
to GFDL.

>etc. thus, IMO, wikipedia is oppressive to
>individualistic character traits or anything that is different
>than the usual group think and practices of the community - how
>many users have been labelled trolls recently without good reason
>in wikipedia.org?

Not so many. The only one I can think of often happens to behave
somewhat trollish.

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Mark,

>Again, any browser-setting based redirect or even not a redirect
>but a simple "your language: xxx" notice suffers from problems I
>have already enumerated.

What is the problem with an "your language: German" according to my
browser settings and the possiblity for me to select "English",
"Alemmanisch" or even "Tagalog" in the list below? I don't understand
why this new proposal -- which is helpful in prominently showing a
language the user is understanding and using according to his/her
browser settings, but let's them decide if they want to use this or
another -- is dangerous. Looks to me more like a "oh, so no one will
edit the small languages anymore" issue.

Till

>Mark

>On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:03:53 +0100 (MET), Alfio Puglisi
><puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
>>
>> Please now have a look at
>>
>> http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
>>
>> (note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and
>> Italian browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are
>> Google translation fault:-))
>>
>> This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box
>> with text in your language, and a drop-down selection of the
>> available languages, with yours selected first. Try changing
>> your browser from en: to fr: or it:.
>>
>> If you change the language preference and reload, your browser
>> might retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you
>> won't see the new one automatically selected. In that case, try
>> clearing your cache (Firefox has a special cache for form data
>> that needs to be cleared).
>>
>> Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
>> external configuration file is not a problem.
>>
>> Alfio
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: John Lee

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags

body:
Ronald Chmara wrote:

>
> In regards to flags, might I suggest, in the spirit of "A Modest
> Proposal":
> For each language spoken,  rather than use one flag for "color", might
> I suggest that each language have representational flags representing
> all countries where 1% or more of the resident population speaks that
> language. Thus, for the english language, we would have a mere 38
> flags or so, making sure we had quite a colorful and attractive
> layout. Same with French, Spanish, and possibly a few other languages.
> At the top and bottom of each page, rather than having something dull
> and legible like text, we could have hundreds of bright and colorful
> flags, representing all of the recognized and provisional
> nationalities, so one may switch to flags, rather than languages!
>
> <snip>
>
How odd - I just had a similar idea. I don't think mine goes as far as
Ronald's though; mine is just purely for aesthetic purposes. I would
suggest that in place of flags on Jens' layout, we have mosaics of flags
- miniature flags all combined together to form one giant flag. So the
"flag" for France, for example, might include the Canadian (or
Quebecian, or whatever they're called, flag) as well as the French.
There are two criteria for inclusion of a flag in the mosaic that I can
think of; either the language must be an official language of the
country, or it must be spoken by more than x percent of people in the
country.

There are of course cons to this approach. Chinese would still have the
original problem, though perhaps with selective IP guessing, we could
filter it... Another is that eventually the number of flags may be so
many that the "flag" mosaic will not contain any visible flags but
instead smudges of varying colours.

But still, it's a unique approach. I just can't stand the portal being
so...ugly as it is.

John Lee
([[en:User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Pete/Pcb21,

maybe here you (the casual English encylopedias readers) are the
minority. It benefits everyone else.

Till

>Pawe| 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:

>> This portal makes people more aware of the existance of other
>> language Wikipedias.

>Playing devil's advocate a little, but why should I care, really,
>that there is a Japanese Wikipedia. There are Japanese amazons and
>googles too, but they are not forced down my throat.

>Pete

>p.s. here "I" means a "casual reader of English encyclopedias"

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

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Slowness of Wikipedia

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>Thank you for taking the time to reply, Tim. The information's much
>appreciated.
>
>A day or so in read-only mode? But I'm completely addicted. Gulp. That
>may require round-the-clock anesthesia.
>
It's just read-only to regular folks, the cabal will be still be
able to edit and get everything their own way, bwahaha.

Lots to do when WP is not online though - go to the university
library and get info out of the many books there (most of that
info is not online anywhere, WP article will be the first
appearance), also take pictures and prepare them for uploading.
30,000 towns in the US alone, every town article should have at
least one picture so the rest of us can see what it looks like.

Stan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

references:
<cruo35$2uq$1@sea.gmane.org>	<9Ob4ZHM8bzB@westermayer-74391.user.cis.dfn.de>	<crut7q$k47$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<161674945.20050110225535@lexx.eu.org>

body:
 >Wikipedia is an attempt at making a real multilanguage
> encyclopedia.

I agree this.

I do think though that getting from that point to "we must have
www.wikipedia.org in N languages with virtually no content" is a leap of
faith more than a leap of logic.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User Rights changes

body:
Hello all,

            From previous e-mails, I was reading about other levels of user
access, and was thinking.could we create a page wherein a current
administrator can give two or three extra rights to a user?  Say, the user
Jibberjabber wants to give JibberJunior the ability to block users, and
protect/unprotect, and for only a week's time?  Sounds somewhat like what
the list was discussing.

James


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:55:35 +0100, Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski
<fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> Unlike Amazon, other languages are not just foreign divisions of the American
> company, but Wikipedia is an attempt at making a real multilanguage
> encyclopedia. Are you saying that Wikipedia should be US-centric?

This is a good point - sitting here in the UK, I frequently forget
that amazon.com will take me to the *US* site; perhaps if I was in
Germany, it would try harder, but Nicholas Knight suggests this kind
of thing isn't very reliable.

I notice Google.com now redirects to Google.co.uk, which is nice, so
maybe it *is* possible, but Google have a hell of a lot of resources
to throw at this kind of thing, and yet have taken years to get that
working. I remember seeing references to them doing this for Canada
long ago, and wondering why the same trick couldn't be used for the
UK; I believe they do it by IP address of something. Which means, of
course, that it wouldn't be much good for a strictly *language*-based,
rather than *geographic* test, which is what Wikipedia.com needs...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Licensing

body:
I know this is a very prickly issue, and I'm going to get a lot flak for
saying this, but...I think it's time we reconsidered the ramifications
of the GFDL. I'm not interested in rehashing what's been said before in
favour and against using the GFDL, but last night I thought of a
solution that seems it'd please everyone; basically we do not ask old
users to relicense; they can do so voluntarily, but there will be no
community drive to get established contributors to multi-license or
relicense their contributions.

Instead, we make all edits by anons and new users after a certain date
dual-licensed under the GFDL and the CC-by-sa (or some other preferable)
license. Sure, this does not solve anything in the short run. However,
the point is, eventually, some time far far away in the future,
everything on Wikipedia can be assurably be useable under both the
CC-by-sa and GFDL licenses. Whether we want to then switch solely to the
CC-by-sa or stick with the dual-license is not a decision for now.

However, I think this is probably one of the very few ways to switch
licenses if we ever need to. Turning the giant oil tanker of licensing
contributions around is very difficult, and will take years, but such is
the price of progress. This way, everyone is happy; if people want to
change Wikipedia's license (or at the very least make it dual-licensed
so as to avoid all those annoying problems with using GFDL material),
they can do so gradually, and the GFDL will still be preserved.

If we want to change licenses, I think this is a decision that should be
made sooner than later. I am not suggesting rushing the decision, but
the sooner we do this, the faster we can turn the boat around. Of
course, if the community wants to simply stick with the GFDL, that's
okay, but at least this seems like a reasonable "exit route" if we ever
need it.

John Lee
([[en:User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [WikiEN-l] Portals, flags, chaos

body:
Hello Nicholas,

Monday, January 10, 2005, 10:21:50 PM, you wrote:

NK> Sj wrote:
>> A global portal is a fine idea; has been for many moons.  But why in
>> the world did this change happen with such little notice?

NK> I don't see any particularly avoidable english-centrism (we can't
NK> duplicate everything in every language, and English is essentially the
NK> lingua franca of academics and even the internet; much as I hate the
NK> language, it's presently the logical choice for certain things), nor do
NK> I see anything hard to navigate. If there's a problem, you can edit the
NK> portal yourself on meta:

All the text (including the article count) could be repeated in all 6
50,000+ languages, though.

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


from_name: Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

references:
<cruo35$2uq$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<9Ob4ZHM8bzB@westermayer-74391.user.cis.dfn.de>
	<crut7q$k47$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
PP> www.wikipedia.org ends up as not particularly useful to anyone, and hard
PP> to make non-ugly. Thus not much of a benefit, and we have to weigh
PP> against the "broken" links to www.wikipedia.org that have built up over
PP> the years.

Unlike Amazon, other languages are not just foreign divisions of the American
company, but Wikipedia is an attempt at making a real multilanguage
encyclopedia. Are you saying that Wikipedia should be US-centric?

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


from_name: Jens Ropers

body:
On 10 Jan 2005, at 19:00, notafish wrote:

> Actually, any country to country transfer, even in the Euro-zone, in
> euros, involves a fee

Yes and no.

I refer you to:
http://www.bankofireland.ie/html/gws/business/online_banking/border/

That page is actually about a lot more than just the IBAN/BIC transfers
(it includes info on other bank transfer services with a view to
business use).
But it contains a crucial statement:

"EU Regulation 2560/2001 requires all providers of cross border payment
services to ensure that charges levied in respect of cross border
electronic payments in Euro up to ?12,500*, to EU [countries], are the
same as charges for corresponding payments in Euro, within the relevant
member state"

I also refer you to:
http://tinyurl.com/53be8

Yes, because your bank ''might'' actually still charge you for those
cross-border transactions inside the EU (=IBAN/BIC transactions) -- IF
AND ONLY IF they charge you for domestic transactions as well. If they
charge you more for an IBAN/BIC transaction than for a domestic
transaction, they're breaking the law.

No, because with many banks, a certain number of domestic transactions
are included in a quarterly fee anyway, so they're "free" -- and if
domestic transactions are free to you then IBAN/BIC transactions have
to be free as well.

Admittedly, there's no such thing as a free lunch and you do actually
pay for those "free" transactions through your quarterly fee (or --if
you've got a bigger pile of dough in the bank-- through interest the
bank can earn on your money, some of which they may not pass on to
you).

But the point's made:
Cross-country bank transfers inside the EU now come at domestic prices.
If you're paying more you're being ripped off.

(NB: This regulation actually applies to ''transfers executed in euro
between EU states'' (not just inside the [[Eurozone]]). So I can do an
IBAN/BIC transfer from Germany to the UK (which is not (yet?) inside
the Eurozone), and have the dosh come into the British current account
(which is in Pounds Sterling (GBP)) and still avail of the free/low fee
transfer. That's because the ''transfer'' is done in euros, the
conversion being done by the British bank thereafter. The reverse also
works -- so the oh so euro-shy British actually have their businesses
already saving tidy wads of money when trading with EU countries,
thanks to the euro.)

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com

PS: It won't be long now, I dare say, and we'll see fierce competition
between banks right through the EU -- because with these new
regulations the advantages to having a bank account in your actual
country of residence (as opposed to, say, in Hungary, where fees might
be lower) are dwindling. That'll lead to Hungarian banks starting to
target German customers, or French banks targeting Irish customers,
etc., etc. Sometimes I just LOVE the EU. ;-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User Rights changes

body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:25:33 +0100, James R. Johnson
<modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>             From previous e-mails, I was reading about other levels of user
> access, and was thinking.could we create a page wherein a current
> administrator can give two or three extra rights to a user?  Say, the user
> Jibberjabber wants to give JibberJunior the ability to block users, and
> protect/unprotect, and for only a week's time?  Sounds somewhat like what
> the list was discussing.

Hi,
As a lurker on the developer side of things (I hesitate to claim much
of a contribution, beyond taking part in the odd design discussion), I
can say with some certainty that this is almost, but not quite, what
the current "User & Group Rights" design does in fact allow. The
current implementation, which is more-or-less working in the
development branch, is described at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_levels

Adding 2 specific abilities to 1 specific user is already possible,
albeit with the extra step of creating a "group" to assign these
rights and this user to (if there isn't already a group containing
those rights, that is). Taking it away is also possible, so assuming
Jibberjabber remembers to do it a week later, what you say is
perfectly doable. *Automatically* revoking rights is something that
hasn't been developed yet [AFAIK], but I'm sure as people come up with
ways they want to use the new system, that kind of thing can be added
on fairly easily.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Pete/Pcb21,

>But why would a French-speaker want to read the Japanese Wikipedia
>either?

S/he would learn to enter fr.wikipedia.org the next time (or maybe even
www.wikipedia.fr, if that exists). But if the French-speaker is actually
a German exchange student wanting to learn Japanese it would be helpful
to see the possibility. Also it makes wikipedia look like a truly
international project, which is a good thing, I'd say.

>www.wikipedia.org ends up as not particularly useful to anyone,
>and hard to make non-ugly.

I like the new proposal (without flags, but with a short intro text).

>Thus not much of a benefit, and we have
>to weigh against the "broken" links to www.wikipedia.org that have
>built up over the years.

They are not broken. As it was said repeatly, www.wikipedia.org/
Something still links to en.wikipedia.org/Something, and the mere extra
click necessary to go to "English" doesn't count as a broken link in my
eyes. (Maybe we should add a <ugly> pop-up box explaining all English
users that there are other languages, indeed; and that they should
bookmark en.wikipedia.org (or go to www.wikipedia.us) if they don't want
to see them.</ugly>).

Till

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: A still difficult work on data

body:
Hi Julien!

you wrote:

> Thank also for the link download.mediawiki.org, I take (firstly) the french
> Wikipedia, cause 80G whoa !! I understand now why France is a little bit in
> late for the IT society :/
>
> But I have still a problem. Ok I have the articles and all history of them in
> the database, but I don't see the "User:" pages. Maybe it's not the same with
> en.wikipedia. Does it really contains the user pages? If this is not the case,
> can we have access to these datas without being connected?

Well at least the cur_table contains the User pages. I currently do not
work on the history dump because its too huge for my PC and wikistat
gives you a lot of information - if only someone could make

http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/csv/

readable again - Erik said the data is on the server, but the directory
is protected (?)

Well our developers have other things to do at the moment. A big thank
you for the heavy work they are doing - I can imagine everybody is only
complaining at the moment.

Jakob


from_name: Olve Utne

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monolingual countries and flying pigs

body:
Brazil? Plenty of languages there...! The lack of official recognition or
lack of minority internet access is hardly an argument supporting claims
that a country is monolingual.

-Olve

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:03:13 -0300, Alexandre Passos wrote:
>  > On Monday 10 January 2005 01:45, Mark Williamson wrote:
>  > > Name me a monolingual country, and I will show you a flying pig.
>
>Brazil - every brazilian resident speaks portuguese. There are no
>communities (with internet access at least) that have any other language
>as a main language.

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
"As noted before, it will minimize the other options. If Dutch is
featured prominently because it is set as the auto-accept language,
somebody is less likely to notice that W. Frisian, Limburgish,
Afrikaans, etc. are also available.

As Ant noted in another thread on the same topic (really, this is
getting out of hand), the French reporters who didn't know that fr:
existed... this would be similar, and potentially millions of users
could be inconvenienced by it. Some Wikipedias link prominently (or at
least somewhat prominently) to other languages spoken in the same
region: Afrikaans links to other South African languages, Hindi links
to other Indian languages, Chinese links to the other languages of
China, etc. But some languages, for example English, cannot afford
this because there are just too many languages (English has Inuktitut,
French, Spanish, Navajo, Maori, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Cornish,
Chinese, Malay, Hebrew, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and plenty of other
languages).

Mark"

Thus, if a man whose first language is Frisian sees:

N
E
D
E
R
L
A
N
D
S

(Arabiyy)
Afrikaans
(B'lgarskij)
(Belaruski)
(Bam'la)
Catal?
Corsu
Czestina
Dansk
Deutsch
English
Faroese
Fran?ais
Frysk
('ellinik?)
...

you can see how much more likely they will be to end up at the
Nederlands Wikipedia even if they would rather've gone to fy.wikipedia
- one is shoved up in their face, the other one is further down the
list and chances are they won't even know it exists. The same is true
for anybody with English set as their browser language but who prefers
another language (many people in India, Pakistan...), or any other
language which has a similar situation.

Mark

On 10 Jan 2005 22:02:00 +0100, Till Westermayer <till at tillwe.de> wrote:
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> >Again, any browser-setting based redirect or even not a redirect
> >but a simple "your language: xxx" notice suffers from problems I
> >have already enumerated.
>
> What is the problem with an "your language: German" according to my
> browser settings and the possiblity for me to select "English",
> "Alemmanisch" or even "Tagalog" in the list below? I don't understand
> why this new proposal -- which is helpful in prominently showing a
> language the user is understanding and using according to his/her
> browser settings, but let's them decide if they want to use this or
> another -- is dangerous. Looks to me more like a "oh, so no one will
> edit the small languages anymore" issue.
>
> Till
>
> >Mark
>
> >On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:03:53 +0100 (MET), Alfio Puglisi
> ><puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> >>
> >> Please now have a look at
> >>
> >> http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
> >>
> >> (note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and
> >> Italian browser settings, to save on typing. Any errors are
> >> Google translation fault:-))
> >>
> >> This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box
> >> with text in your language, and a drop-down selection of the
> >> available languages, with yours selected first. Try changing
> >> your browser from en: to fr: or it:.
> >>
> >> If you change the language preference and reload, your browser
> >> might retain the drop-down box selection (Firefox does), so you
> >> won't see the new one automatically selected. In that case, try
> >> clearing your cache (Firefox has a special cache for form data
> >> that needs to be cleared).
> >>
> >> Strings are hard-coded inside the script. Moving them to an
> >> external configuration file is not a problem.
> >>
> >> Alfio
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>  __ .
>  / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
> . .
>   . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
>   . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
>   . . . . .
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Stan Wiechers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki Webservices

body:
This was helpfull. Do you know of any java framwework which transforms the raw wiki format into a document tree? Would that be usefull?

Thanks for the feedback,
Stan

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org on behalf of Rowan Collins
Sent: Tue 1/11/2005 1:30 AM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Wiki Webservices

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:00:07 -0500, Stan Wiechers <Stan at rga.com> wrote:
> I have a quick question: What is the best way to integrate wikipedia
> into other applications without using the html interface? I would like
> to integrate the search functionality and the content docs into my app.
> Is there an xml interface to the wikipedia? I would like to bypass
> screen scraping. Ideal would be a REST style interface.

Well, there's "&action=raw" to get the raw wikitext of a page. Or look
at http://pywikipediabot.sf.net for a Python bot framework for
interacting with the site. Or download the database from
http://download.wikimedia.org and do really crazy stuff to it without
loading the wikimedia servers any.

But no, no XML interface. There's been discussion of code to make bot
access easier, but I can't find any of it, and I don't think it
resulted in much in the way of new code, I'm afraid.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
Hello all,

            I was wondering, would it be possible to have all wikis in a
language to share the same messages, without having to retranslate them for
each new wiki?  So the Deutsch or Anglo-Saxon wikis would have to change the
messages from English only once, instead of 4 or more times?

Thanks,

James


subject: [WikiEN-l] Read the Signpost

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>In light of the size of Wikipedia, it's increasingly difficult for
>>people to keep track of significant happenings in the community.
>>I've
>>made a new effort to collect this information by actually writing
>>about
>>it. In other words, I've started a newspaper.
>>
>>
>
>
>Thank you.
>
>
Indeed; I find this much more useful than Goings-on, which was just
lists. This actually has prose to read; good job so far!

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:51:33 +0100, James R. Johnson wrote:
>             I was wondering, would it be possible to have all wikis in a
> language to share the same messages, without having to retranslate them for
> each new wiki?  So the Deutsch or Anglo-Saxon wikis would have to change the
> messages from English only once, instead of 4 or more times?

I believe you have misunderstood the translation process, which I
believe is roughly as follows [please don't take this as gospel and
blame me if someone else tells you it's *not* like this]:
1) the messages from an already-available language are used as the
"basis" for a new one
2) the messages are translated; I think a lot of this is done by
editing the "live" versions in the MediaWiki: namespace of a new wiki,
simply so that the wiki can get started in other ways in the meantime
3) the translated messages are saved into a file called
LanguageXX.php, where XX is the language code of the new translation;
I'm not sure, but I think there are scripts which export the current
translations from a live wiki to create this file - if not, there
should be ;)
4) the new LanguageXX.php becomes part of the MediaWiki software,
available for anyone who wishes to set their wiki - or, indeed, any
user who wants their interface translated - to that language.

LanguageDe.php (German) has existed "forever" (it undoubtedly predates
customisation via the MediaWiki: namespace); an Anglo-Saxon file will
presumably come into existence as soon as the translation is
more-or-less complete.

To finish off the answer to your question, though - sharing
*customised* messages between projects would probably be a bad idea,
since the commnities of, say, the English Wikipedia and the English
Wikibooks, wouldn't necessarily come to the same agreements on what
certain messages should say, even though they are presenting
information in the same place and in the same language. (One might,
for instance, want to put in a link to a particular policy which
didn't exist for the other) This is, in essence, the original purpose
of having the per-wiki MediaWiki: namespace as well as the generic
per-language LanguageXX.php files.

I hope this answers your thoughts adequately.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki Webservices

body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:00:07 -0500, Stan Wiechers <Stan at rga.com> wrote:
> I have a quick question: What is the best way to integrate wikipedia
> into other applications without using the html interface? I would like
> to integrate the search functionality and the content docs into my app.
> Is there an xml interface to the wikipedia? I would like to bypass
> screen scraping. Ideal would be a REST style interface.

Well, there's "&action=raw" to get the raw wikitext of a page. Or look
at http://pywikipediabot.sf.net for a Python bot framework for
interacting with the site. Or download the database from
http://download.wikimedia.org and do really crazy stuff to it without
loading the wikimedia servers any.

But no, no XML interface. There's been discussion of code to make bot
access easier, but I can't find any of it, and I don't think it
resulted in much in the way of new code, I'm afraid.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Slowness of Wikipedia

body:
--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Lots to do when WP is not online though - go to the university
> library and get info out of the many books there (most of that
> info is not online anywhere, WP article will be the first
> appearance), also take pictures and prepare them for uploading.
> 30,000 towns in the US alone, every town article should have at
> least one picture so the rest of us can see what it looks like.

You should also be able to view and copy the wiki text of each page as well. So
you can expand a set of articles and upload the result when the site is put
back into read/write mode.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

references:
<cruo35$2uq$1@sea.gmane.org>	<9Ob4ZHM8bzB@westermayer-74391.user.cis.dfn.de>	<crut7q$k47$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<161674945.20050110225535@lexx.eu.org>
	<2ea1ace5050110143939985c1f@mail.gmail.com>

body:
[cut]
> interested in en: than any other language.  There will be considerable
> numbers of casual readers who will be deterred by having to make any
> choice on language, however trivial.
>
> At the very least, the current portal could be changed to say "Select
> your preferred language" or some such thing.  I suspect there are many
> English speakers who would not even recognize the list currently on
> www.wikipedia.org as a list of languages.  People who have no exposure
> to languages beyond their own can have a very low tolerance for
> reading foreign words before flinging up their hands in exasperation.
>
> (Even here in Canada, an English-speaking country that is more
> bilingual than most, I have known people who have become confused,
> irritated, or even enraged at hearing "for English, press one" on
> voicemail systems.)

Do you think that that type of people know how to use a encyclopedia or
even know what a encyclopedia is?

I am sorry to say but someone who does not know what to do when he gets
a list of languages on the main page of a website does not belong before
a computer but before a TV.

--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:59:13 +0100, j.levrel at free.fr <j.levrel at free.fr> wrote:
> But I have still a problem. Ok I have the articles and all history of them in
> the database, but I don't see the "User:" pages. Maybe it's not the same with
> en.wikipedia. Does it really contains the user pages? If this is not the case,
> can we have access to these datas without being connected?

Stab in the dark, here, but are you looking directly at the database,
and wondering why none of the article names begin "User:" (or
"Utilisateur:" or whatever it is in French)? If so, the answer is
because they're not called that. ;) The database has a cur_namespace
field, which represents the namespace of each article numerically - so
my User page would have cur_title='IMSoP' AND cur_namespace=2. See
Defines.php[1] for how the numeric namespaces match up to the prefixes
that you, I, and the software recognise as though they were part of
the title.

[1]: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phase3/includes/Defines.php?rev=1.11&view=markup

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:40:51 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:

> I suspect that the idea behind James' question was to share MediaWiki
> system messages across Wikipedias in the same language.  (This is
> because I happen to know that the Language*.php system is not used on
> the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia.)

Unless I'm much mistaken, this is simply a case of no-one having
created the LanguageAng.php file yet. Surely, once all the messages have
been defined, you can *create* that file, and thus copy all the
changes to new wikis. Or is there some reason that Anglo-Saxon has
been denied its own translation file?

> For example, once we define on ang.wikipedia.org the value "Sibba
> hwierfunga" for the MediaWiki variable MediaWiki:Recentchangeslinked,
> it might be nice to automagically have the same customisation
> available to ang.wikibooks.org or ang.wikinews.org (if the latter
> existed).

That sounds like a question of co-ordination: there should be a master
translation [in ang.wikipedia.org's MediaWiki namespace, perhaps] that
is being regularly imported to all other wikis as it progresses [with
appropriate scripts, bots, or whatever, to assist].
OK, so that's not as nice as having it central, but I hold to my
argument that the MediaWiki namespace is for *customisation* not
*translation*.

> I would argue that the MediaWiki messages are most useful if they are
> language-specific, not project-specific.  If English Wikipedia and
> English Wikinews have need of different translations for the same
> MediaWiki variable, then this is evidence that one or both need to
> introduce another, project-specific MediaWiki variable for this
> specific purpose.

No, that's not the way it works. Every message in the MediaWiki
namespace represents a part of the interface, used by the software
when displaying pages *on that particular wiki*. It allows users [with
admin/sysop status] to change the text of these parts of the interface
*to suit that particular wiki*, over-riding the standard-issue generic
translation contained in LanguageXX.php.

For instance, MediaWiki:Currentevents and MediaWiki:Currentevents-url
contain the label and location, respectively, of one of the links in
the navigation box; they allow that link to be used for different
purposes on different projects, or to be turned off completely. You
can also add messages to the users of a particular wiki in appropriate
places, such as MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning or MediaWiki:Sitesubtitle;
but you can't just "introduce a new variable". Some of these
customisations may be worth applying to all Wikimedia projects in a
particular language, but many of them wouldn't be appropriate - or
wouldn't be supported by the different communities. Thus, apart from
making initial translations marginally easier to co-ordinate,
centralising MediaWiki: namespaces would be a lot of develepor effort
for a net loss of functionality.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Jeff Cook

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Slowness of Wikipedia

body:
Wikipedia seems to have been picking up over the last couple of days to me
-- it was really bad before that. But now it's going pretty fast. :)
But a day in read-only is a long time. :(

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Tim Starling
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 7:46 PM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Slowness of Wikipedia

slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> It seems to me that there's been a change in kind, not degree, in the
> last 10 days. Any information from those who may know what has caused
> this would be much appreciated.

Ariel ran out of disk space and suda was made the master DB server.
We'll probably have to switch the site into read-only mode for a day or
so to fix this. Before we do that, we want to finish compressing the
database, which will probably take another few days.

In case you're wondering, the root cause of this problem was a lack of
available development and system administration expertise, coupled with
a poorly timed developer conference.

-- Tim Starling

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


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] kernel 2.6.10 in fedora core 2

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

Hello,

Doing a yum install on larousse, I noticed kernel 2.6.10 seems available
for fedora core 2 :o)

Actually on the florida cluster we have:

2.6.7:
      1   2.6.7-SMP-rc1+BK at 1.1385
      3   2.6.7-SMP-rc2+BK at 1.1388
      1   2.6.7-SMP-rc3+BK at 1.1392
2.6.8:
      6   2.6.8-1.521
      5   2.6.8-1.521smp
2.6.9:
      4   2.6.9-1.667smp
      2   2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp
      7   2.6.9-1.6_FC2
      1   2.6.9-1.6_FC2smp
2.6.10:
      1   2.6.10-SMP-rc1+BK at 1.1505suse

cheers,

- --
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
"This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Portals, flags, chaos

body:
On 11 Jan 2005, at 02:02, David Gerard wrote:

>> All the text (including the article count) could be repeated in all 6
>> 50,000+ languages, though.
>
> Just keep in mind it'll soon be 7 and then 9.

No it won't.
I mean, it needn't. See:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-January/036664.html

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
I've just given you all more to argue about ;-)
at http://www.wikipedia.org

But ''please'' read the Talk page before clicking that "edit" button:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:
Www.wikipedia.org_portal#To_boldly_go_where_one.27s_been_reverted_before
.3F

Please don't kill me.

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
Gerard Meijssen (gerardm at myrealbox.com) [050111 04:09]:
> Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> >Please now have a look at
> >http://www.tommasoconforti.com/portal3.php
> >(note the "3"). Only works with English, German, French and Italian
> >This version translates all the top banner and adds "Go" box with text in
> >your language, and a drop-down selection of the available languages, with
> >yours selected first. Try changing your browser from en: to fr: or it:.

Nice one! It just needs to translate the text below as well (which
currently says "Complete list - Multilingual coordination - Start a
Wikipedia in another language".

> I like it, it is a nice experiment, one thing you could add is the
> template with all the sisterprojects. A great example of what this could
> look like can be found on the Commons Main Page. Another thing to
> enhance it, is by adding the picture of the day as featured on Commons.
> You add a little colour and a picture and as a result it is a bit more
> cheerfull. :)

Yes, that left side needs to look better. Certainly the logo could do with
"The Free Encyclopedia" in the six (soon seven or nine) top languages.

One good thing about the present page is that it pretty much fits in a
browser window without scrolling. This should be retained if workable.

A request to Tim Starling (or whoever): The present page has a template
that anyone can edit and a template that only sysops on meta can edit.
Would it be possible to set up a test page where both are editable, to
facilitate trying ideas out?

- d.


from_name: James R. Johnson

body:
If a sysop wished to supress a message is a wiki, say wikibooks, why not
have a checkmark next to that message for each wiki, and any unchecked wiki
will not use that message?  That'd take care of a particular wiki wanting to
utilize a particular message not used in the others.

So:

________________w_b_q_d
|       |      |       |
|  msg  |  lala|*   * *| message "lala" gets used in all but wikibooks.
|       |      |       |
-----------------------

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Rowan Collins
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 2:48 AM
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki system message commons?

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:40:51 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:

> I suspect that the idea behind James' question was to share MediaWiki
> system messages across Wikipedias in the same language.  (This is
> because I happen to know that the Language*.php system is not used on
> the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia.)

Unless I'm much mistaken, this is simply a case of no-one having
created the LanguageAng.php file yet. Surely, once all the messages have
been defined, you can *create* that file, and thus copy all the
changes to new wikis. Or is there some reason that Anglo-Saxon has
been denied its own translation file?

> For example, once we define on ang.wikipedia.org the value "Sibba
> hwierfunga" for the MediaWiki variable MediaWiki:Recentchangeslinked,
> it might be nice to automagically have the same customisation
> available to ang.wikibooks.org or ang.wikinews.org (if the latter
> existed).

That sounds like a question of co-ordination: there should be a master
translation [in ang.wikipedia.org's MediaWiki namespace, perhaps] that
is being regularly imported to all other wikis as it progresses [with
appropriate scripts, bots, or whatever, to assist].
OK, so that's not as nice as having it central, but I hold to my
argument that the MediaWiki namespace is for *customisation* not
*translation*.

> I would argue that the MediaWiki messages are most useful if they are
> language-specific, not project-specific.  If English Wikipedia and
> English Wikinews have need of different translations for the same
> MediaWiki variable, then this is evidence that one or both need to
> introduce another, project-specific MediaWiki variable for this
> specific purpose.

No, that's not the way it works. Every message in the MediaWiki
namespace represents a part of the interface, used by the software
when displaying pages *on that particular wiki*. It allows users [with
admin/sysop status] to change the text of these parts of the interface
*to suit that particular wiki*, over-riding the standard-issue generic
translation contained in LanguageXX.php.

For instance, MediaWiki:Currentevents and MediaWiki:Currentevents-url
contain the label and location, respectively, of one of the links in
the navigation box; they allow that link to be used for different
purposes on different projects, or to be turned off completely. You
can also add messages to the users of a particular wiki in appropriate
places, such as MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning or MediaWiki:Sitesubtitle;
but you can't just "introduce a new variable". Some of these
customisations may be worth applying to all Wikimedia projects in a
particular language, but many of them wouldn't be appropriate - or
wouldn't be supported by the different communities. Thus, apart from
making initial translations marginally easier to co-ordinate,
centralising MediaWiki: namespaces would be a lot of develepor effort
for a net loss of functionality.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipadia

body:
On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 08:29:43 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Reported by Arnaudus on fr : http://www (dot) wikipadia (dot) org/

I can understand the concern, but there are hundreds of such cases,
including many in the list at
http://www.whois.net/search.cgi2?str=wikip . Searches for similar
groups of letter such as wikkip or wikpe show even more.

I don't think we ought to worry too much about this. Even Google don't
attempt to control all possible misspellings of their name:
http://www.googel.org/ http://www.googl.com http://www.googal.com/

Angela.


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Proposal to show pdf icon

body:
> >create a "pdf icon" only when the implementation of the external.png is

>How do you want to detect whether an URL points to a PDF-file (i. e. not
>something that Internet Exlporer would executeable but is called
>"something.pdf")
>Hendrik

Hendrik,

as the subject says: I only propose to show an icon, I did not propose to scan file types of something extern. If that file is internal i.e. linked via the [[media:filename.pdf]] notation, then the server has potentially the chance to check the "magic" byte of that file; if it is external, i.e. [http://server/filename.pdf|othername], you can only argue from the filename.pdf that it pretends to be "PDF" . If you see a security problem, what does the (PDF.png vs. external.png ?) icon change in this respect ?

Nothing; but with my proposal you could even have ***two*** different PDF icons, a green "secure" icon for internal (filetype scanned) [[media:filename.pdf]] files and a red "insecure" alerting one ("extern; probably PDF") for the others. This is just meant as an ad-hoc proposal to show you the positive possibilities of my proposal.

Does this answer satisfy you ?

Tom


from_name: petko yotov

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki Webservices

body:
There is a special page at wikipedia called Special:Export that gives the page
Wiki-text and date in XML. You can access to it either by submitting a form
at Special:Export with several needed pages, or "get" it page by page this
way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export/Main_page

Use this with care, the wiki servers are overloaded.

Petko

?? ?????????? 10 ?????? 2005 18:00 Stan Wiechers ????:
> Hi,
>
> I have a quick question: What is the best way to integrate wikipedia
> into other applications without using the html interface? I would like
> to integrate the search functionality and the content docs into my app.
> Is there an xml interface to the wikipedia? I would like to bypass
> screen scraping. Ideal would be a REST style interface.
>
> The application is a public project where I try to connect webservices
> in a random way:
>  http://konnexion.sourceforge.net/
>
> I would love to integrate wikipedia.
>
> Thanks for any feedback,
> Stan Wiechers


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki Webservices

body:
There's a wiki-to-XML parser under development. It is mostly written in
Bison and will compile to C/C++. Try the CVS module "flexbisonparse".

Magnus

Stan Wiechers schrieb:

>This was helpfull. Do you know of any java framwework which transforms the raw wiki format into a document tree? Would that be usefull?
>
>Thanks for the feedback,
>Stan
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org on behalf of Rowan Collins
>Sent: Tue 1/11/2005 1:30 AM
>To: Wikimedia developers
>Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Wiki Webservices
>
>On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:00:07 -0500, Stan Wiechers <Stan at rga.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I have a quick question: What is the best way to integrate wikipedia
>>into other applications without using the html interface? I would like
>>to integrate the search functionality and the content docs into my app.
>>Is there an xml interface to the wikipedia? I would like to bypass
>>screen scraping. Ideal would be a REST style interface.
>>
>>
>
>Well, there's "&action=raw" to get the raw wikitext of a page. Or look
>at http://pywikipediabot.sf.net for a Python bot framework for
>interacting with the site. Or download the database from
>http://download.wikimedia.org and do really crazy stuff to it without
>loading the wikimedia servers any.
>
>But no, no XML interface. There's been discussion of code to make bot
>access easier, but I can't find any of it, and I don't think it
>resulted in much in the way of new code, I'm afraid.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Celebrity users

body:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:

>If [[user:Scott Peterson]] made an edit to [[lawn
>fertilizer]], you'd tend to believe it more than with
>the average user. Same as if [[user:Hillary Duff]]
>made edits to the [[Disney Channel]], or if [[user:Joe
>Scarborough]] made edits to [[United States House of
>Representatives]], all things that were professionally
>related to them in their lives.
>
>I can almost live with [[user:Jerry seinfeld]], as he
>admits to not be the comedian. But anyone else is just
>trying out identity theft on us.
>
>I propose we ink out a more direct policy stating that
>"no user may impersonate another living person other
>than themselves, particularly a person that is worth
>encyclopedic note, and may or may not have a Wikipedia
>article".
>
This is the kind of thing that is only made worse by writing detailed
policy.  Many people who come here don't last long, and that probably
applies equally to those who chose celebrity names.  Once they have
chosen that name it is reserved for them and everyone else is prevented
from using it anyway.  A celebrity who chooses to edit under his own
name is probably nuts to seek all the unwanted attention; if he finds
contributing to Wikipedia to be a relaxing hobby he would want to be
incognito.

Such a policy would require defining when a person is a celebrity.  Of
those mentioned above I recognize Duff and Seinfeld as celebrities but
you would make an exception of the latter.  Scott Peterson has been the
recent darling of the pulp media crowd which appeals to a memory that
doesn't last long, but of the four it's the name that I would consider
common enough that it easily could be someone else's real name.  I've
never heard of Joe Scarborough, but if we bring this down to the level
of local celebrities the fight will never end.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Yet another portal page

body:
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:

>DG> (And I so hope Klingon doesn't make 100 articles.)
>DG> - d.
>
>If it does, it will be displayed as Tlhingan anyway :)
>
That's bound to make it more popular ;-)   The people whou would dismiss
Klingon as silly will now be attracted to Tlhingan just to find out what
that is.

Ec


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Celebrity users

body:
--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> I suggest that the existing procedures are adequate for this.  If
> someone
> seems to be trying it on then we can tell them to change their
> username
> because misleading or disruptive usernames are not allowed.  If
> they say
> that is their real name we block them anyway.  No appeals.

But what if it is their real name anyway? What if they fax a copy of
their driver's license and birth certificate to Jimbo and it read "
Jeremy Irons" or "Frank Zappa" or "Christina Applegate". What then?
Do we say, sorry buddy, we know you've been a contributor for years,
and you're a swell guy, but you gotta change your anme because some
hollywood actor has more rights that you?

I say if you can prove your identity, it's first come first served.

(check out nissan.com. The guy, Uzi Nissan, registered nissan.com in
1995, to support his business, nissan computer corporation. Nissan
Motors Corporation of Japan has been suing the living daylights out
of him for 5 years (always denied, rejected, by US courts.))

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

body:
--- Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:

> I would like to object to being called a "nationalist hatemonger"
> by
> Brion Vibber:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Www.wikipedia.org_portal&diff=88985&oldid=88979
>
> Brion also accused me of "nationalist vandalism" and threatened to
>
> block me from editing Meta:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Www.wikipedia.org_portal&diff=88985&oldid=88979
>
> I'm hurt.

Get therapy.

As far as Brion goes, maybe it wasn't nice, and maybe for him it was
(other words come to mind that would have been much more offensive)
but you should cut him enough slack to start a slack wholesale
company because of the amount of work he's been putting getting
mediawiki working.

I also think you just might deserve it. I'm not judging either way.
All I know is that your pissed Brion off, you had to be doing something.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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