body:
On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard schreef:

> >> The SUL is almost a year late as it is. All issues have been discussed
> >> at length at the time. Postponing it now it not really an option. There
> >> is also no capacity to come up with a technical solution. There is even
> >> no consensus as to what the problem is.

> > So you really are saying that your only answer to the concerns raised
> > is "fuck you"? That's disappointing. How do you plan to get every
> > en:wp admin to go along with you?

> Again you misquote.

That was your precise text I quoted. What part are you claiming I have altered?

>To what extend do you think the admins of other
> projects are asked what they think about the imposition of all kinds of
> functionality that was discussed at length at the en.wikipedia or some
> such. Really, much of the problem has already been solved. With SUL it
> will be even easier to find if someone is a know good or a known troll.
> You just seem to be unwilling to acknowledge these facts, by also using
> not so polite language you make yourself less relevant in my eyes.

Then answer the questions, please, rather than taking an attitude of
arrogant dismissal (as you have throughout this discussion) that I do
think can accurately be summarised as "fuck you"

I have put these as simply as I can. Are you able to answer them at all?

Do you acknowledge that it was put in place because of a real problem?
[ ] yes
[ ] no

Do you acknowledge that the problems stated in this thread exist or
are thought to exist?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

Do you have any solutions for these problems other than every
administrator on every language Wikipedia being required to learn
every script used on Wikipedia to be able to effectively be an
administrator on their own-language Wikipedia?
[ ] Yes, my solution is ...
[ ] No, if I've learnt all these scripts and installed all these fonts
they can too
[ ] No (some other reason ...)

Are you able to answer even "yes or no" questions trying to discern
your position as being anything other than arrogant dismissal?

- d.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy
	affects other communities


list: foundation-l

from_name: Sam Korn

subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
	other communities

body:
On 12/21/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam Korn schreef:
> > This is more of the "big, bad English Wikipedia" mentality that
> > pervades this discussion.  En.wikipedia does not have vigilantes who
> > want to block all people who use usernames in foreign character-sets.
> > En.wikipedia has very dedicated vandal-fighters who sometimes cross
> > the line in how aggressive they can be.  This is unfortunate.
> > However, there are real concerns that you are completely ignoring.
> Hoi,
> When the line is crossed, why should it not have repercussions ?

No, when the line is crossed, there should be solutions, not
repercussions.  There needs to be an understanding of *why* the line
has been crossed and a solution that takes that into account, or at
least acknowledges the issue.  I am certainly not ignoring the issue
at hand.  Are you sure you're not?

> Calling
> this unfortunate is akin to completely ignoring the issue.

I'm English.  Understatement is what we do.

--
Sam


body:
On 12/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam, I don't think those vandal fighters act on a bad faith, but on
> the other hand, editors with a good reputation at least on their home
> wiki have been blocked due to their username and even not allowed to
> edit anonymously.

Yes, absolutely.  I agree with the existence of a problem here, a
problem that will only be exacerbated by the implementation of SUL.

> They are astonished in blocking and perplexed rather angry.

And reasonably so.

An editor
> said "I tried to find why I was deserved permanently blocked but
> couldn't find a discussion".

This is a problem that needs addressing.  No argument.

After unilateral decision of blocking, no
> discussion and "encouragement" of changing username, it is hard to
> agree on that they don't want to do so, and it is generally not
> pursuasive to argue "we don't want to do but we need to", specially if
> alternative ways, like modified signatures, checking contribs and
> alike are proposed and you reject all of those alternative.

You won't find me defending the current en.wikipedia policy -- I think
it's over-done and, to repeat my clich? analogy, cracking a walnut
with a sledgehammer.  What I want to see is some recognition from the
people on this list that there is a problem that has caused this
overblown solution and that that problem needs addressing.  I haven't
rejected the alternatives that you mention -- nor have I considered
them in depth to get an understanding of their practicalities -- so
please don't put words in my mouth.

--
Sam


list: wikien-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 12/21/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Just a thought: the en: Wikipedia gets about 3 edits a second. I wonder
> if it would be possible for us to use special pleading through the
> Foundation to get a dedicated search pipe into Google that would allow
> us to do, say, 30 searches a second 24 hours a day, (which would only be
> a tiny, tiny fraction of their overall capacity), in recognition of the
> _very_ substantial benefit in advertising revenue they must surely
> currently be receiving as a side effect of having Wikipedia's content
> online to draw in search queries.
>
> (Think about it: even if only 20% of Wikimedia's 4000 or so page loads a
> second come from Google users who are expecting something like Wikipedia
> content, and Google only make $0.25 CPM on serving page ads on searches
> for those pages, that comes to an income stream of $0.20 per _second_
> from Wikipedia searches, or a total of about $8M a year...)
>
> If so, we could integrate the copyright violation bot into the
> toolserver, or into the MW server cluster itself.

Go ahead: Write the software, make it good, make it scale, make it
robust so that you don't have to constantly twiddle with it to keep it
working.

I have no doubt that Google's ratelimit can be worked out.  I promise
you that good work done towards these ends will not be work wasted.
Make sure that it's sufficently modular that we'll be able to use it
to generate queries against other texts sources.

The logic for software to do this well is not trivial but certainly
not impossible. Working out the right access with Google is also not
impossible. Someone just needs to step up an do it.


subject: [Foundation-l] Translations fundraising.wikimedia.org

body:
On 12/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> /* in a soft voice */
> Oh, one of translation coordinators work is discouragement young
> aspirant people who can help translation because he got a dictionary.
> Sometimes their translation is worse than machine's. You don't know
> probably because they are simply speedied. (And if you are not
> Wikimedian, you may not know what means "speedied" exactly - you know
> the word and its context, speedy deletion on a wiki by a sysop, not
> merely blanking etc,  so you needn't a dictionary here). There are so
> bad translation that no other translation can make a good work on that
> basis and simply need to ignore. I daresay if you need always a
> dictionary to read something, you are not ready to translate it. Just
> Danny said, you need to have a competence in both languages. "Ask a
> dictionary and it's okay" causes disasters so I friendly ask them to
> go back their home wiki ;)

But...

when it's only one-word phrases (such as "fundraising", "navigation"),
that is quite possible to do with a dictionary.

--
Sam, who doesn't have experience translating on Wikimedia projects,
but who has done plenty of translation in his time


subject: [Foundation-l] Oversight rights

body:
On 12/20/06, Sean Whitton (Xyrael) <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers/checkuser reveals five
> people who have b'crat and checkuser :)
>
> Just a side note for those who are interested.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that all those people got given their
oversight/CU rights (not !voted) after their bureaucrat rights
(!voted).

Whatever that implies.

--
Sam


subject: [Foundation-l] Oversight rights


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
Do a search in Google; invariably the first reference you are given is
Wikipedia. I don't have a clue what you are talking about technically, but I
believe any agreement between Wikipedia and Google to improve service would
be mutually beneficial.

Marc

> From: "Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:23:32 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot
>
> On 12/21/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>> Just a thought: the en: Wikipedia gets about 3 edits a second. I wonder
>> if it would be possible for us to use special pleading through the
>> Foundation to get a dedicated search pipe into Google that would allow
>> us to do, say, 30 searches a second 24 hours a day, (which would only be
>> a tiny, tiny fraction of their overall capacity), in recognition of the
>> _very_ substantial benefit in advertising revenue they must surely
>> currently be receiving as a side effect of having Wikipedia's content
>> online to draw in search queries.
>>
>> (Think about it: even if only 20% of Wikimedia's 4000 or so page loads a
>> second come from Google users who are expecting something like Wikipedia
>> content, and Google only make $0.25 CPM on serving page ads on searches
>> for those pages, that comes to an income stream of $0.20 per _second_
>> from Wikipedia searches, or a total of about $8M a year...)
>>
>> If so, we could integrate the copyright violation bot into the
>> toolserver, or into the MW server cluster itself.
>
>
> Go ahead: Write the software, make it good, make it scale, make it
> robust so that you don't have to constantly twiddle with it to keep it
> working.
>
> I have no doubt that Google's ratelimit can be worked out.  I promise
> you that good work done towards these ends will not be work wasted.
> Make sure that it's sufficently modular that we'll be able to use it
> to generate queries against other texts sources.
>
> The logic for software to do this well is not trivial but certainly
> not impossible. Working out the right access with Google is also not
> impossible. Someone just needs to step up an do it.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy
 affects other communities

body:
Birgitte SB schreef:
> --- Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> On 12/21/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Are there any en.WP editors who believe blocking
>>>
>> users
>>
>>> on sight based on their font is not a useful
>>>
>> enough
>>
>>> process to be worth breaking SUL for other
>>>
>> editors?
>>
>>> Is there anyone outside of en.WP who believes that
>>>
>> SUL
>>
>>> is not a useful enough process to be worth
>>>
>> creating
>>
>>> bad blood between wikis?
>>>
>> Hang on now.  This is a gross oversimplification of
>> the problems that
>> this issue is caused by.
>>
>> Firstly, SUL is a *good thing*.  It will make
>> contributing to
>> Wikimedia easier and more convenient.  I am certain
>> that the *vast*
>> majority of people agree with this and totally
>> support its
>> implementation.
>>
>> However, there are issues that it raises.  No-one
>> wants good editors
>> from, say, the Arabic Wikipedia getting blocked from
>> en.wikipedia
>> because their usernames are incomprehensible to
>> other users of the
>> wiki.  But, on the other hand, there are many
>> Wikipedians who can only
>> read the Latin script (let's face it, this is the
>> vast majority).
>> Should they be expected to identify a username with
>> a user when the
>> username is incomprehensible to them?
>>
>> I can't read Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Thai
>> scripts.  I would find
>> it *extremely* difficult to tell the difference
>> between a user I knew
>> and a vandal if their names were in one of these
>> scripts.  This is
>> obviously a big problem.  You can't dismiss this in
>> the manner of "oh,
>> those English Wikipedians, they should get over it."
>>
>> This is a serious problem, and other wikis will
>> suffer from it if they
>> get the same concentration of vandalism as the
>> English Wikipedia.  It
>> must not be dismissed.
>>
>> So let's try to satisfy both the need to implement
>> SUL and the
>> problems that this raises.  The current en.wikipedia
>> policy uses a
>> sledgehammer to crack a walnut, that's true enough.
>>  But rather than
>> ignoring these concerns, how about looking to make
>> this policy
>> unnecessary?
>>
>> --
>> Sam
>>
>>
>
> I said above that brion had said the implementation
> details of SUL was not-negotiable.  I cannot find an
> email by him with the message I remember.  Perhaps
> someone else made that comment, or maybe my mind has
> just started making up email messages in my sleep.  I
> am sorry for the misquote there.
>
> I was going to start to answer you by quoting the
> non-existant message.  :P I think a technical solution
> to the issue would be great.  The question is first
> which  technical solutions can be developed before SUL
> is implented?  And second which of those options is
> prefered?
>
> Birgitte SB
Hoi,
The SUL is almost a year late as it is. All issues have been discussed
at length at the time. Postponing it now it not really an option. There
is also no capacity to come up with a technical solution. There is even
no consensus as to what the problem is.

There are those who are dead against the current English language
Wikipedia policy
There are those that resent the fact that the autonomy of the English
language Wikipedia is "threatened" because one of its policies is under
fire.
There are those that have pointed out that much of the problem does not
exist any more
There are those that have pointed out that editors can install missing
fonts.
There are those that have pointed out that practically all of the users
will be respectable users from other language projects
It is sad that the suggestion that people first have to create a user on
a project in their script is likely not to be possible as we will have
one user for any projects

There may be a developer who might code some functionality. What he
writes has to fit in the overall architecture. This means that Brion
will have to accept it.

Thanks,
    Gerard


subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
 other communities

body:
Sam Korn schreef:
> On 12/20/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The policy  does exist, and the vigilante group that tries to enforce this
>> is quite succesful in doing so, because they have admin rights on
>> en:wikipedia, so people who do not keep to it get blocked from English
>> Wikipedia.
>>
>
> This is more of the "big, bad English Wikipedia" mentality that
> pervades this discussion.  En.wikipedia does not have vigilantes who
> want to block all people who use usernames in foreign character-sets.
> En.wikipedia has very dedicated vandal-fighters who sometimes cross
> the line in how aggressive they can be.  This is unfortunate.
> However, there are real concerns that you are completely ignoring.
Hoi,
When the line is crossed, why should it not have repercussions ? Calling
this unfortunate is akin to completely ignoring the issue.
Thanks,
     GerardM


body:
On 12/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > An editor
> > > said "I tried to find why I was deserved permanently blocked but
> > > couldn't find a discussion".
> >
> > This is a problem that needs addressing.  No argument.
>
> A question: we have a page or alike where relevant problems are listed?

These kinds of problems can generally be addressed to the admins'
noticeboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AN).  More general
suggestions would go to the Village Pump
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VP).  As to a list... no, I don't
think this exists.  Perhaps it should be created, probably on Meta.  I
don't know where exactly...

> Wtih "you" I meant you as individual but rather enwiki editors/admins
> but my wording was not so clear. Apologies.

And my apologies for my misunderstanding.

> Back to the topic, I fully agree with you it is over-done and for
> prosperous future of our project, I expect all involved people
> recognize there are problems and the current? "no-latin" policy on
> enwiki is implemented with a very unthougtful way and that might be a
> part of this problem.

I shall start a thread on the Village Pump to discuss this.

--
Sam


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Mark Clements

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Importing images (plus deletion) (was: Re: [Commons-l]
	Recruit photographers with your blog)

body:
"Magnus Manske" <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote
in message
news:fab0ecb70612201329t76e9d930l5b2034effa86cb57 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 12/19/06, Bence Damokos
<bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Admins at WikiA have full delete rights at WikiB, even if they are
> > > non-admins and explicitly blocked at WikiB!
> >
> >
> > As I understand this feature in no way would give deletion rights of
WikiA
> > at WikiB,  they would still delete the file only at WikiA, regardless of
the
> > interface they use.
>
> Exactly. You'll need upload rights at WikiB to upload/import there,
> and admin rights at WikiA to delete there.
>

Yes, but the transwiki is an _import_, not an _export_ process (i.e. you
perform the operation from the target wiki), so how can this process perform
the remote delete without compromising security?

Perhaps I do not understand how transwiki works.  Is it possible for me, on
my private wiki, to set up WP as an import source for transwiki?

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


body:
On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> What do you expect when it is the return that I get is as if I said
> "fuck you" ? You call that good faith ? What do you expect when for a
> second time I am misquoted ?
> Sorry, but it is not me who used foul language. So how do you conclude
> that I am of bad faith. :(

I conclude you are of bad faith from your tone of arrogant dismissal
through this entire thread.

I find your arrogant dismissal of others' statements of the problems
far more offensive than you claim to find my characterisation of your
arrogant dismissal - in which you attempt to demonise describing your
offensive behaviour in order to deflect attention from your offensive
behaviour itself.

You've answered rather a lot of messages without answering the simple
questions I posted earlier.

- d.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] Automatic username transliteration for SUL

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
>> On Wikipedia-l or something similar there has been discussion involving
>> English Wikipedia's policy of blocking users with usernames that do not use
>> the Latin alphabet. Reasons for opposition to this practice include
>> ethnocentricism and messing up SUL. However, a point was raised in that
>> people unfamiliar with the script will just see it as a bunch of
>> squiggly-lines. A suggested remedy was having people transliterate their
>> names depending on the wiki.
>>
>> I'm interested in combining this with a script similar to the Automatic
>> Conversion script employed on the Chinese Wikipedia, that would, combined
>> with SUL, automatically transliterate usernames contingent on the wiki they
>> are on. For example, on French Wikipedia, your username would be in Latin
>> script, whereas on the Hebrew Wikipedia your username would be in Hebrew
>> script and on Arabic Wikipedia your username would be in Arabic script.
>>
>> I know there are scripts out there that can transliterate -- in addition to
>> the aforementioned conversion script on the Chinese Wikipedia, there are
>> quite a few scripts out there that will allow you to input something and
>> have it output in a different script.
>>
>> http://vereb.free.fr/transliteration/transliterator.html has a pretty cool
>> one that allows you to type with Latin alphabet settings and it will output
>> in a different script. For example,
>> - MessedRocker becomes ???????????? with the Cyrillic setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ????????c??? with the Greek setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ??????????? with the Arabic setting.
>>
>> If something could be created for SUL that would take a username and
>> transliterate it depending on the language of the wiki, that would be great.
>> I understand there are technical issues involved, but I would like to
>> discuss it on a community level.
>>
>> --James
>>
>
> If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
> transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
> this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
>
> Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
> x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
> to bootstrap this.
>
> Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
>

My signature on en: is currently the IPA transliteration of how I
pronounce my username.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 542 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20061221/0169030d/attachment.pgp


body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
>> On Wikipedia-l or something similar there has been discussion involving
>> English Wikipedia's policy of blocking users with usernames that do not use
>> the Latin alphabet. Reasons for opposition to this practice include
>> ethnocentricism and messing up SUL. However, a point was raised in that
>> people unfamiliar with the script will just see it as a bunch of
>> squiggly-lines. A suggested remedy was having people transliterate their
>> names depending on the wiki.
>>
>> I'm interested in combining this with a script similar to the Automatic
>> Conversion script employed on the Chinese Wikipedia, that would, combined
>> with SUL, automatically transliterate usernames contingent on the wiki they
>> are on. For example, on French Wikipedia, your username would be in Latin
>> script, whereas on the Hebrew Wikipedia your username would be in Hebrew
>> script and on Arabic Wikipedia your username would be in Arabic script.
>>
>> I know there are scripts out there that can transliterate -- in addition to
>> the aforementioned conversion script on the Chinese Wikipedia, there are
>> quite a few scripts out there that will allow you to input something and
>> have it output in a different script.
>>
>> http://vereb.free.fr/transliteration/transliterator.html has a pretty cool
>> one that allows you to type with Latin alphabet settings and it will output
>> in a different script. For example,
>> - MessedRocker becomes ???????????? with the Cyrillic setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ????????c??? with the Greek setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ??????????? with the Arabic setting.
>>
>> If something could be created for SUL that would take a username and
>> transliterate it depending on the language of the wiki, that would be great.
>> I understand there are technical issues involved, but I would like to
>> discuss it on a community level.
>>
>> --James
>>
>
> If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
> transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
> this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
>
> Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
> x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
> to bootstrap this.
>
> Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
>

My signature on en: is currently the IPA transliteration of how I
pronounce my username.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 542 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20061221/0169030d/attachment-0001.pgp


body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
>> On Wikipedia-l or something similar there has been discussion involving
>> English Wikipedia's policy of blocking users with usernames that do not use
>> the Latin alphabet. Reasons for opposition to this practice include
>> ethnocentricism and messing up SUL. However, a point was raised in that
>> people unfamiliar with the script will just see it as a bunch of
>> squiggly-lines. A suggested remedy was having people transliterate their
>> names depending on the wiki.
>>
>> I'm interested in combining this with a script similar to the Automatic
>> Conversion script employed on the Chinese Wikipedia, that would, combined
>> with SUL, automatically transliterate usernames contingent on the wiki they
>> are on. For example, on French Wikipedia, your username would be in Latin
>> script, whereas on the Hebrew Wikipedia your username would be in Hebrew
>> script and on Arabic Wikipedia your username would be in Arabic script.
>>
>> I know there are scripts out there that can transliterate -- in addition to
>> the aforementioned conversion script on the Chinese Wikipedia, there are
>> quite a few scripts out there that will allow you to input something and
>> have it output in a different script.
>>
>> http://vereb.free.fr/transliteration/transliterator.html has a pretty cool
>> one that allows you to type with Latin alphabet settings and it will output
>> in a different script. For example,
>> - MessedRocker becomes ???????????? with the Cyrillic setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ????????c??? with the Greek setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ??????????? with the Arabic setting.
>>
>> If something could be created for SUL that would take a username and
>> transliterate it depending on the language of the wiki, that would be great.
>> I understand there are technical issues involved, but I would like to
>> discuss it on a community level.
>>
>> --James
>>
>
> If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
> transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
> this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
>
> Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
> x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
> to bootstrap this.
>
> Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
>

My signature on en: is currently the IPA transliteration of how I
pronounce my username.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 542 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20061221/0169030d/attachment.pgp>


body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
>> On Wikipedia-l or something similar there has been discussion involving
>> English Wikipedia's policy of blocking users with usernames that do not use
>> the Latin alphabet. Reasons for opposition to this practice include
>> ethnocentricism and messing up SUL. However, a point was raised in that
>> people unfamiliar with the script will just see it as a bunch of
>> squiggly-lines. A suggested remedy was having people transliterate their
>> names depending on the wiki.
>>
>> I'm interested in combining this with a script similar to the Automatic
>> Conversion script employed on the Chinese Wikipedia, that would, combined
>> with SUL, automatically transliterate usernames contingent on the wiki they
>> are on. For example, on French Wikipedia, your username would be in Latin
>> script, whereas on the Hebrew Wikipedia your username would be in Hebrew
>> script and on Arabic Wikipedia your username would be in Arabic script.
>>
>> I know there are scripts out there that can transliterate -- in addition to
>> the aforementioned conversion script on the Chinese Wikipedia, there are
>> quite a few scripts out there that will allow you to input something and
>> have it output in a different script.
>>
>> http://vereb.free.fr/transliteration/transliterator.html has a pretty cool
>> one that allows you to type with Latin alphabet settings and it will output
>> in a different script. For example,
>> - MessedRocker becomes ???????????? with the Cyrillic setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ????????c??? with the Greek setting
>> - MessedRocker becomes ??????????? with the Arabic setting.
>>
>> If something could be created for SUL that would take a username and
>> transliterate it depending on the language of the wiki, that would be great.
>> I understand there are technical issues involved, but I would like to
>> discuss it on a community level.
>>
>> --James
>>
>
> If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
> transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
> this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
>
> Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
> x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
> to bootstrap this.
>
> Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
>

My signature on en: is currently the IPA transliteration of how I
pronounce my username.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 542 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20061221/0169030d/attachment-0001.pgp>


body:
David Gerard schreef:
> On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> The SUL is almost a year late as it is. All issues have been discussed
>> at length at the time. Postponing it now it not really an option. There
>> is also no capacity to come up with a technical solution. There is even
>> no consensus as to what the problem is.
>>
>
>
> So you really are saying that your only answer to the concerns raised
> is "fuck you"? That's disappointing. How do you plan to get every
> en:wp admin to go along with you?
>
>
> - d.
Hoi,
Again you misquote. To what extend do you think the admins of other
projects are asked what they think about the imposition of all kinds of
functionality that was discussed at length at the en.wikipedia or some
such. Really, much of the problem has already been solved. With SUL it
will be even easier to find if someone is a know good or a known troll.
You just seem to be unwilling to acknowledge these facts, by also using
not so polite language you make yourself less relevant in my eyes.

Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
[reorganising thread for readability]

On 12/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > But...
> >
> > when it's only one-word phrases (such as "fundraising", "navigation"),
> > that is quite possible to do with a dictionary.
>
> Never, since in some languages there is *no* sole counterpart. For
> example, fundraising is just such a word in Japanese. There is no
> custom in Japanese society so you need to know how it functions in a
> society to find an appropriate expression and concise enough fit to
> the sitenotice, for example.

Well, from my experience with translating to and from Latin, Greek,
French and German, a good dictionary will contain notes on usage that
should suffice here.

For example, say I am looking to translate the word "head" in the
sense of a flowerhead.  My French dictionary would immediately point
me to "t?te", but a close reading would point me to "pointe" as being
correct.  For fundraising, it suggests "collecte de fonds" or
"collecte d'argent", the latter of which is used on the site.[1]

I am perfectly happy to concede that a dictionary does not wholly
suffice for most things.  But sometimes, for simple interface
questions and especially those that are not specific to the Internet,
a dictionary can suffice.

[1] My Latin and Greek dictionaries do not include the term, curiously... :-)

--
Sam


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > You can't make the real problem in an article go away by writing the
> > letters "OR" on a post-it note, and sticking it on.  That's being
> > simplistic.
> Some problems can't be solved. If there is no published research on a
> particular matter, it can't be included in a wikipedia article,
> however much it would add to that article.

I believe the solution is [[WP:IAR]].

Of course, if a particular problem requires IAR too many times, it's best
fixing the rules instead.


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric
	policy affects other communities

body:
On 21/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:44:45 +1000, "Peter Ansell"
> <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >that situation screams the remains of british imperialism
> >through and through?
>
> Postage stamps come in two kinds: British stamps, in sets, at the
> beginning of the album, and foreign ones all jumbled up at the back.
> Any gibbon can tell you that...
>
> (yes, it's a quote)
>
> Guy (JzG)

It was meant to be semi-humorous :)

Peter


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Importing images (plus deletion)

references:
<fbad4e140612151558o7d672fdanfc37e0fefbd5f2a1@mail.gmail.com>
	<fab0ecb70612190104y741e5bb6of789bb1ca3132d51@mail.gmail.com>
	<em93em$k7v$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<fab0ecb70612191032s4db8b922h4e121b4413b6c3ba@mail.gmail.com>
	<em9ccv$nh8$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecc6a1f0612191124x7b954114l5b4daa9afced4b8c@mail.gmail.com>
	<fab0ecb70612201329t76e9d930l5b2034effa86cb57@mail.gmail.com>
	<emertg$2s3$1@sea.gmane.org> <458B072A.6010108@pobox.com>
	<emfc5b$gie$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 12/21/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, in that case it would be very dangerous if the import option allowed
> importers to delete from the source wiki, and single-user sign-on does not
> help in this case. Either the user isn't verified, in which case users of
> the remote wiki can delete WP content willy nilly (even if not registered),
> or the importer has to enter their Wikipedia username & password at the
> target wiki, and thus give these details to the administrator of that wiki
> (or a malicious extension writer).

I don't understand the difficulty.

1) You log in on Wiki A.  Your username and password are the same as
on Wiki B, since SUL is implemented, so no security breach occurs.

2) You say, through Wiki A's interface, that you would like to delete
an image from Wiki B.  Wiki A passes your username and password to
Wiki B for authentication; since they're the same on both wikis, Wiki
B will accept them and check if you're a sysop on Wiki B.

3) If you are, the image is deleted, and Wiki B tells Wiki A to
acknowledge the deletion.  Otherwise it tells Wiki A to return an
error.

There can't be any security breach if the two wikis share the same
database for usernames and passwords (i.e., SUL).  If they don't, this
doesn't have to work, but if it did, you could directly (but
invisibly) connect to Wiki A and give it your cookie if you're already
logged in there.


body:
George Herbert schreef:
> On 12/21/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> David Gerard schreef:
>>
>>> On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> The SUL is almost a year late as it is. All issues have been discussed
>>>> at length at the time. Postponing it now it not really an option. There
>>>> is also no capacity to come up with a technical solution. There is even
>>>> no consensus as to what the problem is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> So you really are saying that your only answer to the concerns raised
>>> is "fuck you"? That's disappointing. How do you plan to get every
>>> en:wp admin to go along with you?
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>>
>> Hoi,
>> Again you misquote. To what extend do you think the admins of other
>> projects are asked what they think about the imposition of all kinds of
>> functionality that was discussed at length at the en.wikipedia or some
>> such. Really, much of the problem has already been solved. With SUL it
>> will be even easier to find if someone is a know good or a known troll.
>> You just seem to be unwilling to acknowledge these facts, by also using
>> not so polite language you make yourself less relevant in my eyes.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>
>
>
> I find your lack of assumed good faith disturbing.
Hoi,
What do you expect when it is the return that I get is as if I said
"fuck you" ? You call that good faith ? What do you expect when for a
second time I am misquoted ?
Sorry, but it is not me who used foul language. So how do you conclude
that I am of bad faith. :(
GerardM


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Cherokee Wikipedia Banner Change to Fundraiser

body:
On 12/21/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> I have cleaned up the Cherokee Wikipedia Foundation site, but I need to
> update the banner to add the fundraiser.  It currently still
> reflects Wikimania of last year (????)  Which MediaWiki variable
> controls the banners on the top of the wiki?
>
> Jeff

[[MediaWiki:sitenotice]]

and

[[MediaWiki:anonnotice]]

--
geni


from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] Cherokee FundCORE translation update

body:
I examined the .pot files for the Drupal translation, and they're
unfortunately in the wrong format. The msgid must contain the original
text, and the msgstr must contain the translation.

Example:
msgid "I have %number."
msgstr "Ich habe %number."

Also, the ".pot" extension is for translation templates, where the
msgstrs are all empty. The ".po" extension is for translations. This
second problem is trivial to fix.

I can fix the files with some script to reprocess the translations into
the correct format, but it will take another day or two considering
other things I need to complete before heading to Canada for the holidays.

Of course, we're still very grateful for the translation work. I look
forward to offering Cherokee as a language option on FundCORE.

David

P.S. Normally I'd reply to preserve threading, but I just subscribed to
foundation-l to keep up with this issue.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
Just for those who were interested in this thread, a related topic on
MfD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Promotional_Photo_Advocacy

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


from_name: Mihai Floran

subject: [Foundation-l] Romanian Wikipedia

body: The Romanian Wikipedia reaches 25,000 registered users!


subject: [Foundation-l] Romanian Wikipedia


body:
On 21/12/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:

> In your options below, you forgot the main argument GerardM has
> expressed in this thread: that the problem faced by the English
> Wikipedia upto now will nearly disappear *because* of SUL.

How will the problems disappear?

e.g. how does the problem of admins on a given language Wikipedia not
being able to read usernames in unfamiliar scripts disappear with SUL,
rather than get worse? GerardM has declared that adding a user-ID to
the username is utterly unconscionable for no well-defined reason, so
the only option that leaves is that all Wikipedia admins must be able
to read all scripts used on any Wikipedia (and have the fonts and
browsers to be able to do so) to be admins. I can only presume you and
he hold that a superior option from a usability point of view.

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] 1.6.7 to 1.9alpha Upgrade Issue

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

Oliver Kurek wrote:
> I've been working on upgrading a wiki I administer to the lastest vestion of
> MediaWiki from the svn repository, and have run into an odd issue with URL
> rewriting.
>
> I've disabled the RewriteEngine in my .htaccess file while trying to puzzles
> out exactly what's been going on, but it seems that attempts for me to
> navigate to the url http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/, which is where the wiki
> software resides, result in the URL
> http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W/index.php and a 'The page
> isn't redirecting properly' error in Firefox.

Set $wgUsePathInfo = false;

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFi3TwwRnhpk1wk44RAi+IAKDcSVE5uruHKgVhBgvcaytnPDo2vQCgpIHb
P68plJHwLCPEsruBw5jf6BQ=
=q2aJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, jayjg wrote:
> Read your own words; "Seems like an obvious conclusion to me..." You
> are drawing your own conclusions, rather than quoting others who have
> drawn those conclusions. In addition, by definition it is a *novel*
> conclusion; if it weren't novel, then you'd be able to quote someone
> who had come to the same conclusion.

That only applies if *any conclusion whatsoever* is original research.  But
that's not true.  Otherwise it would be original research to say that someone
is more than 5 feet tall if the source just said they are 6 feet tall.

So you can't just say "that's a conclusion, so it's original research".  You
need to figure out exactly what types of conclusions are and aren't allowed,
and then show that this particular conclusion falls into the prohibited
category.

I would argue that an *obvious* conclusion falls into the permitted category.
The whole reason we accept conclusions like "he is 6 feet tall, therefore
he is more than 5 feet tall" is that they don't require specialist training
to make, and that nobody could seriously deny they are true--in other words,
we accept such conclusions because they are obvious.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject:
[WikiEN-l] issue with an admin refusing to allow me "right to
	vanish"

body:
rootology?

On 12/21/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/21/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > > It's the hidden from non-admins part that is a problem.
> > > If you did any significant editing, the discussions on your talk page
> > could
> > > be of interest to other editors even after you leave. It could be
> tagged
> > as
> > > belonging to a left user, it can be protected from trolls, and it
> might
> > even
> > > be blankable, but it cannot be deleted.
> >
> > In general, I do not agree with this approach.  Allowing people to
> > vanish, including deleting their user and user_talk pages, is often the
> > best way to part company with dignity.  "Could be of interest" should
> > not be the standard, I think, but rather "Is indispensable to the
> > functioning of the encyclopedia."
> >
> > There can be exceptions, of course.  If a user repeatedly joins and
> > deletes (perhaps sockpuppeting), causing a lot of disruptive demands to
> > delete their userpage, we could just ignore it if that seemed like the
> > best way to deal with it.
> >
> > But in general, I see no reason to have a general policy of keeping talk
> > pages around that make someone who would like to leave us unhappy.
>
>
>
> The specific claim here is that this was a rootology sockpuppet, rootology
> having been banned in the ED arbcom case.
>
> The evidence is being closely held, but I trust the admins in question.
>
> I find this all sort of unfortunate, because before that case rootology
> seemed like he might be contributing positively, but he left in rather a
> huff and under a cloud.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Oliver Kurek

body:
I've been working on upgrading a wiki I administer to the lastest vestion of
MediaWiki from the svn repository, and have run into an odd issue with URL
rewriting.

I've disabled the RewriteEngine in my .htaccess file while trying to puzzles
out exactly what's been going on, but it seems that attempts for me to
navigate to the url http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/, which is where the wiki
software resides, result in the URL
http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W/index.php and a 'The page
isn't redirecting properly' error in Firefox.

Another example: http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page
Results in: http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W/index.php
With the same error displayed by Firefox.

Now, for the really curious part.  The URL
http://test.krakiipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=edit sort of
seems to work, telling me I need to login to edit the page, which is
normal.  However, I can't log in to see if anything else is happening.  It
also appears as it it's trying to have me edit the page named "W/index.php"
instead of "Main Page".

The best I can come up with is that $1 in my $wgArticlePath definition is
being replaced with "W/index,php" regardless of anything.

The relevant lines from my LocalSettings.php files are:

$wgScriptPath = "/w";
$wgScript = "$wgScriptPath/index.php";
$wgRedirectScript = "$wgScriptPath/redirect.php";
#$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";
$wgArticlePath = "$wgScript?title=$1";

I normally have my .htaccess file set up to rewrite the URL in the form of "
http://test.krakiipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page", and I originally thought this
was the cause, but it seems to be the 1.9alpha version.

I've run the database update on a copy of the live database that is running
1.6.7 now, which didn't help the situation.

Any ideas?

Oliver Kurek


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hi,

Gregory Maxwell a ?crit :
> On 12/21/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>
>>There are those that have pointed out that practically all of the users
>>will be respectable users from other language projects
>
> [snip]
>
> Why do we use speculation and paranoia rather than data?
>
> I thought folks on this thread might find this list useful.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/nonalphausers

If you want this to be meaningful, you need to remove accounts with only
Arabic numbers. Obviously these can be recognized easily by English-only
speakers.

> Obviously it does not count users who were blocked before they could
> "contribute".

This would be useful too, as a separate list, maybe.

Regards,

Yann


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

body:
On 12/21/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> I have cleaned up the Cherokee Wikipedia Foundation site, but I need to
> update the banner to add the fundraiser.  It currently still
> reflects Wikimania of last year (????)  Which MediaWiki variable
> controls the banners on the top of the wiki?
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

You need to change [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]]. While you're at it, you
should also +1 at [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice id]], for anyone who might
have clicked "close" in the header.

--
Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
Skype - jon.harald.soby


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

body:
David Strauss wrote:

>I examined the .pot files for the Drupal translation, and they're
>unfortunately in the wrong format. The msgid must contain the original
>text, and the msgstr must contain the translation.
>
>Example:
>msgid "I have %number."
>msgstr "Ich habe %number."
>
>Also, the ".pot" extension is for translation templates, where the
>msgstrs are all empty. The ".po" extension is for translations. This
>second problem is trivial to fix.
>
>
I can fix this tonight and get them back up almost immediately. It will
take a few hours.

>I can fix the files with some script to reprocess the translations into
>the correct format, but it will take another day or two considering
>other things I need to complete before heading to Canada for the holidays.
>
>Of course, we're still very grateful for the translation work. I look
>forward to offering Cherokee as a language option on FundCORE.
>
>

I did translate the entire Drupal message system. I will have the files
later this evening. I'll let you convert them from
.pot (what a name!) to *.po with an "mv".

:-)

Jeff

>David
>
>P.S. Normally I'd reply to preserve threading, but I just subscribed to
>foundation-l to keep up with this issue.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


body:
Hi,

In your options below, you forgot the main argument GerardM has
expressed in this thread: that the problem faced by the English
Wikipedia upto now will nearly disappear *because* of SUL.

Maybe it was not explained enough in details, but how could you overlook
it? Beside you seem to ignore all other options which have been
expressed by others (i.e. Guillaume for example).

Regards,

Yann

David Gerard a ?crit :
> On 21/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> That was your precise text I quoted. What part are you claiming I have altered?
>
>>To what extend do you think the admins of other
>>projects are asked what they think about the imposition of all kinds of
>>functionality that was discussed at length at the en.wikipedia or some
>>such. Really, much of the problem has already been solved. With SUL it
>>will be even easier to find if someone is a know good or a known troll.
>>You just seem to be unwilling to acknowledge these facts, by also using
>>not so polite language you make yourself less relevant in my eyes.
>
> Then answer the questions, please, rather than taking an attitude of
> arrogant dismissal (as you have throughout this discussion) that I do
> think can accurately be summarised as "fuck you"
>
> I have put these as simply as I can. Are you able to answer them at all?
>
> Do you acknowledge that it was put in place because of a real problem?
> [ ] yes
> [ ] no
>
> Do you acknowledge that the problems stated in this thread exist or
> are thought to exist?
> [ ] Yes
> [ ] No
>
> Do you have any solutions for these problems other than every
> administrator on every language Wikipedia being required to learn
> every script used on Wikipedia to be able to effectively be an
> administrator on their own-language Wikipedia?
> [ ] Yes, my solution is ...
> [ ] No, if I've learnt all these scripts and installed all these fonts
> they can too
> [ ] No (some other reason ...)
>
> Are you able to answer even "yes or no" questions trying to discern
> your position as being anything other than arrogant dismissal?
>
>
> - d.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 21/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> So, if the homograph attack and idiot user problem is largely solved,
> the main remaining problem appears to be accommodation of users who do
> not have the right fonts installed.

Note, by the way, that you can't even cut and paste a lot of Unicode
reliably, as I found out recently trying to write an Uncyclopedia
article (using the Wikia version of MediaWiki, which is pretty close
to Wikimedia's) which contained a burst of deliberately-gibberish
Unicode in the middle of Latin text [1].

This was on Seamonkey on Windows XP, and I had to experiment with
cut'n'paste to get it to work at all without stripping high bits or
turning the lot into "???????". I eventually did it by cutting from a
text box and pasting to another text box. Copy-and-paste from the
rendered wiki page did not work on this system.

Any solution must be able to accomodate system configurations that
make up a noticeable fraction of the userbase, even if they are
hopelessly broken by design, e.g. Windows XP English. A tooltip won't
make it possible to *use* the username, only to view it. And despite
GerardM's claims otherwise, we can't reasonably demand all en:wp
admins run something sensible like Ubuntu because he claims user-ID
numbers working would be dehumanising.

- d.

[1] http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:Supreme_Court_declares_global_warming_unconstitutional


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
> > so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
> > claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
> > and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
> > theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
> > Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
>
> What's novel about "It doesn't appear on the such results, therefore
> it isn't in the library"? Seems like an obvious conclusion to me...
> (might not be 100% reliable, depending on search terms, accuracy of
> the library's index, etc, but that doesn't make it novel).

Read your own words; "Seems like an obvious conclusion to me..." You
are drawing your own conclusions, rather than quoting others who have
drawn those conclusions. In addition, by definition it is a *novel*
conclusion; if it weren't novel, then you'd be able to quote someone
who had come to the same conclusion.

Jay.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>You can't make the real problem in an article go away by writing the
>>letters "OR" on a post-it note, and sticking it on.  That's being
>>simplistic.
>>
>>
>Some problems can't be solved. If there is no published research on a
>particular matter, it can't be included in a wikipedia article,
>however much it would add to that article.
>
We can do better than depend on such tautologies.  Like other negative
statements denying the existence of something, it is just as difficult
to establish that adequate sources do not exist.  Sometimes the research
needs to be pulled together from a range of sources.  If we find a
statement to be inadequately sourced our first obligation should be to
seek sources from one or more places.  To use NOR as a bare tool to
excuse the omission of information is a perversion of the basis for
having that guideline in the first place.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>I don't see what that can't be broadened just a bit. For example,
>let's suppose a library has an online catalog... let's say an online
>catalog that's accessible to anyone. (Two that come to mind are the
>Cornell University Library, and the 16,000-volume public library of
>Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands... well actually it seems to be
>offline but it was available a few years ago).
>
>You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
>not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
>to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
>seem very different to me from a citation.
>
More precisely you can say that you could not find the book listed in
the Cornell University Library Catalog.  It's not the same even though
the correlation between the two statements will be strong.

Ec


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> You can't make the real problem in an article go away by writing the
> letters "OR" on a post-it note, and sticking it on.  That's being
> simplistic.

Some problems can't be solved. If there is no published research on a
particular matter, it can't be included in a wikipedia article,
however much it would add to that article.


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 12/21/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> C'mon, how not? People with too much time have the time to improve
> Wikipedia!

I fear that level of obsession does not scale.

Or at least, I hope it does not.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>
>>Lawyers' opinions
>>are still just opinions no matter how many of them are given.  A
>>single
>>unappealed decision by a low-level judge would be a precedent that
>>could
>>throw all 20 scholarly opinions out the window.
>>
>>
>If I correctly understood what a first-year law student once told
>me... and if _he_ correctly understood what _he_ was told... even a
>Supreme Court (of the U. S.) ruling is just a set of opinions about
>an individual case... and all cases are different.
>
>So, when a lawyer says "thus-and-such is the law because of thus-and-
>such Supreme Court ruling," this is shorthand for saying "if your
>particular case were taken to court, the lawyers would probably point
>out to the judge that there was a Supreme Court ruling in a somewhat
>similar case.  I predict that the judge would think the opinions of a
>Supreme Court justices are legally sound. And I your case is similar
>enough that the judge will feel that their opinions pretty much apply
>in your case. Therefore I predict that it is very likely that the
>judge will rule thus-and-such way in your case."
>
Absolutely!  If you read enough law cases you soon see that half the
lawyers are arguing (perhaps indirectly) why the case is similar to one
already decided by the Supreme Courtwhile the other half is arguing to
distinguish it.  The statements that we make in most areas of life are
highly probibilistic, and absolute truth is seldom encountered.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 12/21/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Character set mixing within usernames is no longer allowed, at least on
> en: -- that is to say, each username must contain characters from only a
> single writing system, in order to prevent cross-script homograph
> attacks,

So, if the homograph attack and idiot user problem is largely solved,
the main remaining problem appears to be accommodation of users who do
not have the right fonts installed.

When you hover your mouse over a username, it could show you an
automatic transliteration as a tooltip. In addition, there could be a
special page to access user pages via transliterations:
Special:Getuser/Blabla or something like that (might return multiple
results, otherwise should redirect directly to user). The
transliterations here would mainly serve as lookup keys that users can
input; they wouldn't have to be very useful otherwise. They would have
to be cached, I think, to make fast lookup possible.

I think it would also be nice to, as an option on a per-wiki basis, to
detect whether a page contains non-Latin characters. If so, a notice
could be displayed at the bottom:

 This page contains characters outside the standard Latin character
set. If these
 characters do not display correctly for you, please see ... for font
installation
 instructions.

Would that help?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Begging letters on our blogs?

body:
J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:

> I remember reading a report in the Signpost which says that Wikipedia
> could earn over $500 million if it used contextual ads.

Please, if you're going to cite my work in making the controversial
argument that Wikipedia should carry advertising, at least get your
information right. The Signpost did not report "that Wikipedia could
earn over $500 million if it used contextual ads." The Signpost reported
about some people doing back-of-the-napkin analysis, and they didn't
come up with $500 million in revenue either. Even the biggest public
booster of such advertising, the inimitable Jason Calacanis, was only
plugging for $100 million as the annual revenue potential.

Perhaps you've gotten confused over the critical distinction between
income and valuation? Or if you were relying solely on memory, please
avoid that bad habit (responsible for quite a few Wikipedia errors),
especially when the facts require such a trivial effort to check.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail server status

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

Until Mark has a chance to build a new mail server setup from scratch on
new machines (targetted within the month), we attempted to forestall
additional crashes on goeje by swapping its hard drive to another
machine of the same physical type.

The hope was that if the intermittent crashes were due to a hardware
problem, that another box might not exhibit the same defect.

Goeje and Harris's drives were swapped about three and a half hours ago,
pretty much without a hitch.

Unfortunately, the new goeje then crashed within an hour, and would not
reboot. POST failures indicated major failures, perhaps of memory.
(Harris had not been having any problems that we were aware of, though
it had been out of regular rotation and used for some experimental
service testing.)

The drive has been switched back to what we hope is its original
location by the fine friendly late-night techs, and mail should be back
up and streaming through.

We may have to consider a more annoying move of the mail software,
configuration, and archives (which is half the work of the full move,
and will have to do it all over again for the final setup, hence the
reluctance to do it in the first place).

(We are maintaining a periodically updated backup of goeje's data, so we
can restore to another machine if the drive also shorts out in case of
emergency.)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFi4lVwRnhpk1wk44RAmPjAKDe42n0AZ6UEU8x0/NSmUEcN7gDOwCfUNZp
p6WQU4JwpUBpZF8Si0pPyP4=
=HuYA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
phoebe ayers wrote:

>The printed list of serial killers will always be the same in that
>particular book; the database search may yield different results next year.
>As for availability, I don't know about HeinOnline, but there are different
>subsets of LexisNexis and most folks other than lawyers and law students
>don't have access to the really good and expensive one.
>
>Two more notes: I don't know if there's specific protocol for legal
>databases; generally one cites a DB search with the name of the database,
>date of search, and your search string: "(au=brown) and (wd="serial
>killer*")". As for the not-finding-anything search... notoriously hard to
>prove or do definitively, yes. A very similar question was given to us in
>library school as homework :)
>
Perhaps then you're in a better position to provide guidance on how to
deal with unsuccessful searches. ;-)

A search that yields nothing does not imply that nothing exists.  Maybe
the searcher is looking in the wrong library or database.  If we are
dealing with material that is difficult to verify it seems more honest
to admit, "We have been unable to find sources to verify this after
looking in these places," than to suppress the claims altogether.  The
outright deletion imposes a bias on the subject, perhaps out of
ignorance.  Stating that we have thus far found nothing after a search
of specified sources leaves open the possibility that another editor may
have access to other as yet untried sources.

To be sure there can be overriding considerations such as defamatory
comments.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] New SVN committers

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

Added today:

Paa Kwesi Imbeah (suuch) - InstantCommons extension

David Strauss (straussd) - fundraising reporting tools

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFi40HwRnhpk1wk44RAmCCAJ9Evp5YR33GYphlkNDUc9jty8XddwCgw0y+
WR2AGwc+GlgXMXC4gReREvU=
=YoRE
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 12/21/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Brandt is an obsessive with way too much time on his hands, it
> seems.  Not a practical solution to the overall problem.
>
> -Matt

Yes and no. Certain searches of existing content would be useful the
most obvious being running a copy of the database against a copy of
britianica.

--
geni


body:
On 12/21/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Yes, one big part of the  problem goes away: that to find out if the user
> is a vandal or a known user on some other wikis.
> If I understand GerardM's explanations correctly, it will be possible to
> easily find out on which wikis this user has edits, so you will know if
> it is a new account or not.
>

Sleeper accounts are a common tactic so age means little.

> Beside that, don't you think that the English Wikipedia is not the only
> wikis in which most of the users can't understand non Latin scripts?
>
> Actually as the English Wikipedia is much more international than other
> languages wikis, it is propably the opposite, i.e. there are many
> editors on the English Wikipedia whose mother tongue is not English,
> compared to other European languages where there are very few editors
> whose mother tongue is the language of the wiki.
>
> But yet no other Wikipedia has created or applied such a policy.
>

No other wikipedia could survive the level of continious attacks en
has to deal with for a non trivial length of time.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
jayjg wrote:

>On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
>
>>You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
>>not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
>>to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
>>seem very different to me from a citation.
>>
>>
>No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
>elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
>is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
>so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
>claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
>and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
>theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
>Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
>
What you appear to be opposing here is any research rather than just
original research.  Your use of the term "trivially obvious" and your
astonishment are pure rhetoric.  The reference to a "novel claim in
physics" attempts to generalize from a very specific set of
circumstances.  The claim that the references were not found at Cornell
may be novel in performance for the specific circumstances, but it is
not novel in the nature of its general application.  This argument has
been used frequently in many circumstances.  Equating "novel" to
"original" in the present context is thoroughly misleading.

We cannot be so na?ve as to believe that absolutely every claim in
Wikipedia can be indisputably sourced.from unimpeachable references.
Doing so can only propel our readers into a fools' paradise of certainty
about the world.

Ec


from_name: Ronald Chmara

body:
On Dec 21, 2006, at 11:16 PM, Michael Snow wrote:
> Perhaps you've gotten confused over the critical distinction between
> income and valuation? Or if you were relying solely on memory, please
> avoid that bad habit (responsible for quite a few Wikipedia errors),
> especially when the facts require such a trivial effort to check.

I value this post at 500 bajillion dollars.

I will expect the check delivered to my house in morning.

Thank You.

-Ronabop


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>In all seriousness, I think the policy should be that any special knowledge
>>needed to understand the article should be included somewhere in Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>So foreign language sources are out, then? I think that's a good
>guideline in a lot of situations, but not all... some types of
>specialist knowledge aren't the kinds of things you find in an
>encyclopedia.
>
We have Wikibooks about learning different language, and Wiktionaries
about the meanings of words.  If language is your problem maybe you
could start by looking there.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-22

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

   1 new PASSING test(s) :)
      * anchorencode
Passed 463 of 482 tests (96.06%)... FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>In all seriousness, I think the policy should be that any special knowledge
>needed to understand the article should be included somewhere in Wikipedia.
>For example, the above knowledge is included at [[key signature]] and at
>[[E-flat major]].
>
>Thus if the example article read
>
>"The [[key (music)|key]] of the score is [[E-flat major]]<ref>[link to
>score]</ref>..."
>
>Any person with the knowledge contained at those links would be able to
>understand the reference.
>
That's perfectly sensible.  Instead some people are intent on
reinventing the wheels that they are already spinning too fast to see.

It is pointless to keep proving these repeatedly when the matter has
already been properly considered in a more general article.  Just link
to the article where it's already done.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 12/22/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Did he do it by using random pages? It strikes me that it would be
> something most easily done if you downloaded a copy of the database
> and then ran it off of that systematically (you could filter out short
> articles while you are at it).
>
> FF

He search biographies. One of the challanges is building up a really
complete set of wikipedia mirrors.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>Yes, we all agree, we want good experts to come contribute and make highly
>technical articles better.
>
>No, we don't want to allow anyone including experts to slip unverifyable
>unreferenced stuff in, because we basically don't know for sure what
>anyone's qualifications are.
>
Precisely.  That's why what is said is far more important than who says it.

>It is likely that in many cases, "anyone" isn't going to be qualified to
>understand primary or secondary sources.  That is probably simply cold
>reality; as an example, I don't understand much of the math in the advanced
>physics articles, and less so in the primary sources, despite having had
>many years of advanced university math.
>
>Policies which are good for soft sciences, history, etc, where anyone
>generally can read the source and understand it, are probably not a good
>match for hard ones where even the notations used are domain-specific and
>arbitrary.
>
Yes, if every mathematical step in deriving a theory in physics needs to
be explained on the spot in great detail the whole article loses its impact.

Ec


body:
On 21/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I did a large amount of copying and pasting of all
> kinds of fonts about a year ago when repairing the
> broken links from the WS split. [1]  I never had a
> problem with getting a usable link.  What exactly was
> the problem you encountered?

Erm, I stated the exact problem and software environment in the bit of
my message you in fact quoted ...

- d.


from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
> > so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
> > claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
> > and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
> > theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
> > Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
>
> What's novel about "It doesn't appear on the such results, therefore
> it isn't in the library"? Seems like an obvious conclusion to me...
> (might not be 100% reliable, depending on search terms, accuracy of
> the library's index, etc, but that doesn't make it novel).

You may have made a mistake. Or it may be in the library but not in
the catalogue, or vice versa. That you conducted the search yourself
makes publication of your results OR. We publish the mistakes of
reliable sources, not of Wikipedians. :-)


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
geni wrote:

[snip]
> Certain searches of existing content would be useful the most obvious
> being running a copy of the database against a copy of britianica.
>

And other databases of copyrighted texts, such as InfoTrac
(http://www.gale.com/onefile/) or similar, and things like Google Book
Search.

-- Neil


body:
Hi,

This is also a reply to David Gerard.

George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/21/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>In your options below, you forgot the main argument GerardM has
>>expressed in this thread: that the problem faced by the English
>>Wikipedia upto now will nearly disappear *because* of SUL.
>
> SUL does not make the problem go away.  Nobody has posted any explanation of
> how it would.

Yes, one big part of the  problem goes away: that to find out if the user
is a vandal or a known user on some other wikis.
If I understand GerardM's explanations correctly, it will be possible to
easily find out on which wikis this user has edits, so you will know if
it is a new account or not.

Beside that, don't you think that the English Wikipedia is not the only
wikis in which most of the users can't understand non Latin scripts?

Actually as the English Wikipedia is much more international than other
languages wikis, it is propably the opposite, i.e. there are many
editors on the English Wikipedia whose mother tongue is not English,
compared to other European languages where there are very few editors
whose mother tongue is the language of the wiki.

But yet no other Wikipedia has created or applied such a policy.

Regards,

Yann

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Biblioth?que libre
http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> No other WMF project has as many resources as the English language
> Wikipedia does. No other project gets as much attention from the
> developers. No other project does as well as a result. No other project
> can therefore withstand the constant abuse from vandals as successfully.
>
Resources will only get you so far. If there is a weapon we can use
you cannot expect us to put it down.

> However, this does not mean that might is right.

Oh really?

>It also does not mean
> that arguments used that are in opposition to some of its policies can
> be ignored as is currently happening.

Not being ignored. Sure you are ignoreing the counter arguments but
that is your problem.

>There are many things I do not
> care about. Having people decently treated is one. With the improvements
> that have happened like the prevention of mixed script user names and
> the upcoming the SUL the arguments for the practice of blocking non
> Latin users on sight have been largely removed.

Not at all.  We will continue to take whatever steps are required to
protect our wikipedia.

How much page move vandalism have you delt with? Template vandalism?
Attacks from open proxies? bot attacks?

--
geni


body:
Yann Forget wrote:
> there are many
> editors on the English Wikipedia whose mother tongue is not English,
> compared to other European languages where there are very few editors
> whose mother tongue is the language of the wiki.

Oops, a "not" escaped in this sentence.

Obviously, I mean "There are many editors on the English Wikipedia whose
mother tongue is not English, compared to other European languages where
there are very few editors whose mother tongue is *not* the language of
the wiki.

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Biblioth?que libre
http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
> so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
> claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
> and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
> theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
> Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.

What's novel about "It doesn't appear on the such results, therefore
it isn't in the library"? Seems like an obvious conclusion to me...
(might not be 100% reliable, depending on search terms, accuracy of
the library's index, etc, but that doesn't make it novel).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Certain searches of existing content would be useful the most obvious
>> being running a copy of the database against a copy of britianica.
>>
>>
>
> And other databases of copyrighted texts, such as InfoTrac
> (http://www.gale.com/onefile/) or similar, and things like Google Book
> Search.
>
> -- Neil
>

Just a thought: the en: Wikipedia gets about 3 edits a second. I wonder
if it would be possible for us to use special pleading through the
Foundation to get a dedicated search pipe into Google that would allow
us to do, say, 30 searches a second 24 hours a day, (which would only be
a tiny, tiny fraction of their overall capacity), in recognition of the
_very_ substantial benefit in advertising revenue they must surely
currently be receiving as a side effect of having Wikipedia's content
online to draw in search queries.

(Think about it: even if only 20% of Wikimedia's 4000 or so page loads a
second come from Google users who are expecting something like Wikipedia
content, and Google only make $0.25 CPM on serving page ads on searches
for those pages, that comes to an income stream of $0.20 per _second_
from Wikipedia searches, or a total of about $8M a year...)

If so, we could integrate the copyright violation bot into the
toolserver, or into the MW server cluster itself.

-- Neil


subject: [Foundation-l] WMF mission

body:
Aphaia wrote:

>Now the home page of its website says,
>"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
>the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
>
>Is it a final version we can call for translators (at least for website)?
>
>Besides that, one day I found a question about that on feedback page.
>An anonymous inquirer was worried if married people had no seat in the
>world we've envisioned ;) It is always difficult to talk without
>misunderstanding .....
>
The word "single" only serves as emphasis, and is otherwise redundant.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] WMF mission


body:
On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I do not understand what this has to do with non-latin
> usernames.  This threat is just as real for *all*
> usernames.  A sockpuppet can be built up on it.WP and
> do this same damage.  But en.WP does not block italian
> usernames on sight.  Only non-latin usernames.  How is
> a non-latin username a greater threat to be a sleeper
> vandal than a latin username?  I really do not
> understand the problem in this regard.
>
> Birgitte SB
>

Information is the first principle of controling vandles. If there is
a username you can't read that is an edge you have lost.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> wrote in
message news:458B072A.6010108 at pobox.com...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Clements wrote:
> > Yes, but the transwiki is an _import_, not an _export_ process (i.e. you
> > perform the operation from the target wiki), so how can this process
perform
> > the remote delete without compromising security?
> >
> > Perhaps I do not understand how transwiki works.  Is it possible for me,
on
> > my private wiki, to set up WP as an import source for transwiki?
>
> Yes.
>

Well, in that case it would be very dangerous if the import option allowed
importers to delete from the source wiki, and single-user sign-on does not
help in this case. Either the user isn't verified, in which case users of
the remote wiki can delete WP content willy nilly (even if not registered),
or the importer has to enter their Wikipedia username & password at the
target wiki, and thus give these details to the administrator of that wiki
(or a malicious extension writer).

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 12/22/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Go ahead: Write the software, make it good, make it scale, make it
> robust so that you don't have to constantly twiddle with it to keep it
> working.
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wherebot

> I have no doubt that Google's ratelimit can be worked out.  I promise
> you that good work done towards these ends will not be work wasted.
> Make sure that it's sufficently modular that we'll be able to use it
> to generate queries against other texts sources.
>

Other text sources for the most part would be best run offline against
database dumps since most of them would involve runs agaist data that
cannont be freely acessed on the web.

--
geni


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
geni schreef:
> On 12/21/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>> Yes, one big part of the  problem goes away: that to find out if the user
>> is a vandal or a known user on some other wikis.
>> If I understand GerardM's explanations correctly, it will be possible to
>> easily find out on which wikis this user has edits, so you will know if
>> it is a new account or not.
>>
>>
>
> Sleeper accounts are a common tactic so age means little.
>
>
>> Beside that, don't you think that the English Wikipedia is not the only
>> wikis in which most of the users can't understand non Latin scripts?
>>
>> Actually as the English Wikipedia is much more international than other
>> languages wikis, it is propably the opposite, i.e. there are many
>> editors on the English Wikipedia whose mother tongue is not English,
>> compared to other European languages where there are very few editors
>> whose mother tongue is the language of the wiki.
>>
>> But yet no other Wikipedia has created or applied such a policy.
>>
>>
>
> No other wikipedia could survive the level of continious attacks en
> has to deal with for a non trivial length of time.
Hoi,
No other WMF project has as many resources as the English language
Wikipedia does. No other project gets as much attention from the
developers. No other project does as well as a result. No other project
can therefore withstand the constant abuse from vandals as successfully.

However, this does not mean that might is right. It also does not mean
that arguments used that are in opposition to some of its policies can
be ignored as is currently happening. There are many things I do not
care about. Having people decently treated is one. With the improvements
that have happened like the prevention of mixed script user names and
the upcoming the SUL the arguments for the practice of blocking non
Latin users on sight have been largely removed. It is sad that this is
not acknowledged and that discussion has deteriorated into little more
than denial and name calling.

Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 22/12/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, in that case it would be very dangerous if the import option allowed
> importers to delete from the source wiki, and single-user sign-on does not
[snip]

The problem is that someone took the "let's support true image
importing" ball and ran with it, off to the "ooh, let's enable moving"
camp.

I am of the opinion that while making the import process easier for
Commons admins is going to end up being more or less essential, it is
just as essential that a human has the final say over whether or not
the image is deleted from the source wiki.

There are cases where you wouldn't want to be performing a *move*,
anyway; the import process as it stands implies copying, rather than
moving, and that is I how I think it should remain.

Rob Church


body:
On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> We would have a better edge on vandalism if we
> required confirmed email adresses before allowing a
> user to edit.  But the goal of Wikipedia is not
> prevent vandalism at all costs.  I really don't
> understand the particular problem with non-latin
> vandals.  More inforamation is always better but why
> is this information needed for vandal-fighting?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers type in various swear
wods to start searches.

> I
> have never had to type in any username to make a
> block.  Everything is dome by clicking through links.
> Click on  a diff to confirm vandalism, click on block
> to block the user, click on contribs to cleanup the
> mess.  For a major vandal; paste the link to the
> contribs on IRC to solict help.  Whether the username
> is english, bosian, or ????; I am not sure how it
> would make a difference.

Because I can't glance at recent changes and tell whcih of the half
dozen ????? are problem users.

>  What do vandal fighters as
> en.WP do differently than that makes non-latin
> usernames a significant problem?
>

Some of our vandles have trademarks. It is also very hard to come up
with large numbers of legit sounding names in a short timeframe. The
result is that mayn vandles resort to nonsense names. If they can hide
that by useing japanses characters I have lost a way of picking them
up.

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> What functionality is impaired by not being able to read the username,
> given that MediaWiki makes all these things clickable?

The ability to remeber who the heck someone was. I can remeber Kasuga.
I can't remeber ????.

If I'm dealing with a problem user who I can't neutralise on sight it
is helpful if can remember who they are

--
geni


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni schreef:
> > On 12/22/06, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> And how much mass vandal robots did you have before discuting and
> >> accepting this policy (if it has been ever discussed and accepted ;))
> >> ?
> >>
> >>
> >
> > It's in our records for the most part you are free to search through them.
> >
> >
> >> If you have a bot making mass vandalizing, if the pseudo will be latin
> >> or non latin won't make any difference.
> >>
> >
> > Evidences?
> >
> >
> >> And by the way for bot generated pseudo it exists a feature ;).
> >>
> >
> > Um no.
> >
> >
> >> The
> >> probleme here, for my point of view, is totally different. In the five
> >> pillars we can read "Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit"
> >> exept vandals of course, and your policy is going against this as you
> >> block non latin pseudo before they began editing, even if they would
> >> be a good editor.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > If an editor can't cope with useing a latin alphabet username (doesn't
> > have to make sense in any lanague know to man mind) then they are
> > unlikely to be able to contibute to wikipedia.
> This is not the issue. Certainly with SUL there is ONE user for all
> projects and the English language Wikipedia seems to be of a mind to
> effectively sabotage this by insisting on practices that can be and
> should be replaced by new practices that provide a better result. A
> 1.000+ editor from a Korean, Serbian, Chinese, Inuktitut can be accepted
> as a known good. Please show some good faith as this can be easily be
> checked.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM

Users who've done 1,000+ edits on Korean, Serbian, Chinese, Inuktitut
etc WPs are not the users we are afraid of here, Gerard.

Please stop putting up this straw man that we're all against having
the non-english users come on over and contribute equally.  I think
that those will be almost universally supported as a good thing among
en.WP editors.  Implying that we think otherwise is an offensive false
claim.  That is not why we're objecting.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
On 12/22/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Yet, if you take a photo of your friend in Disneyland, you can upload it
> as a free picture even if some kid in the background happens to be
> wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
>
> Probably even if it's you friend who's wearing the T-shirt, as long as
> the main subject of the image is your friend and not the shirt.
>

As long as the whole photo is used probably yes

> Anyway, I just posted a much longer message on this subject, so I'll
> keep this one short.
>

[[Wikipedia talk:Fair use]] is currently 512 kilobytes long

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> You are dragging this away from my original question.
> A refresh of where this converstion came from
>
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-December/012499.html
>
> Are non-latin usernames a problem for fighting
> high-calibre vandals who use sleeper sockpuppet
> accounts?  This has been stated as a concern and I do
> not see where latin/non-latin has any significance.
>
> Birgitte SB

It makes it imposible to pick up bot generated or common theme names.

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> If the vandals George Herbert is concerned about could
> be picked up by their use of bot generation or common
> themes they wouldn't exactly  qualify as "getting past
> the "new user" time period and minimum edit counts".

Unless of course they find a way to dodge our tests by registering
names in some form of nat latin alphabet.

> Is it safe to say dedicated sockpuppet sleeper vandals
> are not a concern regarding non-latin usernames?

No.

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> So we better train either the anti-spoofing software or blocking bots
> like the one Curps had. If it can automatically block anything with
> "ON WHEELS" in it, surely it or something like it can be expanded to
> pick up swear words or recognisable patterns in other languages.

Could. Less effort to shoot non Latin usernames on site than to use up
our limited multilingual resources..

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> And how much mass vandal robots did you have before discuting and
> accepting this policy (if it has been ever discussed and accepted ;))
> ?
>

It's in our records for the most part you are free to search through them.

> If you have a bot making mass vandalizing, if the pseudo will be latin
> or non latin won't make any difference.

Evidences?

>
> And by the way for bot generated pseudo it exists a feature ;).

Um no.

>The
> probleme here, for my point of view, is totally different. In the five
> pillars we can read "Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit"
> exept vandals of course, and your policy is going against this as you
> block non latin pseudo before they began editing, even if they would
> be a good editor.
>

If an editor can't cope with useing a latin alphabet username (doesn't
have to make sense in any lanague know to man mind) then they are
unlikely to be able to contibute to wikipedia.

--
geni


from_name: Christophe Henner

body:
And how much mass vandal robots did you have before discuting and
accepting this policy (if it has been ever discussed and accepted ;))
?

If you have a bot making mass vandalizing, if the pseudo will be latin
or non latin won't make any difference.

And by the way for bot generated pseudo it exists a feature ;). The
probleme here, for my point of view, is totally different. In the five
pillars we can read "Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit"
exept vandals of course, and your policy is going against this as you
block non latin pseudo before they began editing, even if they would
be a good editor.

--
schiste