from_name: Grégoire Colbert

subject: [Wikitech-l] Why www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?

body:
Frank v Waveren a ?crit :
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 10:38:49AM +0100, Gr?goire Colbert wrote:
>
>>  $alh = trim( $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE"] );
>
> This would be a horrible abuse of HTTP. You should only present the
> same content in different languages based on the Accept-Language
> field, never to different content. Having links point to different
> things based on browser settings would be a nightmare.
>

The fact that www.wikipedia.com does not care about the visitor's
language does not seem an "horrible abuse" to you? Only HTTP matters? If
so, you've got a strange vision of what a website is made for.

Gr?goire


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: bibliography

body:
For a babe in the woods, Caroline makes a lot of sense.   A huge percentage of articles currently lack references, and we're worried about whether someone leaves out the middle name on an otherwise reasonable reference?   The chances of ambiguities arising are one in a million.  Referencing is the preferred practice, and whether it is done has less to do with the availability of a bells-and-whistles add-on, and more to do with the character of the scribe.
This mother-of-all-bibliographies might have Adam Smith, but will it have Giuseppe Pitre or Santi Correnti or the Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia or the New Junior Encyclopedia (which is now extremely old) or the Hansard?
Salutamu
pippu d'angelo, canberra

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Today's Topics:

1. RE: Re: Bibliography (Caroline Ewen)
2. Re: Choosing interface? (Mark Williamson)
3. Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
Been Around For A While (Stirling Newberry)
4. Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
Been Around For A While (Sean Barrett)
5. Re: Re: Bibliography (Stan Shebs)
6. RE: Re: Bibliography (Caroline Ewen)
7. Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
Been Around For A While (Stirling Newberry)
8. Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project Has
Been Around For A While (Bryan Derksen)
9. A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re: Why
www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?) (Anthere)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 00:54:38 +0100
From: "Caroline Ewen"
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bibliography
To:
Message-ID: <200501062354.AAA23339 at germaine.webtechnologies.lu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi all,

Don't get me wrong but why would there be a need for a tool to create a
bibliography ? It's all quite simple: Surname, NAME, Title in italic, Edited
by..., City, Year.

Or did I misunderstand the whole "technology for bibliographical
records"-thing ?

Cheers from LB

Caroline aka Bris?is.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] De la part de Joseph Reagle
Envoy? : jeudi 6 janvier 2005 23:34
? : Karl Eichwalder
Cc : wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
Objet : Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bibliography

On Thursday 06 January 2005 14:46, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Make sure to use proper technology for bibliographical records;
> http://www.indexdata.dk offers good tools under GPL or other free
> licenses. For storage id-zebra (zebra) and for retrival over Z39.50
> the YAZ toolkit is available.

A bibtex format would be nice too...

--
Regards, http://www.mit.edu/~reagle/
Joseph Reagle E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 16:56:55 -0700
From: Mark Williamson
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Choosing interface?
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <849f98ed050106155666fb1597 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Of its own interface, yes, that would be a nightmare.

The issue with LanguageXX.php is this: two ways to translate the
interface exist (in practice). With one, translations are activated on
that Wikipedia as soon as they are submitted (Mediawiki namespace).
With the other, a developer has to be asked to activate it,
adjustments are more difficult to make, and activation is entirely at
the developer's leisure.

Many more recent translations have been exclusively namespace because
people didn't forsee the problems that might be caused by not using
LanguageXX.php.

It's fairly simple to export the MediaWiki namespace translations into
a LanguageXX.php file, and a bot could probably be made for it, but
even then it would probably be a while before anybody activated them.
(I can't do that because my programming skills are limited to qbasic,
html, and unl)

Mark

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:55:08 +0000, Rowan Collins
wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 18:43:29 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Nope, you can choose an interface language now.
> >
> > Unfortunately for many Wikipedias, this uses the LanguageXX.php file
> > and NOT whatever might be in the mediawiki namespace on that Wikipedia
> > - thus you can't view the interface in Kannada, or Navajo, or etc...
>
> For obvious reasons, it would be a bit of a nightmare if every wiki
> could include a seperate customised version of its interface in every
> language; and the different wikipedias will customise things in ways
> dependent on their *community*, not just the language.
>
> Presumably (I hope I'm not reopening a can of worms here) the
> languages you mention can become available to whoever wants them as
> soon as somebody creates an appropriate LanguageXX.php, so it's not so
> much a problem of how the interface selection works, as the status of
> those translations.
>
> --
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
>

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 19:03:23 -0500
From: Stirling Newberry
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
Project Has Been Around For A While
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <8C213924-603F-11D9-93D0-000A95A26E0A at xigenics.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

On Jan 6, 2005, at 5:16 PM, NSK wrote:

> On Thursday 06 January 2005 21:03, Stirling Newberry wrote:
>> Most academics are poves, that is why they became academics in the
>> first place.
>
> Anti-Intellectualism at its best.
>

Nonsense, anti-academicism yes, but to say that academia is
intellectual is to defy its own admission that the set of professors
and the set of dullards have a far from null intersection.

You are engaging in appeal to authority, which has been a logical
fallacy for quite a little while.

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:15:59 -0800
From: Sean Barrett
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
Project Has Been Around For A While
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <41DDD4BF.5080309 at epoptic.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

NSK stated for the record:

> I once saw a professor visiting a Wikipedia article on maths found from a
> Google search, but he abandoned it just after a few seconds. Another
> professor has advised us never to cite material not hosted on .edu or .ac.uk
> or other educational domains.
>
> If Wikipedia does not change its attitudes, it will eventually die from brain
> drain: New, more expertise-friendly and intellectual wikis will emerge and
> WP's knowledgeable users will just immigrate there.

For someone so contemptuous of Wikipedia, you sure do like our mailing
list a lot.

--
Sean Barrett | What was the best thing before sliced bread?
sean at epoptic.com |

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:19:12 -0800
From: Stan Shebs
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bibliography
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <41DDD580.3070302 at apple.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Caroline Ewen wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>Don't get me wrong but why would there be a need for a tool to create a
>bibliography ? It's all quite simple: Surname, NAME, Title in italic, Edited
>by..., City, Year.
>
>Or did I misunderstand the whole "technology for bibliographical
>records"-thing ?
>
Ah, an innocent wandering into the brambly briers of
bibliography... :-)

Think of different styles (some do first name first), different
names for the same person (middle initial vs spelled-out),
journal articles, book chapters in a multi-author book, translations,
multiple editions with different content, annotated works,
uppercase/lowercase, and so on.

Even though only a minority of our articles have references now,
there is a remarkable randomness among them. Wouldn't you rather
be able to type in "[[Biblio:Wealth of Nations]]" and have it
expand into a correctly-formatted reference to Adam Smith's book,
mentioning original publication date, ISBN for a good recent
reprint, and URL for an online text at the most reliable website?

Even better, some dedicated bibtexers and others have built
giant bibliographies online, and we would like to just reuse
them instead of typing all in ourselves.

Stan

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 01:35:43 +0100
From: "Caroline Ewen"
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bibliography
To:
Message-ID: <200501070035.BAA00638 at germaine.webtechnologies.lu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Two things:
1. "different styles": I did realise that this depends a LOT on the country.
Of course there's a slight change when you have an article of a newspaper
than when you're citing a book. And I do agree that it would be simple just
typing "[[Biblio:Wealth of Nations]]". The thing with the different styles
is, how to you get them all under one style ? I do study in France actually,
and I noticed that some of the german Erasmus-students I met here looked at
my bibliography once and where astonished by the way it was written. I told
them that that's just the french style of writing it. They do have some
minor differences when writing theirs. As for the multiple editions: in
France, you tend to state the most recent edition (because revised, mistakes
have been corrected etc). Do you want to "impose" one style for all ? :-)

2. "just reuse them instead of typing all in ourselves": I do object to
that. I don't know about other Wikipedians but when I write articles, I
usually have some of my books on my desk, I don't know all that stuff by
heart (would be nice though :-) ) And I NEVER put any books in my own
bibliography I haven't used. The reason is simple: by only adding the books
I used, because I know what's IN the books. I could easily say "oh the
english Wiki has some more books than we do, let's just add them too". Not
saying that the books in the english wiki article aren't good, but how can I
know ? I haven't read them, maybe never heard of them. You could say that
maybe I WILL know them since they're stated there and out of curiosity, if
I'm interested in the subject of the article, I will look into them, but I
still dislike the fact to simply use what's there :-)

Caroline, the innocent :-)

-----Message d'origine-----
De : wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] De la part de Stan Shebs
Envoy? : vendredi 7 janvier 2005 01:19
? : wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Objet : Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bibliography

Caroline Ewen wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>Don't get me wrong but why would there be a need for a tool to create a
>bibliography ? It's all quite simple: Surname, NAME, Title in italic,
>Edited by..., City, Year.
>
>Or did I misunderstand the whole "technology for bibliographical
>records"-thing ?
>
Ah, an innocent wandering into the brambly briers of bibliography... :-)

Think of different styles (some do first name first), different names for
the same person (middle initial vs spelled-out), journal articles, book
chapters in a multi-author book, translations, multiple editions with
different content, annotated works, uppercase/lowercase, and so on.

Even though only a minority of our articles have references now, there is a
remarkable randomness among them. Wouldn't you rather be able to type in
"[[Biblio:Wealth of Nations]]" and have it expand into a correctly-formatted
reference to Adam Smith's book, mentioning original publication date, ISBN
for a good recent reprint, and URL for an online text at the most reliable
website?

Even better, some dedicated bibtexers and others have built giant
bibliographies online, and we would like to just reuse them instead of
typing all in ourselves.

Stan

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

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 19:40:55 -0500
From: Stirling Newberry
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
Project Has Been Around For A While
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

On Jan 6, 2005, at 7:15 PM, Sean Barrett wrote:

> NSK stated for the record:
>
>> I once saw a professor visiting a Wikipedia article on maths found
>> from a Google search, but he abandoned it just after a few seconds.

Some sections of wikipedia are a horror, and the only way to fix that
is to contribute. It was the state of the economics section which
finally got me to contribute. Particularly the lack of a good
explanation of the IS-LM model.

>> Another professor has advised us never to cite material not hosted on
>> .edu or .ac.uk or other educational domains.

I think the New York Times has engaged in some poor reporting, but to
catagorically deny citing them seems, extreme.

>> If Wikipedia does not change its attitudes, it will eventually die
>> from brain drain: New, more expertise-friendly and intellectual wikis
>> will emerge and WP's knowledgeable users will just immigrate there.
>>

First you accuse me of anti-intellectualism for saying that academics
are poves, and then you prove my point.

Thank you I could not have done a better job.

But to get back to seriousness: Wikipedia does need to get more
friendly to a higher level of information integrity, and it does need
to get to a higher level of citation, and it does need to recruit many
more people from academia to contribute articles - more specifically,
it needs more people who write in their area of profession to
contribute. One need not be a professor to write a good explanation of
a star scheme, but actually having implemented one a few times will
generally be a huge help in writing about them.

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 19:28:22 -0800
From: Bryan Derksen

Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
Project Has Been Around For A While
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050106192616.00ac5888 at shawmail>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 12:16 AM 1/7/2005 +0200, NSK wrote:
>I once saw a professor visiting a Wikipedia article on maths found from a
>Google search, but he abandoned it just after a few seconds. Another
>professor has advised us never to cite material not hosted on .edu or .ac.uk
>or other educational domains.
>
>If Wikipedia does not change its attitudes, it will eventually die from brain
>drain: New, more expertise-friendly and intellectual wikis will emerge and
>WP's knowledgeable users will just immigrate there.

Alternately, you seem to be suggesting that Wikipedia needs to do is get an
.edu or .ac.uk domain name.

------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 22:10:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Anthere
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re:
Why www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)
To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
Cc: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <20050107061019.56004.qmail at web41802.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Walter Vermeir a ??crit:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I want to know why the address
http://www.wikipedia.org redirects
>> automatically to http://en.wikipedia.org... Is
Wikipedia an english
>> project with translations, or is it a real
international project?
>
>
> I asked myself that same question many years ago. I
think I posted the
> first question about this on some wikipedia list at
the end of 2001.
> Always a lot of objections. It would break links,
English is the lingo
> franca of the internet. At the time of the change
from wikipedia.com to
> wikipedia.org used to a opportunity to do it but it
has not be done.
>
> Wikipedia is a international project. But only the
English may use the
> front entrance.

I was among those who objected more than 2 years ago.
I believe most of the objections raised at that time
do not make any more sense. A lot was written on the
mailing list, and some discussion may be found here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org.

I do not think there were be links broken now. We
switch the adress more than 2 years ago, the
encyclopedia is so much bigger now, and we had truely
become international (which was not true 3 years ago
at all).

It is high time we finally get a portal page.

There were other solutions mentionned 2 years and a
half ago, but I think portal is the solution chosen
for all our projects, so best to stick with it
probably.

However, it might be nice to try to do something good
looking and not necessarily wiki (we do not need the
left menu for example).

I suggest that some people try to come up with some
good designs and that we get done with this. For
example, this might be a conceptual proposition
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org-mav%27s_Prop)
but it could need a graphist to polish it.

I hope someone come up with a good idea :-)

Could someone set up a contest page, where we could
add considerations to respect and where wikipedians
could link their proposal ?

Anthere

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

------------------------------

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End of Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 18
*******************************************

---------------------------------
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 Scaricalo ora!


list: foundation-l

from_name: Arno Lagrange

subject: [Foundation-l] Unable to edit

body:
Since a couple of days it has been unable to edit some wikimedia pages : on  meta, on species.
When editing again the edit window is empty and after saving however I've edited something the page is empty. What to to do ?
Arno Lagrange
Nouvelle adresse / Nova retadreso : arno.raymond.lagrange at wanadoo.fr
Ecole, Le Village
FR 11240 Bellegarde du Raz?s
33 (0) 468 698 389


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Unable to edit


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: [Foundation-l] Unable to edit

body:
Hello.

Since a few days, it seems (from what i got) that the db slaves are
outta sync sometimes.
So when you create an article, you may need to wait a few mins to see it
appear, even though it does exist.

Hope this helps :)

Nicolas Weeger


subject: [Foundation-l] Unable to edit


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re:
	Why www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
There is one version at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Wikipedialang/Proposal ,
but if you look in the history of the current Wikipedialang template
there is another.

I don't think we should include the English names of languages in an
/international/ portal.

I went to wikipedia.org, but it still redirects to en.wikipedia...

Mark

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 03:22:15 +1100, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050108 02:35]:
>
> > I followed Angela's suggestion on this and set up an editable portal at
> > www.wikipedia.org. There are two associated pages on meta, a protected
> > HTML template:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikipedia.org_template
> > And an unprotected wikitext body:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikipedia.org_portal
>
>
> Excellent start! I'm sure we can get fancy in short order ...
>
>
> > I've put up a temporary page there based on the language section of the
> > English main page, please feel free to change it.
>
>
> This should be the full language template (where is that?) - the version on
> [[en:Main Page]] is only the languages with over 1000 articles.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tangent on obscene language thread.

body:
One thing strikes me about this e-mail that makes a part of me say "Oh,
well, good then" when I see it, which is the author's comment that she
was unaware that Wikipedia accepted external submissions. Not that I
think seeing a vandalized article is a good thing, but that... it is
probably a good thing that she learned what kind of resource Wikipedia
is and how it works.

So I take this as a sign also that we should probably do more to make
users aware that they can edit Wikipedia.

-Snowspinner
On Jan 7, 2005, at 9:02 AM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to
> people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly
> common.  As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular
> articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and
> more people.


from_name: pinco

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was
	Re:	Whywww.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
Jack Lutz ha scritto:

>>I once had a demo site (somewhere...) that would display all languages
>>like the above page, *but* highlight the language(s) from the HTTP
>>language settings. So, for me, en and de would be highlighted, but all
>>would be displayed. Makes it easier to find what you're likely to look
>>for, but still possible to find everything you want.
>>
>>Magnus
>>
>>
>
>Regarding language settings, isn't it possible to have a portal
>automatically redirect to the appropriate language subdomain based on these?
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>
>
I'd like the Magnus' solution:
I don't like to be automatically redirected to the Italian subdomain,
because I'm working (even if only occasionally) on the Swahili one, and
I'm interested to the Esperanto version, too. So according to the
Magnus' idea I would have the IT (my HTTP setting) highlighted, but with
the other languages at hand.

Ciao,
Nino

--
http://www.vessella.it (italiano, esperanto, kiswahili, english)
http://www.changamano.org (Iniziative di solidariet? per la Tanzania)
http://www.lernado.it (Articoli di quotidiani della Tanzania, Corso di lingua swahili, Corso di lingua esperanto, Vocabolario esperanto-italiano, Jifunze lugha ya Kiesperanto, Kamusi ya Kiesperanto)


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re:
	Whywww.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
In addition, there is the fact that a user might have French set as
his auto-accept language but prefers to use the Occitan Wikipedia, or
Dutch as his auto-accept language but prefers to use the Frisian
Wikipedia... etc.

Mark

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:20:58 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Jack Lutz a ?crit:
> >>I once had a demo site (somewhere...) that would display all languages
> >>like the above page, *but* highlight the language(s) from the HTTP
> >>language settings. So, for me, en and de would be highlighted, but all
> >>would be displayed. Makes it easier to find what you're likely to look
> >>for, but still possible to find everything you want.
> >>
> >>Magnus
> >
> >
> > Regarding language settings, isn't it possible to have a portal
> > automatically redirect to the appropriate language subdomain based on these?
>
> Not really actually.
>
> Many editors appropriate languages are multiple.
>
> Ant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

body:
NSK wrote :

>It is very very easy to avoid breaking old links and refrain insulting
>non-English users.
>
>A link to www.wikipedia.org will just land in the international portal page.
>
>But a link to www.wikipedia.org/anything will be processed to land in
>en.wikipedia.org/anything.
>
I think it is a very nice idea that may content both those who are
afraid to break old English links to .org and those who are legitimately
offend an international project homepage link automatically to the
English version. I personally recommend making this page an alphabetic
list of link to local project, and only use automatic language detection
algorithm to highlight the relevant choices.

Aoineko


from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
	Project Has Been Around For A While

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism

For those that need an example of why documentation and citation, in
themselves, do zero for getting rid of entrenched pove problems, I
present to you this page and its history. The two main editors on it
before are Bretonists - that is Breton and only Breton is surrealism.
Never mind that if you do a google search on surrealism, the most
common use is for the artistic movement. That's "misrepresentation" of
the "truth". Note the explicitly cited and well formed list of holy
texts. The pove is well armed with "proof".

The cost of having an open information source is that these wars are
going to be endless. There is no way to both get the contributions from
poves - who are going to often be exceedingly well informed on their
holy writ - without placing the ability to deal with problems in the
hands of a different process. Citations merely say that someone's POV
has lots of people who agree with it.

"Cite your sources" is a form of rent, it gives an advantage to an
entrenched group, whether they are right, realistic, or even sane is
utterly beside the point. Sometimes it will work to the advantage of
generating high quality POV material. Very often, however, it will not.

To fight this means we have to lower the search cost of
counter-references by other editors - even other POV editors because
more points of view balance each other out over time. So far there has
been a great deal of "lets force people to generate citation lists".
However, the examples on the ground indicates that this will merely
shift power in favor of fanatics, who will come well armed with their
website(s) list of holy texts.

Derrida called it logocentrism - I believe a bad coinage, what it
really is is primo-centrism - but the point is there, books do not make
truth, and grind out POV material, since it is profitable, is not a
filter for bad points of view. More over, citation without citation
tools enforces another one of the pove's weapons - time. He doesn't
need to defeat your arguments, he just needs to waste enough of your
time. He takes a few minutes to cut and paste a list, you have to spend
an hour searching and compiling a bibliography - result, pove wins
hands down, his work is already done for him.

Ultimately one of the most important differences between wikipedia and
other sources is that we do not represent the commercial bias of a
single entity. There are commercial biases, but they are not
systematic. Citation lists give commercial entities - who have time to
mechanically compile such lists as part of their business - a distinct
advantage. Wiki needs to give its editors the firepower to match this,
at the very least.


list: wikien-l

from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Are legal threats blockable offenses?

body:
IMO, legal threats are attempts to stifle debate, and are rarely (if
ever) backed up. In fact, most threats of legal action are not even
legally actionable! I believe they should be a blockable offense as they
make Wikipedia a very hostile place. Legal threats are bullying when you
are losing an argument or your POV is being challenged.

I will continue to block users for making legal threats, after giving
them a warning.

TBSDY

Rhobite wrote:
> Wikipedia doesn't have a clear policy on the proper response to legal
> threats. According to [[Wikipedia:No legal threats]], legal threats
> against Wikipedia by editors are a violation of policy, but there does
> not seem to be consensus to block or ban users who engage in this
> practice. Nevertheless, many admins do routinely block people for
> making legal threats. I don't believe these blocks are justified by
> policy. Whether or not you believe blocking should be allowed, the
> policy is currently inconclusive. Maybe someone could clarify this, or
> if necessary, we could have a vote about it. Cross-posted to [[Village
> Pump (policy)]].
>
> Rhobite


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Illegitimate block.

body:
Jay wrote:
> Perhaps the confusion here is the assumption that the first time one adds
> information to (or deletes information from) an article, it is not a
> "revert", but the subsequent 3 additions (and deletions) are "reverts".
> Thus "3 reverts in 24 hours" can mean 1 edit, then 3 reverts to it.

Yes, technically a revert is a restoring of the article to a previous state.  So a new edit/addition does not count.  The first edit if a deletion does count, unless it is a novel deletion to a state that did not previously exist.

Of course complex edits are more difficult to judge, and if there is any question should not count against the 3RR rule, they first should be objected to in specificity, an attempt should even be made to move them to the talk page, for discussion of specific objections.  Further edits which look like good faith attempts to respond to specifically articulated objections are also not reverts.  If good faith attempts are being made and objectors are still reverting or arguing that the 3RR rule is being violated, then it is probably a case for page protection rather than banning under the 3RR rule.

        -- Silverback


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Re: French squids

body:
Kate,

the problem is timing- the purge has to happen before the edited page is
returned, otherwise the user might not see the new version.

The purge code writes to a socket and won't read from it until the next
round, so with more squids in the list each squid has a tiny bit more
time to process the request. If no socket can be established in the
first place (network problem for example) the squid is taken out of the
list for the main part of the function. The most important thing is that
more squids increase the time needed for the purge only marginally. The
code that reads from the socket:

while (strlen($res) < 100 && $esc < 200  ) {
	$res .= @fread($sockets[$s],512);
	$esc++;
	usleep(20);
}

This means that it won't try to read from the socket forever, and the
waiting adds up to 0.004 seconds. Not sure about the fread's timeout,
iirc it's fairly low if it waits at all, i forget. Come to think of it,
usleep should probably wait a bit longer in less cycles, not sure why i
picked it that low- i think it also consumes a some cpu time in php.
If the server returns slower than one round of writing to sockets we
usually get his replies in the next round (we read up 512 bytes while
the normal header returned is about 150 bytes). The network buffer would
allow us to do about 80 purges without any reading, so there's enough
room for the usual two purges per edit (page and history).

Additional pages (depending on the changed one) are purged after
returning the page to the user (deferred update).

A while ago we had the german squid (really cheap hoster, was more down
than up..) on the purge list without causing any problems.

Overall i believe more squids aren't much of a problem, and if slow
return times get a problem we can still decrease the times it tries to
read from the socket (worth a try anyway).
--
Gabriel Wicke
MediaWiki hosting, support and development
http://wikidev.net wicke at wikidev.net
Tel(SIP) +49 (0)1801-7775555258, Mob +49 (0)177 2065127
Eckernf?rder Str.58, 24116 Kiel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Multilanguage portal

body:
I think the best idea is just to have the name of the language.

Mark

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 20:37:34 +0100, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> I have (again) hacked together a minimal demo of a multilanguage portal.
> This is not for its good looks but for the function it provides.
>
> To be amazed by it, dial
>     http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/portal.php
>
> The page is generated from two local files containing the text and the
> article numbers, respectively. Calling the script with
>     http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/portal.php?update
> will update the local files from online files, which are hardcoded into
> the script. The article number file, which would normally be generated
> automatically once a day, is at
>     http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/num.txt
> and the text, to be editable for all, is at
>     http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PortalText
>
> Based on these files, and on your browser settings, it will highlight
> what *might* be your favourite language(s). If you set multiple
> languages in your browser, it will highlight them all. If your browser
> sets different weights for these languages, they will appear in
> different shades of grey.
>
> Yes, there is no other layout whatsoever. Don't complain. Web designers
> to the rescue!
>
> Magnus
>
> P.S.: Script is in CVS HEAD; "portal.php" in maintenance
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Could someone unblock me?

body:
I've unblocked you (I think).

user:UtherSRG

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 18:56:03 +0000, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> Hi folks
>
> On the 5th of Jan, I was blocked for 24 hours for a 3RR breach. No argument
> with that, but it was due to expire at 01:14, 6 Jan 2005, and hasn't done so
> yet (a day and a half later). My IP is dynamic & shared with others, but
> usually seems to be 82.38.130.7.
>
> Thanks in advance
> User: Jakew
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Edward Peschko

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: licensing issues, BSD doc license vs GNU

body:
On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 12:19:05PM +0200, NSK wrote:
> On Wednesday 05 January 2005 01:32, Edward Peschko wrote:
> > I sincerely believe that the FreeBSD is a better fit for my wiki
> > than the GnuFDL - especially because it can be sublicensed - but hesitate
> > to do so if it would jeapordize having the wiki accepted as a sister
> > project..
>
> If your project is unique/unusual and is related to sciences and I like it, I
> may be able to accept it as a project of my site, the Wikinerds Community <
> http://portal.wikinerds.org >, which means that I will offer free hosting and
> I will have control over the project's policies (practically this means
> enforcing http://www.wikinerds.org/legal and having a link to Wikinerds.org
> homepage and forum). If you are interested, send a detailed description of
> the project and a link to a webpage where I can see your work, together with
> the text of the license you want to use and a short introduction of yourself
> including your full name and a link to your personal homepage at
> info at wikinerds.org

well, its tempting, but I'm not too thrilled with the idea of ceding both
policies and content, as switching to a different platform (drupal vs mediawiki).
In fact, that's one of the primary goals of my project; to see exactly *what*
licensing scheme works well with scientific development. wikiresearch has hosting
space right now as well as complete freedom in development, so I'm not sure what
wikinerds would offer.

I'm really more interested in expanding mediawiki as it stands to handle
scientific content with the aim of merging the results into the wiki
foundation. It seems to be the logical choice - established, multi-linugal,
well-traveled. And enhancing mediawiki to handle scientific content
bolsters the foundation's reputation, and broadens its scope, as
well as adds potential for features to be added to wikipedia proper.

And being a separate, small project gives wikiresearch loads of
room for experimentation. Basically - we can find out what works
and what doesn't; and I've got a couple of professor friends who
are willing to act as guinea-pigs, so we can work out the kinks
in making mediawiki useful for scientific publishing..

Anyways, thanks for the offer. I'll keep it open and we'll see how the
experiment goes..

Ed


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] about Wikipedia's subjects

body:
Yeah, that, or stick it in your userspace.  but I would warn that
this would be for low volume. Perhaps a blog with comments enabled
would be adequate too.

--- Stacey Greenstein <stacey.nj at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wikipedia is not for primary research. It is a collaborative
> encyclopedia project. You can use other tools (including the
> wikimedia
> software) to create collaborative projects like you describe.
>
>
> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 04:35:18 +0100, Fe_Bono
> <fernando.sotomayor at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have a doubt : What if I invent something, like a word,  and
> someone
> > outside my country dosn't know it and changes it from the
> wikipedia ?
> > I want to create something, and put it in Wikipedia so the people
> can
> > create the idea with me.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

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


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

references:
<c39f0e220501061631224ac65@mail.gmail.com>
	<crkqfg$rga$1@sea.gmane.org> <41DE60FF.9000401@telus.net>

body:
What if someone who is the copyright holder of an image that is used
in Wikipedia under the Fair Use clausul threatens to sue Wikipedia? Do
you think that should be illegal? Personal threat how?

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Delirium

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> Also, I think it would be impractical to show the list of languages
> alphabetically sorted. Rather, we should sort it by size.

My preference would be some sort of a tiered thing, where we list the
"major languages" in alphabetical order prominently at the top, perhaps
with graphics and large font and whatnot, and then have the big list of
all languages in alphabetical order below.  Possibly with an
intermediate tier.  Something like 95% of users (if not more) are going
to be looking for one of the top 10 languages, so making it very easy to
find them is probably a good idea.

-Mark


list: textbook-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[Textbook-l] Very general discussion of goals and methods (long
	post)

body:
Dear Dr. Ashendel,

as one of the major contributors to both the MediaWiki software and the
(rather sparse) biochemistry texts on wikibooks, I understand the
problem you describe, as well as the solution you propose.

There is currently a way to use wiki pages (within the same wiki) as
modules. This template function was not designed to be used for this,
but it should work reasonably well. For example, writing "{{:Protein}}"
in a wiki page will display the text from the [[Protein]] page of this
wiki at the respective position.

A similiar mechanism is possible for images that are stored on wikimedia
commons [1]. "[[Image:Cell.jpg]]" will look on the local wiki for this
image, and if none is found, it will try the commons instead.

As both images and texts can be reused (with limits, though), it is
already be possible to write  [[Proteins (brief)]], [[Proteins (long)]],
etc., and include these in other pages. (Modules would be more
fine-grained than "Proteins", of course).

Furthermore, this mechanism can be used to generate a (simple) stable
version. All articles that should belong in a book (for example) are
included on a single page in the desired order. The page that results
could be considered a "frozen" version for the time being, can be
printed into a virtual PDF printer, or saved as HTML (with some minor
modifications on HTML and CSS for offsite use).

There is a wiki-to-XML parser under development by others and myself. It
will, among other things, greatly improve export functions, e.g., to
OpenOffice XML. If you happen to know someone familiar with the Bison
parser generator who is willing to help on this, it would be greatly
appreciated.

It would be my pleasure to work with you on at least a demonstration on
wikibooks. It might be a good idea to set up a relatively narrow field
(e.g., protein structure/folding) as modules on several levels, then
generate a set of chapters and presentation-like pages by including them
through the template mechanism.

Yours,
Magnus Manske

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org


from_name: Pochung Chen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Amis Wiktionary

body:
Dear wikipedians,

* About ISO 639 codes
There is NO ISO 639-1, 639-2 language code for Amis. There is ISO 639-3
language code for Amis, which is ami.
But ISO 639-3: (Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of language) is
still in draft and is not finalized/official yet.
I personally think the current ISO 639-3 draft is stable enough that
wikipedia/wiktionary should use it when necessary.

* Default interface language
I understand that one can choose the interface language by setting user
preference. However, before one create
an account, login, and change the preference, a new user will see some
"DEFAULT" interface language. Now
if the new user does not know the default language, and the user is new
to the mediawiki software then it will be
difficult for the new user to find the way to choose some interface
language she/he can understand.
Ideally the default language should be Amis itself but I image it will
take some time before one can translate the
interface messages into Amis. Since most of the potential
user/contributer know Mandarin (I think). I would suggest
to use Mandarin as default interface language (for now).

* User from other wikipedia
I, pektiong, from min-nan wikipedia (an op there) will help other
people about using mediawiki.

* Wikipedia/Wiktionary
I personally think wiktionary will be more useful to the Amis people at
this stage. I don't think there are too many Amis dictionary around.

* Announcement
Thanks for the suggestion. I think it is a good idea to announce the
creation of Amis wiktionary once it is created.
I think we can at least create/extend article about Amis in en, zh,
min-nan wikipedias and links to the Amis wiktionary.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions
best
pektiong


from_name: Tân PekTiong


body:
NSK wrote:

>No, this would be discriminatory. For the best design in multilingual portals
>please see the webservers we have here in European Union, like
>http://www.europarl.eu.int/
>
>
Yes, and discrimination is a synonym for "judgment".  When hiring
teachers, you discriminate in favor of good teachers and against poor
teachers.  When designing a language portal, you discriminate in favor
of the languages people actually want to use.

-Mark


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article]

body:
It's depressing to see how many times the Indian Ocean earthquake
article has been vandalised and reverted. I think Jimbo's proposal is
pretty good, but with the slow speed of the servers recently maybe 10
minutes isn't long enough.

I have previously defended the right of anyone to edit Wikipedia, but
I'm afraid I'm increasingly coming to the view that anonymous users
should be prevented from editing articles, or at least from editing
anything linked to the main page. I would like to propose that we
institute a policy of imposing immediate 24 hour bans, without prior
warning, on any anon user that vandalises an "extremely popular" page as
defined by Jimbo, or a page linked to the main page.

--Arwel (User:Arwel Parry)

In message <20050107150258.GT22568 at wikia.com>, "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales"
<jwales at wikia.com> writes
>I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to
>people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly
>common.  As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular
>articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and
>more people.
>
>My technical proposal to deal with this (and I did not invent this
>idea, I don't know who did, but it has been floating around) is a new
>form of page semi-protection for extremely popular/important articles.
>
>Basically, pages in this case will have a published form and a working
>form.  The working form automatically becomes the published form
>whenever one of two conditions is satisfied:
>
>1.  X minutes has passed with no new edits
>2.  A sysop forces publication immediately
>
>'X' can be left variable, but for most cases I think 10 minutes would
>suffice.  We might experiment with longer pauses for articles in cases
>other than "popular + vandalism", for example as a new approach to
>dealing with traditional edit wars in at least some cases.
>
>For the user interface, when an article is in such a state, it looks
>totally normal at the usual url.  But instead of 'edit this page' you
>see 'live version'.  Click on that, and you're at the live version,
>warts and all, and you can operate normally from there.
>
>I think this solution is softer than our current solution, which is
>just to protect the article.  George W. Bush was protected for 8 days
>during the height of the election season because pranksters kept
>putting goatse.cx images, etc., on the article.
>
>This option would give us 10 minutes to deal with vandalism, and would
>give us the opportunity to keep working on the article as well.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>p.s.  In case someone thinks the 'sysop forces publication
>immediately' is somehow unfair, note that it is necessary to prevent a
>denial of service attack once a bit of vandalism *does* slip through,
>which is inevitable.  That is, if someone managed to get vandalism on
>an important page, they could prevent others from removing it by
>simply repeatedly touching the page within the 10 minute window.
>
>The 'sysop force' means that responsible people can get a sensible
>version back live.  We can make clear that sysops are only supposed to
>do this in the case of vandalism, not just because they don't like the
>way the article is written.
>
>
>
>
>----- Forwarded message from heather hudak <heatherhudak at yahoo.com> -----
>
>From: heather hudak <heatherhudak at yahoo.com>
>Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 06:52:46 -0800 (PST)
>To: jwales at wikia.com
>Subject: Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article
>
>Hi Jimmy,
>
>I often visit Wikipedia for info. I find it reasonably
>credible and it has a large amount of information.
>This morning, I was looking for a quick bite about
>Tsunamis. I was greeted by the used of the word
>"f*ckers" etc., numerous times throughout the text all
>the way to end of the article. It seems someone is
>playing a bit of a nasty gag on your site. It also
>takes away from the credibility Wikipedia has
>achieved. The following is the link at which I found
>this information:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
>
>This is disturbing to find at any site, about any
>topic, but expecially a topic that encompasses so much
>devastation.
>
>While I am a young, reasonable business woman, I am
>not necessarily offended by this, I just think it is
>highly inappropriate and will likely deter me from
>trusting Wikipedia information in the future. I use
>the site very frequently (daily), and I can't imagine
>that will continue. Prior to this, I was unaware that
>Wikipedia received submissions from outside sources.
>This situation encouraged me to learn more and trust
>less. I hope you will look into ways to prevent this
>sort of obscene language from penetrating the
>information on your web site.
>
>Sincerely,
>Heather Hudak
>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
>http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
>
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
>

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


body:
NSK wrote:

>No, this would be discriminatory. For the best design in multilingual portals
>please see the webservers we have here in European Union, like
>http://www.europarl.eu.int/
>
>
I should also point out that that's a completely irrelevant example, and
discriminatory as well.  It has a mere 20 languages, and actually does
discriminate against many languages spoken in the EU, which which are
minority languages and so have lesser official status.  For example,
there is no link to Occitan, or Basque.

Try redesigning that page with upwards of 200 languages, and see what
you get...

-Mark


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re: Why
	www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
David Gerard schrieb:

>Is that sort of setting standard for non-English browsers
>worldwide?
>
>
AFAIK, it is coupled to your OS interface language by default. Or, it
should be. It can be changed within browser preferences.

Magnus


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Are legal threats blockable offenses?

body:
Are we talking permanent blocks or 24/48/foo hours blocks? I think
there is a very big difference between the two.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 22:11:49 -0500, Rhobite <rhobite at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:10:39 -0800, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > Legal threats are personal attacks and should be treated the same way.
>
> We don't block people for isolated personal attacks. Some
> administrators do block people for single instances of legal threats.

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


subject: [WikiEN-l] about Wikipedia's subjects

body:
Wikipedia is not for primary research. It is a collaborative
encyclopedia project. You can use other tools (including the wikimedia
software) to create collaborative projects like you describe.

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 04:35:18 +0100, Fe_Bono <fernando.sotomayor at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a doubt : What if I invent something, like a word,  and someone
> outside my country dosn't know it and changes it from the wikipedia ?
> I want to create something, and put it in Wikipedia so the people can
> create the idea with me.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.4beta4 released

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

MediaWiki 1.4beta4 is an experimental release, to help flush out
remaining major problems in the code prior to a final public 1.4.0
release. It is not recommended to use this beta on a public site unless
you're familiar with MediaWiki innards and are willing and able to help
diagnose and fix problems that come up.

Users of the earlier beta releases should upgrade to keep up with bug
fixes. Anyone running a version _earlier_ than beta 3 should upgrade
immediately if uploads are enabled due to potential security
vulnerabilities on some Apache configurations.

=== Beta 4 fixes ===

* (bug 1090) Fix sitesupport links in CB/classic skins
* Gracefully ignore non-legal titles in a <gallery>
* Fix message page caching behavior when $wgCapitalLinks is turned off
   after installation and the wiki is subsequently upgraded
* Database error messages include the database server name/address
* Paging support for large categories
* Fix image page scaling when thumbnail generation is disabled
* Select the content language in prefs when bogus interface language is
set
* Fix interwiki links in edit comments
* Fix crash on banned user visit
* Avoid PHP warning messages when thumbnail not generated
* (bug 1157) List unblocks correctly in Special:Log
* Fix fatal errors in LanguageLi.php
* Undo overly bright, difficult to read colors in Cologne Blue
* (bug 1162) fix five-tilde date inserter
* Add raw signatures option for those who simply must have cute sigs
* (bug 1164) Let wikitext be used in Loginprompt and Loginend messages
* Add the dreaded <span> to the HTML whitelist
* (bug 1170) Fix Russian linktrail
* (bug 1168) Missing text on the bureaucrat log
* (bug 1180) Fix Makesysop on shared-user-table sites
* (bug 1178) Fix previous diff link when using 'oldid=0'
* (bug 1173) Stop blocked accounts from reverting/deleting images
* Keep generated stylesheets cache-separated for each user
* (bug 1175) Fix "preview on first edit" mode
* Fix revert bug caused by bug 1175 fix
* Fix CSS classes on minor, new, unpatrolled markers in enhanced RC
* Set MySQL 4 boolean search back to 'and' mode by default
* (bug 1193) Fix move-only page protection mode
* Fix zhtable Makefile to include the traditional manual table
* Add memcache timeout for the zh conversion tables
* Allow user customization of the zh conversion tables through
   Mediawiki:zhconversiontable
* Add zh-min-man (back) to language names list
* Ported $wgCopyrightIcon setting from REL1_3A
* (bug 1218) Show the original image on image pages if the thumbnail
would be
   bigger than the original image
* (bug 1213) i18n of Special:Log labels
* (bug 1013) Fix jbo, minnan in language names list
* Added magic word MAG_NOTITLECONVERT to indicate that the title of the
page
   do not need to be converted. Useful in zh:
* (bug 1224) Use proper date messages for date reformatter
* (bug 1241) Don't show 'cont.' for first entry of the category list
* (bug 1240) Special:Preferences was broken in Slovenian locale when
   $wgUseDynamicDates is enabled
* Added magic word MAG_NOCONTENTCONVERT to supress the conversion of the
   content of an article. Useful in zh:
* write-lock for updating the zh conversion tables in memcache
* recursively parse subpages of MediaWiki:Zhconversiontable
* (bug 1144) Fix export for fy language
* make removal of an entry from zhconversiontable work
* (bug 752) Don't insert newline in link title for url with %0a
* Fix missing search box contents in MonoBook skin
* Add option to forward search directly to an external URL (eg google)
* Correctly highlight the fallback language variant when the selected
   variant is disabled. Used in zh: only for now.

Release notes:
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=295298

Download:
http://prdownloads.sf.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.4beta4.tar.gz?download

Wiki admin help mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

Bug report system:
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/

Play "stump the developers" live on IRC:
#mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales schrieb:

>In our case, we don't have (to my knowledge) the technical ability to
>make a good guess of where people are in a timely fashion.  So we can
>just do what Magnus suggested: give a page that highlights
>alternatives based on people's default browser language.
>
>
Also, I think it would be impractical to show the list of languages
alphabetically sorted. Rather, we should sort it by size. This might not
be the politically correct thing to do, but
* many articles means many contributors
* many contributors means many readers
* many readers means many people are able to read that language
So, sorting by size/article count will increase the likelyhood of a user
finding a language he/she can read without scrolling down.

Daily article count updates should do just fine, no need for real-time
here :-)

Magnus


from_name: Petr Kadlec

body:
> Also, I think it would be impractical to show the list of languages
> alphabetically sorted. Rather, we should sort it by size.

I don't think so. If the list is as large as e.g. the [[source:Main
Page]], then maybe. But the list should IMHO not be so big. In either
case, searching in a sorted list is considerable faster than searching
in an unordered list. And it would be an unordered list for me, as I
don't remember the statistics.
(Note: I don't really care much about it, I would not use the portal
at all, I know where to look for those languages I want.)

That's just my 0.02 CZK (which is really not much ;-) ).

[[ cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec ]]


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] On 10 minutes delay, banning, and patrolling.

body:
--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one should be
> returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.

Please no - just use a tabbed browser instead. Hitting RC after reviewing each
and every edit is a huge waste of server resources.

--mav

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


from_name: NSK

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re:
	Whywww.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
On Friday 07 January 2005 12:05, Jack Lutz wrote:
> Regarding language settings, isn't it possible to have a portal
> automatically redirect to the appropriate language subdomain based on
> these?

This would be a usability crime.

--
NSK
The Wikinerds Community Federation of Science Wikis
Owner of the Wikinerds Portal http://portal.wikinerds.org
Owner of the NerdyPC IT Wiki http://www.nerdypc.org


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3 reverts in 24 hours is allowed by not condoned

body:
> One point to remember about 3RR: if you get as far as *three* reverts
> in 24
> hours, something's badly wrong. Allowing three reverts in 24 hours is
> one
> of the things Wikipedia allows but does not condone.

Hear, hear!

I revert once, with a terse edit comment.

XYZ reverts.

I revert again, with a careful edit comment saying "see Talk" and a
good reason in the talk page.

If, at this point, XYZ reverts again, I don't know what the most
effective thing to do is. But I do know one thing for sure: reverting a
third time is not it.

Now if--and the thing is possible--goaded beyond endurance, I were to
continue with further reverts at various points in time... well, jeez,
I'm skating on thin ice. I know it, everyone knows it. And suppose an
admin _did_ block me, why would I even bother to complain? Why not just
accept the slap on the wrist and wait out the 24 hours?

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


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms - Project
 Has Been Around For A While

body:
I think the experience of academics on Wikipedia is much the same as the
experience of non-specialists on Wikipedia, or of academics acting as
non-specialists. Academics, as well as other non-insane people, must
fight with various kinds of looneys if they want the Wikipedia article
in question to be accurate and neutral. Dispute resolution only works
where the POV-pushers also break rules of behaviour, otherwise the only
solution is to fight forever. Put the article on your watchlist, revert
and argue for as long as you both shall live. In the case of popular
articles, there's a constant stream of new POV-pushers, so you have to
keep arguing and fighting even after the original warriors have gotten
bored and left.

Larry Sanger wants a shortcut out of this process for experts. I would
prefer having a shortcut even for non-experts. Various models have been
proposed in the past, "content arbitration" is a particularly neat term
for it.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
This sort of page is central to Requests for Comments and Arbitration cases.
We need examples of edits.

Fred

> From: Magos?nyi ?rp?d <mag at bunuel.tii.matav.hu>
> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 23:00:55 +0000
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] legal question in wikipedia
>
> Hi!
>
> I would guess you are free to quote from another editor. (Though I
> do not see the reason for creating such a page. In what way will
> be such a page valuable?)
>
> IANAL
>
> A levelezo?m azt hiszi, hogy eleonora46 at gmx.net a k?vetkezo?eket ?rta:
>> Who can help me, if I want to know, if it is legal, that a wikipedia editor
>> prepares a collection of quotes, that  an other wikipedia editor wrote in
>> diverse articles, and puts this collection onto a wikipedia page? The quotes
>> are
>> exclusively from one wikipedia editor.
>
> --
> GNU GPL: csak tiszta forr?sb?l
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] legal question in wikipedia


from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Why www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?

body:
I also find Google.com stupid annoying, for the said reasons. Yes,
okay, granted, I am actually German and I also am resident in Germany
again. From that it is not to be inferred that German was my first
communication preference. It is not. English is. So don't try to be a
smart-a** about what you only "think" you know by looking at my IP. Did
I mention I find that annoying?
I thus pretty much agree with the aforesaid.

=== But: I'd also like to add that I WOULD NOT want to see ANY
highlighting either. ===

I detest it when some effin' thingmabob tries to be smarter than me.
"Everything begins with choice."
AFTER I've selected a language, then, ok, if you must, feel free to
feed me a cookie that will return me to that language UNTIL I choose a
different one. (Though I think no magic at all would be best.) I hate
to be guessed or second-guessed. No highlighting or other form of
"preference guessing" in the first instance, please.

As for page design, I think the way things are done at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page#lang is a good concept. Of
course one would want to add images/flags and give things more space,
but the idea of ranking the biggest Wikipedias at the top and smaller
ones further below is quite sound (and eliminates the potential for
rivalry about whose language is "more important" and should be higher
up, because our article counts are a good indicator of what's actually
in demand), as is ranking the respective Wikipedias alphabetically
within their size group (so they can still be found rather easily).

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

On 7 Jan 2005, at 16:35, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> Black Fox wrote:
>> It's realy horrible for the user such a thing. It's already a
>> nightmare with google sometimes -- If google.com want to be displayed
>> in french because it's my default language in the browser, OK but when
>> he begin to auto-limit my search to "french pages" he change what i
>> expect --- so please not this on the wikipedia.
>
> What google does is actually even more annoying than this.  When I
> travel in Europe, Google redirects me to the site they think I want
> based on my *geographical location*.  So when I'm in Germany, they
> assume I speak German, when I'm in Italy, they assume I speak Italian,
> etc.
>
> This is disconcerting and unpleasant for me.
>
> Better by far would be for them to combine information from my default
> browser language and my location to offer me options that are likely
> to make the most sense.
>
> If I'm in Germany, but with English as my default language, why not
> offer me a German/English hybrid page?
>
> Instead of a link to *either* 'Images' *or* 'Bilder' they could say:
> "Hmm, his browser wants English, but he's in Germany, so let's give
> him: 'Images (Bilder)'.
>
> In our case, we don't have (to my knowledge) the technical ability to
> make a good guess of where people are in a timely fashion.  So we can
> just do what Magnus suggested: give a page that highlights
> alternatives based on people's default browser language.
>
> I agree completely that serving different *content* based on anything
> automatic is a bad idea.  It can be extremely annoying.


from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Could someone unblock me?

body:
Hi folks

On the 5th of Jan, I was blocked for 24 hours for a 3RR breach. No argument
with that, but it was due to expire at 01:14, 6 Jan 2005, and hasn't done so
yet (a day and a half later). My IP is dynamic & shared with others, but
usually seems to be 82.38.130.7.

Thanks in advance
User: Jakew


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article]

body:
Another solution would be to temporarily put the article in a template
and protect the page itself.
Most regular editors know how to edit a template, but not random vandals.

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales a ?crit:
> I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to
> people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly
> common.  As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular
> articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and
> more people.
>
> My technical proposal to deal with this (and I did not invent this
> idea, I don't know who did, but it has been floating around) is a new
> form of page semi-protection for extremely popular/important articles.
>
> Basically, pages in this case will have a published form and a working
> form.  The working form automatically becomes the published form
> whenever one of two conditions is satisfied:
>
> 1.  X minutes has passed with no new edits
> 2.  A sysop forces publication immediately
>
> 'X' can be left variable, but for most cases I think 10 minutes would
> suffice.  We might experiment with longer pauses for articles in cases
> other than "popular + vandalism", for example as a new approach to
> dealing with traditional edit wars in at least some cases.
>
> For the user interface, when an article is in such a state, it looks
> totally normal at the usual url.  But instead of 'edit this page' you
> see 'live version'.  Click on that, and you're at the live version,
> warts and all, and you can operate normally from there.
>
> I think this solution is softer than our current solution, which is
> just to protect the article.  George W. Bush was protected for 8 days
> during the height of the election season because pranksters kept
> putting goatse.cx images, etc., on the article.
>
> This option would give us 10 minutes to deal with vandalism, and would
> give us the opportunity to keep working on the article as well.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> p.s.  In case someone thinks the 'sysop forces publication
> immediately' is somehow unfair, note that it is necessary to prevent a
> denial of service attack once a bit of vandalism *does* slip through,
> which is inevitable.  That is, if someone managed to get vandalism on
> an important page, they could prevent others from removing it by
> simply repeatedly touching the page within the 10 minute window.
>
> The 'sysop force' means that responsible people can get a sensible
> version back live.  We can make clear that sysops are only supposed to
> do this in the case of vandalism, not just because they don't like the
> way the article is written.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from heather hudak <heatherhudak at yahoo.com> -----
>
> From: heather hudak <heatherhudak at yahoo.com>
> Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 06:52:46 -0800 (PST)
> To: jwales at wikia.com
> Subject: Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article
>
> Hi Jimmy,
>
> I often visit Wikipedia for info. I find it reasonably
> credible and it has a large amount of information.
> This morning, I was looking for a quick bite about
> Tsunamis. I was greeted by the used of the word
> "f*ckers" etc., numerous times throughout the text all
> the way to end of the article. It seems someone is
> playing a bit of a nasty gag on your site. It also
> takes away from the credibility Wikipedia has
> achieved. The following is the link at which I found
> this information:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
>
> This is disturbing to find at any site, about any
> topic, but expecially a topic that encompasses so much
> devastation.
>
> While I am a young, reasonable business woman, I am
> not necessarily offended by this, I just think it is
> highly inappropriate and will likely deter me from
> trusting Wikipedia information in the future. I use
> the site very frequently (daily), and I can't imagine
> that will continue. Prior to this, I was unaware that
> Wikipedia received submissions from outside sources.
> This situation encouraged me to learn more and trust
> less. I hope you will look into ways to prevent this
> sort of obscene language from penetrating the
> information on your web site.
>
> Sincerely,
> Heather Hudak
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re:
 Whywww.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
Jack Lutz a ?crit:
>>I once had a demo site (somewhere...) that would display all languages
>>like the above page, *but* highlight the language(s) from the HTTP
>>language settings. So, for me, en and de would be highlighted, but all
>>would be displayed. Makes it easier to find what you're likely to look
>>for, but still possible to find everything you want.
>>
>>Magnus
>
>
> Regarding language settings, isn't it possible to have a portal
> automatically redirect to the appropriate language subdomain based on these?

Not really actually.

Many editors appropriate languages are multiple.

Ant


body:
NSK a ?crit:
> On Friday 07 January 2005 12:05, Jack Lutz wrote:
>
>>Regarding language settings, isn't it possible to have a portal
>>automatically redirect to the appropriate language subdomain based on
>>these?
>
>
> This would be a usability crime.

Perhaps not so bad :-)

Actually, since Jimbo mentionned that, google does not forced you to be
redirected to your language.

If I launch google, I get the french version by default, www.google.fr
but if I change the link on top, a couple of time perhaps ? my default
launching is english, with a direct link to the french page.

If I click on the french page again, I will get by default the french page.

Anthere


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re: Why
 www.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
Tim Starling a ?crit:
> I followed Angela's suggestion on this and set up an editable portal at
> www.wikipedia.org. There are two associated pages on meta, a protected
> HTML template:

Check your facts, it is more polite.


body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> There is one version at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Wikipedialang/Proposal ,
> but if you look in the history of the current Wikipedialang template
> there is another.
>
> I don't think we should include the English names of languages in an
> /international/ portal.

I second this.

Plus, I noticed there was no translation in English of the English
language :-)

> I went to wikipedia.org, but it still redirects to en.wikipedia...
>
> Mark

???


body:
Magnus Manske a ?crit:
> David Gerard schrieb:
>
>> Is that sort of setting standard for non-English browsers
>> worldwide?
>>
>>
> AFAIK, it is coupled to your OS interface language by default. Or, it
> should be. It can be changed within browser preferences.
>
> Magnus

I like this proposition :-)


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Forking the Wiki

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050106 22:37]:
>
>
>>While there are families, and certain ethnic groups who are into this kind
>>of thing, indeed almost a mass movement, those folks are already doing their
>>thing in other established venues and may not come over to our new project
>>in sufficient numbers to make it viable.
>>
>>
>How about pointing some of these genealogists at Wikicities, if they're
>willing to use GFDL? Then the stuff could be ported to a future Wikipeople
>if it looks workable.
>
>
Actually, since genealogy focuses almost exclusively on factual
information (family relationships, dates and places of birth, marriage,
death, etc.) the use of a given license is not particularly an issue. At
least under US law, this material is no more susceptible to copyright
than a telephone directory. (The content of written memorials, variously
proposed for inclusion in Wikipeople, would be a different matter legally.)

Besides the fact that "free as in speech" is less applicable, another
challenge for the idea generally is the fact that vast amounts of it are
already available for free (the other kind of freedom), including on the
internet. So while it might fit in with our mission philosophically, the
necessity for us to get involved is much less.

Where information is needed in the genealogical field, it is more often
because it was never generated as public records, or because such
records were destroyed or have yet to be uncovered. And filling these
gaps runs into the "original research" territory that we largely avoid.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Forking the Wiki


subject: [Wikitech-l] automated email system needed to thank donors

body:
Anybody here familiar with automated email systems? The board and I would like
the ability to thank every person who donated last year via PayPal and
Moneybookers. Such a system would also need to be used in the future to do the
same thing.

Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Multilanguage portal

body:
I have (again) hacked together a minimal demo of a multilanguage portal.
This is not for its good looks but for the function it provides.

To be amazed by it, dial
    http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/portal.php

The page is generated from two local files containing the text and the
article numbers, respectively. Calling the script with
    http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/portal.php?update
will update the local files from online files, which are hardcoded into
the script. The article number file, which would normally be generated
automatically once a day, is at
    http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/num.txt
and the text, to be editable for all, is at
    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PortalText

Based on these files, and on your browser settings, it will highlight
what *might* be your favourite language(s). If you set multiple
languages in your browser, it will highlight them all. If your browser
sets different weights for these languages, they will appear in
different shades of grey.

Yes, there is no other layout whatsoever. Don't complain. Web designers
to the rescue!

Magnus

P.S.: Script is in CVS HEAD; "portal.php" in maintenance


body:
Christopher Mahan schrieb:

>On vandalism: I think that there should be a
>Recent unpatrolled anon changes  (RUAC) link for logged in users
>under the Recent Changes on the menu. Then it's a lot easier (and
>easier on the db) to get the last x unpatrolled items.
>
>
It would also be much easier to code, compared to the 10-min-delay...

Magnus


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Illegitimate block.

body:
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body:
In message <20050107174438.43885.qmail at web14004.mail.yahoo.com>,
Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> writes
>
>On vandalism: I think that there should be a
>Recent unpatrolled anon changes  (RUAC) link for logged in users
>under the Recent Changes on the menu. Then it's a lot easier (and
>easier on the db) to get the last x unpatrolled items.
>
>Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one should be
>returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.
>
>Finally, articles that currently have unpatrolled anon edits when
>viewed by an logged in user should have something to indicate that in
>the article display.

I don't personally find the unpatrolled changes facility to be much use
because I very rarely go to Recent Changes -- my base for keeping an eye
on Wikipedia is my watchlist. What I'd find really useful would be a
sort of "super watchlist", of edits to articles I'm interested in by
anonymous users -- some of the edits will be OK, but for example on
articles about football clubs there's a high likelihood that anon edits
will be vandalism by supporters of other clubs! In general I'd like to
be able to check out edits by anons quicker than edits by registered
users.

--Arwel ([[en:User:Arwel Parry]])

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A portal page for www.wikipedia.org (was Re:
	Whywww.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org ?)

body:
On Friday 07 January 2005 20:25, Anthere wrote:
> If I launch google, I get the french version by default, www.google.fr
> but if I change the link on top, a couple of time perhaps ? my default
> launching is english, with a direct link to the french page.
>
> If I click on the french page again, I will get by default the french page.

it uses cookies to save this preference but I never save cookies. I have
configured my system to delete cookies automatically upon exit.

--
NSK
The Wikinerds Community Federation of Science Wikis
Owner of the Wikinerds Portal http://portal.wikinerds.org
Owner of the NerdyPC IT Wiki http://www.nerdypc.org


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
	Project Has Been Around For A While

body:
Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050107 17:56]:

>  Academics, as well as other non-insane people, must
> fight with various kinds of looneys if they want the Wikipedia article
> in question to be accurate and neutral. Dispute resolution only works
> where the POV-pushers also break rules of behaviour, otherwise the only
> solution is to fight forever. Put the article on your watchlist, revert
> and argue for as long as you both shall live. In the case of popular
> articles, there's a constant stream of new POV-pushers, so you have to
> keep arguing and fighting even after the original warriors have gotten
> bored and left.

*shudder* Yes, that's appallingly accurate. The only solutions I've found
that work (when they work) are requesting decent-quality checkable references
and (when necessary) trying to explain NPOV.

Having to explain NPOV to people is ridiculous, or should be. I'd never
say we should do it, but the idea of requiring people to pass a short test
on NPOV before editing is appallingly tempting. (Particularly on anything
relating to Israel, open source software or pop divas.)

But then, as Stirling Newberry points out, NPOV as it's applied in
Wikipedia is actually quite a radical concept. It'll take time to percolate
out into the wider world.

> Larry Sanger wants a shortcut out of this process for experts. I would
> prefer having a shortcut even for non-experts. Various models have been
> proposed in the past, "content arbitration" is a particularly neat term
> for it.

I don't have a detailed answer as to why off the top of my head, but this
smells like a really bad idea. Requiring references as to the prominence of
a given POV, to justify its inclusion, should be enough in all cases that
spring to mind.

- d.


body:
Rhobite (rhobite at gmail.com) [050107 11:31]:

> Wikipedia doesn't have a clear policy on the proper response to legal
> threats. According to [[Wikipedia:No legal threats]], legal threats
> against Wikipedia by editors are a violation of policy, but there does
> not seem to be consensus to block or ban users who engage in this
> practice. Nevertheless, many admins do routinely block people for
> making legal threats. I don't believe these blocks are justified by
> policy. Whether or not you believe blocking should be allowed, the
> policy is currently inconclusive. Maybe someone could clarify this, or
> if necessary, we could have a vote about it. Cross-posted to [[Village
> Pump (policy)]].

It's frequently an attempt to intimidate - a personal attack by another
name.

- d.


body:
On Friday 07 January 2005 21:32, Delirium wrote:
> My preference would be some sort of a tiered thing, where we list the
> "major languages" in alphabetical order prominently at the top, perhaps
> with graphics and large font and whatnot, and then have the big list of
> all languages in alphabetical order below.  Possibly with an
> intermediate tier.  Something like 95% of users (if not more) are going
> to be looking for one of the top 10 languages, so making it very easy to
> find them is probably a good idea.

No, this would be discriminatory. For the best design in multilingual portals
please see the webservers we have here in European Union, like
http://www.europarl.eu.int/

--
NSK
The Wikinerds Community Federation of Science Wikis
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Owner of the NerdyPC IT Wiki http://www.nerdypc.org


body:
Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050107 17:10]:

> I was among those who objected more than 2 years ago.
> I believe most of the objections raised at that time
> do not make any more sense. A lot was written on the
> mailing list, and some discussion may be found here :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org.
> I do not think there were be links broken now. We
> switch the adress more than 2 years ago, the
> encyclopedia is so much bigger now, and we had truely
> become international (which was not true 3 years ago
> at all).
> It is high time we finally get a portal page.

I agree. The links that might be broken would be links to en: articles, so
those should still be set to redirect; but the front page
(http://www.wikipedia.org/ or http://wikipedia.org/) should be
international.

Perhaps a list of languages, with the search box for that language next to
it - to make it as useful as possible.  Perhaps the Article of the Day for
the biggest ones.

But that's just details. Th front page should be international.

- d.


body:
Magnus Manske (magnus.manske at web.de) [050107 20:14]:

> I once had a demo site (somewhere...) that would display all languages
> like the above page, *but* highlight the language(s) from the HTTP
> language settings. So, for me, en and de would be highlighted, but all
> would be displayed. Makes it easier to find what you're likely to look
> for, but still possible to find everything you want.

Excellent! Is that sort of setting standard for non-English browsers
worldwide?

- d.


from_name: Tels

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Friday 07 January 2005 21:43, Delirium wrote:
> NSK wrote:
> >No, this would be discriminatory. For the best design in multilingual
> > portals please see the webservers we have here in European Union,
> > like http://www.europarl.eu.int/
>
> I should also point out that that's a completely irrelevant example,
> and discriminatory as well.  It has a mere 20 languages, and actually
> does discriminate against many languages spoken in the EU, which which
> are minority languages and so have lesser official status.  For
> example, there is no link to Occitan, or Basque.
>
> Try redesigning that page with upwards of 200 languages, and see what
> you get...

I agree and in addition, that example page is not a good example - it
consists basically only of images. Blind people and search engines will
have a hard time navigating this page! Oh, and if you turn Javascript of
(or sit behind a proxy which filters it out, like say, in my office) the
page breaks completely.

Let's better not model anything after that example :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Fri Jan  7 22:05:15 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Amis Wiktionary

body:
Hi Pochung,

Did you mean to say something?

Mark

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:58:16 +0800, Pochung Chen <pcchen at phys.nthu.edu.tw> wrote:
> Dear wikipedians,
>
> * About ISO 639 codes
> There is NO ISO 639-1, 639-2 language code for Amis. There is ISO 639-3
> language code for Amis, which is ami.
> But ISO 639-3: (Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of language) is
> still in draft and is not finalized/official yet.
> I personally think the current ISO 639-3 draft is stable enough that
> wikipedia/wiktionary should use it when necessary.
>
> * Default interface language
> I understand that one can choose the interface language by setting user
> preference. However, before one create
> an account, login, and change the preference, a new user will see some
> "DEFAULT" interface language. Now
> if the new user does not know the default language, and the user is new
> to the mediawiki software then it will be
> difficult for the new user to find the way to choose some interface
> language she/he can understand.
> Ideally the default language should be Amis itself but I image it will
> take some time before one can translate the
> interface messages into Amis. Since most of the potential
> user/contributer know Mandarin (I think). I would suggest
> to use Mandarin as default interface language (for now).
>
> * User from other wikipedia
> I, pektiong, from min-nan wikipedia (an op there) will help other
> people about using mediawiki.
>
> * Wikipedia/Wiktionary
> I personally think wiktionary will be more useful to the Amis people at
> this stage. I don't think there are too many Amis dictionary around.
>
> * Announcement
> Thanks for the suggestion. I think it is a good idea to announce the
> creation of Amis wiktionary once it is created.
> I think we can at least create/extend article about Amis in en, zh,
> min-nan wikipedias and links to the Amis wiktionary.
>
> Thanks for all the comments and suggestions
> best
> pektiong
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article]

body:
I don't know if I much like the idea of a "fine-grained" system of user levels.

It sounds like the beginning of a caste system. Sysops, bureaucrats,
and normal users is one thing and creates fairly little tention, but
what will we do? Have [[Requests for Level 3]] and all the other
levels? When does it become too much of a headache for everybody? I
think the solution of published vs unpublished versions, with
registered users being allowed to edit in real time, is good enough.
If a registered user does something that beyond a sliver of doubt is
vandalism, they can be punished through blocking or banning.

Mark

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 03:09:31 +0000, Rowan Collins
<rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 10:12:16 -0500, Stirling Newberry
> <stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
> > In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has
> > privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might
> > well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would
> > allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time
> > in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full
> > sysop privileges.
>
> Note that there is a fine-grained permissions system currently under
> development in MediaWiki. Theoretically, we will soon be able to have
> any number of levels of user, or even just grant individual users the
> rights "we" [the community] feel they deserve. And it's not beyond the
> realms of possibility that relatively minor privileges (like
> publishing changes to "semi-protected" pages, perhaps) could be
> granted to any user account that's existed for X days, or made Y
> edits, or perhaps submitted an automated request via a Special: page
> (i.e. you give yourself the rights, implying that you know vaguely
> what you're doing). See
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_levels
>
> As somebody pointed out, having a *universal* edit delay (e.g. for all
> edits by logged out users) would just be frustrating (and confusing)
> for people who wanted to do passing minor editing. But what Jimbo
> seems to be suggesting is a kind of "semi-protect" function which
> triggers such a display *for a particular page*, which seems like a
> very good idea.
>
> --
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: eleonora46 at gmx.net

body:
Hi,

Who can help me, if I want to know, if it is legal, that a wikipedia editor
prepares a collection of quotes, that  an other wikipedia editor wrote in
diverse articles, and puts this collection onto a wikipedia page? The quotes
are
exclusively from one wikipedia editor.

This is what the gdfl says:
----------------------------------------
4. modifications The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by
this
License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or
imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

8. translation Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4.

9. termination You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the
Document
except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to
copy,
modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will
automatically
terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received
copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses
terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks in advance, Eleonora

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from_name: Andre Engels

body:
Yes, this is allowed, provided the person gives both his own name and
the one of the person whose quotes he gives, as well as the pages they
are taken from. Part 4 states that you can modify the document, and
part 5 that several documents can be merged into one document.

Andre Engels

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 22:32:18 +0100 (MET), eleonora46 at gmx.net
<eleonora46 at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Who can help me, if I want to know, if it is legal, that a wikipedia editor
> prepares a collection of quotes, that  an other wikipedia editor wrote in
> diverse articles, and puts this collection onto a wikipedia page? The quotes
> are
> exclusively from one wikipedia editor.


from_name: Magosányi Árpád

body:
Hi!

I would guess you are free to quote from another editor. (Though I
do not see the reason for creating such a page. In what way will
be such a page valuable?)

IANAL

A levelez?m azt hiszi, hogy eleonora46 at gmx.net a k?vetkez?eket ?rta:
> Who can help me, if I want to know, if it is legal, that a wikipedia editor
> prepares a collection of quotes, that  an other wikipedia editor wrote in
> diverse articles, and puts this collection onto a wikipedia page? The quotes
> are
> exclusively from one wikipedia editor.

--
GNU GPL: csak tiszta forr?sb?l


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one
> should be
> > returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.
>
> Please no - just use a tabbed browser instead. Hitting RC after
> reviewing each
> and every edit is a huge waste of server resources.

Doh! (slaps forehead)
And I've been using mozilla since 0.8...

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Are legal threats blockable offenses?

body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist (bjourne at gmail.com) [050108 00:27]:

> What if someone who is the copyright holder of an image that is used
> in Wikipedia under the Fair Use clausul threatens to sue Wikipedia? Do
> you think that should be illegal? Personal threat how?

As you know, having read the policy page in question before posting to the
list on the matter, this case is specifically covered in the policy.

- d.


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Re: French squids

body:
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Gabriel Wicke wrote:

>The
>code that reads from the socket:
>
>while (strlen($res) < 100 && $esc < 200  ) {
>	$res .= @fread($sockets[$s],512);
>	$esc++;
>	usleep(20);
>}
>
>This means that it won't try to read from the socket forever, and the
>waiting adds up to 0.004 seconds. Not sure about the fread's timeout,
>iirc it's fairly low if it waits at all, i forget. Come to think of it,
>usleep should probably wait a bit longer in less cycles, not sure why i
>picked it that low- i think it also consumes a some cpu time in php.

In my experience, usleep() cannot be shorter than a single time slice
fromt the Linux scheduler, which for 2.6 kernels should be 1 millisecond.

So that code is waiting up to 200 milliseconds, with negligible CPU
overhead, unless of course PHP does things differently. But to sleep less
than a timeslice you need to busy sleep, so the CPU would be taxed at
100% in that case.

Alfio


from_name: NSK

body:
On Friday 07 January 2005 22:43, Delirium wrote:
> I should also point out that that's a completely irrelevant example, and
> discriminatory as well.  It has a mere 20 languages

EU pays translators for all these languages. It is amazing that they can
manage to fund their translation projects, considering that in some countries
(baltic states) translation was not a profession until 1990's.

> discriminate against many languages spoken in the EU, which which are
> minority languages and so have lesser official status.  For example,
> there is no link to Occitan, or Basque.

http://www.europarl.eu.int/charter/civil/pdf/con33_en.pdf

The PDF file states: "Cultural and linguistic diversity in Europe lies at the
heart of fundamental rights for its citizens as the integration process
advances". EU does recognise diversity.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] www.wikipedia.org no longer redirects to the en main
	page

body:
--- Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> I'd like to start out by noting that www.wikipedia.org no longer redirects
> to the english wikipedia's main page. Instead, it's been turned into a
> replica of the language template.
> Deeper links ( www.wikipedia.org/wiki/name_of_article ) still work, but the
> main page does not.

Doing this was the general consensus a very long time ago (about a year ago I
think). The only real issue was that noone could come up with a good technical
solution that most people liked. That still seems to be the case.

Instead we should have a design competition in order to encourage the creation
of better solutions on what to put at www.wikipedia.org.

-- mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] about Wikipedia's subjects

body:
On Friday 07 January 2005 05:35, Fe_Bono wrote:
> I have a doubt : What if I invent something, like a word,  and someone
> outside my country dosn't know it and changes it from the wikipedia ?
> I want to create something, and put it in Wikipedia so the people can
> create the idea with me.

I am not sure whether I understood it, but if you want to put something
non-encyclopedic in Wikipedia then you would better try other sites like
http://jnana.wikinerds.org

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alternative_outlets

--
NSK
The Wikinerds Community Federation of Science Wikis
Owner of the Wikinerds Portal http://portal.wikinerds.org
Owner of the NerdyPC IT Wiki http://www.nerdypc.org


body:
On Friday 07 January 2005 23:09, Tels wrote:
> have a hard time navigating this page! Oh, and if you turn Javascript of

http://www.europa.eu.int/ has no images and no javascript.

--
NSK
The Wikinerds Community Federation of Science Wikis
Owner of the Wikinerds Portal http://portal.wikinerds.org
Owner of the NerdyPC IT Wiki http://www.nerdypc.org