from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

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

Just wanted to show these legal threats and curses I recieved today,
both to give you a good laugh and to ensure that the infinite block on
JackSarfatti has community consensus as a ban...

Anyway, so i'll be making a joke page on meta about not sending curses,
based on no legal threats. And I'll be suggesting a new BJAODN title
based on that curse. :D

- -------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 06:18:25 GMT
From: JackSarfatti <sarfatti at pacbell.net>
To: Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com>

How dare you idiots block me from defending myself with vicious lies,
smears and slander. May you all rot in Hell forever. My Curse is on all
of you. Did you  misspell your ID? Did you mean Prozac? In any case may
all your dreams be nightmares from this moment on.

- -------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Complaint to Florida State Authorities
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 06:31:20 GMT
From: JackSarfatti <sarfatti at pacbell.net>
To: Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com>

The Wikimedia Foundation is registered as a non-profit corporation in
the State of Florida.
http://www.sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?a1=DETFIL&n1=N03000005323&n2=NAMFWD&n3=0000&n4=N&r1=&r2=&r3=&r4=WIKIMEDIA&r5=

The Board of Trustees of this Foundation have allowed vicious lies,
smears, slander and libel about me to appear on their website and they
have repeatedly prevented me from defending myself.

Please note I am involved in USG National Security work and what these
people are doing is detrimental to US National Security. The Wikimedia
Foundation, wittingly or unwittingly I do not know, is aiding the
terrorist cause.

Sincerely

Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D. physicist
San Francisco, CA
415 806 3156

...And additionally, he did a Bob Dole...

- -------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Jack Sarfatti
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 08:40:20 GMT
From: Professor137 <jsarfatti at aol.com>
To: Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com>

It's curious that no real physicist has called Sarfatti a crank. Only
mathematicians doing topology who are all friends of John Baez. When
real physicists like Lenny Susskind, George Chapline, Brian Josephson,
Tony Smith and others have something factual and positive to say, you
instantly delete it.

- --
Phroziac
Encrypted Email Preferred
OpenPGP key ID: 0x8DA573EA
(Computer clock currently thinks it should be set to UTC.)
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
On 10/12/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
> I think it's a dangerous and foolhardy endeavor to single out autistic
> contributors for special treatement - which
> is, after all, what most of this discussion about autism entails.

Not really.  Just not gangbanging new editors in the manner that
Maoririder and Wiki brah have been.

They're obviously different in some way, we could say they're
"Martian" or "Weird" if that makes you feel better.

They've both produced good work from day one, but they were both
pillored and blocked for utterly petty reasons very early on in their
editing.

Is this the kind of community Wikipedia should be?  I thought we were
better than that, or had aspirations to be.  Why are we alienating
good editors?


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

body:
On 10/12/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Just wanted to show these legal threats and curses I recieved today,
> both to give you a good laugh and to ensure that the infinite block on
> JackSarfatti has community consensus as a ban...
>
> Anyway, so i'll be making a joke page on meta about not sending curses,
> based on no legal threats. And I'll be suggesting a new BJAODN title
> based on that curse. :D

Email from Jack Sarfatti is best ignored.  Let the Board take care of him.

Kelly


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
> On 10/12/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> >
> > We can sympathize more, of course, but we need
> > to maintain one standard for all.

Tony replied:

> What worries me here is that we patently *don't*.  Should we
> ever block an editor who's clearly demonstrating good faith,
> is not violating any policy of Wikipedia, but isn't complying
> absolutely 100% with all the guidelines?  Of course not, you
> say, that's absurd, we'd never do such a thing.
>
> But this is precisely what was done to Maoririder twice
> within one week of his arriving here.
>
>
> Why does it happen?  What unacknowledged bit of
> vindictiveness existing in the human spirit enabled this to
> be done by people who told themselves that they were doing so
> for the best of motives?

In my religion, doing a bad thing with a "good motive" still counts as a
sin. Results count.

Uncle Ed


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
>From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
>
>On 10/12/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>The
> > kinds of behaviours that Maoririder was exhibiting may not seem serious
>to
> > you; to others, they may seem far more detrimental than, for example,
> > reverting articles (which is also not violating any Wikipedia policies),
> > something you have repeatedly stated is absolutely unacceptable to you.
> >
>
>Oh pish, rot and nonsense.   Use of edit warring on the scale that I
>have condemned is grossly contrary to policy.

Tony, I was talking about simply reverting an article, not edit warring on a
grand scale.  From what I can tell your position is that it is essentially
*never* appropriate to revert, which is considerably more radical than any
current Arbcom rulings.  Have I misunderstood your position?

Jay.


from_name: Jeff Heikkinen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and autism

body:
MAURICE FRANK wrote:
>>Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 09:21:26 +0100
>>From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and autism
>>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>>Message-ID:
>>
>
> <fbad4e140510110121l31c68b1eq6512577b5b8da635 at mail.gmail.com>
>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>>Also, check this:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Redwolf24
>>
>>An RFC written up by Wiki brah concerning Redwolf24.
>
>
> quote: "For background, Redwolf has been and
> administrator since 22 July 2005 (for 2 mos, 3 weeks)
> and is Fifteen years old."
>
> You can't believe how interesting this is. Redwolf's
> overuse of blocks to serve an agenda is under censure
> from 25 just of Wiki's unblocked population who can
> sign the page! after just 3 months in office as an
> admin!

Um... no, Maurice, you're not reading very carefully. The RFC in
question didn't even meet the certification requirement, much less get
25 people supporting it. In fact, looking at the page again, I have no
idea what could possibly give you that idea. There are over 30
signiatures supporting RW24 and ZERO "censuring" him.


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
we should be nicer in general, who cares what postulated disability
other editors might have.

Jack (Sam Spade)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
>
> "As a result of this grand consensus of four voters, three
> of whom explained their vote with "nn" and one with "as per nom",
> Wikipedia will forever more lack an article on this topic."

 Does AfD apply to the entire topic? According to some it only applies to a
particular version of an article. (which version, I'm not sure)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Interim Arbcom appointments, Research Officer

body:
On 10/12/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/11/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > To fill vacancies that have arisen, I am appointing the following people
> > to the English arbitration committee:
> >
> > Mindspillage (Kat Walsh)
> > and
> > Kelly Martin (karynn in irc)
> >
> > They come highly recommended and will be great. :-)
>
> Indeed, there are no better choices! Good selection by Jimbo and,
> well, good luck to Kat and Kelly...
>
> Sam

 My only interaction with Kelly Martin was when she unilaterally deleted a
couple of pages from my user space without even consulting me beforehand. I
believe she mentioned something in the deletion reason about one of the
images being a copyright violation, which isn't true, the image was GFDL,
and in any case that doesn't explain the need to delete the page which
points to the image as well as the talk page for it.
 Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
On 10/12/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> > we should be nicer in general, who cares what postulated disability
> > other editors might have.
>
> I very infrequently "me too", but this is well worth repeating.

The sad thing about this affair is that everybody involved, right down
to those instituting blocks "to enforce guidelines", seems to have
taken these extreme and sometimes nonsensically harsh measures out of
the purest of motives.    They clearly felt that it was necessary to
protect the wiki from "disruption" by people who produced lots of
short stubs, or wrote not very good articles about anal sex in Brazil.
 There's something almost Milgramesque about the whole affair.  Would
they have behaved in such a needlessly brutal manner towards a random
weirdly acting stranger in another context?


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] stuck in preview?

body:
Kerim Friedman wrote:
> OK. I just tried in Safari and it worked. So it must be something
> about my Firefox install, not my server. I'm using 1.5b2

Log out, log back in. If that doesn't help, clear your cookies.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
On 10/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Would
> they have behaved in such a needlessly brutal manner towards a random
> weirdly acting stranger in another context?
> _______________________________________________

If a random, weirdly acting stranger turned up and started going on
about anal sex IRL I would call security. If a random weirdly acting
stranger turned up and I was able to asertian they were not a drunk
student I would call security.

--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] LoggedOut cookie

body:
Johannes Ernst wrote:
> I'm trying to understand the purpose of the LoggedOut cookie. I have
> two problems:
>
> 1) The comments state that it is in order to assist with caching /
> refreshing the right information. However, the cookie is only set
> (well, can only be set) if the user logs out very explicitly by
> clicking the log out button. I suspect, many users will not do that,
> e.g. by quitting the browser or abandoning the current session,  leaving
> that cookie absent or holding the wrong value. How useful can  this
> mechanism be -- but see next question -- if many/most people do  not /
> will not activate it?

It's useful because it cuts down on complaints of the form:
"I logged out, but I went to a page and it logged me right back in! But
then I tried to edit and it logged me out again!"

> 2) Based on looking at the code, I'm not certain that the caching
> behavior implemented with the LoggedOut cookie really works. Also, I
> don't recall having ever seen a similar mechanism with any other
> website. Is there any Wikipedia-specific functionality that can only  be
> accomplished with this cookie that somehow I don't see?

MediaWiki tries to let the client cache wiki pages in order to speed
things up when clicking around to pages you've already been at; from
what I've seen most dynamic sites don't bother with this, so they may
not require particular handling of the logut case.

When you revisit a page, the client sends an If-Modified-Since header
with the value of the Last-Modified header sent from the server on the
previous visit.

The wiki compares this time against:
* a global cache invalidation timestamp ($wgCacheEpoch)
* the page_touched field for the page; updated on edit and on
modification of linked resources that would change rendering
* the user_touched field for the user; updated on login, logout, change
of preferences, addition to the talk page, clearing of the new talk
flag, changes to the watchlist

If the given time postdates all those, then a '304 Not Modified'
response is sent; the page doesn't have to be rendered or transferred
over the network and it's displayed more quickly to the user.

If the given time is older than any of those, then it means something
may have changed that alters how the output should appear; it's
re-rendered and HTML gets sent down the wire.

Now, if you log out then the user_touched timestamp isn't exactly
applicable; there's no account connected to the session. Setting a
cookie is a way to force that, and let the wiki know that a cached page
from before the logout should be rerendered.

It doesn't handle the timeout / quit browser case, no, but that doesn't
matter too much. It's there to handle the "OMFG I'm still logged in even
though I logged out!!!!!!1111eleven" case.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:ANI]] under vandalbot attack

body:
On Oct 12, 2005, at 11:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> The administrator's noticeboard for incidents, [[WP:ANI]], is under a
> vandalbot attack. (We're moderately confident it's Wik again. What a
> lovely fellow.) Admins might want to note stuff here and/or #wikipedia
> while the attack is in progress.
>
> CheckUser is really slooooow at the best of times and this isn't the
> best of times; is there a dev with DB access about who can see if
> there's a pattern to the vandalbot and come up with a reliable
> a
>

Easy fix that would be nice here would be if "block" appeared as an
option next to all names on the new user page. That way we could zap
the obviously randomly generated usernames quickly instead of slowly.

-Snowspinner


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
On 10/12/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>
> We can sympathize more, of course, but we need
> to maintain one standard for all.
>

What worries me here is that we patently *don't*.  Should we ever
block an editor who's clearly demonstrating good faith, is not
violating any policy of Wikipedia, but isn't complying absolutely 100%
with all the guidelines?  Of course not, you say, that's absurd, we'd
never do such a thing.

But this is precisely what was done to Maoririder twice within one
week of his arriving here.

Why does it happen?  What unacknowledged bit of vindictiveness
existing in the human spirit enabled this to be done by people who
told themselves that they were doing so for the best of motives?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

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

Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> He is a newbie. He does not know the rules. He didn't know that users
> aren't allowed to delete other users' talk page comments, for example.
>
> This sort of thing is going to happen more and more, now that Wikipedia
> is the 45th most popular web site (and has 750,000 articles in the
> English edition). Let's treat the public right.
After Ed unblocked Jack, I actually got a somewhat polite message from
Jack. It was a forward of an email he sent to someone else, with "I am
rightfully angry". I basically told him that he *is* rightfully angry,
but he has been using the wrong methods to get the right thing done.

I'm pretty confident that we can make this work out, without him going
crazy again. :)

- --
Phroziac
Encrypted Email Preferred
OpenPGP key ID: 0x8DA573EA

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from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism and newpages/RC patrol and
	buckets of crap

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>What worries me here is that we patently *don't*.  Should we ever
>block an editor who's clearly demonstrating good faith, is not
>violating any policy of Wikipedia, but isn't complying absolutely 100%
>with all the guidelines?  Of course not, you say, that's absurd, we'd
>never do such a thing.
>But this is precisely what was done to Maoririder twice within one
>week of his arriving here.
>Why does it happen?  What unacknowledged bit of vindictiveness
>existing in the human spirit enabled this to be done by people who
>told themselves that they were doing so for the best of motives?

Newpages/RC patrol fatigue. Which may not be an excuse, though it
seems to be the reason.

I have every sympathy with those valiant souls who hold back the
barrage of truly shoot-on-sight crap we get. You've done both, you
*know* what I mean. (Speaking as a broad inclusionist myself, maybe
20-30% of new stuff needs to die immediately, and I think everyone of
inclusionist leanings really needs to do a bit of newpages and RC
patrol. Sunday evening US time is a fantastic time for really good bad
examples.)

OTOH, the general standard goes overboard at times - any one-sentence
stub even on a subject eminently worthy of coverage tends to get shot
on sight for being a single sentence, even though that's not a
Candidate for Speedy Deletion. I'm not sure what to do about this, and
I'm reluctant to criticise those on the front lines too strongly.

- d.


from_name: Johannes Ernst

subject: [Wikitech-l] LoggedOut cookie

body:
Hmm ... see in-lined.

On Oct 12, 2005, at 14:04, Brion Vibber wrote:

> Johannes Ernst wrote:
>
>
>> I'm trying to understand the purpose of the LoggedOut cookie. I have
>> two problems:
>>
>> 1) The comments state that it is in order to assist with caching /
>> refreshing the right information. However, the cookie is only set
>> (well, can only be set) if the user logs out very explicitly by
>> clicking the log out button. I suspect, many users will not do that,
>> e.g. by quitting the browser or abandoning the current session,
>> leaving
>> that cookie absent or holding the wrong value. How useful can  this
>> mechanism be -- but see next question -- if many/most people do
>> not /
>> will not activate it?
>>
>>
>
> It's useful because it cuts down on complaints of the form:
> "I logged out, but I went to a page and it logged me right back in!
> But
> then I tried to edit and it logged me out again!"
>

Okay, I understand how this could occur and why users would be upset.
However, couldn't the same effect be accomplished simply by removing
the session cookie? If I understand HTTP caching correctly -- well,
that may mean nothing because my knowledge on that subject is cursory
-- then pages are only supposed to be cached if the cookie
information is the same. Removing the session cookie would accomplish
this, just like adding the LoggedOut cookie does?

>> 2) Based on looking at the code, I'm not certain that the caching
>> behavior implemented with the LoggedOut cookie really works. Also, I
>> don't recall having ever seen a similar mechanism with any other
>> website. Is there any Wikipedia-specific functionality that can
>> only  be
>> accomplished with this cookie that somehow I don't see?
>>
>>
>
> MediaWiki tries to let the client cache wiki pages in order to speed
> things up when clicking around to pages you've already been at; from
> what I've seen most dynamic sites don't bother with this, so they may
> not require particular handling of the logut case.
>
> When you revisit a page, the client sends an If-Modified-Since header
> with the value of the Last-Modified header sent from the server on the
> previous visit.
>
> The wiki compares this time against:
> * a global cache invalidation timestamp ($wgCacheEpoch)
> * the page_touched field for the page; updated on edit and on
> modification of linked resources that would change rendering
> * the user_touched field for the user; updated on login, logout,
> change
> of preferences, addition to the talk page, clearing of the new talk
> flag, changes to the watchlist
>
> If the given time postdates all those, then a '304 Not Modified'
> response is sent; the page doesn't have to be rendered or transferred
> over the network and it's displayed more quickly to the user.
>
> If the given time is older than any of those, then it means something
> may have changed that alters how the output should appear; it's
> re-rendered and HTML gets sent down the wire.
>
> Now, if you log out then the user_touched timestamp isn't exactly
> applicable; there's no account connected to the session.
>

Ah! Here seems to be the poodle's core... In other words, the
LoggedOut cookie captures information (the time of log out) that is
associated with this particular user, although the user has decided
to log out ...

> Setting a
> cookie is a way to force that, and let the wiki know that a cached
> page
> from before the logout should be rerendered.
>

Let me ask the other way around. Why wouldn't the following, much
simplified scenario work:
  - there is only one cookie, xxx_session that is ever set by MediaWiki
  - it is set as a result of a successful authentication
  - is removed as a result of a log out.
  - caching / re-rendering is performed strictly based on the cookie
value and the modification times of the page

There may be information that needs to be tracked on a per-user basis
even for anonymous users (I just say that, I don't know. Is there?)
so user Anonymous 1 can be distinguished from Anonymous 2. If there
is, that information could also be held by a (really different)
session cookie which is created when the user logs off and removed
when the user logs on. In order for the If-modified-since to work, it
probably would have to have a different value than when the user was
still logged on.

(I'm also not sure why the xxxUserName cookie is needed -- it stays
around after logout -- isn't that a privacy problem? With automatic
form-fill in the newer browsers, that should not really be necessary?
But that's a different question)

> It doesn't handle the timeout / quit browser case, no, but that
> doesn't
> matter too much. It's there to handle the "OMFG I'm still logged in
> even
> though I logged out!!!!!!1111eleven" case.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

Johannes Ernst

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  http://netmesh.info/jernst


subject: [WikiEN-l] The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

body:
Phroziac wrote:

>Anyway, so i'll be making a joke page on meta about not sending curses,
>based on no legal threats. And I'll be suggesting a new BJAODN title
>based on that curse. :D

That would probably count as taunting the banned, and wouldn't be decorous ;-)

- d.


from_name: ABCD

body:
> > Easy fix that would be nice here would be if "block" appeared as an
> > option next to all names on the new user page. That way we could zap
> > the obviously randomly generated usernames quickly instead of slowly.
> >
> > -Snowspinner
>
> Someone made a monobook script with additions to the new user log
> including an additional block button, I think it was Func, but I'm not
> sure. You can copy the code from my monobook.js if you want.
>
> --Mgm

Even better, Mirv just changed the text that gets added to the log (at
[[MediaWiki:Newuserlog]], if it needs to be changed again) to include
a block link.

ABCD


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 10/11/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> To fill vacancies that have arisen, I am appointing the following people
> to the English arbitration committee:
>
> Mindspillage (Kat Walsh)
> and
> Kelly Martin (karynn in irc)
>
> They come highly recommended and will be great. :-)

Indeed, there are no better choices!  Good selection by Jimbo and,
well, good luck to Kat and Kelly...

Sam


body:
On 10/12/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> OTOH, the general standard goes overboard at times - any one-sentence
> stub even on a subject eminently worthy of coverage tends to get shot
> on sight for being a single sentence, even though that's not a
> Candidate for Speedy Deletion. I'm not sure what to do about this, and
> I'm reluctant to criticise those on the front lines too strongly.
>

I feel exactly the same: I've monitored RC patrollers and doing that
only gave me more confidence in their general ability to good
judgements.

While I wouldn't wish to criticise these essential front-liners,
perhaps guidance is in order (and this takes us right back to my
original proposal).

Usually the RC patrollers are the first to notice a new editor,
especially an unusual one.

I regret using the A-word.  It was ill-judged and surely gave needless
offence.  But there are people who show competence, skill,
willingness, courtesy, charm and everything else we'd expect of a good
Wikipedia editor, who nevertheless don't respond with quite the
immediate comprehension and conformity that is appropriate when a
dozen or so people come to them with precisely the same reasonable
complaint--even where reluctance is shown, and defensiveness, this is
all part of a well worn game the rules of which most of us know: a
token resistance, a complaint or two, and then conformity.

There are  people who don't untuit those rules, they have to simulate
that processing with their cognitive functions, which are sometimes
quite formidable but don't process information as quickly or as
reliably as instinctive thought.  Their behavior may sometimes seem
inappropriate.

And, as you say, there are articles that get deleted for no other
reason than the first person who encounters them thinks a single
sentence cannot possibly convey meaningful information.  Poppycock.

RC patrol needs guidance.  This is the sharp end, not only in the
fight to keep the wiki healthy, but in recruiting the new editors who
will take our place when we move on to other things.  We must expend
thought on coming up with guidelines, or etiquette, for greeting new
editors.  Seat-of-pants methods have perhaps outlived their
usefulness.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
On 10/12/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> In my religion, doing a bad thing with a "good motive" still counts as a
> sin. Results count.

Something along the lines of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"?

Sam


body:
The administrator's noticeboard for incidents, [[WP:ANI]], is under a
vandalbot attack. (We're moderately confident it's Wik again. What a
lovely fellow.) Admins might want to note stuff here and/or #wikipedia
while the attack is in progress.

CheckUser is really slooooow at the best of times and this isn't the
best of times; is there a dev with DB access about who can see if
there's a pattern to the vandalbot and come up with a reliable
automatic solution?

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] [[:en:WP:ANI]] under vandalbot attack

body:
The en: administrator's noticeboard for incidents, [[:en:WP:ANI]], is under a
vandalbot attack. (We're moderately confident it's Wik again. What a
lovely fellow.)

CheckUser is really slooooow at the best of times and this isn't the
best of times; is there a dev with DB access about who can see if
there's a pattern to the vandalbot and come up with a reliable
automatic solution? Thank you :-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
On 10/12/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
The
> kinds of behaviours that Maoririder was exhibiting may not seem serious to
> you; to others, they may seem far more detrimental than, for example,
> reverting articles (which is also not violating any Wikipedia policies),
> something you have repeatedly stated is absolutely unacceptable to you.
>

Oh pish, rot and nonsense.   Use of edit warring on the scale that I
have condemned is grossly contrary to policy.  The committee of which
you are a drafted member, which is charged in part with interpreting
policy, recently adopted the following principle by 5-0: "Edit warring
is harmful to the purpose of Wikipedia and to the morale of its
editors."  And so it is.  I understand the sincerity of your dissent
from this, but this isn't some bit of nonsense I made up out of thin
air.


subject: [Wikitech-l] LoggedOut cookie

body:
Johannes Ernst wrote:
> Let me ask the other way around. Why wouldn't the following, much
> simplified scenario work:
>  - there is only one cookie, xxx_session that is ever set by MediaWiki
>  - it is set as a result of a successful authentication
>  - is removed as a result of a log out.
>  - caching / re-rendering is performed strictly based on the cookie
> value and the modification times of the page

The browser doesn't tell us its previous cookie, just the timestamp.
There should be a Vary: on cookie, but I'm not sure this makes a
difference to the end-browser's behavior (it's targetted at intermediate
caches). Could you test this and report back?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Patrick Collison

subject: [Foundation-l] New project : movies.mediawiki.org?

body:
When Magnus refers to "WikiVideos", I don't think he means storing
the actual movies at all---rather, creating an online repository of
information about them (as he said, a la WikiData)

-Patrick

On 11 oct. 05, at 23:33, Sabine Cretella wrote:

> Hi Magnus,
>
> as for a general repository you could already use commons for it
> creating .ogg thora files. I did it myself and it is quite easy to
> do that. But it seems that there is one difficulty: the high
> resolution. I was not able to create high resolution .ogg files and
> other formats cannot be uploaded to commons.
>
> As for free web TV there is one that already has over 3100 films/
> documentaries/interviews etc. online
> http://www.arcoiris.tv
>
> The website at this moment is online only in Italian, Spanish and
> Portuguese (a translation into other languages would not be too
> difficult)  - contents are available in Italian, Spanish,
> Portuguese, English, French, German (only one), international
> (without words). Of course most films are in Italian (over 3000).
> It is an online tv without advertising in the films and withour
> censorship. I know for sure that they are actively searching for
> further contents and they are going the gfdl way where possible. Of
> course the films on their website have different licenses and
> copyright.
>
> So basically WikiVideo would have the same problem like commons: it
> should use .ogg theora and therefore the resolution would not be
> the highest - so commons could also be used (??).
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to go both ways? On one hand the .ogg theora
> repository (on commons) and on the other a free web TV that would
> not have problems to use for example mpeg files?
>
> As for program guides etc. there is a website of all available web
> tvs around - I just cannot find the link - if wished I can pass you
> this link (just need to search a bit).
>
> I would like to keep this discussion not influenced by who is who
> questions - so I for now will not describe who arcoiris.tv belongs
> to. I would like to know your objective opinion about co-operating
> with such an organisation.
>
> Thank you and have a great evening/good night (depending on where
> you live :-)
>
> Ciao, Sabine
>
>
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>> I am currently writing an application to manage my movie
>> collection, and
>> looked around for online sources I can use to aid me in entering
>> movie
>> information. I found amazon, which has a nice SOAP interface to their
>> DVD section. Then I looked at IMDB, which AFAIK is owned by amazon as
>> well, only to discover that they
>> * charge for database access /starting at $10000/
>> * explicly forbid HTML scraping
>>
>> I remembered Jimbos 10-point-speech at Wikimaina. "Free the TV
>> programs"? Maybe we should free the movie information as well.
>>
>> A wiki site based on WikiData (how's it going, BTW?;-) would be
>> ideal to
>> do this. It would
>> * provide information for all the wikipedias
>> * provide information for the fre TV program listings :-)
>> * prove information for applications like the one I'm working on
>>
>> For such a service, I would volunteer to integrate an upload function
>> into my software, making it possible to gather/write movie
>> information
>> within the software and then upload it to WikiVideos (tm).
>>
>>
>> So, how about it? Or is there some large, free (in both ways) online
>> database that I've missed?
>>
>> Magnus
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i
> messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Anthere

body:
Be assured that you are not the only one receiving unpleasant mails from
Sarfatti...

Please, avoid doing anything which could make us liable of anything, and
as Jimbo recommanded just today "Let's please all review the page about
him at Wikipedia to make sure that it does not contain "vicious lies,
smears, slander and libel". Of course, we should do this with absolutely
anyone... but here is a case when it is particularly important ;-)

Thanks

Ant

Phroziac wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Just wanted to show these legal threats and curses I recieved today,
> both to give you a good laugh and to ensure that the infinite block on
> JackSarfatti has community consensus as a ban...
>
> Anyway, so i'll be making a joke page on meta about not sending curses,
> based on no legal threats. And I'll be suggesting a new BJAODN title
> based on that curse. :D


from_name: Delirium

body:
Pawe? Dembowski wrote:

>>When Magnus refers to "WikiVideos", I don't think he means storing
>>the actual movies at all---rather, creating an online repository of
>>information about them (as he said, a la WikiData)
>>-Patrick
>>
>>
>
>Yeah, a free alternative to IMDb. That would be cool.
>
>
Isn't that sort of information appropriate for Wikipedia?

Sure, some sort of more structured information may be useful, but that's
true of many Wikipedia areas (mountains, biological species, chemical
elements, etc.).  Currently that's handled by parameterized templates,
but I can see WikiData being a future solution.

-Mark


list: wikipedia-l

subject: Ant: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia - a policy question?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I absolutely agree.  At this stage a merger may be nothing more than
> an intellectual ideal.  It could be years before the conditions are
> right, if ever.  The most that can be done now is to make the
> opportunity available.

Is it really a good precedent to separate Wikipedias based on political
differences among groups of people?  By that notion, we should've split
up traditional and simplified Chinese long ago, but based on the
principle that splitting effort should be avoided as much as possible, a
partly-technical solution to keep them in the same Wikipedia was found
instead.

Plus, forcing political opponents into one Wikipedia should lessen the
tendency of ideologically-uniform Wikipedias to stray from a neutral
point of view.  If, for example, en: were split up into en-us: and
en-everyone-else, I could see both of those being worse than the current
unified one on many areas---the tension between American and
non-American editors forces some sort of more neutral synthesis.

-Mark


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Keith Old wrote:

>Bryan,
>
>If you had knowledge, that suggested it was worthy of retention, why didn't
>you contribute to the debate?
>
>
Because I only found out the article had existed _after_ the vote was
closed and the article was deleted, when someone removed a link to the
now-nonexistent article from an article I happen to have on my
watchlist. I don't visit the AfD page.

Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
VfU is unlikely to help. Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
speediable, it's listed as general criteria #4. Any suggestions on how I
might argue a case at this point? I know of no avenues of "appeal" to
take to contest a deletion like this.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Seeking image manipulation websites

body:
GerardM wrote:

>*When there is a picture of a painting; changing the colours is BAD. A photo
>reflects what the picture looks like. Changing the colours arbitrarily
>because it "looks good" is falsifying what the picture is about.
>

In general it's not true that taking a photo of a picture reflects what
it really looks like---a photo's colors depend on how it was taken and
exposed (if film camera) or digitally color-balanced (if digital
camera).  I agree changing them arbitrarily is not a good idea, but
changing them to be more reflective of the actual colors is not only a
good idea by standard in professional photography.  One way of doing it
is by including known colors in the picture (e.g. Pantone swatches) and
balancing those.  But in general a photograph of a painting will have
incorrect colors and needs to be corrected, either during the exposure
in a darkroom, or during post-processing on a digital image.

-Mark


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject: [Foundation-l] Quarto est mort ! Vive Quarto !

body:
Thanks for the work on the website!

New design looks nice :)

Nicolas


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Mark Pellegrini wrote:
> I think it's a dangerous and foolhardy endeavor to single out autistic
> contributors for special treatement - which
> is, after all, what most of this discussion about autism entails.
>
<snip>

Agreed; see [[m:GAY]].

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
This doesn't make any sense. We need to change the policy if that is
how it works.

Fred

On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:

> On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes
>> speedy it
>> you'll have others on your side to restore it.
>>
>
> No, you can't.  If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
> previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
> accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
On 12/10/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > I absolutely agree.  At this stage a merger may be nothing more than
> > an intellectual ideal.  It could be years before the conditions are
> > right, if ever.  The most that can be done now is to make the
> > opportunity available.
>
> Is it really a good precedent to separate Wikipedias based on political
> differences among groups of people?  By that notion, we should've split
> up traditional and simplified Chinese long ago, but based on the
> principle that splitting effort should be avoided as much as possible, a
> partly-technical solution to keep them in the same Wikipedia was found
> instead.

This is a good example, as the differences between Trad. and Simp.
Chinese are much greater than those between Serbian, Bosnian and
Croatian. In fact, they are great enough that the current converter
has quite a bit lower than ideal accuracy, which wouldn't be the case
for a Serbian <> Croatian <> Bosnian converter.

However, in zhwiki, (most) people see the value in keeping a single
WP, at least to a reasonable degree, and the prevailing attitude among
Traditional users is "it will get better, but for now we should endure
because the reward will be worth it". On the other hand the attitude
among many Simplified users seems to be "remind me what the problem is
again?", for two reasons: 1) probably about 80%, maybe 90%, of the
content on zhwiki is (stored on the server) in Simplified. 2)
Traditional-to-Simplified conversion is MUCH easier and produces much
better quality results than vice-versa, since there are only a handful
of Traditional characters with multiple Simplified counterparts, while
there are many Simplified characters with multiple Traditional
counterparts (to be fair, though, in many cases the secondary options
are Trad'l characters that are relatively infrequent)

> Plus, forcing political opponents into one Wikipedia should lessen the
> tendency of ideologically-uniform Wikipedias to stray from a neutral
> point of view.  If, for example, en: were split up into en-us: and
> en-everyone-else, I could see both of those being worse than the current
> unified one on many areas---the tension between American and
> non-American editors forces some sort of more neutral synthesis.

That is one of the main reasons I hope to see a merger eventually.

While opinions in the various Chinese communities are diverse enough
that they would be able to maintain a good degree of NPOV even if they
were separate, views in the Balkans are radically different.

One article I copied from bs.wiki to sr.wiki and hr.wiki a few months
ago started a big conflict because the article was (apparently)
obviously POV. From that I learned two lessons: 1) don't post articles
on religion or regional history unless you're confident about the
NPOV-ness of their content; 2) don't trust Balkan WPs to maintain a
good NPOV environment.

Mark


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

body:
> When Magnus refers to "WikiVideos", I don't think he means storing
> the actual movies at all---rather, creating an online repository of
> information about them (as he said, a la WikiData)
> -Patrick

Yeah, a free alternative to IMDb. That would be cool.

--
Ausir


body:
Andre, sh.wiki was locked because of inactivity, or at least that's
the reason you listed.

So long as it is active, no matter how illogical its continued
existence may seem, I don't think it would be wise to up and lock it.

Now, practically speaking, Serbian and Croatian aren't separate
languages, rather they're regiolects (not quite dialects --
Serbocroatian *has* dialects, just that most are spoken in Croatia).

However, the events of the 90s created such deep divisions between the
peoples of the region who previously would've thought it preposterous
to suggest that they spoke different languages, that people slowly
began to decide that they wanted to have nothing to do with Serbia,
and so changed their languages, first in name and then in
orthographical conventions and to a certain extent vocabulary, as well
as emphasizing differences that already existed.

I think that, in time, the people of the region will be willing to
share a Wikipedia, but that sh.wiki is currently not well-enough
developed: it has just barely 1000 articles, and what sort of crazy
person would leave a Wikipedia with over 10000 articles to work on a
much smaller one?

If sh.wiki has more articles, I think a merger will be a more
realistic possibility.

Similarly, the Minnan Wikipedia was so widely opposed when first
requested that it wasn't created. However, when it demonstrated its
viability offsite (as Holopedia), people began to see that it was
alright.

I think that if the structure already exists, it will be quite a
different decision -- "Should we use one WP or not, the only
consequences being the people with whom we must interact?" will be the
question, rather than the current "Should we move in with these other
two groups to a small, undeveloped Wikipedia, when the Wikipedias
we're at now have 5, 10, or even 15 times more articles?"

The conversion difficulties mentioned should also be solved soon, and
when that infrastructure is in place as well, it will provide an
additional layer of "oh, now that I see it in action, it's a better
idea than I'd thought".

So currently, while they are redundant (we should have 1 WP rather
than 4), having 4 right now means that in the distant future we may be
able to have a single one. If you close sh.wiki, any hopes for that
will become much less feasible.

Cheers
Mark

On 12/10/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/10/9, Arbeo M <arbeo_m at yahoo.de>:
>
> > Generally speaking, only opening all-new Wikipedias
> > requires public discussion, prior announcement, voting
> > or the like. Reopening a previously locked wiki is not
> > a comparable process. Locking a wiki is only a
> > temporary measure because of some specific reason, e.
> > g. vandalism and it can be upheld only as long as that
> > reason persists to exist. SH had been locked because
> > of inactivity. As soon as there were people willing to
> > edit it there was no alternative but to unlock it.
>
> No, sh had been locked because it had been replaced by sr+bs+hr. It
> was unlocked because I was pressured to unlock it. I still think that
> my first decision was the right one. Let's put this simple:
>
> EITHER Serbian and Croatian are the same language, and then we should
> not have separate Wikipedias for them,
> OR they are not the same language, and then we should not have a
> combined Wikipedia.
>
> Doing both is silly. And that's about the weakest expression I can think of.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>

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


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes speedy it
> you'll have others on your side to restore it.

No, you can't.  If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.

Kelly


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalbot range block

body:
I've blocked 83.92.128.0/24 for 24 hours, as all four of the vandalbot
IP addresses I saw go by are from that range.  The range belongs to
TeleDanmark (tele.dk), and claims to be part of their ADSL IP space.
The full TeleDanmark space appears to be 83.88.0.0/13, but since the
vandalbot appears to be working from the smaller space, I've only
blocked that.

--
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Keith Old wrote:
>
>> Bryan,
>>
>> If you had knowledge, that suggested it was worthy of retention, why
>> didn't
>> you contribute to the debate?
>>
>>
> Because I only found out the article had existed _after_ the vote was
> closed and the article was deleted, when someone removed a link to the
> now-nonexistent article from an article I happen to have on my
> watchlist. I don't visit the AfD page.
>
> Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
> VfU is unlikely to help. Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> speediable, it's listed as general criteria #4. Any suggestions on how I
> might argue a case at this point? I know of no avenues of "appeal" to
> take to contest a deletion like this.

You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes speedy it
you'll have others on your side to restore it.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/12/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> In other words, an article rewritten to establish notability under the
> criteria for Web Comics shouldn't be speedy deleted.

Sure, it shouldn't.  Wanna bet it won't be?

Kelly


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
> Easy fix that would be nice here would be if "block" appeared as an
> option next to all names on the new user page. That way we could zap
> the obviously randomly generated usernames quickly instead of slowly.
>
> -Snowspinner
> _______________________________________________

Someone made a monobook script with additions to the new user log
including an additional block button, I think it was Func, but I'm not
sure. You can copy the code from my monobook.js if you want.

--Mgm


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2005/10/9, Arbeo M <arbeo_m at yahoo.de>:

> Generally speaking, only opening all-new Wikipedias
> requires public discussion, prior announcement, voting
> or the like. Reopening a previously locked wiki is not
> a comparable process. Locking a wiki is only a
> temporary measure because of some specific reason, e.
> g. vandalism and it can be upheld only as long as that
> reason persists to exist. SH had been locked because
> of inactivity. As soon as there were people willing to
> edit it there was no alternative but to unlock it.

No, sh had been locked because it had been replaced by sr+bs+hr. It
was unlocked because I was pressured to unlock it. I still think that
my first decision was the right one. Let's put this simple:

EITHER Serbian and Croatian are the same language, and then we should
not have separate Wikipedias for them,
OR they are not the same language, and then we should not have a
combined Wikipedia.

Doing both is silly. And that's about the weakest expression I can think of.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Mark wrote:
>
>
>>I think it's a dangerous and foolhardy endeavor to single out
>>autistic
>>contributors for special treatment - which
>>is, after all, what most of this discussion about autism entails.
>>
>>Psychologists - trained professionals - are ethically prohibited from
>>making such diagnoses without meeting a
>>patient in person. So, rather, now our admins are supposed to do what
>>even trained professionals will not.
>>
>>Furthermore, it's inherently bad policy to treat one particular group
>>different than others (different, for better or for
>>worse). Not only is it insulting and likely to cause far more
>>problems
>>than it would actually, but it is guaranteed to
>>be riddled with errors (statistical type I and type II).
>>
>>
>I agree with all the above and suggest that
>people have been using the words "autistic" and
>"autism" loosely.
>
Respecting the privacy of Wikipedians has been an important principle
from the beginning.  Any Wikipedian should have the right to park his
private life at the door when he logs on.  That includes the autistic
and those with other psychological problems.  We also extend that to
anyone whether famous or infamous.  We even allow Moonies. :-)    The
only valid basis we have for judging anyone is their behaviour in the Wikis.

>(To pick a popular example
>from politics, a certain school of thought has
>taken to labeling George W. Bush "an idiot" -
>although they do not _literally_ mean that his
>I.Q. is below that of a moron or imbecile: they
>merely oppose his policies. They probably mean
>that they regard his _policies_ as "stupid". You
>might be able to graduate from university with a
>90 or 100 I.Q., but an [[idiot]] literally would
>be unable to find his way home from class.)
>
>What's tolerable in the political field is not
>good to bring to discussions of Wikipedia
>contributors. Bush is fair game: we can all say
>what we want about him. Our fellow contributors
>should not be targets. We should not apply
>hurtful labels to them (see [[Wikipedia:Avoid
>personal remarks]] and maybe even [[Wikipedia:No
>personal attacks]]).
>
If Bush chose to become one of our editors it would be his right, and he
too would have the right to remain anonymous.  I'm afraid though that if
he tried to sign on as [[User:George W. Bush]] he would have a difficult
time proving that he was not a troll using that name for mischief.

>It's easy and common to "diagnose" a schoolchild
>or other person with ADD or autism, simply
>because they don't "listen" or "behave". Label
>them, pigeon-hole them, forget about really
>helping them.
>
These kind of diagnoses are well beyond the capacity of any contributor
acting on line.

>We should simply make it possible for those with
>poorly developed social skills to contribute to
>Wikipedia, but not by relaxing our standards of
>civility. If someone _declares_ that they are
>somewhat autistic (or senile, or have
>Asperger's) that's fine. Cut them a little more
>slack, along the lines of "Be nice to the
>newbies."
>
It would be preferable that they not make such declarations, but if they
do it should not be held against them.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and autism

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Tony replied:
>
>
>>Why does it happen?  What unacknowledged bit of
>>vindictiveness existing in the human spirit enabled this to
>>be done by people who told themselves that they were doing so
>>for the best of motives?
>>
>>
>In my religion, doing a bad thing with a "good motive" still counts as a
>sin. Results count.
>
Bad deeds for good motives may be the result of mistakes.  They should
always be pardonable.  There can be many ways that something can go wrong.

Good deeds for bad motives are far worse despite the appearance to
observers.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Image licenses; a small suggestion

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 10/11/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>By putting your picture into the wiki you are giving permission. The
>>more interesting question is whether an underaged person has the legal
>>right to enter into any kind of licensing agreement.
>>
>>
>You are arguably giving permission under the GFDL, although even that could
>be disputed if you claim you didn't notice the contract/waiver when you made
>the submission. On top of this, Wikipedia doesn't actually follow the GFDL.
>They roughly follow the spirit of the GFDL, but there are quite a few
>significant pieces that are missing. Since the GFDL is automatically revoked
>whenever you break it, if you're going to rely on the argument that the
>image is released under the GFDL then Wikimedia probably has no permission
>to distribute any of the images at all.
> It'd be a much easier case from a legal standpoint to claim that by
>contributing to an article you are contributing to a joint work, under a
>joint authorship agreement which licenses the content to all third parties
>under the terms of the GFDL and under Wikipedia's rough approximation of the
>GFDL.
> The truth is, for now, no one really knows the true copyright status of
>Wikipedia from a legal standpoint.
>
This last comment is probably right.  So much of free licensing is
completely untested in the courts.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

body:
Phroziac wrote:

>Just wanted to show these legal threats and curses I recieved today,
>both to give you a good laugh and to ensure that the infinite block on
>JackSarfatti has community consensus as a ban...
>
>-------- Forwarded Message --------
>
>From: JackSarfatti <sarfatti at pacbell.net>
>
>How dare you idiots block me from defending myself with vicious lies,
>smears and slander. May you all rot in Hell forever. My Curse is on all
>of you. Did you  misspell your ID? Did you mean Prozac? In any case may
>all your dreams be nightmares from this moment on.
>
Maybe you should avoid sending him a lock of your hair for his voodoo
dolls, although a modern practitionar may be satisfied with a DNA sampple.

>-------- Forwarded Message --------
>
>Please note I am involved in USG National Security work and what these
>people are doing is detrimental to US National Security. The Wikimedia
>Foundation, wittingly or unwittingly I do not know, is aiding the
>terrorist cause.
>
>
With guys like this looking after your national security, you may be
worse off than anybody ever dreamed. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Phroziac wrote:
>
>
>>Anyway, so i'll be making a joke page on meta about not sending curses,
>>based on no legal threats. And I'll be suggesting a new BJAODN title
>>based on that curse. :D
>>
>>
>That would probably count as taunting the banned, and wouldn't be decorous ;-)
>
>
Yeah the music from the brass banned can be too loud.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Namespace

body:
Jakob Voss:
> As far as I know this is a feature of upcoming Wikidata

Yes, the code which does this is already in CVS, but I have to finish
integration, which is going to happen this month.

Erik


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Keith Old wrote:
> Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
> VfU is unlikely to help. Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> speediable, it's listed as general criteria #4. Any suggestions on how I
> might argue a case at this point? I know of no avenues of "appeal" to
> take to contest a deletion like this.

Wait a few weeks then recreate being sure to establish notability.

--
geni


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
> VfU is unlikely to help.

In practice no, but VFU *should* undelete pages on the basis that
Wikipedia is better with them than without.  It's in the undeletion
policy; the fact that there's a strong resistance to actually
implementing the undeletion policy is saddening.

 Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> speediable

Recreation of pages deleted *under the deletion policy* (which does
actually apply here).


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Bryan,

If you had knowledge, that suggested it was worthy of retention, why didn't
you contribute to the debate?

BTW, I think that AfD works well and generally the decision that is made at
the end of the day is the correct one. I am disinclined to support an
alternative unless I am sure that I will work better than the current
system. So for, none of the suggested alternatives have met that standard in
that view.

Any system regarding the deletion of articles will only work as well as the
participation of members in it.

Regards

On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> I just came across this AfD when a link to the deleted article was
> removed from another I had watchlisted:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Jar
>
> I never read the webcomic The Jar myself, but I know that it existed and
> was popular, and also that when Kittyhawk moved on to other projects the
> webcomic's archive was taken offline. The nominator saw the resulting
> lack of Google results and nominated it solely on account of "none
> notability." As a result of this grand consensus of four voters, three
> of whom explained their vote with "nn" and one with "as per nom",
> Wikipedia will forever more lack an article on this topic. Kind of a
> pity since I've always been curious about what I missed - I've been told
> that it had a better plot than Kittyhawk's current strip, which survived
> a VfD last year.
>
> There were tons of great ideas being kicked around on this mailing list
> a few weeks back for how to change the deletion process, either as a
> short-term experiment or long-term reform, has it all quietly passed
> from everyone's radars now? Or is there some other forum the discussion
> moved to that I missed?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes speedy it
> > you'll have others on your side to restore it.
>
> No, you can't.  If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
> previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
> accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.
>

In practice a completely new article may get a little opposition, but
it isn't at all speediable and if speedied can be unilaterally
undeleted.  Another strategy is to merge the information into another
article and recreate as a redirect.  That would be impossible to
misrepresent as a recreation.


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
ABCD wrote:
> Even better, Mirv just changed the text that gets added to the log (at
> [[MediaWiki:Newuserlog]], if it needs to be changed again) to include
> a block link.

It's actually [[MediaWiki:Newuserloglog]].

Chris


body:
ABCD wrote:
> Even better, Mirv just changed the text that gets added to the log (at
> [[MediaWiki:Newuserlog]], if it needs to be changed again) to include
> a block link.

I forgot to mention something in the previous email, the problem with
this is that the block link will show up for non-admins as well as admins.

Chris


body:
On 10/13/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> ABCD wrote:
> > Even better, Mirv just changed the text that gets added to the log (at
> > [[MediaWiki:Newuserlog]], if it needs to be changed again) to include
> > a block link.
>
> I forgot to mention something in the previous email, the problem with
> this is that the block link will show up for non-admins as well as admins.
>

Sure, but it'll only work for admins


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> As an arbitrator you'll make sure that such a blatant disregard of Wikipedia
> policy doesn't stick, right? If not, thank God you're only there until the
> end of the year.

It's not my job to seek out and destroy any who violates written
policy.  If, in fact, the written policy is not being followed because
the consensus of the community is to ignore the written policy, then
the written policy isn't actually policy, now, is it?

I'm certainly not going to try to impose, as an Arbitrator, my opinion
as to what deletion policy should be.  That would be a gross abuse of
power.

Kelly


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> I absolutely agree.  At this stage a merger may be nothing more than
>> an intellectual ideal.  It could be years before the conditions are
>> right, if ever.  The most that can be done now is to make the
>> opportunity available.
>
>
> Is it really a good precedent to separate Wikipedias based on political
> differences among groups of people?

No, it is a terrible precedent, but it happened before we understood it
well enough.

It seems to me quite possible to move forward gently and slowly and to
get consensus, and that there's no reason to force people together
before they are ready.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Well, we don't want really crappy stuff put up over and over, but
when something decent comes along we don't want automatic deletion.
Perhaps a rule that after a year any article could be recreated?

Fred

On Oct 13, 2005, at 3:51 AM, Alphax wrote:

> Unfortunately, people seem to think that AfD is Perfect and that you
> can't undelete if the AfD was "valid"; I've seen several votes on VfU
> simply saying "Keep deleted, valid AfD". What AfD (and VfU) needs is a
> swift kick in the pants.
>
> And possibly the bloc voters need one too.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Is Wikip/media politic?

body:
Jakob Voss wrote:
> In danger of beeing pedantic: The quote of Jimbo above was included in
> the article revision written by the journalist AJ Jacobs with "a bunch
> of intentional mistakes" as he wrote (posted by Notafish of 16:58, 20
> September 2005). By the way it also contains the famous
> "IBM-5-minutes-vandalism"-myth (see below). So as a serious researcher I
> cannot trust the source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ITAAW - but
> personally I believe that Jimbo said what is quoted ;-)
>
>
> == The famous "IBM-5-minutes-vandalism"-myth ==

I always say it like this:

"For certain types of vandalism which were easy to identify
algorithmically, the median time for reversion is under 5 minutees."

I said this at a talk *at IBM* and asked Martin Wattenberg if this was a
fair way to state it, and he said it was perfect.

--Jimbo


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/12/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/12/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In other words, an article rewritten to establish notability under the
> > criteria for Web Comics shouldn't be speedy deleted.
>
> Sure, it shouldn't. Wanna bet it won't be?

As an arbitrator you'll make sure that such a blatant disregard of Wikipedia
policy doesn't stick, right? If not, thank God you're only there until the
end of the year.

Kelly

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/12/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Since the VfD was voted on and closed properly according to procedure
> > VfU is unlikely to help.
>
> In practice no, but VFU *should* undelete pages on the basis that
> Wikipedia is better with them than without. It's in the undeletion
> policy; the fact that there's a strong resistance to actually
> implementing the undeletion policy is saddening.

That's certainly the way it used to be, but this changed at some point:
"This process should *not* be used simply because you disagree with a
deletion debate's reasoning ? only if you think the debate was interpreted
incorrectly by the closer. This page is about *process*, not content." Not
sure who added that, and whether or not there was a vote to completely
change the undeletion process, but that's right at the top of the page now.

Recreations of deleted pages without a VfU are
> > speediable
>
> Recreation of pages deleted *under the deletion policy* (which does
> actually apply here).

One reason not to improve an article while it's under a VfD debate, unless
you are sure it's going to win. I've seen a number of times when articles
were improved significantly after most people voted, they were deleted based
on those old votes, and now that newly improved content was speediable.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > As an arbitrator you'll make sure that such a blatant disregard of
> Wikipedia
> > policy doesn't stick, right? If not, thank God you're only there until
> the
> > end of the year.
>
> It's not my job to seek out and destroy any who violates written
> policy. If, in fact, the written policy is not being followed because
> the consensus of the community is to ignore the written policy, then
> the written policy isn't actually policy, now, is it?

So, in other words, you'll selectively enforce whatever policies you feel
like enforcing? If not, then what exactly *is* your job?

There obviously isn't a consensus in the community to ignore the written
policy in this case, so that's irrelevant.

I'm certainly not going to try to impose, as an Arbitrator, my opinion
> as to what deletion policy should be. That would be a gross abuse of
> power.

Well that's a good start, and it's really all that's necessary. You don't
have to force the recreation by ruling, you just have to not sanction
someone else who does.

Kelly

Anthony


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Delirium wrote:
> GerardM wrote:
>
>> *When there is a picture of a painting; changing the colours is BAD.
>> A photo
>> reflects what the picture looks like. Changing the colours arbitrarily
>> because it "looks good" is falsifying what the picture is about.
>>
>
> In general it's not true that taking a photo of a picture reflects
> what it really looks like---a photo's colors depend on how it was
> taken and exposed (if film camera) or digitally color-balanced (if
> digital camera).  I agree changing them arbitrarily is not a good
> idea, but changing them to be more reflective of the actual colors is
> not only a good idea by standard in professional photography.  One way
> of doing it is by including known colors in the picture (e.g. Pantone
> swatches) and balancing those.  But in general a photograph of a
> painting will have incorrect colors and needs to be corrected, either
> during the exposure in a darkroom, or during post-processing on a
> digital image.
>
> -Mark
>
Hoi,
You say it well: "One way of doing it is by including known colours in
the picture" this implies that only a person familiar with the picture
can do this. By these words you condemn almost all "corrections" by all
those well meaning persons who change picture because they can and
because it is "allowed = legal" and the picture is "Free".

Lucebert said it well;  everything of value is defenseless.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes speedy it
> > you'll have others on your side to restore it.
>
> No, you can't.  If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
> previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
> accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
That would be against policy unless the articles were similar.
I would start a VFU debate and make sure I'd add proof this comic was
indeed popular.
With the lack of Google hits initially cited it was unverifiable for
the original voters. If you can change that they might change their
mind.

--Mgm


from_name: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: vandalism myths

body:
On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> > == The famous "IBM-5-minutes-vandalism"-myth ==
>
> I always say it like this:
>
> "For certain types of vandalism which were easy to identify
> algorithmically, the median time for reversion is under 5 minutees."

Or "was, as of late 2003, under 5 minutes."

There is hope they will update the study.  Fernanda Viegas has left the
media lab to take a post at IBM, so she and Martin W. may do a reprise.

Speaking of which: what is the fastest way to get a full db dump?
Is there a "please mail me a hard-drive" option?

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: vandalism myths


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
>
> Isn't that an easy VFU candidate.
> "This article improved significantly during its time on AFD but ended
> up deleted based on old votes." Such requests are easily undeleted.

 Seems to me that would contradict the current rules of VFU, which are
simply about review of procedural due process.

> Try to get such articles undeleted first and see if VFU is really as
> ineffective as you think.

 I have. What I got was banned from being allowed to edit VFU or any other
page in the Wikipedia namespace.

BTW, were the improvements mentioned in the AFD discussion so the
> closing admin could take it into account?

 I'm talking about a hypothetical here, but it's something that happens
quite often. Sometimes the improvements are mentioned, usually they aren't.

--Mgm

 Anthony


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
>
>>> When Magnus refers to "WikiVideos", I don't think he means storing
>>> the actual movies at all---rather, creating an online repository of
>>> information about them (as he said, a la WikiData)
>>> -Patrick
>>>
>>
>>
>> Yeah, a free alternative to IMDb. That would be cool.
>>
>>
> Isn't that sort of information appropriate for Wikipedia?
>
> Sure, some sort of more structured information may be useful, but
> that's true of many Wikipedia areas (mountains, biological species,
> chemical elements, etc.).  Currently that's handled by parameterized
> templates, but I can see WikiData being a future solution.

WikiData is indeed to become a repository for database-storable
information, especially that which would have to be manually replicated
on all wikipedias otherwise. Movie data is about the prime example for
this. There is absoluely no need to write the same actor/crew/studio/etc
data into every single wikipedia if one can create an info box with a
simple command (read:template) using information stored at WikiData.

The point is not to separate the information from wikipedia into some
specialized wiki, but to store the information in a structured way at a
central repository, from which every wikipedia can be served. Think
"wikimedia commons for data".

Magnus


from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database dumps by mail

body:
That would take a dedicated geek! Purchasing hard drives, downloading the
dumps (and old is gigantor), doing it in many languages, keeping stocked on
packing supplies, dealing with shipping, creating a dynamic website. Erik
and I actually "joked" about this at some point :)

On 10/13/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Can we set up a "db dumps by mail" system, for people to get a full db
> dump on a hard drive by mail? That's the most efficient way to get
> the dumps out to people on slow connections.
>
> We have done this for the <80GB of content on aduni.org <http://aduni.org>for a few
> years; charging a bit over the cost of materials for making each
> drive, to support our bandwidth. It has been extremely popular,
> particularly in Asia... I am sure the same would be true of a similary
> WP/WM program.
>
> In particular, two people (Gordon Joly and Fernanda Viegas) have asked
> me in the last week if there were such an option.
>
> -- ++SJ
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Cheers,
Brian Mingus
AIM, Skype: BReflection
Google talk: reflection at gmail.com
Phone: (720) 771-2599


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> Well, we don't want really crappy stuff put up over and over, but
> when something decent comes along we don't want automatic deletion.
> Perhaps a rule that after a year any article could be recreated?

But IMO the article in question should be recreated _now_, I see no
reason to wait in this particular case. I've located the comic's
archives in the Wayback Machine, it seems just as notable as the
artist's current comic (which survived VfD). The only difference was
that the nominator apparently didn't know the archives had long ago been
taken down and so couldn't find anything in a Google search to establish
that. If I wait a year the deletion archives might be cleared or I might
die, who knows? And since the contents of the deleted article were fine
I intend to use that text as a basis for the recreation, which means the
GFDL requires that the edit history be restored along with it.

Anyway, my current plan is to wait for one week and then undelete and
edit the article. I suspect that if it gets "noticed" it'll be speedied
and I'll be complained at for disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, but
such is life. I'll post an update here describing the results of the
attempt.


from_name: Arbeo M

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

One article I copied from bs.wiki to sr.wiki and hr.wiki a few months
ago started a big conflict because the article was (apparently)
obviously POV. From that I learned two lessons: 1) don't post articles
on religion or regional history unless you're confident about the
NPOV-ness of their content; 2) don't trust Balkan WPs to maintain a
good NPOV environment.

The most basic lesson:  3) Don't post articles in languages you don't know.

---------------------------------
Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB kostenlosem Speicher


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
A movie is often called differently in many languages, even in different
countries. The same can be said for the names of actors and actresses, I
assume that you know how to write Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts in at least one
other character set.

As this kind of information is of a lexicological nature, there is the
option to have this information in the "Ultimate Wiktionary" where it is of
value in its own right and it would give you the appropriate information in
your Wikipedia.

Thanks,
GerardM

On 10/13/05, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > WikiData is indeed to become a repository for database-storable
> > information, especially that which would have to be manually replicated
> > on all wikipedias otherwise. Movie data is about the prime example for
> > this. There is absoluely no need to write the same actor/crew/studio/etc
> > data into every single wikipedia if one can create an info box with a
> > simple command (read:template) using information stored at WikiData.
>
> Not so easy. Example what about non-regular transliteration of names
> (not all languages use roman letters, isn't it)?
>
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

subject: [Wikitech-l] Database dumps by mail

body:
On 10/13/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> In particular, two people (Gordon Joly and Fernanda Viegas) have asked
> me in the last week if there were such an option.

What would be an appropriate price markup for this?

And where are those two folks?


from_name: Sechan, Gabe

subject: [Wikitech-l] Adding page view restrictions

body:
I'm using MediaWiki to create a corporate wiki, and need to allow access to certain pages only to certain groups.  I don't see full support for this in MediaWiki as of 1.4.11 (although there is stub support-  you can do this for moderators).  Unless this has already been implemented for 1.5 or there is already a 3rd party patch, I'm going to implement this myself, and will be pushing for (and almost will certainly get) permission to give this change back to the community.  While Wikipedia may not use it, it would be a nice feature for the wiki in general.  And if it brings in more corporate users, those users may always contribute back more useful changes.

This brings me to how to implement this.  I have a few ideas, if anyone can comment on them.

Part 1-  storing restrictions

I can either use the cur_restricted field of the cur table, or create a new table that has a pair (pagename,group).  If the pagename has restrictions, you would need to be in one of those groups.  If there were no restrictions, it would default to open.  Which of these ways sounds preferable?  I sort of like the new table, since then lookups on old versions wouldn't need to access the cur table for restrictions data.

Part 2- storing groups

A new table with pairs (user id, groupname).  A user can be in any number of groups.

Part 3- applying restrictions

Any time someone tries to access cur_text, they need to check against permissions.  If they fail, they should not actually read the text.  Do only Article and EditPage need this protection, or will it need to go elsewhere as well?

I'm thinking of implementing this as a new class (Permission) with a two methods- checkPermission($user,$title) that will return TRUE if user can access the title, and FALSE if not  On a FALSE, the calling code will need to push an error up the call stack in whatever way is appropriate.  Probably a web page saying that the page is protected, and listing the groups.

The other function is groupList($title) that will return the list of groups with permission to read it.  Its there to allow callers to get allowed groups for the error page.  (Alternatively, Permission could generate an error page, but that sounds messy).

Part 4- editing permissions

An extra box on the edit page, with a list of groups.  Add a group to add it to the restricted to list.  You must have edit permissions (in other words, you must be in one of the previously allowed groups or be an admin/beauracrat) to add or remove a group.

Part 5- adding people to groups

Basicly, this is a special page.  I'll probably allow, as a basic method, any admin, beauracrat, or existing group member to add you to a group.  I'm not as interested in this part of the problem, as I'll be getting my groups from /etc/group.

Any comments on how I plan to implement this?  Or if it already exists and I'm being a moron (or missing a 3rd party patch somewhere), please help me out.

Gabe


subject: [Wikitech-l] Database dumps by mail

body:
Can we set up a "db dumps by mail" system, for people to get a full db
dump on a hard drive by mail?  That's the most efficient way to get
the dumps out to people on slow connections.

We have done this for the <80GB of content on aduni.org for a few
years; charging a bit over the cost of materials for making each
drive, to support our bandwidth.  It has been extremely popular,
particularly in Asia... I am sure the same would be true of a similary
WP/WM program.

In particular, two people (Gordon Joly and Fernanda Viegas) have asked
me in the last week if there were such an option.

-- ++SJ


from_name: MAURICE FRANK

body:
>Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:11:13 -0700
>From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
>Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: The curse of Jack
Sarfatti?
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>

>1. I unblocked his [[user:JackSarfatti]] account.
>.2. I unblocked the [[Jack Sarfatti]] article.
>3. I tried (twice) to tone done the anti-Sarfatti
rhetoric there, but
>have given up for the day.
>4. I marked up with HTML strikeout the message on
Jack's user talk page
>which threatened legal action against Wikipedia; he
told me over the
>phone that I could delete it.
>5. I suggested to Jack that he confine his wiki
activity to the
>[[talk:Jack Sarfatti]] page - rather than trying to
edit the article
>directly.
>
>He is a newbie. He does not know the rules. He didn't
know that users
>aren't allowed to delete other users' talk page
comments, for example.
>
>This sort of thing is going to happen more and more,
now that Wikipedia
>is the 45th most popular web site (and has 750,000
articles in the
>English edition). Let's treat the public right.

Yes let's, eh?

If you claim to "be entitled to anything", you get
permablocked for it and told that it counts as making
legal threats. Which it doesn't anywhere else in the
world.

If you really make legal threats, and act on them, and
send "unpleasant emails", you get unblocked.

!

___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>As an arbitrator you'll make sure that such a blatant disregard of Wikipedia
>>>
>>>
>>>policy doesn't stick, right? If not, thank God you're only there until the
>>>
>>>
>>>end of the year.
>>>
>>>
>>It's not my job to seek out and destroy any who violates written
>>policy. If, in fact, the written policy is not being followed because
>>the consensus of the community is to ignore the written policy, then
>>the written policy isn't actually policy, now, is it?
>>
>>
>So, in other words, you'll selectively enforce whatever policies you feel
>like enforcing? If not, then what exactly *is* your job?
>
>There obviously isn't a consensus in the community to ignore the written
>policy in this case, so that's irrelevant.
>
I don't see it as that simple.  There is the question of when does
something change from a proposal to a policy.  It is far too easy for
incremental changes to policy to go unnoticed until they have become
contrary to original intention.  They only become noticed when someone
tries to enforce them.

>I'm certainly not going to try to impose, as an Arbitrator, my opinion
>
>
>>as to what deletion policy should be. That would be a gross abuse of
>>power.
>>
>>
>Well that's a good start, and it's really all that's necessary. You don't
>have to force the recreation by ruling, you just have to not sanction
>someone else who does.
>
It would indeed be wrong for him to impose what he thinks policy should
be, but he still has to determine what policy is.  That can be a matter
of interpretation.  He can also look into whether the policy adoption
policy was followed to determine whether the policy is valid.

Ec


from_name: Stefan Sittler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Vandalbot range block

body:
On 10/13/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:fbad4e140510130856u71d295e2xa76cb1bdaca039c9 at mail.gmail.com...
> >This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the
> >history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it
> >seems to just predate me...
>
> [nice little potted history of the [[Wik]] affair snipped]
>
> Am I alone in thinking this really should be recorded somewhere for
> posterity, if not on :en: then maybe on :meta:?
>
> I would also like to have access to similar potted histories for
> [[Michael]], [[Lir]] and [[Plautus Satire]] (although I understand
> [[Michael]] is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation now?) whose names crop
> up repeatedly with the assumption that everybody knows who they are and what
> they did.

I would like to second this. Oh, and a page for Treason, who crops up
with the same sort of notriety.

On the other hand, it is recorded (for some value of posterity) right
here on the mailing list. I don't know if my motivation is that of a
concerned Wikipedian learning from history or of a thrillseeking
scandalmonger. Probably both :)

C'mon, old-timers, set the record straight :)

stefan
(user: Kiaparowits)

> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
On 10/13/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>die, who knows? And since the contents of the deleted article were fine
>I intend to use that text as a basis for the recreation, which means the
>GFDL requires that the edit history be restored along with it.
 Surely there are other ways to approximate compliance with the GFDL other
than the history maintained by Wikipedia. But in any case, the edit history
of deleted articles is already available.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
AFDs can be valid, but if the people who voted were misinformed or if
additional info has come to light, being valid doesn't mean the AFD
decision should remain indefinitely. "Keep deleted, valid AFD" has
reached a point when such a comment is no longer informative. I think
such comments should be discounted and people should be encouraged to
explain why they think there's no reason to revisit the decision in
question.

--Mgm

On 10/13/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > On 10/13/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes speedy it
> >>>you'll have others on your side to restore it.
> >>
> >>No, you can't.  If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
> >>previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
> >>accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.
> >>
> >>Kelly
> >>_______________________________________________
> >
> > That would be against policy unless the articles were similar.
> > I would start a VFU debate and make sure I'd add proof this comic was
> > indeed popular.
> > With the lack of Google hits initially cited it was unverifiable for
> > the original voters. If you can change that they might change their
> > mind.
> >
>
> Unfortunately, people seem to think that AfD is Perfect and that you
> can't undelete if the AfD was "valid"; I've seen several votes on VfU
> simply saying "Keep deleted, valid AfD". What AfD (and VfU) needs is a
> swift kick in the pants.
>
> And possibly the bloc voters need one too.
>
> - --
> Alphax                      |   /"\
> Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
> http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> =DMNy
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>  Do you really think there are people at other top-50 websites with unlogged
> and unfettered access to this sort of information?
>  If so, do you think they had to go through any background checks, and sign
> a non-disclosure agreement?
>  It certainly *is* possible to set up a system so that *no single person*
> can "see all and know all". I would hope all the other top-50 websites have
> set up such a system.

Most top-50 websites have a IT staff budget in excess of $1M a year.
What's Wikipedia's IT staff budget, again?

Kelly


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Floss conference report : Wikiversity

body:
The powerpoint from the presentation of WMF and Wikiversity I made in SA
is available thanks to Elian here :
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~elian/anthere/Pretoria5.ppt

Of course, it is only the ppt, and not the words I put on the slides,
but it may be helpful to some, or later.

Anthere

Anthere wrote:

> Hello
>
> Last week I was in South Africa for the second Floss and Free Knowledge
> Workshop. I put a summary/report about the conference here :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conference_reports/FLOSS%2C_South_Africa_2005/Workshop_2
>
>
> I am also planning to add in the next few days/weeks on meta
> * the powerpoint of the presentation I did there (focused on Wikiversity)
> * 3-4 of the presentations I found most interesting for some of the
> issues we are trying to explore (such as some about Africa and use of
> Floss or others about Publishing)
> * A summary of the conclusions reached during the workshop.
>
> I was very happy to meet as well during this trip, Alias from South
> Africa, as well as 7-8 people in Amsterdam.
>
> Cheers
>
> Anthere


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>  If sysadmins can do any destructive thing they want, then you haven't
> created a very secure system.

There is always at least one sysadmin at every organization who has
the capability to destroy, or at least significantly harm, everything.
 Only at the very largest organizations -- those with redundant,
geographically separated data centers -- is is possible to make this
effectively impossible.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] new CheckUser proposal up

body:
On 10/13/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> * Remember that a small number of the developers (those who have
> access to the database) already have this power and use it. They
> control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and
> know all ? because they have to have complete control in order to
> administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy,
> because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend
> access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few
> people for the job.

 Do you really think there are people at other top-50 websites with unlogged
and unfettered access to this sort of information?
 If so, do you think they had to go through any background checks, and sign
a non-disclosure agreement?
 It certainly *is* possible to set up a system so that *no single person*
can "see all and know all". I would hope all the other top-50 websites have
set up such a system.


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Meanwhile, AfD grinds on

body:
Our Criteria for Speedy Deletion guidelines state that one of the reasons
for speedy deletion is that the article in question is

   1. A substantially identical copy, by any title, of a page that was
   deleted according to the deletion
policy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy>.
   Note that:
   2. Administrators faced with a recreation of previously speedily
   deleted content must determine that it did in fact meet a criterion for
   speedy deletion and had been appropriately deleted before they delete it
   again; and,

   - This does not apply to content in userspace or to content undeleted
   according to the undeletion
policy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Undeletion_policy>.

In other words, an article rewritten to establish notability under the
criteria for Web Comics shouldn't be speedy deleted.

On 10/13/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> This doesn't make any sense. We need to change the policy if that is
> how it works.
>
> Fred
>
> On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:
>
> > On 10/12/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> You can always write an article from scratch. If the assholes
> >> speedy it
> >> you'll have others on your side to restore it.
> >>
> >
> > No, you can't. If you recreate an article on the same topic as a
> > previously deleted one, it will be speedied, and VFU won't likely
> > accept that it was "rewritten" as an excuse.
> >
> > Kelly
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

body:
> WikiData is indeed to become a repository for database-storable
> information, especially that which would have to be manually replicated
> on all wikipedias otherwise. Movie data is about the prime example for
> this. There is absoluely no need to write the same actor/crew/studio/etc
> data into every single wikipedia if one can create an info box with a
> simple command (read:template) using information stored at WikiData.

Not so easy. Example what about non-regular transliteration of names
(not all languages use roman letters, isn't it)?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration


from_name: Александр Сигачёв


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] The curse of Jack Sarfatti?

body:
On 10/13/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
> >Phroziac wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Anyway, so i'll be making a joke page on meta about not sending curses,
> >>based on no legal threats. And I'll be suggesting a new BJAODN title
> >>based on that curse. :D
> >>
> >>
> >That would probably count as taunting the banned, and wouldn't be decorous ;-)
> >
> >
> Yeah the music from the brass banned can be too loud.
>
> Ec

That was truly puntastic

--gkhan