subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Software Assisted Context Resolution (from
 wikitech-l)

body:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, Tim Starling wrote:

> This is also on wikitech-l, forwarded on to wikipedia-l at Cunctator's
> request.
>
> I've already briefly discussed this with Gary on his user talk page. A few
> observations:
>
> In his proposal below, Gary does not explicitly deal with what happens when
> a previously unambiguous name is given a second meaning. Here's what I
> suggest:
>
> * The original page is moved to a disambiguated name. This name is selected
> by the user who creates the second page.
> * All existing links are updated via the pipe trick to point to the
> newly-disambiguated primary article.

Sounds like a bad idea - any pages that previously referred to the old
page _wrongly_ would now be even more wrong. There will be rare cases where
one disambiguation subject would be the only one that had links, but more
commonly there are a few links that go to other disambiguation subjects. So
I would very much prefer to have disambiguation done by hand, or at least
under human control.

Andre Engels


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

>
>> Si.
>> And remember, on the first of january 2003, someone
>> took over three sysops accounts on the french wiki,
>> and indicated our passwords in clear to the three of
>> us.
>> So...well...security...hum
>
>
> If we really want to be serious about security we'll have to use ssl
> for login, but I don't know how to do that.
>
Maybe just put a note on the login page that it's a low-security password.

(though you'd think people would be smart enough to use a "high
secutiry" password for something like a bank once and once only... sigh...)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Software Assisted Context Resolution

body:
Gary Curtis wrote:

>I propose a number of changes to the Wikipedia software to
>enable "software assisted context resolution", or if you
>prefer "software assisted disambiguation". The primary purpose
>of these changes is to allow users to more easily resolve
>ambiguous links at the time they are created, or if necessary,
>at some later stage. I stress that this is not "automatic"
>link resolution, although the process will be invoked
>automatically in many cases.
>

Well we sort of already have this...
Maintenance page -> disambiguation pages with links

:-)

The other mechanism we have for this is Plain Old Brainpower -- if you
write in a certain area of the Wikipedia for some time, you come to know
which pages are disambiguation and which aren't.

>
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
I am not going to justify protecting the page. Rather, I will relate my perspective as to what happened.

In the morning, there was an email to the list saying that 172 has returned and that we should be wary of his edits. Upon opening Wikipedia, I saw that he had just removed chunks of text from the Mugabe article. His edits were clearly POV. For example, the article said that he had killed political opponents, and he changed "killed" to "suppressed." I reverted that (and this was the source of my comment "Call a spade a spade.") He also removed any text that was critical of Mugabe. I restored the text, and he removed it again. This seesawing went on for quite some time, with him commenting that the text wasn't worthwhile. (The history shows this). Rather than spend another hour reverting back and forth, I protected the page and informed the list. It was immediately unprotected, and 172 began making charges of imperialism, etc. and saying that the criticisms of Mugabe were unfounded and should be removed. He also began adding text to the article, which Eric Moller pointed out was plagiarized. As the morning progressed, Eric, Jtdirl, and myself were going back and forth restoring texts that 172 decided to delete because they did not meet his POV. The whole thing went on for over four hours.

I am not justifying the original block. I simply regarded it as a way of stopping a form of vandalism--and yes, I believe that forcing POV on an article and erasing text because it does not conform to a particular POV is a form of vandalism. I also added material to counter claims that 172 made. Frankly, I don't care if they are in or not. I do, however, have a problem with taking an individual who is obviously controversial and removing all material that sheds light on the background to the controversy. I also have a problem with plagiarism, and expect more from someone who claims to have a PhD in history with a field of specialization in that field.

Danny


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gary Curtis

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Software Assisted Context Resolution (from wikitech-l)

body:
At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:27:19 +1000,
Tim Starling (ts4294967296 at hotmail.com) wrote:
> > > * The original page is moved to a disambiguated name. This
> name is
> >selected
> > > by the user who creates the second page.
> > > * All existing links are updated via the pipe trick to point
> to the
> > > newly-disambiguated primary article.
> >
> >Sounds like a bad idea - any pages that previously referred to
> the old
> >page _wrongly_ would now be even more wrong. There will be rare
> cases where
> >one disambiguation subject would be the only one that had links,
> but more
> >commonly there are a few links that go to other disambiguation
> subjects. So
> >I would very much prefer to have disambiguation done by hand, or
> at least
> >under human control.
>
> I did have another idea for what to do in this case. Perhaps all
> the links
> to the old page could remain pointing to what is now an automated
> disambiguation page. Readers (not necessarily editors) could be
> prompted to
> select the right link. Their choice is reflected by updating the
> referring
> page. Of course the link could be manually fixed later, if
> something goes
> wrong.
>
> -- Tim Starling.

I understand what you are getting at here Tim, but I don't think
it is reasonable to push an editting task on a reader. Now, if
they show any editting interest in the page that is a different
matter. Then you could (perhaps) ask them to fix a few links
while they are there. You would have to give them a means to
chicken out though.

The optimum would go a little like this...

1. Reader clicks on some link
2. Oops, what am I doing at this disambig page
3. Correct destination is radio button 1, or 2, or 17
4. Wiki software fixes calling link AND...
5  Reader transparently moves to desired destination.
6. Gaz wins Lotto next day and retires ;-)

But then what do you do if THAT reader got it all wrong?

Gaz

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

Looking for a free email account?
Get one now at http://www.freemail.com.au/

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki database table schemas

body:
Are the schemas for the Wikipedia database available from within the 'pedia, say in the Wikipedia: namespace?

Gaz

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

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Get one now at http://www.freemail.com.au/

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


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot approval request

body:
> (Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>):
>
> Sorry if I gave the wrong impression, but the reason I'm sending it by
> private email is so that I control who gets it. As I said on User:Timbot:
>
> :In keeping with Wikipedia policy, the source code is secret,
> :however, it will be made available via email to well-behaved
> :users if required
> ...
> Perhaps if The Cunctator or Lee have formed a better impression of you, you
> can convince one of them to give you the code.

I express no opinion about Fred, but the code is Tim's to give or
not give to whomever he chooses, and I won't usurp his prerogative.
However, I must say that I find no evidence at all of any "policy"
that bot code should be private. Indeed, I see no reason at all why
shy bots should not be as public as everything else here.  Yes,
they are potentially destructive, but so is all technology.  Keeping
things like that secret is just security through obscurity--if making
the code free is a problem, then it's a problem we have now already
and should think about ways to ameliorate.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Software Assisted Context Resolution

body:
--- Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:

> It is for Jack or Jill Average, who adds a link to [[mercury]]
> with little thought that there are so many mercury's.

Yes, that's a real problem; when linking to something, you can never be
sure  whether the target is a disambiguation page or not.

Here's a slightly simplified version of your proposal: whenver you hit
"Preview", the software presents you with a list of all those links on
the current page that point to disambiguation pages. Ideally, each such
disambiguation page would be given along with a list of all the "real"
pages the disambiguation page points to, to make the fixing of the
current article easier.

Axel

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
So, if the masses finally decide that we "need" SSL, who's paying for
the security certificate?  Or would we have to plan to run without a
properly signed cert?

Of course, the certifiacte would have to be "owned" by someone.  Who's
name is going to be on the certificate?  Bomis'?  That wouldn't make
sense, since we'd have to get a new one when the non-profit is set up.

Whether SSL is a good idea in this situation isn't the issue.  Setting
it up properly involves getting some other things done first.  IMHO,
Moving forward on SSL at this point would be slightly premature.

Jason

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 01:38:19PM -0600, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > > (Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>):
> > >
> > > If we really want to be serious about security we'll have to use
> > > ssl for login, but I don't know how to do that.
> >
> > That's entirely too paranoid. Frankly, I don't see much need
> > for high security of Wikipedia logins.  It's not like we're
> > storing medical records. (Oh my God! My neighbor might find
> > out that I like the "Nostalgia" skin!)  The only real risk is
> > that someone might log in as me and make edits in my name, but
> > then I'd just disavow them and change my password.
>
> We should make it an option to login via SSL at least for sysops.
> It's pretty dangerous to send sysop passwords unencrypted.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
> (Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>):
>
> If we really want to be serious about security we'll have to use
> ssl for login, but I don't know how to do that.

That's entirely too paranoid. Frankly, I don't see much need
for high security of Wikipedia logins.  It's not like we're
storing medical records. (Oh my God! My neighbor might find
out that I like the "Nostalgia" skin!)  The only real risk is
that someone might log in as me and make edits in my name, but
then I'd just disavow them and change my password.

The present saltless-md5 was an improvement over the original
code which had passwords in plain text in the database where
any sysop could see them all with a select; /that/ was probably
a bit too loose :-), so I md5'd them.  If making a slightly
better encrypted version improves things with no hassle, that's
fine too.  But let's not get worked up over nothing.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wanli

body:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2

has been creating dozens of subpages to his user page, filled with
google links and stuf. Not all are in English:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2/Uzbek
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2/Seven
etc

I asked him/her what they were for, and got this reply:

They are quotes drawn from some articles. make the most of them. Wanli2
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2> 08:21 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

I'm baffled.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, Jason Richey wrote:
> So, if the masses finally decide that we "need" SSL, who's paying for
> the security certificate?  Or would we have to plan to run without a
> properly signed cert?

I have no problem with a self-signed cert; the idea is mainly to keep
cleartext passwords off the public internet, not to verify that some
megacorp has a physical address to track Wikipedia down if we steal
someone's money without sending them their purchase.

If people want something that's been rubber stamped by a large corporation
hundreds or thousands of miles away which probably won't actually bother
to verify that we are who we say we are, they'll have to pony up the
cash.

We haven't paid RSA or VeriSign a bajillion dollars to verify our SSH
server key, either, but I feel a lot better using ssh to login and give
the databases a stir than I would using telnet.

> Of course, the certifiacte would have to be "owned" by someone.  Who's
> name is going to be on the certificate?  Bomis'?  That wouldn't make
> sense, since we'd have to get a new one when the non-profit is set up.

So Jimbo, how's the non-profit coming along? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: phma at webjockey.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] Matthew Barney

body:
Please use plain text when sending email. HTML is not secure when sending
email because it can contain malicious programs; so I view my mail only
in plain text. Please see http://www.houghi.org for how to set this in
your mail program.

phma


from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Matthew Barney

body:
Performing Art <unsub at artaddiction.com> wrote in
news:200303311425.h2VEP9q6018317 at joey.bomis.com:

> <html><head>
> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
> charset=iso-8859-1"> <TITLE>ARTPRICE SEARCHBAR TM - Matthew
[cut spam]

I still recieve lots of spam on the wikitech-l at nupedia.com posting adress.
Can somebody delete the wikitech-l at nupedia.com adress please?

--
Contact: giskart AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wanli

body:
I banned Wanli some time ago because he created several articles only
containing "google keywords government canada" (and something else I
don't remember; they were the same on all pages), and recreated them as
fast as I could delete them. I asked him to stop, and he asked me to
"stop deleting valuable content". That's when I banned him, bu re
quickly created "Wanli2", but stopped the weird-trip.

As long as he's just dumping stuff on his user pages, it doesn't seem to
be a problem, unless it is copyrighted material, of course, which
"quotes drawn from articles" might imply.

Magnus

tarquin wrote:

> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2
>
> has been creating dozens of subpages to his user page, filled with
> google links and stuf. Not all are in English:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2/Uzbek
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2/Seven
> etc
>
> I asked him/her what they were for, and got this reply:
>
> They are quotes drawn from some articles. make the most of them.
> Wanli2 <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wanli2> 08:21 Mar 31, 2003
> (UTC)
>
>
> I'm baffled.
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Matthew Barney

in_reply_to: <b69nap$jju$1@main.gmane.org>; from giskart@wikipedia.be on Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 03:36:57PM +0000

body:
The redirect for wikitech-l at nupedia.com is gone now(as is the wikinl-l
redirect).  I thought I had already done this, but apparently not...

Jason

Giskart wrote:

> Performing Art <unsub at artaddiction.com> wrote in
> news:200303311425.h2VEP9q6018317 at joey.bomis.com:
>
> > <html><head>
> > <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
> > charset=iso-8859-1"> <TITLE>ARTPRICE SEARCHBAR TM - Matthew
> [cut spam]
>
>
> I still recieve lots of spam on the wikitech-l at nupedia.com posting adress.
> Can somebody delete the wikitech-l at nupedia.com adress please?
>
>
> --
> Contact: giskart AT wikipedia.be
> Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
> http://www.wikipedia.be
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
I've already briefly discussed this with Gary on his user talk page. A few
observations:

In his proposal below, Gary does not explicitly deal with what happens when
a previously unambiguous name is given a second meaning. Here's what I
suggest:

* The original page is moved to a disambiguated name. This name is selected
by the user who creates the second page.
* All existing links are updated via the pipe trick to point to the
newly-disambiguated primary article.

Gary's "resolve links" page, in my opinion, could be made easier to use by
making it a list of links, each one followed by a combo box, rather than a
clone of the full article.

As I said on [[User talk:Gaz]], this kind of software disambiguation, if
implemented properly, could satisfy both camps in the city names preemptive
disambiguation debate (see wikiEN-L). Pre-emptive disambiguation would be
(IMHO) unnecessary, and since manual links to [[Perth]] instead of [[Perth,
Australia]] are encouraged, I would see no reason to push primary-topic
disambiguation.

Gary, are you offering to code this?

-- Tim Starling.

>From: Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au>
>Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: [Wikitech-l] Software Assisted Context Resolution
>Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 05:08:12 GMT
>
>Hi people.
>This is my first post to wikitech-l, and its a biggun. I've
>been mulling over this idea for a while now and have finally
>gotten the electrons moving...
>
>I propose a number of changes to the Wikipedia software to
>enable "software assisted context resolution", or if you
>prefer "software assisted disambiguation". The primary purpose
>of these changes is to allow users to more easily resolve
>ambiguous links at the time they are created, or if necessary,
>at some later stage. I stress that this is not "automatic"
>link resolution, although the process will be invoked
>automatically in many cases.
>
>The process, detailed below, is invoked in two ways. The
>first would be manually and explicitly by the user. The
>secound would be automatic when an article with new or
>modified links it saved.
>
>To enable this process to be invoked manually I propose that
>a new meta-link be added to the footer of every page that
>contains at least one link (most pages). IMHO, an appropriate
>position would be between "Edit this page" and "Discuss this
>page". It would read "Resolve links", and invoke a page titled
>"Resolving links from (real title)". This new page would look
>identical to the original except that the destination of each
>link is changed to a "context selection" page as detailed below.
>Note that it is entirely possible (and probable) that many links
>will point to UNambiguous pages. "Context selection" pages will
>still be generated for these links as the user may have found
>the first instance of ambiguity and will need to deal with it.
>
>The "context resolution" process would also be invoked when an
>article is saved, and the article contains new or modified
>links. In this case the "context resolution" page would not be
>a mimic of the real page. Rather, a short list of new or modified
>links would be generated in the form of an alphabetized list.
>
>The "context selection" pages are generated from the articles
>currently known as "disambiguation pages".  The bulleted list
>found in these articles is transformed into a set of radio
>buttons. In addition, a radio button is generated that basically
>means "unresolved". At the bottom of this list is a small form
>to allow new links and associated context descriptions to be
>added. Whichever option is selected from this page, the link in
>the calling page is adjusted to point to the selected destination
>article, with the original text preserved by using the pipe trick.
>
>A by-product of these changes will be that the "context selection"
>pages will, in the main, be updated by the wiki software (as
>opposed to hand editted). This should make it possible to more
>tightly control the layout of these pages, perhaps with the
>addition of subheadings like "People", "Places", "Things".
>Further, when the "Edit this page" link is clicked on a "context
>selection" page, the normal edit page is replaced by a purpose-
>built form for editing such pages.
>
>I understand that there are probably a millions reasons why some
>aspect(s) of the above will be difficult or impracticable. I hope
>that the general concept is possible and feasible.
>
>Gary Curtis
>[[User:Gaz]] on Wiki
><wikiman.at.freemail.dot.com.dot.au> for all Wiki email

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


body:
This is also on wikitech-l, forwarded on to wikipedia-l at Cunctator's
request.

I've already briefly discussed this with Gary on his user talk page. A few
observations:

In his proposal below, Gary does not explicitly deal with what happens when
a previously unambiguous name is given a second meaning. Here's what I
suggest:

* The original page is moved to a disambiguated name. This name is selected
by the user who creates the second page.
* All existing links are updated via the pipe trick to point to the
newly-disambiguated primary article.

Gary's "resolve links" page, in my opinion, could be made easier to use by
making it a list of links, each one followed by a combo box, rather than a
clone of the full article.

As I said on [[User talk:Gaz]], this kind of software disambiguation, if
implemented properly, could satisfy both camps in the city names preemptive
disambiguation debate (see wikiEN-L). Pre-emptive disambiguation would be
(IMHO) unnecessary, and since manual links to [[Perth]] instead of [[Perth,
Australia]] are encouraged, I would see no reason to push primary-topic
disambiguation.

Gary, are you offering to code this?

-- Tim Starling.

>From: Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au>
>Reply-To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: [Wikitech-l] Software Assisted Context Resolution
>Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 05:08:12 GMT
>
>Hi people.
>This is my first post to wikitech-l, and its a biggun. I've
>been mulling over this idea for a while now and have finally
>gotten the electrons moving...
>
>I propose a number of changes to the Wikipedia software to
>enable "software assisted context resolution", or if you
>prefer "software assisted disambiguation". The primary purpose
>of these changes is to allow users to more easily resolve
>ambiguous links at the time they are created, or if necessary,
>at some later stage. I stress that this is not "automatic"
>link resolution, although the process will be invoked
>automatically in many cases.
>
>The process, detailed below, is invoked in two ways. The
>first would be manually and explicitly by the user. The
>secound would be automatic when an article with new or
>modified links it saved.
>
>To enable this process to be invoked manually I propose that
>a new meta-link be added to the footer of every page that
>contains at least one link (most pages). IMHO, an appropriate
>position would be between "Edit this page" and "Discuss this
>page". It would read "Resolve links", and invoke a page titled
>"Resolving links from (real title)". This new page would look
>identical to the original except that the destination of each
>link is changed to a "context selection" page as detailed below.
>Note that it is entirely possible (and probable) that many links
>will point to UNambiguous pages. "Context selection" pages will
>still be generated for these links as the user may have found
>the first instance of ambiguity and will need to deal with it.
>
>The "context resolution" process would also be invoked when an
>article is saved, and the article contains new or modified
>links. In this case the "context resolution" page would not be
>a mimic of the real page. Rather, a short list of new or modified
>links would be generated in the form of an alphabetized list.
>
>The "context selection" pages are generated from the articles
>currently known as "disambiguation pages".  The bulleted list
>found in these articles is transformed into a set of radio
>buttons. In addition, a radio button is generated that basically
>means "unresolved". At the bottom of this list is a small form
>to allow new links and associated context descriptions to be
>added. Whichever option is selected from this page, the link in
>the calling page is adjusted to point to the selected destination
>article, with the original text preserved by using the pipe trick.
>
>A by-product of these changes will be that the "context selection"
>pages will, in the main, be updated by the wiki software (as
>opposed to hand editted). This should make it possible to more
>tightly control the layout of these pages, perhaps with the
>addition of subheadings like "People", "Places", "Things".
>Further, when the "Edit this page" link is clicked on a "context
>selection" page, the normal edit page is replaced by a purpose-
>built form for editing such pages.
>
>I understand that there are probably a millions reasons why some
>aspect(s) of the above will be difficult or impracticable. I hope
>that the general concept is possible and feasible.
>
>Gary Curtis
>[[User:Gaz]] on Wiki
><wikiman.at.freemail.dot.com.dot.au> for all Wiki email

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


body:
> (Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com>):
> --- Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> > It is for Jack or Jill Average, who adds a link to [[mercury]]
> > with little thought that there are so many mercury's.
>
> Yes, that's a real problem; when linking to something, you can never be
> sure  whether the target is a disambiguation page or not.

That's not a bug, it's a feature.  Seriously, accidental discovery of
vaguely related things is one of the fun parts of Wiki surfing, and part
of the value of the medium.  Let's not go overboard and "fix" things
that are useful just because they seem unplanned.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Langdon Stevenson

subject:
Fwd: Re: [Wikitech-l] Introducing InfoWrangler for
  Wikipedia

body:
> > We will modify our installation to make it
> > compliant.
>
>Excellent! I'm noone official, but I've done a serious study of the
>GFDL, etc. and discussed its implementation with RMS, so I have a pretty
>good handle on what to do.
>
>There are two primary obligations of a mirror/redistribution of the
>Wikipedia content under the GFDL: rename it (that is, don't let visitors
>think that they are seeing the Official Wikipedia),

Ok, can you tell me a little more about what is required in re-naming?

- I assume that we have to remove the Wikipedia logo for one
- Are we required/allowed to use the name Wikipedia within our naming of
it? (As I see you have suggested "InfoWrangler Wikipedia Mirror")

>and add a "History" page.

No problem, we are happy to oblige with that.

>It gets slightly more complicated if you make your version of the site
>editable; then you have to make sure that the changed source content is
>regularly updated and readily available.

No, we don't wish to make our demo editable at this time.  There may be a
reason to do that in the long term as we have a feature planned that would
allow previewing of relevant info (links) before an edit was
submitted.  The aim being to assist the author to know what related
information already exists in Wikipedia before they submit new material.

> > We have of course modified some of the PHP code of Wikipedia so that
> > appropriate calls are made to InfoWrangler Server when a page is
> > viewed/created/edited.  This is currently being packaged and will be
> > released to the Wikipedia development team when its ready.
>
>Excellent. Actually, as long as the InfoWrangler code is independent of
>Wikipedia, the terms of the GPL only obligate you to share modifications
>of the Wikipedia code if you ever sell/redistribute that code to third
>parties--not if you simply *run* the modified code.
>
>That is, we definitely welcome any improvements/extensions to the code
>you make, but simply running a modified version of the Wikipedia code
>puts you under no code-sharing obligations.

Understood.  Since we have gone to the effort of performing the integration
and are benefiting from all the other work put into Wikipedia so far, we
thought that it might be a useful contribution to make to the project.

Langdon

----------------------------------------------------
Managing Director
Object Positive
Sydney, Australia

Ph: + 61 2 9659 2344
Fx: + 61 2 9659 2355

http://www.infowrangler.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] search function on the English wikipedia

body:
On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 15:27, Giskart wrote:
> http://www.search.com/search?channel=19&cat=63
>
> On this page you can send a search query to several encyclopedia but
> Wikipedia does  not work anymore.

That hasn't worked since at least January 2002. Some months ago I
discovered it and hacked up our URL-rewrite rules a bit to allow the old
UseMod search syntax, but their end still failed to parse our results
page and returned nothing. Presumably no one is interested enough in
this to have ever written them to fix it.

> There must be more websites who send direct query's to wikipedia and now do
> not work anymore.
>
> Is there anything that can be done?

We ought to have an RSS wrapper for the search engine which would be
friendlier to meta-searching than parsing a perhaps ever-changing web
layout.

Volunteers?

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

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Software Assisted Context Resolution

body:
Are you trying to drive away half of the contributors to the 'pedia?
Zoe
 Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:Hi people.
This is my first post to wikipedia-l, and its a biggun. I've
been mulling over this idea for a while now and have finally
gotten the electrons moving...

I propose a number of changes to the Wikipedia software to
enable "software assisted context resolution", or if you
prefer "software assisted disambiguation". The primary purpose
of these changes is to allow users to more easily resolve
ambiguous links at the time they are created, or if necessary,
at some later stage. I stress that this is not "automatic"
link resolution, although the process will be invoked
automatically in many cases.

The process, detailed below, is invoked in two ways. The
first would be manually and explicitly by the user. The
secound would be automatic when an article with new or
modified links it saved.

To enable this process to be invoked manually I propose that
a new meta-link be added to the footer of every page that
contains at least one link (most pages). IMHO, an appropriate
position would be between "Edit this page" and "Discuss this
page". It would read "Resolve links", and invoke a page titled
"Resolving links from (real title)". This new page would look
identical to the original except that the destination of each
link is changed to a "context selection" page as detailed below.
Note that it is entirely possible (and probable) that many links
will point to UNambiguous pages. "Context selection" pages will
still be generated for these links as the user may have found
the first instance of ambiguity and will need to deal with it.

The "context resolution" process would also be invoked when an
article is saved, and the article contains new or modified
links. In this case the "context resolution" page would not be
a mimic of the real page. Rather, a short list of new or modified
links would be generated in the form of an alphabetized list.

The "context selection" pages are generated from the articles
currently known as "disambiguation pages". The bulleted list
found in these articles is transformed into a set of radio
buttons. In addition, a radio button is generated that basically
means "unresolved". At the bottom of this list is a small form
to allow new links and associated context descriptions to be
added. Whichever option is selected from this page, the link in
the calling page is adjusted to point to the selected destination
article, with the original text preserved by using the pipe trick.

A by-product of these changes will be that the "context selection"
pages will, in the main, be updated by the wiki software (as
opposed to hand editted). This should make it possible to more
tightly control the layout of these pages, perhaps with the
addition of subheadings like "People", "Places", "Things".
Further, when the "Edit this page" link is clicked on a "context
selection" page, the normal edit page is replaced by a purpose-
built form for editing such pages.

I understand that there are probably a millions reasons why some
aspect(s) of the above will be difficult or impracticable. I hope
that the general concept is possible and feasible.

Gary Curtis
[[User:Gaz]] on Wiki
for all Wiki email

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

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Get one now at http://www.freemail.com.au/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] It is time to ban Michael

body:
He came in last night under an IP address and immediately began deleting Talk pages which had to be rolled back.  He then created a NEW User Id as Weezer, and tried doing the same thing.  I've begun to automatically rollback anything he inputs, because 9 times out 10 it's either Talk page vandalism or it's wrong.
Zoe
 Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:Erik Moeller wrote:
> I could fix up the IP blocking code to include an expiry date fairly
> quickly, would that help? You would have to block a few times but it
> would probably scare him off.

I think having an expiry date on IP blocking code would be a good idea
generally, because it helps to alleviate the possibility that some
dynamic ips are broken for long periods of time.

I've made no decision about Michael yet, although a ban does seem to
be in order. I hadn't heard anything about him since I gave him a
warning, and I hadn't been paying attention. So I'll need to review
his contributions and possibly try to talk to him again. :-(

--Jimbo
_______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] war in Iraq

body:
I've been saying that the [[coaliton of the willing]] article was a mess for a long time now, but didn't have the enrgy to fight everybody who thinks it's wonderful.  Since the article is SUPPOSEDLY about the allies, I never understood why the position of every country in the world was included.  I agree with Ed that another article discussing the national positions is needed, but I didn't want to face attack for trying to edit [[coalition of the willing]] for fear of having my head handed to me.
The lack of NPOV in the war articles is a serious problem, as well.
Zoe
 "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
We need to come up with a neutral, timeless name for the war
in Iraq. Forgive me for the length of this post, but I
believe it's important enough to warrant your attention.

I object to the incessant labeling of the war in Iraq as
the "invasion of Iraq". There is a lot more to the war than
the fact that 2 or 3 countries have invaded it.

Regardless of our personal feelings about how right or wrong
the conduct of any nation in the war has been, the
*articles* should:
* have neutral content
* have neutral titles

Let me lay my cards on the table, so you don't
misunderstand. My church opposes the US campaign: Bush was
wrong to attack. I agree with that POV. Many others do,
also, although perhaps not for precisely the same religious
reasons as Rev. Moon.

However, even though I'm "right" about my POV and most
Wikipedians happen to agree with me...

WE ALL AGREED TO ADHERE TO JIMBO'S NEUTRAL-POINT-OF-VIEW
POLICY

Excuse me for shouting, but several of us have been
confounding neutral-point-of-view with other things. I'm not
naming names and not engaging in prolepsis or other Roman
rhetorical tricks. I just want to fix the problem, so let's
all pitch in, please.

The war started in 2003, and it's taking place in Iraq
(which is near the Persian Gulf), so we might call it:

* the [[2003 war in Iraq]] or [[2003 Iraq War]]
* the [[2003 Gulf War]]

There are various military campaigns. I know of 4 countries
fighting against Iraq (the "allies" or "coalition"). We
should write about the war from the standpoint that there
are two sides in the war:

* Iraq
* US, UK, Australia & Poland

(I might be wrong about Australia or Poland; if so, that's
an important detail and please correct me.)

(There might be other countries which are parties to the
conflict. Maybe Iraq has a military or other ally which I
don't know about; if so, we should write about that ally!
There are up to 4 dozen countries in various degrees of
opposition to Iraq, and we've begun an article or two on
them.)

Also, I think "coalition of the willing" is a purely
political phrase: propaganda, i.e., a slogan. I don't think
it makes a good title for either of the following topics:

* the countries which oppose Iraq in the 2003 war, or
* every country which has made a statement or taken action
FOR OR AGAINST IRAQ

The latter topic, especially, would be just plain stupid to
call [[coalition of the willing]] because by design it
includes opponents.

I started dividing the [[coalition of the willing]] article
into:

* a short article about the slogan "coalition of the
willing"
* a longer article, tentatively called [[US-led coalition
against Iraq]]

But the "...coalition" article lists every nation in the
world which has ever made a statement or taken action on the
war. Roughly, there are around 2 or 3 dozen nations ranged
against Iraq (in word or deed) and maybe 5 dozen speaking up
for them or providing aid.

Shouldn't we have an article which lists the positions of
each nation of the world on this war? If so, what should we
call it? How about [[national positions on the 2003 war in
Iraq]]? Can we think of a shorter or more accurate title?

I hate to keep taking discussion off the talk pages, but
this is the only central place I know of, and talk gets
fragmented and overlooked too easily when discussing
multiple articles.

Ed Poor

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subject: [WikiEN-l] 10. war in Iraq (Poor, Edmund W)

body:
So long as it's either on a User page or a Talk page ...
Zoe
 koyaanis qatsi <obchodnakorze at yahoo.com> wrote:I can't stress enough how much I would like for a
discussion of the war in Iraq to take place somewhere
other than the mailing list. Why don't the interested
parties decide where to hold the discussion, announce
which page that is, and then continue the discussion
there?

thanks

kq

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from_name: Matthew Woodcraft

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

in_reply_to: <E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280CF657@sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disney.com>; from Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com on Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 09:04:20AM -0500

body:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 09:04:20AM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> It's not as strict as that. I see nothing wrong with:
>
> 1. Telling the list you protected the article (and why).
> 2. Making ONE LAST EFFORT toward neutral POV.
> 3. Then butting out until a consensus emerges.

You may see nothing wrong with it, but I, for one, do.

The consensus has always been that sysop 'powers' are not there to act
as a trump card during editing disputes.

If we want to change that, we should make sure we really do have
consensus that the change is wanted, and announce it rather more widely
than on this list.

-M-


subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael's threats

body:
Please see [[Talk:Crass]].  In Michael's new incarnation as Weezer, he wrote: "You call me Michael one more time. I'll pound on your neck, and smash you into pieces and kill you Zoe."

Zoe

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body:
Wow, for somebody who's never posted before, you certainly have an aggresive personality.  Don't EVEN try to tell me to be silent, or you'll be in for more than you can deal with.
My point is, that you are making this process MUCH too cumbersome for the majority of users.
Zoe
 Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 17:29:29 -0800 (PST),
Zoe (zoecomnena at yahoo.com) wrote:
>
> Are you trying to drive away half of the contributors to the
> 'pedia?
> Zoe
> Gary Curtis wrote:Hi people.
> This is my first post to wikipedia-l, and its a biggun.
-- original post snipped ---

What a truely useless reply!

You obviously has strong views on this proposal or you would
not have resorted to such inflammatory language.

Please offer constructive criticism or remain silent.

Gary Curtis

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from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael's threats

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

On Monday 31 March 2003 09:41 pm, Zoe wrote:
> Please see [[Talk:Crass]].  In Michael's new incarnation as Weezer, he
> wrote: "You call me Michael one more time. I'll pound on your neck, and
> smash you into pieces and kill you Zoe."
>
> Zoe

And the obvious, yet unstated conclusion is banning both users.

Cheers,
Sascha Noyes
- --
Please encrypt all correspondence.
PGP key available from:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/noyes/snoyes.asc
- --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] watchlist across languages

body:
On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 19:04, Chuck Smith wrote:
> Is there a way to see your watchlist across languages?
>  I mean, I'd like to see my English and Esperanto
> watchlist combined onto one page.  Is this possible
> now or do I have to wait for the next version of
> Wikipedia?

Not possible yet, no.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 01:38:19PM -0600, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > (Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>):
> >
> > If we really want to be serious about security we'll have to use
> > ssl for login, but I don't know how to do that.
>
> That's entirely too paranoid. Frankly, I don't see much need
> for high security of Wikipedia logins.  It's not like we're
> storing medical records. (Oh my God! My neighbor might find
> out that I like the "Nostalgia" skin!)  The only real risk is
> that someone might log in as me and make edits in my name, but
> then I'd just disavow them and change my password.

We should make it an option to login via SSL at least for sysops.
It's pretty dangerous to send sysop passwords unencrypted.


body:
> > * The original page is moved to a disambiguated name. This name is
>selected
> > by the user who creates the second page.
> > * All existing links are updated via the pipe trick to point to the
> > newly-disambiguated primary article.
>
>Sounds like a bad idea - any pages that previously referred to the old
>page _wrongly_ would now be even more wrong. There will be rare cases where
>one disambiguation subject would be the only one that had links, but more
>commonly there are a few links that go to other disambiguation subjects. So
>I would very much prefer to have disambiguation done by hand, or at least
>under human control.

I did have another idea for what to do in this case. Perhaps all the links
to the old page could remain pointing to what is now an automated
disambiguation page. Readers (not necessarily editors) could be prompted to
select the right link. Their choice is reflected by updating the referring
page. Of course the link could be manually fixed later, if something goes
wrong.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones.?Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 01:05:31PM -0500, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> I am not justifying the original block. I simply regarded it as a way
> of stopping a form of vandalism--and yes, I believe that forcing POV
> on an article and erasing text because it does not conform to a
> particular POV is a form of vandalism.

I think we should not extend the term 'vandalism' in this way. It makes
communication more difficult.

There is a distinction to be made between destructive edits that don't
make any pretence to be encyclopedic, and ones which do. This
distinction is a very useful one, because edits of the first type are
not controversial, while edits of the second type sometimes are.

We have a consensus that repeated 'vandalism' can be a reason to
protect a page, and indeed that 'vandals' should be banned.

When this consensus was reached, the word 'vandal' was being used to
describe people like fartboy, not people who write only their own point
of view, or remove others' points of view while they edit articles,
though we have always had visits from both kinds of people.

Now, if we want to decide that some forms of edit of the second type
should also be a general cause for protecting pages, banning, or
whatever, this list is certainly an appropriate place to discuss it.

But it is better to say 'such and such a behaviour is sufficiently bad
that we should protect pages when it occurs', than to try to redefine
'vandalism' and then say 'but see, we already know how to deal with
vandals'.

-M-


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
Actually, Eric, I disagree.

Trolling is a form of vandalism. This could justly be interpretted as
trolling. (I am reminded of the constant edit wars with Helga, which cost
Wikipedia quite a lot in terms of time and people who were disgusted and
left)

For me to just ask some other "neutral" sysop to do it instead of me is
hardly a neutral step.

I was not involved in an edit war. It was not an article that I care too
deeply about. I was protecting it from what I (continue to) perceive as
trolling.

Given the situation with Lir/.Vera Cruz/Susan Mason as well as Michael/Weezer
and 172, perhaps its time sysops took more steps to limit trolling and not
just the "George Washington had big balls" kind of vandalism. I open that for
discussion.

Danny

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: What, no salt?

body:
>>No-one will have to reset their password. I'll just use md5(md5(password)
>>+ salt) for the new hash. The only thing users will notice is that their
>>stored cookies will stop working and they'll have to log in again.
>>
>I hope that wikipedia isn't currently storing raw passwords in the user
>table. So the only way you could implement a resetles upgrade would be to
>add a second password field.
>If a user logs in with only the original password field set, you validate
>against that and if okay, MD5 the password they entered and store it. After
>about a year you remove the original password field (anyone who hasn't
>logged in in that time deserves to have to do a password reset!). I used
>this technique recently to upgrade from Unix CRYPT to MD5 for password
>storage.

No, wikipedia isn't storing raw passwords, it's storing unsalted MD5 hashes.
But no second password field is required. We just concatenate the salt (in
this case, a concatenation of the user number and "wikipedia") to the
unsalted hash, then MD5 the whole lot again. Ordinary validation is then
conducted by calculating md5(md5(password) + salt), and comparing it with
the database value. You could have used this trick for your own upgrade. It
increases the CPU time needed for validation by a few microseconds, but one
could easily argue that's a good thing.

As an extra security measure, I realised that we could continue to use
md5(password) for our persistent session cookies. This means that a stolen
hash can no longer be used to log in.

By the way, the code is now written, and I've sent it to Brion.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp


body:
> > I did have another idea for what to do in this case. Perhaps all
> > the links
> > to the old page could remain pointing to what is now an automated
> > disambiguation page. Readers (not necessarily editors) could be
> > prompted to
> > select the right link. Their choice is reflected by updating the
> > referring
> > page. Of course the link could be manually fixed later, if
> > something goes
> > wrong.
> >
> > -- Tim Starling.
>
>I understand what you are getting at here Tim, but I don't think
>it is reasonable to push an editting task on a reader. Now, if
>they show any editting interest in the page that is a different
>matter. Then you could (perhaps) ask them to fix a few links
>while they are there. You would have to give them a means to
>chicken out though.
>
>The optimum would go a little like this...
>
>1. Reader clicks on some link
>2. Oops, what am I doing at this disambig page
>3. Correct destination is radio button 1, or 2, or 17
>4. Wiki software fixes calling link AND...
>5  Reader transparently moves to desired destination.
>6. Gaz wins Lotto next day and retires ;-)
>
>But then what do you do if THAT reader got it all wrong?

The reader doesn't think they're editing, the reader is just trying to get
to the information they're interested in. If a reader views [[Roman
mythology]] then [[Mercury]] then [[Mercury (mythology)]], we can surmise
that it's more likely than not [[Roman mythology]] should link to [[Mercury
(mythology)]]. If the user is distracted, suddenly realising how interesting
the element mercury is, the link will be set incorrectly. Readers following
the same path later click on the "other uses for the word 'mercury'" header
in [[Mercury (element)]] (after a moment of confusion). Editors following
that link will fix it.

I don't know what the right way to do it is. I'm just contributing a couple
of ideas.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
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http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


body:
http://www.search.com/search?channel=19&cat=63

On this page you can send a search query to several encyclopedia but
Wikipedia does  not work anymore.

There must be more websites who send direct query's to wikipedia and now do
not work anymore.

Is there anything that can be done?

--
Contact: giskart AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
>>Frankly, I don't see much need
>>for high security of Wikipedia logins.
>
>
> Agreed.  Remember that in the old wikipedia software, anyone could log
> in as anyone else, password or no password.

Yes, but
* wikipedia was small (=little known) at that time
* with all the new enhanced functions, sysops can do much more damage
today ;-)
* if someone hacks an administrator password (e.g., mine), a "DELETE
FROM cur" would have us looking for backups pretty fast...

Magnus


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 22:35, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> Actually, Eric, I disagree.
>
> Trolling is a form of vandalism. This could justly be interpretted as
> trolling. (I am reminded of the constant edit wars with Helga, which cost
> Wikipedia quite a lot in terms of time and people who were disgusted and
> left)
>
> For me to just ask some other "neutral" sysop to do it instead of me is
> hardly a neutral step.
>
> I was not involved in an edit war. It was not an article that I care too
> deeply about. I was protecting it from what I (continue to) perceive as
> trolling.
>
> Given the situation with Lir/.Vera Cruz/Susan Mason as well as Michael/Weezer
> and 172, perhaps its time sysops took more steps to limit trolling and not
> just the "George Washington had big balls" kind of vandalism. I open that for
> discussion.
>
No, it's not time. And it should never be. "vandalism" is a loaded,
poorly defined term that should never been introduced to the Wikipedia
lexicon, but since it was, its definition definitely shouldn't be
extended.

And page protection should just about never be used. It's much healthier
to just ignore the page for a while.


from_name: Abhishek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Any plans for "WikiBook"??

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> As much as I support the underlying concepts of this proposal, I
> believe it has to wait until the "foundation" is in place.  This will
> be a modest revenue generating venture which will need to have a place
> to deposit its money, and will also need to manage costs related to
> producing printed books.  Those costs can be significant.
> Besides the obvious benefit of having the Wikipedia available to a
> larger audience, physical publication will also be helpful in
> guaranteeing that the open licence nature of Wikipedia is protected
> for a long time after the present contributors are gone.  Being able
> to produce a printed text at that time will be prima facie proof that
> the person using it cannot legally override the open licence with his
> own copyright.
>
> In short: a great idea but still premature.

Thanks for the complement, but I think the guys at FSF who created FDL,
had something like this in mind already.
from your reply I was felt you were suggesting Wiki printing books. I
realize such an idea is "premature" at present, but if in my proposal on
my website( www.geocities.com/abioommen ), you will see that I am not
suggesting that Wiki print the books, but provide mailing lists to
interested editors to work together and once their work is good, I'm
sure publishing houses will themselves print the books. And since it
must remain under FDL, these books will be relatively much cheaper.
Please read my proposal( its still in  executive summary stage) and tell
me what you think of it.
--Abhishek
PS:Sorry I'm replying so late, my mail client was malfunctioning


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: What, no salt?

body:
On 30 Mar 2003 18:35:50 -0800, Brion Vibber
<brion at pobox.com> wrote:

>
> Way back when, I suggested* using paths instead of hostnames for the
> languages:
>
> http://wikipedia.org/en/Jimmy_Carter
> http://wikipedia.org/eo/Jimmy_CARTER
> http://wikipedia.org/ko/%ec%a7%80%eb%af%b8_%ec%b9%b4%ed%84%b0
>
Those would result in illegal cookies (the two-dot rule for domains).
--
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or
the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Richard Grevers
Christchurch, New Zealand


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: What, no salt?

body:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 09:24:03 +1000, Tim Starling
<ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>> Obviously we'd have to add a note explaining that everyone has to reset
>> their password. Not everyone has an e-mail address attached to their
>> account, so we'd need to add a web form for doing this. That obviously
>> would require first validating the person with their current password
>> with the current hashing code; so we'd probably need a marker to
>> indicate that each users' password field is upgraded.
>
> No-one will have to reset their password. I'll just use md5(md5(password)
> + salt) for the new hash. The only thing users will notice is that their
> stored cookies will stop working and they'll have to log in again.
>
I hope that wikipedia isn't currently storing raw passwords in the user
table. So the only way you could implement a resetles upgrade would be to
add a second password field.
If a user logs in with only the original password field set, you validate
against that and if okay, MD5 the password they entered and store it. After
about a year you remove the original password field (anyone who hasn't
logged in in that time deserves to have to do a password reset!). I used
this technique recently to upgrade from Unix CRYPT to MD5 for password
storage.

--
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or
the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Richard Grevers
Christchurch, New Zealand


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Changes and suggestions

body:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 11:05:20 +0200, Yann Forget
<yann at forget-me.net> wrote:

>
> I think this is a high priority.
> The categories now proposed for a second search are fine (Talk, User,
> User Talk, Wikipedia, Wikipedia Talk, Image, Image Talk, Redirect).
> And a selection Search title / Search content, with "Search title" as
> default. I think this last would most reduce charge on the server.
>
Having a "Go" button as well as a search one on every page (not just the
index page) would also reduce server load. If I want to get to a specific
article I end up either searching (wasting resources) or reloading the
index page (ditto) to get there.

--
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or
the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Richard Grevers
Christchurch, New Zealand


subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 01:37:35PM -0800, Jason Richey wrote:
> So, if the masses finally decide that we "need" SSL, who's paying for
> the security certificate?  Or would we have to plan to run without a
> properly signed cert?
>
> Of course, the certifiacte would have to be "owned" by someone.  Who's
> name is going to be on the certificate?  Bomis'?  That wouldn't make
> sense, since we'd have to get a new one when the non-profit is set up.
>
> Whether SSL is a good idea in this situation isn't the issue.  Setting
> it up properly involves getting some other things done first.  IMHO,
> Moving forward on SSL at this point would be slightly premature.

Passive attacks are very easy and very common,
active attacks are much more difficult and
a couple orders of magnitude more rare.

We don't really need to care about someone signing our certs.
We have much bigger security holes anyway ;)


subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 16:40, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> >
> >>Frankly, I don't see much need
> >>for high security of Wikipedia logins.
> >
> >
> > Agreed.  Remember that in the old wikipedia software, anyone could log
> > in as anyone else, password or no password.
>
> Yes, but
> * wikipedia was small (=little known) at that time

And now it's big, with a lot more people watching over it and protecting
it. It takes a lot more to kill a colony of ants than a few ants.

> * with all the new enhanced functions, sysops can do much more damage
> today ;-)

Not really. In fact, with the enhanced user-blocking of today, there's
just about nothing a rogue sysop could do that couldn't be easily
reversed.

> * if someone hacks an administrator password (e.g., mine), a "DELETE
> FROM cur" would have us looking for backups pretty fast...
>
That's the only problem, and we have tons of backups.

In other words, all this paranoia is tedious and unhealthy.


from_name: Gary Curtis

body:
At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 17:29:29 -0800 (PST),
Zoe (zoecomnena at yahoo.com) wrote:
>
> Are you trying to drive away half of the contributors to the
> 'pedia?
> Zoe
>  Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:Hi people.
> This is my first post to wikipedia-l, and its a biggun.
   -- original post snipped ---

What a truely useless reply!

You obviously has strong views on this proposal or you would
not have resorted to such inflammatory language.

Please offer constructive criticism or remain silent.

Gary Curtis

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

Looking for a free email account?
Get one now at http://www.freemail.com.au/

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


body:
At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 13:29:58 -0800 (PST),
Axel Boldt (axelboldt at yahoo.com) wrote:
> --- Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> > It is for Jack or Jill Average, who adds a link to [[mercury]]
> > with little thought that there are so many mercury's.
>
> Yes, that's a real problem; when linking to something, you can
> never be
> sure  whether the target is a disambiguation page or not.
>
> Here's a slightly simplified version of your proposal: whenver you
> hit
> "Preview", the software presents you with a list of all those
> links on
> the current page that point to disambiguation pages. Ideally, each
> such
> disambiguation page would be given along with a list of all the
> "real"
> pages the disambiguation page points to, to make the fixing of the
> current article easier.
>
> Axel

Yeah, I thought about this.  I think it would make the Preview"
page too busy. That is what led me to the think it should be  on
a subsequent (avoidable) page.

As the mod to the original page would already be saved when this
proposed page is run, any mods to links should probably be blocked
from the RC list.

Gaz

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

Looking for a free email account?
Get one now at http://www.freemail.com.au/

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


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> Actually, Eric, I disagree.
>
> Trolling is a form of vandalism. This could justly be interpretted as
> trolling. (I am reminded of the constant edit wars with Helga, which cost
> Wikipedia quite a lot in terms of time and people who were disgusted and
> left)

I think, though, that Erik's point is important.  There is what I have
in the past called "simple vandalism", which is behavior that is
outrageous and makes no pretension to be helpful, and which doesn't
really require anything in the way of "due process".  If someone
writes "fart fart fart" on a page, then it's best if any sysop just
deals with it immediately, and that's that.

Cases like Helga are more complex.  You're right of course that it
*is* vandalism in a sense, but we are trying to reserve 'vandalism' as
a technical term of art, with a specific meaning within the context of
wikipedia.

> Given the situation with Lir/.Vera Cruz/Susan Mason as well as
> Michael/Weezer and 172, perhaps its time sysops took more steps to
> limit trolling and not just the "George Washington had big balls"
> kind of vandalism. I open that for discussion.

I think it's a valid subject of discussion.

The problem is that we want to avoid the situation in which sysops run
roughshod over other contributors for political reasons.  This is one
reason why I almost never edit.  That way, I can stay out of the "heat
of the fight" for the cases when I have to step in and make a final
judgment.

--Jimbo


from_name: Chuck Smith

body:
Is there a way to see your watchlist across languages?
 I mean, I'd like to see my English and Esperanto
watchlist combined onto one page.  Is this possible
now or do I have to wait for the next version of
Wikipedia?

Thanks,
Chuck

=====
Learn Esperanto! - http://www.lernu.net/
Enciklopedio: http://eo.wikipedia.org/

___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
Jason Richey wrote:
> So, if the masses finally decide that we "need" SSL, who's paying for
> the security certificate?  Or would we have to plan to run without a
> properly signed cert?

I would pay for this if we needed it, but we don't, so it's a moot
point.  :-)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
> I am not going to justify protecting the page. Rather, I will relate my
> perspective as to what happened.

Danny,

your description of 172's behavior is correct, and it took much patience
to get him to accept a compromise. Regardless, we need to maintain the
sysop/editor distinction -- protecting pages should only be done

1) in cases of obvious vandalism,
2) in an edit war, by an *impartial* third party.

It's similar to page deletion: Sysops are supposed to put pages that they
want deleted (except vandalism) on the "Votes for deletion" page and let
someone else flush them. A sysop in an edit war should contact another
sysop and ask them to protect the page, as a time out measure for all
parties involved.

For the two of us, it is obvious that 172 behaved incorrectly, but for an
outsider, it may look like an abuse of power. That's why we need to
maintain a process that minimizes the potential for such abuse.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael's threats

body:
O.k., Michael and Weezer are both banned, and I'm going to assume that
this is one person or some jerk and his buddy.  Either way, this is my
formal declaration of a ban for them.

Either of them can write to me to discuss it.

Zoe wrote:

>
> Please see [[Talk:Crass]].  In Michael's new incarnation as Weezer, he wrote: "You call me Michael one more time. I'll pound on your neck, and smash you into pieces and kill you Zoe."
>
> Zoe
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
It's inevitable that some new users will encounter a portion of Wikipeidia
that is in a state of disorder, e.g. during an edit war or while one of our
more difficult users in actively "editing" it. Hopefully they will be
patient and work though the difficulty. Affected pages could, though
adjustments to language.pnp put put into a category that would show an
uneditable header that made some attempt to explain the phenomena of
disorder.

There are several problems: Most of these events are ephemeral, for example,
even the article, "Columbus" is not today a focus of attention; soon
"Chiropratic medicine" will no longer be a focus of attention; Another
problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort to move pages into such a
new category and to move them out, and to remember to move them out.

To ignore is simply to quit working the the affected article, to let the SOB
have their way. A new user who stumbles on the article and tries to edit
will feel the full brunt of the "SOB's" furor as typically almost any change
will be met with hostility. This is deplorable, but probably unavoidable.

Fred

> From: Jason Williams <jason at jasonandali.org.uk>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 09:30:03 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened
>
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 11:50:52PM -0500, The Cunctator wrote:
>> And page protection should just about never be used. It's much healthier
>> to just ignore the page for a while.
>
> And what of the people who come to the 'pedia while it's being
> ignored?
>
> Perhaps there should be a new option to allow sysops to place
> a block of protected text at the top of a page. A nice way
> would be for text above a certain identifier (eg, "<<<<")
> to only be editable by sysops. This would allow a lighter
> touch than protecting a page while still indicating that
> the contents might need some salt added.
>
> --
> jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

in_reply_to: <E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC280CF662@sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disney.com>; from Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com on Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 09:46:03AM -0500

body:
Phrased this way, it doesn't sound so bad.  I would advise against
doing "one small edit" unless you haven't taken part in the debate to
that point.

Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> Danny did nothing wrong. I intend to follow his example.
>
> If I see people fighting over an article, I'm going to protect it and tell them to chill out.
>
> AND I reserve the right to choose which "old version" to revert to.
>
> AND FURTHERMORE, if I can figure out a neutral way to fix the article, I see no ethical reason not to:
> * make ONE edit
> * describe it on the talk page
> * and report what I did to this mailing list
>
> Ed Poor
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: daniwo59 at aol.com [mailto:daniwo59 at aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 10:36 PM
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened
>
>
> Actually, Eric, I disagree.
>
> Trolling is a form of vandalism. This could justly be interpretted as trolling. (I am reminded of the constant edit wars with Helga, which cost Wikipedia quite a lot in terms of time and people who were disgusted and left)
>
> For me to just ask some other "neutral" sysop to do it instead of me is hardly a neutral step.
>
> I was not involved in an edit war. It was not an article that I care too deeply about. I was protecting it from what I (continue to) perceive as trolling.
>
> Given the situation with Lir/.Vera Cruz/Susan Mason as well as Michael/Weezer and 172, perhaps its time sysops took more steps to limit trolling and not just the "George Washington had big balls" kind of vandalism. I open that for discussion.
>
> Danny
>
>
>


body:
Well why not ask to be a sysop?

Fred

> From: "Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson at mindspring.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 08:57:40 -0500
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Where to turn for a trivial page deletion?
>
>
> I'd like to delete [[Epistle to the Hebrews]] because the
> move command won't let me move the ungrammatically named
> [[Epistle to Hebrews]] to [[Epistle to the Hebrews]], due
> to a non-empty page history that has a bunch of automatic
> script conversions.
>
> In the past, I simply copied the text from one page to the
> other and set up the appropriate redirect, but a sysop got
> on my case for it as a non-optimal operation.  So now, I
> put a request on Votes for Deletion, but no sysop has acted
> on the request yet.
>
> So, am I asking for the trivial page deletion in the right
> place?  Or, should I just ignore a sysop jumping on my case,
> because waiting days for an edit to happen is counter to the
> wiki editing philosophy?
>
> Stephen Carlson
>
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
> Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
> "Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #1100 - 6 msgs

in_reply_to: <002601c2f865$aba1fae0$0200a8c0@oemcomputer>; from matt_mcl@sympatico.ca on Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 10:45:07AM -0500

body:
I wholeheartedly agree.  There's just no reason to snap at people.
Benevolence, Kindness, WikiLove should be our constant standard.

Matt M. wrote:

> > Judging from the reply, you certainly do have strong views
> > on this subject. Saying that I am "trying to drive away half of
> > the contributors to the 'pedia" IS inflammatory.
>
> On this point I agree with Gary. A little while ago I suggested what I felt
> was a small and reasonable change. Someone promptly bit my head off without
> bothering to tell me what was wrong with my idea. I remain leery of
> suggesting any future ideas even though I still don't understand what was so
> blasphemous about the idea I suggested. Strange accusations like "Are you
> trying to destroy the pedia?" is not the way to foster constructive
> discussion about the possibilities of the software or the content.
>
> Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] It is time to ban Michael

body:
Zoe wrote:

>>He came in last night under an IP address and immediately began deleting
Talk pages which had to be rolled back.  He then created a NEW User Id as
Weezer, and tried doing the same thing.  I've begun to automatically
rollback anything he inputs, because 9 times out 10 it's either Talk page
vandalism or it's wrong.

Personally, I think Weezer is a copycat rather than andother incarnation
Michael.  But either way he seems out to cause trouble - perhaps more so
than Michael who, most of the time, just seems to be careless and
uncommunicative.

That said, I am certainly not against a ban for both of them.  It is going
to take a long time to repair the damage done by inaccurate edits to the
music section.  And without an attempt by Michael to listen to feedback and
change his editing the damage is just going to get worse and worse..

sannse


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Inflammatory comments

body:
Well, to judge from some of the comments I received about allowing the
use of dates in the form [[1 April]] as well as [[April 1]], not only am
I the Incarnation of Pure Evil[tm] ... not only am I going to "go off"
and destroy the 'Pedia ... I am going to cause gibbering insanity among
all Americans!

I didn't know I was so powerful until then.  But now that I have
realized my destiny ... bwah hah hah!

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at wikipedia.org]On Behalf Of Matt M.
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 07:45
To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #1100 - 6 msgs

> Judging from the reply, you certainly do have strong views
> on this subject. Saying that I am "trying to drive away half of
> the contributors to the 'pedia" IS inflammatory.

On this point I agree with Gary. A little while ago I suggested what I
felt
was a small and reasonable change. Someone promptly bit my head off
without
bothering to tell me what was wrong with my idea. I remain leery of
suggesting any future ideas even though I still don't understand what
was so
blasphemous about the idea I suggested. Strange accusations like "Are
you
trying to destroy the pedia?" is not the way to foster constructive
discussion about the possibilities of the software or the content.

Matt

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


body:
Hi Jimbo

>The Cunctator wrote:
> > Excellent! I'm noone official,
>
>I'm someone official, and what Cunc says sounds right to me!
>
> > It gets slightly more complicated if you make your version of the site
> > editable; then you have to make sure that the changed source content is
> > regularly updated and readily available.
>
> From what I can tell, they aren't trying to fork the content project,
>they just like to use it as a showcase for their technology, which is
>great.  So, likely they will want to just point the editing links
>right back to us?
>
>--Jimbo

That is a good suggestion (pointing the edit links back to the main
site).  It also leads us to the question of mirroring.

- Are there currently any Wikipedia mirror sites in existence?  I see no
mention of any on the main Wikipedia site.
- If we were to host a mirror site what would the branding requirements
be?  I.e. should it be an identical mirror?  Or branded as a separate site
(as discussed in other posts)
- How would synchronisation be handled?  Is there an established process
for this?
- How would the mirror be referenced?  Just a link from the main site?
- Could anyone estimate the traffic levels that we would be required to
handle? (We may need to upgrade our hosting hardware)

I think that covers off the main issues.  Any feedback and suggestions are
welcome.

Regards - Langdon

----------------------------------------------------
Managing Director
Object Positive
Sydney, Australia

Ph: + 61 2 9659 2344
Fx: + 61 2 9659 2355

http://www.infowrangler.com


from_name: Stephen C. Carlson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Where to turn for a trivial page deletion?

body:
I'd like to delete [[Epistle to the Hebrews]] because the
move command won't let me move the ungrammatically named
[[Epistle to Hebrews]] to [[Epistle to the Hebrews]], due
to a non-empty page history that has a bunch of automatic
script conversions.

In the past, I simply copied the text from one page to the
other and set up the appropriate redirect, but a sysop got
on my case for it as a non-optimal operation.  So now, I
put a request on Votes for Deletion, but no sysop has acted
on the request yet.

So, am I asking for the trivial page deletion in the right
place?  Or, should I just ignore a sysop jumping on my case,
because waiting days for an edit to happen is counter to the
wiki editing philosophy?

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35


from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 11:50:52PM -0500, The Cunctator wrote:
> And page protection should just about never be used. It's much healthier
> to just ignore the page for a while.

And what of the people who come to the 'pedia while it's being
ignored?

Perhaps there should be a new option to allow sysops to place
a block of protected text at the top of a page. A nice way
would be for text above a certain identifier (eg, "<<<<")
to only be editable by sysops. This would allow a lighter
touch than protecting a page while still indicating that
the contents might need some salt added.

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


body:
At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 18:49:51 -0800 (PST),
Zoe (zoecomnena at yahoo.com) wrote:
>
> Wow, for somebody who's never posted before, you certainly have an
> aggresive personality.

Never posted HERE before.  ...and you have no idea of of my
personality. Why do you feel you have to make this personal?

> Don't EVEN try to tell me to be silent, or
> you'll be in for more than you can deal with.

WOW. An OVERT THREAT by a Wiki ADMIN to a NEWBIE.

Sorry, its a little lost on me.  Should I be scared?

> My point is, that you are making this process MUCH too cumbersome
> for the majority of users.

OK, real criticism. Thank you. I think that with the right
mods, we could make the whole process very transparent to the
user. The whole point is to get the user to resolve ambiguities
at the time of adding a link, and not leaving it for others
to do later.

> Zoe
>  Gary Curtis <wikiman at freemail.com.au> wrote:At Mon, 31 Mar 2003
> 17:29:29 -0800 (PST),
> Zoe (zoecomnena at yahoo.com) wrote:
> >
> > Are you trying to drive away half of the contributors to the
> > 'pedia?
> > Zoe
> > Gary Curtis wrote:Hi people.
> > This is my first post to wikipedia-l, and its a biggun.
> -- original post snipped ---
>
> What a truely useless reply!

It was useless. You brought nothing to the table except angst.

> You obviously has strong views on this proposal or you would
> not have resorted to such inflammatory language.

Judging from the reply, you certainly do have strong views
on this subject. Saying that I am "trying to drive away half of
the contributors to the 'pedia" IS inflammatory.

> Please offer constructive criticism or remain silent.

Nowhere in this sentence do I try to TELL you anything.
I respectfully ("Please") requested that do one of two things.
Thank you for choosing to provide some constructive criticism.

Gary Curtis

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

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Get one now at http://www.freemail.com.au/

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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
Danny did nothing wrong. I intend to follow his example.

If I see people fighting over an article, I'm going to protect it and tell them to chill out.

AND I reserve the right to choose which "old version" to revert to.

AND FURTHERMORE, if I can figure out a neutral way to fix the article, I see no ethical reason not to:
* make ONE edit
* describe it on the talk page
* and report what I did to this mailing list

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: daniwo59 at aol.com [mailto:daniwo59 at aol.com]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 10:36 PM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

Actually, Eric, I disagree.

Trolling is a form of vandalism. This could justly be interpretted as trolling. (I am reminded of the constant edit wars with Helga, which cost Wikipedia quite a lot in terms of time and people who were disgusted and left)

For me to just ask some other "neutral" sysop to do it instead of me is hardly a neutral step.

I was not involved in an edit war. It was not an article that I care too deeply about. I was protecting it from what I (continue to) perceive as trolling.

Given the situation with Lir/.Vera Cruz/Susan Mason as well as Michael/Weezer and 172, perhaps its time sysops took more steps to limit trolling and not just the "George Washington had big balls" kind of vandalism. I open that for discussion.

Danny

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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] What, no salt?

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

> > (Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>):
> >
> > If we really want to be serious about security we'll have to use
> > ssl for login, but I don't know how to do that.
>
>That's entirely too paranoid. Frankly, I don't see much need
>for high security of Wikipedia logins.  It's not like we're
>storing medical records. (Oh my God! My neighbor might find
>out that I like the "Nostalgia" skin!)  The only real risk is
>that someone might log in as me and make edits in my name, but
>then I'd just disavow them and change my password.

There are two reasons to have good security:

1) To prevent hijacking of an administrator/developer account.
2) To prevent password theft. Many users use the same password for a number
of sites.

Of course, users who know anything about Internet security should expect
websites to handle their passwords insecurely -- everyone does it. Wikipedia
is certainly not alone.

>The present saltless-md5 was an improvement over the original
>code which had passwords in plain text in the database where
>any sysop could see them all with a select; /that/ was probably
>a bit too loose :-), so I md5'd them.  If making a slightly
>better encrypted version improves things with no hassle, that's
>fine too.  But let's not get worked up over nothing.

SSL is indeed a big hassle for a relatively small gain. I once read an
article on what someone can do if they have physical access to the network
-- say in a campus network using old thin-wire ethernet. It was pretty
scary, actually -- they can basically intercept and modify all
communications at will. But this kind of attack does require physical
access, and hence is reasonably rare. Remember that even SSL won't fix
another common kind of attack -- a user system compromised by a worm or
trojan. There's not much we can do about that one, but it happens all the
time.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Michael's threats

body:
>Please see [[Talk:Crass]].  In Michael's new
>incarnation as Weezer, he wrote: "You call me Michael
>one more time. I'll pound on your neck, and smash you
>into pieces and kill you Zoe."
>
>Zoe

Could one of the developers get this creep's IP so
that Zoe can call the cops? This is well above being a
simple bannable offense. Death threats can never be
justified.

--mav

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more
http://platinum.yahoo.com


from_name: Nick Reinking

subject: [Wikitech-l] Minimal skin (comments desired)

body:
On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 05:21:53PM +0100, tarquin wrote:
>
>
> tarquin wrote:
>
> >
> >Let's have a fixed topbar then :-)
> >can we fool IE into displaying *something* reasonable for that too?
> >it would be great if this works on all browsers -- we can have this as
> >the new default skin. :-D
> >
> what's happening with the new skin?
>
>
> New design at http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/
>
> I've been inspired by this recent discussion.  (which is the artistic
> way to I've copied some of Nick's ideas ;-)

Sorry, I've been busy with school lately.  I should have an updated look
at http://www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html in a couple
days.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


from_name: Matt M.

body:
> Judging from the reply, you certainly do have strong views
> on this subject. Saying that I am "trying to drive away half of
> the contributors to the 'pedia" IS inflammatory.

On this point I agree with Gary. A little while ago I suggested what I felt
was a small and reasonable change. Someone promptly bit my head off without
bothering to tell me what was wrong with my idea. I remain leery of
suggesting any future ideas even though I still don't understand what was so
blasphemous about the idea I suggested. Strange accusations like "Are you
trying to destroy the pedia?" is not the way to foster constructive
discussion about the possibilities of the software or the content.

Matt


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] weekeepeedee-uh Libel

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>>>Brion:What would such a policy need to say that the Neutral Point of View
>>>
>policy does not?
>
>Well, Daniel once again has got the feel for the issue...  that is that NPOV
>and being sued for libel are two different things... I can understand what
>youre getting at Brion.. that they are related, with regard to an editors
>point of view, But still, we here are involved in making policy and crafting
>some general ways of dealing with related (even outside in the legal world)
>issues so that later, when these things might come up, they've been thought
>through somewhat beforehand.
>
Do we really need to get carried away with a lot of detailed policy
about libel?  Common sense guidelines should be quite enough to cover
most situations.  The problem with a lot of written laws is that people
get caught up in the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law.

>NPOV is a good general policy.. but when Libel really means someone trying
>to edit Wikipedia through a legal interface, rather than the normal one.
>Here, of course, as I've said on the T:W:Libel page, theres a burden of
>responsibility automatically placed on someone to make a change themselves,
>if something is incorrect... Im sure this has been said before, in similar
>words.. So, I dont think WP has much to worry about at all... If its true,
>and the tribe sticks to it... and yet they want to sue... fine... That would
>be one of the easier cases to argue... lawyer or not...
>
Yes.  When a libel is published in a print medium it's much more
difficult to correct the information.  For an annual publication it will
take a year before a retraction can be published.  Here an offended
party can raise his objection immediately, and proximally to the alleged
offence.  A front page libel won't have to wait for a retraction at the
bottom of page 88 in some future issue.  An offended party has a duty to
mitigate; if he's aware  of the libel he can't just let it run on in the
hopes of increasing the damages that he might collect later.

>So, yes its an issue.. and having a foundation would inevitably mean a
>policy with regard to being sued. And whatever policy that is.. simply by
>nature of being solidified into some guide, would have some minimal bearing
>on the freedoms Wikipedians enjoy in editing articles.
>
Sometimes the best insurance against stupid libel suits is not to have
any assets.  The foundation's only assets are likely to be computer
hardware and a bank account with a limited amount of current operating
funds.  The information would never be an "asset" in the accounting
sense, since it has no monetary value.  In the worst case scenario a
mirror site in another country could take over the editing functions.

>Funny enough, a major Libel case - Richard Perle is going to sue Seymour
>Hirsch (and The New Yorker) for his column... not here in the US, but in
>England... go figure... the laws there are apparently more favorable to him,
>despite the fact that neither lives there, and the circulation there is a
>sliver of what it is here. -Steve
>
In many other issues jurisdiction shoppors prefer the courts in some US
states which give higher awards.  When the Process Church sued the
author of "Helter Skelter" for his allegations that they had somehow
been involved with Charlie Manson they lost their case in the U.S. but
won it in England.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172--what happened

body:
Jason Williams wrote:

>On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 11:50:52PM -0500, The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>And page protection should just about never be used. It's much healthier
>>to just ignore the page for a while.
>>
>
>And what of the people who come to the 'pedia while it's being
>ignored?
>
>Perhaps there should be a new option to allow sysops to place
>a block of protected text at the top of a page. A nice way
>would be for text above a certain identifier (eg, "<<<<")
>to only be editable by sysops. This would allow a lighter
>touch than protecting a page while still indicating that
>the contents might need some salt added.
>
I've had an idea.  If a page is being blocked to cool off an edit war,
trying to edit the page could redirect to a graphic of somebody standing
in an obviously freezing shower, with the caption "The cold water will
be shut off in xxx minutes".

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] YASU (Yet Another Sendmail Upgrade)

body:
I've installed the latest security fix packages for sendmail, yet again.
Any thoughts on switching to postfix or such?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] lie bell

body:
SR wrote "[[yadda]] MERV GRIFFIN is a serial killer and human cannibal."
[[etc.]]

Wow, I never heard this before. He seemed like such a nice guy;) -SV


body:
On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 10:36:02AM -0600, Nick Reinking wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 05:21:53PM +0100, tarquin wrote:
> >
> >
> > tarquin wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >Let's have a fixed topbar then :-)
> > >can we fool IE into displaying *something* reasonable for that too?
> > >it would be great if this works on all browsers -- we can have this as
> > >the new default skin. :-D

Okay, it is updated, with a working topbar and quickbar in everything.
I couldn't turn off Mozilla quirks mode without breaking IE 6 Win.
(http://www.twoevils.org/files/wiki/Rabbit-minimal.html)

Fixed positioning working in:
Camino (Mozilla 1.0.1 based) (MacOS X)
Mozilla 1.3 (Windows XP)
IE 5.2.2 (MacOS X)
Safari 1.0 Beta v60 (KHTML based)

Absolute positioning working in:
IE 6.0.2800.1106.xpsp1.020828-1920 (Windows XP)
Links 0.96 (CYGWIN_NT-5.1, cygcurses++5, Windows XP)
Links 0.98 (Linux 2.4, ncurses5)
Lynx 2.8.4rel.1 (CYGWIN_NT-5.1, cygcurses++5, Windows XP)
Netscape 4.8en (Windows XP) (with quirks, but perfectly usable)

Whew!  Other testing would be cool.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Michael's threats

body:
On Tue, 2003-04-01 at 10:26, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >Please see [[Talk:Crass]].  In Michael's new
> >incarnation as Weezer, he wrote: "You call me Michael
> >one more time. I'll pound on your neck, and smash you
> >into pieces and kill you Zoe."
> >
> >Zoe
>
> Could one of the developers get this creep's IP so
> that Zoe can call the cops? This is well above being a
> simple bannable offense. Death threats can never be
> justified.

That's certainly highly inappropriate on Wikipedia, and quite probably
contravenes their ISP (AOL)'s terms of service as well. If Zoe would
like to complain to AOL on this matter, by all means do so.

The post:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Crass&diff=793666&oldid=793523

IP address from logs:
64.12.96.205 - - [01/Apr/2003:01:05:27 +0000]
"POST /w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Crass&action=submit HTTP/1.1" 302 5
"http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Crass&action=edit"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; AOL 7.0; Windows NT 5.0)"

(Timestamps in logs are in UTC.)

The e-mail address set in the account is Weezer76 at aol.com (though it
should be pointed out we make no attempt to verify e-mail addresses, and
cannot guarantee that this is the actual address of the person or even
if it is a valid address; AOL should be able to look into it, I imagine
their web proxies keep logs which can be traced to particular users.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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