from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: <link> elements for interlanguage link
	information

body:
Timwi wrote:
> No, it wouldn't. _My_ point was that if we placed a link to the page you
> came from _somewhere else_ than a "redirected from" line (e.g. a list of
> "pages that redirect to here" on the Edit page), you would *not* need to
> send additional parameters. You could get back to the page a different
> way than you do currently.

If you have to jump through a bunch of extra hoops to get to it, then we've
already lost the ability to easily get back where we came from. A 'pages that
redirect here' would be only slightly more helpful than Whatlinkshere, as it
doesn't tell you which one you actually came through.

> Of course, there's also someone else's suggestion of using the session
> variables to remember where you came from and still display a
> "redirected from" line. As far as I can see, you haven't replied to that
> idea.

That would be a) extremely unreliable, b) harmful to caching.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051126/3234fd8b/attachment.pgp>


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiStatus - OpenFact's replacement

body:
Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> OpenFact's Wikipedia Status ( http://tinyurl.com/48a5m ) is the original
> Wikipedia Status page. However, it suffers from a huge problem: it is
> prohibitively unwieldly to use.

More importantly, it's on an unreliable, buggy, insecure old version of
MediaWiki on somebody else's site which is less reliable than ours. That's why
the links to it were removed some time ago.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051126/74358dee/attachment.pgp>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Deletion of Wikibooks content by Jimbo

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I really think that this Jokebook should be deleted from Wikibooks.
>
>1. Wikibooks is mean to host educational content and textbooks. There is no
>way that jokes could be included for this purpose.
>2. Many jokes are offensive and don't follow the NPOV rule.
>
>If contributors from the project are not able to enforce the basic rules, then
>others have to do it.
>
>
Why delete the jokebook? Earning my bread from cmedy I certainly see it
could be used as an educational tool for people wanting to make their
bread as a comedian.

Waerth/Walter


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: <link> elements for interlanguage link information

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>>It just makes it a lot harder to deal with such pages: if you
>>>HTTP-redirect straight to the target page you're missing the link back
>>>to the redirect page. (And that is *crucial* for editing work and
>>>vandalism cleanup. It is non-negotiable.)
>>
>>I feel I should point out an implicit fallacy in this. It is
>>non-negotiable that we need a link to the redirect page. It is *not*
>>non-negotiable that we can't return a 301 HTTP redirection.
>
> The only fallacy is yours, you invented some claim that I said 301s can't be
> used.

Please stop getting so worked up over stuff, Brion. I didn't "invent"
any "claim"; I pointed out a fallacy that people may make when reading
your message, not necessarily a fallacy you made.

> if you had read my message you'd have seen

One of your most annoying habits is to allege that people didn't read
your messages. I did, and I understood your point. I'm afraid you're the
one that didn't understand mine - but maybe I wasn't quite clear enough,
so I'll try to clarify:

> my point was using a 301 would require sending additional parameters

No, it wouldn't. _My_ point was that if we placed a link to the page you
came from _somewhere else_ than a "redirected from" line (e.g. a list of
"pages that redirect to here" on the Edit page), you would *not* need to
send additional parameters. You could get back to the page a different
way than you do currently.

Of course, there's also someone else's suggestion of using the session
variables to remember where you came from and still display a
"redirected from" line. As far as I can see, you haven't replied to that
idea.

Timwi


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ahmad Najib Biabani

subject: [Wikipedia-l] (no subject)

body:
Dear Sir/Madam greetings!

With due venerations it is stated that i am an Afghan citizen, and Afghani
or Pashto is my mother tongue. I was very glad when I saw in your website
that you have a separate Wikipedia in the mentioned language
http://ps.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, but unfortunately the website is not
developed to the standereds of other Wikipedia webpages.

I am applying for the voluntary developer of Pashto language Wikipedia. Now
if you please let me understand that why is it possible for other users of
pashto Wikipedia that they can change the appearance of the first page
according to their own wills.

I think you guys should limit the access of Wikipedia editors. I mean those
who are registered users of Wikipedia should have access in editing the main
page of Pashto Wikipedia.

There was one thing else that i wanted to make clear, and that is if it is
possible to change the navagation tools, search bar and tool box options
into main language. I mean it is easy to translate and replace it with the
english language that has been used in the main page.

Please provide me with some informations about how can i become a permanent
voluntary editor of Pashto Wikipedia. I promise in developing the pushto
wikipedia according to the standards of other wikipedias.

yorus faithfully

Ahmed Najib Biabani


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A voluntary developers Request


list: wikien-l

from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: License problems in en.wikipedia.org?

body:
The caption of it was plain wrong. It is not supposed to be Jesus'
face, it is just supposed to be someone from the same time/place of
Jesus. I've corrected this.

FF

On 11/25/05, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> >>>>> "geni" == geni  <geniice at gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>
>    geni> It turned up in pretty much every newspaper in the uk. I
>    geni> don't think the artist is short of publicy
>
> Well right, but who does remember the newspaper of last year? I mostly
> don't.
>
>
>
>    geni> historical jesus? To be honest I don't think the image has
>    geni> much value since at best it shows a typical first centurey
>    geni> jew.
>
> That's the title of that article. Well the image is certainly better
> than anything available I have seen so far: all this paintings of
> person which remains much more of western European type.  Or the
> movies. Anyhow, I wrote BBC, let us see what will happen, most likely
> nothing.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nightmare getting on WP

body:
It's been awful lately. It seems like every other page I load comes up with the Wikimedia error message. Also -- and somebody posted about this on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]], too, if I'm not mistaken -- I often have to click on a link twice to get it to load, otherwise it just sits there. I thought changing image servers was supposed to speed us up?

  -Hermione1980

---------------------------------
 Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.


from_name: Dirk Riehle

subject:
Wikis and Wikipedia (was: Re: [Wikitech-l] WikiStatus -
	OpenFact's replacement

body:
Re: choice of term "WikiStatus"

I think it would be good to make sure we don't equate the world of
wikis with Wikipedia. Wikipedia may be the most well-known and
important wiki, but the world of wikis as I'm sure everyone here
knows is much broader and more diverse than even Wikipedia.

I'm making this point after seeing some (influential?!) bloggers
start equating wikis with Wikipedia, which helps nobody. (Neither
will Wikipedia benefit from being equated with the LA Times desaster,
nor will wikis be helped by being viewed through Encyclopedia glasses.)

I recognize that you use WikiStatus only as a shorthand for Wikipedia
Status and spell it out most of the time, but sometimes acronyms take
on a life of their own, say if you register a domain for it.

Thanks,
Dirk

At 26.11.2005, Edward Z. Yang wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>OpenFact's Wikipedia Status ( http://tinyurl.com/48a5m ) is the original
>Wikipedia Status page. However, it suffers from a huge problem: it is
>prohibitively unwieldly to use. The solution? Create a more streamlined
>application designed for the exact task of allowing the community to
>report on contingency issues. Yup... it's called WikiStatus for lack of
>a more creative name.
>
>You can view an online version of it here: http://tinyurl.com/a62lu and
>the source code is here: http://tinyurl.com/b9z8n
>
>I'm not sure when/how OpenFacts became the de facto standard for status
>reporting, but it would be cool if we could add a link to WikiStatus
>from the standard error page. Of course, it's really new software (I
>consider it alpha quality) and it probably needs to be audited, but when
>there's a problem, there should be multiple contingency sites.
>
>Please check it out! Thanks. :D
>
>- --
>  Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
>  SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
>  GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
>  3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
>
>iD8DBQFDh9quqTO+fYacSNoRAmKQAJ4654F+d8NrScr40cwdek8x7Mky8wCfa3RU
>beH7MlBjYFiqejEZChf8EnA=
>=S57w
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Dr. Dirk Riehle | Bayave Software GmbH | http://www.bayave.de
Contact: dirk at riehle.org | +49 172 184 8755 | http://www.riehle.org
Interested in wiki research? Please see http://www.wikisym.org!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki: 1.6devel

body:
> I've seen that wikipedia runs on a 1.6devel version of mediawiki.
> (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version )
>
> Although I tried to open my eyes I couldn't find the files for any
> 1.6 version on
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34373#files nor
>  http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

It's in CVS :)


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
Joshua,

Thank you for your e-mail concerning the block placed on you by Ed Poor.

Did anyone respond to your e-mail three days ago?

Further, I'd like to add to Guettarda's words and say that I hope Ed Poor's
actions have not put you off the project as a whole.

Best wishes and thanks for your contributions.

Regards

Keith Old

Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster

On 11/26/05, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Joshua
>
> I didn't realise you had left.  I want you to know how much I value your
> contributions - and how little I think of Ed's nonsense.  I agree with you
> -
> he should not be an admin any longer.  I do hope you will reconsider.
>
> Ian (Guettarda)
>
> On 11/22/05, Joshua Schroeder <joshuaschroeder at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Administartor Ed Poor has blocked me for reasons I cannot figure out.
> Can
> > somebody help me?
> > Joshuaschroeder
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Immediate request for wiki set-ups

body:
Yes, but Servien and Heiko Evermann were rude about it, and at the
moment it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Mark

On 25/11/05, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> On Friday 25 November 2005 11:20, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Ahh, and if you think Dutch spelling and German spelling of Lowlands
> > Saxon are truly incompatible, check the archives of the mainpage at
> > nds.wiki -- People have in the past posted messages there in Duthc
> > spelt Lowlands Saxon, received responses in German spelling, and then
> > responded in turn to that in Dutch spelling.
> >
> > People from across the border exchange mails in LS everyday on lowlands-l.
>
> It's nice to know that there are people who are even worse than us :)
>
> Have you considered installing extension which is being made for Serbian
> Wikipedia, which would enable that each article is viewable in both
> spellings?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


subject: Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Re: User Jcb deleting articles in ia.wikipedia.org

body:
And... yet again, it is proven that it's not a good idea to send
somebody a rude or brash e-mail offlist expecting that it won't get
out.

If you send a nice, polite off-list e-mail, of course, you can expect
it'll stay private. But when you're not nice, there are no guarantees.

Mark

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ilooy <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com>
Date: 25-Nov-2005 07:04
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: User Jcb deleting articles in ia.wikipedia.org
To: node.ue at gmail.com

2005/11/25, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> Sure.
> But Jay (or is it Ilooy? Or Jacinto??) still doesn't seem to get the
> basics of sysophood.

Yes Mar, my name is "Jacinto"
it's shortened to "Jay" for friends,
ILVI is my nickname since High
School, pronounced ee-loo-ee
because...
But you know what, perlas ante
porcos you don't seem to get the
basics of dealing with people either.

> He seems to think that _anonymous users_ were resposnible for the mass
> deletions, and has blocked them for that.

No, Mark, no. There were malicious
attacks going on, blanking articles
meant they disappeared from the
Statistics tables. Some of these
were later deleted although originally
there was text on them. But see you
don't know and yet you run your mouth.

> Anybody who has been at Wikipedia rfor long will know how ridiculous
> that is. Anons cannot delete articles!!!

Sometimes you indeed say ridiculous
things because you don't seem to know
what you're saying and talk about something
you know little of. Which is just too sad.

So leave me be, Mark. I don't want this
silly back and forth to go on. Understood.

Thanks,
Jay B.
[[User:ILVI]]

--
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please leave Rex Lynch for now

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

> That fact provides us with a simple solution to Rex's insistence that his
> materials are not being cited or refered to on Wikipedia: it's due to
> copyright considerations. He appears to be very concerned with his rights
> over his materials or research, & we'd rather error on the side of caution,
> rather than violate his copyright. If he provides information on his
> website that is reusable under a free license, then we'll revisit the issue
> whether his research is unfairly excluded from Wikipedia.

Rex replied to this with another rant, this time including you amongst
the forces of evil suppressing the truth. I replied telling him to go
away until he has something new to say. I ask all to abandon the subject
for now.

- d.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: GFDL compatibility of image licenses

body:
Nyenyec N wrote:

>What is the definitive source to read about which image licenses are
>compatible with the GFDL?
>
>
There isn't one. The closest thing to a definitive source would be the
Free Software Foundation, but they don't really address the question.
They have a detailed list of which software licenses are and are not
compatible with the GPL, but their comments on content licenses are much
more limited. They don't address the question you're getting at because
their comments are limited to software and documentation (the original
purpose of the GFDL), and images are something other than simply
documentation.

>Or perhaps a GFDL text with non-GFDL images added doesn't count as
>derivative work?
>
>
This is a thorny question of interpretation without an easy answer.
However, the GFDL does allow independent works under other license terms
(including incompatible, non-free, and even proprietary licenses) to be
combined in GFDL content in an "aggregation" (Section 7 of the GFDL).

--Michael Snow


from_name: Ivan Krstic

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki: 1.6devel

body:
FxParlant wrote:
> Can someone tell me what this version is ?

It was decided Wikipedia would run from the latest development version
in CVS. To make a checkout, see:

 http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=34373

--
Ivan Krstic <krstic at fas.harvard.edu> | 0x147C722D


subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP 5 comin' up soon

body:
PHP 5.1.0 has finally come out of release-candidate status. At some point next
week we're going to try migrating; at that point we'll be able to make use of
new PHP 5 features in MediaWiki code, such as exceptions to simplify
error-handling, the improved XML reading support, etc.

This does mean that MediaWiki 1.6 will not run on PHP 4; it'll require PHP 5 or
5.1. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to third-party users on limited
hosts still running older versions.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051126/e8d9f075/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] extremely weak dispute resolution mechanisms

body:
Grease Monkee wrote:

> The most common mistake made implementing this strategy is that NiceGuy is
> overly critical of HardAss, not realising that his mentorship of Newbi won't
> work without the threat of HardAss looming. Likewise, HardAss often takes it
> personally when NiceGuy unblocks someone, not realising it as a face saving
> feature that allows Newbi to behave.
> Some of the nice things about this strategy are;
> *Self checking (admins constantly are reviewing each other during
> implementation)
> *If done right, Newbi receives repeated, clear instruction on behavior,
> backed up with blocks
> *The more idiotic the Newbi, the more effective this strategy
> *There is room for lots of different authoritarian/mentorship roles here
> *It can really be fun when done right
> see also;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_cop_bad_cop

This can also be done by a single admin, e.g. this is mostly what
Linuxbeak is applying to his dear little charges - beat them around the
head with a cluebat until they realise he means it, then gently suggest
they behave with suggestions of how to. It's sometimes more work than it
seems like it should be, but can work if the idjit is cluifiable at all.

- d.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fair use in non-English Wikipedias (moved from wikien)

body:
On 11/25/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 15:19 +0100, Uwe Brauer wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> >
> > I just found the following image
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RFJesus.jpg
> >
> > which seems to be under a different sort of license, if I am not
> > mistaken.
> >
> > I would like to include that image, in the corresponding German
> > wikipedia article, however so far people hesitated since they believe
> > that this license as expressed in the above url, would/could violate
> > the GDL. I find it odd that different wikipedias have different
> > standards concerning the license politics.
> >
> > What can be done? May the simplest solution would be to contact the
> > artist (if he/she can be find) and ask for explicit permission.
> >
> > Any comments, suggestions?
>
> This is typical of en-w's "flexible" approach to licensing.
>
> Someone is pretending that because it was printed in some
> newspapers under terms that we know nothing about somehow this
> gives us permission to use it under some unknown terms even though
> we dont accept pictures where we are explicitly given permission
> any more.
>
> Currently its not worth trying to get rid of these pictures from en
> as there are still thousands of more dubious ones (no source for
> example). It might get picked up at some point in the fair use
> examination.
>
> You cant use it in de: only real free images, sensible policy.
>
> Justinc

Is this really how it works in the German Wikipedia (and other
non-English Wikipedias)?  I assume you must allow some form of fair
dealing, as it's difficult to think of a photo of the real world that
doesn't contain *some* copyrighted materials incidently.  Does the
German Wikipedia have many pictures of celebrities and big events?  Do
you find that not allowing non-free images detracts significantly from
the encyclopedia (ignoring, if you can, the benefits of the images
being free)?

I think a big part of the hesitation of really embracing being a free
encyclopedia is the fear that the encyclopedia would be so much less
useful without fair use images.  I guess I can get a rough idea of the
answers to these questions just browsing the sites on my own, and
maybe looking at some statistics if I can find them, but it'd be nice
to hear from the perspective of someone who really spends a lot of
time on those Wikipedias.

Anthony


from_name: Jamie Bliss

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Timwi wrote:
>>
>>>> It just makes it a lot harder to deal with such pages: if you
>>>> HTTP-redirect straight to the target page you're missing the link back
>>>> to the redirect page. (And that is *crucial* for editing work and
>>>> vandalism cleanup. It is non-negotiable.)
>>>
>>>
>>> I feel I should point out an implicit fallacy in this. It is
>>> non-negotiable that we need a link to the redirect page. It is *not*
>>> non-negotiable that we can't return a 301 HTTP redirection.
>>
>>
>> The only fallacy is yours, you invented some claim that I said 301s
>> can't be
>> used.
>
>
> Please stop getting so worked up over stuff, Brion. I didn't "invent"
> any "claim"; I pointed out a fallacy that people may make when reading
> your message, not necessarily a fallacy you made.
>
>> if you had read my message you'd have seen
>
>
> One of your most annoying habits is to allege that people didn't read
> your messages. I did, and I understood your point. I'm afraid you're the
> one that didn't understand mine - but maybe I wasn't quite clear enough,
> so I'll try to clarify:
>
>> my point was using a 301 would require sending additional parameters
>
>
> No, it wouldn't. _My_ point was that if we placed a link to the page you
> came from _somewhere else_ than a "redirected from" line (e.g. a list of
> "pages that redirect to here" on the Edit page), you would *not* need to
> send additional parameters. You could get back to the page a different
> way than you do currently.

Caching.

The browser can cache anything based on the URL and the headers given in
Vary. (Within the bounds defined by the cache headers.)

If you were to use HTTP redirects in this manner (and not add a CGI
paramater), then Referer would have to be added to Vary, causing the
browser to cache a seperate (but generally identical) version of the
page _for every page it is linked from._

Using sessions would be impossible in this manner. The browser can not
determine if what has been saved with the session has changed.

As for telling the browser to not cache redirected pages, then you come
up with this issue:
- User ("Joe")navigates to [[Article A]].
- [[Article A]] links to [[Article B]] and [[Article C]].
- Joe navigates to [[Article B]], and his browser caches the copy.
- Joe then navigates to [[Article C]] (from [[Article A]]), which links
to [[Article D]]
- [[Article D]] is a redirect to [[Article B]]
- Joe navigates to [[Article D]] from [[Article C]]
- The server sends a 301 Moved Permanently, and the browser loads the
cached copy--The cached copy doesn't have the redirected from line!

As for this shouting match, I suggest you two explain yourselves in
detail so there is mutual understanding.

Of course, you're both qualified adults and can take care of yourselves,
so why am I even bothering to mention it? I'm sure you can logically
come to an agreeable solution.

-- Jamie
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://endeavour.zapto.org/astro73/
Thank you to JosephM for inviting me to Gmail!
Have lots of invites. Gmail now has 2GB.


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
Hi

All you have to do is to start editing. It will probably be best if you  pick
a user name first. Once you begin editing, you can apply for  adminship.

Danny


from_name: Philip Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
On Nov 26, 2005, at 12:49 PM, Timwi wrote:
>
> I'm not much wikiolder than you are, but one observation I think
> I've made is a relatively sudden decline in eventualist attitude in
> 2005.

I would agree with this wholeheartedly, except I would also note that
the push to "get it right now" is all too often turning into a push
to get it wrong - the move away from eventualism seems to me to be
accompanied by a dramatic lowering in our standards for ourselves. As
I commented on #wikipedia last night, if Larry Sanger submitted the
Larry's Text articles now, they'd get AfDed in a heartbeat. That's...
ummm... bad.

-Phil


body:
Is the GFDL even recommended for images? I saw a few users on Commons
who made what to me seemed a rather persuasive point that the GFDL is
really not that great a license for images, because it requires
reproduction of the entire two-page license with every use of
GFDL-licensed content. For web-media, this is less of a problem, but
for print media it seems rather impractical.

Since then I've been licensing all of my image contributions as CC-SA,
which seems to require a lot less in this respect (and accomplish the
same thing -- images are free so long as derivative content is itself
licensed similarly).

But I'd be interested in other opinions on this, while we're on the subject.

FF

On 11/26/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Nyenyec N wrote:
>
> >What is the definitive source to read about which image licenses are
> >compatible with the GFDL?
> >
> >
> There isn't one. The closest thing to a definitive source would be the
> Free Software Foundation, but they don't really address the question.
> They have a detailed list of which software licenses are and are not
> compatible with the GPL, but their comments on content licenses are much
> more limited. They don't address the question you're getting at because
> their comments are limited to software and documentation (the original
> purpose of the GFDL), and images are something other than simply
> documentation.
>
> >Or perhaps a GFDL text with non-GFDL images added doesn't count as
> >derivative work?
> >
> >
> This is a thorny question of interpretation without an easy answer.
> However, the GFDL does allow independent works under other license terms
> (including incompatible, non-free, and even proprietary licenses) to be
> combined in GFDL content in an "aggregation" (Section 7 of the GFDL).
>
> --Michael Snow
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Angela

body:
> > Why delete the jokebook? Earning my bread from cmedy I certainly see it
> > could be used as an educational tool for people wanting to make their
> > bread as a comedian.
>
> Can these be moved to Wikicities?

There is a comedy Wikicity at <http://comedy.wikicities.com> where
jokes can be added if it is decided that they are not suitable for any
Wikimedia project. It would be best to wait until Wikicities upgrades
its version of MediaWiki before doing any sort of mass import though,
since we'd need [[Special:Import]] to be working in order to retain
the page histories.

Angela


references:
<1131981004.29814.52.camel@zhora.1481ruerachel.net>	<dll8u3$oua$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1132538575.6605.35.camel@localhost.localdomain>	<43813378.4060605@pobox.com>	<dm4rkd$bl$1@sea.gmane.org>	<43862300.20000@pobox.com>	<dm9iam$l0h$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmaedn$qpm$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmaj7b$7f5$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> How many more times do I have to state that my suggestion does away with
> the "Redirected from" line? Everyone keeps assuming that.

Ah.

I'd say (although I am not on the dev team) write the code and make it a
user option.

-- Jamie
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://endeavour.zapto.org/astro73/
Thank you to JosephM for inviting me to Gmail!
Have lots of invites. Gmail now has 2GB.


from_name: SJ

body:
On 11/26/05, Dirk Riehle <dirk at riehle.org> wrote:
> Re: choice of term "WikiStatus"
>
> I recognize that you use WikiStatus only as a shorthand for Wikipedia
> Status and spell it out most of the time, but sometimes acronyms take
> on a life of their own, say if you register a domain for it.

So wikipstatus.com, with a silent p?


body:
> For those of you who were around when it kicked off... when it went
> live, was it intended to become a reference tool *on the web* like it
> has now, or was the web process intended to be somewhat less obvious
> than it became (a top-40 site, eek)? Open, yes, freely editable, yes,
> but a live "proper" encyclopedia from Year One?

I'm not much wikiolder than you are, but one observation I think I've
made is a relatively sudden decline in eventualist attitude in 2005.

In 2003 I think most if not all Wikipedians were still of the mindset
that yes, we want to be an encyclopedia, and yes, we know we're not
there yet and we have a long way to go, but we're confident that we'll
make it and we don't care how long it will take. Now in 2005 we suddenly
realise we've come way farther way quicker than we thought we would, and
in particular we are suddenly being used as an actual reference left and
right while at the same time being scrutinised (if not criticised) for
(lack of) accuracy and reliability. The mailing list threads that take
place regularly now about average article quality and readability, have
never occurred before 2005 (at least not with anywhere near this frequency).

I've become less active as a Wikipedian and I think it's because I liked
the eventualist atmosphere more. It gave us more room for mistakes, and
it allowed us to worry less and be more relaxed. I think eventualists
tend to assume good faith more, precisely because they are less worried
and more relaxed. The more someone worries about Wikipedia's quality or
reputation, the more likely they are to intervene vocally when they
perceive some change as detrimental, giving a somewhat higher chance of
generating an unpleasant environment.

Timwi


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: WikiStatus - OpenFact's replacement

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

Eh... no one has actually commented on the program itself... :(

Dirk Riehle wrote:
> I think it would be good to make sure we don't equate the world of
> wikis with Wikipedia. [snip]
>
> I recognize that you use WikiStatus only as a shorthand for Wikipedia
>  Status and spell it out most of the time, but sometimes acronyms
> take on a life of their own, say if you register a domain for it.

On second thought, the name doesn't seem that good. WikiStatus implies
that it is a wiki about status (which is incorrect). The next
interpretation is that it's the status of a wiki, Wikipedia, which is
not true either: the software should be usable for any service out there
on the web even though it was originally designed for Wikipedia.

SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> So wikipstatus.com, with a silent p?

Well, it would be a .net, but no. :o) Any other suggestions?

Brion Vibber wrote:
> More importantly, it's on an unreliable, buggy, insecure old version
> of MediaWiki on somebody else's site which is less reliable than
> ours. That's why the links to it were removed some time ago.

Here's the old message:

Mark Ryan wrote:
> Note that I have removed the link to OpenFacts.berlios.de, which was
> getting overloaded as soon as Wikipedia went down. I have also removed
> the link to the "offsite donation page" at Angela's request. The
> French, German and Japanese messages direct those people to that
> language's IRC channel.

It's a pity, because pages like OpenFacts are useful precisely because
they're not as fast paced as IRC (IRC channel gets flooded anyway), and
have loads of useful links.

What I'd really like to do is have Wikipedia set up an official
contingency site and re-add the link to the error page. That's why I did
this. So I'm sort of waiting for your blessing. ;)

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDiO04qTO+fYacSNoRAm/LAKCBBmUJCPtzIgphIM3Cee7+/6eFWACeKtQi
byb877FnjZsqn7eGy8q2L38=
=Xexu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] J2ME Client for Wikipedia

body:
Jama Poulsen wrote:
> An interesting quote from our discussion several months ago:
>
>   "The problem is, that in mediawiki there is no separation between
>   layout and content. Everywhere tables are used to make layout.

MediaWiki is pretty sparse about tables, last I checked. The MonoBook skin is
CSS-based and pretty table-free. There might be a couple still hiding around,
please let us know if so.

If you're talking about what *people on Wikipedia* do in spicing up pages with
unnecessary, wasteful, stupid, non-portable markup, that's a different matter.

Tables should never be abused like that, and if you see it happening you should
speak up in that place.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20051126/180ba4e0/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Mike Finucane

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to be

body:
I was going to enrich Wikipedia with a whole bunch of my images, but
quite frankly, i dont want someone getting rich off my work.
As such, I was intending to add creative commons no commercial use tags.

Then I come across this note from you:

"All images which are for non-commercial only use and by permission only
> are not acceptable for Wikipedia and _will be deleted_.  We have
> tolerated them for some time..."

Well fear not; you wont have to tolerate any of my images.

I'm going to have to re-evaluate contributing to wikipedia if its based
on providing source material for commercial companies.

Feel free to explain WHY you have this policy; but I have to say your
explanation above wasnt very tactful or conducive to goodwill on my
part.


from_name: MAURICE FRANK

body:
to Grease Monkee <welloiledmachine at gmail.com>

Suppose Nice Guy's unblock carries a link back to Nice
Guy, the same as a link to watch a topic, that watches
out for any reblocking. So Hardass's efforts can be
negated as soon as they happen? and politically
motivated permablocks done as hastily as they are now
would be harder to make strick.

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


body:
Timwi wrote:

> I'm not much wikiolder than you are, but one observation I think I've
> made is a relatively sudden decline in eventualist attitude in 2005.

That's a very good way of putting it.

>  I think eventualists
> tend to assume good faith more, precisely because they are less worried
> and more relaxed. The more someone worries about Wikipedia's quality or
> reputation, the more likely they are to intervene vocally when they
> perceive some change as detrimental, giving a somewhat higher chance of
> generating an unpleasant environment.

There's a request for arbitration on this issue right now, concerning
assumption of bad faith and the promotion of assumption of bad faith in
the course of trying to clean house RIGHT NOW. The generation of an
unpleasant working environment is precisely what's at issue, and whether
this is acceptable behaviour.

- d.


from_name: FxParlant

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki: 1.6devel

body:
Ivan Krstic wrote:
> FxParlant wrote:
>
>>Can someone tell me what this version is ?
>
>
> It was decided Wikipedia would run from the latest development version
> in CVS. To make a checkout, see:
>
>  http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=34373
>

Thanks for this url. But as there aren't so many explanation, can you
tell me in which modules I shall look for the version 1.6devel ?

Thanks for your guidance.
 Fran?ois


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki: 1.6devel

references:
<dm9c5q$8bl$1@sea.gmane.org> <43884FFC.80805@fas.harvard.edu>
	<dma88j$bmv$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
FxParlant wrote:
> Thanks for this url. But as there aren't so many explanation, can you
> tell me in which modules I shall look for the version 1.6devel ?

The module with core MediaWiki code is 'phase3'. That said, since you
weren't able to figure it out on your own, you probably *really* don't
want to be running code from CVS. I suggest you grab the latest 1.5
release from here, instead:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.5.2.tar.gz?download

--
Ivan Krstic <krstic at fas.harvard.edu> | 0x147C722D


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] re palm download

body:
David wrote:
> I tried to download this dictionary and it cam up "404 - Page not found".

URL?

> Is the download under repair?

If these are files we have/had at Wikimedia, I don't think they have been
updated in a year or so. I'm not sure we still have the files offhand.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiktionary-l/attachments/20051126/103a99ff/attachment.pgp


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki: 1.6devel

references:
<dm9c5q$8bl$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<43884FFC.80805@fas.harvard.edu>	<dma88j$bmv$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4388AE27.50802@fas.harvard.edu>

body:
Hi Ivan,

Yes, I looked pretty dumb on this one :-)
I made a few extensions for mediawiki always with a simple text editor.
I've never used CVS, because it is not much in use in human resources
lessons :-)
So today I had to install a cvs client, find out how it works, and
discover that it required a name for a module... which I didn't have.

If you think that I'm a bit of a lost cause, you might be right :-)

Thanks for your advice, which is indeed, truly sensible.
Fran?ois
www.fxparlant.net

Ivan Krstic wrote:
> FxParlant wrote:
>
>>Thanks for this url. But as there aren't so many explanation, can you
>>tell me in which modules I shall look for the version 1.6devel ?
>
>
> The module with core MediaWiki code is 'phase3'. That said, since you
> weren't able to figure it out on your own, you probably *really* don't
> want to be running code from CVS. I suggest you grab the latest 1.5
> release from here, instead:
>
> http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.5.2.tar.gz?download
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki: 1.6devel

body:
Super Ivan,

It worked fine !! Someone recommanded me Eclipse which contains a cvs
client. It  downloaded the phase3 and it seems to be indeed the same as
my usual mediawiki folder.

thanks for your help

Next step, finding out how to play with a diff file ...

Fran?ois


from_name: Timwi

references:
<1131981004.29814.52.camel@zhora.1481ruerachel.net>	<dll8u3$oua$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1132538575.6605.35.camel@localhost.localdomain>	<43813378.4060605@pobox.com>	<dm4rkd$bl$1@sea.gmane.org>	<43862300.20000@pobox.com>	<dm9iam$l0h$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmaedn$qpm$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Jamie Bliss wrote:
>
>> No, it wouldn't. _My_ point was that if we placed a link to the page
>> you came from _somewhere else_ than a "redirected from" line (e.g. a
>> list of "pages that redirect to here" on the Edit page), you would
>> *not* need to send additional parameters. You could get back to the
>> page a different way than you do currently.
>
> Caching.
>
> The browser can cache anything based on the URL and the headers given in
> Vary. (Within the bounds defined by the cache headers.)
>
> If you were to use HTTP redirects in this manner (and not add a CGI
> paramater), then Referer would have to be added to Vary, causing the
> browser to cache a seperate (but generally identical) version of the
> page _for every page it is linked from._

How many more times do I have to state that my suggestion does away with
the "Redirected from" line? Everyone keeps assuming that.


subject: [Wikitech-l] "What redirects here" list on Edit page

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>No, it wouldn't. _My_ point was that if we placed a link to the page you
>>came from _somewhere else_ than a "redirected from" line (e.g. a list of
>>"pages that redirect to here" on the Edit page), you would *not* need to
>>send additional parameters. You could get back to the page a different
>>way than you do currently.
>
> If you have to jump through a bunch of extra hoops to get to it, then
> we've already lost the ability to easily get back where we came from.
> A 'pages that redirect here' would be only slightly more helpful than
> Whatlinkshere, as it doesn't tell you which one you actually came
> through.

I'm not convinced that you need to know which one you actually came
through, especially if you have a list of all of them.

If you follow a link in an article and are redirected to a place you
didn't expect to be redirected to, then looking at a list of "articles
that redirect here" is doubly useful because you can fix other
inappropriate redirects as well, not just the one you stumbled upon.

You mentioned fighting vandalism; but you normally notice vandalism on
Recent Changes or Watchlists, where you generally follow History or Diff
links, which are unaffected by my suggestion.

>>[using session variables]
> That would be a) extremely unreliable, b) harmful to caching.

True. I didn't like that idea either. :)

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How is validation supposed to work?

body:
> The current plan is to gather the data and ... do nothing with it.

There are heaps of things we can do with rating data!

For example, we could generate regular lists of articles that haven't
been rated, ensuring that all articles eventually get a rating.

Then we could generate regular lists of articles with the lowest
ratings, allowing us to improve where we fare worst.

Then we could generate regular lists of articles with the highest
ratings, allowing us to find suitable featured-article candidates. Maybe
we'll find that with the validation feature the featured-article process
becomes redundant!

Then we could combine any of the above with categories, so users with
narrow interests can chip in, but confine themselves to their pet topic.

Last but not least, we could make it prepare tea! Well, maybe not.
Timwi


body:
Timwi wrote:

>> The current plan is to gather the data and ... do nothing with it.

> There are heaps of things we can do with rating data!
> For example, we could generate regular lists of articles that haven't
> been rated, ensuring that all articles eventually get a rating.
> Then we could generate regular lists of articles with the lowest
> ratings, allowing us to improve where we fare worst.
> Then we could generate regular lists of articles with the highest
> ratings, allowing us to find suitable featured-article candidates. Maybe
> we'll find that with the validation feature the featured-article process
> becomes redundant!
> Then we could combine any of the above with categories, so users with
> narrow interests can chip in, but confine themselves to their pet topic.

Exactly. We release the data and people should then dive upon it and
find applications for it.

> Last but not least, we could make it prepare tea! Well, maybe not.

Yeah, that'll have to wait for 1.8.

- d.


from_name: David

subject: [Wiktionary-l] re palm download

body:
Dear Sir,

I tried to download this dictionary and it cam up "404 - Page not found".
Is the download under repair?

I have a Palm OS 5 - can I download via my desktop Windows PC to that and also how much memory will I need on the memory stick?

Best
David

_______________________________________________
Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com
The most personalized portal on the Web!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nightmare getting on WP

body:
Hermione1980 wrote:

> It's been awful lately. It seems like every other page I load comes
> up with the Wikimedia error message. Also -- and somebody posted
> about this on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]], too, if I'm not mistaken -- I
> often have to click on a link twice to get it to load, otherwise it
> just sits there. I thought changing image servers was supposed to
> speed us up?

It's been something else. Tim Starling just posted to wikitech-l:

> The site was randomly slow for the last week or two, maybe 10% of requests
> would time out. And for a couple of days, requests through the Amsterdam
> squids were timing out very regularly. Both problems are fixed now. I
> apologise that it took us so long to figure out -- it was a very frustrating
> problem that took a while despite the best efforts of the sysadmin team. In
> both cases it was subtle LVS misconfiguration, we're developing automated
> tools to test for similar problems occurring in the future.
> After that was fixed, I finished setting up the 20 new dual opterons, and
> put them into apache service. So service times for CPU-intensive operations
> should be quite good. And of course Brion put amane into service last week,
> so the problem with image load times should be fixed. The Florida squids
> might still be a bit slow, we have more on order.

Fingers crossed!

- d.


from_name: Federico Paparoni

subject: [Wikitech-l] J2ME Client for Wikipedia

body:
Hi,
i'm the administrator of a Java italian website, javastaff.com. We are
a group of developers and we would like to create a J2ME client for
Wikipedia, that would be an interesting software for a cellular phone.
Of course we will do it only to donate a good software to the
users.
I have already talked with Jimmy Wales and he is entusiast of this project.
We have already studied the structure of Wikipedia and we have done
experiment parsing the information with a search on your website, but i
would
like to know if there is some page we can access to perform a better search
(only text for example or a webservice or something else).
I hope you like this idea :)

Best regards

 ---------------------------------------------------
 Federico Paparoni
 JavaStaff.com Admin
 <doc>In girum imus nocte et consumimur ign</doc>
 ---------------------------------------------------


from_name: S. Woodside

body:
You mean the same way that people assumed that "Semapedia" was my
work? (It's not) :-)

Or the way so many programs are called "WinSomething" if they run on
windows and MacSomething if they run on Mac, and LinThis and LinThat?

--simon

On Nov 26, 2005, at 6:14 AM, Dirk Riehle wrote:

> Re: choice of term "WikiStatus"
>
> I think it would be good to make sure we don't equate the world of
> wikis with Wikipedia. Wikipedia may be the most well-known and
> important wiki, but the world of wikis as I'm sure everyone here
> knows is much broader and more diverse than even Wikipedia.
>
> I'm making this point after seeing some (influential?!) bloggers
> start equating wikis with Wikipedia, which helps nobody. (Neither
> will Wikipedia benefit from being equated with the LA Times
> desaster, nor will wikis be helped by being viewed through
> Encyclopedia glasses.)
>
> I recognize that you use WikiStatus only as a shorthand for
> Wikipedia Status and spell it out most of the time, but sometimes
> acronyms take on a life of their own, say if you register a domain
> for it.
>
> Thanks,
> Dirk

--
http://simonwoodside.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] J2ME Client for Wikipedia

body:
On Nov 26, 2005, at 9:04 PM, Jama Poulsen wrote:

> An interesting quote from our discussion several months ago:
>
>   "The problem is, that in mediawiki there is no separation between
>   layout and content. Everywhere tables are used to make layout.
>
>   As long this is not repaired - I think this is a major error,
> because
>   CMS Systems should provide such a separation and stand on it - I can
>   not display tables."
>
> So there are some major challenges to viewing Wikipedia articles in
> other ways. Using a tableless infobox rendering system (with
> stylesheet
> support) would be a good start.

Wikipedia actually displays pretty well in mobile browsers. These are
some of the standard problems:

Too much chrome - mobiles have small screens and the users want to
get straight to the content instead of scroll, scroll, scroll past
the same chrome all the time. WP could use CSS display:none to get
rid of this though (in combination with the media="handheld" include
directive for CSS).

Long articles - basically your average mobile user is going to be
unhappy if they download a 50KB + article. The ideal way to solve
this in my opinion would be some kind of automatic pagination of long
articles.

Large images - again it's a big download. If WP could create smaller
thumbs of the images for mobiles that would be sweet. Again some kind
of media="handheld" hacking could maybe be used for this. (Or browser
detection.....)

It would be really cool if wikipedia took a forefront in developing
pages that used CSS handheld and other techniques properly to look
good in both regular browsers and also on mobile phones. You can use
Opera's "Small Screen" option to emulate a mobile that has proper CSS
support. You can see some of the techniques I described above in
action at my site ( http://semacode.org/ )...

--simon


from_name: Jama Poulsen

subject: [Wikitech-l] J2ME Client for Wikipedia

body:
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 01:41:26AM +0100, Federico Paparoni wrote:
> i'm the administrator of a Java italian website, javastaff.com. We are
> a group of developers and we would like to create a J2ME client for
> Wikipedia, that would be an interesting software for a cellular phone.
> Of course we will do it only to donate a good software to the
> users.

See: http://www.en.wapedia.org

I asked the author of that site (Florian Amrhein) if he wanted to
release his parser tool as free software, but he wanted to clean it
up first.

An interesting quote from our discussion several months ago:

  "The problem is, that in mediawiki there is no separation between
  layout and content. Everywhere tables are used to make layout.

  As long this is not repaired - I think this is a major error, because
  CMS Systems should provide such a separation and stand on it - I can
  not display tables."

So there are some major challenges to viewing Wikipedia articles in
other ways. Using a tableless infobox rendering system (with stylesheet
support) would be a good start.

Jama Poulsen
http://wikicompany.org
http://debianlinux.net


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] How is validation supposed to work?

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> stevertigo wrote:
>
> >IMHO, the 'lets mine this turnip and
> >hope we find gold' approach won't work. It's a
> >Murphy's Law, or something like it. Testing to see
> >what crap floats is indeed only useful for
> Calvinball.
> >
> Yeah, just putting new toys online to see what
> happens is really a
> stupid idea.
>
> Thankfully, we never tried such nonsense at Nupedia.
> Who knows what we
> would have ended up with, instead of the twenty-plus
> high-quality
> articles we now have after years of hard labor.

Point taken (and thats certainly my kind of sarcasm
:]) but you also make My point:
The use /discovery /application of the wiki software
to the purpose of creating an encyclopedia was a
relative fluke. You can't expect that kind of
breakthrough to happen again in the same manner to the
same general group of people in a newly developed
application toward the same idea.

In fact the conditions are greatly different than
Nupedia, as Wikipedia was a separate experimental fork
which was started from absolute scratch. Im sure
your'e far more aware than I how Wikipedia is not a
'lets throw it up and see what it does' kind of
environment anymore. Im sure thats not the way many
other non-coders see it, who contribute largely
through the established "normal" wiki processes, and
see the value of Wikipedia in the hard work put into
it by countless people.

The AVF idea is about drastically changing the way
that Wikipedia articles are edited (ideally in a way
which conforms to and mirrors the egalitarian and
meritocratic openness of Wikipedia that has brough
success thus far). There's a philosophical base and a
history of discussion about the idea which newbies and
even oldbies need to understand, in order for it to
really work IMHO, but I understand if ATP your'e just
looking at it from the basic 'will this code work for
something' point of view.

> All of the above *might* happen. Which is why we
have a test phase. If
> the voting trolls really turn out to be a problem,
we could restrict
> viewing of the individual votes to admins (to check
for bot abuse and
> the like). Or each user could chose to hide his/her
votes individually.
>
> In the test setup, everything goes. Even anons (or
whatever they're
> called now :-) can vote. This might or might not be
a good idea in the
> long run. But there's only one way to find out.

No, all of the above can be *expected* to happen in a
'test phase' for an app which in fact does not yet
work and for whose immediate results are explained to
be meaningless. If written to solicit help, the T'Pol
wiki will probably give you pretty much the same kind
of results. All that said, Ive read Timwi's
explanation of what to do with the first batch of
cookies and Im somewhat more hopeful. Yes, baby steps
-- I understand.

Stevertigo

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Timeout problem fixed

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

Moin,

On Sunday 27 November 2005 00:49, Tim Starling wrote:
> The site was randomly slow for the last week or two, maybe 10% of
> requests would time out. And for a couple of days, requests through the
> Amsterdam squids were timing out very regularly. Both problems are
> fixed now. I apologise that it took us so long to figure out -- it was
> a very frustrating problem that took a while despite the best efforts
> of the sysadmin team. In both cases it was subtle LVS misconfiguration,
> we're developing automated tools to test for similar problems occurring
> in the future.
>
> After that was fixed, I finished setting up the 20 new dual opterons,
> and put them into apache service. So service times for CPU-intensive
> operations should be quite good. And of course Brion put amane into
> service last week, so the problem with image load times should be
> fixed. The Florida squids might still be a bit slow, we have more on
> order.

Just let me say:
 +---+---+---+---+---+  +---+---+---+---+
 | T | H | A | N | K |  | Y | O | U | ! |
 +---+---+---+---+---+  +---+---+---+---+

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sun Nov 27 10:34:36 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "helft den armen v?geln"  -- gegen kleinschreibung

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iQEVAwUBQ4l+LXcLPEOTuEwVAQEk2Qf/UdrBYyWeOJ/9NnrWDJFSFnBZcQ4hWRxA
dr4kLfQYodXowQk0ggEYYqNSm+f3VKT+c1v1D0lRIeEh/2CHT4Ko56+/9nibuFo2
2bkvUWoooSC4S/c7N5YskVVeqWgk/a0Ucn1rge7XUhHdBtdc30oKFqlQhgfzrk0Z
luwbnh3iVfxLcyR+8mK8+dQaUOBDALl1LTCyftoGVttg9JxgaUB8VrbY4s+uTjTP
YjuEdV+b8/ZpjNHK3pc+9QgIEQWpQvkI6oYjEHYuHkJJ0qsHR7zNeeSBeQB8teS0
W3u9y+kotE3Wj4ZTe2DNqzOER9FJagvMHCis4YvNvo76WGp+6vMy5Q==
=RTxP
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] J2ME Client for Wikipedia

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

Moin,

On Sunday 27 November 2005 08:39, S. Woodside wrote:
> On Nov 26, 2005, at 9:04 PM, Jama Poulsen wrote:
> > An interesting quote from our discussion several months ago:
> >
> >   "The problem is, that in mediawiki there is no separation between
> >   layout and content. Everywhere tables are used to make layout.
> >
> >   As long this is not repaired - I think this is a major error,
> > because
> >   CMS Systems should provide such a separation and stand on it - I
> > can not display tables."
> >
> > So there are some major challenges to viewing Wikipedia articles in
> > other ways. Using a tableless infobox rendering system (with
> > stylesheet
> > support) would be a good start.
>
> Wikipedia actually displays pretty well in mobile browsers. These are
> some of the standard problems:
[snipabit]

Just to plug shamelessly one of my projects:

	http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/

When graphs/flowcharts/relationships are not rendered as PNG but as HTML
or ASCII, like so:

 # echo '[ Server ] -- HTTP --> [ Mobile\nClient ]' | perl as_ascii

 +--------+         +--------+
 | Server |  HTTP   | Mobile |
 |        | ------> | Client |
 +--------+         +--------+

Then the mobile user would have it easier to zoom the "image". The
download size might even be smaller, the example above is 804 bytes as
compressed PNG, but only about 100 bytes uncompressed text.

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sun Nov 27 10:36:50 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone." --
 Unknown

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iQEVAwUBQ4l/WncLPEOTuEwVAQEYIQf/U/ccl65IxZWVb3OS+Neb1crh+ccvO5xh
UVwLRzlRz0fOnZdtGzMm2fxMR4LuH3VzcaDGj3ODpkL8DK0lwEGPJc3EtMRMj/aq
EdUHOJBjGtyzlV1UCqA9l6Aa72hovBanh3BxYMYieRQD/a1YVT+CKREUyl64o4r+
08GYkmrQvKGzRhMKqDLBxrzhpZoNEQoz3VHf2NlY8LgzUmkWu23fNeY/lST1YrEF
P/TKP311aSg/Y6uq/2XIMxP6m2kR+5C81y6ewrgybn3xNthw+aUnJXF8EevGYpou
CQtHk5oIwb3LYONlsFdoTvNnFcpHc3SRsYwn9iWWQ2opWtOvplctJA==
=Iz8V
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


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

Moin,

On Sunday 27 November 2005 00:18, Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> Eh... no one has actually commented on the program itself... :(
>
> Dirk Riehle wrote:
> > I think it would be good to make sure we don't equate the world of
> > wikis with Wikipedia. [snip]
> >
> > I recognize that you use WikiStatus only as a shorthand for Wikipedia
> >  Status and spell it out most of the time, but sometimes acronyms
> > take on a life of their own, say if you register a domain for it.
>
> On second thought, the name doesn't seem that good. WikiStatus implies
> that it is a wiki about status (which is incorrect). The next
> interpretation is that it's the status of a wiki, Wikipedia, which is
> not true either: the software should be usable for any service out
> there on the web even though it was originally designed for Wikipedia.
>
> SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So wikipstatus.com, with a silent p?
>
> Well, it would be a .net, but no. :o) Any other suggestions?

Heartbeat? Or, on a less serious note: CanYouHearMeNow?  :)

I suck at namefinding, obviously :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sun Nov 27 10:42:45 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "My wife is just a slow brain, running up the bill.." -- Often misheard
 song lyrics #149

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iQEVAwUBQ4l/6XcLPEOTuEwVAQF0nAf7BWsSef53d+dAUCQslr0Qr+vlkHCmx5pd
nRa7bkQL+wB3mWpC9rMP3coQlI+dlyLpKX7QHrD3ozhw1vyeISCTtRLVETgd20kD
GRbSb1gE/AHgeB5FTqBxjEbOeeiuCNOoZ9hPuhl1JrGhvkrVObi7YvTDixpCATAz
thGdKrH3fuORHHWYWlcw2z8ftPO5Oq1ukKSDxMVDxmXCgsTDtgcrb1wAZf6UZZoU
7j3GDVcPch8FA8xqtnMux1ksVr1Pp9w7/gczzBaNDLqi9gDHEUkTttG0QOL68NXU
3/RlwQLU3taGXuRxYiBO3LSDucd9SD9p+QQcN+WMtOj1YmLZxwG6gQ==
=GbM/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Timeout problem fixed

body:
The site was randomly slow for the last week or two, maybe 10% of requests
would time out. And for a couple of days, requests through the Amsterdam
squids were timing out very regularly. Both problems are fixed now. I
apologise that it took us so long to figure out -- it was a very frustrating
problem that took a while despite the best efforts of the sysadmin team. In
both cases it was subtle LVS misconfiguration, we're developing automated
tools to test for similar problems occurring in the future.

After that was fixed, I finished setting up the 20 new dual opterons, and
put them into apache service. So service times for CPU-intensive operations
should be quite good. And of course Brion put amane into service last week,
so the problem with image load times should be fixed. The Florida squids
might still be a bit slow, we have more on order.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Grease Monkee wrote:
> First, a simple example;
> 1) Newbi is a disruptive moron, HardAss(admin) gives him simple clear
> instructions on how not to be disruptive moron, once.
> 2) Newbi replies to HardAss(admin); "Fuck You", and continues to disrupt.
> 3) HardAss blocks Newbi and gives another short, clear lecture on how to
> behave
> 4) Newbi replies by spitting venom and calling for justice over his violated
> civil rights.
> 5) Cycle repeats, escalating each time in the tone of rhetoric and length of
> blocks.
> 6) Along comes NiceGuy(admin) who sticks up for Newbi, telling him
> "..listen, I will unblock you, but you gotta do x,y and z..." Thereby
> supplying a face saving mechanism for Newbi.
> 7) Newbi either starts to behave, or gets blocked for longer and longer
> periods
>
> The most common mistake made implementing this strategy is that NiceGuy is
> overly critical of HardAss, not realising that his mentorship of Newbi won't
> work without the threat of HardAss looming. Likewise, HardAss often takes it
> personally when NiceGuy unblocks someone, not realising it as a face saving
> feature that allows Newbi to behave.

Good faith communication among admins is critical to this sort of thing.
 In such a case, NiceGuy should try to contact HardAss beforehand to get
agreement on the strategy.  Or _even better_, HardAss admins should seek
out NiceGuy admins and say to them "Look here, I've been bonking this
guy on the head for a bit, to minimal effect, but if you want to come in
and befriend him and try and turn him about, I'm happy to lay off."

--Jimbo


body:
MAURICE FRANK wrote:
> to Grease Monkee <welloiledmachine at gmail.com>
>
> Suppose Nice Guy's unblock carries a link back to Nice
> Guy, the same as a link to watch a topic, that watches
> out for any reblocking. So Hardass's efforts can be
> negated as soon as they happen? and politically
> motivated permablocks done as hastily as they are now
> would be harder to make strick.

I don't think we should read "HardAss" in this scenario as a bad guy who
needs to have efforts negated.  The point is, different among us have
different styles, all of which can be effective with the right sort.

The HardAsses give credibility to the notion that going along with the
mentorship of a NiceGuy is a Good Idea if you want to stay around.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brazilian Portuguese

body:
Marcio Pereira wrote:
> I don?t know if that is significant difference to the Wikipedia standards,
> to justify a Brazilian Portuguese project. It is for a lot of other
> projects.
>
> Is it significant ?

In a prior discussion in Portuguese Wikipedia, it was decided to stay
together.  One factor in the decision is that there is a commitment of
some kind of both the governments of Brazil and Portugal to unify the
language.

--Jimbo


from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Fair use in non-English Wikipedias (moved from
	wikien)

body:
2005/11/26, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org>:

> Is this really how it works in the German Wikipedia (and other
> non-English Wikipedias)?

Yes, the German Wikipedia does not allow fair use for pictures period.
Several other (including my own nl:) do the same. And what is more, it
is also the policy on Commons.

>  I assume you must allow some form of fair
> dealing, as it's difficult to think of a photo of the real world that
> doesn't contain *some* copyrighted materials incidently.

As far as I can see, the 'no fair use' policy mostly restricts itself
to the pictures themselves, and to book covers, works of art etc. that
are the main subject of the image. I have not seen protests against
objects being shown (except for the above), or against buildings,
except that on the Dutch Wikipedia pictures of the Atomium are not
allowed because someone found a news message where someone was
actually charged a few hundred Euro for having a picture of the
Atomium on his private but public website.

>  Does the
> German Wikipedia have many pictures of celebrities and big events?

It depends on what you call 'many'. But
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People has quite a large
number of pictures already.

> Do you find that not allowing non-free images detracts significantly from
> the encyclopedia (ignoring, if you can, the benefits of the images
> being free)?

No, I don't see how it detracts. On the English Wikipedia there are
also plenty of articles without pictures, does that distract you?

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: <link> elements for interlanguage link information

references:
<1131981004.29814.52.camel@zhora.1481ruerachel.net>	<dll8u3$oua$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1132538575.6605.35.camel@localhost.localdomain>	<43813378.4060605@pobox.com>	<dm4rkd$bl$1@sea.gmane.org>	<43862300.20000@pobox.com>	<dm9iam$l0h$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmaedn$qpm$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmaj7b$7f5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmamu0$ibd$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Jamie Bliss wrote:
>
> I'd say (although I am not on the dev team) write the code and make it a
> user option.

Making it a user option is a good suggestion, however I hope everyone
realises that the new behaviour would have to be default for the change
to actually fulfill its intended purpose (improve search engine ranking).


body:
> Eh... no one has actually commented on the program itself... :(

It's called "silent praise"! :-) It means that it's so good that it
doesn't warrant any criticism. :-)

> On second thought, the name doesn't seem that good. WikiStatus implies
> that it is a wiki about status (which is incorrect).

No, it doesn't; Wikipedia isn't "a wiki about (encyclo)pedia(s)",
Wiktionary isn't "a wiki about dictionary", etc. It's still incorrect
though because it's not a wiki :)

> The next interpretation is that it's the status of a wiki, Wikipedia,
> which is not true either: the software should be usable for any
> service out there on the web even though it was originally designed
> for Wikipedia.

In that case, call it "SiteStatus"?

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: J2ME Client for Wikipedia

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> If you're talking about what *people on Wikipedia* do in spicing up pages with
> unnecessary, wasteful, stupid, non-portable markup, that's a different matter.

MediaWiki is not entirely innocent here because it encourages this
behaviour. By far the easiest way to achieve the layouts people want is
by using stupid, non-portable mark-up. Wanting to achieve a good layout,
however, is neither unnecessary nor wasteful.

Timwi


body:
S. Woodside wrote:
>
> Long articles - basically your average mobile user is going to be
> unhappy if they download a 50KB + article.

Why? Do those phones have such little memory that they can't cope with
that? Or are the browsers so crap they can't display the beginning of
the page until all 50KB are loaded?

> The ideal way to solve  this in my opinion would be some kind of
> automatic pagination of long  articles.

I would find *that* annoying - I would have to keep clicking and loading
more and more pages to get to different parts of an article.

Timwi


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Foundation-l] Cluster report, September-November, 2005

body:
Hello, just a shameless copy-paste from meta (http://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cluster_report%2C_September-November%2C_2005)

These months were yet again amazing in Wikimedia growth history.
Since September request rates doubled, lots of information added,
modified and expanded, more users came.
To deal with that site had to improve both software and hardware
platforms again.

Of course, more hardware was thrown at the problem.
In mid-September three new database servers (thistle,ixia,lomaria)
were added to the pool, removing ancient type of hardware from the
service.
With data growth rates 'old' 4GB-RAM boxes could not keep up with
operation, except quite limited one.
40 dual-opteron application servers have been deployed, conserving
our limited colocation space, as well as providing lots of
performance for a buck.
One batch of them (20) was deployed just this week.
They're equipped with larger drives and more memory, thus allowing to
place various unplanned services on them (9 apache servers are
storing old revisions as well), some servers participate in shared
memory pool, running memcached.

One of really efficient purchases was 12k$ worth image server
'amane', providing us with storage space and even ability to to
backup at current loads.
It is running now highly efficient and lightweight HTTP server -
lighttpd.
So far images are served, but growth of Wikimedia Commons will force
us to find a really scalable and reliable way to handle lots of media.

Additionally 10 more application servers are ordered together with a
new Squid cache server batch.
These 10 single-opteron boxes will have 4 small and fast disks and
should enable efficient caching of content.

As all this gear was bought for donated money, we really appreciate
community help here, thank you!

Yahoo supplied cluster in Seoul, Korea has finally got into action,
bringing cached content closer to Asian locations, as well as having
master databases and application cluster for Japanese, Thai, Korean
and Malaysian Wikipedias.

For internal load balancing Perlbal was replaced by LVS, and we've
got a nice flashy donated load balancing device that may be deployed
into operation soon as well.
LVS has to be handled with care and several tiny misconfiguration
incidents seriously affected site performance.
Lately the cluster has became quite big and complex and now we need
more sophisticated and extensive sanity checks and test cases.

There are lots of work in establishing more failover capabilities -
we will be having two active links to our main ISP in Florida.
Static HTML dump is (becoming) nice and usable and may help us in
case of serious crashes. It can be served from Amsterdam cluster as
well!

As for last several days we managed to bring cluster into quite
proper working shape, now it's important to fix everything and
prepare for more load and more growth and yet another expansion.
We hope that we will be able with the help of community to solve all
our performance and stability issues and avoid being Lohipedia :)

Lots of various problems were solved so far in order to achieve what
we have now, and lots of low hanging fruits have been picked.
What is dealt now with is complex and needs manpower and fresh ideas
as well.

Discussions are always welcome on #wikimedia-tech in Freenode (except
during serious downtimes :).

And, of course, Thanks Team (or rather, Family)! It is amazing to
work together!

Cheers,
Domas


subject: [Wikitech-l] Cluster report, September-November, 2005


from_name: Jamie Bliss

references:
<1131981004.29814.52.camel@zhora.1481ruerachel.net>	<dll8u3$oua$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1132538575.6605.35.camel@localhost.localdomain>	<43813378.4060605@pobox.com>	<dm4rkd$bl$1@sea.gmane.org>	<43862300.20000@pobox.com>	<dm9iam$l0h$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmaedn$qpm$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmaj7b$7f5$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmamu0$ibd$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmcdas$tgp$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Jamie Bliss wrote:
> Making it a user option is a good suggestion, however I hope everyone
> realises that the new behaviour would have to be default for the change
> to actually fulfill its intended purpose (improve search engine ranking).

Does that line provide the inexperianced/ignorant user with any
information of value? (ignorant == "unaware of how MW works in this regard")

A casual reader will not care if they are redirected between pages. An
inexperianced editor _may_ wonder why they link to [[Foo]] and end up at
[[Bar]]; some help entries can help on this if they don't already exist.

IMHO, the information is rarely of value. Situations in which it is
almost always involves editing and maintenance. I consider it unlikely
of an anonymous and/or inexperianced editor wondering about this. (The
true test is the various support channels.)

My request is that the status "301 Moved Permanently" not be used, and
instead use "302 Found", "303 See Other", or "307 Temporary Redirect".
(Only 302 is compatible with HTTP/1.0 agents.)

-- Jamie
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://endeavour.zapto.org/astro73/
Thank you to JosephM for inviting me to Gmail!
Have lots of invites. Gmail now has 2GB.


body:
Timwi wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> If you're talking about what *people on Wikipedia* do in spicing up
>> pages with
>> unnecessary, wasteful, stupid, non-portable markup, that's a different
>> matter.
>
> MediaWiki is not entirely innocent here because it encourages this
> behaviour. By far the easiest way to achieve the layouts people want is
> by using stupid, non-portable mark-up. Wanting to achieve a good layout,
> however, is neither unnecessary nor wasteful.

Indeed. It should be remembered that most (if not almost all)
contributors in Wikipedia are not knowledgable or even aware of HTML.

-- Jamie
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://endeavour.zapto.org/astro73/
Thank you to JosephM for inviting me to Gmail!
Have lots of invites. Gmail now has 2GB.


from_name: Brian

subject: [Wikitech-l] RC patrol for ~50 smallest wikipedias

body:
There have been numerous reports recently of finding rampant vandalism
on small Wikipedias/Wiktionaries. It might be useful to create an RC
page and/or IRC channel which brings together the RC's of the ~50
smallest Wikipedias.

brian0918


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Cluster report, September-November, 2005

body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> Hello, just a shameless copy-paste from meta (http://
> meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cluster_report%2C_September-November%2C_2005)
>
> These months were yet again amazing in Wikimedia growth history.
> Since September request rates doubled, lots of information added,
> modified and expanded, more users came.
> To deal with that site had to improve both software and hardware
> platforms again.
>
> Of course, more hardware was thrown at the problem.
> In mid-September three new database servers (thistle,ixia,lomaria)  were
> added to the pool, removing ancient type of hardware from the  service.
> With data growth rates 'old' 4GB-RAM boxes could not keep up with
> operation, except quite limited one.
> 40 dual-opteron application servers have been deployed, conserving  our
> limited colocation space, as well as providing lots of  performance for
> a buck.
> One batch of them (20) was deployed just this week.
> They're equipped with larger drives and more memory, thus allowing to
> place various unplanned services on them (9 apache servers are  storing
> old revisions as well), some servers participate in shared  memory pool,
> running memcached.
>
> One of really efficient purchases was 12k$ worth image server  'amane',
> providing us with storage space and even ability to to  backup at
> current loads.
> It is running now highly efficient and lightweight HTTP server -  lighttpd.
> So far images are served, but growth of Wikimedia Commons will force  us
> to find a really scalable and reliable way to handle lots of media.
>
> Additionally 10 more application servers are ordered together with a
> new Squid cache server batch.
> These 10 single-opteron boxes will have 4 small and fast disks and
> should enable efficient caching of content.
>
> As all this gear was bought for donated money, we really appreciate
> community help here, thank you!
>
> Yahoo supplied cluster in Seoul, Korea has finally got into action,
> bringing cached content closer to Asian locations, as well as having
> master databases and application cluster for Japanese, Thai, Korean  and
> Malaysian Wikipedias.
>
> For internal load balancing Perlbal was replaced by LVS, and we've  got
> a nice flashy donated load balancing device that may be deployed  into
> operation soon as well.
> LVS has to be handled with care and several tiny misconfiguration
> incidents seriously affected site performance.
> Lately the cluster has became quite big and complex and now we need
> more sophisticated and extensive sanity checks and test cases.
>
> There are lots of work in establishing more failover capabilities -  we
> will be having two active links to our main ISP in Florida.
> Static HTML dump is (becoming) nice and usable and may help us in  case
> of serious crashes. It can be served from Amsterdam cluster as  well!
>
> As for last several days we managed to bring cluster into quite  proper
> working shape, now it's important to fix everything and  prepare for
> more load and more growth and yet another expansion.
> We hope that we will be able with the help of community to solve all
> our performance and stability issues and avoid being Lohipedia :)
>
> Lots of various problems were solved so far in order to achieve what  we
> have now, and lots of low hanging fruits have been picked.
> What is dealt now with is complex and needs manpower and fresh ideas  as
> well.
>
> Discussions are always welcome on #wikimedia-tech in Freenode (except
> during serious downtimes :).
>
> And, of course, Thanks Team (or rather, Family)! It is amazing to  work
> together!
>
> Cheers,
> Domas

A big cheer for Domas, Brion, Tim, Mark, Kate and all others helping for
the site to follow up (see : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Developer)

On a more personal note, thanks a lot for the report Dammit :-)

I take the opportunity to remind editors they might find information in
such places such as
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Hardware_and_hosting_report

See also
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_September_14%2C_2005
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_October_6%2C_2005
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_October_18%2C_2005
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hardware_ordered_November_15%2C_2005
for last orders. This does not show the daily work of maintenance,
install and improvement though...

Thanks again.

Ant


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] For those wondering why Wikipedia is
	slow sometimes

body:
On 11/27/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-November/032708.html
>
> Requests have *doubled* since September. We're just about keeping up
> with demand ...
>
> And remember that this top-40 website is run by one paid admin/developer
> and some volunteers on a shoestring by a nonprofit ...
>
>
> - d.

Nothing like seeing the problem and the solution all in one handy email.


subject: [Foundation-l] board meeting...

body:
A meeting of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees was held on irc
on November 13, 2005.

Notes may be found here :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/November_13%2C_2005


subject: [Foundation-l] board meeting...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nightmare getting on WP

body:
See Domas report here :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Hardware_and_hosting_report

Ant

Tom Cadden wrote:
> What is going on with the server? It has been a nightmare tonight? One minute it is down. The next up. The next down again. I finally got an article I had to write off WP onto WP but 10 seconds later when I tried to add in a second I couldn't - it would take so long my browser would time out.
>
>  Sometimes I'm told that my article has not been saved, but then when I look on my watchlist there it is. Other times I save something but it isn't on anything.
>
>  At this stage one can forget about using the preview button (oh look another timed out message on my other screen!) to make sure everything is OK. It is a matter of saving in case in a few seconds the damn thing goes down yet again. (Oh lookie, its back again.) *sigh*
>
>  Better go and use it before it goes for the 28th time.
>
>  Thom
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>   Win a Yahoo! Vespa NEW - Yahoo! Cars has 3 Vespa LX125s to be won Enter Now!
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
On 11/27/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> S. Woodside wrote:
> >
> > Long articles - basically your average mobile user is going to be
> > unhappy if they download a 50KB + article.
>
> Why? Do those phones have such little memory that they can't cope with
> that? Or are the browsers so crap they can't display the beginning of
> the page until all 50KB are loaded?

Some mobile phone users pay their data connection according to the
number of KB transferred. Good for reading text-only email, but not
for much else.

Alfio


from_name: Heinz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikis and Wikipedia

body:
If a Wiki is a site within the WWW USING a wiki, then wikipedia is not
even a wiki. Then MediaWiki is (?) the most well-known wiki.

Heinz

Dirk Riehle schrieb:
> Re: choice of term "WikiStatus"
>
> I think it would be good to make sure we don't equate the world of wikis
> with Wikipedia. Wikipedia may be the most well-known and important wiki,
> but the world of wikis as I'm sure everyone here knows is much broader
> and more diverse than even Wikipedia.
>


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikis and Wikipedia

body:
On 11/27/05, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> If a Wiki is a site within the WWW USING a wiki, then wikipedia is not
> even a wiki. Then MediaWiki is (?) the most well-known wiki.

mediawiki is not an wiki, except mediawiki.org :)

I'm glad we found a debate in which anyone can contribute anything
without risking to move this debate Offtopic....

followup policy-l instead of this list anyone?

Mathias


body:
On 11/27/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/11/26, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org>:
>
> > Is this really how it works in the German Wikipedia (and other
> > non-English Wikipedias)?
>
> Yes, the German Wikipedia does not allow fair use for pictures period.
> Several other (including my own nl:) do the same. And what is more, it
> is also the policy on Commons.
>
It's somewhat odd that the different languages have different policies
on fair use.  From a legal standpoint, it really shouldn't matter what
language the article is written in.  I suppose it's enough to stay
under the radar this way, though.

It'd be interesting to see if there are any cases of a US company
suing another US company in court for violating foreign law.  I
believe it is legally possible (based on my extremely limited
knowledge of international copyright law), but it'd be a strange case.
 Does 2 Live Crew distribute "Pretty Woman" in Germany?

> >  I assume you must allow some form of fair
> > dealing, as it's difficult to think of a photo of the real world that
> > doesn't contain *some* copyrighted materials incidently.
>
> As far as I can see, the 'no fair use' policy mostly restricts itself
> to the pictures themselves, and to book covers, works of art etc. that
> are the main subject of the image. I have not seen protests against
> objects being shown (except for the above), or against buildings,
> except that on the Dutch Wikipedia pictures of the Atomium are not
> allowed because someone found a news message where someone was
> actually charged a few hundred Euro for having a picture of the
> Atomium on his private but public website.
>
That makes sense, I guess.  How about on the text side?  I assume
there's not an outright ban on quotations, but how lenient are the
rules on that?  This is another point that usually comes up when
someone suggests completely banning fair use.

> >  Does the
> > German Wikipedia have many pictures of celebrities and big events?
>
> It depends on what you call 'many'. But
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People has quite a large
> number of pictures already.
>
Well, this is a place where there are a lot of images on the English
Wikipedia which are fair use, and I kind of assumed they wouldn't be
there if we already had a free picture on the commons.

What about non-free pictures that are legal for Wikipedia to use?
No-derivatives images, non-commercial only images, by permission
images.  Are these banned?  Are there many floating around?  I believe
these are banned from commons, except for some logos owned by
Wikimedia.

> > Do you find that not allowing non-free images detracts significantly from
> > the encyclopedia (ignoring, if you can, the benefits of the images
> > being free)?
>
> No, I don't see how it detracts. On the English Wikipedia there are
> also plenty of articles without pictures, does that distract you?
>
This might be a misunderstanding of what I was saying.  Not including
non-free images clearly has positives and negatives.  Personally I
believe the positives outweigh the negatives, at least in the vast
majority of cases.  In my opinion every article should have at least
some image in it eventually.  Adding a non-free image fixes that
problem in the short term, but in the long term it lessens the chance
that a free image will come along.

Of course, if all the rest of the languages still lack the image,
maybe they'll be the ones to make the free image for us :).  I'm
joking to some extent.  Besides that being kind of rude there are
*some* images which are much more likely to be made by someone who
only speaks English.

Anyway, the English Wikipedia seems to be relying less on fair use
than it has in the past.  I think it's good for us to look at the
other languages to see that it really wouldn't be that horrible to
drop reliance on it completely.

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

Anthony


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: J2ME Client for Wikipedia & low income nations

body:
On Nov 27, 2005, at 9:56 AM, Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> On 11/27/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>> S. Woodside wrote:
>>>
>>> Long articles - basically your average mobile user is going to be
>>> unhappy if they download a 50KB + article.
>>
>> Why? Do those phones have such little memory that they can't cope
>> with
>> that? Or are the browsers so crap they can't display the beginning of
>> the page until all 50KB are loaded?
>
> Some mobile phone users pay their data connection according to the
> number of KB transferred. Good for reading text-only email, but not
> for much else.

I think that it's more accurate to say "most" mobile phone users.
Including a lot of users who have "unlimited" plans that do actually
have a cap.

The other reason is that mobile data speeds are currently on par
roughly with a 14.4 modem, so that size matters for speed. 3G is
faster, but it's not coming in very quickly.

Here's another thing: in low-income nations, mobile clients might
actually be WAY more available to the average person than a desktop
client! The trend for mobile data in the developing nations is HUGE.

--simon

--
http://simonwoodside.com


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
...

There already is such a thing, just not in an IRC channel

Mark

On 27/11/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There have been numerous reports recently of finding rampant vandalism
> on small Wikipedias/Wiktionaries. It might be useful to create an RC
> page and/or IRC channel which brings together the RC's of the ~50
> smallest Wikipedias.
>
> brian0918
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

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

Timwi wrote:
> No, it doesn't; Wikipedia isn't "a wiki about (encyclo)pedia(s)",
> Wiktionary isn't "a wiki about dictionary", etc. It's still incorrect
> though because it's not a wiki :)

You're right! Wikipedia is an "encyclopedia run on a wiki." So
Wikistatus should be a "status run on a wiki." If you interpret wiki
liberally and say "a collaborative Web site set up to allow user
editing", WikiStatus isn't that far off the mark... but you're right,
it's not a wiki. It's... hmm... an page with user-switchable status
flags with imageboard style comment system. Now, to compress into a
catchy two word phrase...

Tels wrote:
> Heartbeat? Or, on a less serious note: CanYouHearMeNow?  :)

Timwi wrote:
> In that case, call it "SiteStatus"?

Mmm... they're a bit too generic. (and CanYouHearMeNow is based off an
ad, am I not mistaken?) I like SiteStatus, but it doesn't indicate that
it is community run... I'm not good at naming either, as you can see. :o)

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFDiiybqTO+fYacSNoRAh8pAJwIj2tOtrzF6wxNbRa+zJlsIEDVfgCdFaBv
Vv2dwxkgAxCQw1F92qFfI1E=
=VU9k
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
On 11/27/05, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> > It's somewhat odd that the different languages have different policies
> > on fair use.  From a legal standpoint, it really shouldn't matter what
> > language the article is written in.  I suppose it's enough to stay
> > under the radar this way, though.
>
> If about 99% editors and readers of Polish Wikipedia live in Poland,
> do you think that they couldn't be sued for infringing copyright only
> because they do it on an American server?
>
> --
> Ausir
> Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
> http://pl.wikipedia.org

Again, from a legal standpoint, I don't think it should matter whether
99% of editors and readers live in Poland or 5% do.  So if someone
*could* sue Wikipedia for an image in the Polish Wikipedia, then they
probably *could* sue Wikipedia for an image in the English Wikipedia.

Maybe the likelihood that someone *would* sue Wikipedia changes.  But
that, at least for images whose copyright is held by American
companies, brings back the question of whether or not an American
company is likely to sue an American non-profit organization for
violating Polish copyright law (regardless of where the servers are
located).

And, by the way, many of the servers aren't in the United States anyway.

Anthony


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/27/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> What about non-free pictures that are legal for Wikipedia to use?
> No-derivatives images, non-commercial only images, by permission
> images.  Are these banned?  Are there many floating around?  I believe
> these are banned from commons, except for some logos owned by
> Wikimedia.

These are banned on *english* Wikipedia and I presume on all others.

We would rather have the smallest amount of fair use content (or
otherwise unfree content) on Wikipedia possible, because it would
maximize our goal to be a *free* encyclopedia. This would be true even
if there was no confusion or international disconnect over fair use.
However,  the English Wikipedia community has decided that in order to
do our job successfully we must make some non-minimal use of fair use
content because a great many historically significant images are only
available that way and a great many other images are much more
available.

We don't extend the same tolerance for 'with permission' or
'non-commercial' because it isn't at all clear that choice of freedom
in that case cuts us out from a great number of images which we could
obtain in no other way.

Perhaps the difference in the decision is in part caused by our
differing competition, is Brockhaus highly illustrated?

In any case, there is already pressure from some on English Wikipedia
to further restrict our use of fair use to only cases where it can
clearly be articulated that no reasonable freely licensed content
could be created to replace the fair use image.  As time goes on and
more photographers join our project, I suspect that such desires will
gain traction and we will see a reduction in fair use there.

> This might be a misunderstanding of what I was saying.  Not including
> non-free images clearly has positives and negatives.  Personally I
> believe the positives outweigh the negatives, at least in the vast
> majority of cases.  In my opinion every article should have at least
> some image in it eventually.  Adding a non-free image fixes that
> problem in the short term, but in the long term it lessens the chance
> that a free image will come along.

You make it sound a lot more cut and dry than it actually is... Fair
use is not a blanket permission to violate copyright as such it is not
really a good quick fix to a missing image. In most interesting
jurisdictions, since parody isn't something we are likely to do, we
must be making critical commentary of the creative work we borrow from
in order to make a strong fair use claim.

For the case of a great many articles, it's simply easier to nag
someone with access to the right place or object to take a picture.

> Of course, if all the rest of the languages still lack the image,
> maybe they'll be the ones to make the free image for us :).  I'm
> joking to some extent.  Besides that being kind of rude there are
> *some* images which are much more likely to be made by someone who
> only speaks English.
>
> Anyway, the English Wikipedia seems to be relying less on fair use
> than it has in the past.  I think it's good for us to look at the
> other languages to see that it really wouldn't be that horrible to
> drop reliance on it completely.

Ah, so you've spotted that trend. It's true and I think it is an
unquestionably good thing.


body:
On 11/27/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Again, from a legal standpoint, I don't think it should matter whether
> 99% of editors and readers live in Poland or 5% do.  So if someone
> *could* sue Wikipedia for an image in the Polish Wikipedia, then they
> probably *could* sue Wikipedia for an image in the English Wikipedia.
>
In case it's not clear, I'm implying here that Wikipedia probably
*could* be sued for copyright infingement which is fair use even on
the English Wikipedia.

I've had some conversations with actual lawyers about this, and
they've suggested that this is possible even in the case of images
whose copyright is held by US companies.  The US company could get a
ruling in a foreign court using foreign laws.  Whether or not this
ruling could be enforced is another question, but as Wikipedia is
starting to hold assets in lots of different countries that part is
becoming easier.

Anthony


from_name: Rob Lanphier

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: <link> elements for interlanguage link
	information

references:
<1131981004.29814.52.camel@zhora.1481ruerachel.net>
	<dll8u3$oua$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1132538575.6605.35.camel@localhost.localdomain>
	<43813378.4060605@pobox.com>	<dm4rkd$bl$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<43862300.20000@pobox.com>	<dm9iam$l0h$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmaedn$qpm$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dmaj7b$7f5$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmamu0$ibd$1@sea.gmane.org> <dmcdas$tgp$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dmd3jf$o8j$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Sun, 2005-11-27 at 15:05 -0500, Jamie Bliss wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
> > Jamie Bliss wrote:
> > Making it a user option is a good suggestion, however I hope everyone
> > realises that the new behaviour would have to be default for the change
> > to actually fulfill its intended purpose (improve search engine ranking).
[...]
> My request is that the status "301 Moved Permanently" not be used, and
> instead use "302 Found", "303 See Other", or "307 Temporary Redirect".
> (Only 302 is compatible with HTTP/1.0 agents.)

302 doesn't achieve anything with respect to search engines, or at least
Google:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/3.html

It /shouldn't/ work for the others either.  If it does, it's because
those search engines are broken.  302 is a temporary redirect.

301 was part of HTTP/1.0:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc1945/rfc1945

Rob