body:
Angela a ?crit:
 > On 5/11/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
 >
 >
 >>I think the board should do a budget/financial meeting soon. The last one
 >>was done a trimester ago, so it is high time.
 >
 >
 > Considering how difficult it has been to get the board together for a
 > meeting in the last month, I strongly suggest we have this as part of
 > the meeting planned for Monday 16th May rather than trying to find a
 > suitable point in Jimbo's schedule for two meetings.

Quite true, but I am not sure we will have gathered all the relevant
information by monday... but we can try...

Mav, are you free on monday ?

<snip>

 >>Also, depending on what is left, we must think of the time when the next
 >>fundraising will be reasonable to do. I suspect it is a bad idea to
do it in
 >>summer... so, in short, do we need to plan something in june, or will
we be
 >>able to last till september ?
 >
 >
 > I'd prefer June since that is still within the 2nd quarter which is
 > when the next fundraising drive was expected.

I am not sure we should say "expected". We only need to do fundraising
if we have need of money...

 >>...so, either the french
 >>association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation
 >>should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters...
opinion ?
 >
 >
 > Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?

I do not think there is a valid reason. I suggest we get one.

 > Angela.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board
 budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board
 budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board
	budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Angela a ?crit:
>
>> On 5/11/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>> ...so, either the french
>>> association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the
>>> foundation
>>> should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters...
>>> opinion ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?
>
>
> I do not think there is a valid reason. I suggest we get one.
>
Hoi,
I learned that there is EUR 30,-- in that bank account. Until we have
some serious money in there I would not want to get a credit card for
this account.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about
 a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Proposal for deprecation of syntax features for 1.5

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

Moin,

On Wednesday 11 May 2005 15:28, James D. Forrester wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 11, 2005, at 2:21 PM, Mathias Schindler
>
> <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
> > ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> > > Here are a few syntax features that I propose we deprecate for 1.5,
> > > the reasons are mainly to simplify the the wikitext to make parsing
> > > simpler.
>
> [Snip: <p>, <i>, and <b> elements, and the {{msg:xxx}} transclude tag.]
>
> > Hi ?var,
> >
> > I support all three points on your list
>
> Yes, they seem sensible.
>
> > (why do you want to keep <br> and <pre>?)
>
> The <pre> element allows styling which pre-pending a ' ' to each line
> doesn't, which can be useful (and is used in places).

And inside <pre>, the {{template}} syntax doesn't work, while it works in
' '. This distinction might be important. (Whether this is a bug or a
feature, I do not know :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Wed May 11 18:26:37 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Some spammers have this warped idea that their freedom of speech is
 guaranteed all the way into my hard drive, but it is my firm belief that
 their rights end at my firewall." -- Nigel Featherston

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

Moin,

On Wednesday 11 May 2005 15:51, Austin Hair wrote:
> > The
 element is used a lot to enforce linebreaks where you can't
> > do it otherwise (inline as template variables, for instance) on w:en,
> > at the very least. I don't see that it would be particularly easy to
> > avoid using them.
>
> Don't forget forcing a
, commonly needed for
> columns of images and things.

Wouldn't a

 with appropriate CSS magic work as
well if not better?

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Wed May 11 18:28:14 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Duke Nukem Forever is a 1999 game and we think that timeframe matches
 very well with what we have planned for the game." - George Broussard,
 1998 (http://tinyurl.com/6m8nh)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversitophicatunivium

body:
Okay...

Since everything is taking care of, the weather is gorgious, my lawn
mower repaired, I go take care of my garden :-)

Ant

Erik Moeller a ?crit:
 > Elisabeth Bauer:
 >
 >> So far, we have one rather successful encylopedia, a media repository
 >> which could use better organization,
 >
 >
 > Kennisnet may be interested in helping with that, I am in talks with the
 > relevant people.
 >
 >> a dictionary which is in desperate
 >> need of software modifications,
 >
 >
 > I'm working on that.
 >
 >> a quote collection with unsolved legal
 >> problems,
 >
 >
 > Headache. Personally, I never wanted Wikiquote to be a Wikimedia project.
 >
 >> a biology wiki which is boycotted by all wikipedian biologists
 >> I know,
 >
 >
 > :-) Gerard and I have talked a bit about this; once we have a Wikidata
 > prototype out in the wild, perhaps we'll be able to find funding to
 > create a Wikidata schema for Wikispecies.
 >
 >> a news site whose participants are in the process of learning
 >> journalism (with very varying success if I look at the latest headlines
 >> of german wikinews)
 >
 >
 > I won't pat myself on the back too much, but I think we're doing well in
 > terms of monitoring the progress of the international editions and
 > highlighting successes and weaknesses.
 >
 >> a dead memorial wiki for sep 11
 >
 >
 > Yes. Please convert into static HTML ASAP. If nobody else feels up to
 > the task, I'm willing to help.
 >
 >> a wiki for developing teaching resources where I'm always disappointed
 >
 >  > when I look into
 >
 > Yes, Wikibooks is another project which is suffering from the software
 > not addressing all of its needs, particularly the modularization of
 > individual books.
 >
 >  > a source repository which duplicates the efforts of project
 >
 >> gutenberg.
 >
 >
 > A bit harsh; the coming language subdomain split is a good short term
 > solution to encourage more translations (I don't think it's the best
 > approach, but that's another story), which is probably the great
 > potential of Wikisource.
 >
 >> Isn't this enough to work on?
 >
 >
 > Yes, for the time being. Our existing projects should stabilize before
 > Wikisophia is launched. That doesn't mean we shouldn't think about it or
 > work on grant applications and cooperations which will benefit all our
 > projects.
 >
 > Erik


body:
Rebecca a ?crit:

>>Sorry, but claiming that we are starting something new is little more than  a
>>placebo for a poorly thought out project.
>
>
> Poorly thought out project my ass. It's been thought about in some
> depth for many months. The lack of a detailed proposal, ala Wikinews,
> is more a matter of my and others being lazy than a lack of a coherent
> idea of how this would work. Just because you haven't necessarily
> heard about it doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.
>
> -- ambi

Ambi, please let's keep the discussion polite :-)
Now, what would be great... over the next few months, would be that you
guys working on this (with germans and spanish... are there other
languages working on this right now ?) try to make it something more
coherent on meta for us.

I would be very interested myself. And I am ready to show it to
academics I know in France, Marocco and Algeria. Might be a nice
preambule for getting more known and respected in those circles. Please
help us here Ambi.

Ant


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Year 2025 bug

body:
> Does anybody know anything about this? Did anybody set, fix, or change a clock?
> Did somebody correct the reported database entries without telling anybody about it?
> If you did it, please give a whistle so I'll be able to sleep at night again. :)

;-) You know, I like torturing sleepless devs. Anyway, it was kind of our fault.
After installing our new boxes, we did fix the clock, but didn't sync it to hardware
clock (this operation is done by FreeBSD's crontab, but on Linux it is probably
done by reboot/shutdown scripts, which were not invoked by crash).
As servers were restarted I didn't catch up too fast with them and there we have,
corrupted data. And yes, I didn't think of not synced hardware clock.

Domas


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversitophia

body:
Hi,

Le Wednesday 11 May 2005 18:06, Rebecca a ?crit :
> This whole conversation would be more productive if we were  to
>
> > discuss things like:
>
> It's already been discussed and thought about at some length, but it's
> still not ready for prime-time, as I've said before - it needs to be
> set out as clearly as Wikinews was.

Sorry, but seeing your answers below, this project seems very amateurist, not
really thought of.

> > who are the students
>
> People who want to learn stuff.

Several billions people on earth. Hopefully, we are restricted to our
planet...

> > who are the teachers
>
> People who want to teach stuff, and have enough knowledge to do so.

Against, this amazingly vague and unclear.

[skiping other very vague explanations]

> Poorly thought out project my ass. It's been thought about in some
> depth for many months. The lack of a detailed proposal, ala Wikinews,
> is more a matter of my and others being lazy than a lack of a coherent
> idea of how this would work. Just because you haven't necessarily
> heard about it doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.

This project needs real planning before doing anything else.
This is not the case upto now seeing the debate here.
BTW, why not using Wikiedu for the name, which was suggested by Anthere,
I?think.

And I thing we are undertaking too much at the same time.
We can't continue starting a new project every three months, especially seeing
that recently started projects have still a lot of problems to solve.
Others people have described this very well in this thread.
It's urgent to wait before starting anything new.

> -- ambi

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversitophia


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future
	boardbudget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)

body:
>Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?
>
>Angela.
>
>
Just a wild guess ...... maybe because there is no money in that account
yet???

Walter


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm software strategy

body:
So, on an alternate note: Wikimedia's needs notwithstanding, LAMP is a
ubiquitous platform that's very useful for a large number of communities
for various reasons. If Wikimedia decides to move on from Linux + Apache
+ PHP + MySQL and rewrite from scratch, or almost scratch, it would be a
generous gesture to launch the current MediaWiki codebase onto its own
trajectory as a separate project -- either under the same name, or
something similar.

If that's the plan, it might be a good idea to start moving MediaWiki to
be more of a general-purpose wiki plus Wikimedia add-ons. That would
make the transition easier and more fruitful.

Just one man's opinion.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>


list: wikien-l

from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] The niceness principle

body:
On 5/11/05, Stacey Greenstein <stacey.nj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Should we then only write nice things about people/ Should we only include
> facts that the subjects' approve? Or should we be impartial and show that
> there is reality and negativeity?

And when I wrote that I meant the note to Ed to be offline, I meant
offlist, sorry. Was trying to do too many things at once there.

Stacey, it's not a question of requiring subjects' approval. Sometimes
it's important to fight to keep material in Wikpedia, and I've done
it, but in this case, the subject is a private person, entirely
non-notable, in a story that isn't a matter of public interest; so if
it were up to me alone, I'd delete it because it's upsetting him. It's
a question of cost-benefit. In this case, there's a cost to him and no
benefit to us.

Sarah


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Proposal for deprecation of syntax features
	for 1.5

body:
> I'd also like to suggest the removal of the workaround (occupying most
> of the first half of parser.php doQuotes) dealing with confusion of
> quotes-as-text and quotes-as-markup within words. In other words, the
> workaround provides that "l'''italic''plain" renders as
> "l<i>italic</i>plain".
>
<snipped>
> Hopefully its use is
> rather rare; would it be possible to run a scan to find out more
> conclusively?

Fatal error: failed assert( not_much_in_use ); on line 345 :)
This is widely used (at least) on w:fr: and is *required* - many words
starting with a vowel will yield a leading "l'", sometimes we want to
highlight only the word after.

> Thank you for your time,
> Andrew

Nicolas


from_name: Richard Rabinowitz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abuse of blocking privileges

references:
<23477820.1115602976821.JavaMail.root@waldorf.psp.pas.earthlink.net>
	<d5nvh2$u83$1@sea.gmane.org> <d5oero$opv$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d5qja1$5at$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
They're trying everything in their arsenal, that's why.

On Tue, 10 May 2005, Timwi wrote:

> Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
> > Timwi wrote:
> >
> >> And again. Why do newbies keep posting this? How many people actually
> >> fall for this? How many people actually read this and go "OMG we're
> >> gonna lose a valuable contributor! Must unblock quick!!!"?
> >
> > Er, because they're *new*? They don't know what's come before.
>
> Yes, but isn't that all the more reason to assume that we won't de-admin
> two long-time trusted contributors just to save one contributor whom we
> don't even know? I just don't get why so many newbies instantly think
> that they're the most valuable Wikipedian ever born and that established
> admins must leave to make room for them.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] "block" considered too harsh a word?

body:
ROFL!

On Wed, 11 May 2005, David Gerard wrote:

> Jim Redmond (jim at scrubnugget.com) [050511 02:16]:
>
> > "Enforced hiatus"?
>
>
> "Edits by this account have been placed on euphemistic administrative
> hiatus for 24 hours because: you posted D00Dy H3 at D 100 times on
> [[Wikipedia]]."
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


references:
<23477820.1115602976821.JavaMail.root@waldorf.psp.pas.earthlink.net>
	<d5nvh2$u83$1@sea.gmane.org> <d5oero$opv$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<d5qja1$5at$1@sea.gmane.org> <d5r0ok$mvd$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Wow! Wikipedia is now a small city!

On Tue, 10 May 2005, Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> Timwi wrote:
>
> > Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
> >
> >> Timwi wrote:
> >>
> >>> And again. Why do newbies keep posting this? How many people actually
> >>> fall for this? How many people actually read this and go "OMG we're
> >>> gonna lose a valuable contributor! Must unblock quick!!!"?
> >>
> >>
> >> Er, because they're *new*? They don't know what's come before.
> >
> >
> > Yes, but isn't that all the more reason to assume that we won't de-admin
> > two long-time trusted contributors just to save one contributor whom we
> > don't even know? I just don't get why so many newbies instantly think
> > that they're the most valuable Wikipedian ever born and that established
> > admins must leave to make room for them.
>
> Given that we just topped 250,000 contributors, it is clear that the
> proportion of newbies doing this (1 or 2 a month?) is vanishingly small,
> its just that you notice them more.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Usernames advertising websites

body:
No offense, but I kinda identify the term "Ground Zero" with two places:
the heart of a nucular explosion (misspelling deliberately) and downtown
Manhattan, and I'm not sure where to find "disabled patients" at either
location (there's no hospital in the Manhattan "pit" at the moment and the
folks in the middle of a "nuke" have all been vaporized anyway, so...why
would there be disabled patients?)

On Wed, 11 May 2005, Asbestos wrote:

> >From the website:
>
> "Register editor and reporter, Gordon Watts, has been on special assignment
> on site at "Ground Zero," to continue court action, report, and participate
> in protests of the various abuses of the disabled patients..."
>
> "Alert! You are being asked to help impeach judges involved in the Terri
> Schiavo case"
>
> Whatever his username, we probably need to keep an eye on his edits.
>
> Sam
> --
> Asbestos
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos
>
>
> On 5/10/05, Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com> wrote:
> > blankfaze wrote:
> >
> > > I have just noticed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GordonWattsDotCom...
> > > It seems to me to be somewhat inappropriate to create a username
> advertising
> > > a personal website, but I didn't see anything in the Wikipedia username
> > > policy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username ) that says
> > > anything about adverts...
> >
> > I think "not distruptive" should cover it. If it becomes disruptive,
> > then ask him to change it.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] 'block' considered too harsh a word?

body:
By AOL, perhaps, like I did...?

On Wed, 11 May 2005, SPUI wrote:

> Alphax wrote:
> > While "blocked" and "blocking policy" are wikilinked, it might not be
> > such a great idea to so publicly advertise the mailing list.
>
> How else are you going to appeal a block for which the blocking admin
> has no email specified?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
Loshon hora, that's for sure!

On Wed, 11 May 2005, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> > There is no legal ground related to us mentionning that a third party
> > elected him a kook; so this issue is irrelevant.
>
> If not on legal grounds, how about on the general principle of being
> nice?
>
> Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of the
> fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
> private citizen with a very annoying label?
>
> Uncle Ed thinks not.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The niceness principle

body:
Whatever. I also agree.

On Wed, 11 May 2005 slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> Sorry all, I meant that to be offline.
>
> Sarah
>
> On 5/11/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Ed,
> >
> > Sending this offline, just to say that I very much agree with you
> > regarding the principle of being nice. We seem to be almost alone in
> > this, however, and fighting an uphill battle.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Sarah
> >
> > On 5/11/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> > > > There is no legal ground related to us mentionning that a third party
> > > > elected him a kook; so this issue is irrelevant.
> > >
> > > If not on legal grounds, how about on the general principle of being
> > > nice?
> > >
> > > Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of the
> > > fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
> > > private citizen with a very annoying label?
> > >
> > > Uncle Ed thinks not.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [Foundation-l] Portals

body:
Robin Shannon wrote:

>The wikinews icon on <www.wikipedia.org> is the old one rather than
>the new snazy one, could someone in the cabal change it. I'd never
>actually looked at the portal before, i must say it's quite funky,
>congrats to whoever made it.
>
>paz y amor,
>[[User:The bellman]]
>
>
That is [[M:Image:Wikinews-logo2-35px.png]]. I have uploaded the new one
from Commons at Meta.


subject: [Foundation-l] Portals


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] The niceness principle

body:
Should we then only write nice things about people/ Should we only include
facts that the subjects' approve? Or should we be impartial and show that
there is reality and negativeity?

On 5/11/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Ed,
>
> Sending this offline, just to say that I very much agree with you
> regarding the principle of being nice. We seem to be almost alone in
> this, however, and fighting an uphill battle.
>
> Best,
>
> Sarah
>
> On 5/11/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> > > There is no legal ground related to us mentionning that a third party
> > > elected him a kook; so this issue is irrelevant.
> >
> > If not on legal grounds, how about on the general principle of being
> > nice?
> >
> > Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of the
> > fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
> > private citizen with a very annoying label?
> >
> > Uncle Ed thinks not.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Sj

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Deatiled audience & traffic info about Wikipedia;
	Wikis and Clusty in spotlights

body:
==========
Hitwise research gives Wikipedia details
==========
http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=93945

Hitwise research, "a leading online competitive intelligence service,"
released a report on Wikipedia and other reference site recently, with
deep details for the four weeks ending April 16.  It was picked up and
announced by a number of news channels today.

Fast, fascinating stats :
 1) readership is evenly split M/F
 2) WP seems to be fielding 1 in 2000 Internet views ( 0.05% on the
graph at the end of the article), more or less the same as
dictionary.com
 3) Answers.com shot up to a heady popularity in February, but has
levelled off; WP has expanded its reach dramatically over the past
month as hardware problems have been solved -- it increased over 50%
from March 26 to April 16 (and another 40% since then... see links
below*).
 4) WP is the 33rd most popular site in terms of "getting hits from
search engines," up from 146th last June
 5) Young millionaires love us.
   - 18-24 year-olds are 50% more likely to visit than average
   - users with household incomes over $150K are 34% more likely to visit
 6) The "Government Technology" news staff has been planning this
article since April 22, when they checked the article and page counts.

* Today saw a spike over yesterday's traffic, after some growing pains
with the 20 new machines:   http://ganglia.wikimedia.org/
** Notice that all sorts of bandwidth madness break loose around April 18.
http://65.59.189.201/www.bomis-total/www.bomis-total.html

==========
II.  Other charming news
==========

A.  Kevin Holland writes in his blog for and about "associations" :
http://associationblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/those-wacky-wikis.html

'[O]ne can easily imagine communities developing around wikis used for
such purposes ... without the need for an association.   While "blogs"
are great tools, they're not going to fundamentally change
associations. Wikis will.'

B. ''Fortune'' features Clusty, asks if it will be the next Search Engine King:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/cool/articles/0,15114,1056784,00.html

"Topping the results are the sponsored links, followed by links to
relevant pages Clusty has found. To leave no stone unclustered, one of
them is a definition?readable right on the first results
screen?courtesy of Wikipedia. Clusty indeed."

Who was it who said definitions have no place in WP ?   Vox populi
seems to be confused about that.

--
+sj+


from_name: Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Proposal for deprecation of syntax features for
	1.5

body:
Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> wrote:
> Sure, or simply use proper XML markup...  This would have
> the nice side effect that it can span more than a single
> line.
>
> Yes, I know, XML was not invented here and thus it isn't an option.

If you want to know why it was really done this way instead of
muttering inflammitory remarks, see
<http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyDoesntWikiDoHtml>.

--
Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brent at brentdax.com>
Perl and Parrot hacker


from_name: Dori

subject: [Wikitech-l] uploading picture_s_

body:
On 5/11/05, eric poscher <eric.poscher at gmx.at> wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for this hint, but this screenshot looks like the programm was
> written
> for a very bad operating system, which I haven't been using for a long
> time.
>
> any other suggestions how to do it the simple way?
>
> scp upload or something?

There are several scripts to do the uploading (i.e.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:File_upload_service/Script)
floating around. I doubt it could be made as simple as scp as you'll have to
update the database. Although you could have an upload daemon running the
script in the background, polling a directory, and you could scp stuff to
that directory.


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversitophia

body:
This whole conversation would be more productive if we were  to
> discuss things like:

It's already been discussed and thought about at some length, but it's
still not ready for prime-time, as I've said before - it needs to be
set out as clearly as Wikinews was.

> who are the students

People who want to learn stuff.

> who are the teachers

People who want to teach stuff, and have enough knowledge to do so.

> levels of education

Any which could be made feasible. I'd probably suggest following a
tertiary structure (as it is a lot more feasible to adapt to wiki
principles), but the material covered would by no means be limited to
that standard.

> course curricula

Developed by interested parties, just as on the other projects. It'd
quite likely have a significant effect on boosting Wikibooks in this
way.

> teacher incentives

The pleasure of it. The same incentives that people find in working on
Wikipedia and all of Wikimedia's other projects.

> structuring lesson plans

Same goes as for the curriculum itself - interested parties could put
this together, most likely a party acting as facilitator/lecturer.

> structure of semesters

Who says we need to go by semesters? As I've said before, think
outside the square. A course takes as long as the course needs to
take. At least at first, I'd be suggesting that we didn't try tackling
anything as large as a semester-long course, due to the risk of
interest petering out, and concentrated on more short-term projects.

> accreditation

None. An accredited wiki-university is a pipedream. It's a way of
allowing interested people to learn, just as Wikipedia is. That's all.

> meeting local educational standards  (which are delineated very rigidly)

See above. If you're not seeking accreditation or official
recognition, you don't need to follow local standards.

> subject matter

There's so much potential for courses in a variety of areas. In the
end, it comes down to the community how far this would stretch, but I
would envisage this going well beyond the standard tertiary fare
(although hopefully covering it), and into other areas of learning as
well (i.e. things that you might learn at a community house here in
Australia).

> interconnectivity between classes

This is a matter for the community. If this proves necessary - and it
may well - then added courses can be drawn up that interconnect with
the original.

> extra-wiki learning

The wiki should suffice for many things, but where necessary, IRC may
be useful if real-time discussions need to be held, and email as a
means of submitting material.

> grading

If we need to grade (and I'm not sure that it fits the wiki model),
then means for doing so can be worked out by those writing up the
curriculum and lesson plans.

> acceptance standards

It's a wiki. Everyone can edit. Everyone can learn. There would be no
acceptance standards.

> why and how a wiki,

There's the potential to take what we've achieved with Wikipedia and
other Wikimedia projects and expand this into the field of e-learning
- by applying some of the lessons learned there, and thinking outside
the box - taking on the elements that fit with wiki principles, and
discarding those that don't (i.e. accreditation) I think we can really
achieve something special.

> Sorry, but claiming that we are starting something new is little more than  a
> placebo for a poorly thought out project.

Poorly thought out project my ass. It's been thought about in some
depth for many months. The lack of a detailed proposal, ala Wikinews,
is more a matter of my and others being lazy than a lack of a coherent
idea of how this would work. Just because you haven't necessarily
heard about it doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.

-- ambi


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversitophia


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Arkady Rose (arkady at arkady.org.uk) [050512 01:44]:
> SPUI wrote:
> > Alphax wrote:

> >> While "blocked" and "blocking policy" are wikilinked, it might not be
> >> such a great idea to so publicly advertise the mailing list.

> > How else are you going to appeal a block for which the blocking admin
> > has no email specified?

> Maybe it should be a requirement of adminship that admins list a
> public email address on their user: page.

Or at least that their Wikipedia user page email work. I find it hard to
see how that could be considered onerous.

- d.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversity

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>> No-one here has experience with running a university. As far as I
>> know, none of the people involved in this project have even taught
>> at the tertiary level.
>
> Not true. I was involved for many years with the Denver Free
> University. But my advice would mainly consist of avoiding much of
> what happened there.

[top post repaired]

I meant the Wikiversity project, not all of Wikimedia. Only a handful of
people have contributed to the Wikiversity pages on the wiki. No
offence, but I didn't think you were one of them.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversity


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
> I support all three points on your list (why do you want to keep

> and
?)

First, I didn't say anything about
 and
, and second, we need
to keep those because there's no equivalent for them in the
wikisyntax.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversity/Wikisophia conclusion (was: Re:
	Wikiversity)

body:
Ray Saintonge:

> Yes of course.  But in your original post on the matter you said, "I'd
> like to announce my intention to move the relevant pages on Meta and
> edit the summary to reflect the name change."

Yes, I was blinded by the quick agreement among the people I talked to
(Angela, who had the idea, Jimbo, and Mav). Nevertheless, I posted here
to give people the opportunity to object to the name change, which
several people did: no harm done.

Contrary to my prior announcement, I will not open a vote immediately.

First of all, we don't have the domain name Wikisophia.org yet. We'll
have to see how the negotiations with Peter go before it makes sense to
decide formally to use it. If it had been an informal decision as I
intended, that wouldn't have been so bad, but if it's now formally
decided, that will influence the negotiations with Peter in undesirable
ways. As Lee pointed out, the integrity of technical decisions should
never be compromised. Out of enthusiasm, I did not completely see the
risks of committing to the name too early.

Secondly, several new naming suggestions have been made. These should be
included in the final naming vote.

Thirdly, a vote should not take place until all arguments for and
against each name have been heard.

Finally, I agree that we need a clearer definition of the project. I'm
not sure such a definition will arise out of discussions, and for the
moment, this list is the wrong place for them. My experience is that it
often makes sense for a single person to sit down and formulate their
perspective, and to then refine this perspective based on the reactions
from the community. Whether this person will be Ambi, me, or someone
else is not relevant. But that person can then also guide the process of
choosing the final name.

Again, I have no intention of pushing the process of launching the
project, though I do intend to seek funding for it and to pursue the
technical needs evaluation.

So, as I said in my original post, there's no reason to panic. I will
however, refrain from using the name "Wikiversity" to describe the
project I'm talking about, as I really do not see the creation of a
"wiki university" as my goal. This may culminate in separate proposals,
if it turns out that the disagreement is less than superficial.

I regret that my suggestion caused so much commotion, though perhaps it
is good that we now have a better idea where this project stands, and
the beginnings of a consensus on how to proceed.

Erik


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

body:
On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 09:33 +0200, Karl Eichwalder wrote:

> I do not ask for HTML, I vote for XML.  Our all-time-morphing
> wiki-syntax is not user-friendly.

Yes, The current wiki syntax is dreadful, and getting worse with
every release.  But using XML doesn't solve the problem, it just
puts up a big barrier to entry for newcomers.

I know I've been claiming to be working on it for some time now,
but I really am...and I'm very close to releasing something for
comment, so keep an eye out.

FWIW, in the current thread, I'm all for deprecating unneeded
syntaxes now, even before we reform the whole package.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
> Just for the record, Mr Wollmann is still requesting removal of that
> information. I am not exactly sure what we should answer him now...
>
> Ant

How about "no"?

--
 Sean Barrett
 sean at epoptic.com


from_name: Jens Frank

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Thoughts about a future board budget meeting
	(orbudget board meeting ?)

body:
On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 11:53:28AM +0200, Eden Akhavi wrote:
> > PS : I must mention that we are currently stuck in a rather
> > ridiculous situation. The french squids needs some RAM...
> > this RAM can only be purchased in a few websites... which
> > refuse american credit cards... so we are currently trying to
> > have it bought by the german association... which legally is
> > not really authorized to do this... so, either the french
> > association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the
> > foundation should have a credit card in europe to take care
> > of such matters... opinion ?
>
> What RAM do you need - give me the specs/quantities and I'll see what I can
> do.

The RAM has already been ordered by the German association.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
Just for the record, Mr Wollmann is still requesting removal of that
information. I am not exactly sure what we should answer him now...

Ant

Bryan Derksen a ?crit:
> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of the
>> fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
>> private citizen with a very annoying label?
>>
>>
>>
> It seems to me based on what I've seen over the past week or two of this
> debate that Wollman is both notable and public.
>
> I think it is important ("crucial" may be overstating it) to Wikipedia's
> integrity that it doesn't remove notable, verifiable information about
> someone from articles solely based on the complaints and apparently
> groundless legal threats of that person.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversity

body:
Ray Saintonge a ?crit:
 > Erik Moeller wrote:
 >
 >> Anthere:
 >>
 >>> Then why are both wikicommons and wikinews still envased in copyright
 >>> issues ?
 >>
 >>
 >> "Envased" is not an English word, if you mean that both projects have
 >> lacked planning and foresight when it comes to copyright issues, then
 >> I would argue that the exact opposite is the case:
 >
 >
 > You're right of course, and sometimes it would be quite understandable
 > if it meant that Anthere wanted to see you stuffed in a vase. :-)

Interesting thought...

 > Literally, the reference is to the feminine form of "vase", which is the
 > sediment that builds up in a stagnant body of water.  It becomes
 > "enveser" or silted over.  Figuratively, it becomes "stuck in the mud",
 > or "mired".  An interesting word!
 >
 > Ec

Grumble... Thanks Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikiversity


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Proposal for deprecation of syntax features for 1.5

in_reply_to:
<428270BD.4080503@hackish.org> (delirium@hackish.org's message of
	"Wed, 11 May 2005 16:53:17 -0400")

body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> writes:

> I'm not sure if it would be a more or less drastic change, but making
> bold be four tics instead of three would also solve the problem.  Then
> without lookahead: 2 tics is italics; 3 ticks is an apostrophe plus
> italics; 4 tics is bold; 5 tics is an apostrophe plus bold; 6 tics is
> bold and italic; and 7 tics is an apostrophe plus bold and italic.

Sure, or simply use proper XML markup...  This would have
the nice side effect that it can span more than a single
line.

Yes, I know, XML was not invented here and thus it isn't an option.

--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                           |      ,__o
                                                        |    _-\_<,
                                                        |   (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4  AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki with e-mail notification and address
 confirmation (update infos)

body:
Users of the MediaWiki with ENotif/EConfirm patch
(formerly known as EAuthent, which differs from that)
might consider to use one of the newer versions.

Documentation/download http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enotif
for patched versions of MediaWiki 1.4.4 and for rel1.5alpha1 as of
yesterday,
Helpdesk http://test.leuksman.com/index.php/Enotif (as long as leuksman
exists)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
I agree.

He's not a private individual but a public figure, regardless of his stated
desire (which conflicts his public actions). We're not calling him a kook,
we're noting that a Usenet group is calling him a kook.

[[en:User:UtherSRG]]

On 5/12/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
> > Just for the record, Mr Wollmann is still requesting removal of that
> > information. I am not exactly sure what we should answer him now...
> >
> > Ant
>
> How about "no"?
>
> --
> Sean Barrett
> sean at epoptic.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
On May 11, 2005, at 4:22 PM, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
> Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of
> the
> fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
> private citizen with a very annoying label?
>

In an article on said "anonymous troublemakers" when they have
indicated that he is the most deserving person they have ever given
that label to?

Yeah, it kinda is.

-Snowspinner


body:
Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brentdax at gmail.com> writes:

> Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> wrote:
>> Sure, or simply use proper XML markup...  This would have
>> the nice side effect that it can span more than a single
>> line.
>>
>> Yes, I know, XML was not invented here and thus it isn't an option.
>
> If you want to know why it was really done this way instead of
> muttering inflammitory remarks, see
> <http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyDoesntWikiDoHtml>.

I do not ask for HTML, I vote for XML.  Our all-time-morphing
wiki-syntax is not user-friendly.  It keeps developers busy - how boring
if we would go for XML as an authoring language!  No need to write yet
another parser...

The wiki-syntax is short, but not easy.  Sometimes whitespace is
critical, but you will never know for sure.  It is a very limited
presentation or layout language.

--
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                           |      ,__o
                                                        |    _-\_<,
                                                        |   (*)/'(*)
Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4  AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C


from_name: Tels

references:
<51dd1af805051106093d6161c0@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8b9a51105051123355dd938e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<shwtq4c30s.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>

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

Moin,

On Thursday 12 May 2005 09:33, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brentdax at gmail.com> writes:
> > Karl Eichwalder <ke at gnu.franken.de> wrote:
> >> Sure, or simply use proper XML markup...  This would have
> >> the nice side effect that it can span more than a single
> >> line.
> >>
> >> Yes, I know, XML was not invented here and thus it isn't an option.
> >
> > If you want to know why it was really done this way instead of
> > muttering inflammitory remarks, see
> > <http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyDoesntWikiDoHtml>.
>
> I do not ask for HTML, I vote for XML.

- From a human point of view, XML is even worse than HTML - way to much
formatting gets into the way of writing the actual content. Wiki's syntax
is exactly why I love them over editing HTML/XML pages manually.

Yes, you could write the XML with some sort of WYSIWYG editor - but that
is beside the point.

(If you think about it, there is a reason that we write email in plain
text and not HTML, XML or anything else :)

> Our all-time-morphing
> wiki-syntax is not user-friendly.  It keeps developers busy - how
> boring if we would go for XML as an authoring language!  No need to
> write yet another parser...

I do think you are slightly wrong. While parsing XML is easy, making sense
of what it actually means is not so easy. And writing XML is much harder
than writing plain text (which wiki syntax basically is).

> The wiki-syntax is short, but not easy.  Sometimes whitespace is
> critical, but you will never know for sure.  It is a very limited
> presentation or layout language.

It certainly has some drawbacks. But throwing it out for XML is a solution
in search of a problem :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Thu May 12 09:39:12 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 glasses, my glasses. I cannot see without my glasses." - "My
 glasses, my glasses. I cannot be seen without my glasses."

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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Be nice to newbies

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leif Knutsen [mailto:vyerllc at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 9:03 PM

[snip]

> I do appreciate the need to enforce rules and be consistent
> about it, but I
> also think that a) a warning is in order before blocking
> someone; b) the
> person who is being blocked should have some means of
> defending his/her
> actions; and c) it should always raise flags in a situation
> like this, when
> the person (an admin) whose deletions were reverted reported
> the reverts;
> and another, who only a few weeks before had lost a dispute
> with me, jumped
> at the opportunity to block me.

All that sounds pretty reasonable to me. If you ever need to be
unblocked, shoot me an e-mail or leave a message at my talk page.

I helped WRITE the guidelines for "when to block" and we all agreed back
then that there are one or two steps that ought to be taken before a
block.

1. Talk to the person. Explain the situation. Make a polite request.

2. If they persist in violating a RULE after you have (a) explained it
AND (b) warned them that another violation will result in a block; THEN
you may do the block.

I think I speak for the entire community on this. (If there have been
changes, while I wasn't watching, no doubt maveric169 or Anthere or
someone on the Arbitration Committee will set me straight, but I had
thought these principles were written in stone.)

Once again, if you have any trouble, just let me know.

Ed Poor
Wikipedia's First Elected Bureaucrat
Mailing List Admin Emeritus
Developer Emeritus
(and all-around nice guy)


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dispute at Greater Serbia

body:
There's an ongoing and seemingly intractable dispute at [[Greater
Serbia]] between [[User:Mir Harven]] and [[User:Dejvid]]. If anyone
reading this has knowledge in this area, a helping hand would be
greatly appreciated.

Sarah


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Copyright question for independent wiki

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> We've got a wiki for our church running on Mediawiki, so the default
> site-wide copyright notice is the GFDL.

No GFDL notice is shown unless:
a) You selected the GFDL explicitly during setup
b) You're running a pretty old version from before this was generalized
c) You're running one of the localizations which is badly out of date
d) You imported pages including localization info from a Wikimedia web
site that has these notices embedded, in which case it probably does apply.

If you're running an old version, upgrade to the current 1.4 release.

If you're running an old localization, go to Special:Allmessages, find
the offending message, and remove it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Deleting history

body:
Spam huntress wrote:
> I'm wondering exactly how I could delete entries added by people in
> MediaWiki. Looks to me like it could be done via phpMyAdmin. But I don't
> want to break anything, so I'm looking for a safe way to delete specific
> revisions to a page.

Delete the page, then undelete the other revisions. (There are
checkboxes on the undelete page for each revision.)

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

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:

>I was wondering whether we could define a [[en:Parsing expression grammar]]
>which could then be made into a [[en:Packrat parser]].
>
>As far as I can tell from those articles, and the references therein, this
>would help a great deal.
>
>
I looked into this a while ago when I was dabbling at writing a parser
for wikitext, and came to the conclusion it was probably not practical
for MediaWiki use.  The advantage of packrat parsers, of course, is that
they allow (the equivalent of) full GLR grammar, not some subset like
LR(1), so writing a grammar is not very hard even for a complex one like
wikitext.

The disadvantage is that the RAM needed for the parser state grows
linearly in the *total input size*---not in the depth of the parse tree
as with most---and the constant on that is fairly large as well.  For
some of our larger pages, back-of-the-envelope calculations using the
data in the master's thesis about packrat parsing yield estimates of
3-6MB of RAM needed for the parser state.  I imagine Wikipedia sometimes
parses enough pages simultaneously to be eating up gigabytes of RAM at
these levels.

-Mark


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Don't forget the blocked user needs to have an email adress set in
their own preferences to email. They need the mailing list if they
want to contact someone.

Requiring admins to have email adresses specified won't solve anything.

--Mgm

On 5/12/05, Richard Rabinowitz <rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>
> By AOL, perhaps, like I did...?
>
> On Wed, 11 May 2005, SPUI wrote:
>
> > Alphax wrote:
> > > While "blocked" and "blocking policy" are wikilinked, it might not be
> > > such a great idea to so publicly advertise the mailing list.
> >
> > How else are you going to appeal a block for which the blocking admin
> > has no email specified?
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
It seems that several people have looked at his demands and found them
groundless.  People who make irrational demands will never be influenced
by rational responses.

Most legal threats are nothing more than crude attempts at
intimidation.  They can be considered a criminal act in some places.
Nevertheless, it often works because so many people are absolutely
paranoid about ending up in court.  They put themselves at a
disadvantage because they assume that they will be found guilty of
something, even when in a civil case it has nothing to do with guilt or
innocence.

If Mr. Wollmann thinks that he has a case let him go ahead with it, and
show us that he means more than simply to intimidate.  We can easily
promise that when we receive the court documents in the case we will
reconsider our position in the matter.  This may or may not result in a
removal of what he finds offensive from the site.  Meanwhile it will
have been very costly for him to mount his case with no prospects of
recovering those costs.

Ec

Anthere wrote:

> Just for the record, Mr Wollmann is still requesting removal of that
> information. I am not exactly sure what we should answer him now...
>
> Ant
>
> Bryan Derksen a ?crit:
>
>> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>>
>>> Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of the
>>> fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
>>> private citizen with a very annoying label?
>>
>> It seems to me based on what I've seen over the past week or two of
>> this debate that Wollman is both notable and public.
>>
>> I think it is important ("crucial" may be overstating it) to
>> Wikipedia's integrity that it doesn't remove notable, verifiable
>> information about someone from articles solely based on the
>> complaints and apparently groundless legal threats of that person.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The niceness principle

body:
Wiktionary:
Noun
kook

(Slang) an eccentric, strange or crazy person.

I really don't understand how someone could get so worked up about
such a thing in the first place. I've been named all sorts of things
by a bunch of vandals, but most people know it's complete and utter
rubbish.

I'd recommend this person to take it easy and laught at the effort
these people make to do all this.

--Mgm

On 5/12/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/11/05, Stacey Greenstein <stacey.nj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Should we then only write nice things about people/ Should we only include
> > facts that the subjects' approve? Or should we be impartial and show that
> > there is reality and negativeity?
>
> And when I wrote that I meant the note to Ed to be offline, I meant
> offlist, sorry. Was trying to do too many things at once there.
>
> Stacey, it's not a question of requiring subjects' approval. Sometimes
> it's important to fight to keep material in Wikpedia, and I've done
> it, but in this case, the subject is a private person, entirely
> non-notable, in a story that isn't a matter of public interest; so if
> it were up to me alone, I'd delete it because it's upsetting him. It's
> a question of cost-benefit. In this case, there's a cost to him and no
> benefit to us.
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
English Wiktionary:
Noun
kook

(Slang) an eccentric, strange or crazy person.

Put things in perspective. Is it really that annoying a label? On the
other hand, I don't think an award like that needs to be mentioned.

--Mgm
On 5/12/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Just for the record, Mr Wollmann is still requesting removal of that
> information. I am not exactly sure what we should answer him now...
>
> Ant
>
> Bryan Derksen a ?crit:
> > Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> >
> >> Is it crucial to Wikipedia's integrity that we INCLUDE a mention of the
> >> fact that some anonymous troublemakers have branded a non-notable
> >> private citizen with a very annoying label?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > It seems to me based on what I've seen over the past week or two of this
> > debate that Wollman is both notable and public.
> >
> > I think it is important ("crucial" may be overstating it) to Wikipedia's
> > integrity that it doesn't remove notable, verifiable information about
> > someone from articles solely based on the complaints and apparently
> > groundless legal threats of that person.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Longterm software strategy

body:
Most what was told in all the thread was
about 'rewriting' in another languages, but
 it totally lacked ideas on how wiki should
be implemented architecture-wise. Right
now, being pushed to LAMP model, we
have several issues. (warning, rants on
crack.. :)

We do use relational data models. They
are quite ok for content website, not great
for massive collaborative editing. In order
to make really large site work we'd either
have to split everything and decrease
funcitonality (no shared watchlists, Timwi :),
or start using some other concepts of scale -
messaging middleware, event brokers, whatever.
With more and more data out there, various
tasks could be moved away. Async aggregated
feeds Though, as we're running on simple 6-disk
dual-opteron db servers we're far from that.

Our current trouble is too much of data on DBs.
With too much of data, more i/o has to be done for
some or another task. This is partially solved by 1.5
mediawiki. Could be solved more by relocating lots of
data to other external stores.

And our current trouble is single media host, though,
it is supported by squids. External storages will help
here as well some day.

I don't really understand what's all that fuss about.
The only real need to rewrite Wikimedia software is to
prepare it for 300+ server infrastructure. Then we'll need
more intelligent solution than single LAMP script-framework.
We need ideas on how to improve architecture of whole
wiki-process, than ideas which language is better and
which language is worse.

With PHP5 we can easy convert our mediawiki into daemons
(HTTP, FastCGI, whatever), that would gain performance.
Sure, we _could_ do same with Python. Sure, Python
has JIT right now, but there are commercial JITs for
PHP out there (which means there will be opensource
some day, Parrot, whatever :)

And sure, there's one more thing that can be done...
 Simply replacing Apaches with Lighttpd (http://www.lighttpd.net/).
We've got great support by lighttpd folks, and have been
running it for our downloads service, and I've been running for
my projects 'at home' with great success. Ah, that could
provide at least 10% (eh, say... 50%).

Domas

P.S. I didn't participate in main discussion as I was away,
and I did later did an intentional break, just to calm everything down :)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google hit rankings

body:
Nathan Wong wrote:

> Why does Wikipedia seem to be so low recently? It seems to be barely
> featured for lots of common searches, whereas various snapshots and
> Wikipedia mirrors are indexed frequently. For example:
> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=prime+minister+of+the++united+kingdom&fsrc=1&oi=moresources
>
> http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Australia+capital&fsrc=1&oi=moresources
> (those are question answers, but thats what many people may look for).
>
> With Wikipedia being such a popular site, I'd have thought that it
> might be higher.

I imagine the Google spider doesn't wait around five minutes
hoping for the page to come up. Many times it just has to cache
the empty page from wikipedia.org, can't be good for our
page rank vs quick-responding mirrors.

Stan


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Portals

body:
>From my talk on meta

Www.wikipedia.org_template

Because i don't know who i should ask for that, i ask you. Could you
make changes to the front Www.wikipedia.org template so it reflects
the Complete list of language Wikipedias available page. Meaning that
both pages have approximately the same number of articles and reflect
the same order of wikipedia (1st to 10th). Thank you in advance
Lincher 17:14, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

    Sorry but I am not sure I could deal with it, I don't understand
it completely. And some fonts on the template is not available for me,
only square like looking, so I am afraid I will break it up if I edit
it. It will be worse than keeping it with innacuracy. How about post
to wikipedia-l. --Aphaia | In principio erat verbum. | ++ 02:17, 12
May 2005 (UTC)

Www.wikipedia.org_template seems not to synch with
Www.wikipedia.org_portal that is a reason I can hardly to deal with it
(other project templates are much easiler to deal with).

Is there any html expert who are willing to update Wikipedia.org portal ?

And I would like to add, I wonder why Wikibooks.org has their own
international portal yet ...

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [Foundation-l] Portals


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
Bryan Derksen said:
>>
> It seems to me based on what I've seen over the past week or two of
> this  debate that Wollman is both notable and public.

Well that's a judgement call, and we can respectfully disagree on this.

In rebuttal I recall that Wollmann's Wikipedia entry was listed for
deletion in January and it was deleted because the consensus at the time
was that Wollmann was *not* notable. During the discussion those voting
had access to all public documentation, as this was in links from the
article at the time and summarised in the article itself (most of which
was written by me as the original article had been severely POV).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
Anthere said:
> Just for the record, Mr Wollmann is still requesting removal of that
> information. I am not exactly sure what we should answer him now...

We can't easily stop editors mentioning what they want, except by order of
the Foundation or Jimbo.
Since this information is arguably encyclopedic I don't think there would
be any other way; whilst I sympathize with Ed Poor's Niceness Principle I
don't think it can conclusively command a consensus among editors to keep
Wollmann's name out (although I suppose I could end up being pleasantly
surprised on this).  My experience in the past has been that there is
something about Wollmann that exercises a deep fascination to some that is
far beyond what may seem reasonable to others.
So it comes down to the old legal calculus: is this guy likely to sue and
if he did could you afford it?  Your lawyers can advise you.


from_name: Andrew Rodland

body:
On 5/12/05, Nicolas Weeger <nicolas.weeger at laposte.net> wrote:
> > * Current syntax: '''italic''plain => 'italicplain
> > * Proposed syntax: '''italic''plain => italicplain
> > * Previous behaviour with new syntax: <nowiki>'</nowiki>''italic''plain
>
> For the record, I shall say that I fully expect riots on w:fr: if this new
> behaviour becomes mandatory :)
>
> Some versions, months ago, did require the <nowiki> tag, and it was really
> afwul to manage.
> And we'd also need to *fix* all pages with this syntax, and we can't really
> fix automatically, need to check on a case-by-case basis.
>

Not quite true; it could be fixed automatically by having the existing
parser code apply the rule that it does now, and write a <nowiki>
around the ' that it interprets literally. It wouldn't be quite
semantically perfect, but articles would keep their appearances (and
it could even be applied before/without removing the offending code).
I agree that <nowiki> is somewhat unwieldy, but it's a solution to the
problem that already exists (and always has) and doesn't require
mangling the grammar so that it's imposible to know whether ''' means
''' or not.

A slightly more radical approach that just crossed my mind would be to
add a token reminiscent of TeX's "\/" which would produce no output,
but break up tokens. For the sake of readability in this email, let's
imagine it's ";"

* l';''italic''bold => "l'italicbold"
* l'';'italic''bold => "l'italicbold"

gives you full control without the 17 characters of <nowiki></nowiki>.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Besides, while I agree that "yes, who cares...", I consider we should
> NOT accept to remove an information, just because the target is
> unhappy with it. Even if in this case it would not matter, the
> principle is bad.
>
Amen to that. Now that this whole go-round is in the public record,
it's important not be seen backing down, otherwise Scientology,
Disney, Bush administration, etc, will all be calling up poor Terry
to remove the material that they don't like.

We could end up as, what do they call it in the UK? - oh yeah,
"Bush's poodle-pedia".

:-)

Stan


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
To continue the discussion Andrew started on the ticks this is the
dilema with the current syntax Is that we can't easily guarentee that
''' always starts a bold segment.

* Current syntax: '''italic''plain => 'italicplain
* Proposed syntax: '''italic''plain => italicplain
* Previous behaviour with new syntax: <nowiki>'</nowiki>''italic''plain

and:

* Current syntax: ''''foo => 'foo
* Proposed syntax: ''''foo => ''''foo (four standalone ticks would be undefined)

This would make parsing alot easier.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Question about downloading only the english version
	of	Wikipedia

body:
Martina Greiner wrote:
> I would like to download the english version of Wikipedia only
> and have several questions I could not get answered.
>
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_download says that the
> english version should be 11GB compressed
> and about 40 GB uncompressed.
>
> On download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en I can only
> find files with 31 GB (cur+old).

That figure is quoted from September 2004; if it was accurate then, it's
certainly not accurate now. :) Wikipedia has a very high rate of growth.

> 1. Is this really the english version only or for all wikipedias?

Yes, files in that directory are for en.wikipedia.org only.

> 2. If it is the english version, why is it that big?

cur and old combined include the more or less complete edit history of
every page on the site since January 2001. We have a lot of pages, and
some of them have been edited many, many times.

The English Wikipedia is our oldest, largest, and most popular site.
It's larger than all the others we run individually (I'm not sure
offhand whether it's still larger than all others combined.)

> 3. I assume this is a compressed file, thus it will be really,
> really big when uncompressed.

The old database will be only slightly bigger after decompression, since
its contents themselves are currently stored compressed. Normally you
would not store the uncompressed dump, however: you would feed it
directly to the database during decompression.

> 4. Is it enough to download cur and old tables in order to
> get all available tables?

That depends on what you want. The current version of every page as of
the backup date is contained in the cur table. The older revisions are
in the old table.

Additional data is in the links tables, etc; depending on what you're
doing you may not care about these. (The links tables keep track of
which pages link to which other pages and resources.) These can be
regenerated from the actual pages, but it takes a long time.

Images are also separate.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Spam huntress

subject: [Wikitech-l] Deleting history

body:
I'm wondering exactly how I could delete entries added by people in
MediaWiki. Looks to me like it could be done via phpMyAdmin. But I don't
want to break anything, so I'm looking for a safe way to delete specific
revisions to a page.

You may think this is un-wiki, but if you've got a situation where
defamation is likely, then rollback is not enough. You need to be able
to remove it from view altogether. If I do NOT remove that kind of thing
from view, then I'll be on the hook for lawsuits, so I need to be able
to do exactly that. I tried installing phpWiki, which can be moderated,
but I don't think it works on my server. And I'm using MediaWiki on
another project and love it, so this would be exactly what I need.

I'm fairly familiar with phpMyAdmin, so mucking around there isn't a
problem.


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] Portals

body:
The wikinews icon on <www.wikipedia.org> is the old one rather than
the new snazy one, could someone in the cabal change it. I'd never
actually looked at the portal before, i must say it's quite funky,
congrats to whoever made it.

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

--
hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>

This work is released into the public domain.
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain>


subject: [Foundation-l] Portals


body:
> Yes, The current wiki syntax is dreadful, and getting worse with
> every release.  But using XML doesn't solve the problem, it just
> puts up a big barrier to entry for newcomers.

Fully agreed, and here are some of the biggest problems with it:

1. It's not thought out

The whole syntax is something which just grew over time, it's not
clean, it's not pretty and it's not consistent, and neither is it easy
to parse since there's often no definition for how things are supposed
to work aside from the parser code itself and conventions of use.

2. Too much reliance on too few meta characters

* [] is used for one thing (good)
* [[]] is used for several different *completely different* things,
** [[Normal links]]
** [[Image:Magical includes of images.png]]
** [[th:is]] is an interwiki link, [[thi:s]] is not, how about [[:th:is]]?
** [[January 1]], [[1970]] <- things that get magical transformations.
** Go to a [[Wikipedia:Page]] and add a [[Category:Tag]] to it, it
might not do what you expect at first.
* {{this}} is used for one thing, and easy to distinguish from {{{this}}}.

I've sometimes pondered how to solve this, and I've often come to the
conclution that adding another type of double bracket (????) for magic
stuff would solve a lot

??Image:Foo.png?? would work like [[Image:Foo.png]] does currently and
[[Image:Foo.png]] would work like [[:Image:Foo.png]] does now (no need
to escape the magicness since [[]] would never be used for anything
besides ordinary links), ??Category:Foo?? and [[Category:Foo]] would
be the same, so would interwiki links.

Then I've often thought that that might suck just as much as well,
because at least in the case of categories and interwiki links and
other metadata it would be best to just add them to some
yet-to-be-made metadata page, this would make it easier to maintain
these links (interwiki links could even be maintained automatically
across projects)

I'm sure others have alot of nice ideas on how to change the syntax to
be more consistent and/or easier to parse, which of course brings us
to the next problem:

3.  We can't (easily) change it

It sucks but we really can't, in would instantly render gigabytes of
current wikitext incompatable with the parser, there are basically two
solutions to this problem: continue supporting two syntaxes for some
time which puts a big limit on what kind of changes can be made or
automatically convert them with some kind of bot bot.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If it
survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to mention
him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd vote, that's
pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".

Ed


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
"?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason" <avarab at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:51dd1af8050512052238732cc4 at mail.gmail.com...
> To continue the discussion Andrew started on the ticks this is the
> dilema with the current syntax Is that we can't easily guarentee that
> ''' always starts a bold segment.
>
> * Current syntax: '''italic''plain => 'italicplain
> * Proposed syntax: '''italic''plain => italicplain
> * Previous behaviour with new syntax: <nowiki>'</nowiki>''italic''plain
>
> and:
>
> * Current syntax: ''''foo => 'foo
> * Proposed syntax: ''''foo => ''''foo (four standalone ticks would be
> undefined)
>
> This would make parsing alot easier.

I was wondering whether we could define a [[en:Parsing expression grammar]]
which could then be made into a [[en:Packrat parser]].

As far as I can tell from those articles, and the references therein, this
would help a great deal.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Asbestos

body:
Not if the admin directly specified the email address on their user page:
blocked users are still allowed to navigate to admin pages. Obviously there
is the risk of address-harvesting spam bots, but there are simple ways
around that, like the email-address-in-an-image that I have on my user page.

Sam
--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos

On 5/12/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Don't forget the blocked user needs to have an email adress set in
> their own preferences to email. They need the mailing list if they
> want to contact someone.
>
> Requiring admins to have email adresses specified won't solve anything.
>
> --Mgm
>
> On 5/12/05, Richard Rabinowitz <rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >
> > By AOL, perhaps, like I did...?
> >
> > On Wed, 11 May 2005, SPUI wrote:
> >
> > > Alphax wrote:
> > > > While "blocked" and "blocking policy" are wikilinked, it might not
> be
> > > > such a great idea to so publicly advertise the mailing list.
> > >
> > > How else are you going to appeal a block for which the blocking admin
> > > has no email specified?
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Portals

body:
Is it possible to make it display a bit bigger, it looks tiny compared
to all the others.

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

On 5/12/05, Jack Lutz <jack-lutz at comcast.net> wrote:
> Robin Shannon wrote:
>
> >The wikinews icon on <www.wikipedia.org> is the old one rather than
> >the new snazy one, could someone in the cabal change it. I'd never
> >actually looked at the portal before, i must say it's quite funky,
> >congrats to whoever made it.
> >
> >paz y amor,
> >[[User:The bellman]]
> >
> >
> That is [[M:Image:Wikinews-logo2-35px.png]]. I have uploaded the new one
> from Commons at Meta.
>

--
hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>

This work is released into the public domain.
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain>


subject: [Foundation-l] Portals


from_name: Skyring

body:
On 5/12/05, Richard Rabinowitz <rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>
>  the
> folks in the middle of a "nuke" have all been vaporized anyway, so...why
> would there be disabled patients?)

Going by the results of previous nuclear combat, yes.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

in_reply_to:
<20050512211814.GS9978@thingy.apana.org.au> (message from David
	Gerard on Fri, 13 May 2005 07:18:14 +1000)

body:
> "Notability" STILL isn't a deletion criterion.

As an earlier poster said, "You haven't been around VFD much lately, I
take it." ;->

--
 Sean Barrett     | You wouldn't understand. It's
 sean at epoptic.com | a "root of all evil" thing.


from_name: Nicolas Weeger

body:
> * Current syntax: '''italic''plain => 'italicplain
> * Proposed syntax: '''italic''plain => italicplain
> * Previous behaviour with new syntax: <nowiki>'</nowiki>''italic''plain

For the record, I shall say that I fully expect riots on w:fr: if this new behaviour becomes mandatory :)

Some versions, months ago, did require the <nowiki> tag, and it was really afwul to manage.
And we'd also need to *fix* all pages with this syntax, and we can't really fix automatically, need to check on a case-by-case basis.

Nicolas Weeger

Acc?dez au courrier ?lectronique de La Poste : www.laposte.net ;
3615 LAPOSTENET (0,34?/mn) ; t?l : 08 92 68 13 50 (0,34?/mn)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
> Well, Wikipedia probably wouldn't be vulnerable, but where individuals are
> involved he could get a default judgement in a plaintiff-friendly UK court
> for a no-show defendant in the US, with costs awarded (which is very
> common in UK cases), and then use that as leverage in the US.  This
> technique has been tried against Usenet posters and worked well.  Since
> Wikipedia content is produced by individuals who are often identifiable it
> would probably work as well on Wikipedia.
> He may have to demonstrate standing to sue in UK courts, but that could be
> as simple as selling books through Amazon.co.uk--which Wollmann does, as
> it happens.

Yes, yes, the situation is hopeless.  We're all going to be sued into
abject homeless poverty if we date to publish anything but the
innocuous pablum known to Western Civilization.

We'll begin by renaming it the Nicepedia.

--
 Sean Barrett     | You wouldn't understand. It's
 sean at epoptic.com | a "root of all evil" thing.


from_name: Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon

body:
On 5/12/05, Sam Hocevar <sam at zoy.org> wrote:
> On Wed, May 11, 2005, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> > >I'd also like to suggest the removal of the workaround (occupying most
> > >of the first half of parser.php doQuotes) dealing with confusion of
> > >quotes-as-text and quotes-as-markup within words. In other words, the
> > >workaround provides that "l'''italic''plain" renders as
> > >"l<i>italic</i>plain".
> >
> > Fatal error: failed assert( not_much_in_use ); on line 345 :)
> > This is widely used (at least) on w:fr: and is *required* - many words
> > starting with a vowel will yield a leading "l'", sometimes we want to
> > highlight only the word after.
>
>    The proper fix for this situation is to use the real apostrophe
> character (U+2019 right single quotation mark, UTF-8 0xE28099) for
> apostrophes and continue using ' for wiki markup.

Unicode RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK is not an apostrophe, any more
than Unicode SWUNG DASH is a tilde.  U+0027 APOSTROPHE is the proper
apostrophe character.

What *might* help is if we could use the ' HTML entity.  IE
doesn't support it, but perhaps MediaWiki could translate it after
it's done with the '' => <i> transformation.

--
Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brent at brentdax.com>
Perl and Parrot hacker


from_name: Theo Clarke

subject: [WikiEN-l] The niceness principle

body:
On Thu, 12 May 2005 03:39:03 +0100, Stacey Greenstein wrote:
>?Should we then only write nice things about people/ Should we only
>?include?facts that the subjects' approve? Or should we be impartial and
>?show that?there is reality and negativeity?

The impartiality of showing reality and negativity does not mean that we need to abandon principles such as kindness.  I find it helpful to remember that there are feeling people on the other side of my screen. And, yes, I do recognise that some people will see this view as sanctimonious.

Theo


from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

body:
On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 13:07 +0000, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:

> I'm sure others have alot of nice ideas on how to change the syntax to
> be more consistent and/or easier to parse, which of course brings us
> to the next problem:
>
> 3.  We can't (easily) change it
>
> It sucks but we really can't, in would instantly render gigabytes of
> current wikitext incompatable with the parser, there are basically two
> solutions to this problem: continue supporting two syntaxes for some
> time which puts a big limit on what kind of changes can be made or
> automatically convert them with some kind of bot bot.

I don't realy see that as a big problem at all.  If we change the
syntax, yes, we'll have to lock the databases, making everything
read-only while an update process goes through all those gigabytes.
But we really can do that overnight, only inconveniencing users a
little.

A slightly bigger problem is bots that expect the old syntax.
We'll have to give plenty of warning and make sure they're turned
off or updated prior to the switch.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>


body:
On 5/12/05, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> Moin,
>
> On Thursday 12 May 2005 20:50, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> > That's too tech-savy. The aim of wikisyntax is to be easy to
> > understand - we can't ask people to put a \ before ' or surround it by
> > <nowiki></nowiki>.
> > I don't mind a slightly more complex syntax for tables, templates &
> > such, "advanced" behaviour. But for your daily usage (and ' is used
> > often at least in french), something quite simple to use is imo
> > waaaaaaay better.
>
> Yes, I agree on the "simple" solution. However, the current situation
> isn't "simple" for things like l'''italic'' because it is unclear what
> exactly that should mean. Maybe it means
>
>  l'italic
>
> or it means
>
>  l'italic
>
> How is the computer (and the human writing it) to know which is which? You
> need at least one more bit information to distinguish between these two
> variants.
>

Exactly. Now add to that the complication that ''' supposedly means
something completely different from _both_ of those when it's not in
the middle of a word, and that (as with much of the syntax) there has
never been any well-defined rule governing this behavior, only a
last-resort hack in PHP code. It's not simple conceptually, and it's
far from simple for the computer, and it's bad for parsing. I hate to
be argumentative, but I don't believe that the issue is as simple
(heh) as you make it out to be, Nicolas.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google mMAIM

body:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/goog-mmaim/

Google has recently started to release certain parts of their code for
various purposes as free software. One interesting piece seems to be
this mMAIM, which appears to be similar to http://mtop.sourceforge.net/

"We're releasing a new Open Source project today: Google mMAIM, the
MySQL Monitoring And Investigation Module.. mMAIM's purpose is to make a
it easy to monitor and analyze MySQL servers and to easily integrate
itself into any environment. It can show Master/Slave sync stats, some
efficiency stats, can return statistics from most of the "show" commands
and more! We look forward to seeing what you think about the project!"

Could this be of interest for you, Mediawiki developers?

Mathias
Apologies if I already sent this link to you


from_name: Michael Plasmeier

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 22, Issue 33

body:
help

 -Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 5:24 PM
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 22, Issue 33

Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to
	wikien-l at Wikipedia.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	wikien-l-owner at Wikipedia.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. Re: The niceness principle (Theo Clarke)
   2. RE: Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (Poor, Edmund W)
   3. Re: Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (David 'DJ' Hedley)
   4. Re: Google hit rankings (Asbestos)
   5. Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (Anthere)
   6. Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (Anthere)
   7. Re: Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (David Gerard)
   8. Re: Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (David Gerard)
   9. Re: Scope of phone support, (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected
      (Wollmann)) (Jason Trickey)
  10. Re: Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (Tony Sidaway)
  11. RE: Re: Corrected (Wollmann) (Tony Sidaway)

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

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 15:27:29 +0100
From: Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The niceness principle
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <2005512152729.413584 at Theo214>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"

On Thu, 12 May 2005 03:39:03 +0100, Stacey Greenstein wrote:
>?Should we then only write nice things about people/ Should we only
>?include?facts that the subjects' approve? Or should we be impartial and
>?show that?there is reality and negativeity?

The impartiality of showing reality and negativity does not mean that we
need to abandon principles such as kindness.  I find it helpful to remember
that there are feeling people on the other side of my screen. And, yes, I do
recognise that some people will see this view as sanctimonious.

Theo

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

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 13:17:40 -0700
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:

<E506B3FF6BC1254C9AC1B948C380BC28040A6ADA at sm-nyny-xm05.nena.wdpr.disney.com>

Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If it
survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to mention
him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd vote, that's
pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".

Ed

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

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 21:29:58 +0100
From: "David 'DJ' Hedley" <spyders at btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <001301c55731$5d6f0ca0$b8bd9d51 at hedlatora>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

>From mailing list messages I read earlier, Wollmann's article already
failed
VfD previously (and had serious NPOV issues).
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 9:17 PM
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If it
survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to mention
him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd vote, that's
pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".

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

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

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 21:47:17 +0100
From: Asbestos <asbestos999 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Google hit rankings
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <ad789c9005051213476405d0 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Maybe Google's annoyed that Yahoo got to host Wikipedia space instead of
them...

Sam
--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos

On 5/12/05, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
> Nathan Wong wrote:
>
> > Why does Wikipedia seem to be so low recently? It seems to be barely
> > featured for lots of common searches, whereas various snapshots and
> > Wikipedia mirrors are indexed frequently. For example:
> >
>
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=prime+minister+of+the++united+kingdom&fsrc=
1&oi=moresources
> >
> >
> http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Australia+capital&fsrc=1&oi=moresources
> > (those are question answers, but thats what many people may look for).
> >
> > With Wikipedia being such a popular site, I'd have thought that it
> > might be higher.
>
> I imagine the Google spider doesn't wait around five minutes
> hoping for the page to come up. Many times it just has to cache
> the empty page from wikipedia.org <http://wikipedia.org>, can't be good
> for our
> page rank vs quick-responding mirrors.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 22:46:20 +0200
From: Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID: <4283C09C.3000606 at yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
> Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If it
> survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to mention
> him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd vote, that's
> pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".
>
> Ed

Admitedly... I am surprised his article was deleted for him being non
notable... while at the same time he is mentionned in another article
(which seems to imply he is...).

But maybe this is not an argument for notability ?

Ant

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

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 22:47:19 +0200
From: Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID: <4283C0D7.2090807 at yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

David Gerard a ?crit:
> Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050513 03:34]:
>
>
>>While I would just not answer anything at all, the problem is that he is
>>calling by phone Terry. And while it is easy not to answer a mail, it is
>>not so easy not to answer a phone call.
>
>
>
> She asks him to hereby stop calling and write a proper legal threat (on
> paper, from proper lawyer, signed for, etc.) if he has one to make. He
> keeps calling, it's harassment.
>
>
> - d.

You have a point...
We might suggest that he (Terry is a man...) record the discussions...

Ant

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

Message: 7
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 07:17:18 +1000
From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <20050512211717.GR9978 at thingy.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Poor, Edmund W (Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com) [050513 06:20]:

> Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If it
> survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to mention
> him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd vote, that's
> pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".

You haven't been around VFD much lately, I take it. It's not just an immune
system but an autoimmune disease; people appear to be trying to use it as
Wikipedia's quality control system.

- d.

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

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 07:18:14 +1000
From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <20050512211814.GS9978 at thingy.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050513 06:47]:
> Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:

> >Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If it
> >survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to mention
> >him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd vote, that's
> >pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".

> Admitedly... I am surprised his article was deleted for him being non
> notable... while at the same time he is mentionned in another article
> (which seems to imply he is...).
> But maybe this is not an argument for notability ?

"Notability" STILL isn't a deletion criterion.

- d.

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

Message: 9
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 07:19:49 +1000
From: Jason Trickey <jason at mydomain.com.au>
Subject: Re: Scope of phone support, (was [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected
	(Wollmann))
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20050513071632.02247390 at mail.mydomain.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed

Make, and enforce policy of not supporting any encyclopedia content over
the phone. Refer him back to this list if need be :)

Reserve phone usage for media and press enquiries and other business needs
only. Content issues should be dealt with in writing.

Cheers,

-j

>David Gerard a ?crit:
>>Anthere (anthere9 at yahoo.com) [050513 03:34]:
>>
>>>While I would just not answer anything at all, the problem is that he is
>>>calling by phone Terry. And while it is easy not to answer a mail, it is
>>>not so easy not to answer a phone call.
>>
>>She asks him to hereby stop calling and write a proper legal threat (on
>>paper, from proper lawyer, signed for, etc.) if he has one to make. He
>>keeps calling, it's harassment.
>>
>>- d.
>
>You have a point...
>We might suggest that he (Terry is a man...) record the discussions...
>
>Ant
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

Message: 10
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 22:20:59 +0100 (BST)
From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
	<21618.62.252.0.4.1115932859.squirrel at happy.minority-report.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Ray Saintonge said:
>
> If Mr. Wollmann thinks that he has a case let him go ahead with it, and
>  show us that he means more than simply to intimidate.  We can easily
> promise that when we receive the court documents in the case we will
> reconsider our position in the matter.  This may or may not result in a
>  removal of what he finds offensive from the site.  Meanwhile it will
> have been very costly for him to mount his case with no prospects of
> recovering those costs.

Well, Wikipedia probably wouldn't be vulnerable, but where individuals are
involved he could get a default judgement in a plaintiff-friendly UK court
for a no-show defendant in the US, with costs awarded (which is very
common in UK cases), and then use that as leverage in the US.  This
technique has been tried against Usenet posters and worked well.  Since
Wikipedia content is produced by individuals who are often identifiable it
would probably work as well on Wikipedia.
He may have to demonstrate standing to sue in UK courts, but that could be
as simple as selling books through Amazon.co.uk--which Wollmann does, as
it happens.

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

Message: 11
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 22:24:07 +0100 (BST)
From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
	<40692.62.252.0.4.1115933047.squirrel at happy.minority-report.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Poor, Edmund W said:
> Why not write a Wikipedia about Wollman, if he's that fascinating? If
> it survives the VFD process, than that might give us an excuse to
> mention him via a link from kooks newsgroup. But if it fails a vfd
> vote, that's pretty conclusive evidence that he's "non-notable".
>

Been there, done that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Edmond_Wollmann

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

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

End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 22, Issue 33
****************************************


from_name: Martina Greiner

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Question about downloading only the english version of
	Wikipedia

body:
Hello,

I would like to download the english version of Wikipedia only
and have several questions I could not get answered.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_download says that the
english version should be 11GB compressed
and about 40 GB uncompressed.

On download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en I can only
find files with 31 GB (cur+old).
1. Is this really the english version only or for all wikipedias?
2. If it is the english version, why is it that big?
3. I assume this is a compressed file, thus it will be really,
really big when uncompressed.
4. Is it enough to download cur and old tables in order to
get all available tables?

If there is a website that covers my question I would be thankful,
if you can point me to this site and I
am sorry to bother you.

Thank you!

Martina


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Corrected (Wollmann)

body:
>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>
>"Notability" STILL isn't a deletion criterion.

There are a number of policies which make notability a deletion criterion,
even if they don't use the word "notability". It's certainly used as a
criterion often enough; it may be the single most popular reason given for
deletion.

Jay.


body:
We've got a wiki for our church running on Mediawiki, so the default
site-wide copyright notice is the GFDL.

We want to replace that so that we can protect our stuff, and more
importantly some of the people who's details might be posted.

First off, what's the procedure for doing this?

Second, what's the effect this has on stuff which has already been added?
There was an **understanding** that we would be adding a proper copyright
notice when we gotta round tuit, but does the fact that the stuff has
already been added with a GFDL notice in effect make trouble for us?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]